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[MOD] The Sins Optimization Project: Rebellion 1.1 (Updated 11/19/12)

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[MOD] The Sins Optimization Project: Rebellion 1.1 (Updated 11/19/12)

Because we KNOW that Rebellion NEEDS IT.

from Sins Forums

Rebellion.. The Fourth, and Final Expansion for SotSE....

For all that do not know what TSOP is, or have not been keeping up with current events at all for the last four years. Check this topic. The Original TSOP for Trinity topic.

TSOP was originally created to fix the very annoying 2 gig hard coded crash bug that plagued Trinity. IT WORKED. Without changing any game play aspects of Sins. Without changing the quality of the game itself. During the time we worked on TSOP we found many bugs, and errors that the Dev's missed over time, or that were created with the relentless Sins patches of the past, and new expansions. With the Diplomacy 1.32-1.34 series of patches some elements of TSOP: Trinity were incorporated into Diplomacy. Mainly the Errors, Typo's, and Particle fix's. We are all human, and we all make mistakes. A company as small as Ironclad was bound to make some mistakes. Especially on their first game. I want to make it clear once again that this project in no way is a disrespect of Ironclad, or Stardock. Quite the opposite. You guys made a great game! There is no denying that. We wouldn't be here right now if you did make a bad game.

The goal of TSOP:R Is to add what was NOT incorporated from the Diplomacy TSOP incorporation. We will Bug Hunt, Look for errors, and typos that were not seen before, and Fix it. Just like we did for Trinity. We will convert the TGA formatted textures to the highest quality DDS format possible (This includes the UI textures). Just like we did for Trinity. We will try to put back into Rebellion what was taken out from Trinity (the varying planet types). We will also look into optimizing the new rebellion shadow system some more (if it is at all possible).

Rebellion reduced the size of the ship textures (mainly all of the frigates) to the next size down (by a power of 2). So frigates that had a 2048 resolution texture now have a 1024 resolution texture in Rebellion. Which is brilliant, It is hardly noticeable, and it made lots of room for more Rebellion features. TSOP:R will expand upon that, and bring back the "Strategic Particle Texture Reduction" of TSOP Trinity. There is much more we can do to optimize if we look for it. However, the goal is to optimize without changing the quality of the game, or if there is to be a loss of quality. make it as minimal as humanly possible. Just like we did for Trinity.

We also plan on bringing the Trinity versions of TSOP up to date.

All of this, and more that TSOP:R will do will free up more Ram, and improve your Graphic Performance. So you should be able to run Rebellion on a slightly lower end system, or a not so hot video card. CPU lag is still, and will always be a problem. We tried to deal with it by reducing poly counts on meshes in Trinity. That failed. Poly counts surprisingly have very little impact in Sins. It is the sheer number of units on the map that a Single Core of your CPU has to deal with that causes the lag. The only way i can think of to deal with the Late Game CPU Lag issue is to remove, and/or lower the number of units on the map. We WILL NOT do that. We WILL NOT change any game play, or balancing aspect of Rebellion. Just like we did not change it for Trinity. Let the developers deal with the Game Play, and Balance. We only wish to improve upon the game itself. We Bring..

The Sins Optimization Project: Rebellion

So.. Here we are once again.. 

 TSOP for Rebellion is more of a Graphic Optimization mod than it was for Trinity. Many of the issues that plagued Trinity were fixed by Ironclad/Stardock for Rebellion. So there is no need for any GameInfo folders any more. Also the 2 gig crash issue that TSOP was originally created for has also been fixed. TSOP:R is more intended as a performance improvement mod than anything else.

 TSOP, and TSOP:R is an open community project. Anyone who wishes to contribute is welcome to do so. Also anyone who wishes to use TSOP/TSOP:R in their mods, or other projects are also more than welcome to do so. No Questions Asked. This project is for you. Use it!

 Do not run TSOP with other mods. TSOP is intended to be a Stand Alone mod. Running other mods with TSOP. Especially Graphic Enhancement mods. Will defeat the entire purpose of TSOP. TSOP is intended to improve your Vanilla Sins experience. Other mods like Distant Stars have incorporated elements of TSOP into their mods.

 I will ask that we please DO NOT discuss Multi Core support, 64 bit, or LAA on this topic. It is a dead horse issue that has been beaten down so many times that people are beating the dust on the ground where the dead horse was laying. Its not gonna happen! EVER! The Dev's said its not gonna happen. DO NOT DISCUSS THE ISSUE!!... please.

