Time to talk gameconfig
-
Go to gta5-mods.com and search gameconfig. So many, and each author claiming this and that. Once we download them, and make a side-by-side comparison to the vanilla gameconfig, we see a trend that says "let's throw as many increased values as possible, and see what sticks". Do these authors even know what they are doing?
For the PC, there is no such thing as a "universal gameconfig" that will make a PC be able to do more than otherwise capable. It is true that a customized gameconfig can produce better results than the vanilla, but equally true that it can also cause issues with PCs that have little memory to accommodate such increases.
The gameconfig is responsible for memory management. It provides a map which instructs that game engine how much real estate it has to allocate for all functions and resources required to make the game run, and be stable. If not optimized, we may suffer from things like texture pop-in, models not fully loading, missing collisions, graphical glitches, crashes to desktop, etc.
There is a reason the gameconfig is so underwhelming in terms of what it can allow us to do, with PC-capable hardware, and extra heap - thanks to the heap limit adjuster - which was developed a few months ago, and provided to us here - https://www.gta5-mod...-600-mb-of-heap
The reason the default gameconfig is so underwhelming? To reach the broadest audience, a gameconfig must be tailored to reach those who operate a PC meeting only minimum requirements. If it was made strong enough to do all the things that us on much stronger PCs want to do, then those with much lesser PCs wouldn't be able to run the game out of the box. The first evidence we have of an underwhelming gameconfig, is a view of vehicular and ped densities. Why does it look like a ghost town, when these densities should be so much more? Gameconfig has to be tailored to the lowest common denominator to reach the largest audience, else the developer loses out on sales. This is why we have to configure our gameconfigs ourselves based on how much system memory and vRam we have and what exactly we are aiming to do beyond what a default gameconfig would allow for. If we want higher densities in traffic and to add lot of ymaps, the physical streaming engine and vehicle streaming render and request will need a boost along with the proper edits to create more real estate for vehicles to spawn in. If we want the game engine to be capable of handling additional models spawned into the game-space, we need to tell the config we need this much more allocation for texture dictionaries, fragment dictionaries, possibly drawables, maxmodelinfos, handling data etc.
The ideal gameconfig is one tailored to the specific needs of a user and said user's hardware. Have a potato? Then no edits required because you are lucky you can run the game at all. You have 32 Gb of memory and a 1080t with a modern CPU? With the right edits, we can do so much more, thanks to the heap limit adjuster. We can load more ymaps, more add-on vehicles, we can replace the underwhelming vanilla vehicles with HQ models, increase ped and vehicular densities, more add-on peds, etc.
A properly optimized gameconfig only edits necessary parameters to provide the resources needed to produce expected results, with not one number above what is needed. Looking at the bottom of the config, we have expected maximums. These numbers were mathematically computed to provide a limited space in memory, only necessary to provide for a specific function, and not any more. We only need what we need to produce expected results, and upping these values without need, only provides less space in memory for other functions. If I up the size of the texture dictionary to a number that is not actually required, then I will lose how much ever I didn't need, that could have been available for other things that might have needed it. Bigger numbers for values does NOT equal better performance - It only allows us to escape limits when trying to exceed them, but we only need the absolute minimum to provide the service. Finding these "magic numbers" can only be determined by the end-user through rigorous testing, as we all have different specs, differing needs, etc.
The timing of the release of the heap limit adjuster is very unfortunate - released long after the more knowledgeable and seasoned veterans had long since moved on. Extra heap means we can push boundaries beyond what would otherwise be possible, as long as we have the system memory to take advantage of it. Think of all the things that are allocated to the heap portion of memory - the World! Resources that are not constantly swapped in and out of the stack, and need a more permanent residence in memory, now have the extra heap to accommodate such increases. Props of all kinds - brought to us through mapping - now have extra space the heap can manage it did not have before, allowing us to exceed thresholds otherwise not before possible.Maps brought the challenge of maintaining balance as too many props would not have a space in heap, and thus too many props would result in graphical glitches such as pop-in, missing collisions, portions of models not rendering in-game etc. With extra heap, and the appropriate adjustments to the gameconfig, we can now load more maps with more props than ever before.
Summing it all up, more is not better, more does not equal better performance, more is only needed for the very specific resources we need to allocate for what we are attempting to do beyond what a default value/values would allow for.
-
@eshenk This is one of your better posts.
