Necrohowl on 20/1/2014 at 19:36

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Some of you who played Thief Deadly Shadows without VSync, or without a constant 60 FPS, will realize that lockpicking, wall-climbing and climbing ladders is not possible.

But why? I just don't understand. Why do I need 60 FPS or less for it to work?

So apparently, we solve this problem by using VSync or frame limiting (VSync is better since it removes the screen tearing, unless you want constant 60 fps instead of "sometimes 30 sometimes 60").

But there's a bigger problem; When we set our game to 60 FPS, the load time will be increased considerably. Ever noticed that? Apparently loading time depends mostly on FPS...So imagine you actually set the frame limit to 30 instead of 60. What's gonna happen? A lot longer loading time.

I've found some workaround for this. Apparently you have to use DXTory or anything better than that, if there is anything better than that (And I'm not talking about Nvidia Inspector).

Just set "Limit Video FPS" to 60, but don't check it. Start the game (without VSync or/and frame limit obviously) and notice how fast it loads. Then start the game, notice how last it loads again and there, you reached the Lockpick sequence, so alt-tab and press on "Limit Video FPS", do the Lockpick sequence and that's it. You can keep that limit if you want, but if you're a person who does a lot of quick saving and loading, then you shouldn't use it.

But this is very tedious and I heard alt-tabbing TDS will actually make it unstable. So, I thought about this...Can't a third party coder make it so when you're playing Thief INGAME, you get 60 FPS BUT when it is loading or during menu, it is uncapped? Is there any way for it?

Midgard on 21/1/2014 at 02:24

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I noticed Skyrim had this problem. If you played over 60 FPS or with v-synch off, the physics would sometimes go crazy. You'd walk into a room and books & objects would fly around for no reason, as if there were poltergeists in it. And the PC port of Dark Souls is hard coded for 30 FPS with no way to bypass it since all the animations are designed for that framerate. Anything higher and it becomes a keystone cops silent films parody. I blame consolitis. No game that was designed exclusively for the PC ever seemed to have these issues.

M.

Necrohowl on 21/1/2014 at 14:24

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It's kind of strange too, I know this TDS engine is a heavily modified UT2004 Engine. As far as I remember, UT2004 actually had a great stability but some features were rather broken, such as AA, AF, VSync and so on. Setting the game to 60 FPS didn't do much except make the mouse slower.



If I remember correctly, UT2004 was made for PC only (Then Mac and Linux), UT2004 is an engine used by TDS though heavily modified, I didn't see any TDS for the console...Though the Wiki says it is for Xbox as well. Guess I'm wrong.

Maybe Thief Deadly Shadows is another of the games that suffer that typical "console-to-PC port turned wrong" trope?



I have very little coding experience and skills, I do know some but it would be indifferent for the coder experts, I'm sure.
But if you need help, I will try my best to do anything for it, since all the Thief series games are my favourites (Except the 4th one, since I didn't play it yet...Don't even feel like playing it)

Don't mind Alpha/Beta testing. I also have hardware that is fast enough, don't need to be too specific about it, I know Thief can run higher than 60 FPS without any less-than-60 FPS or slowdowns if I had Vsync off.



You mean you actually never knew VSync or FPS less than 120 or so is what made the loading time longer? Well, now you know, I hope you will find a solution for it.

I also tested it as much as I could. I even tried to frame limit TDS to 25. It was a lot slower than at 60. So, with all these tests, I can deduce that FPS is the main "agent" for TDS' loading times.



That's very nice. I'd like to thank you very much for making Sneaky Upgrade, it is what made TDS more stable than before.

And thank you for taking this issue into note.

Necrohowl on 21/1/2014 at 20:36

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That's true. Silent Hill 4 for example, the game is pretty much unplayable.

Still, if the community (especially the ones that love the game) can fix it, then we should do it.



Sure, I've already send you a "Mail test" mail, now you know my e-mail as well.



That's an interesting output. I will try it, but instead of using screen resolution Hz and such, I'll use FPS limiting.



I hope it will have some fix for the loading time + lockpick/ladder/climbing bug!

Necrohowl on 21/1/2014 at 21:17

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Did some more tests, and I can say that it works at 75 and 85.

As long as it doesn't reach higher than 100 (such as 101), it works. But at 90 and 100, it takes a longer time to get into the lockpick minigame/sequence.

So apparently, what FPS does to Lockpick is increase the time it takes to "play" the Lockpick minigame/sequence when it is high.

If it's longer than around 108 FPS, the Lockpick minigame/sequence is completely gone.

Apparently, the CLOSER you are to the door/chest, the "faster" this sequence appears at high FPS (unless FPS is at 108, if so, it stops working). So if you have 95 FPS and you're far away from the door/chest, it will take longer to reach it and so the Lockpick minigame/sequence doesn't start. You have to be AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE.

I've also tried to compare 60 and 30 FPS. There is no difference at all, they have the same "Door/chest approach" speed.