 

TSOP:R Release 1.1

All mesh, and particle bad file path names fixed.

Mesh fix's (Unnecessary team color entry's removed)

GameInfo files fixed by Stardock/Ironclad so it is no longer needed in TSOP

All particle, and UI textures converted to DDS format. Some very large texture resolutions reduced.

Optimized Sounds, Music ported from TSOP Trinity.

Optimized Trade ship, Strike Craft, and Constructor meshes ported from TSOP Trinity.

Game holds steady at 1.6-1.7 gigs ram usage using Random Vast Competitive map. Max settings for everything. 9 vicious AI's Results may differ for you depending on your system. No Dev.exe errors were present. No crashes. Late game lag still an issue, but game is playable much longer than vanilla.

See various "Fixed" text's for complete list of changes, and fixes.

Thank you Myfist0 for ModDB link

 

 

modding
699,570 views 326 replies
Reply #126 from Sins Forums Top

He posted a list along with the fixed files.

Reply #127 from Sins Forums Top

If anyone has time, could you take a look at the Vasari Loyalist titan's model, it has an engine spouting off a smooth surface on it's underside, doesn't look intentional. It also has an "invisible box" around it that pushes it's fleet around well beyond what it should have compared to the other titans and other ships in sins, it's about 2-3 times the norm.

also, all the new ships in rebellion do some funky things when trying to get into formation, like the new support cap and corvettes trying to occupy the same space as the titan causing them to be pushed around, especially during a group jump and with fleet groups but this is just something that can be altered in the entity files and the formationrank line

Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #128 from Sins Forums Top

its been a while since I have been here....

anyways i have an idea im hpoing one of you guys might look into, since i cant due to time constraints. 

when i was sifting through the original sins files, i noticed that whenever the avent iconus guardian uses its shield projection ability, the game renders a sphere to size of a planet (look into the entity and particle files). lategame, when avent fleets have multiple guardians, using this ablity results in the game slowing to a crawl (at least in my case). i get the feeling that removing the planet sized shield mesh would speed up the game a bit.......

i was hoping one of you guys could look into this 

thnks in advance

Reply #129 from Sins Forums Top

Think the guardian shield mesh needs to be there for the buff to work (can anyone confirm this?). As for the mesh size itself. That is a good point. I am assuming the buff radius is the same size as the shield mesh (again, can anyone confirm this?). I think we all get lag when 20 guardians light off their buff at the same time. Its been an issue since original sins. We will look at this some more.

Ill check out intro video, and renders of loyalist titan, but i dont think there is much for aft view renders. I think the engine point is kind of odd too, but it isn't really effecting the game at all. Need to prioritize things that are effecting the game first. Before we get into minor details like that.

Collision, and path finding is something the dev's need to deal with. None of us are very capable of changing the fleet formations right now. People may want to report the bumper car issue to the dev's themselves.

The word is in. No incorporation yet. So i will consolidate what is done so far. Get fixes to me asap. Expect a release next week.

Reply #130 from Sins Forums Top

Could TSOPR possibly be released in patch 1.05, Major Stress, or did the devs rule it out too?

Reply #131 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Major, reply 126
He posted a list along with the fixed files.

Ah I see. He did nothing with planet shield, so no changes are needed.

Reply #132 from Sins Forums Top

The only change the dev's plan is to remove the unnecessary file path names in mesh and particles, but they are keeping TGA textures. Other than that NO TSOP incorporation is planned at all.

Reply #133 from Sins Forums Top

Then the masses must incorporate it...Viva Le masses!

Reply #134 from Sins Forums Top

FWIW: Some very minor syntax errors in the string file where a string value ends in a double double-quote:

Value "Grants access to Illuminator Vessels - strong warships equipped with many long range beam weapons.""
Value "Frightening visions of the future warn scryers of incoming enemy ships during their phase jump to your empire's planets.""
Value "Shared Shield Tech.""
Value "Causes affected enemies to suffer damage whenever any one of them is damaged by weapons fire.""
Value "You are victorious.""

Spotted these while having a bash at writing an entity file validator.

 

Reply #135 from Sins Forums Top

Though i dont see how this will effect game performance it is a good find. Good Eye :) Fixed errors.

Keep the finds coming.

Reply #136 from Sins Forums Top

Bump for .95 release. Still uploading give it about an hour to finish.

Keep them fix's coming for the 1.0 release.

