rf2 able to process more polys? or just a rummer?

There's one main thing that I keep wondering about, word has been going around for a long time now that rf2 will be able to support many many more polys than rf1, but I haven't seen anything official said about it yet. Unless I missed something somewhere and if so maybe someone could kindly point me there
I have seen the interior of the Nissan and it looks pretty heavy, but that can also be done with good textures and shaders.

If it's true, what sort of poly count are we looking at?

 

Scott said that gmts are cleaner and more streamlined, I would imagine while things are better optimised code wise and also in terms of making better use of current hardware, particularly shadows, but no doubt there will be new overheads taking its place, more data stored in memory and more data to be thrown around for the now more complex rendering to be done.

Shadows was one area of quite a big bottleneck in rF1 which is an area proably much better handled in rF2 with the new shadow system. You can get some heavy polycount cars in rF1 if you keep your shadows fairly conservative, disable car shadows and you can get some whopping framerates, increase them too much and you could kill FPS quite easily with a medium high poly car

In fact form my experience with superleagueformula, this was roughly rF 1.3xx , a slightly evolved rF1, was already quite a bit better in perfomanceover rF2 1.255 with minimal changes on a fairly high poly and high resolution textures car.

That said, it will obviously depend. If for instance you go with realtime reflections, you budget will have to be tighter compared with the old cubemap approach, both of these options will be available in rF2 we know. also depending what car shaders complexity they may have implemented, it will have a bearing.

 

A belated thanks Afborro!

Sorry for the major delay in thanking you, I did intend to when you first replied but I got distracted and never did . Just now I was prompted to come back and check this post out and I realised I never thanked you .

 

I did type this reply out in GTFREAK's tools thread, but thought it probably best if I post it here so as not to take it off topic.
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I think some people have been mislead by some examples that have been posted up as 'rf2 ready' models. Don't forget that these 'rf2 ready' models have been developed on rf1 with none of the new features. So to say 'if it works in rf1 it will work in rf2', is the wrong way to go about it. As Afborro states in his reply to my Q, there is also a lot of other stuff going on. Look at the system specs thread, all the things Tim talks about that the system needs to process. Plus we can't forget about track makers, we need to leave some poly's for them

My bet is around about 20k, which is still pretty high, you can do a car with all edges and seams without separating elements and keep it under 20k. If you mod is used mainly in the league scene, I'd go for 15-17k.

The only time you see the exterior model in a race is when your behind someone. In the spinner you can make a separate model. In the end, if your not sensible with your poly count, you will lose out, because people will just not play your mod. Anyone who can't understand that needs to go do some more research.

 

I appreciate that =)

 

Fixed. We'll see two kind of users in rFactor2 with radically different needs and points of view about poly count. The "I don't want to upgrade my pc" people , and the "I'm gonna buy a new beast just for rF2" users. ISI has said in a 64bit system we are allowed to use as much ram we can, so even if quad cores will not be initially supported bigger systems will take advantage of more RAM available, meaning 50 high poly cars on a new high poly track won't be an issue with the proper machine.

http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.p...cs-for-rFactor-2?p=12572&viewfull=1#post12572

 

Thanks for your input THUNDERBeaks. It's not about who's PC is bigger, its about finding common ground. Sure go for it, build your models high poly and race your friends. No one is stopping you I am simply offering my advice from what I have been researching and from personal experiences over the last few years.

But just to get some facts straight. Tim said "Executable is 32bit. But installing a 64bit OS is beneficial to allow you to access more than 4GB RAM."
That doesn't mean the game will use more than 4 gig, it means your computer system has access to more.

*I have only just recently learned about this stuff in the last couple of days, so anyone is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong here*.
A 32 bit app that has been set up right to use more ram, can only use up to 4 gig. If you had 4 gig of ram and say your system uses about 1 gig of it for normal running, then that only leaves 3 gig for your game. But if your pc has 6 gig, then you have an extra gig of ram to use for your game and your system also has an extra gig to use if it needs it.

Polys and textures are processed by the GPU and they go in the video ram (aswell as other things). So any amount of system ram is not going to help there. Although, in saying that, there is the possibility that with Win7 you have shared ram where the system will share ram with the video card and I do believe that if the system needed that ram, it will take it away from the video card, also it wont be as fast as using the vram.

So when you add all that up together, you will see that with today's level of technology, you still need to discipline yourself on how you go about developing game content.

