[SP] Apocalypse - Invade. Control. Conquer

[markb50k 1]

Now, regarding performance, there is one great tool that the old LOST code had which now sadly is applied automatically ONLY: the total maximum number of infantry or vehicle patrols in LOST-mode. That was great to tailor the system load specifically to map and hardware for each gamer's individual combination of both variables. It would be really great to see that feature back within the configuration options.

Yeah, I understand. Since that functionality has no real use in Apocalypse, I dont want to put those dialog drop downs in. I feel that with an overall strength modifier, and a specific modifier for each side and unit type, you still have ALMOST the same capability.

To assist in this and to make it more obvious, I will add in an updated hint that will show what, given the current settings, the number of infantry/vehicle/air groups will be in the mission, based on the map size, and the choices you have selected in each of the dropdowns. While you are in the initial screen, it will stay updated as you try different combinations and choices in the dropdowns. This should give you the ability to see, by real numbers, what will be in the mission, and it should give you something close to what you had in the original LOST. That's about all i can do for that.

Now to some more trivial matters: first off, thanks for giving folks that don't like/use ACE access to a medical/repair system which is less "magical" than BIS code within APOC. But do these medical and repair items from APOC mode appear in LOST-mode too, or not at all? Even if they are limited to APOC, how do they get along with some mod's proprietary sytems if one uses these? This is quite important if you play with I 44 or ACE+ASR Appendix since these mods have their own medical/repair systems.

I am finishing a mission on Duala under the old LOST code these days; suffering heavy frame rate drops after a few hours of in-game time (26% victory). Now, whenever a save is loaded, the frames drop from around 19-25 down to 5-9 after a few minutes in-game, but otherwise it is just perfect for my liking because I have the ACE wounding and repair sytem to provide me with LOADS of immersion.

Like, towing a BRDM-2 out of the shallow water to find it's engine damaged, but guns functional => tow it with the captured enemy BMP-2 which has destroyed main gun, but working engine, so that the BRDM-2 serves as roadblock/static HMG/cover on a nearby bridge. You can't repair either of the armoured vehicles to full function under ACE repair, so this was real immersive use of resources just by using mods on top of your already impressive mission framework.

On the other hand, I am well aware that features like these might have a great impact on my system load. Just imagine how much stress a group of wounded soldiers in shallow water, enemy or friendly, will put onto my system until they are found and then executed/healed!

So, is there any possibility in your APOC wounding code to achieve it that wounded men in water die after a set amount of minutes? That would make a lot of system power free again and would be a real advantage compared to ACE, where those poor fellas stay in coma (and probably bring my gaming rig into that state as well as time goes by...) for the ENTIRE mission until found.

My suggestion is to test in the next version whether features like that towing/repairing or medical systems ( as far as they can be implemented) within the LOST/APOC code cause heavy lag for players once they have spent some time in the mission or whether these proprietary systems run more smooth than mod added stuff. That is just one way of doing it, probably creating an extra addon including these kind of things might be a better idea since not all players might be so obsessed with facing real world logistic tasks like I am.

Anyway, keep up your great work,

touristo

- repair kits, first aid kits, fuel cans, and even money all can show up in house searches, and in vehicles, ammoboxes, and on soldier corpses, even in LOST.

- in any case, if you are running another mod that has its own healing/repair functionality, that should still work. In other words, you'll have a choice. you can use my stuff or just ignore my stuff and use ACE bandages and Jerry cans. I think that is what you were asking. Or use both in concert, to your liking.

- good to hear you still are running an old LOST mission, and yeah, the eventual lag is one of the main reasons i merged LOST into APOC. I really improved the backend processing and scoured the code looking for any spawned processes that don't ever die, since those eventually drag the fps down. I am very pleased and quite comfortable that the new APOC/LOST is a mission will not degrade when played for a long time, other than the normal degradation that more forces would produce if a sufficient number of AI aren't killed off over time.

- as for adding in towing, repairing, or medical systems, those are all things i can consider. I dont ever see me putting as much complexity in these systems as ACE however, so expect any new ideas to be straightforward, albeit simplistic, ways of adding some logistical choices to your experience.

- as for killing off soldiers, stuck in water, that seems to happen automatically in vanilla yes? at least i notice on certain maps like Panthera, that AI stuck in the rivers die off eventually. So i COULD look at a feature that is configurable in the USERCONFIG to kill AI that are damage > X% and their position isSurfaceWater true? Would that suffice?

[markb50k 1]

ok am adding in a check when an AI group gets new orders that will detect soldiers in water that are majorly wounded (canMove = false). It will kill them if they are. Its a configurable feature that will be by default=OFF

[tourist 617]

Hi mark,

that's great news! I'm eager to try out some LOST scenarios under the new merged mission frame! You surely know your ropes; these simple and to-the-point ideas you named in #401 and #402 are just what I was hoping for!

