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.
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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.
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…
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.
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,
Maybe it’s possible to put all AI calculations in a separate thread? Or it’s time for a specialized AI card/cpu like PhysX 
