Performance Issues...begone!
Published on September 2, 2010 By ScottTykoski In Elemental Dev Journals

More of a maintenance update than anything, Elemental v1.07 focuses on the performance issues seen by both high and low end users. There are more improvements to come as code is continually improved and tile-designs are streamlined, but this update should bring a healthy FPS boost to all. And, if your frames per second remain under-par, new options will give you additional wiggle-room.
 
That's not to say gameplay dosen't get some update love...resources no longer use up city tiles, unit groups save out the necessary info to regenerate themselves on reload, and item stacking heroes is a thing of the past...but performance, memory usage, and overall stability were our targets here.
 

Note: A 1.07.025 hotfix was published with a fix for a crash in the 'Custom Sovereign' system (Merchant/Brilliant/Meditative traits). This would have caused a crash loading saved sovereigns or games with those traits applied as well.
 
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----------- Elemental v1.07 Change Log  -----------
---------------------------------------------------

***************
* Performance *
+ Major improvement to rendering system, especially when over cities.
+ Condensed scene rendering process from 3 passes through scene into a single pass
+ Bunch of fixes to the issues behind "DX Error: Invalid Call", particularly when Alt-Tab'ing. This will continue to be worked on.
+ Added new framerate limiter ( limits framerate to refresh rate of device )
- Removed throttle framerates option (this is always on now)
+ Particle Effects no longer render if the "Disable Particle Effects" option is on
+ Outlines now LOD-out as you zoom out
+ Added option "Disable Outlines" to the options screen to turn off rendering outlines (Might help lower-end machines, and some people prefer no outlines)
+ Commented out unnecessary debug messages

*************
* Bug Fixes *
+ Fixed Various Memory Leaks
+ Fixed the issue that was causing the unimproved tile designs for elemental shards to stick around after a shard-harvesting improvement was built on top of them.
+ fixed a bug where if you have the option on where when entering/leaving city build mode, the camera switches between overhead and default view, you could get stuck in overhead view (and forced to manually move the camera back) if you pressed the city build mode button, while already in city build mode
+ fixed bug where AI demands a tribute of 0 gildar
+ fixed display issue where improvement cost entries overfilled the improvement build list
+ fixed display issue where units with long names overfilled the name area on the level up wnd.
+ fixed display issue on battle init wnd, if defense or attack was negative then it showed up as a huge number.  Beserker ring gives a -3 to defense, which could give you negative overall defense.  Same might be true of attack if in the future we have some strange item that decreases your attack.
+ Fixed bug where units in tile designs (like horses, wargs, etc) would not fade out when the tile is under fog of war
+ Fixed "jumping units" when starting new game from within a game (or loading a game within a game)
+ Other fixes regarding battle initition window, creating mountains in map editor, first contact status not being set to relation unknown
+ Fixed a bug where improvements that were flagged as once-per-city were able
to be placed twice.

**********************
* Gameplay / Balance *
+ Fixed bug where economic treaty gold bonuses weren't getting added to the global resource pool
+ Changed how creatures and NPCs increase their stats when they level up to nerf incredibly powerful high-level monsters running around
+ Stacking of items fixed (can now only wear 1 per type per champion)
+ Pioneers in a boat can no longer build a Settlement at sea
+ Wild improvements will now be able to be taken into account in a city's resource usage correctly, if any of them ever have negative resource production
+ Refugee camps (and other wild improvements that provide population storage bonuses) improvements
+ Fixed Miner sovereign profession bonus
+ Fixed Great Warriors faction bonus
+ Removed really high starting mana regen ability from Umber's faction config
+ Fixed Advanced Tracking techs (in both tech trees) to change the player ability that is hooked up to affect movement
+ Fixed broken productionreq tag on vengeance coating
+ References to Ice shards changed to Water for consistency
+ Sprint duration adjusted to 2
+ Lowered HP for fallen peasant
+ Fixed up resource hoard description text
+ Various food resources now provide different amounts as indicated by old description text
+ Improved output of Temple of Essence
+ Improved output of Tower of Titans, Tower of Souls
+ Fixed construction resource cost for curgen's exchange
+ Resource hoard costs now mirror kingdoms resource costs
+ Fixed up description text for construction yard
+ Great Theatre no longer provides +100% Gildar, only +100% Prestige
+ AI: Added code to send sovereign back to his capital city if he has no destination after the early phase of the game
+ Fixes for various terrain types not responding to RaiseLand spell
+ Resource hoards no longer deduct from the buildable tiles of a city (the 'bananna cities' from the forums)

***********
* Battles *
+ Changed the calculation for battle damage to take multiple troops into better account (with each unit getting an individual attack roll).
+ Every time panic is caused, the combat text for the panic will be shown.
+ Fixed a problem where misses and non-damage spells would cause an on hit animation to be played in tactical battles.
+ Fixed a possible bug where units would no longer update their troop counts after reaching a single troop left.
+ When selecting the spell book in tactical battles the cursor should now reset to the arrow.
+ When clicking on a unit's hiergemenon entry in tactical battles the cursor should now reset to the arrow.
+ Turned on bounding box picking for tactical battles to improve the feel of unit selection.
+ Selecting units should now be turned back on while other units are animating in tactical battles.
+ Fixed a bug where unit tooltips in tactical battles would draw over tooltips for items and spells.
+ Added some checks to the battle init window to stop the window from showing when defenders or attackers were null. Also added logic to clear waiting flags in this case.

