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FPSC Classic Product Chat / Allow FPSC to use more RAM?

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Deine Mutter
9
Years of Service
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Joined: 13th Jan 2015
Location:
Posted: 27th Dec 2018 16:37
Hi. I am making quite detailled Levels and the bad perfomance is breathtaking. I know this isn't unreal engine,

but is there a way to assign more RAM to FPSC or another way to boost perfomance? I already have Black Ice Mod installed.
Kaelyss
5
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Joined: 20th Dec 2018
Playing: Doom II
Posted: 28th Dec 2018 05:37
Hi, have you tried to make your characters spawn progressively by using trigger zones placed near them ? This way the engine won't active them right as the level starts, it can considerably boost the framerate.
blob1
5
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Joined: 22nd Nov 2018
Location: Greater Poland, Poland
Posted: 28th Dec 2018 09:27 Edited at: 28th Dec 2018 16:16
Try opening setup.ini (in the fpsc folder) and find [GAMEMAKE] and put systemmemorycapoff=1.
If it doesn't work that means that either this command is just for loading the game or FPSC has a memory limit or you have small RAM or a not good enough computer. Which version do you have? What are your PC specs?
ncmako
12
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Joined: 19th Feb 2012
Location: Hendersonville,NC
Posted: 28th Dec 2018 10:57
@ Deine Mutter As blob1 said, turn your "systemmemorycapoff=1" for larger builds past 1.8Gigs.
Try setting " lightmapquality=x " to 25, 20 or even 15. Your lightmap quality gets worse but a big
increase on performance. Next the texture quality " lightmaptexsize=1024" 1024 seems standard
but 512 can still look great if your textures are good. Then the lightning and the "lightmapatten
Wolf explains it best here on this tutorial.. https://forum.thegamecreators.com/thread/186371
My games never have bugs. They just develop random features..
Lots and lots of random features...
Location: You know that space between a dresser and the floor ? Yeah, that's where
Wolf
16
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Joined: 8th Nov 2007
Location: Luxemburg
Posted: 18th Jan 2019 14:36
Even if you do all this you will still have to reduce your levels to something like 4 to 5 small rooms and a hallway. Unless you are, of course making very lowpoly, low res props and reduce your gameplay to an absolute minimum (characters and weapons load in the memcap as well.)
Teabone
Valued Member
17
Years of Service
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Joined: 8th Jun 2006
Location: Canada
Posted: 21st Jan 2019 15:53
In my experience with FPSC, I've not been able to make a stable game when creating more than 5 maps/levels.
Free Game Guru Assets: http://www.freetoronto.org/gameguru/index.html
Nomad Soul
Moderator
17
Years of Service
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Joined: 9th Jan 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 22nd Jan 2019 00:21
Yes the advice here will help and you can start making decisions about which tradeoffs to make based on the game your making.

Performance is more about level design and optimisation e.g. spawning enemies, limiting the number of polygons rendered at any point in a scene, working with segments to maximise culling, careful use of transparency and post processing effects etc. Memory is more about fitting your game within the 32bit constraints of FPSC, trying to reuse segments and assets where possible, budgeting texture sizes e.g. only using higher resolution for characters, balancing lightmapping quality and resolution etc.

When you first start using FPSC you have this idea in your head that you can design something quite detailed using lots of unique segments, textures and entities etc but unfortunately its not the case. Once you starting adding detail to a map you'll notice the memory consumption creeping up very quickly. Black ice mod helps with this by decoupling the new lightmapper from the build process but its not a silver bullet.

In all other respsects memory management in FPSC and GameGuru is a major issue. If you look at the Black Ice showcase demo, I only just got this to fit within the memory cap for a single map. The main objective of the demo was to show you can achive good performance in a full scale map set in a location which combines outdoor and indoor areas. A workaround for this would be to publish your game as individual episodes with a launcher.


The problem is as the FPSC community grew in size and talent, we kept pushing the boundaries and expecting more from the engine but the fundamental memory cap / management issues were never properly addressed so you have the promise of great looking games with lots of levels but not the reality. Also whilst this was going on other game engines started offering free versions and becoming more accessible which gave FPSC more competition from larger developers.

The memory issues will always keep FPSC from being a serious game engine and rather something to have fun with and produce cool demos etc. Personally I wouldn't even risk publishing a commercial game with FPSC as they become very unstable after playing for a while and usually crash due to lack of available memory which just isn't acceptable if your paying for something.
Flatlander
FPSC Tool Maker
17
Years of Service
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Joined: 22nd Jan 2007
Location: The Flatlands
Posted: 12th Feb 2019 19:21 Edited at: 12th Feb 2019 19:22
My thought in making a game with lots of levels is to create single and multiple levels as "chapters." I would not make a chapter larger than five multiple levels. Preferably 3 or 4 levels. What is really fantastic is that xplosys has created an installer for multiple chapters. I haven't actually used it yet so I'm not sure how it will work out for multiple chapters.
THEORY - you know everything but nothing works. PRACTICE - when everything works but don't know why.
For me, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and I don't know why.
seppgirty
FPSC Developer
14
Years of Service
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Joined: 3rd Jul 2009
Location: pittsburgh, pa.
Posted: 16th Feb 2019 20:49
Quote: "xplosys has created an installer for multiple chapters. I haven't actually used it yet so I'm not sure how it will work out for multiple chapters."


Ncmako and i used it for a game and it worked really well. We both did levels on our own computers and used it to join them all to make a single game. It is one of those " MUST HAVE" programs for fpsc.
gamer, lover, filmmaker

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