Lightmap Rendering

[CrazyMahone]

I cannot seem to find any description as to when you can and cannot render lightmaps. For example, I am currently modifying Mission 08 which has a substantial number of lightmaps.

When can I not render lightmaps for a map, and when must I do it? Essentially I want to render the maps once (in medium quality; overnight), and then know when I have to re-render them ... assuming I have a choice. Can somebody point me to the right answers.

Tx,

- CM

[fishmonger]

I cannot seem to find any description as to when you can and cannot render lightmaps. For example, I am currently modifying Mission 08 which has a substantial number of lightmaps.

When can I not render lightmaps for a map, and when must I do it? Essentially I want to render the maps once (in medium quality; overnight), and then know when I have to re-render them ... assuming I have a choice. Can somebody point me to the right answers.

Tx,

- CM

you'll find out if you can or cannot when you try. I appears to be a matter of video memory. A 2x 512mb SLI setup may be able to. System RAM is not the limitation (on my PC at least). 768MB video Ram wasn't enough to render even smaller original mission files than the one you are working on.

Mission 08 - I doubt you can do better than low quality. It is a huge map.

[AmEyeBlind]

are u sure its video ram?

in the task manager it looks more like it would be system ram.

[fishmonger]

are u sure its video ram?

in the task manager it looks more like it would be system ram.

I have still 2GB free when it tells me it is short 94MB or 144MB - doesn't sound like system RAM to me.

[AmEyeBlind]

well bear in mind that a 32 bit OS can only assign ~900MB to 1 application

when u have a big map u can see the difference what the graphic settings do to the system ram.

take a look in 800 x 600 windowmode and the play around with the graphics,

u will see in teh taskmanager that the usage of system ram will go up and down, due

to the settings u swithing.

and when u start to render it u will see how the system ram is loading and loading and ups its tooo much

so under a 64 bit OS that problem shouldnt exist.

did some1 try to render with a 64bit OS?

[CrazyMahone]

well bear in mind that a 32 bit OS can only assign ~900MB to 1 application

when u have a big map u can see the difference what the graphic settings do to the system ram.

take a look in 800 x 600 windowmode and the play around with the graphics,

u will see in teh taskmanager that the usage of system ram will go up and down, due

to the settings u swithing.

and when u start to render it u will see how the system ram is loading and loading and ups its tooo much

so under a 64 bit OS that problem shouldnt exist.

did some1 try to render with a 64bit OS?

Actually a 32-bit application can address 4Gb of memory 2^32-1 bytes. Windows implements virtual memory, so the maximum addressable space is 4Gb even if you have only 1Gb of actual memory. Creating your own virtual memory greater than 4Gb is a waste of time.

Things like your video card eat away at the total space. I run a 8800 GTX which has 768 Mb. So my total addressable windows memory space is 3.2 Gb. On Vista 64, the video card doesn't eat up the memory.

Virtual memory works using a table and a hard-drive disk cache (called Windows Swap). Suppose the virtual memory total size is 3.5 Gb and you have 512 Mb of RAM, then the operating system uses the table to identify what is in physical memory and what is on virtual memory disk. To do any processing, the operating system reports to applications that there is 2Gb of memory and the programs work as if 2Gb is present. The OS keeps a count of the number of accesses to a block of memory. When an application requests some memory that is currently in virtual memory, it looks for the block least used and writes it to virtual memory, then loads the requested memory onto that physical space, then returns control to the application. Where the virtual memory is loaded into physical memory has nothing to do with it's address. The virtual memory table takes care of it. So memory block A,B,C,D might be in physical memory slot 4,1,2,3.

