Okay, I'm desperate now...need help turning off all shadows

[SoulBrotherKab]

Like the title says. I recent got UFO Aftershock and I've been REALLY wanting to play it because I need my X-COm fix right now. Installed and patched it to 1.2 all find. Fired it up and it worker great after tweaking some of the visual options.

 

Now, I've done the little tutorial running around mission inside the Laputa. Now I'm on the tutorial mission on Earth in Central Europe, the villagers want me to take out some mutants for them. This is where things go wrong. When I'm not near either of the two larger buildings, the game runs fine. I can scroll just find. But when I go near the buildings it slows down real bad. I'm sure I know what it is. Because this stuff happened with my Silent Storm game. When I played with SS's config file and turned off the shadows for EVERYTHING (people, buildings, and crap like trees) the game worked perfectly.

 

I'm assuming the same thing is happening right now with UFO:AS. I've looked everywhere, I'm currently looking at the option.txt file...there's nothing I can play with in there to turn them off. Maybe in the console command? But I don't know the commands for it, I have the console working, just no command to turn things off.

 

Please, I'm begging can someone help me out here. I've been Google-ing and checking the official forums for a couple hours now and I haven't found anything so far.

 

Edit: BTW, I figured out that typing a "?" in the console brings up a list of commands. Been playing with them and the only one that kinda works is the "all_effects_off" but that makes it look like crap. There's a command called "effect_off" (there's an "on" one too) but how do I make it turn the building and tree shadows off too?

[Slaughter]

Not sure how you can do that, but I suggest you PM PetteriB. He is working on patching Aftershock, so he may be able to help you (or at least try and fix this in the next patch).

[PetteriB]

Try "effect_off lightmap" (all in lower case). If that doesn't work, try turning off the following effects one by one until you find the effect that is causing slow-downs:

• diffuseMap
  
• shadowmap
  
• specLightmap
  
• specularMap
  
• glossMap
  
• normalMap
  
• bumpMap
  
• selfIllumMap
  
• opacityMap
  
• defaultColor
  
• specular
  
• sphericEnvMap
  
• envStrMap
  
• viewerLight
  
• outdoorLight
  
• fogOfWar
  

Effect names are case-sensitive so be sure to use correct capitalization when typing console commands.

[SoulBrotherKab]

I appreciate the commands. I went through them and they didn't seem to really increase my speed any. The ones in the list didn't seem to do anything. I dunno if I entered them wrong, or what. But I did find something helpful out.

 

It's not the shadows or lighting. Because when I did the first command, the "effect_off lightmap" it basically turns everything like it was completely daylight everywhere on the map (BTW, the map I was testing this all on was a nighttime map that had tank hangers and a 2 story "barracks" on the other side of the map). Because even after I turned off the lightmap, when I would pass near or over the barracks on that map, that's when it would slow down a lot. Anywhere else and it was smooth. Also, changing the shown elevation on the map reduced the lag because all that was shown was the first floor of the building, which had like 15 rooms I suppose.

 

So it seems it's the 3D...but I meet the requirements. Here's some of my diag: (BTW, it doesn't say it, but my 3D card is a 128MB one).

 

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System Information

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Operating System: Windows Vista

[PetteriB]

Afterlight's engine is much more polished because the developers actually had time to finish their product where as Aftershock was rushed to the market leaving some really nasty bugs unfixed.

 

Unfortunately, the only thing I can suggest at this point is that you try putting all visual settings to minimum and then increase them one by one to find out which setting makes your game too slow.

[SoulBrotherKab]

Yeah, I figured that. I already did that. No shadows, low shaders, anti-alsing is at 1, the only thing that's above the minimum is texture resolution. Which is either at medium or high, I can't remember. Lowering it doesn't improve anything and makes the characters look like shit...

 

So I keep it up some. One thing I was wonder is the screen resolution. It's at 1024x768 and that's the only option (why have an option for screen resolution in the Options Menu if you can't change to a different one is beyond me). So, I think I already know the answer, but I gotta ask anyway...any way to change the resolution? I notice that when playing games that have some 3D that lowering the resolution helps out performance.

 

As side note...kinda weird with Afterlight, having a lower resolution than the highest (which is 1200x800) makes all of the text blurry and hard to read...but the game seems to run fine at that resolution after I turned down or off stuff like dynamic lighting, shaders, and crap like that.

[PetteriB]

Sorry, it's not possible to change the resolution in Aftershock.

 

The GUI scaling in Afterlight really sucks. The game only looks crisp on 1280x960 and 1280x1024 resolutions and using anything else will cause severe blurriness, gaps in UI graphics, missing outlines for buttons and other anomalies.

[SoulBrotherKab]

Hmm...what is it with Eastern European developers making awesome games, but totally half assing their engines, coding, and whatnot.

 

Well, I had thought I read somewhere that Silent Storm uses a modified engine from Aftershock. And since my problem with Silent Storm was the shadows, I figured it was the problem with Aftershock. I suppose it's a good thing that most of the maps in Aftershock are pretty similar and that there aren't too many with lots of multistory buildings.

 

What I find odd though is that in outdoors missions, those 2 and 3 story builds slow me down. But when I do those missions where you have to get into the base for the second half, and then kill everything on the inside...those maps don't slow me down very much and it's entirely indoors AND it's a 25+ roomed, two story structure.

 

Any ideas on what that is?

[Azrael Strife]

Well, I had thought I read somewhere that Silent Storm uses a modified engine from Aftershock.

Huh... Silent Storm (2003) was released two years before UFO: AS (2005) was...

