Rendering distance (roadmap intentions)

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Exoz, Jan 27, 2013.

  1. Nikushimi


    Considering the "rendering" is capped to conserve server bandwidth, odd's are it wont be "fixed". As it was never broken, its doing exactly what it was designed to do (Keep the upkeep costs to a minimum to improve the overall profit)
  2. Exoz

    ... coding data more efficiently can relieve the information bottlenecks causing the render issues. We just want to know if they are actively pursuing this issue with a dedicated team, because honestly all across the board it appears to be the nr1 technical concern that players have.
  3. PsychoBat

    Yes, they have said it time and time again that they have a separate optimisation team that works on specifically that kind of problems full time.
  4. Jestunhi

    You don't have to. Mine's a good 2-3 years old (and wasn't top of the line then, a stock i5 and an Nvidia GTX460) and I use ultra settings (via the .ini file) with no issues whatsoever.
  5. QuantumMechanic

    Well, maybe it's just a matter of my puposeful timing. But as I wrote I *waited* to upgrade to a new comp for Planetside 2 beta.

    My previous computer I bought for Darkfall (3 years ago)
    My computer before that, I bought for EverQuest 2 (8 years ago) (8 YEARS AGO? ****..)

    So I don't think that a new computer every 4 years, for a gamer, is out of the usual.
  6. QuantumMechanic

    Look at the posts at the bottom of page 2. You'll find an interview where Higby explains in no uncertain terms that the rendering distance is culled to compensate for low-end computers. It's not server side at all.
  7. PsychoBat

    Actually he says that the bandwidth constraints are a big part of the problem as well.
  8. QuantumMechanic

  9. QuantumMechanic

    No, he doesn't say that. Go to 1:49:00 and listen to his response to the infantry render distance problem.

    Render cull distance is balanced for 5 year old computers (or older). That is the bottom line.
  10. PsychoBat

    I watched the whole thing today and I'm sure it was mentioned there. If not at this point of the clip then during another optimization question.
  11. JP_Russell

    I would guess that there was so much going on that the game didn't send them entity information for your grenade, so on their end it never existed and there was no explosion.

    Unlike direct projectile damage which requires the client of the person firing it to confirm a hit on a known entity, explosive damage seems to be recognized when either the client of the person instigating it confirms a hit on a known entity, or the client of the other person receives information of an explosion and confirms damage from it.

    If information of the entity that creates the explosion (grenade, tank shell, C4 charge, whatever) is never received by the other person, however, and that person is in turn never rendered for you, then it does nothing because on your end you threw a grenade at nothing, and on their end there never was a grenade entity to create an explosion in the first place. That's what I suspect is happening.

    I could be wrong and area of effect damage is determined entirely by the server, and you just got unlucky and the whole group ran away from your grenade in time to receive no damage from it. But I doubt it.
  12. Exoz

    If this isn't fixed, everything else they bring to the game is dust in the wind, the issue is just something you can't face away from, I can't believe it's not number one on their list.
  13. XLander

    Fixing rendering distance like they discuss will make snipers more visible to everyone while snipers intended targets still disappear.
    • Up x 2
  14. Fenrys

    There are a couple problems that the short render distance solves.

    It protects slow CPU's from becoming congested with too many animations to process. The easy fix is to reduce the animation framerate, but after a certain point that looks ugly and is not a good long term fix either. You won't be able to tell who is looking where and what they are shooting at or even what weapon they are using in real time.

    It lowers the maximum bandwidth required. Less information about updated locations of players needs to be sent. When you run out of bandwidth, it looks like you warp around the map to other players. To you, it looks like there are no other players around, until the lag spike passes and, from the respawn screen, you read in the log that you killed a dozen teammates when you warped inside a Sunderer that wasn't there on your screen, killing everyone nearby and along the path you warped across. I don't know what it looks like when the server runs out of bandwidth, but I doubt that's the issue (although using less bandwidth does keep upkeep cost lower).

    There are various things that can be done for both issues, but if too much of any one thing is applied, it will cause new problems. For example, small changes in the way animations and location data are handled can make the issue better over time, but any one of them could cause a problem so they need to be added one at a time so we know which change causes which problem.

    The minutiae of how animations are going to be changed, for example, might be considered trade secrets. But it would be nice to see some general indication on the roadmap about when cpu, gpu, or network performance tweaks will be added and what effect they might have on the short render distance. If future projections can't be posted, then it would alternately be gratifying to see historic performance results for each patch. Showing us it has been getting better in small but definite steps will make it easier to hear and accept as true the promise that it will improve in the future.
  15. Nocturnal7x

    I believe there are a few issues. Server resources, maybe the server software needs to be optimized, maybe they need bigger servers to handle the load. Bandwidth, Not only will SOE probably need more bandwidth, but people playing the game will need more bandwidth. Anyone know what PS2 uses in huge fights right now?

    CPU optimization of course, they wil need to do a lot of that so our comps dont melt.
  16. QuantumMechanic

    Well we are over two months into release, and as far as I can tell the only thing SOE has done to "address" this issue was in a recent hofix that made MAXes render from farther away to pilots only. And I think that is what the roadmap item regarding render distance is referring to - it's already been deployed live. And it's not an improvement, just a tweak.

    So in other words, it appears that SOE is doing nothing to address this issue.
  17. Brok9000

    They could do it in PS1 but not in PS2 where servers and the internet are both faster?

    It is called poor design and/or coding. I think all the camos are a part of the render puzzle as well. Many aspects of PS2 are well done but they really didn't plan properly for large fights. Many MMOs suffer from this but this is something they should have nailed from the start since it is so critical for a MMO FPS. Game won't last a year with such poor rendering.
  18. Phyr

    It appears you're wearing blinders and ignoring everything they've ever said about the render issues.
    • Up x 1
  19. QuantumMechanic

    Yep, you have that right. Because I'm looking for actions, not words.
  20. Hunter_Killers

    Unless they intend on making the infantry cull distance the same as lock on range for air and ground. It's not going to be good enough. When I start getting hit by things that I can't see because they got culled, it stops being fun really fast.