Cheers,

- CM

[fishmonger]

well bear in mind that a 32 bit OS can only assign ~900MB to 1 application

when u have a big map u can see the difference what the graphic settings do to the system ram.

take a look in 800 x 600 windowmode and the play around with the graphics,

u will see in teh taskmanager that the usage of system ram will go up and down, due

to the settings u swithing.

and when u start to render it u will see how the system ram is loading and loading and ups its tooo much

so under a 64 bit OS that problem shouldnt exist.

did some1 try to render with a 64bit OS?

that could very well be the case - which is why I use the /3GB switch for winXP 32bit. Apparently GRIN then didn't program the code to use more than 900MB, even if it is available, because otherwise I should have been able to use 2GB for each application in that mode and more than 3GB total. See

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platf...PAE/PAEmem.mspx

for more info on the /3GB swith

I've given up on those bigger maps, because even running it windowed on a PC with 7GB RAM available in task manager, a 768MB vid card, I keep getting the out of memory errors.

I assume this may work on a 64 bit copy of Windows, however, knowing how often our gamers with 64bit vista crash when they try to load bigger maps just to play them, I am not holding my breath here (i.e. I am not going to bother installing 64bit XP just to see it won't work either)

[AmEyeBlind]

well , might not work in 64bit ether, couse graw is in 32code.

is there a big difference between low and medium render?

and when it gets to big, well than u screwd.

btw: do u know if the backround city bloks are lightrendered ?

couse if they are u can set them in after u renderd the map,

that will save some more ram.

[Palyarmerc]

Big Map, same problem, which had me worried when reading all this.

Kept crashing with memory problems for MEDIUM 3 passes

So, firstly I rendered in LOW with 3 passes (3 hours, and will do for the GUI map if the next bit works anyway)

-- 3 things I did, not sure which has affected it --

1. - I removed the WORK_TEMP folder - so no interference from previous choices made there...

2. - I reduced the MultiplayerArea to the standard -10000 10000 5000 and removed Alpha and Zulu completely for now...only because they would now be outside this area and cause a crash, (no other alterations to the map, same big map, twice the standard multiplayer size)

3. - Made the Mission Cube (defaults to Mission 2 on mine) have the same Sky environment - Mission 2 (I wanted to use Mission 9 Sky, it renders very clear for most [GR] custom maps, and is my personal favourite)

It rendered with no hitch, MEDIUM 3 Passes ETA 2 Hours...suprisingly less than the 3 hours on LOW, it rendered the whole map area with only a few 10m 2_Lane_Road sections coming out black.

Not sure if it is a solution in part, or simply that the cube has to match the sky for this.

Edited November 1, 2008 by Palyarmerc

[fishmonger]

Big Map, same problem, which had me worried when reading all this.

Kept crashing with memory problems for MEDIUM 3 passes

So, firstly I rendered in LOW with 3 passes (3 hours, and will do for the GUI map if the next bit works anyway)

-- 3 things I did, not sure which has affected it --

1. - I removed the WORK_TEMP folder - so no interference from previous choices made there...

2. - I reduced the MultiplayerArea to the standard -10000 10000 5000 and removed Alpha and Zulu completely for now...only because they would now be outside this area and cause a crash, (no other alterations to the map, same big map, twice the standard multiplayer size)

3. - Made the Mission Cube (defaults to Mission 2 on mine) have the same Sky environment - Mission 2 (I wanted to use Mission 9 Sky, it renders very clear for most [GR] custom maps, and is my personal favourite)

It rendered with no hitch, MEDIUM 3 Passes ETA 2 Hours...suprisingly less than the 3 hours on LOW, it rendered the whole map area with only a few 10m 2_Lane_Road sections coming out black.

Not sure if it is a solution in part, or simply that the cube has to match the sky for this.

cube has nothing to do with it. There are also more sky choices than cubes. I frequently change skys and leave the cubes the way they are (dragonfly_fish, for example). All those multiplayer map skies have no matching cube either.

what I do when memory is tight is to drop EVERYTHING from maps other than

- sky

- small static

- static

- static-add-ons

- electrical (poles, no wires)

also make sure there's no prop brush stuff (grass, graffiti, etc) in the work folder. (render in windowed mode, 800x600, low qual settings for editor graphics before you load the map for the final render)

nothing else - no AI grah, no cover, no AI, no sounds, no area - all to cut down on memory footprint. Then render the light maps. From here on you can't change props and statics, with very few exceptions, but you can render big maps pretty well in medium unless

black road pieces only happen on low quality for me - never seen that on medium.