☵ Hiraeth 0.9.8.44 — Double FPS at No Extra Charge… Plus 30% Off Winter Sale!

[p]Recently Unreal Engine started acting up in some really strange ways, so instead of waiting around, I dove straight into the problem. I tweaked a bunch of settings, worked around several engine quirks, removed a few actors — theoretically they shouldn’t have affected performance, but as always, UE had its own opinion about that 😅[/p][p]The result? On Nesoi Island, on my aging RTX 2060, I’m now getting around 60 FPS on the shown settings. Before — on a good day — it was barely 30 FPS, and the last builds… well, let’s not talk about those 🙈[/p][p]I also added a few small code optimizations I had planned for later, and they helped a bit too. But the real issue wasn’t the code — it was engine physics and navigation mesh generation. Not even the AI itself. For now, AI is disabled in this version while I rethink how to approach navmesh. I don’t have full control over it, but I’m confident I can sort it out in a few days.[/p][p][/p][h2]❌ What’s temporarily missing?[/h2]

• [p]Creatures: spiders, Raptus, Slug — you can survive without them for a few days 😉[/p]
• [p]Flags — physics caused unexpected FPS drops, even though they barely moved[/p]

[p][/p][h2]🌿 More good news[/h2][p]I usually rely on experience and intuition when it comes to textures, object density, rocks, foliage, and world composition. But today I ran a full rendering analysis, and everything is in the green on my RTX 2060! 💚[/p][p]This means I can safely add more rocks, objects, and foliage on Nesoi (and future locations) without hurting FPS. Rendering is not the bottleneck — the engine’s physics and navmesh generation were. And those are now mostly under control.[/p][p][/p][h2]⚠️ A note about DLSS[/h2][p]DLSS can be a bit unpredictable. A wrong setting may lower FPS — it’s worth experimenting, waiting a moment after launching the game, and sometimes restarting.[/p][p]Why? My DLSS setup isn’t perfect, and in AAA studios entire teams work on this. Plus, the Nvidia plugin isn’t fully stable. But overall it works well — and many of you told me it helps a lot 👍[/p][p][/p][h2]🔧 Other changes[/h2][p]Not many — I focused almost entirely on performance and system checks. And it worked — all in a single day! 💪 Additionally:[/p]

• [p]Athens — improved surroundings and landing zone. The WIP drone is temporarily removed due to construction issues (and because UE physics can murder FPS).[/p]
• [p]Comm Center — works better now, no duplicated objects like a few days ago. The antenna will return after fixes.[/p]
• [p]Water Station — removed for now; it wasn’t showing up anyway. It will return in a better, polished form.[/p]
• [p]Various POI objects (like crates) now appear more reliably — a side effect of the overall cleanup.[/p]

[p][/p][h2][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/h2][h2]✨ Final message [/h2][p]I think a bit more FPS is something everyone can appreciate for the New Year — especially with new challenges on Nesoi coming soon, opening the way to yet another, completely different region of Ahra Prime![/p][p]Wishing you all the very best in the New Year — may it be full of survival, exploration, and great stories. Warm regards, Paweł[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]My settings on Training Center and The Nesoi Island. GPU: RTX 2060[/h3][p][/p][p][/p]