Question about modding

[AHK1221]

I'm really just getting started in the vehicle mods and I have a question :

I want to spawn add-on vehicles in normal traffic. Reading the guide tells me to use the console version of popgroups.ymt, does this still work? Because can't you edit ymt files now?

[V4D3R]

@AHK1221 It still works.
I'll check out the PC version.

[Guest]

@AHK1221 said in Question about modding:

Because can't you edit ymt files now?

It seems we now can. That was one of the files that we had been able to decrypt but it seems the Beta of the Meta-Toolkit does indeed decrypt the popgroups.ymt file.

Just going to run my hash collision fixer on the decrypted file as there are several hash_collision entries in the decrypted file... back shortly with more info.

[AHK1221]

@LeeC2202 Yeah, it seems like a lot of work. I've been making an addon version of the Ferrari California T (which comes with an addon version, but I'm stupid) and right now I just decompiled the carvariations to get the info of the carbonizzare.

[AHK1221]

So what I wanted to do is get a load of mods into my game as a single pack in a single DLC. And then edit the popgroups so that they spawn ingame in traffic.

[Guest]

@AHK1221 said in Question about modding:

So what I wanted to do is get a load of mods into my game as a single pack in a single DLC. And then edit the popgroups so that they spawn ingame in traffic.

I know a few people have done that, you just need to be prepared for the consequences of doing it. Bad models with no LODs, bloated texture sizes, excessively high poly-counts... all of those will have a significant impact on your game.

When you have one car that is the equivalent to 8 or more vanilla cars under player control, it's not too bad. When you might have 20 of those being spawned in traffic, you might have problems.

I just need to add the popcycle.dat file into my collision fixer resources, there seems to be a couple of hash_collision values that are not getting fixed and that's probably down to new groups in popcycle.dat.

[AHK1221]

@LeeC2202 Can't we use the console version popgroups? I've heard we can.

[Guest]

@AHK1221 Yeah, there's one in the San Andreas traffic mod on this site as well... I am curious to see if I can fix the new version, just to see if there are vehicles that have been added that won't be in the console version. That's an old file and won't include any of the added PC cars.

[AHK1221]

@LeeC2202 I'm a bit confused right now... you see, when I decomped the popgroups.ymt in x64a it worked... i think it did. Because, when I went down to veh_rich, there were two copies of it, like this:

<Item>
      <Name>veh_rich</Name>
      <models>
        <Item>
          <Name>banshee</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
        <Item>
          <Name>bjxl</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
        <Item>
          <Name>bullet</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
        <Item>
          <Name>carbonizzare</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
        <Item>
          <Name>coquette</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
        BLAH BLAH BLAH        

And the copy, right below it:

    <Item>
      <Name>hash_collision_12641112631</Name>
      <models>
        <Item>
          <Name>banshee</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
        <Item>
          <Name>bjxl</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
        <Item>
          <Name>bullet</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
        <Item>
          <Name>carbonizzare</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
        <Item>
          <Name>coquette</Name>
          <Variations />
        </Item>
       BLAH BLAH BLAH

So is that what your programme fixes?

[AHK1221]

@LeeC2202 Also, can't recompile the popgroups...damn

[Guest]

@AHK1221 Yeah... and you don't need to recompile it, just rename it and put it back as an xml file.

[Guest]

It looks like the popgroups.ymt file has had a fairly radical makeover... the bottom section of the old file is completely different to the bottom section of the new file. That possibly means the popcycle.dat file has had a makeover too.

[Guest]

*<snip>* Seems I am talking nonsense again today.

Okay... here's a comparison between old and new files. You can see where I have predicted what the word would need to be, to match the hash_collision value. The string "veh_copcar_mp" doesn't seem to exist in the popcycles.dat file, as you can see from the bottom image... that's why it couldn't fix it.

You can also see that the new popcycles.dat file contains quite a few more entries in it.

Edit: Turns our the layout difference is caused by the decryption process... decrypting the original popgroups.ymt file resulted in something similar being output. It also seems to be the case that when I decrypt the original file, it creates these missing hash_collision values that don't seem to exist... something very odd going on here.

And the popcycle.dat file

[meimeiriver]

@LeeC2202 said in Question about modding:

@AHK1221 said in Question about modding:

So what I wanted to do is get a load of mods into my game as a single pack in a single DLC. And then edit the popgroups so that they spawn ingame in traffic.

I know a few people have done that, you just need to be prepared for the consequences of doing it. Bad models with no LODs, bloated texture sizes, excessively high poly-counts... all of those will have a significant impact on your game.

When you have one car that is the equivalent to 8 or more vanilla cars under player control, it's not too bad. When you might have 20 of those being spawned in traffic, you might have problems.

I just need to add the popcycle.dat file into my collision fixer resources, there seems to be a couple of hash_collision values that are not getting fixed and that's probably down to new groups in popcycle.dat.

On that note, does choosing a 0.5 traffic config actually free up much resources? My guess is no, as the textures/poly stuff for those cars need to be loaded anyway, whether the game spawns 20 or 2000 of them. But with this game, you never know.

[Guest]

@meimeiriver said in Question about modding:

On that note, does choosing a 0.5 traffic config actually free up much resources?

I guess that would depend on whether that 0.5's worth of traffic, invoked half the variety, or half the total number of cars. Resource usage is impacted by the amount of variety in traffic, more than the number of cars. So 100 x Sultan, will use less resources than 20 different vehicles.

