[PERFORMANCE] Character Model Limit 'None'

[Mystical.4586]

Hello everyone/ArenaNet?,

As we all know, performance in the game hasn't been improving over the years.I hear people complaining about the game performance almost every day, saying that the game needs to be 'upgraded to dx12'.While I think this might improve performance, it's too big of a 'refactor' to actually make it worthwhile for the devs to do this.

Another option would be for the devs to add the option 'None' to the 'Character Model Limit' section. Or fix the 'Lowest' setting.As we all know this option has a big impact on performance. But even on the Lowest setting it still shows a lot of stuff it should not show in my opinion.For example, a lot of gemstore skins are still shown on Lowest, and clones have a massive impact as well (during Largos FPS drops to almost 5 while in other areas it's 30).Whenever I free roam through the world I get between 40 and 60 fps depending on the map. When more players join me/are rendered, I mostly crash to 5-10fps.

I don't think implementing such an option, or revisiting the 'Lowest' option, would take a huge amount of development time.A lot of us have been playing the game for many years on the same computer/laptop, and while upgrading hardware can help, most of us just play guildwars on it so it's not worth it.

Such a small change could get our potato back to 30fps/60fps/playable game in my opinion.(If you're a developer reading this, please ask around if someone is able to do a quick test with lowering the character model even more and see if it works :D)

Greetings,Mystical

[Kyrios.8736]

There are many easy things devs can do that can improve game for a lot of players, and this is one of them. Good suggestion.

[Astyrah.4015]

@Kyrios.8736 said:There are many easy things devs can do that can improve game for a lot of players, and this is one of them. Good suggestion.

a setting to output only yourself + npcs/enemies would be really useful for pve openworld. but for instanced content such as fractals, strikes and raids, might need to have it forced to show squad or party.

that said a setting like this would be useful for those who treat/play the game as a solo experience/single player

[Mystical.4586]

@Astyrah.4015 said:

@Kyrios.8736 said:There are many easy things devs can do that can improve game for a lot of players, and this is one of them. Good suggestion.

a setting to output only yourself + npcs/enemies would be really useful for pve openworld. but for instanced content such as fractals, strikes and raids, might need to have it forced to show squad or party.

that said a setting like this would be useful for those who treat/play the game as a solo experience/single player

I agree with the show squad or party, but most raiders know they need to set the setting to at least Medium to be able to play.I think simply tuning down the Lowest setting even further would be the most beneficial and quickest win without them breaking something.

Not really agreed on the solo experience/single player part. Whenever I am in a squad, during any meta event, I only see name tags everywhere. The issue now is, the Lowest setting renders maybe 10 players closest to me. But I cannot see them anyway because 1. my FPS is low due to this issue and 2. there's too many name tags around.Thus I think creating a 'None' option would not make the game feel any different/more single player but it would increase FPS a lot.

[Dawdler.8521]

Charcter model limit only change the amount of visible characters on screen, not skins. Thats character model quality, which you can turn down to generic characters. Are you changing the wrong setting or just wrote wrong?

[maddoctor.2738]

Guild Wars 2 used to have something similar (culling) but it was removed: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/world-vs-worldthe-end-of-culling/

From that post:

In order to cut down on the network resources that were used by the game and to reduce the client-side system requirements, we implemented a culling system, which imposed a limit on the number of characters that could ever be reported to your client. This meant that only the characters closest to you would actually get reported.

The system used in the game now has two major drawbacks:a) it doesn't reduce effects (see the first comparison picture above), even with the lowest settings, you still see particle effects (I know what is shown in that picture isn't how the game is now, but effects are not removed anyway, or are proximity based)b) character removal is proximity based. This means even at the LOWEST character model limit/quality you will still see dozens of players when stacked to attack the foot of Shatterer, or an Octovine, or any other open world event.

In the game Black Desert Online they have two graphic settings that can work in Guild Wars 2:Hide other adventurers, which does what it says, hides other players when there are too many of them, and you are in combat (doesn't hide players in cities), it's NOT proximity based, but number based, once a certain number is exceeded everyone around you disappear, no matter how close. This means when fighting world bosses you are seen as soloing themHide other adventurer's effects, which also does what it says, it removes particle effects from other players. So even with 1000 players attacking one boss, you will only see your own effects.

Both of these are badly needed in Guild Wars 2 and could increase the performance of the game by a lot.

