Mountain Valley *Update 7/7/10*

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[Unkn0wn]

True story.

[Mysthalin]

Change in video drivers? Anything else slower than normal?

Stuff's been running slower in general - in particular the load times. I think it's my motherboard that's semi-fried or something.

[AmPM]

Check your HD properties to make sure its not in PIO mode?

[Mysthalin]

how do I do that? never specialised in HDDs..

[Caarnus]

I think I will find some time to come back and play this. Looks Great!

[AmPM]

That is sick, the amount of detail is amazing (also, love the swamp land)

Can I ask you though, how long have you been busy with it? I personally suck with height edits, usually takes fucking ages to look a bit nice with me...

Sorry it took a while to get back to you. We've been working on it off and on the last 2 weeks (last week was Thanksgiving, so were we really spotty that week). I laid out the layout and major heightmapping, Iggi did detail work and the gorgeous heightmaps in the town and such, I came back in for trees and grass etc, and I just finished the sectors.

Its a team effort, playing to each persons strengths.

[AmPM]

Device Manager -> IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, check both Primary IDE channel and Secondary (not sure on your hardware setup or how many drives or where, but just check them) by Right Click and Properties, Advanced Settings, Transfer Mode (Should be DMA if Available) and Current Transfer Mode (Ultra DMA 5 or whatnot).

If its set to PIO mode (ancient ass transfer mode from waaay back) your drives will be going slooooooow. Fix it by uninstalling the driver and restarting, Windows will detect it and install the driver setting it back to DMA mode. There is also a way to do it in your registry, but it is long and complex.

This is a major cause of unexplained general computer slowdown, basically, if the Drive fails to read properly Windows lowers the transfer rate until it does read properly. So if the drive has an error and Windows cant read it a couple times in a row, its off to PIO mode. Also happens when you install certain burning software....

Here is what the useless ass Windows website has to say http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472

[Mysthalin]

Guess how right are you on the right scale from right to super right?

[AmPM]

Super Right! I've run into this shit continuously as a tech =)

[Mysthalin]

Should I use the hotfix listed in that site, then?

Then all I do is uninstal the driver, windows will reinstal it auto?


---wrong button <.<

[Killer344]

You might as well run a check for defective sectors while you are at it, and save your important data :p.

yeah, windows has a generic HDD driver.

[Mysthalin]

So this can actually kill my data? :O

Scanning for defective sectors takes a while, doesn't it, tho?

[Killer344]

No, it won't kill your data, but it's good to know if your HDD is getting old and buggy.

[AmPM]

AAAAND with that mystery solved....

BACK ON TOPIC



A view of the central town, I grow more and more fond of this atmosphere setting....

Tempting to drop the winter to save people with poor performance...

[EscforrealityTLS]

Have both atmosphere settings, Summer and winter? Choice is good. Looks fantastic by the way.

[AmPM]

The problem is that if I want snow, its going to be sand disguised by the lighting used in the weather. So if I have a summer one I have to change the sand tiles to something else, because it won't look right. Ah the choices....maybe 2 maps released, one Winter, one Summer.

[Mysthalin]

As an owner of a crappy rig I can tell you snowflakes don't make a difference at all. 1 FPS, at most.

It's the white background that likes to shit things up, sometimes.

[AmPM]

Excellent, SNOWY HELL IT IS!!

Well, till we release a Spring version with muddy fields, pooled water, and rain =p

[AmPM]

Whipping Iggi as fast as I can! 

Map should be up soon, just need to finish up the park, some stairs, and then do a once over of pathing.

[DasNoob]

* DasNoob cracks whip.