Good day, fellow Meeps!
I've been spending a lot of time on optimization recently, and wanted to mention a few improvements that will be included in the next update:
- I'm now emitting all "dust" and "water spray" visuals from a single pair of particle systems, changing its parameters before emitting specific particles, where previously I placed a copy of the system at each point where dust / spray needed to be visualized, and then destroyed the system to get rid of the visuals. The central particle systems now emits particles for all locations specified in a dynamic list. Rain, clouds and snow emission have been working like this for a while.
- Finding locations for Fracture Springs when Fault Lines erupt now runs on one of the parallel threads, getting rid of the most notable (and very noticeable) temporary stuttering in frame rate when Fault Lines erupt.
- Some "take small steps over time until all is done" changes are now made instantaneously if the Fault Line isn't explored by the player (and thus not visible), further reducing frame rate stuttering.
- I've improved memory management by implementing list pools across all threads to reduce the strain put on garbage collection, reducing temporary frame rate drops.
- I've reduced "Set Pass Calls" and "Batches" to reduce the amount of communication required between CPU and GPU.
- I've reduced excessive triangles in the Food Ball and Snow Comet models.
Along with the improved triangulation (see previous post), the next update will also include huge improvements in the terrain texture, which I have completely revisited (with only a few left to go). Here's an example of what the game currently looks like. Although the new triangulation requires more GPU resources (I've always been CPU bound on my side anyway), the texture improvement is achieved with no additional strain on the CPU or GPU.
I'm very excited to release this update, but there are a few loose ends to tie up before we can go live. Please stay tuned!
De Chelonian Mobile
Gideon