Number of Objects

[RangerX3X]

First, I apologize to the moderators if this is not the correct forum for this question.

I am just starting to make missions in which I feel comfortable putting them out to the public to test.

I realize that not everyone is running a "gaming machine" however. A mission that runs well on my P4 2.53 ghz G4 Ti 4200 blah blah blah may run horrid on someone with a P3 600 mhz with integrated graphics. And I have some missions I am working on that lag on my machine

Which leads me to this question: What is a respectable amount of objects to have in a beta mission?

1. Is there an understood limit to the number of soldier units (one squad of 9 doesn't lag like 20 squads of 9).

2. How much armor is too much for most systems?

3. How much of a role does objects play? Say the empty/objects/wood fence (the sandbagged wood fence). I've seen missions where people have literally surrounded and entire town with a sandbag wall of these...does such a choice hurt overall performance?

Are there any role of thumbs out there, such as P3 = no more than 40 objects?

Any insights from you vets who have released multiple missions (or have tested multiple missions) would be appreciated. I am not going to get constructive info if the user had 5 fps max.

[Sui]

# Moved from Missions: Beta Testing


One way of 'benchmarking' a mission is to make it on a low end PC, and make sure it's playable on that

See everyone... there is a good reason I'm still using my Duron 800 ;D

[LCD]

i know dat each object u add will make it harder 4 da comp  :-\ but dere is no limit cuz itdepends on how u arrange everything

like i have mision with more dan 10 bases   but it works good on almost any computer   cuz da bases are all around da island cuz i use creating commands 2 make da units appear only wen needed ;D, da setviewdistance command, da benchmark command (so uneeded units appear only if som1 have more dan som kind of benchamrk )

2 benchmark ur mision right - get some friends wid weak computer and let him check 4 u

LCD OUT

[firstflash]

well, as disappointed as i am to say it, i'm getting benchmarks ranging from 5500 to 7300 and i havent noticed the huge boost in performance i was expecting (up from my last system at 1530).

i still can't open the setviewdistance up to 1500 + with "very high" quality without dropping frame rates drastically.

is this an OFP limitation or am i simply not configuring correctly?

the increased cpu power does however seem to boost performance with a lot of units and particle effects.

[Kaliyuga]

. i still can't open the setviewdistance up to 1500 + with "very high" quality without dropping frame rates drastically.

The Setviewdistance command has an effect on ALL units, whether it's you, your squadmate, or every AI unit on the map.... playing around with the setviewdistance isn't the way to get better performance out of your comp...   it's the way to make all AI be able to see almost twice as far as usual (at 1500+ as you said) regardless if they are on foot, or in a tank or chopper.....


My benchmark is about 4K , and I run at high terrain detail and a pretty high level on everything else, and the only lag I ever see is due to my dial-up connection

Oh.. and  a friend of mine who has a 566MHz used to limit the amount of units to around a hundred if I remember correctly.....

102 seems to come to mind at the moment.. but I could be wrong on that number...

[macguba]

A P3 600?     I wish.

The biggest killer on lag is aircraft/choppers.       Vehicles are bad too, as you say.      Triggers and Waypoints take up more than you might think.     Scripts are hugely variable, which is why its difficult to establish a scale of what missions are playable on what computers.      The other big factor is how far away the AI units are from the player - the closer, the slower.      Which is why LCD's system of having big missions but with the bases widely separated works.   I feel that objects like fences aren't too bad, though they do make a difference.

If you're not sure how a mission will be on a lower end machine post it in the beta forum and ask people to check it out.       If you use createVehicle and deleteVehicle extensively you can reduce the problem a lot.