FPS / performance / track detail

[Alex Kyriak]

Hi all,

Am building my first track for use in RFactor, and I’m curious about FPS and my track’s general performance when running. I’m keeping an eye on the FPS as the track is increasing in complexity as I’m building it. On my particular system, FPS is generally at 160-180, with quite a lot of trees, walls and terrain added. Am also aware this is without a grid of 16 cars on show also.

• Does 160 equate to 160 frames per second? (sorry if this is a stupid question, it’s just that a number like 160 seems quite high)
• I’ve seen the LOD figure on terrain and objects. Is this to do with the draw distance? I presume reducing this on objects and scenery will affect the frame rate for the better, but may induce pop-up if put too low.
• Shadows – currently there are none in my track, but I want to add them soon. Presumably there are performance hits using shadows. Any recommendations for techniques and methods for implementing shadows, and what sort of performance hit I could expect?

My system is:
3.3ghz (overclocked from 2.8) quadcore Intel CPU, NVidia 275GTX, Vista 64 bit, 4gb ram.

(By the way, for the newbies like me, Ctrl-F displays frame per second in RFactor – I only just discovered it…!)

Thanks to anyone who can enlighten me to the above - I don’t want to build a track noone can use!

Thanks :smile-big:

 

[R Soul]

It is 160 frames per second. I think it's so high because your graphic cards are designed to render 5* times as much detail as your track has.

LOD stands for level of detail. I've never used it but I know it's based on distance.

*Courtesy of the National Guesswork Authority

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Thanks (and thanks to the NGA ;-) ).

Anyone have anything to say about shadows or have any threads or tutorials in mind? I've played with getting some trees to do shadow, but not sure if they're correct. It seem only the trunk is casting shadow, not the whole tree shape: leaves, branches, etc. Ie, I get thin shadows from a large round shape! Any good techniques / sources of objects, textures, tutorials, threads? Thanks all.