ARK: Survival Evolved

ARK: Survival Evolved

TorchBoost
 This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important
Drathek  [developer] 29 Jul, 2015 @ 11:00pm
Collision based smoke feedback
Version 2.3 of my mod introduces collision based particles (cpu driven) that collide with structures (and it seems players?) for the client up to 5000 units away. Please let me know if there is a significant performance impact on your game with the campfire and torch particle effects or any other concerns. I intended to make this smokey effect exclusive to burning oil fuel, but until I have that system in place I have the effect on for testing.
Last edited by Drathek; 29 Jul, 2015 @ 11:01pm
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Showing 1-12 of 12 comments
frostyTS 30 Jul, 2015 @ 7:39am 
Seems like quite a bit of smoke for torches until I read that it's intended for when i'ts burning oil.

One thing that might be cool would be to allow the use of dyes to make colored smoke.
I haven't noticed any issues with performance and I have a LOT of the torches out. :)

Keep up the good work, this is my favorite (and only) mod!
Drathek  [developer] 30 Jul, 2015 @ 2:07pm 
Originally posted by frostyTS:
Seems like quite a bit of smoke for torches until I read that it's intended for when i'ts burning oil.

One thing that might be cool would be to allow the use of dyes to make colored smoke.
I haven't noticed any issues with performance and I have a LOT of the torches out. :)

Keep up the good work, this is my favorite (and only) mod!
Good to hear, hopefully I don't run in to a road block for making the smoke check for oil fuel because I really like how this new particle system turned out. :D
Drathek  [developer] 30 Jul, 2015 @ 9:25pm 
It seems that the particles when open air are not having much trouble, but certain older generation cards have trouble with the smoke indoors. I will be drastically reducing the number of collisions allowed (before the specific particle dies) to help with this.
ziggrrauglurr 4 Aug, 2015 @ 10:54am 
Hi, love your mod, Is there a way to disable the smoke effect? (I tried searching the comments but didn't found anything); Over half the players in our private server have older generation cards, or their setup is barely enough to play the game, it seems the smoke in heavily lit areas (Bases & caves) is impacting their FPS big time. If there isn't, would you consider adding such a configuration option? Keep up the good work!
Drathek  [developer] 4 Aug, 2015 @ 4:39pm 
Originally posted by ziggrrauglurr:
Hi, love your mod, Is there a way to disable the smoke effect? (I tried searching the comments but didn't found anything); Over half the players in our private server have older generation cards, or their setup is barely enough to play the game, it seems the smoke in heavily lit areas (Bases & caves) is impacting their FPS big time. If there isn't, would you consider adding such a configuration option? Keep up the good work!
I was excited at first to not see any responses of bad performance but my friend and now you mention that somehow older generation cards handle these particles poorly; or atleast their collisions. I want this smoke to be exclusive to burning with oil but until I had that system in place I wanted it to be turned on just so people could help me test. I am sorry it has cut back on your friend's fps. I will be looking at solutions for making it exclusive to oil or a configuration today but if I can't find anything I will just upload an update that has the new smoke temporarily disabled.

On a side note, are they getting a fps drop even if all the active torches are outside where the particles don't have anything to bump in to?
Drathek  [developer] 4 Aug, 2015 @ 5:25pm 
Actually, I already have an update for this. I have found where I can tie just the oil smoke to the user's scalability group Effects Quality. I will be making it only appear if the user has selected 2 or 3 for their effects value. We can determine later if this should be a 3 only setting (to give an idea an effects quality of 1 removes the reflective water effect from water taps). Looking in to making this exclusive to oil only but expect an update soon :D
ziggrrauglurr 5 Aug, 2015 @ 1:36pm 
IMHO I feel it's a level 2 configuration, because Level 1 is what people with old cards/bad performance, would select. Therefore anyone with a decent rig will have no problem with it enabled. Thank you again for your response, and this mod in general!
ziggrrauglurr 18 Aug, 2015 @ 5:24pm 
Question, quality on high/epic, is this how it's supposed to look? http://i.imgur.com/T8N3dTR.jpg
Drathek  [developer] 18 Aug, 2015 @ 9:47pm 
Do the particles not collide ever for you? Or is that after spinning the camera around or doing something? This is what I see: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/drathek/screenshot/422564128545993419
-Neighbor- 19 Aug, 2015 @ 6:35am 
Originally posted by Drathek:
Originally posted by ziggrrauglurr:
Hi, love your mod, Is there a way to disable the smoke effect? (I tried searching the comments but didn't found anything); Over half the players in our private server have older generation cards, or their setup is barely enough to play the game, it seems the smoke in heavily lit areas (Bases & caves) is impacting their FPS big time. If there isn't, would you consider adding such a configuration option? Keep up the good work!
I was excited at first to not see any responses of bad performance but my friend and now you mention that somehow older generation cards handle these particles poorly; or atleast their collisions. I want this smoke to be exclusive to burning with oil but until I had that system in place I wanted it to be turned on just so people could help me test. I am sorry it has cut back on your friend's fps. I will be looking at solutions for making it exclusive to oil or a configuration today but if I can't find anything I will just upload an update that has the new smoke temporarily disabled.

On a side note, are they getting a fps drop even if all the active torches are outside where the particles don't have anything to bump in to?

Ive been running this on my server for about 3 days or so now, through the 201 update... seems to be fine. but players have not said anything about fps drops, i do notice it a bit with my 770....

Very nice mod overall though! i like it alot and so do the players!

Currently running on : Neighbors Park/2xGather/2xTamespeed/2XP - (v201.0)

Mods: 478736056,499751025
ziggrrauglurr 19 Aug, 2015 @ 4:02pm 
Nope, normal playing, finally got around to set some on our mountain base, and put one inside the house, noticed smoke on the room over it, so did this little building to test. Nothing special. Will set everything in epic and check again if you want
Drathek  [developer] 19 Aug, 2015 @ 7:25pm 
Originally posted by ziggrrauglurr:
Nope, normal playing, finally got around to set some on our mountain base, and put one inside the house, noticed smoke on the room over it, so did this little building to test. Nothing special. Will set everything in epic and check again if you want
Yeah I am not sure entirely what would be disabling collisions for you - it may just be the hardware and it not supporting that feature of the emitter, but that would be surprising. There shouldn't be any LOD or quality setting that turns collision on or off, its only set to hide the smoke entirely if the effects scalability quality is set too low.
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