Next-Generation Visibility System: Transition from DPVS to Intel MOC
Dear players and community,
In line with our goal to modernize the our game engine and fully leverage the power of today’s hardware, we have achieved a major technical leap forward. We have completely overhauled one of the most critical systems running behind the scenes in the game world—yet one that directly impacts your FPS (frames per second): the Occlusion Culling System.
We’ve bid farewell to the legacy Umbra DPVS system that has been in use for years and replaced it with Intel Masked Occlusion Culling (MOC) technology, which draws its power directly from modern processors. So what does this change mean, and how will it impact your gaming experience?
What Was DPVS and Why Did We Leave It Behind?
In a game world, there are millions of polygons, thousands of objects, trees, buildings, and players within the camera’s (i.e., your eyes’) field of view. However, rendering objects hidden behind a wall or a massive mountain onto the graphics card (GPU) is a massive waste of resources. This is where Occlusion Culling systems come in—they detect “what is hidden behind what” and prevent invisible objects from being rendered.
Umbra DPVS (Dynamic Portal Visibility System) was an old, closed-source system written according to the conditions of the era when the engine was first designed (the era 2010-2012 of 32-bit single-core processors):
Old Architecture: It was unaware of the extensive instruction sets (AVX) offered by modern multi-core processors.
CPU Bottleneck: As the number of objects on screen increased, DPVS struggled to calculate them; acting as a slow “black box,” it prevented the engine from utilizing the processor at full capacity.
Maintenance Difficulty: It was a system that could not be updated or modified for modern hardware or Windows 10/11 architectures.
Problems caused by: There are often display issues between AMD and Intel
The New Era: Intel Masked Occlusion Culling (MOC)
Developed by Intel and one of today’s most modern, optimized systems, Masked Occlusion Culling features a technology that enables your CPU to operate at incredible speeds in the background.
So why is this system so powerful?
AVX2 and AVX-512 Vector Processing: Intel MOC utilizes modern processor capabilities (AVX2 / SSE4.1) that can perform thousands of mathematical operations per second with a single command. This allows calculations to be completed much faster than before.
Flawless Depth Buffer: MOC renders massive mountains or buildings (Occluders) on the scene onto an invisible algorithmic canvas. It tests all other objects (trees, bushes, other players) against this invisible model and decides “which are visible, which are hidden” at a speed of one-thousandth of a second.
Open and Modular: The system is no longer a closed box. We’ve built a structure that communicates directly with the Engine’s core, is customizable, and can be instantly adapted to future new processors.
What Will This Mean for Performance and Players?
This massive technical shift won’t just stay on paper—it will directly translate to smoother gameplay on-screen:
Much Higher and More Stable FPS: The process of filtering out invisible objects on the CPU before sending them to the GPU is now significantly more efficient than before. Even with hundreds of objects on screen, the system won’t freeze, FPS won’t drop suddenly (stuttering will decrease), and you’ll achieve a much higher overall frame rate.
CPU Usage Optimization: The old DPVS was pushing a single CPU core to its limits. The new Intel MOC system performs these operations with much lower latency and without straining the CPU, thanks to AVX2 instructions. This means your CPU can relax and allocate that power to other areas of the game (AI, Physics, Network Communication).
Eliminating GPU Bottlenecks: Outdated or inefficient culling systems would sometimes send objects that were actually invisible to the GPU, assuming they “might be visible,” thereby overloading it. Thanks to new, highly precise tests, your GPU will now render only “what you actually need to see,” resulting in significantly less heat generation and much higher performance.
Massive Battles and Crowded Cities: Especially in large capital city where players congregate; the load of hundreds of polygons hidden behind buildings, outside your field of view (frustum), or behind a pre-rendered character or wall in front of you will be instantly eliminated. Performance loss in crowded environments will be dramatically reduced.
In summary;
The Our Custom Engine now draws its power not from legacy code, but directly from the modern architecture of your processor. This transition is one of the biggest technological steps in our commitment to delivering a smoother, more performant, and “lag-free” gaming world.