WIP Beta released A new *CITY* map - LOS INJURUS 2023-12-20

Yes, that entirely. I don't put release dates on things otherwise it makes me nuts.

Nah no one's getting hostile, this comes up in every thread about a map or car, etc. The person who said 'WAIT' is likely just sick of seeing that, but again, not a crime in asking. You won't know if you don't ask. However, that is but a moot point, as even I don't know about release dates for this. There's a LOT of work and I might have 10~25% of the infrastructure put in, and a mere few % of the total buildings put in. This city will be *HUGE*, the urban area is not even the size of WCA yet though, so it's no-where close.
I'm not upset by questions, I actually did say 'well if you folks have any questions, now's a good time to ask' or something along those lines. Just know that I can't always respond the same day, as when I get into things, I tend to stay focused for a while (no short attention span here), sometimes even forgoing meals, and so-forth, for longer than I should (9 hours or more at times, until my back makes it's wretched presence known anyways).

It would be further along but I am doing optimizations first, so when I add more to the city, the draw calls do not go through the roof, leaving only the folks with i7 4xxx series CPU's at 4ghz or higher able to have a smooth ride (FPS-wise). I optimize, then add content, go back and optimize, add more content, and so forth. So if someone can't run it, wait one version, and it might be a lot better the next go-around.

I just got to my computer after getting my yard done (it rained about 3 minutes after I finished, which has happened over a half-dozen times this summer), so I might have some progress later to post / depends how long the model's optimizations take.
I will also be making some larger models combined from various road pieces, to cover larger sections for faster building and simpler rendering, when less customization/versatility is warranted.

--That is all.

 

You think a computer with a 4gb ram would be okay on lower settings?

 

4GB of ram *MIGHT* be okay if your system is only using up 512MB~1GB or less of that memory. If you use the low setting before loading the map you may be better off. Now, this requirement will go up slowly as the map develops, so be forewarned about that.
You would be able to load the map, but you might run out of free RAM at some point, as while it takes about 3GB to load the map on HIGHEST details, it might not use as much memory on LOW or LOWEST settings (which will run this map on pretty much anything that can run the game). After using FREE CAM to zip around the city a loop or two, it was using 3.65GB, so I don't know if you will be able to manage that. Like I said try setting it to low or lowest and try from there. It might take up less space then, as the textures on high take around 4GB of VRAM space alone (video card's RAM).
So you can try it out if you like, let me know how it goes. I believe it DOES drop the memory requirement a little bit if you use LOW settings before loading the map (and don't load other maps before this one, load this as soon as you start the game, you may wish to cut down on all but the most essential car mods, too, if you can't otherwise seem to run it).

--Keep me posted though.
P.S. Used DDR3 memory is very cheap, even a single 4GB stick is often about 20~25$ or less on the OEM or even used designer-brand memory on sites like Ebay. Just be careful not to buy memory (if you have an intel system) that says 'only for AMD systems' as it's designed a little differently and won't boot in most intel machines. Make sure to match the voltage correctly and that the RAM you buy is at-least as fast as what you have (if it's faster, that's alright, if the voltage is different, that IS NOT alright). Make sure you have free slots to put the RAM you purchase (if you buy some) in on the computer. It may have 2x 2GB sticks of RAM, and only 2 slots, so any you buy would replace what you have - not helping in the process. If you have FOUR slots, and have 1 or 2 sticks of ram (1 4gb stick, or 2x 2gb sticks), you will have 2 or 3 slots open. Some computers with only 2 RAM slots may come with 1 4gb memory stick, leaving you open to buy another 4gb memory stick to go in right next to it (giving you 8gb). Use Youtube tutorials if you need help, most of the computer upgrade things like this are actually quite simple, though it may feel daunting at first.
It is best to have 8gb (or more) or at the bare-minimum 6gb of RAM if you plan to do any real gaming or simulation on your computer. If your integrated video uses system memory (98% of the time it does!), keep in mind this subtracts from your system memory to use as video memory.
As it stands currently, this map mod will run just dandy on any system with 6GB or more of installed memory in the system, even if 1GB of that is reserved for video memory with integrated graphics. I have designed the map to have conservative amounts of polygonal surfaces, so that even integrated video (provided you can allocate 768MB~1GB of RAM to it) can run it on lowest settings.
Even a lowly 30$ (used price, two years ago!) Radeon 6750 1GB DDR3 video card can run this on a (1st-gen i7) xeon-branded 3ghz quad-core processor - AT 50~60FPS OR MORE on the lowest settings (better once improved performance version of this map goes live for Patreon folks).

