Terrain Rendering and Culling Optimizations (v1.31.2.0)
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.31.2.0) This update makes several improvements to the object culling system. This includes high precision culling, multithreading optimizations, and early cull detection. These improve performance the most for background terrain, ranging up to a 15-20% boost, depending on system specs and detail settings.
This update also fixes compatibility issues with older GPU hardware and drivers that are limited to OpenGL 3.1 or 3.2. These cases now fallback to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer. Other bug fixes include occasional incorrect sizing and fog for enemies.
A small hotfix update was recently released as well. This fixed a bug that would occasionally get the player ship stuck in a highlighted state during wave intermission and wave intro sequences.
For more details, here are the full release notes for v1.31.2.0:
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.31.2.0” or above. Enjoy!
This update also fixes compatibility issues with older GPU hardware and drivers that are limited to OpenGL 3.1 or 3.2. These cases now fallback to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer. Other bug fixes include occasional incorrect sizing and fog for enemies.
A small hotfix update was recently released as well. This fixed a bug that would occasionally get the player ship stuck in a highlighted state during wave intermission and wave intro sequences.
For more details, here are the full release notes for v1.31.2.0:
- Made several improvements to object frustum culling
-Offloaded frustum culling calculations to the update thread is many cases
--Reduces the rendering thread workload, improving overall performance
-Added support for early object culling in many cases
--Eliminates most setup calculations for objects that are culled out
-Added a new high precision codepath
--More aggressively culls out objects near the edge of the screen without affecting visible objects
--Is more computationally intensive, but is usually combined with offloading from the render thread to accelerate the process
--This is handled automatically without any user configuration - Big terrain rendering optimization
-Uses the new high precision frustum culling code path to eliminate more offscreen terrain
-Also makes use of the offloaded frustum culling calculations and early object culling detailed above
-Improves performance by up to 15-20% depending on system specs and terrain detail settings - Offloaded all terrain matrix operations from the render thread to the update thread
-Better balances the workload between threads, improving CPU performance - Increased the minimum requirement of the OpenGL 4.6 renderer to OpenGL 3.3
-This fixes issues with some OpenGL 3.1 and 3.2 drivers
-These drivers will now fallback to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer - Player and Enemy bullet trails now smoothly move offscreen
-Previous versions would remove the bullet trail too soon after the front of the bullet moves offscreen - Increased the thread priority for a few startup loading threads and the particle thread manager
-Improves startup loading time by sacrificing loading bar animation smoothness
-Distributes particle thread work more quickly for CPUs with more than 2 cores - Fixed the player occasionally picking up item drops after death
- Fixed incorrect enemy sizing in some situations
- Fixed fog not being applied to distant enemies
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.31.2.0” or above. Enjoy!