Same of course goes for peds.

[eshenk]

@LeeC2202 ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!! Could this explain the excessive pop-in I have been fighting for so long now? I actually merged RDE and World of Variety popgroups together, while I have exponentially increased both ped and vehicular traffic. Add to that about 2 - 3 dozen vehicle replacements. I figured it would impact performance, so I intentionally kept myself 2.5 Mb under budget on vRam consumption.

For testing purposes, I have decided to scale back on LOD values for ped and vehicle traffic in visualsettings.dat. If I can't get it under control in that manner, I will terminate my modified popgroups, and make one much smaller.

This is why I spend so much of my time here in the forums - because somewhere in a conversation, I always learn something applicable to a situation effecting me.

[meimeiriver]

@LeeC2202 said in Question about modding:

@meimeiriver said in Question about modding:

On that note, does choosing a 0.5 traffic config actually free up much resources?

I guess that would depend on whether that 0.5's worth of traffic, invoked half the variety, or half the total number of cars. Resource usage is impacted by the amount of variety in traffic, more than the number of cars. So 100 x Sultan, will use less resources than 20 different vehicles.

Same of course goes for peds.

Yeah, that's what I figured: 20 or 200 of the same car won't make much of a difference (same amount of texture/poly loading); but 20 or 200 different cars would make a huge difference.

[Guest]

@eshenk said in Question about modding:

Add to that about 2 - 3 dozen vehicle replacements.

How many??? I wouldn't add 2 - 3 replacements, never mind dozen. Blimey... no wonder you get performance problems.

[eshenk]

@LeeC2202 I have a high-end PC, so I figured it should be able to take it. The pop-in issue I speak of has been occurring lately. I think the below config posted on @Willief23 gameconfig for multiple fixes mod is what finally did me in. So I changed back to what I had before. I am still hard at work trying to get traffic to behave similar to real-life. I finally have the countryside looking somewhat reasonable, instead of looking like an airport, but am still battling trying to get it looking right downtown. Been fighting with this for months now, LOL.

Lod distances for peds

ped.lod.distance.high 500.00
ped.lod.distance.medium 1000.00
ped.lod.distance.low 1500.00
pedincar.lod.distance.high 250.00
pedincar.lod.distance.high.x64 750.00

You will take a performance/fps hit with the above settings as its meant for higher spec pcs.

So maybe try this for less of an fps hit:

Lod distances for peds

ped.lod.distance.high 350.00
ped.lod.distance.medium 780.00
ped.lod.distance.low 1000.00
pedincar.lod.distance.high 120.00
pedincar.lod.distance.high.x64 240.00

[Guest]

@eshenk said in Question about modding:

I figured it would impact performance, so I intentionally kept myself 2.5 Mb under budget on vRam consumption.

When are you calculating that figure? Is that just from the settings screen or are you monitoring that during the game. That value will ebb and flow as resources are loaded and removed. If that value is based on vanilla vehicles/peds being used, switching out just 2 or 3 vanilla vehicles could massively impact that number.

I mean, let's take an average vanilla vehicle, sultanrs.

YFT = 749.6KB
YTD = 45.17KB
HI.YFT = 1.18MB

Now let's take an average addon, a Porsche 918

YFT = 2.48MB
YTD = 5.64MB
HI.YFT = 12.27MB

See the problem?

And that also has no LODS, so even at maximum distance from the camera, you are seeing the full version of the car.

Edit: Just to show the extremes, have a look at these numbers

YFT = 15.91MB
YTD = 10.54MB
HI.YFT = 15.92MB

And that comes on a 620,000+ poly car, compared to the usual level of around 60,000... and it also has no LODs. Imagine swapping that into traffic.

[eshenk]

@LeeC2202 I do see the issue. How is then, people like Kizacudo brag about having add-on packages that bring hundreds of these car models into their games? That All the time I see people talking about having DLC add-on content that includes hundreds of vehicles, and that is evidently what these modified gameconfigs are supposed to fix for when things go awry. I don't crash, I just suffer pop-in - do an about-face, and watch as entire buildings and landscapes get constructed right before your eyes. Again, I am going to do more testing to get it under control, and If not successful, just eliminate some from popgroups so they don't spawn in traffic.

[Guest]

@eshenk Addons are easy to have, it's when you start putting them into traffic that you get the problem... or using them as replace vehicles.

I have 101 motorbikes, around 80 cars, 20+ peds, and about 12 helicopters, but the only time they appear, is when I spawn them, so there's no problem.

[eshenk]

@LeeC2202 I figure that is what they MUST be doing. I never understood why so many ask for add-ons. I would think to myself, isn't the whole point to replace the fake versions with real-world counterparts, LOL. I don't use a trainer and have no intention of doing so. I now know what my approach will be to getting this reconciled.

[Guest]

@eshenk Some people do want the fake vehicles replaced and as you find with your texture packs, they want everything fake replaced. I like the GTAV world to remain GTAV, so I don't want to see real Ferrari's or Porsche on the streets.

I also know how bad some of these models would affect the game so I wouldn't let them anywhere near the streets of LS. I have a couple of Peds in the beach area, but that's okay because they're still game peds, so they kinda still fit.

[eshenk]

@LeeC2202 The fake vehicle just look really bad. Some look absolutely atrocious. I am too hooked with these really high quality models to give them up. I don;t fill my garages with vanilla vehicles, EVER. I will compromise on a little pop-in, to keep them, LOL.