Just keep up your great work and thank you for sharing your dream of a dynamic mission with the community and listening to their dreams as well!

touristo

[Wolfspirit 10]

Could I claim one suggestion please? Is it possible for you to include "Dangerous Designs SLA Pack" into one of the next releases of Apocalypse? Only if that's okay with you.

They would add a greater range of units to the SLA side, that would be a great comparison to PRACS. ;)

Edited October 15, 2012 by Wolfspirit

[doveman 7]

I just tried this on Lingor and I was only getting about 18fps, going up to 22fps in places. I then tried Warfare Rubber Build Takistan and got 50-60fps on that. Then I tried the Harvest Red campaign, the level where you're hunting the two war criminals, and got around 28fps.

I'm not running particularly high settings and have some things Disabled.

1920x1200, VD 2000, Texture Detail - V.High, Video Memory - Default, AF - V.High, AA - Disabled, ATOC - Disabled

Terrain Detail - Normal, Object Detail - V.High, Shadow Detail - Disabled, HDR - Normal, PPAA - SMAA V.High

PP - Disabled, Vsync - Disabled

I didn't try on Apocalypse but on Harvest Red, the only setting that seemed to make much difference was dropping Object Detail down to Low, which gave me an extra 4-6fps. I've already set

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1;

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1;

The first time I tested I had US, UK and RU factions enabled but then I tried shutting down some background apps and restarted and messed up so there were no factions enabled, just some planes flying around and it was just as bad.

I can't imagine it's normal to be getting such low framerates though or people wouldn't be enjoying this.

---------- Post added at 03:24 ---------- Previous post was at 02:11 ----------

I've just tried clearing out the ATI drivers and installing the 12.6 SB and GPU drivers (was on 12.4) but it hasn't helped.

I just tried again whilst monitoring the CPU and GPU usage and the weird thing is it's only giving 15fps, sometimes down to 10fps, but the Total CPU is around 40%, with one core on 60% and the others around 30% and the GPU is also only hitting around 40%, so it's not like my system doesn't have the juice to power this.

EDIT: I thought I'd try booting to XP and with that I get slightly better 20-22fps with the same settings, as is normal with XP vs Win7. The strange thing is though, I was playing around with the settings and set them all to Disabled or as low as they go and then HwInfo showed that my GPU was being used 0.0% and I still got the same 24fps as I got with some of the settings on higher. Further testing showed that upping Texture detail and Video Memory to V.High and Terrain Detail to low doesn't get the GPU utilised at all. Only setting Video Memory to Default (17%), not V.High or Below, or Terrain Detail to Normal or above (17%+, combined 20%), Object Detail to Low or above (18%, 24%, 31%, 40%) causes GPU usage to go above 0.0%. With Video Memory - Default, Terrain Detail - Normal, Object Detail - V.High it goes to about 45%. So it suggests that the GPU isn't being used at all for a lot of the graphics work and whilst one core rises from about 60% to 70-80% with the graphics settings turned right down, it's not running at full pelt and the other 3 cores remain around 40-50%, so I don't understand what's limiting the framerate to 21-24fps.

Edited October 16, 2012 by doveman

[markb50k 1]

Well, the first answer is, woodland maps are much more labor intensive than desert, so thats why chernarus (well known to be the one of the worst performers) and Lingor are worse than Takistan.

But further than that, I'm not very well versed in performance settings, so I'll go a different route...

Give yourself a baseline by restarting the mission and set the number of forces way down. Like set overall strength to the lowest settings, and set all the relative strength values to 25%. A little hint should pop up showing how many groups will show up.

Shouldnt matter how many factions you choose, but recommend selecting 1 from each side.

Also, are you playing LOST mode or normal Apocalypse. LOST spawns a bunch of stuff at the beginning, Apoc spawns a smaller amount and it keeps building over time.. just wondering..

---------- Post added at 14:47 ---------- Previous post was at 14:45 ----------

Could I claim one suggestion please? Is it possible for you to include "Dangerous Designs SLA Pack" into one of the next releases of Apocalypse? Only if that's okay with you.

They would add a greater range of units to the SLA side, that would be a great comparison to PRACS. ;)

I'll take a look.

Right now I'm doing alot of work with the supported armies and mods to get them to run better. a selfish endeavour, i know, but I'm getting some problems running around 1000 pbos at one time, lol. I'll probably put out a new version of the mission in a few days.

[doveman 7]

Well, the first answer is, woodland maps are much more labor intensive than desert, so thats why chernarus (well known to be the one of the worst performers) and Lingor are worse than Takistan.

But further than that, I'm not very well versed in performance settings, so I'll go a different route...

Give yourself a baseline by restarting the mission and set the number of forces way down. Like set overall strength to the lowest settings, and set all the relative strength values to 25%. A little hint should pop up showing how many groups will show up.