 

Still going, still the same picture... not one bush or tree has changed - HOWEVER, I am seeing FPS as high as 76 FPS tonight, another day, another 1~2fps higher (only one!).
Such news. That being said, it's still about 20~25% faster map-wide and some spots were helped even MORE.

Before I started building the flood control canals on far side of the lake (for reference, the spawn point is just to the left of the illuminated Burger World sign), this spot was seeing around 38~48FPS, before any optimization on the map had begun.
Now it's lowest is a quick drop to 56~59FPS at the *LOWEST* while it normally says in the upper/mid-60's for most of the time (63~67FPS). This spot was helped much, much more. I'd say a good solid 30~40% improvement here. Again, this is max detail, with somewhat minimal (not absolute lowest) reflections. I will attach my reflection settings for reference. These settings offer a good compromise of performance VS looks, anyone with an RX 470, Radeon R9 NANO (Fuji), Nvidia 980, 970, 1060 3gb or better can use these reflection settings and still have a playable map that shouldn't drop much below 40FPS too often, and definitely not below 30fps, unless you have a really slow or old CPU (that would possibly get draw-call limited, such as A-series APU previous to Ryzen, slow 2ghz laptops 4~5 years old, or AMD FX series bulldozer/steamroller CPU's).
If it runs well on my computer - which is four years old next month - it should run well on any recent gaming computer, 2012 or newer (with a recent video board as stated above). If you have a 1080Ti, and you get POOR performance, worse than what I am listing, or barely any better, and you have a decent 3.5ghz + intel CPU, consider checking if you have high latency due to bad drivers (LatencyMon program) - this is documented with the Nvidia 1080ti especially.
So while I am not stopping performance optimization just yet, as I will continue to improve things in time; the initial first batch is done, with a difference that should be fairly obvious to anyone running the map on something other than an 8086K clocked at 5ghz and a 1080 video card. As I continue to build, I will keep an eye out for high-draw-call trouble spots, and also keep the map full of good stuff. Maybe in the future batching of draw calls will be improved on this engine, and the FPS will jump CONSIDERABLY if any work is done to make this happen more often (batching draw calls takes all objects with a texture and draws them in, but that has to be initiated with the game engine telling the CPU to do this, this would help EXTREMELY with my maps, and even Generic City). That being said, if this should happen in the future, it would only require text-based changes, to the model's LOD distance values, so they're not so obvious, something I can batch here with Notepad++ quick and readily.
For now the final RAM requirement is largely unknown as no one's built a city this size. However, I have a feeling I can keep it so that systems with 8gb or more installed should be just fine. 6GB might make the cut, but absolutely can make no promises at this point. The video card requirements will be quite basic, though - one GB of DDR3 or better VRAM for the video board, 1.5~2GB DDR5 recommended. This is a 1080p resolution requirement. Remember, TURNING OFF THE INTERFACE HELPS IMPROVE FPS BY AS MUCH AS 20%!!!

--For now that is it, any performance improvements beyond this tonight will either be added in, or amended to my next rotten-book-of-a-post. Ugh.

P.S.
Additions to the future versions of the map:
Large airport with 13,000ft (4000m) runway. NO mountains or trees in the flight path! You will readily be able to pilot commercial sized aircraft in and out of this regional airport.
Joint military base, possibly with a landing strip up to 6000 FT (1900m). Because as soon as we find one, we say "WHERE'S THE @#$%ING TANK!?"
Shipping port with resulting industrial area, much like GTA SA's, on the edge of the city or over the mountain from it, where there's currently ocean water and a lot of sunken real estate.
Asphalt race track, dirt race track, dirt/mud derby arena, with a monster truck arena if I can help it, these will generally *NOT* be in the middle of the city, but destinations you can drive to.
More subways, more car stunt parks, more flood control canals, and any other destinations I can think of - or valid/pertinent submissions. Patron submissions get priority.
Just remember I can't put them in until the necessary portion of the map is 'ready' and far enough along. Don't want to have to move it or knock it down and re-do more than I already have to!

