Texture popping, asset popping

lysan

lysan
Hi all,

I would like to ask the community to explain to me, why do we have texture & asset popping in ED?
My GPU is GTX 980TI my VRAM is around 4 - 5 Gb full when playing in ED. The game is installed on a RAMDISK.

When I enter planets, it seams like there are two types of textures, one is from far out, then you get closer and the texture change.
You clearly see the change in the texture, and if you stay on this distance line the texture pop in and out. Moreover the textures seam very blurry some times, but not always.

I even tried to beef up the textures in the graphiconfig file, but the difference is almost zero.

Anyone have a solution for this?
 

Noddie

N
I have this. Not too bothered, but I think it's possible down to the content being downloaded?

If it bothers you, why not try lowering your graphics to the high preset?
 

lysan

lysan
Hmm, its not the GPU nor the connection speed, must be something else. I have locked my FPS to 60, and it stays there rock steady.
 

Ignition

I
Is the horrible LOD of this game.

When you are flying above the surface you can see the textures changing all the time.

Also the objects in the POI pop up in front of you, theres no transition.
 
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DaveB

DaveB
Texture and asset popping: OK.. as a 30+ year IT geek I can take a stab at this since I've a couple of years experience in there working with developers who were beating their heads against the render pipeline and I have created models and textures for a multiplayer environment before...

When textures and models "pop" what is happening is different in each case but the root cause is similar. When creating models you don't just create one, you create multiple levels of detail, the idea being to display each one at an appropriate distance so that you're not rendering details that are too small to see at the distance you're viewing them from. This is not an exact science. Modelling the asset you are basically making your best guess at where the model will shift LODs and creating the levels appropriately. Then they hit the users machine with their particular graphics capability and game settings and it all goes down the toilet. Without exception, every game or other piece of software that renders 3d models determines which LOD to render dynamically based on what the code discovers about the platform its running on. This gives developers migraines, because coming up with an algorithm that will work right for all possible combinations is roughly equivalent to beating your head on the wall until you get bored with the squishy sound.

Likewise for textures, you don't want to create a 1024x1024 work of art if when wrapped around the model and rendered it's only going to be a couple of pixels on the users screen. You're wasting GPU cycles and memory to no purpose.

That sidewinder out there at extreme laser range, the one you can barely see as a couple of pixels on your screen and you feel really good that you actually managed to snipe the sucker, the game wasn't rendering the same model or texture that you see when he's right in your face and about to ram your canopy.

The bottom line for "popping" issues, though, boils down to the same thing. To avoid popping, you preload the higher detail models and textures at a greater draw distance and switch between them smoothly. That takes resources, CPU and GPU cycles, system and video memory. Code it so popping will never happen, and you open yourself to stuttering issues. Code it so stuttering will never happen and things will start to pop.

It's a balancing act. Earlier in the game, FD prioritized visual smoothness and lots of us on the forum griped real loud about graphics stutters. They listened, and now we're griping about stuff popping.
 

Hilight

Hilight
DaveB said:
Texture and asset popping: OK.. as a 30+ year IT geek I can take a stab at this since I've a couple of years experience in there working with developers who were beating their heads against the render pipeline and I have created models and textures for a multiplayer environment before...

When textures and models "pop" what is happening is different in each case but the root cause is similar. When creating models you don't just create one, you create multiple levels of detail, the idea being to display each one at an appropriate distance so that you're not rendering details that are too small to see at the distance you're viewing them from. This is not an exact science. Modelling the asset you are basically making your best guess at where the model will shift LODs and creating the levels appropriately. Then they hit the users machine with their particular graphics capability and game settings and it all goes down the toilet. Without exception, every game or other piece of software that renders 3d models determines which LOD to render dynamically based on what the code discovers about the platform its running on. This gives developers migraines, because coming up with an algorithm that will work right for all possible combinations is roughly equivalent to beating your head on the wall until you get bored with the squishy sound.

Likewise for textures, you don't want to create a 1024x1024 work of art if when wrapped around the model and rendered it's only going to be a couple of pixels on the users screen. You're wasting GPU cycles and memory to no purpose.

That sidewinder out there at extreme laser range, the one you can barely see as a couple of pixels on your screen and you feel really good that you actually managed to snipe the sucker, the game wasn't rendering the same model or texture that you see when he's right in your face and about to ram your canopy.

The bottom line for "popping" issues, though, boils down to the same thing. To avoid popping, you preload the higher detail models and textures at a greater draw distance and switch between them smoothly. That takes resources, CPU and GPU cycles, system and video memory. Code it so popping will never happen, and you open yourself to stuttering issues. Code it so stuttering will never happen and things will start to pop.

It's a balancing act. Earlier in the game, FD prioritized visual smoothness and lots of us on the forum griped real loud about graphics stutters. They listened, and now we're griping about stuff popping.
Click to expand...

Well said. The stuttering-or-popping dance really does put the coders between a rock and a hard place
 

atlas974

atlas974
I had some strong texture LOD changes when playing in VR near planet ground, you could easily see 2 kind of texture and geometry when flying @ 500m from ground. In order to fix it i put the terrain quality to medium (need to restart game for change to be in effect).
 

lysan

lysan
So it basically mean that FD "just" need to make the ultra high textures load sooner? can't we force the game to do that?
 

shreddog

shreddog
I've always wondered if it's possible to make an engine that reduce polygon count and texture res seamlessly the further you move away from an object. Without looking like a morphing blob... lol
 

Don Alvarez

Don Alvarez
Just a thought, and it will probably make no difference, but did you try adjusting the slider in the video settings that shifts some of the planetary rendering over to the gpu? With a gtx 980 you have plenty of horsepower to spare to help out with the rendering load, and I'm curious how well that works (I dont have the juice to spare)
 

DaveB

DaveB
Lysander lysan said:
So it basically mean that FD "just" need to make the ultra high textures load sooner? can't we force the game to do that?
Click to expand...

Remember all the "graphics stuttering near planets" threads we used to have? want 'em back? In the game I'd personally take a few texture pops over framerate stutters. FD are adjusting things back and forth, feeling for the "sweet spot" but I'm under no illusions that they are optimizing it for my rig, I never had stuttering problems but my rig is a bit of a monster. If to prevent the folks I might be playing with from having stuttering issues I have to live with a few texture pops, I can do that.
 

Jukelo

Jukelo
DaveB said:
Remember all the "graphics stuttering near planets" threads we used to have? want 'em back? In the game I'd personally take a few texture pops over framerate stutters. FD are adjusting things back and forth, feeling for the "sweet spot" but I'm under no illusions that they are optimizing it for my rig, I never had stuttering problems but my rig is a bit of a monster. If to prevent the folks I might be playing with from having stuttering issues I have to live with a few texture pops, I can do that.
Click to expand...

But that's what graphical options are for.
 

DaveB

DaveB
Jukelo said:
But that's what graphical options are for.
Click to expand...

This is true, but even if you can set multiple levels the truth is that the balancing act still applies. Even the highest level of graphics quality in most games is not making the most of the capabilities of some of the users computers. That's why shader mods are out there, folks boosting the render quality even higher than the highest level you can achieve with the game options.
 
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