+showbudget and swap buffers. argh!

[poseyjmac]

certain part of my map there is way too much swap buffer usage. it doesn't really phase my main machine with the x800xt, but on the machine im testing my map on has a geforce 3 and this area just kills the framerate. but only because of the swap buffers. world rendering and props are very low on the bar graph.

anyone know what things might cause swap buffers to go high? other parts of my map are much more detailed, yet there isn't as much swap buffer usage, so the geforce3 machine gets good framerate.

 

[d'keesto]

Swap buffers go high from refractions and reflections (and maybe fog?) so it's probably from having too much expensive water.

 

[poseyjmac]

no water or fog. refractions and relflections though. that could be it, they are very reflective citadel textures in this area. thanks i think this is the problem.

 

[poseyjmac]

yea its definately the cause, went from 40fps to 100fps. but see the thing is i don't want these walls to have specular in the first place, but there is no non-reflective verison of these textures to choose. so i tried making a env_cubemap in a pitch black cube, but that apparently didn't help framerate. any ideas on how to forcefully stop the specular from showing up? thanks for the help so far

 

[d'keesto]

This is a wild guess, but maybe lower the size of the env_cubemaps in their properties.

 

[Ti133700N]

Make a new vmt file without the specular. Well... extract the vmt with gcf scape, put it in the materials directory (and the good sub directory) and comment the lines with the specular properties (probably $envmap "env_cubemap").

 

[Mr Neutron]

don't know if this material hack will disquadlify your map from the contest; it's not really a new texture, but...?

 

[poseyjmac]

anything custom disqualifies you from the contest unfortunately. im just going to have to make something totally different in that area. its ok though. my map is going to be a bit wacky

 

[Ti133700N]

Oh! It's a map for the contest! Sorry I didn't know, well like you said, you should use another texture then...

 

[poseyjmac]

ok i can't make something totally different, its too much of acompromise for such a lame-ass thing. its not like i can use a wood texture in part of a citadel. i somehow need to turn off specular completley in my map, i can't rely on clients to turn it off themselves.

any ideas? tried different cubemap sizes, it does nothing. i can't SEE any specular, but its there, and once i turn off the variable i gain 40fps. its ridiculous.

 

[poseyjmac]

i think i found my only hope, its an entity called: material_modify_control

you can dynamically change the variables in the VMT file. ive been trying to download gcfscape so i can look at the vmt, but the download is down or something, does someone know the vmt command that specifies specularity in a material? also if this works, i can give a small tut on how to exclude certain surfaces for specularity on surfaces that you don't want.

 

[poseyjmac]

alright i found a sample vmf file, but the entity just isn't working. and of courrse there is no good explanation on precise syntax.

 

[poseyjmac]

ill give you a million dollars if you get the material_modify_control entity working and you will be considered a god among gods.

 

[poseyjmac]

shit on a stick