******
* UI *
+ Adopted the unit vitals context for a Details tab to show when a wild improvement is selected on the main map, to give more meaningful and easier to read information
- If the improvement is under construction, it says so and uses the level slider to show the progress towards completion and the turns left
- If the improvement is done, it shows what that improvement is producing and has an entry to get further information about the improvement by opening up the lorebook
- Also, it shows which city an improvement is linked to, or "Not linked" if it isn't.  If it is linked, the tooltip explains that this city is contributing production bonuses to the resource production of that improvement.  If the improvement is not linked, the tooltip says how many tiles the nearest city needs to be closer to link with that city, explaining that it will be able to get city production bonuses if it does link
+ New Tactical Icons hooked up for Smelter, Trade Center, Construction Yard, Merchant Guild
+ New Tile Designs for Ventri Iron Mine, Stone Quarry, Clay Quarry, Marble Quarry, Drath Village, Shrill Hive, Spider Nest
+ Fixed bug where double-clicking on a spell you couldn't cast from the spellbook popup would queue a bunch of "Can't cast tactical spell" message boxes to appear over and over, now just plays a little failure sound if something that can't be cast is double-clicked
+ Fixed a typo in a campaign dialog
+ When you build an improvement on a resource, the map notifier for it is removed
+ Fixed typo "completly restored" to "completely restored"
+ Fixed some places where the display of per-turn gold production lagged behind changes to it, gets rid of some income discrepancies between some screens when loading a game, adding/cancelling a treaty, etc.


****************
* Known Issues *

+ Tactical Battles: Stuck turn if you use space bar or click "Pass Turn" button while selected unit is moving.  Clicking auto-resolve will end the battle if the turn is stuck.
+ Occasional instances of damage indicators not appearing over units.


Comments (Page 10)
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on Sep 03, 2010

Nope really, they do not. I did some tests with 1.07, and no more damage with multiple shards.

We had a fix, but it had to be reverted for the public update as it caused some other issues.

on Sep 03, 2010

already answered so deleted

on Sep 03, 2010

I'd rather see a stricter two total rings, one total amulet, etc system myself, deciding which rings to use is an interesting choice
That will be coming, probably in the patch with the major 'champion improvements'.

on Sep 03, 2010

Keep patching guys.  You are doing a good job getting this application closer to a true consumer ready product.  Just need to patch all the crashing problems and then can start releasing new content. 

PS some spells are very useful and some are not.  May need some balancing on some of the spells before we start adding new spells.   Really need to balance spells by level and strength so that they are all used evenly. 

PS In the utility to make a map you can have it generate a land mass for you rather than start with a blank map.  There are three choices (1 large continent, several large continents or the islands one) The single large continent choice does not work.  It defaults to the last choice of either (multiple continents or islands) .  I tried maybe 30 times with no luck.  I know it is not highest priority.  Just add it to the list somewhere.

Thanks again for all your hard work.  I do like this game and look forward to playing a complete game soon.

Cheers.

 

on Sep 03, 2010


Nope really, they do not. I did some tests with 1.07, and no more damage with multiple shards.

We had a fix, but it had to be reverted for the public update as it caused some other issues.

Is there an explanation for why one of my children with INT 28 (or 26, little foggy) was able to do 86 damage with Infernal against one target?

That's what lead me to believe that shards were causing an impact.

on Sep 03, 2010

I posted my theory in other thread:

That maybe enemy shards get counted instead, since after all, game doesn't know to pull properly [UnitStat_NumAirShards] or similar value when doing calculation. Should it get it from target unit or from the caster (since ValueOwner tag is missing in final calculation)?

When ValueOwner is properly defined for final calculation (that includes shard number), spells do proper damage. This could also explain why Heal scales fine, even without ValueOwner tag (both target and caster are of same faction).

on Sep 03, 2010

Thanks again for getting elemental into a more playable state for the long weekend!  Looking forward to getting in a few games.

on Sep 03, 2010

Just wondering wether the issue of Janusk's portrait mysteriously changing in the one of Miramous is already fixed or not... Although it looks like it isn't a big issue it is a bit annoying...

on Sep 03, 2010

I have a silly question, but is there an ETA on MP. I know this is mostly a SP game and MP probably isn't a high priority. But with the AI needing some serious work I am thinking the MP could be a huge hold over till it gets it.

on Sep 03, 2010

Thanks Stardock team.  I really admire the hard work and dedication.

on Sep 03, 2010

Defintely heading in the right direction, thanks!

on Sep 03, 2010

I posted my theory in other thread:

That maybe enemy shards get counted instead, since after all, game doesn't know to pull properly [UnitStat_NumAirShards] or similar value when doing calculation. Should it get it from target unit or from the caster (since ValueOwner tag is missing in final calculation)?

When ValueOwner is properly defined for final calculation (that includes shard number), spells do proper damage. This could also explain why Heal scales fine, even without ValueOwner tag (both target and caster are of same faction).

Hmm... I was about to say that the target units didn't belong to a faction with shards, but then after thinking about it they may have had one or two and that would actually be a pretty good explanation. I think the 86 damage was against a unit from the one nation left that actually has shards (well, had, they're gone now...) and I usually got lower damages against mobs.

[One last try to post this, let's see if the forums cooperate!]

 

on Sep 03, 2010

Stardock team. I really admire the hard work and dedication.

QFT.

on Sep 03, 2010

Game runs even more beautifully now. Great job.

on Sep 03, 2010

Good job.  This patch made the game 100x better.  Still needs work, but it's  solid start.

 

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