OBGEv2 Water Package : IV - Oblivion

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:39 pm

From your OBSE logs, it seems as though you are running 2 versions of OBGE at the same time, as seen from OBGEv2.dll and obge.dll Maybe you could try remove the older version?

ZOMG you were right
No idea it was there.
Probably dropped there when I installed ScreenEffects back last Sunday

Thank you :icecream:

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:53 pm

ZOMG you were right
No idea it was there.
Probably dropped there when I installed ScreenEffects back last Sunday

Thank you :icecream:

Haha so I take it that your reflections are now working?

Unrelated, but what texture mod are you using for that ground texture? Im using QTP III and I dont recall seeing such nice ground textures..... or I could have missed them haha

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:46 am

I was also using Volumetric SSAO with God Rays. I also had 32X AA forced with nvidia inspector.
I also had ishadow res turned up to 8192 with full water reflections set in Oblivion.ini

What, what? How were you able to use SSAO with AA? I thought that was impossible. I was told countless times that even if the graphics card forced it, the game wouldn't run unless AA was disabled. Was I misinformed? I also have a NVIDIA card.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:01 pm

YES! Finally!

I've been waiting for this for a while. This is one of the biggest graphical leaps in Oblivion in some time IMO. Great job.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:03 am

What, what? How were you able to use SSAO with AA? I thought that was impossible. I was told countless times that even if the graphics card forced it, the game wouldn't run unless AA was disabled. Was I misinformed? I also have a NVIDIA card.

I used to think the same thing about OBGEv2 not working with AA, but it's definitely not true. It may not have worked with nVidia cards up until recently but it definitely works now based on everything I've heard, and has worked with ATI cards for a while. There's a lot of confusion out there it seems.

But OBGEv2's NFAA shader is so good in my opinion I don't even force AA in the ATI control panel anymore even with it working fine with OBGEv2 (I went a long time thinking AA wouldn't work with OBGEv2 and I couldn't give up AA, so when I finally tried OBGEv2 again and realized I had been wrong somehow and MSAA worked, I ended up disabling it anyway to use NFAA, heh). But I can use NFAA and get rid of most of the aliasing without the performance hit that comes with hardware AA. It isn't the same quality as the hardware MSAA, but it's definitely good enough for me.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:36 pm

What, what? How were you able to use SSAO with AA? I thought that was impossible. I was told countless times that even if the graphics card forced it, the game wouldn't run unless AA was disabled. Was I misinformed? I also have a NVIDIA card.

OBGE works with AA forced from NVIDIA Inspector (not the NVIDIA control panel) ... I think. At least that's what I remember.
I have a NVIDIA card as well, but I've been modding recently and haven't had the time to focus on getting AA from this NVIDIA Inspector yet.

If I remember correctly, you should follow these instructions:
http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/184054-oblivion-graphics-extender-v2-endorsemants/page__st__670__p__2719986#entry2719986

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:02 am

Haha so I take it that your reflections are now working?

Unrelated, but what texture mod are you using for that ground texture? Im using QTP III and I dont recall seeing such nice ground textures..... or I could have missed them haha

Hmm my Landscape is big patchwork from different packs.
I think those come http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=5794 (low rez, came too late to get the HQ ones)

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:26 pm

Hmm my Landscape is big patchwork from different packs.
I think those come http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=5794 (low rez, came too late to get the HQ ones)

Oh, thanks! I have always wanted to try Ampol's textures, but never really got around actually doing it......

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:52 am

Naa, I think it looks http://c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000UtPFXspZnOc/s/850/850/E08-PEaks-Island-High-Tide-Picnic-Point-Sunset.jpg.
Not sure what res you are playing at currently palidoo, but 1920x1080 in HDR plus the 32x AA looks pretty darn nice with tomerk's water in it's current form IMO.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm150/far327/potentialmemoryissue.jpg

So here is what I gathered from the crash...

