New Map? - Discussion

[Pollux]

If you really want to know how good performance is, please read this entire post. This one is about Ranox as a lot of you have been talking about it. Please also read my previous post on V4B1 so you can compare the two maps and judge how much better performance will be for you.

V4B1 Performance: https://www.fearlessrp.net/showthread.ph...#pid815692
Chaos performance: https://www.fearlessrp.net/showthread.ph...#pid815724

Anything drawn with the wireframe is what is being rendered on someone's screen, this is a debug tool used to help with visibility optimisation when making maps. Shadows have also been disabled and fullbright is on, so the map looks a lot worse than what it normally is. I am only going to be looking at performance, not at how a map looks or at functions of a building. I am going to do one map per post, as i'm easily going to reach the character limit in these posts.

Each section will gain a score out of 10. The scores mean the following:

0: No optimisation

1-3: Poor

4-6: Decent

7-10: Good

Wireframe guide:

Models: Cyan
Sprites: Green
Displacements: White
Decals and Overlays: Yellow

Areaportals: Green

Rannox

Summary: 

Rannox is a very well made and detailed map which not many people know about. It's sort of the underdog here against well established maps like V4B1 and V5P. The map does not support StormFox well so make sure you disable that. It is the smallest map out of all the ones suggested so far. The map likes to more detailed textures but in lower quantities. It's for sure a lot more simple than V4B1 and Chaos. The map is very well optimised with areas being split up depending on how busy they're expected to be, the AggRP areas are especially nice as Industrial is split up into two different sections. 

For ranox, I will be splitting it up into the following areas: City, Jails, Farms, Lake, Villas/Villa Farms, Industrial/Fire, Industrial

Industrial fire is the section with the firestation, Industrial is the section at the back with the bar.

City

Let's start with a 360 outside the main shopping center:

https://youtu.be/5yWccE0Z6nI

I think the first thing that stands out is how much less clutter there is compared to V4B1 and Chaos. The map is simple, which helps it a lot when it comes to performance. 

Spoiler: Looking out towards beach

Just like V4B1, i'm going to freeze the PVS here and see how much is rendered from standing outside the main shopping center. By freezing the PVS, the game will not render any new items. This means I can walk around the map to get a closeup of what exactly is rendered while I am standing outside the shopping center.

Just from the first screenshot, it is clear this map is much more optimised than V4B1 as the city isn't rendering everything to me. Here we will have a closeup of the bank, which is a building directly opposite the shopping center and has windows.

Spoiler: Bank view rendered as if we're standing at shopping center

Only props that are visible through the windows have been rendered, a few others slightly to the sides have too but this is perfectly fine. Going inside the bank shows this more clearly.

Spoiler: Inside bank rendered as if we're outside shopping center

Even an entire chunk of the floor is missing as the map has told the engine there is no way we can see it from our current position. This is already much better than V4B1, which rendered everything inside.

Going into the bank confirms this, as the entire basement level hasn't loaded in either.

Spoiler: Picture of bank stairs rendered as if we're outside shopping center

Rooms and doors behind a door haven't been loaded in either

[spoiler="Picture of bank back room, 1st picture is from shopping center and 2nd is as if we're there"]


[/spoiler]

This is pretty consistent throughout the city. Being honest, I really didn't expect this considering how some people have been complaining of poor performance on this map. To those with bad performance, please do disable StormFox and try again as it isn't supported fully on this map.

Lets see how much has rendered on the beach side of the city, as most of the items here are still out of view from the shopping center.

Spoiler: Beach side of city, rendered as if we're outside the shopping center

The game isn't even rendering the windows and doors we can't see, let alone the interior of the buildings. The game is pretending they're all "fake" buildings as we cannot see them. The sloped beach doesn't even load in either due to it being out of view. As the player gets closer to the beach side, all these items gradually load in.

Now that we've explored the area in front of the player at the shopping center, lets take a look at the areas to the side and behind.

The police station, hospital and apartments to the direct side of the player haven't loaded in due to them being out of view.

Spoiler: Police station, hospital and apartment front

I think it is important to note the apartments inside have slightly loaded in, this is likely due to the window being slightly visible though.

Spoiler: Semi loaded apartment

Behind us, not even the entire shopping center has loaded in. Some shops out of view are only partially loaded.

[spoiler="Partially loaded shop"]

[/spoiler]

Town hall has also been partially loaded in. This is due to the amount of windows in the shopping center. While the map is well optimised, the game has found that the player can potentially see town hall through 4 windows and as such has loaded it in. 

Spoiler: Town Hall

This isn't too big of a deal. Town hall has been optimised well so only the right side has rendered.

NOTE: I just realised I had shadows on, they're turned off from now on in screenshots and videos. This doesn't affect what is being drawn in anyway, just the FPS and overall clutter in the screenshots and stuff.

While inside buildings, the outside world isn't all drawn either. I did find a few weird issues though.

While on the apartment stairs, all the apartments are rendered. It goes back to normal once you get off the stairs

Spoiler: Apartment Stairs rendering all apartments

This causes my GPU to spike up to 50%, this isn't as bad as the V4B1 villas issue so i'm not going to penalise it as hard.

Other buildings seem to do this fine though.

Spoiler: Other buildings not rendering the outside world

It may be hard to see exactly how well it's working, so here's a comparison.

Spoiler: Hotel comparison

Here's a flythrough of the city, entering from the farms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6upbqzAK_XQ

City overall score:

8/10 - Overall the city is very well optimised. The map creator clearly took visibility optimisation as a priority and it shows through the map. I subtracted two points due to minor issues at the apartments and hospital with a few items being a bit strange. I am quite impressed, as I didn't expect it to score this high in the city at all.

