AVWW Beta 0.932 "The ATI Salve" Released!

[x4000]

Cheers!  Glad that works out well.

Here's hoping we get more than 3 years, too -- the only reason I use that number is that that's how long we've been post-release supporting AI War so far.  But it's not like we're done with AI War either, so hopefully there's an even longer lifecycle with these both.  Fingers crossed!

[Gallant Dragon]

Holy sh**!

You even coaxed a performance boost out of my crappy intel chip!    Go Arcen!

[x4000]

Niiice!  What are you getting now on your intel chip?

[jonasan]

inspired by dragon's report i just test ran valley with my laptop on battery which turns off the ATI card and reverts to onboard intel graphics.... when i have done this in the past i had to drop down from native (1366x768) to 1024x768 to achieve a playable FPS.... now things are a little different! I can run at native resolution with my intel chip (and the reduced processor power from battery mode) and get a very consistent 45 FPS - which is better than i was getting before on previous versions of valley with my machine plugged in and the ATI card running.

a GRAND success!

the last time i got a major performance increase i suddenly thought "i can actually get good at this game now!!" and with this new boost and my ATI card kicking in properly it feels like "i can actually get fluid and REALLY good at this game now!".

Now i understand how Terraziel can play on "chosen one"! -  just never seemed feasible to me - but now who knows... and i didn't even have to resort to ponies!

[x4000]

Like some others have mentioned here, I used to think that the difference between 30fps and 60fps wasn't that big a deal.  But it definitely is!

Interesting fact I heard somewhere: the NES ran SMB1 at 60fps.  It wasn't until later consoles that we regressed to 30fps as the standard for a while.

[freeformschooler]

Congratulations on Arcen for such a rousing response from the press at PAX East! It's been a treat to get to play through the ever-changing alpha versions of A Valley Without Wind. They game feels relatively "complete" now (especially with all the graphical upgrades), and I have a hard time imagining anything else that could be added post-1.0 barring some new spells.

I am particularly appreciative of this update as it's the first time I've ever played in a cave system at full speed. Thanks for the performance fix.

I only have one question: has destroying foreground objects been removed? Neither Fireball nor Energy Pulse seem to damage anything anymore.

[keith.lamothe]

I only have one question: has destroying foreground objects been removed? Neither Fireball nor Energy Pulse seem to damage anything anymore.

You mean things like trees?  Those aren't foreground.  Or do you mean crates?  Those are foreground.

Fireball hasn't hit background stuff ever, iirc, and energy pulse stopped doing so many patches ago.

Or are they not damaging crates?

[freeformschooler]

Ohhhh okay. I just found a spell that will destroy things like crates. It's been quite a while since I played.

[orzelek]

Batching of drawing FTW I see 
On our mobile chip-set I'm coding for we are really forced to batch. Our rendering system is collecting vertices until type of primitive/texture change and sends them in batches to card. Without that performance was... very bad. We have a bit different GUI so it's less graphics from images and more triangles.

I got curious about fps increases here and tested a bit.. especially when you are saying it's mostly on ATI - I can hit 195 now but need to be moving cursor since it falls down when I don't. On menu it's around 180. I'm back to my vsync since it's tearing badly at that fps

[x4000]

Batching of drawing FTW I see 
On our mobile chip-set I'm coding for we are really forced to batch. Our rendering system is collecting vertices until type of primitive/texture change and sends them in batches to card. Without that performance was... very bad. We have a bit different GUI so it's less graphics from images and more triangles.

I actually was doing even MORE batching before this version.  The problem was that we were doing too much batching, not too little -- as counter-intuitive as that might seem.  What really changed here is that it's now streaming data to the card on a more constant basis, and not blocking the main execution thread while doing so.  This in turn triggers the cards to actually realize they have substantial load and come onto more full power (in the case of ATI) or to simply make better use of the available GPU cycles (on all cards).

[x4000]

Ohhhh okay. I just found a spell that will destroy things like crates. It's been quite a while since I played.

Crates should be something you can hit with any spell, fireball and so on included.  Are they not?  Those are the crates you can jump on, etc.  The wooden platforms and other background objects you need to use something like fire touch or ice cross to destroy; previously energy pulse would also do it, but that one changed.

[freeformschooler]

Crates are working. I got them confused for the locked-up boxes in some buildings.

I'll remember Fire Touch, though. Ice cross is comparatively an inefficient way of destroying non-enemy stuff.

[x4000]

Cheers -- miasma whip is actually my favorite tool for it nowadays.  Forgot to mention that one before.

[Toll]

Personally, I go for Leafy Whip. Just because it looks so bad-ass.

[Gallant Dragon]

Miasma whip all the way.

I used to be getting something like 20ish fps on both world map and side view, but now I'm averaging 45.  It's not great, but considering what I'm working with here this is fantastic!