When you say in general that you want to optimize the game for a number of fps you are generally talking about consoles. You cannot talk about exact number in PC realm. The goal there is that it should run on average PC. Of course they will try to optimise as much as they can so more people can buy and play. But yes, he is a guy who prefers better graphics over 60 FPS… I am sure they solving AI is the priority right now and I hope they do a great improvement there.
1 Like
Except for Skyrim and Fallout its just one day, whereas my idea is per week 
So if its cpu bound should I be buying one of the new Broadwell 10 core / 20 thread chips to improve the frame rate?
Would a haswell-e hex core OC’d to 4.5 or higher help?
It is not.
Without storing information about every NPC only other option is to reset them everytime you appear.
Meaning that they would have “starting points” from which they would start again and again. Which would mean that you could affect only few NPCs that would have to be specificaly programed to act in some way to your specific action.
Without storing this informations people would not have thier life cycles, They woud be lifeless bodies like in every other game.
That is reasonable fear, but unjustified. I dont think that WH would release game that runs on 30fps at best and can drop to single digits. They just woudnt be able to afford it if they intend to relase Act2.
Not the storing part, the long distant simulation part.
That is connected. If you dont store information from every NPC (even the far away ones) then how is the game supposed to know what the NPC is supposed to do when it is eventually loaded?
I know WH doesn’t want to spawn people in it, but couldn’t it be so that the NPC spawn at a logic location (for example their farm or their shop (at 13 o’clock for example when the player is near) or that they spawn at the local tavern. And from there make their decissions. That way the game doesn’t have to store every NPC’s location and then the npc’s still have their own decisions. so for example: the smith spawns in his house when you are 2 km away from him. then when you are there he could have had ennough idea’s for what he wanted to do (eat, work, drink) but it doesn’t have to be 1 spawn point. It can be at the tavern, the shop, the place he works, the street, the woods. I understand that would make a problem for spawning, but you can programm it so, that a npc can’t spawn at the same place as the oter (like in the same square meter) and not all spawn in the street, so for that you could make a logaritm, like 3 on the streets, 2 at the bar, 5 at their home working (for example) and then the do what they would do what they would normaly do.
I think this will improve both cpu and it will still be the npc’s who make the decissions for themself.
Yes there will be spawning, WH test this in the beta with some “random events”. The first cuman on the road behind the quarry came from nowhere. It´s a scripted event.
In the moment all the AI needs to much CPU power, and will be (hopefully heavy) optimized. It´s their goal to bring much more live into the streets.
Maybe WH will do a mixed strategy. Important NPC with full AI, and “placeholder” NPC with a basic AI, which disapear when the Player is around the corner.
But this is just my 2 cents…
WH explained this on today live stream. In short, they are implementing some kind of LOD for AI just as you suggested.
You’re mixing up state saving and simulation here. If you weren’t near the npc when you logged out, then just load it assuming it’s a regular day at that time for that npc (unless dead)
The current bottle neck is 100% CPU.[quote=“GingerFOX, post:20, topic:27257, full:true”]
WH explained this on today live stream. In short, they are implementing some kind of LOD for AI just as you suggested.
[/quote]
I must have missed that part.
It makes sense though. How does an NPC that is on the other side of the map deciding to eat an apple instead of a loaf of bread effect the game in the slightest?
Was a great stream though and good to hear that everything is being taken on board.
I have a 4930k (6 cores, 12 threads) that’s overclocked to 4.4GHz and I don’t really get over 45fps. The bottle neck is happening on a single core so if they can optimize the games to use more cores then they are golden.
1 Like
Dark,
What graphics setup? Which resolution? Low, medium, high graphics settings? Where in the game?
45 would be a big improvement for me. I’m typically getting around 28.
I was running around today on ‘Very High’ with motion blur turned off (everything else default) and I was getting between 25ish and 40fps (I actually ran around the border of the map to get a feel for the size of it). It was probably averaging around 35ish.
I haven’t tried any lower settings since today’s patch but previously I think they would average of around 45.
(My GFX card is a 295x2 as well btw, but I have crossfire turned off so its the equivalent of a 290x)
I gave this NPC on the other side of the map a poisoned apple.
All of a sudden it is a game altering, very important decision whether the NPC eats the apple or the loaf of bread.
There is just so much to consider…
2 Likes
Something like that would require interaction with the NPC (Give the NPC an Apple) which could then flag the SINGLE NPC to allow his or her AI to continue operating when you’re on the other side of the map.
Maybe I should have said “How does a village of NPCs that are on the other side of the map deciding what to eat effect the game in the slightest?”
This LOD (Level of Detail) sounds really interesting. I dont´n if they have only two steps or more.
Step one:
The NPC go only to work and sleep.
Step two:
NPC have full AI
Or are there more intermediate steps…
On the other side, what will happen with this “random event” NPCs? Will they get a full live cycle, or will they only disapear?
But what is if I did not give him the poisoned apple directly but just placed it in his storage at home… Or put one poisoned apple into a bunch of apples on the market.
I don’t think it is that simple.
I decided to conduct an experiment today. This morning I started a new game as Henry the Despoiler and set about systematically slaughtering every NPC I could lay my hands on, the soldier camps were not easy, (especially since some of them kept locking me into their “Stop right there criminal scum” dialogue while I was in the middle of combat trying to kill them) despite this goofiness and after much bow kiting I’ve now gotten to the stage where it’s becoming increasingly hard to find anyone still alive, those that are still alive are being very uncooperative, running away at the first sight of me which is making killing them very awkward. I can report however that the game is running much smoother now and an increase of around 10 fps overall is average so it would appear that the NPC’s and all that’s going on in the background to support them is putting a notable load on the system. Not a criticism of how WH is doing it, just an observation.
2 Likes
Its still interaction which could trigger a flag on NPC that owns the storage…
Not sure what this would accomplish apart from killing a random NPC, but… Have it trigger a scripted event that can run when the player isn’t in the area. The scripted event could include elements of RNG (different NPCs each time and such). This would give the illusion of AI while keeping resource usage low and progressing the story in a timely manner instead of waiting for an NPC to decide to eat the apple (and even then, the NPC needs to take the poisoned one).
There are a lot of things the developers can do and I’m sure they are much smarter than me and have already started working out how they can deal with the AI issue without compromising the game,