Shouldnt matter how many factions you choose, but recommend selecting 1 from each side.

Also, are you playing LOST mode or normal Apocalypse. LOST spawns a bunch of stuff at the beginning, Apoc spawns a smaller amount and it keeps building over time.. just wondering..

Just normal Apocalypse. I'll try your suggestions thanks. I know the woodland maps are more demanding than the desert ones (ArmAII really doesn't seem to like drawing trees, which is a bit ironic considering the maps it comes with) but as my tests show, it's not stressing out either the CPU or GPU (with low settings it's not even using the GPU at all apparently) so it's hard to know what else the woodland map could be stressing out that's causing low fps. Even if it was the AI stressing out the CPU, I'd expect to see that running much higher than it is.

I'll test with Takistan for comparisons sake as well.

[Kommiekat 11]

I was wondering, and don't mean to put you on the spot, but are there any addons you suggest NOT to use with your mission?

[markb50k 1]

Not really. If I've added them I like them enough that I use them. Like I said I'm running pretty much ALL the mods at the same time. But I did get crashes and am now going through all the mods and making personal tweaks to remove config errors and bugs

The biggest perpetrators are troubles harrier lynx and gazelle which add an extra turret to every helicopter in the game because of a config issue

The South Korean troop pack also overwrites the base class on cfgmodels and puts a bug in it which may cause issues

I'm still looking at others but generally they are stable. I play with vme in all go throughs and I haven't seen the issues others get

[Kommiekat 11]

Not really. I

Sorry, Mark, I didn't make myself clear enough.

I meant 3rd party mods/addons like Blastcore, JTD, copy-stance, AI mods like ASR and others.....not just those I mentioned, but mods NOT integrated into your mission pbo.

[doveman 7]

Well, the first answer is, woodland maps are much more labor intensive than desert, so thats why chernarus (well known to be the one of the worst performers) and Lingor are worse than Takistan.

But further than that, I'm not very well versed in performance settings, so I'll go a different route...

Give yourself a baseline by restarting the mission and set the number of forces way down. Like set overall strength to the lowest settings, and set all the relative strength values to 25%. A little hint should pop up showing how many groups will show up.

Shouldnt matter how many factions you choose, but recommend selecting 1 from each side.

OK, I tried setting overall strength and relative strength for everything to 0.25x and tested on Lingor, Takistan and Utes and still got around 13-22fps (was probably a bit higher on Utes, like 20-28fps). Only on Utes did I find I could get it up to 50-60fps by setting Mechanized and Air to None but this didn't make any difference on the other two terrains. Strangely I noticed there were NAPA planes flying around (and some NAPA camps) on Utes even though I only had the first US and the first RU factions enabled.

[markb50k 1]

OK, I tried setting overall strength and relative strength for everything to 0.25x and tested on Lingor, Takistan and Utes and still got around 13-22fps (was probably a bit higher on Utes, like 20-28fps). Only on Utes did I find I could get it up to 50-60fps by setting Mechanized and Air to None but this didn't make any difference on the other two terrains. Strangely I noticed there were NAPA planes flying around (and some NAPA camps) on Utes even though I only had the first US and the first RU factions enabled.

yeah, even if you dont select a faction for independent, if you set RESISTANCE to THIRD SIDE on the first screen, the game will still try to spawn a third alliance, and will choose NAPA as default.

so, to prevent that, just set RESISTANCE to either FRIENDLY or ENEMY.

---------- Post added at 17:11 ---------- Previous post was at 17:07 ----------

Sorry, Mark, I didn't make myself clear enough.

I meant 3rd party mods/addons like Blastcore, JTD, copy-stance, AI mods like ASR and others.....not just those I mentioned, but mods NOT integrated into your mission pbo.

ah, well ACE perhaps although i think ACE works if you keep everything else vanilla

also, when spawning, i use randomness to determine the AI's rank and skill. but other than that, AI mods that affect behavior should work fine.

mods that alter sounds should work fine as long as the other mods you use in the mission support them. nothing in the mission prevents any of those other mods from working with it.

[doveman 7]

yeah, even if you dont select a faction for independent, if you set RESISTANCE to THIRD SIDE on the first screen, the game will still try to spawn a third alliance, and will choose NAPA as default.

so, to prevent that, just set RESISTANCE to either FRIENDLY or ENEMY.

OK, thanks, useful to know. I doubt changing that will make the framerates any more acceptable though.

[markb50k 1]

Features:

Version 4.6:

- fix : LOST -error due to missing default faction name

- new : USERCONFIG option (MB_DrownDamagedSoldiers). Set to 1 in userconfig if you want highly damaged soldiers who are stuck in water to be killed by the game. Not sure this is something very useful but it was a user request. Leave set to 0 to get normal vanilla behavior;

- new : on intial setup screen a new HINT will show the resulting force size when you change the overall strength or relative strength numbers. now you have better control over how many groups will spawn in the mission.

