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.
 
---------------------------------------------------
----------- 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 12)
13 PagesFirst 10 11 12 13 
on Sep 06, 2010

Thanks for taking care of somthing that should have been dealt with in the beta phase.

Well done!!!

*sigh*

on Sep 06, 2010

I encountered a couple issues I had not had before the 1.07 patch.

 

1.  Random crashes to desktop, usually when the turn is processing.

2.  Low number (or none at all!) shards are generated on the map.  My current game has 1/2 the map revealed and no shards at all.

on Sep 06, 2010

I started three more games, and there were still zero elemental shards on any land that I explored.  One of my main gripes with the game is that magic is rather weak.  This bug(?) makes it even weaker.  In fact, the entire game can be played successfully without magic;  just over-run everyone with mundane units.

I think I'll put the game down for now, and wait for more fixes and tweaks.  There are too many things that dont work as intended, or are simply disappointing.

on Sep 06, 2010



...


---------------------------------------------------
----------- Elemental v1.07 Change Log  -----------
---------------------------------------------------

***************
* Performance *
...

+ Added new framerate limiter ( limits framerate to refresh rate of device )
- Removed throttle framerates option (this is always on now)

...

 

This causes stuttering on my machine.

With the old system I was able to limit the frame rate to 40 and everything ran smooth. Now it is always stuttering because the frame rate is tight to my refresh rate of 60MHz.

Please re-enable the option to set the frame rate limit lower than the refresh rate.

Regards

Xiskio

on Sep 07, 2010

Valentine82
No one ever mentions this, but can we please get the AI Diplomacy fixed so that the AI doesn't constantly pester us to go to war with our friends and allies?
A bit annoying, yes -- but isn't backstabbing your friends a staple of 4X?  Maybe this is one of those things where different people prefer different gameplay.  For me it's the "constantly" part -- I find AI requests come rather more frequently than I like.

on Sep 07, 2010

dalamb

Quoting Valentine82, reply 105No one ever mentions this, but can we please get the AI Diplomacy fixed so that the AI doesn't constantly pester us to go to war with our friends and allies?A bit annoying, yes -- but isn't backstabbing your friends a staple of 4X?  Maybe this is one of those things where different people prefer different gameplay.  For me it's the "constantly" part -- I find AI requests come rather more frequently than I like.

His point is that they ask like every other turn...very annoying!

on Sep 08, 2010

The problem with the merchant guide tech has also not yet been fixed, it still fails top show up in the game

on Sep 08, 2010

BoogieBac

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'.

How about also looking at the Tech for the Empire side that allows the Lordly Hammer as well as the other two high damage hammers being researched  after less than 10 rounds.  I have peasants walking around with 40att wiping everyone out before the 10th round.

And why three high damage hammers on one tech? I can understand if it was one Blunt, one Piercing, and one edge weapons with similare damage but not three of the same tryp of weapon. I nocied that other weapon and Armor techs also follow thesame trend. This really need to be corrected. Game really needs a lot of work. Even with all the patches released so far the game is still in a beta state. I have told my frinds and family to hold off buying the game until it is more up to par.  I told them it will be but it will take a few months. You know if I had not bought GALCIV2 with both add ons I would have written this game off.  But since I know that in the past Stardock supports it's game then I feel that they will get this game to the point of being good, It's not there yet but hopfully in a few months it will be. Good thing I have AOW, AOW:SM and soon to be CIV V to play until Elemental is where it should have been on release day.

on Sep 15, 2010

Moar Patches! Rawr! hehe.

on Sep 15, 2010

You'll get your wish this week most likely.

 

 

on Sep 15, 2010

valentineb2 & arstal, in another frogboy dev thread he stated that he is hoping for a thursday patch to 1.08 depending upon QA authorisation.

harpo

 

on Sep 21, 2010

and where is it?

on Sep 21, 2010

it is already in impulse, but the patch changed a lot of things for ranged weapons & spells, so if you are in the middle of a game do not update, if you are between games then update.

harpo

 

on Jan 01, 2011

why can't update elemental war of magic it keeps saying that i have the wrong seriel number help anyone?

 

on Jan 01, 2011

Please post in the support forum and don't necro old threads.

13 PagesFirst 10 11 12 13