Segment Size Performance Impact?

[Nicholas Bell 0]

Recently revised a 10 x 10 km map from 512 pixel segments to 256 pixel and I'm getting "stutters" - normally not an issue with my system.  I want to increase the number of textures I can squeeze in small areas.

Was wondering if anyone has any experience or comments on whether the segment resizing is the problem.  I don't have any objects on the map when this happens so I know that is not the issue.  Nor does dropping the visibility range make a difference.

Hoping someone can save me a little time attempting to isolate the problem. Working with a map this size is a real time-killer in V3.

Thanks!

[opteryx 1562]

hmm, I seem to recall the wiki saying that 512px tiles are the optimum dimension for maps, however that has not been my personal experience, for me 1024 seems to be the best size to performance ratio, however it become unpractical when you want squeeze in more than 4 surface types on a map. I haven't even bothered to try more than 4 surface types due to the headache I imagine would ensue...

I really don't have any real advice to give except maybe wait for ArmA2, there you can have 6 surface types per segment.

Sorry for not adding much of value.

-edit-

Quote[/b] ]Example: Assume world size 10240 x 10240 m with 40 m grid (i.e. 256 x 256 grids) , satellite texture with resolution 7680 x 7680 (one landscape grid needs to be covered by a whole number of texels, therefore satellite texture size needs to be a multiple of world size in grids). We want to achieve segment size 512 x 512 texels, and given the 16 texel overlap wanted, one segment will cover 496 x 496 texels. Size of one texel is 10240 m /7680 (1.3333 m) in this case, 496 texels give around 661.33 m. With 40 m grid we get 661.33/40 = 16.5, which rounded down gives 16. (If the texture grid is different from the terrain grid, rounding down is not enough - we need to round down to the nearest multiple of the number of terrain grids in the texture grid. With terrain grid 10 and texture grid 40 the satellite segment size needs to be a multiple of 4.

What's the dimension of your satmap?

[Nicholas Bell 0]

It might take until next spring to finish it - just in time to update everything to ArmA2 standards  

Satmap is also 10240,x10240.  Satellite Grid is 24. Texture Size is 20 x 20 meters - it won't validate with the normal 40x40 meters.

It's a big, complicated map - I'm not surprised there is a performance hit.  But I was expecting it until I started adding objects.

Dropping back to 512 pixel segment isn't life and death.  I am attempting to get the texture color to match the satellite image color better - thus the need to have multiple textures.   ArmA2 will handle this for me as I understand it will "pick up" the color of the satellite and apply it to the texture to some extent.  It's all very pretty now - I just hate to have to give up the variations.

I may need to "borrow" your wheat with your permission.  It will look great on Schmalfelden.  

[t_d 47]

Do you have stutters in buldozer or ingame or both?

[Nicholas Bell 0]

Only in game with this map. I don't even have problems with my own Schmalfelden XHV.

[t_d 47]

I would think if it is due to the grid size it also would stutter in buldozer. Do you binarize the island? If yes you could have a look at binarize.log (I hope BinPBO creates it with debug option) that maybe gives a hint.

[Nicholas Bell 0]

No luck with binarizing - the stutter is still there. Very noticeable while flying. Every couple of seconds. The log file is clean - no problems.

Guess I will spend the time I was hoping to save and drop back to a 512 pixel segment and see what happens.

[luki 53]

Quote[/b] ]No luck with binarizing - the stutter is still there.  Very noticeable while flying.  Every couple of seconds.   The log file is clean - no problems.

Guess I will spend the time I was hoping to save and drop back to a 512 pixel segment and see what happens.

Had exact same problems with 20m cell size and maps greater than 12800x12800, especially with high rez textures. With 25m cells no problems.

[Nicholas Bell 0]

Okay, I dropped back to 512 pixel segments and the stuttering went away.  It also loads much faster.

However, I also reinstalled ArmA on my old computer and I do not have the stuttering problem when using 256 pixel segments.  Go figure.