Loaded Oblivion save to Water Front. Memory usage at 1.8gb or so. Used TCL command to fly around and admire water effects for about 5 minutes.
Fast traveled to Weye. Memory usage now at 2.3gb. Flew around for 30 seconds.
Fast traveled to Anvil Lighthouse. Memory usage now at 2.8gb. Flew towards the Anvil docks enough for the full cell to load. Memory usage at 3.1gb
CTD at 3.1gb, BUT within a matter of a few seconds, the memory usage on the Oblivion process shot up to 3.8gb immediately after the crash (?) (what you see in the pic)

I can't guarantee that this was caused by your water package for sure yet. But I didn't have these frequent crashes until after I installed it.
I'll make sure to remove your mod and re-verify the stability of my game.
Either way, I guess that's what we are here for. Testing and reporting issues.

Thanks again for the glorious water!

This is probably the most useful bug report I've gotten so far

I've known it causes a lot of random crashes (reason for my note mentioning major instability) but I haven't been able to pinpoint the reason for the instability. Do you mind testing to see if without the esp active but running water.fx in the shaderlist (without uninstalling the water package) you still have a memory leak?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:03 am

Err is it just me, or is the plugin ignoring the scale value for ssao? I don't remember volumetric ssao looking so "patchy" and comparing 2 screeenshots with scales 1 and 2, I cant see a difference...

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:02 pm

Err is it just me, or is the plugin ignoring the scale value for ssao? I don't remember volumetric ssao looking so "patchy" and comparing 2 screeenshots with scales 1 and 2, I cant see a difference...

A way to test: replace

extern float

with

static const float

It could be that the plugin is making it impossible to change your shader settings by saving the data for those values.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:35 am

Just tried what you suggested, and again I observed no difference. I even tried using a very high strength multiplier value to confirm there was no difference, and there really is no difference.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:04 am

Just to make sure volumetric ssao is even running:

uncomment the line

//#define RAW_SSAO //uncomment this line to show the raw ssao

If you don't see the raw SSAO, it means you're not running that shader file

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:33 am

Just to make sure volumetric ssao is even running:

uncomment the line

//#define RAW_SSAO //uncomment this line to show the raw ssao

If you don't see the raw SSAO, it means you're not running that shader file

Yeah uncommented it and it does show raw SSAO

Edit:
Heres the related sections from the ssao and shader files

Shader.ini:

Spoiler

;=============================================================================
; SSAO Filter Choice ONLY CHOOSE ONE Toggle On/Off
;=============================================================================
set OBGEWater.enableRingSSAO to 0 ; Use Ring SSAO?
set OBGEWater.enableVolumetricSSAO to 1 ; Use Volumetric SSAO?
set OBGEWater.enableHBAO to 0 ; Use HBAO?

Volumetric_SSAO.fx:

Spoiler

#define N_SAMPLES 9 //number of samples, currently do not change.

static const float scale = 1; //downsampling scale, 1 is highest quality but slowest

static const float aoRadiusMultiplier = 2.5; //Linearly multiplies the radius of the AO Sampling
static const float aoStrengthMultiplier = 0.8; //Linearly multiplies the strength of the AO
static const float aoClamp = 0.5; //The maximum strength of the AO, 1 is max strength, 0 is weakest
static const float ThicknessModel = 100; //units in space the AO assumes objects' thicknesses are

static const float FOV = 95; //Field of View in Degrees

static const float luminosity_threshold = 0.3;

static const float fogStart = 8000;
static const float fogEnd = 22000;

#define LUMINANCE_CONSIDERATION //comment this line to not take pixel brightness into account
#define RAW_SSAO //uncomment this line to show the raw ssao

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:06 pm

Comment out the RAW_SSAO line again, then:

set aoClamp to 1 and aoStrengthMultiplier to 1000. If you can see that change, it means the changes you've been making have just been subtle, not that they haven't been taking place

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:47 pm

Oh my, very sorry for taking up your time, its is indeed my settings. Looks like I wont be able to use the same settings I used in the support plugin anymore....

