Hello everyone!
The focus of this weeks CTB will be performance optimizations - and we will want your feedback on those. We will have a survey link posted in the coming days which will allow you to submit your feedback about the optimizations we've made. More about that in the patch notes!
For those that have not been a part of a CTB test already, you will find it available in your Steam Library on Friday.
The following maps will be included for the server map rotation: SU-Forrest, Firebase Georgina, Hue, and Song Be.
Here’s a list of all the new changes players will be getting their hands on soon!
Optimization
The big focus of the Community Performance Test is to test the effectiveness of changes made to Rising Storm 2: Vietnam in order to aid players who get poor performance when playing the game. Many of these changes are visual, but some are purely on the back-end, and we’d like feedback both on the changes made to the visual elements of the game, but also to hear how much/how little these changes have affected your performance!
Your feedback is very important to us. As such, we will be posting an optimization specific survey link once the CTB has gone live. We will post the link at multiple locations (in-game main menu, forums, social media etc.) as we want to gather as much data as possible to further fine tune the game. Stay tuned!
- Characters
- Reduced the number of character draw calls created by wearing any type of glasses cosmetic
- Particle Effects
- Optimized muzzle flash effects to have less draw calls and overdraw when firing weapons
- Optimized shell eject effects to no longer use PhysX fluid emitters as this was causing hitches due a legacy version of PhysX. Shell ejects now use a normal mesh emitter
- Reduced number of draw calls and overdraw added to the scene by gameplay related effects like impacts, explosions, etc
- Reduced overdraw of level placed effects like smoke, dust, etc
- Reduced number of particles using collision calculations
- Significantly reduced the hitching caused by having many Smoke Grenades spawned in the world
- Level Optimizations
- Updated all maps with the following:
- Turned off dynamic shadows being casted on small or thin objects
- Cull distance pass
- Turned off decals, rice paddy meshes and some facade meshes when using Low World Detail setting
- Refinements to cull distance settings - fixing distances that were too short and making culling more aggressive for other objects
- Adjusted Terrain Component sizes on some levels that either had this value set too high or too low
- Increased threshold for static meshes to be considered for Instanced Rendering on some maps to reduce draw calls to a more reasonable number
- Updated all maps with the following:
- Instanced Rendering
- Instanced Static Meshes now properly respects cull distances set in the Editor
- Instanced Static Meshes now properly respects settings for turning off receiving dynamic shadows
- World Objects
- Fixed a trench mesh using perpoly collision
- Fixed a log error related to a dynamic actor that had no collision
- Reduced vertex shader complexity on small foliage objects like ivy and rice paddies
- Texture Optimizations
- Added option to use a Pool Size for texture accollocation
- Fixed several instances of large uncompressed textures
- Corrected several instances of textures using the incorrect Texture Group
- Reduced the overall number of mipmaps being used and constantly being streamed from the HDD
New LODs
Several art elements in the game were displaying LODs with far higher poly-counts than necessary at distance. These included both weapons and vehicles. Here is a full list of art with new LODs:
- BAR
- Browning Hi-Power
- M1911
- F1 SMG
- L1A1
- L2A1
- M1917
- M1919
- M1A1
- M1 Carbine
- M1 Garand
- M1-D Sniper
- M2 Carbine
- Makarov PM
- Owen Gun
- RPG-7
- XM21 Suppressed Variant
- Spawn Tunnel
- Bird Dog
- Canberra Bomber
- Skyraider
- F4 Phantom
- AC-47 Spooky
- Various particle effects
New Weapons
MP40
Designed by the Germans during the Second World War this fully automatic submachine gun can fire up to 550 round per minute. Tens of thousands of these short range weapons were put in the hands of the NLF during the Vietnam War, sourced from Soviet stockpiles.
RPD - 200 Round Belt Variant
PAVN players will see a new ammunition variant for the machine gunners RPD with this update. The new 200 round belt holds 100 more rounds than the drum and can be optionally changed in the Role Select out screen.
Deployable DSHK
Available at any ammo resupply point, the North have a new weapon to add to their arsenal - a deployable version of the (previously static) DSHK .50 caliber machine gun. Simply pick up the tripod, find a quiet patch of Jungle and set up to become a portable anti-air emplacement.
These guns can be destroyed by explosives, however, so staying in one place for too long is bound to get you blown up, giving the Southern forces a counter to this devastating new weapon.
Fougasse Mine
A brand new trap for the NLF Sapper, the Fougasse Mine is an improvised explosive device planted under the ground and activated by a pressure plate. It leaves a cloud of toxic vapour behind, making it a great tool for area denial.
Other Major Changes
Audio Occlusion
Added ‘audio occlusion’ to RS2, ensuring that gunshots and other ingame sounds are appropriately affected by their environment. This does not apply to all sounds in the game, but will affect any sound loud enough to be heard through walls, and be muffled/occluded by obstacles such as buildings or terrain.
When testing this feature, please provide feedback of any kind at the following link: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418460/discussions/2/ Doing so will allow the development team to adjust things prior to the release of 1.2!
As always, thank you for your continued support! We are continuing to work hard on Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, and would not be able to provide fixes like these without your feedback.
Antimatter Games & Tripwire Interactive
Twitter - https://twitter.com/rs2vietnam
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RS2Vietnam/