Indoor Stadium Night Maps - Long Loading Times

[eyebo]

Here's three maps to show what I mean:
In bold is the problem map.

927c - Indoors / Night: https://tm.mania-exchange.com/tracks/view/131833
525c - Outdoors / Day: https://tm.mania-exchange.com/tracks/view/131834
525c - Outdoors / Night https://tm.mania-exchange.com/s/tr/131835

Video of loading the Indoors / Night map:
https://streamable.com/cgvii
Takes about 25 seconds.

Video of loading the Outdoors / Day map:
https://streamable.com/xjgpo
Loads almost instantly.

Video of loading the Outdoors / Night map:
https://streamable.com/fgnjf
Loads almost instantly.

For the indoor night map, it takes about 25 seconds to go from clicking play until the snapshot camera loads. For the outdoor day and night maps it loads almost instantly.

In single player, I honestly don't mind waiting, but we've had some similar maps in the MX Knockouts. The long loading time has caused some players to drop off the server when those maps come up.

I thought it was an isolated incident with just one map, but lately I've discovered 5 or 6 other Knockout maps that are built like this, which caused me to build my own test map to see if it was consistent. It seems to be.

I don't really understand why the map should take longer, especially not this long. The lightmap is already computed in advance.

[TMarc]

Please don't forget that night maps also have more dynamic lights.

And also make sure you do not have the option "lightmap light index" activated in the advanced video configuration -> compatibility settings of the Maniaplanet launcher, since this can also increase map loading time if I remember correctly from a similar report in the past.

[eyebo]

Thanks for the reply and tip TMarc.

"Lightmap Light Index" seems to be forced on when I play using "Very Nice" graphics preset. I try to turn it off, and save settings, but when I open settings again it's turned back on.

Turning my settings to lowest and disabling "Lightmap Light Index" does allow the map to load faster. But this is really just a workaround.

No map under 1000c should take half a minute to load, no matter what your graphics settings are, especially when using a GTX 1080, which is pretty high end hardware currently.

I'm not going to play the game on lowest settings just to avoid this issue. And I certainly can't assume others will, which means maps like this shouldn't be used on servers, for now. Maybe that's old news to many.

I hope a more permanent solution can be found in the future. These are great blocks, and using them in a totally normal way shouldn't make the game behave this way.

___

Interestingly, if I use all the same blocks, but push them to the edge of the Stadium and raise the roof.... the map loads very quickly.

Example map: https://tm.mania-exchange.com/s/tr/131854

Video: https://streamable.com/vud6x

____

Edit: I just wanted to add... it's not like this is the most important issue in the game to me.
But I see a problem and I report it. Nothing ever gets fixed if its not reported/known to the devs.

[eyebo]

Another map. This one takes 35 seconds to load.

Video: https://streamable.com/rkxh5

Map is 2613c. I can provide the map to the devs upon request. But it's not my map, and not meant to be made publicly available.

[Alinoa]

Hi Eyebo,

Thanks a lot for this detailed report

Cheers

[TMarc]

Eyebo, you know that you can customize the video settings?
First select a preset.
Then select the preset "none".
And only then modify the settings.

I have the lightmap light index disabled, based on the very nice preset.

If the permanent saving still does not work, delete the config file Default.SystemConfig.Gbx and start again.

[eyebo]

You're welcome Alinoa!

Thanks TMarc. I hadn't really changed my graphics settings this year, so I forgot how to do that.

Ok, setting preset to none, and then disabling "Lightmap Light Index" does work. The game keeps the setting.

It's good to know it can be done.

Maybe the preset should be changed?

Also, I noticed something weird. If you disable "Lightmap Light Index" the game no longer shows the snapshot camera view before the medal selection screen loads. I had kind of got used to seeing that since MP4 came out.