 

you should use the altitude for your advantage when making the asphalt track, and a rally course on the mountains would be cool

 

Based off of GTA SA you say?

 

Will there be a Skid Row inspired area of the city?

(Referring to the area in Los Angeles)

 

Yes, they will be near cliffs, because cliffs are near everything (unless you're in the flat, low portion in the center). If you mess up, you might be going for quite a fall.

This land mass is much like the one from GTA V, the lake area is actually the same terrain they grabbed from central Cali. I did this by mere accident, however, this map contains no assets ported from any GTA game, or any other commercial game. So in-stead of Sandy Shores from GTAV being next to the lake, there will be a city built around most of it. There will be nothing resembling GTAV in here unless I use the same portions of real life areas as source material that the GTAV dev team did.
Now onto the topic more - this will have a play style in this map similar to GTA SA. I had a heck of a fun time re-playing it again this past summer. What a hoot, at-least until you get to the part where you have to pass the airplane flying missions. I seem to have an affliction with crashing to the ground. That aside, yes, you'll be able to blast through flood control canals, popping up in various parts of the city and use them as a shortcut. You'll find both urban and rural parts of the map, and a highway ringing the outer side (and also another highway doing an inner-route near the lake shore in the center of the map), that will take you to most of the places you need to go. There just won't be huge rivers tri-secting the entire map like in SA, as of the current development plan.

You mean a run-down blighted portion? I will have a look up and see better what this area looks like and get back to you. But to possibly answer the question, there will be more blighted areas with many custom models and a raised metro track over some of the roads. In this part of town, it will take a lot of inspiration from Detroit, possibly more than LA, but to get to the point. This map isn't one state or one place, there's a lot of many different cities in this map (or at-least there will be when it's closer to finished). So there will be some variety, in-stead of just driving past the same 6 houses block after block (there's already dozens of different houses, for what it's worth, there will be dozens and dozens more). I will keep this request in mind, and try to better model an area like this. There's plenty of room for development on this map, so not too worried! You can always submit some pictures or some Geo-coordinates of some places you find interesting if you like.

 

Yeah, it's like that, but the area is full with homeless people.

Examples:

 

This is just a little question/suggestion, are you if even planning on it going to add one or a couple truck stops like TA or Love's(with your signature humorous twist of course)? I'm just asking since the only other map I know of that has a truck stop is garfield heights, and since it's going to be such a large map it seems only fitting to have them. And if not I'm ok with it since it's your decision, and here I'll leave a couple examples for some inspiration.

 

Well surely there will be everything like that run-down less invested areas in the future, but just no homeless people or tents. This shouldn't be downright depressing. That being said, aside of what I spoke of in previous posts, I will leave a bit of mystery to what will come.

---

I have concluded the 1st set of performance improvements...
For patrons you will get a performance-only update shortly, it's almost bit-identical except for the models, and some changes to the grass density so it doesn't bring performance down as bad (it only helps 1~2fps max when driving fast, but every bit helps), also helps to keep the lawn from having obvious edges. There's one new model though, a long 'variety' piece of the narrow side streets, but you'll have to add it in yourself. Texture entries are new, with LODtexture entries in the roads directory materials file, which enable the engine to draw most or all the entire piece during LOD phases in one shot. I spoke of these earlier, but they are in and used. Things not done with LODtexture stuff yet are:
Collector curves, both striped and plain. There's like 60 of these things? Will get to these one day but they're not used heavily yet. <40 pieces in the whole map IIRC.
Highways. These I haven't touched much of, but will soon. These will be combined into larger 4x or 5x length pieces. I might even make K-series models that let you go faster for an extra fee.... kidding.
Avenue set (6 lanes divided with tan rock decorative, or plain concrete median). These I haven't touched at all yet with optimization. They're not used that much yet due to their unwieldy nature (large, cumbersome), but will be used more in the future.
Surface street / Main road curves. These I have not done yet. All the curb cuts are done though, unless I missed something, and most road colors should match LOD's by 95% or so.
FPS is up, up to an average of 10~40% depending on the spot, I'd say map-wide it's mostly about 10~25% in most spots. This was a little slow below for whatever reason, it was normally 65fps here, but open the web browser and watch a quad core like mine slow down...
Below, new grass settings...