Reply #137 from Sins Forums Top

*edit* Please ignore, I didn't realise the time was different on here to my local time - it's only been 15 mins since uploaded!

 

Patiently waiting :)

Reply #138 from Sins Forums Top

Should be up now.

Reply #139 from Sins Forums Top

it is up for the last hour or so(had downloaded it)

harpo

 

Reply #140 from Sins Forums Top

Question regarding the texture animation files included in this release.

What do they fix or was it merely ported over from the Trinity release to cover all bases?

Reply #141 from Sins Forums Top

The texture animation files were changed to load DDS textures. Instead of vanilla TGA. Since all of the particle textures were converted to DDS format to utilize the mip map feature.. For those unaware mip mapping is a way of scaling down the texture the further you zoom out. TGA format doesnt have that feature while DDS format does. This slightly improves graphic performance.

Reply #142 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Major, reply 142
The texture animation files were changed to load DDS textures. Instead of vanilla TGA. Since all of the particle textures were converted to DDS format to utilize the mip map feature.. For those unaware mip mapping is a way of scaling down the texture the further you zoom out. TGA format doesnt have that feature while DDS format does. This slightly improves graphic performance.

And can improve memory utilization as most video cards can handle DDS natively (i.e. compressed image data can be uploaded directly to video card memory.)

 

Reply #143 from Sins Forums Top

Which begs the question...why aren't the devs using this?

Reply #145 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Sinperium, reply 144
Which begs the question...why aren't the devs using this?

Well, UI elements shouldn't be converted to DDS as there is no memory savings and the images lose detail.

Particles and texture animations should be if they will benefit from mipmaps.

 

Reply #146 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 146
Well, UI elements shouldn't be converted to DDS as there is no memory savings and the images lose detail.

especially the Main view icons, Fleet tree icons, and unit/research icons. These are not worth the ram savings for the amount of detail they lose

Oh and Player button pics

Anyone thinking of changing custom work to DDS, ALWAYS backup your TGAs for editing, editing the DDS is just loss of detail on top of loss of detail

Reply #147 from Sins Forums Top

I understand the loss of detail in DDS, but from my point of view what is gained is worth a little loss. Even for the UI. I look at the entire big picture. The UI itself wouldn't be worth doing if it was "just the UI". Same with "Just the particles", or just the meshes. Combine it all together, and we have Rebellion running on 1.5 gigs of ram at max settings vs Vanilla 1.7 to 1.8 gigs.

The Average gamer probably wouldn't notice any loss in detail. I stated in the readme, and the UI fix text that if you dont want the UI DDS textures just delete the mods "window" folder, and it will default back to Vanilla TGA textures, or wait for the 1.04 patch which the bad file path names will be removed in vanilla

Reply #148 from Sins Forums Top

Not sure if this has been caught yet, but the Vasari's trade and refinery ships are the exact same model/skin, one of the two meshes can be eliminated.

Reply #149 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Major, reply 148
I understand the loss of detail in DDS, but from my point of view what is gained is worth a little loss. Even for the UI. I look at the entire big picture. The UI itself wouldn't be worth doing if it was "just the UI". Same with "Just the particles", or just the meshes. Combine it all together, and we have Rebellion running on 1.5 gigs of ram at max settings vs Vanilla 1.7 to 1.8 gigs.

The DEVS have stated on previous occasion that converting the UI to DDS results in no memory savings as the uncompressed DDS and TGA are the same in memory. All other textures that are part of the meshes or effects should all be DDS with mipmaps to take advantage of every memory savings you can get.

That said, I have no issues if you want DDS for all textures in this mod, but your reasons seem contrary to what the developers have stated and what research into the subject reveals.

And I fall into the category of not wanting the UI to show any artifacts but love the rest of the work in this mod. So not an insult or anything, just more a discussion on what's what.

 

Reply #150 from Sins Forums Top

No insult taken. In fact i would like to reopen the discussion on the advantages of DDS over TGA (or vice versa).

I understand that uncompressed DDS uses the same memory as TGA. The reason for converting the UI to dds is more to keep a standard than anything else. To keep the textures in the same format.

DDS was specifically designed for Nvidia cards, and is the industry standard texture format in gaming. The file size of a DDS is smaller than TGA. Being that it is a compressed file. DDS uses mip mapping. Where TGA does not. DDS is a newer format than TGA. Yes, the picture quality of TGA is better than DDS there is no denying that.

Constructive debate. What are your thoughts?