Jails

The interior of the jails are optimised to every corner of a room.

Spoiler: Control room vs outside jail cell view

The jail only load bit by bit depending on what you can see in the room you're in. It's very clear how much effort went into optimising this area. The only thing that lets it down is it rendering stuff outside of the jails.

Spoiler: Rendering a few things outside

The trees also do not have LOD, which has been reflected in the score.

Jails overall score:

8/10 - It's a shame, I was going to give it a perfect 10/10 until I saw it rendering stuff outside and that the trees have no LOD. Regardless, there is no big performance impact so I still gave it a good score. You AggRP or Gov players should have a lot of fun defending or attacking these jails, especially with high frames!

Farms

Spoiler: View from both tunnels

The farms takes up quite a small area, which is likely why there's two of them. There's just two simple fields, a few rocks and a barn.

The only issue with this is that the entire area is loaded at once if you're in it. I am not able to only get a portion to load anywhere in this section of the map. There is however LOD in the grass, so at least there's something.

Spoiler: Grass LOD

While there isn't really any optimisation done to this area, it also really isn't required as the area is so small.

Farms overall score:

7/10 - I didn't really punish nightingale that much for not really having anything, so I don't see why I should here. The area isn't loaded unless you enter it via the two tunnels. It's so small that I don't really see any benefit if the barn had an areaportal or something.

Lake

The lake is the biggest area on the map

Spoiler: View from city tunnel

Similar to on Chaoscity, the rocks do not hide objects behind them. We also seem to be loading parts of the city as we get close.

Spoiler: City loading

Parts of the jails are also loaded in while at the lake

Spoiler: Jails loading

I'm not too sure if this is to make entering those areas smoother (as the lake connects to both of them). It only occurs when we get close to their tunnels as if we're going to go through, so i'm not going to penalise it.

The lake area contains lots of trees, rocks and grass. Only the grass seems to have LOD set up correctly. The area also has two buildings which we will focus on. Both buildings are empty so we cannot test if things are being rendered inside of them. Doors are however not loading in until they are in view, so I think it is safe to assume the two buildings are optimised.

Spoiler: Door loading in

The buildings only hide some stuff outside it.

Spoiler: Unnecessary props being rendered

Lake overall score:

5/10 - While I understand this is a large open area and as such extremely hard to optimise, the hills and rocks could be used more tactically to hide items behind them.

Villa/Villa Farms

Spoiler: Villa overview

Villas are very well optimised to each corner of a room, much like the jails.

Spoiler: Toilet hidden around corner

This is the same for each house in the villa area. The only issue I can find is it rendering trees which should be hidden

Spoiler: Rendering trees

It does only render a small area of trees though, so it isn't too much of an issue. It does seem to happen in all of the villa houses, which it rendering a different amount of trees in each house. The windows all do also have LOD though, which improves performance when looking through at a distance.

Next to the villas, there's a forest with a farm house and a barn. While the interiors are optimised well, they have the same issue of rendering everything around it. The same issue exists with the barn.

Spoiler: Farm house and barn rendering everything around it

Villa/Villa Farms overall:

5/10 - While the villas area is fine, the farm bit really does decrease performance here due to it still rendering everything outside the house.

Industrial/Fire

This area is extremely weird, as while it is very small it's obvious there's been an attempt to optimise it. I say attempt because it only works depending on where you are standing.

Spoiler: Interior of fire house shows depending on player position

This is extremely weird, as it's clear that it should be working but there seems to be a bug which is preventing it from always doing so. The same exists for the other industrial building opposite.

Spoiler: Industrial building only showing portion of outside depending on player position

As the area is so small though (only two buildings), there is very little performance impact even if it was drawing everything visible in that area.


The issue is worse in the small industrial building, as it also starts to render a bit of the villa area too.

Spoiler: Rendering villa area from inside industrial building

Industrial/Fire overall score:

6/10 - Honestly it just seems like there's a slight bug here, i'm still going to lower the score as it does not seem like the map will be updated.

Industrial

This area has quite high frames due to only one tunnel leading into it. The area itself is also quite small with only 4 buildings, but there are still a few issues.

The bar does not hide its props.

Spoiler: Bar props visible

The area seems to have the same issues as the previous industrial area, it is a bit better though as there's very few props here and they're hidden more frequently.

Spoiler: Building not rendering props inside

There's also a very few trees here too. Out of the entire map, this is where I personally get the highest frames (200).

Industrial overall score:

7/10 - While there are a few issues, the area is small with very little props. This results in it being very performance friendly. This is especially good for FL as this will be the main AggRP area, shootouts should be fun due to the extremely high FPS.

Misc

I noticed the server usage spiking every 5 seconds or so, after investigation it seems like the map is executing lua around this sign. The code is preventing it from being blocked by any props (if a prop is over it, it will remove it).

This is not an issue as map lua can easily be blocked using this function:
https://wiki.garrysmod.com/page/GM/AcceptInput

Spoiler: Sign

Ranox conclusion/TL;DR

City Score: 8/10
Jails Score: 8/10
Farms Score: 7/10
Lake Score: 5/10
Villa/Villa Farms Score: 5/10
Industrial/Fire Score: 6/10
Industrial Score: 7/10

Map overall: 7/10 (rounded up)

The map is well optimised and compact, resulting in better performance overall. Each area is isolated well. The only concern is the map may be too small, resulting in too many players in one area (eg. City) which could result in worse performance on a full server.

Just chaoscity left now, which seems to just be a slightly better V4B1 so far.