The grass flickers a bit when used in-front of concrete, I think that might be a bug with the game engine as it's a bit flickery regardless, not really sure. At this point it's the least of my worries.
There's also some work done to the terrain but it's not 100% yet, and it is a bit buggy (shouldn't notice anything, but I need to get this worked out sooner than later). It has to do with seeing dirt patches through the road at distance, as I've now made some changes to the terrain layers. If that unsightly terrain pokes through a road LOD at distance, and I need it close to the surface for AI, I can make it the color of the road, and really unless you squint, who's the wiser?

So all in all - not a single building has changed. No new roads have been built, that I remember, and things that were closed before, are still closed now. This is *NOT* a content update, it just makes things run a little smoother, and am now happy to report that NO places of the map dive below 50fps that I could find.

You will need to clear cache if you get the update. That's documents\beamng.drive\cache.13.0.0.5\levels\TSH folder. Delete that folder, then put the new ZIP file in your game's mods folder, over-writing the old one. If you edited changes to the map, you can technically leave it, but the new grass changes won't be reflected. You could possibly have other issues (if you want to discard things you've changed, delete beamng.drive\levels\TSH as that's the code for this map).

So, TLDR a performance improvement update will be inbound for patrons. I am doing this before I do the highway pieces and avenues because I want to build some more new buildings for the map and add more content before dragging this on for weeks and weeks. I will go back and do more performance improvements in the future once another content update is out.

Remember, the first time you load up the map after clearing cache, consider closing the game out once it's completely loaded, and re-loading the map (it should be faster loading the 2nd time), as for some reason, it runs considerably faster if I load it the 2nd 3rd or 4th time vs the 1st. I don't know what's up with that. Don't forget to shut off the pesky interface to gain an additional 10~14FPS.

--Cheers, look for links tomorrow via Patreon if you donated, for the optional performance-only update.


This is acceptable performance (80FPS). Many of the larger commercial lots won't add a ton of draw calls, combined with huge buildings, should allow me to spread out residential lots sufficiently to keep FPS up. That's the plan here.
--- Post updated ---
Edit:
Fixed this:

and this...

Sorry the trail was impassable before. Don't expect to do it in a car, but anything 4WD will get up it just fine, as it's a bit rutted on the side closer to the camera where the water goes down along the path. Taking it at over 35~45MPH will definitely make you end up on the roof/side of your vehicle. The plants/stones etc in the drainage channel is intentional, as it begins here.
Fixed a few instances of 'bush in the road', not the only map this has happened to. Surely there's a few more lurking around here somewhere... eventually I'll get them all.
Fixed the terrain poking through the road in a few more spots (it still does, but it's less of an eye-sore now), and did the stone edging / leveling along the highway near the above-screenshot.

So it should be a bit more polished. Also a bug at the corner of the developed area, about 4 blocks from the start, where a road was a foot or two too-high was fixed 2 days ago. It was duplicated due to an editor bug.

--Will have this uploaded tonight, so tomorrow afternoon/evening links will go out. Give a shout if you don't have something by Tuesday at the latest, and let me know how much it helps your FPS.

 

Roane County TN USA has one just SE of the Rockwood spawn point, ~1 block from NIMBY industries.

Yes this map will be quite trucker friendly, it will have multiple stops convenient to highway exits. No worries here, I should build some soon!

 

Sweet, thanks for answering that (somewhat burning)question and I kinda forgot about the truck stop in Roane county when I was typing, so...whoops. Really looking forward to this one since So Cal did seem kinda barren for a southern california map, but then again I live just outside of St. Louis so what do I know lol.

 

Will there be a downtown section, with large high rises and more densely populated areas?
(I'm talking in the neighborhood of 800ft+ buildings.)

 

This was originally my plan for this map, from the get-go, and why I chose this terrain location. I just didn't have a clue back then, though. I won't hold it against you for forgetting about Roane County's one little dinky truck stop, that map is gargantuan. It's easy to lose things, especially yourself when driving around. You could drive for an hour or more and not find what you're looking for.

