Melee Collision dust cloud removal (Performance mod request)

[DaxMastah]

To elaborate, i've been going through a melee and grenades only play through, the specific weapon? the borderlands buzzsaw, a good weapon, however, it, and as iv'e seen a few vanilla weapons, create a particle dust cloud on collision, which drags my frame rate down to around... 7-9 fps? simply, the request is something to remove this, any help is greatly appreciated.

[devinpatterson]

Could you link to the mod, I saw a borderlands axe, but no hits immediately for borderlands buzzsaw. It may be that it's an additional effect and can be removed (if the permissions allow modifications), or if it's a default impact set you can switch it (although I wouldn't think that would be a big impact on even a very modest machine).

[DaxMastah]

http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/54659/? is what i'm talking about, as to the name, it's technically called the buzz axe, but i called it saw out of immediate relation to actual tools... apologies for that, as to the impact effect, I've seen it used with other weapons such as the ripper and chainsaw, vanilla weapons, only reason i had yet to get a performance hit with those.... i never used them, especially not in first person.

[devinpatterson]

Alas the mod doesn't allow me to edit it, so unfortunately I'd need permission from the author if I were to do it for you. But if you have the geck up and running you can solve the problem pretty easily by simply selecting none on the impact set (I believe it's the art and sound tab) on that particular weapons form.

[KiCHo666]

What you could do (if you have the skills) is to lower the amount of particles emmited instead of removing it completely.
For example, you could make particle emmiter stop emmiting them when there's 50 of them on the scene so it doesn't hog the performance.

[devinpatterson]

What you could do (if you have the skills) is to lower the amount of particles emmited instead of removing it completely.

For example, you could make particle emmiter stop emmiting them when there's 50 of them on the scene so it doesn't hog the performance.

 

It's not a particle shader but rather a nif, so there's no access to a form and it's not really a particle emitter as other special effects in teh geck are. I think the reason it causes so much lag (and I'm just guessing, as I'v never noticed it in my game) is because of the way the chainsaw and related weapons like the chainsaw work. With continuous damage by holding down the attack button there is probably several impacts nifs (smoke puff) being generated per a second (maybe quite a few). These type of nif's don't look nearly as good as a particle shader but they are considerably less expensive in terms of cpu cycles, so I guess that's why FONV went with them.

 

If you look on my youtube channel you can see a modified version of of a glass impact nif and I'v done some experimenting with it to add a particle shader. It might help to visually illustrate the differences between the two methods of simulating impact.

[devinpatterson]

OBTW I'm not an expert in the area, just passing on the little that I know

[KiCHo666]

Particles also use nifs.
Chainsaw uses different particle effects depending on the surface. For blood, it uses an animated mesh + particle to simulate blood splatter all in one nif.
Haven't used the Buzzsaw, so maybe that mod uses custom effects that are maybe too much for the game to handle.

[devinpatterson]

Particles also use nifs.

I think you mean nifs can also use particles (effects/systems)

 

Chainsaw uses different particle effects depending on the surface. For blood, it uses an animated mesh + particle to simulate blood splatter all in one nif.

Yeah it does, in the addon node. But here is the thing I'm trying to convey, I can alter a particle shader's physics via it's form allowing me to alter rotation, velocity, acceleration the count, etc etc. I can't do that in the same way when it's baked into a nif.

And that limits the practical, application you suggested. In your first post you wrote;

 

What you could do (if you have the skills) is to lower the amount of particles emmited instead of removing it completely.

For example, you could make particle emmiter stop emmiting them when there's 50 of them on the scene so it doesn't hog the performance.

I don't believe we have a good way to edit a particle system in a nif via blender. That leaves nifskope unless you have another tool. Digging into NipSys nodes isn't for the casual modder, there just isn't a lot of documentation available, whereas DaxMastah can easily implement a change to impact sets.

On the other hand if your familiar with the niNodes and knowledgeable about tweaking them, then by all means you can edit the relevant nifs and their particle effects in the base game and help DaxMastah out. I'm not trying to bust your chops or anything along those lines (I appreciate your input), rather I am trying to address the problem in a way that allows a practical solution to Dacmastah's requrest.

[KiCHo666]

Looking at the mod showcase, I think it's the problem is simply with large trasparent particles slowing down the game. Quite standard, especially on slower PCs.

For OP:
- install FNVEdit
- open it
- load the mods you want (you can just check the BuzzAxe.esp for this one)
- expand the esp by clicking on the "+" sign
- go to "Weapon", expand it

- click on the first record (there are two of them)

- on the right panel you'll see "INAM - Impact DataSet" and the impact set it has

- right-click on the impact set and choose "remove"

- you'll get the massage if you wish to continue

- click Yes to remove it and then Ctr + S to save it.

- Do the same for the second weapon record.

@devinpatterson

You can alter the particle shaders in GECK forms, yes, but those are only for things like flamer burning effect, etc.
If you wish to edit particle emmiters like blood spatters, sparks from bullet impacts then you have to use Nifskope. It's not user friendly and it takes quite a bit of time to learn what does what, but you can do quite amazing things there.

Don't worry, friend. I'm alway open to learn new things. :)