[Infusion.7149]

Umbra culling was used. It's not as simple as you make it where they could just adjust some setting and magically change culling.https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/175859/Guild_Wars_2reg_to_take_advantage_of_UmbrarsquosRendering_Optimization_Technology.php

If I remember correctly it also uses Havok physics engine. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120828005201/en/Havok-AI-and-Havok-Physics-Power-Award-Winning-Guild-Wars-2%C2%AE-from-NCsoft%C2%AE

For me the biggest issue right now is if you set model limit and quality to low or lowest it still renders the flashy backpacks that supposedly tank FPS for people. I often play chrono and this is an issue; I don't even use a gemstore backpack. You would think effect LOD turns that stuff off. In WvW it should have an even lower setting : standard models except for your commander and your subgroup.

In WVW I always turn on standard enemy models.

[Yggranya.5201]

@Dawdler.8521 said:Charcter model limit only change the amount of visible characters on screen, not skins. Thats character model quality, which you can turn down to generic characters. Are you changing the wrong setting or just wrote wrong?

One would think when you lower your own settings to improve your performance, glowy things on other people would be the first thing to go, since that would be a big help. But i guess people buy things from the gemstore to rub on other peoples faces, not for their own enjoyment... What i'm saying is that it's petty to argue semantics.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Infusion.7149 said:You would think effect LOD turns that stuff off

That's because effect LOD, much like the character quality settings, is proximity based. You won't see distant effects, you won't see distant characters, but if players are stacked they will all be visible, which is why the game has such horrible performance when many players are involved (meta events, wvw and so on). When fighting Tequatl for example, even at lowest settings you will see all the symbols and lava fonts.

To be honest, just toggling all effects on/off, things like hit effects, bleeding/burning, symbols, fields and so on, should improve performance a LOT in those cases. Just keep red circles on, we don't have to see the rest of the effect.

[Follyfoot.2803]

If they could remove all or some of those special effects in fights that would be a good start. Maybe then we could get to see what is going on.

[ShadowCatz.8437]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Infusion.7149 said:You would think effect LOD turns that stuff off

That's because effect LOD, much like the character quality settings, is proximity based. You won't see distant effects, you won't see distant characters, but if players are stacked they will all be visible, which is why the game has such horrible performance when many players are involved (meta events, wvw and so on). When fighting Tequatl for example, even at lowest settings you will see all the symbols and lava fonts.

To be honest, just toggling all effects on/off, things like hit effects, bleeding/burning, symbols, fields and so on, should improve performance a LOT in those cases. Just keep red circles on, we don't have to see the rest of the effect.

ANet could just replace AoE and cone/rectangle AoE with a coloured outline (friendly green, heal blue or strong blue depending on which is the surrounding colour that would make this outline invisible and so on; danger/enemy AoE with a strong red/purple AoE pulsating and for condition a symbol for whether it is water/chill, fire or confusion/torment or poison (maybe use another line in the edge to give that information). My point is that instead of using particle effect to imitate smoke, fire, poison or any other effect that it is possible to simplify with less visual clutter and gain more performance if ANet change AoE into outline, maybe combine with some lines that goes from centre out to the edges of circle, rectangle or cone form of AoE and change between pulsating or static to indicate different type of AoE.

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

I don't think having allied player name tags instead of their char model affects fps. Even if there are max players in a map gathered in a single spot all their tags visible( and char model limit lowest, char model quality highest, effect lod ) won't drop FPS right?Just asking coz that's the setting I have. If name tags too drop more than ~10 fps, I'll hide name tags too

[Astyrah.4015]

@Crystal Paladin.3871 said:I don't think having allied player name tags instead of their char model affects fps. Even if there are max players in a map gathered in a single spot all their tags visible( and char model limit lowest, char model quality highest, effect lod ) won't drop FPS right?Just asking coz that's the setting I have. If name tags too drop more than ~10 fps, I'll hide name tags too

the nameplates affect FPS but only in very large numbers (high entity count).

to test this join a popular full meta map. and join the squad of a commander running it. enter a big fight.

then leave the squad and turn off all nameplates (including your own if you want) except for enemy nameplates and notice the fps difference (it's about 3~10fps depending on hardware)

[KrHome.1920]

Character Models are actually what saves the game's poor mainthread behaviour, because it puts load on the other threads. So multicore CPUs don't look that terrible.

The following screen is the CPU usage on an empty PoF map. The red square is the mainthread, which limits the performance as it is at 100% all the time. Every single character one the screen puts additional load on the other threads, increasing the overal usage of the CPU.

[The Boz.2038]

Also, the whole fashion wars thing is not about randoms, mostly, but about friends and guildmates. Graphical culling should really take into consideration if someone is a friend or a guildie before being rendered as a black void.