---

Yes there will be a section with very large buildings, it's likely to be several neighborhoods of them. There shouldn't be too many repeats, either. They will range from the simple office skyscraper to rather expensive ornate new buildings, to Art Deco 1940s~1950s high-rises. I am really itching to show off why this is called a city and not a small town.

---

Links for Patrons will be out in several hours or later tonight (USA time) because my dumb #$%^ (self) forgot to restart the download when I was done reading The News last night, as I can't get websites and upload at 54 kb/s at the same time (no joke). Sorry for the inconvenience. It's only a optimization release with a tad more polish in a few spots, that's all, so you shouldn't feel too deprived.

For what it's worth in other news, the thunderstorm-with-a-name has only dumped some rain here, that's all it did in Tennessee. They over-hyped this one big time. It brought more joint pain than it did anything else.

 

That gives me a very New-yorkish type of feeling, (going from straight and simple 1950s-1980s International Style, like the UN Headquarters, Art Deco masterpieces like the Chrysler building, Or contemporary design like the One World Trade Center
I would also recommend a early 20th century architecture with hints of Neo-Gothic flair/Beaux-arts in some older parts of town, Good examples being the Tribune Tower, the Woolworth Building, and the Flatiron building.

 

Maybe it could a mix of a few New England cities as well. If possible, maybe a recreational mill like the ones in Fall River?

 

Yes, there will be a variety of buildings / building styles to keep the architecture interesting. I am a bit of an architecture buff myself (always drew houses in study hall as a school kid in the 80s and 90s), so there will be quite some interesting things if I can help it / do so WITHOUT shooting draw-calls through the roof. I will do my best.

For Patrons, the new-and-improved performance beta has gone live. The performance as described should be no less than 15% better with much more in specific sections of town that had FPS issues before. Going forward, the next update will be a content update.
For users of the MRK set, pieces that are changed should be drop-in replacements and should be without issue / with minimal disruption to whatever you're creating for yourself. The new mosaic textures are in the art/roads directory, and so add the new entries from the materials.cs in there. This is only applicable if you've added the MRK set to your own map.

Don't forget to manually clear the cache directory in your beamng.drive folder by deleting the cache.13.0.0.5\levels\TSH folder. If you don't do that, you won't get the performance increase.

Also, out of some strange glitch, with the game itself (not my map), if you start the game, load the map after having cleared the cache, wait until everything loads in and you can play, then quit and re-load the game (without needing to clear cache) and it should be a good 6~12fps faster on average, for some unknown reason. This odd behavior of being slightly slower the first time around only happens the first time you run a certain version of a map or map mod, for each version of the game. So if the game updates, or the map updates and you had to clear cache manually, do the restart trick once it's loaded. You only have to do that once. Just a little something I picked up from observing the game performance over time.

--Enjoy!

 

I.

Am.

Interested.

 

As promised, more content is being created this time around. This time however, I am minding the draw calls something serious. This building has a total of about 8 draw calls up close (possibly more depending on the game engine), but only 3~4 far away until it goes down to a billboard style sprite (2D).

The starting point is under the overpass to the left in the last shot.
Obviously there's no parking lot or anything around it yet, but it's slowly getting there. One building at a time. This is the type of building that will populate this area. So this won't be shoveling on more and more draw calls like mad, exacerbating an existing issue that I've hopefully solved the worst of. In all the shots, the building was shown in full detail. Also got rid of that stupid block that was just sitting near the starting point (it would have been near the car just past the road in the last picture). The building is large so it will be visible wherever you are in the map provided it is within the far view distance cutoff. All large commercial/residential/skyscraper type buildings will always be visible (the poly count is not high, about 2 houses worth, draw calls are less than two houses would be generally speaking). In future shots the parking lot will be in and I will have yet more buildings built. I am going to make large modular parking lot pieces so that it does not hit draw calls limit so hard with so many different little pieces (that what drops FPS). This way you'll be able to make your own professional-looking parking lots without too much effort more than necessary, if you make your own maps. It will also save me time as well, in the future. Speed-mapping FTW - There's only one of me after-all.

--That's all for tonight.