 

I'm no expert either about how exactly a 64bit OS allow RAMs to a 32bit applictation so it would be interesting if someone tell us more, but let's not forget rF2 is a long term project, we'll find more optimized versions in the next years, quad core support, and maybe a proper 64bit version. To be honest I don't need to have absolutely 50 cars on the first rF2 releases, WSGT2 mod would be still cool with about 20 cars.

 

Isn't that what graphics options are for? Extremely high-poly models should be loaded only if you set vehicles detail level to max. Same thing with trackside objects. People with slower hardware can choose between high/medium/low settings which have less polys. Of course modders have to set up LODs accordingly for these settings to work.

 

Exactly, but if you start a mod with a substandard level of polygons in some zones of the car, like CTDP's F1 1994 which is planned to go in rF2, you can't use more details then that. The wheel and motec zones looks good but the part going from the mirrors to the tobacco sponsor looks very CHEAP and low poly . A shame because graphically it's going to be a substandard mod compared to WSGT2 and ISI stuff.
So don't get cheap modders, just create a high poly model for max settings and then scale it down for less powered pc's.

 

So what actually is high poly?

 

Thats a lot... Can you point any released mod for rF1 where such hi poly models have been used?

 

I agree 50k polys is alot, but LesiU might have a point there, looking at how long rF1 was actually active we are talking maybe 6-7 years of develupment in rF2 and by then our PCs will aloow for those models to play nicely, maybe even in leages. You aim high and let most of us use Medium or High level models (50k being Full) and then when the technoligy and our PCs are up for it we Can use 50k Models even on older mods.

 

I just modeled one car exterior with under 1000 polys and to me it looks good. So should I try to figure out where to add useless detail? Or is there great possibility that the model looks crap? Too bad I don't have pic right now but I can include one later.

Doesn't include interior, wheels, tires chassis parts thou...

 

http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=Nissan Xanavi GTR

By memory this was a pretty high-poly model, can't remember offhand how many though. I think it was over 100k, could be wrong though. I did get to see it in rf1 though and it looked rather nice. mianiak knows way more about this stuff than me but I can't remember if we ever worked out how many polys were in the model, I do recall you couldn't have too many cars visible at once or it killed fps.

 

Just to make a statement here being someone who works with various game engines. Engines including rF1 are not limited by polygons as people may think they are. Yes their scripting does make it somewhat better in rendering polygons but ultimately its the player's hardware that decides. I've been able to get twenty 60k polygon cars running with 87fps off the grid and all cars visible. But then my dev PC is a beast with three video cards. The engine will be able to sustain higher poly cars, its just a matter of if your individual comps will be able to run them.

 

Here is a test mod I quickly banged up. Just a simple car with wheels. Textures are all 2048 x 2048.
(pls don't complain about the physics or the alignment of the wheels, physics is not my thing )

MAX 50,192 Poly's,
HIGH 34,240 Poly's,
MED 8560 Poly's,
LOW 1804 Poly's

I suggest to set up a race weekend, start with 9 opponents, then run the race, then go up to 19 opponents, etc etc.

README
This is put together to test system performance under high poly loads.

You use this mod at your own risk. I take no responsibility for damages caused by the use of this mod.

Stressing computer components can cause a lot of heat, a lot of heat can damage computer parts, make sure to have adequate cooling before running this mod.

It is recommended that you have a basic understanding of computer components and their capabilities before you attempt to use this mod.

http://3rdgearmotorsports.com/wordpress/?file_id=30

 

Okay I maybe got and idea what this is all about. I understand that high poly is some what preferable, but also so that there is lower poly models for subpar computer users. Main thing is that all that is ALOT work. For single man modding team like me, there wouldn't be anything ever released if I had to try to cope with all needs. Making a 50000+ high poly model with appropriate detail matching cockpits and other details is tremendous work. Not to talk about when the same model should be downgraded for different detail levels. It alone too is tremendous work, it is not just about "applying a optimizer" but hand crafting. You want also those low poly models to look nice with people who has to use them.

My approach is quite about making as good models as possible with as less polys as possible. I think that is good guideline. Lot is also dependent on the actual cars too, open wheelers eat much more polys than basic full bodied and little bit older cars which has much more straight sheet metal. Cars with wings or without... I think it is nice that you could load 50 cars to a track and not having issues. Heck I can't do that with most of the mods Also have to remember, that we should leave some room for track makers. That is area where the detail really matters. I think there is as well other things to consider apart from direct exterior polycount; like texturing, damage models, detachable parts, chassis parts...

One thing I agree is that cockpit is something where you should throw some details, you will actually look it most of the time when you play.

Btw do you actually enjoy highpoly models in actual playing situation? Apart from spinner, replays and screenshots...