Whenever I try and up a number, thinking it will help, but it doesn't, I immediately revert the values.
-
@meimeiriver Conversely I tried lowering fwarchetypepooledmap, and found that some of the objects from a ymap would not load, so I put it right back to where it was LOL
-
@meimeiriver BTW, something big is going on behind the scenes, I am seeing evidence of a mass increase to ped densities in the works as we speak. We are having issue with LODs though.
-
@eshenk said in Time to talk gameconfig:
@meimeiriver Conversely I tried lowering fwarchetypepooledmap, and found that some of the objects from a ymap would not load, so I put it right back to where it was LOL
I tried setting MapDataStore to 70,000 once. Dont do that! Half of Franklin's fancy house wouldn't load any more, nor hills surrounding it!
The the only thing I successfully changed myself, and which actually helped my issue, was setting the Object PoolSize to 4000, as Menyoo had run out of object-spawn space in my own fancy home (with a great many objects).
-
@meimeiriver And then you had texture swapping, that unknownmodder convinced you, you have no control over, LOL.
-
@eshenk said in Time to talk gameconfig:
@meimeiriver And then you had texture swapping, that unknownmodder convinced you, you have no control over, LOL.
I fear he may be right. Haven't found a PoolSize that affects it yet, at least.
'Amount of objects' != 'Many textures' per se, though, especially when there are many objects all using the same texture (like wall/floor elements and such). I just have to find a way to purge the texture cache now, as the 'cycling' only occurs when I go away and visit an other place first.
-
@meimeiriver I think your texture dictionary might be too small - I set mine to 55 BTW
-
@eshenk said in Time to talk gameconfig:
@meimeiriver I think your texture dictionary might be too small - I set mine to 55 BTW
I set both TEXTURE_DICTIONARY and DRAWABLE_DICTIONARY to 60, for the test, but that didn't solve it, sadly.
-
@meimeiriver The cache then might be your only option.
-
@eshenk said in Time to talk gameconfig:
@meimeiriver The cache then might be your only option.
Wish GTA V had like a 'Draw Distance' value (like in Second Life). Then I could force a clean flush of the cache, as it were. Now I will just have to resort to more rigorous measures.
-
@meimeiriver The engine is just too old to do the things we want. It is 6 year old tech we are talking about here. I think we are very nearly reaching limits - the game always updating over the years has certainly held us back, but we do have a little control over that. I am still on I/E, so my limits are not nearly as great as users who keep allowing their damn games to update, LOL
-
@meimeiriver Also that old scripthookv and dotnet still function on every script I have ever dl'd up to this date, LOL.
-
@eshenk said in Time to talk gameconfig:
@meimeiriver The engine is just too old to do the things we want. It is 6 year old tech we are talking about here. I think we are very nearly reaching limits - the game always updating over the years has certainly held us back, but we do have a little control over that. I am still on I/E, so my limits are not nearly as great as users who keep allowing their damn games to update, LOL
GTA V certainly wasn't designed to accommodate creating our own ymaps, with thousands of objects in them. We are certainly pushing the envelope there.
But, LOL, to stay on-topic, your initial point was a good one: even though we may feel the need to increase a lot of config values, extreme caution is required doing so, as often the effects only adversely affect your install.
-
@meimeiriver well any increase has to be rigorously tested to find a value that does just what it takes to produce desired effect, and not one number higher than needed. How many of these modders do that? None?
-
@eshenk said in Time to talk gameconfig:
@meimeiriver well any increase has to be rigorously tested to find a value that does just what it takes to produce desired effect, and not one number higher than needed. How many of these modders do that? None?
I won't be engaging in 'naming & shaming' here, but, so far, I only trust Dilapidated's gameconfig: the rest of those 'config warriors', making the most outlandish claims, are often writing checks their configs can't cash.
-
@meimeiriver I sent you PM
-
Wow I like the new @eshenk.
-
@Cyron43 New, LOL. Not new, just better with age.
-
The best gameconfig of all time is this. Thanks for the creator, Dilapidated.
-
@eshenk Great post! Also I think we have merely tap the surface of this engine.... I honestly believe it has way more possibility then we know about.. I mean when we can make custom animations and when we can create particle effects it will be amazing! Gta V RAGE Engine IMO is no where near dead
-
@eshenk great post. very helpful indeed. keep it alive!