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:40 pm

Not a problem

I'm still not positive that the settings do get changed when extern float is still there, so it could be that at the start they really weren't changing

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:47 am

Just tried setting it back to extern float, used that super dark setting you recommended to test with (gave me a shock the first time i saw it haha), and indeed the settings are not applied.

Edit: Never knew volumetric ssao looked so flickery before, maybe my depth of field shader was "hiding" it from me all along haha

Edit 2: Does this mean I will have to change all shader files to use the static const type?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:14 pm

no, only the variables you wish to change

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:43 pm

Coooooool!

What a nice surprise to see after 2 months.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:19 am

This is probably the most useful bug report I've gotten so far

I've known it causes a lot of random crashes (reason for my note mentioning major instability) but I haven't been able to pinpoint the reason for the instability. Do you mind testing to see if without the esp active but running water.fx in the shaderlist (without uninstalling the water package) you still have a memory leak?

I'll look into this more tonight. Working on my taxes today

BUT so far I am getting moneys back! Drinks on me!! :foodndrink:

@ AmpolX - You better run and hide man... EVERYONE is looking for you on the forums these days. Including me :tongue:

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:05 pm

I'm quite positive the memory leaks are from the dll, since it turns out I incorrectly assumed it was stable even though it was a debug dll, probably shouldn't have released this water yet, my bad

Hopefully a fix will be out soon though.

Edit: In the mean time, if you don't mind not having reflections, you can use the OBGEv2.dll from the obge core package, in order to get rid of the memory leaks.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:06 am

tomerk, any word on the HDR "fix" that has the issue with foggy weathers? I'd imagine this memory leak issue has superseded it in importance but you mentioned it yesterday and I was wondering if you were going to share it (though I'm guessing you might wait now)?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:23 am

in water.fx find the block of code

float3 getWaterNorm( float2 tex, float dist, float camera_vector_z, inout float3 specNorm ){	float lod =  0.15/max(0.01,camera_vector_z) + dist/2250 - 1;	float4 uvLOD = float4(get2DTex(float3(tex / 1024, frame)), 0, lod);	float2 temp_norm = tex2Dlod( waterSampler, uvLOD  ).rg * 2 - 1;	float3 norm = normalize(float3(temp_norm * choppiness,1));		uvLOD.w = min( 0.1/camera_vector_z + dist/3250 - 1, 5 );	temp_norm = tex2Dlod( waterSampler, uvLOD  ).rg * 2 - 1;	specNorm = normalize(float3(temp_norm * choppiness, 1));		return norm;}

and replace it with

float3 getWaterNorm( float2 tex, float dist, float camera_vector_z, inout float3 specNorm ){	float lod =  0.15/max(0.01,camera_vector_z) + dist/2250 - 1;	float4 uvLOD = float4(get2DTex(float3(tex / 1024, frame)), 0, lod);	float2 temp_norm = tex2D( waterSampler, uvLOD.xy  ).rg * 2 - 1;	float3 norm = normalize(float3(temp_norm * saturate( choppiness / lod ) , 1));		uvLOD.w = min( 0.1/camera_vector_z + dist/3250 - 1, 5 );	temp_norm = tex2D( waterSampler, uvLOD.xy  ).rg * 2 - 1;	specNorm = normalize(float3(temp_norm * choppiness / lod, 1));		return norm;}

Thats my extremely quick hdr fix (that I actually wrote in this post

) Anyway, that should work, can't guarantee how well though. At a later point in time I'll probably improve it, but like you mentioned the memory leaks are a bigger issue right now

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:43 pm

Many thanks!!! I'll have to see how long I can play with it before my game crashes. :teehee:

I'll also try that blue paint-y "fix" you posted yesterday, though someone else who tried it had trouble.