Hide Terrain Objects module in multiplayer

[SterlingC 17]

I have the new hide terrain objects module removing everything but vegetation on Tanoa and it runs great in single player through the editor, but it seems to make multiplayer unplayable. I went from 60+ fps to 0-5 fps on a mission that runs fine in SP. To test the cause I loaded a new game on Tanoa in Eden and placed a single unit. It ran fine in multiplayer without the module, and after the module was placed it actually froze when loading. Can anyone else confirm this is the problem?  

 

Further testing indicates that the module is the issue and that the problem is specific to Tanoa. I tried and the module did fine on Stratis, and if I remove the module from the mission I originally was trying to run it plays fine in multiplayer. The size of the module was around 7000, I'm not sure if that had something to do with it, but again, the module at that size runs fine on Strais in single player or multiplayer, and fine in single player on Tanoa, the issue only happens when multiplayer is loaded on the Tanoa island. 

Edited August 31, 2017 by SterlingC
Additional information

[mihal190 79]

me too, any fixes for that?

[warkonaut 133]

On 8/31/2017 at 11:52 PM, SterlingC said:

I have the new hide terrain objects module removing everything but vegetation on Tanoa and it runs great in single player through the editor, but it seems to make multiplayer unplayable. I went from 60+ fps to 0-5 fps on a mission that runs fine in SP. To test the cause I loaded a new game on Tanoa in Eden and placed a single unit. It ran fine in multiplayer without the module, and after the module was placed it actually froze when loading. Can anyone else confirm this is the problem?  

 

Further testing indicates that the module is the issue and that the problem is specific to Tanoa. I tried and the module did fine on Stratis, and if I remove the module from the mission I originally was trying to run it plays fine in multiplayer. The size of the module was around 7000, I'm not sure if that had something to do with it, but again, the module at that size runs fine on Strais in single player or multiplayer, and fine in single player on Tanoa, the issue only happens when multiplayer is loaded on the Tanoa island. 

Hello. To be honest you are using the module for something that it was not designed for. In ideal world it should not be the issue. However the 2 environmental modules (Hide and Edit) present scripted solution, that has no engine support and so it is far from ideal. Their main purpose is to allow slight adjustments of the environment so you can tweak the terrain here and there to suit your needs, be it narrative or gameplay. Hiding all objects but vegetation from the map is far from what was the scope of the modules.

 

Seems from what you describe the hideObjectGlobal seems to kill the network due to large amount of traffic you generate by hiding thousands of objects. I will look into the (optional) possibility of making hiding of objects local.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

13 minutes ago, warkonaut said:

Hello. To be honest you are using the module for something that it was not designed for. In ideal world it should not be the issue. However the 2 environmental modules (Hide and Edit) present scripted solution, that has no engine support and so it is far from ideal. Their main purpose is to allow slight adjustments of the environment so you can tweak the terrain here and there to suit your needs, be it narrative or gameplay. Hiding all objects but vegetation from the map is far from what was the scope of the modules.

 

Seems from what you describe the hideObjectGlobal seems to kill the network due to large amount of traffic you generate by hiding thousands of objects. I will look into the (optional) possibility of making hiding of objects local.

 

Thanks for the update.  I too was optimistic about the possibility of using the module to hide all non-required objects from the map outside of the mission 'area' in order to save on performance but it seems that was never the intent.

[warkonaut 133]

1 hour ago, Imperator[TFD] said:

 

Thanks for the update.  I too was optimistic about the possibility of using the module to hide all non-required objects from the map outside of the mission 'area' in order to save on performance but it seems that was never the intent.

I would say, this module is not ideal for what you are trying to achieve. It's power is in WYSIWYG approach, so it allows you precisely select the affected area. If you want to clear whole island from objects you do not want you should probably write your own script and execute it through remoteExec on each client. Then it will work even after JIP. If you use hideObject, then the change will be only local and no extra network traffic should be created.

[warkonaut 133]

Hi guys, an update: Hide Terrain Objects module - it is now possible to force module to operate locally, to avoid huge network load in MP scenarios where module is hiding thousands of terrain objects.

 

I have added a checkbox that forces module to hide objects locally on each client. I tested it on Tanoa, where I was hiding more then million of terrain objects. Without this option ticked the client just didn't load, with it it is quite OK. Still takes some time, but it is fine for such large number of object. I still do not suggest to use it for hiding such great number of objects, but in general if you are going to hide more objects in MP the option is valid as the load times are shorter and the network traffic is much lower.

 

The only drawback is that hiding happens on client join and is local - so you need to bear this in mind if you want to manipulate with the visibility and/or allow damage states during mission runtime.

 

Have fun. :)

 

[a_killer_wombat 120]

29 minutes ago, warkonaut said:

Hi guys, an update: Hide Terrain Objects module - it is now possible to force module to operate locally, to avoid huge network load in MP scenarios where module is hiding thousands of terrain objects.

 

I have added a checkbox that forces module to hide objects locally on each client. I tested it on Tanoa, where I was hiding more then million of terrain objects. Without this option ticked the client just didn't load, with it it is quite OK. Still takes some time, but it is fine for such large number of object. I still do not suggest to use it for hiding such great number of objects, but in general if you are going to hide more objects in MP the option is valid as the load times are shorter and the network traffic is much lower.

 

The only drawback is that hiding happens on client join and is local - so you need to bear this in mind if you want to manipulate with the visibility and/or allow damage states during mission runtime.

 

Have fun. :)

 

 

Amazing! Did not expect this, I'm glad you went the extra mile to gives us that functionality. Much appreciated :)

[RG_Helios 17]

Awesome! Thnx Warkonaut!

[Rich_R 1087]

On ‎11‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 10:01 AM, warkonaut said:

Hi guys, an update: Hide Terrain Objects module - it is now possible to force module to operate locally, to avoid huge network load in MP scenarios where module is hiding thousands of terrain objects.

 

I have added a checkbox that forces module to hide objects locally on each client. I tested it on Tanoa, where I was hiding more then million of terrain objects. Without this option ticked the client just didn't load, with it it is quite OK. Still takes some time, but it is fine for such large number of object. I still do not suggest to use it for hiding such great number of objects, but in general if you are going to hide more objects in MP the option is valid as the load times are shorter and the network traffic is much lower.

 

The only drawback is that hiding happens on client join and is local - so you need to bear this in mind if you want to manipulate with the visibility and/or allow damage states during mission runtime.

 

Have fun. :)

 

First, nice response to the issue!

 

Second, question.

 

If I've hidden most of the structures at the Stratis Airbase to create my own version, which option would be better for MP? default or local?

 

Thanks

[warkonaut 133]

Hi, I assume there are quite many objects and you do not want to show them later (they are being hidden and stay hidden). In such case I suggest you use local hiding.