[Request] Disabling certain animations to boost fps

[Maslak]

Hello!

 My PC isn't very good, which means that I can't play many games. Thanks Klei, Don't Starve runs quite smoothly with 25 fps. But when there are loads of rock lobsters, 200 grass tufts and 200 saplings on my farm, heavy rain or it's just Shipwrecked and those damned monkeys are near, fps can drop down to something like 3-6.
 My idea is to make mod which will disable certain animations, like swaying of trees, grass, saplings, bamboos etc... That'd be great to have some configuration page, where one can choose which animations will "play" and which not. The more animations on disabling/enabling list the more fps one can achieve.
 Too bad, I have no idea about modmaking, so I hope someone will help me. Okay, maybe not help me, but make a mod like this  I will love The Great Maker for the rest of my life!

 Love you all!

[Mobbstar]

Honestly, I don't think the animations matter that much. Things like AI, periodic checks and huge amounts of active entities can cause severe lag.

[Maslak]

So, the fps drops happen because there are ****loads of grass on the screen, not because it sways all the time? I'm not sure, once I had 90 berry bushes planted very close to each other and fps were the same like on desert (for example). I know, 90 bushes is not 200 grass + 200 twigs, but it still should lag a bit according to what you said. 

[Tulingu]

I'm curious whether this issue is related to the graphics card or CPU (aka processor). Launch dxdiag and check what graphics card you got. Look for the names AMD or NVIDIA, that means you've got some kind of graphics card. If you find e.g INTEL you're stuck with integrated graphics (cpu). If you're running a game on integrated graphics you'll most likely get lags because that poor CPU of yours must calculate AND run a game at the same time. Example image below:

Edited April 2, 2016 by Miss

[Mobbstar]

I suppose it's worth testing. I will spawn 100 grass and take down the FPS. Then I will disable the animation and reload the world. If you are right, the FPS should be significantly better.

UPDATE: It definitely improved the framerate (from 7 fps to 12). Oddly enough, it seems to me that burning the grass didn't make it significantly worse again.

Still, heavy rain shouldn't cause a significant drop in framerate.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Mobbstar

[simplex]

@Mobbstar

If you'd like to implement this, you can use this code:

Spoiler

--// Maps prefab names to tables with animation overrides.
--//
--// Each of these override tables should map each an animation to another
--// animation to play instead. Animations not listed are played normally.
--//
--// If a replacement animation takes arguments, the full argument list may
--// be expressed as an array in place of the animation name (e.g., 
--// '{"idle", true}').
local tweaked_prefabs = {
	grass = {
		idle = {"anim", true},
		rustle = {"anim", true},
	},
}

---

--// AnimState methods to patch with animation override.
--// The only requirement is that they receive the animation argument right
--// after the 'self' one.
local patched_methods = {
	"PlayAnimation",
	"PushAnimation",
}

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

--// 
--// Here we hook everything up.
--//

---//
--// Imports

_G = GLOBAL
local _G = _G

local assert, error = _G.assert, _G.error
local type = _G.type
local pairs, ipairs = _G.pairs, _G.ipairs
local unpack = _G.unpack

---//
--// Code

--//
--// Maps each patched AnimState object to its prefab name.
--//
--// An entry is set on a prefab postinit, and cleared on an "onremove"
--// callback.
--//
local patched_animstates = {}

local function update_animstate_patched(inst, p)
	local animstate = inst.AnimState
	if not animstate then
		local msg = ("Prefab '%s' does not have an AnimState!"):format(tostring(inst.prefab))
		return error(msg)
	end

	if p then
		patched_animstates[animstate] = assert( inst.prefab )
	else
		patched_animstates[animstate] = nil
	end
end

local function patch_method(oldmethod)
	assert( oldmethod )
	return function(self, animname, ...)
		local prefab = patched_animstates[self]
		if prefab then
			local overrides = assert( tweaked_prefabs[prefab] )
			local override = overrides[animname]
			if override then
				if type(override) == "table" then
					return oldmethod(self, unpack(override))
				else
					return oldmethod(self, override)
				end
			end
		end
		return oldmethod(self, animname, ...)
	end
end

local function patch_animstate_index(animindex)
	for _, k in ipairs(patched_methods) do
		animindex[k] = patch_method( animindex[k] )
	end
end

local function new_animstate_setter(p)
	return function(inst)
		return update_animstate_patched(inst, p)
	end
end

local set_animstate_patched = new_animstate_setter(true)
local clear_animstate_patched = new_animstate_setter(false)

local function patch_prefab(prefab)
	return AddPrefabPostInit(prefab, function(inst)
		set_animstate_patched(inst)
		inst:ListenForEvent("onremove", clear_animstate_patched)
	end)
end

---

for prefab in pairs(tweaked_prefabs) do
	patch_prefab(prefab)
end

patch_animstate_index(assert( _G.AnimState ))

 

Put it in a modmain (or a file modimport'ed from it). It's easily extensible by adding new entries to the 'tweaked_prefabs' table at the top of the script. Currently what it does is to disable grass motion, but this behavior is automatically extended based on what's in 'tweaked_prefabs'.

I just won't take this mod upon myself because I'm really not looking forward to maintaining a list of problematic prefabs and the associated animations.

Edited April 2, 2016 by simplex
better syntax highlighting

[Maslak]

Thanks for answers.

I think I should check fps when grass is unharvested (and sways in the wind) and check after harvest.
In it harvested stade, there is some "time calculation" running, so it should lag even worse if it's a thing.

@Miss
I'm not using integrated graphics card, I guess.

I know that disabling some animations will boost fps to 50-60, but if even small increase can be achieved it's worth trying. I know it's easy to say and much harder to make, so I don't demand anything.

[Tulingu]

On 2016-04-02 at 0:05 AM, Maslak said:

@Miss
I'm not using integrated graphics card, I guess.

I know that disabling some animations will boost fps to 50-60, but if even small increase can be achieved it's worth trying. I know it's easy to say and much harder to make, so I don't demand anything.

GeForce GT 430 used to be a low-end GPU back in the days. It can handle video playback and lightweight games, that's about it...

I'm no mod expert or LUA coder but I do know my way around computers so I'll suggest over-clocking the graphics card. There are plenty of tutorials on le interwebz. Avoid those that wants you to use additional software because it'll slow down your system even more. Over-clocking is something you want to do in BIOS.

There's a second option as well - get a better graphic card. The 400 series are really old by technology standards and you can probably get a cheap card from (the less overheating) 500 series. Nvidia GeForce GTX 570M will do, 560 and 550 will probably make it as well. Don't spend too much on old laptops

Edited April 4, 2016 by Miss
what is english