[LE] Max recommended number of items in one cell?

[bongodoctor]

Could anyone give a ballpark number for how many items you can include in one interior cell before performance is affected? I am assuming it must include all of the the room and cave pieces etc in addition to the clutter and other interactive objects - or maybe static and dynamic objects are different?

 

I would also love to know if there is a way to lock pieces in place and/or group them together so they can't be displaced accidently or at least all move together...

[Sphered]

Do you mean literal items, or are you just meaning refs? Either way, there is no arbitrary "limit" perse. What the objects are, and how complex their model is, etc weigh heavily into what extent their presence impacts performance-wise

 

Could stack a 100 generic books on eachother and likely wont make any real impact at all. But five levitating 4k HD books with fancy animations going on, will quickly add to performance issues

 

As for locking them in, yeah thats a thing. "Dont havok settle" for one. Also might want to mark as sandbox-ignored as applicable. And doors can be flagged unusable, etc

[bongodoctor]

By locking in place I meant in Creation Kit whilst editing e.g. I would like to lock the room walls and doors etc in place so I don't accidentiliy move them whilst adding or moving smaller objects inside them - I should have made that clearer. The reason I am asking is that I have read that having too many objects in a single cell can cause performance issues - but no-one ever specifies what these numbers are. It sounds like the type of object has an influence - so for now lets assume I am just talking about static objects and room pieces with nothing fancy going on at all - so I will then divide my layout into separate cells to make sure they are under the limit...

 

Do you mean literal items, or are you just meaning refs? Either way, there is no arbitrary "limit" perse. What the objects are, and how complex their model is, etc weigh heavily into what extent their presence impacts performance-wise

 

Could stack a 100 generic books on eachother and likely wont make any real impact at all. But five levitating 4k HD books with fancy animations going on, will quickly add to performance issues

 

As for locking them in, yeah thats a thing. "Dont havok settle" for one. Also might want to mark as sandbox-ignored as applicable. And doors can be flagged unusable, etc

[maxarturo]

Performance issues will occur when using too many objects and there is no 'Optimization' of the cell. Heavy cells needs careful pre-designed to ensure that not excessive number of objects are render at any given time, this is why you need to use 'Roombound and Portals' to cut down render.

But even if you create a well optimized cell with 'Roombound and Portals' and in 1 room you add a billion objects to render simultaneously, you are going to start having issues especially if this keeps repeating in the players FOV.

However, from my many experiments i've discover that a reason for random CTDs in heavy cells are the 'Havok' objects.

In 1 of my heavy cells I discover that when the 'Havok' objects reached 30 the random CTDs were frequent, and when the reached 40+ the CTDs were and every day things, and when they reached 80+ / 100+ I couldn't even enter that cell.

So, none of my heavy cells have any havok objects (0 havok obj), stability and optimization should be the number 1 priority.

* Keep in mind that 'Havok' sensitive objects are objects that are actually running a script even if that script is a 'Hard Coded' one, so every time you enter a cell those obj will fire that script.> Way too many havok obj = Way too many scripts to process at the same time.

Edited July 9, 2022 by maxarturo

[bongodoctor]

Thanks for the advice, I wasn't planning on having any havoc objects, so hopefully that won't be an issue but good to keep in mind. I have watched videos on using Room Markers and Portal to reduce rendering although I haven't got to that stage yet. I have tried to position caverns so that you cannot see into one from another by using different vertical heights, but this could still happen in the Dwemer layouts so will have to use portals and room markers there if there are any issues - I suppose the only way to know for sure is to test it in game - if it works in VR then it should cope easily in flat-screen SE :smile:

 

Performance issues will occur when using too many objects and there is no 'Optimization' of the cell. Heavy cells needs careful pre-designed to ensure that not excessive number of objects are render at any given time, this is why you need to use 'Roombound and Portals' to cut down render.

But even if you create a well optimized cell with 'Roombound and Portals' and in 1 room you add a billion objects to render simultaneously, you are going to start having issues especially if this keeps repeating in the players FOV.

However, from my many experiments i've discover that a reason for random CTDs in heavy cells are the 'Havok' objects.

In 1 of my heavy cells I discover that when the 'Havok' objects reached 30 the random CTDs were frequent, and when the reached 40+ the CTDs were and every day things, and when they reached 80+ / 100+ I couldn't even enter that cell.

So, none of my heavy cells have any havok objects (0 havok obj), stability and optimization should be the number 1 priority.

* Keep in mind that 'Havok' sensitive objects are objects that are actually running a script even if that script is a 'Hard Coded' one, so every time you enter a cell those obj will fire that script.> Way too many havok obj = Way too many scripts to process at the same time.

 

Edited July 9, 2022 by bongodoctor

[maxarturo]

From your response I can say that you have misunderstood some things.

If you don't use 'Roombouns and Portals' the engine renders EVERYTHING that's in front of you, it doesn't matter if there is a wall in front of you or different heights between levels of the cell's layout, the engine sees everything!!

The use of 'Roombounds and Portals' is absolutely essential when creating interior cells!!!, only this way you can cut down rendering by pre-assigning sectors in which rendering is allowed, which equals decrease of the CPU/GPU processing level.

* By 'Havok Sensitive' objects I mean 'Misc Items' / movable clutter.

As for locking things in CK, well... there isn't such a function in the program, but...

You can do what i do:

The keyboard key ( 1 ) is use for hiding objects in CK, when you press twice the ( 1 ) with the selected object will disappear from the render window, Alt and 1 will make all hidden objects visible again, or press F5 to reload.

If you press the key ( 1 ) only once the object will become semi-visible, in this state the object once deselected cannot be selected again by any means, only when you refresh the cell ( F5 ) the object can be manipulated again.

Edited July 9, 2022 by maxarturo

[Sphered]

Ctrl+z will undo a oopsie too btw

[bongodoctor]

Based on the Bethseda tutorial videos I watched I had thought that the portals were only needed for limiting what is rendered when you can see into another room through a doorway for example - but if you can't see into another room then you just needed the roombounds so only that part of the interior is rendered but not the other parts. Based on this I put my caverns at different angles and heights so generally you cannot see into one from another - so only only roombounds not portals would be needed? But I haven't tried or tested this so I could easily have got the wrong end of the stick :)

 

 

From your response I can say that you have misunderstood some things.

If you don't use 'Roombouns and Portals' the engine renders EVERYTHING that's in front of you, it doesn't matter if there is a wall in front of you or different heights between levels of the cell's layout, the engine sees everything!!

The use of 'Roombounds and Portals' is absolutely essential when creating interior cells!!!, only this way you can cut down rendering by pre-assigning sectors in which rendering is allowed, which equals decrease of the CPU/GPU processing level.

* By 'Havok Sensitive' objects I mean 'Misc Items' / movable clutter.

As for locking things in CK, well... there isn't such a function in the program, but...

You can do what i do:

The keyboard key ( 1 ) is use for hiding objects in CK, when you press twice the ( 1 ) with the selected object will disappear from the render window, Alt and 1 will make all hidden objects visible again, or press F5 to reload.

If you press the key ( 1 ) only once the object will become semi-visible, in this state the object once deselected cannot be selected again by any means, only when you refresh the cell ( F5 ) the object can be manipulated again.

 

[bongodoctor]

:laugh: My Ctrl-Z keys are already worn out...

Ctrl+z will undo a oopsie too btw

[maxarturo]

Without 'Roombounds' the game renders everything / all meshes that in the player's FOV, it doesn't matter if there is a wall in front of you, the engine will render that wall and all the other meshes that's behinde that wall, EVERYTHING!.