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Planet Landscapes never load
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| Pixie1 | Date: Tuesday, 22.05.2012, 07:46 | Message # 1 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
Australia
Messages: 3
Status: Offline
| So if I go down to a planet surface, the terrain never loads properly, it slowly gets slightly more detailed, then just stops completely, but the loading bar keeps going on forever telling me its loading certain things.
In fact I actually left Space Engine on last night on a planet surface when I went to sleep, I did it totally by accident because I forgot to close the application, but when I woke up 8 hours later and saw it was still on, I was surprised to find out it was STILL loading 
I have the newest version with latest patch, no add-ons. My PC isn't amazing by any standards but I would be very shocked if its not good enough to handle loading a planet landscape on this program. I have my LOD set to +2. But I put it on that to take screenshots (I really like to keep pretty screenshots). Do I really have to set it to a lower number?
My specs:
Intel Q8200
Geforce GTX 560Ti 1GB
4GB RAM
My only slight bottleneck is my CPU. For reference, I can almost max out games such as The Witcher 2, Battlefield 3, Crysis 2. and pretty much everything else I CAN max out.
Of my 1GB of VRAM, 157MB is used when I'm idle on my desktop. When I use SpaceEngine it uses up almost the entirety of my VRAM, so I know its using it up, just not doing anything with it apparently.
Edited by Pixie1 - Tuesday, 22.05.2012, 07:54 |
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Tuesday, 22.05.2012, 09:21 | Message # 2 |
 Cosmic Curator
Group: Administrators
United States
Messages: 8717
Status: Offline
| Quote (Pixie1) I have my LOD set to +2. But I put it on that to take screenshots (I really like to keep pretty screenshots). Do I really have to set it to a lower number?
No system can handle an LOD of +2, it would require a ludicrous amount of VRAM. An LOD of -1 or 0 would be appropriate for you, depending on your screen resolution. SpaceEngine is a massive VRAM hog, even on low LODs it will quickly fill it up.
There is a thread here about how you can improve your performance by making SE supplement VRAM with system RAM (which other programs do normally, but SE requires convincing). This will allow you to use higher LODs for screenshots and such.
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
Edited by HarbingerDawn - Tuesday, 22.05.2012, 09:22 |
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| apenpaap | Date: Tuesday, 22.05.2012, 11:48 | Message # 3 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Antarctica
Messages: 1063
Status: Offline
| Quote (Pixie1) I have my LOD set to +2
Well, there's your problem. LOD 2 is so detailed it just never seems to finish even on great computers. If you want a really nice screenshot, put it to 1. It'll still take a long time, but it will finish at least and look really nice too.
I occasionally stream at http://www.twitch.tv/magistermystax. Sometimes SE, sometimes other games.
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| Kviki | Date: Tuesday, 22.05.2012, 13:14 | Message # 4 |
 Explorer
Group: SE team
Croatia
Messages: 289
Status: Offline
| Yup I confirm. I tried SE on an up to date PC with LOD -2 and the landscape detail loads ~6s.
 
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| SpaceEngineer | Date: Tuesday, 22.05.2012, 23:11 | Message # 5 |
 Author of Space Engine
Group: Administrators
Russian Federation
Messages: 4800
Status: Offline
| At LOD 0 and 1920x1080 a typical terra planet uses 400-500 Mb of VRAM. At LOD 1 it uses 4 times more, so you need 2Gb VRAM to complete loading. At LOD 2 it uses 4 times as much, so you need 16 Gb VRAM 
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| Pixie1 | Date: Wednesday, 23.05.2012, 00:03 | Message # 6 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
Australia
Messages: 3
Status: Offline
| 16GB of Vram!! Christ. Is there even a card out right now that has that? Pretty cool though.
That's a shame, I'll have to put the LOD down to 1 and deal with it. Thanks for the replies everyone.
Out of curiosity, is it at all worth me downloading the high quality landscapes and textures from the downloads section? I mean in LOD 1 will there even be a difference from the originals in that case?
Edited by Pixie1 - Wednesday, 23.05.2012, 00:05 |
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| apenpaap | Date: Wednesday, 23.05.2012, 00:21 | Message # 7 |
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World Builder
Group: Users
Antarctica
Messages: 1063
Status: Offline
| The high resolution things are definitely worth it. I don't think the LOD makes much difference on Solar System planets, with either textures, but you can get pretty awesomely high resolution on Earth, Moon, and Mars. I can see the two small lakes near my house, for example, and see the rough shape of the city.
I occasionally stream at http://www.twitch.tv/magistermystax. Sometimes SE, sometimes other games.
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| SpaceEngineer | Date: Wednesday, 23.05.2012, 01:35 | Message # 8 |
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Author of Space Engine
Group: Administrators
Russian Federation
Messages: 4800
Status: Offline
| I discovered the secret: the LOD switcher was designed specially for Solar system planets As long as they have limited resolution (defined by their texture files), LOD +2 (or even +3) can really work with them: it will increase the mesh resolution at high distance. But with procedural planets the high LOD settings will force generating the fine and finest levels, up to 10 meters-per-pixel resolution, that will require gigabytes of VRAM. This is due to the landscape engine architecture: increasing of mesh detail requires generating textures for the finest level, up to a limiting level (level No. 12-13 for a procedural planet). Once the limiting level has been reached, increasing of detail will generate only the last 4 levels with meshes based on limiting level heightmap texture. But real planets only have a limiting level No. 6-7, and requires only 200-300 Mb at LOD 0, and 500-600 Mb at LOD +2.
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| Pixie1 | Date: Wednesday, 23.05.2012, 02:06 | Message # 9 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
Australia
Messages: 3
Status: Offline
| So is there a full list of which planets are procedural and which aren't?
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Wednesday, 23.05.2012, 04:06 | Message # 10 |
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Cosmic Curator
Group: Administrators
United States
Messages: 8717
Status: Offline
| Quote (Pixie1) So is there a full list of which planets are procedural and which aren't?
Go to the data>textures>planets folder. Any object that does not contain textures in that folder is procedural (i.e. 99.99999999999999999999999999% of the SE universe  ) All the planets and moons of the solar system that we have good photographic data for are defined by textures. Mercury-Neptune, Earth and Mars' moons, the larger moons of the gas planets are all catalog textured. Virtually everything else in the SE universe has procedurally generated textures. With a little experience you'll be able to just tell at a glance the difference between catalog textures and procedurally generated ones.
Quote (SpaceEngineer) 10 meters-per-pixel resolution
I think you mean 10 cm/px, right?
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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