GU57: Increase in Flora performance

[Bunji]

<p>With GU57, flora rendering has been updated and you should notice a significant FPS boost when running around zones with a lot of flora in them (like Nektulos).  This wasn't specifically called out in the patch notes so I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the change.  Note: Flora currently waves back and forth in the wind, but does not react to PCs running through it.</p>

[Phaso]

<p>106 FPS in Nektulos Forest at Extreme Quality... Are you sure you didn't just make the numbers lie? All kidding aside, I can run through this zone on settings above almost minimal without ridiculous client hitching... Good job! (Not kidding on the 106 FPS, really am seeing that from the in-game indicator standing in Nek Forest in Extreme Quality)</p><p>EDIT: Looks like there might be a bug with GPU shadows turning off and on intermittently, perhaps when minimizing the game.  I didn't realize mine weren't running until I noticed some shadows missing.  Turned it back on and went down to a much lower but decent 30 FPS (still on Extreme Quality)... a big accomplishment for this zone nonetheless.  To clarify, the setting isn't changing, just the shadows themselves stop rendering until the setting it toggled off and then back on, or the game is minimized and restored again (as was in my case).</p>

[Polywogus]

I noticed a few months back that Nektulos was the only zone (that I've found) which made my computer L A G. I thought maybe it had something to do with the fog (like swamp zones), but after spending an hour fiddling with my settings, I decided to avoid NF. Anyway, happy to hear there should be improvements <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Gargamel]

<p>If I were to guess, I'd say its the start of flora being handled by the GPU rather than the CPU.  And to go along with the new F2P sony I guess real dev interaction is frowned upon so we get this random intern telling us about it  rather than imago.</p>

[Transen]

<p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...I guess real dev interaction is frowned upon so we get this random intern telling us about it  rather than imago.</p></blockquote><p>And you wonder why the Devs don't speak up as often as we'd like?  So what...if the Dev isn't vocal enough in the forums for your taste, they're not really devs?  /shrug</p><p>Personally, I like this change.  Can actually run around with flora on on a regular basis. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Maroger]

<p><cite>Transen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...I guess real dev interaction is frowned upon so we get this random intern telling us about it  rather than imago.</p></blockquote><p>And you wonder why the Devs don't speak up as often as we'd like?  So what...if the Dev isn't vocal enough in the forums for your taste, they're not really devs?  /shrug</p><p>Personally, I like this change.  Can actually run around with flora on on a regular basis. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>The problem with flora has always been that it obcures the harvesting nodes.</p>

[Cyberlink]

<p>The new flora system runs quite good for me now except in the Sinking Sands.I have no idea what it is but I have 10s freezes every few steps. As soon as I disable the flora, everything works fine again.Settings: Shader 3.0 activated, 3x shadows on and most of my settings are set to maximum.</p>

[Iskandar]

<p>It works very nicely now, very little impact on FPS from what I could tell, even on my older machine.</p><p>Was disabling the reactive interaction with player characters what did the trick?</p>