[markb50k 1]

Features:

Version 4.65:

- new addon : Dangerous Designs SLA Pack

- new addon : TMT Azerbaijan Army Mod

[benouyt 20]

Hey, just for say i continu to play this mission when i have some free time, and still enjoy it a lot, i tried with the i44 mod, its really goooooood. Good work!

[stewie0888 1]

Do we have to do the folder part, what does that do?

[markb50k 1]

Hey, just for say i continu to play this mission when i have some free time, and still enjoy it a lot, i tried with the i44 mod, its really goooooood. Good work!

Thanks man. I am currently in play-mode which means i'm busy doing a full play-through of the mission and as such, I am identifying alot of tweaks and improvements that I'll be releasing soon. Nothing earth-shattering, but small bug fixes and improvements to clean up some of the processing in the background.

---------- Post added at 18:46 ---------- Previous post was at 18:44 ----------

Do we have to do the folder part, what does that do?

Sorry, could you be a bit more specific?

If you mean the "special configs", no you don't. each of those PBOs is optional, and they usually just allow the mission to play a bit "nicer" with certain mods. For instance, if you like using the Chinese army mod (VME PLA), then you CAN (if you choose) use my special MARKB50K_Config_VMEPLA pbo, and that will give you WEST and EAST versions of the Chinese troops, which normally are only INDEPENDENT.

If that didnt answer your question, please explain a bit further...

[BlackADD3R 1]

justa question,...with the latest version some of my previously available units, like Russian VDV, OMON or desert marines are no longer available to use as a playable unit. Is it just me or did you trim down availability to encourage the use of actual nations mods? 'coz now I am back using version 2.6.1. My old units dont show up in either v.3.4 or 4.6.5.

and the toggle of units on HUD is only available through commands option for v. 4.6.5?

Thank yuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!

---------- Post added at 01:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 PM ----------

justa question,...with the latest version some of my previously available units, like Russian VDV, OMON or desert marines are no longer available to use as a playable unit. Is it just me or did you trim down availability to encourage the use of actual nations mods? 'coz now I am back using version 2.6.1. My old units dont show up in either v.3.4 or 4.6.5.

and the toggle of units on HUD is only available through commands option for v. 4.6.5?

Thank yuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!

EDIT;

I re-read your first post with the Order of Battle. All the units are there but for me, when they originally showed up now they don't. And I havn't touched or moved any files since I last played, which was last month sometime (Sept.)

[markb50k 1]

Features:

Version 4.85:

- new addon : Mi-26 Heavy Lift Helicopter

- fix : no static weapons were being manned at beginning of mission

- fix : cleaned up HINT that show's what loot is found in house searching, and hint now shows when first aid kits, repair kits, money, and fuel cans are found

- fix : incoming HQ vehicles were not showing up when infiltrating by boat

- tweak : non-medics have small chance of having first aid kits on them

- tweak : non-engineers have small chance of having repair kits on them

- tweak : cleaned up logic on how boat groups enter the battlefield

- new : now partisans will spawn more near areas where active house searching is happening, i.e. a greater chance you'll run into enemy partisan spawns near your search area

- new : when capturing INTEL on dead enemy leaders, you can now see their current reinforcement queues and group strengths via the COMMS menu. Intel is AS OF the time you captured the intel so it may be dated

---------- Post added at 15:57 ---------- Previous post was at 15:50 ----------

justa question,...

Theyre still there but they were probably moved under another faction heading. i've been tweaking them since you've last played..

Russian VDV -- should be found under "RU VDV" and "RU VDV Desert"

Binkowski's OMON -- now grouped with other Russian SF under all woodland factions. Let me know if you think these need to be split out a bit better and i can tweak it in the next version

Desert Marines -- should be found under "RU Marines Desert"

[BlackADD3R 1]

Swift reply bro...

No problem, I'll check again, I am sure they are there, just last night I racked my brain a bit wondering if I had broken something while updating configs and missions..

thanks again.

[BlackADD3R 1]

..Actually...I double and even triple checked...Binkowsky's US Marines show up but Binkowsky's OMON are nowhere to be found..I wonder wassup....

[markb50k 1]

Like I said binkowskis omon troops are grouped together with all the other Russian special forces troops so you would see them listed by display name under the "ru" faction. I'll split them up in the next update but trust me they are there already

[BlackADD3R 1]

Ok I trust you , don't change it for me are you crazy? You are busy enough, I'll see them when I see them..he he he he

[BlackADD3R 1]

On a past post you stated:"Color denotes friendly, enemy etc."

I am noticing red icons on the map to denote friendly troops moving about in my vicinity...is that part of the original game code or can that be changed? Red to me always meant 'danger' or 'enemy'.....