[PetteriB]

What I find odd though is that in outdoors missions, those 2 and 3 story builds slow me down. But when I do those missions where you have to get into the base for the second half, and then kill everything on the inside...those maps don't slow me down very much and it's entirely indoors AND it's a 25+ roomed, two story structure.

Hmm... now that I think of it I remember having similar problems with Afterlight when I was still using a GeForce 6600 GT graphics card. The game became incredibly slow every time I came across a map that contained those large two-story Beastman buildings. The only way to make the game playable was turning shaders completely off.

 

I then upgraded to Radeon HD 3850 which has enough horse-power to run Afterlight smoothly with all settings maxed.

[SoulBrotherKab]

Huh... Silent Storm (2003) was released two years before UFO: AS (2005) was...

Maybe I got it backwards. Oh well.

[KeybdFlyer]

I hope you'll forgive a complete beginner at Aftershock making a comment, but I also had this problem of slowdown (more like almost standstill, in fact) even though my machine is quite powerful with a decent graphics card. The solution I found - though don't ask me how the hell it affected the graphics - was to switch to SW Sound instead of using my soundcard hardware. atm, I have everything turned up, 100% Anisotropic filtering, x16 AA, Very high detail etc and it's running smooth as silk. Very strange I know, but might be worth trying if all else has failed.

[SoulBrotherKab]

Hahaha...holy crap.

 

You know what, that actually worked. It's not 100% holy shit it's fast. But it's not choppy and very slow. When I scroll from normal terrain with doodads and bits of crap to a full 2 or 3 story building it's not chugging.

 

Thanks. I can't believe it's that simple. I had it turned off like I turned off most things because I figured it would make me run slower...guess wrong.

 

Anyway, thanks again.

 

Edit: I've been fooling around with other options like the shaders, anti-alasing, and textures and MAN. I was able to make the game look twice as good as it did before I turned on the SW. Got the shaders and teztures on Very High, was able to increase anti-alasing to 2, added unit shadows, and go with the true colors. Looks good. My sniper's rifle actual shines some now...

[KeybdFlyer]

Really glad that worked for you SoulBrotherKab. I only got the game a day or so back (from GoG.com, well worth a visit) and was pretty miffed about the chuggy graphics. In the end I spent a couple of hours dropping in & out of the game and altering settings through nHancer, all to very little avail. In desperation (and a little nagging thought way back in my brain about hardware sound affecting some games' graphics) I switched to SW sound and the improvement was immediate. Glad to have been of assistance, now back to battle!

[SoulBrotherKab]

Yeah, I restarted so I could start fresh. My previous game I had most of Europe under my thumb, and the Cultist in the Ural, South Africa, and Thailand area...then I got this countdown telling me something was going to come to Earth. It had 12 days and some change left until that happened. I have no idea what it is, but it didn't sound good...and all my weapons were STILL mostly alien laser rifles and pistols. But I started getting a couple sniper rifles, and made each one of the assault rifles I could, to check out how they did in battle. Was totally not impressed with the AK-47's performance.

 

I'm not able to judge my performance, because well...I don't have anything to judge it against. Also, I was looking at some of the mods. Like the ACM or weapon rebalancing mod. I think what's keeping me from popping one of those in is the bugs that are persistent still in the mods when I read their Read Me files. But anyway, I think I was doing well. No one had gotten killed so far, but I had one newly acquired pscionic get laid out and spend several days in the sick bay.

 

A side note: One thing I wish I could do is have new camo for my armors. I think it's kinda stupid to be running around in battlefields in dark blue armor. What the hell is that about? But I don't know how to mod and do things like that...also, if I could I'd throw in a new weapon in the game while I was at it. The HK416...maybe make it have slightly better stats than the M4, or just replace the M4 completely with it. Maybe I'll rename a M4 that's all decked out with scopes and attachments to the HK416 when I get them and the ability to make the attachments.

[KeybdFlyer]

Ok. I'm sticking my neck out a bit here, as (so far as I can tell from reading through the threads) most of the guys in this forum are really into modding, but here goes. Up until now, I've spent most of my gaming on either Silent Hunter III - heavily modded (32 active mods in my installation) and Morrowind (141 mods active, lol), so can I suggest nipping over to https://www.users.on.net/~jscones/software/ and downloading his Generic Mod Enabler? A professionally made program that allows you easily and quickly install/remove mods without the need to backup existing files (it does it for you and then restores the backed-up files when you disable a mod). I've found it invaluable, believe me. In the couple of days I've had Aftershock, I've tried several (8 I think) different mods that are to be found right here https://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?cid=68 in the mods section. The Weapon Re-balance Mod 3.17 will give you a ton of new weaponry and more, while CombatMod will give you a selection of new armour etc. I've enabled a couple of others, including Alien Assault - which makes life pretty interesting to say the least! All excellent stuff, made my people who obviously love (and know) what they're doing.

 

As for the game itself, the only complaint I have is those lousy voices! The female with the "Yat yat, I'm going" drive me round the bend! And most of the rest I'd have put on a charge if they spoke to their commanding officer like that, lol. Now there's a mod I'd like to see - change those damn voices! Anyway - I'm going back to my game now. I only dropped out to disable a sound mod so I can listen to the original sounds again for comparison.

 

Stay Stealthy!

[ERISS]

Lol, that's weird.

Maybe hardware sound cards work hard for the echoes in outdoor storey buildings, and software don't bother with?

I added this some-bug in my listing.

https://forum.altargames.com//index.php?sho...amp