Detailed Explain about Performance Issues in This Game

[wsung]

Before we starts, this is just a feedback about this game, and all tests are done with the same computer setup to limit inaccuracy.

Even though this game is one of the most expensive sandbox games I ever played ( DLCs included ) , it is actually one of the least optimized . For example, even Instruments of Destruction, a game developed by one person for much less time, can simulate physics better and more efficiently: Instruments of Destruction can easily handle the collision of thousands of objects, without lots of lags, but this game struggles to even simulate the destruction of a vehicle with 500 parts, this made me thinking: why is this game so not optimized.

The Brick Rigs, a game similar to Trailmakers but is more complex physics wise, also took several years to develop, and yet, it can maintain a reasonable framerate ( about 10 fps ) when simulating 100,000+ parts, which have more realistic mass and better strength, and it can also simulate the destruction of massive, 3000+ parts creation without breaking a sweat, and it uses a unmodified game engine, the Unreal IV, too, unlike some other highly optimized game like Space Engineers or Teardown, I have spent hundreds, or even over a thousand hours in a lot of sandbox games each, so I know how they performed.

So there is clearly some problems in this game's code, but it's not possible to examine without the source code ( I programs as well ) , since this game's geometry is not complex, it's all about the code efficiency, I'm not sure what caused the performance issues, but since it took several years to only beautify the wheel problems, and there some glitches that don't exist in most of the games , so it might take a long time to finally fix them.

[alvaroping1]

Originally posted by wsung:

For example, even Instruments of Destruction, a game developed by one person for much less time, can simulate physics better and more efficiently: Instruments of Destruction can easily handle the collision of thousands of objects, without lots of lags, but this game struggles to even simulate the destruction of a vehicle with 500 parts, this made me thinking: why is this game so not optimized.

From what i have heard, instruments of destruction has worse physics. There is a correlation between the quality of the physics and the performance: better physics are more demanding to calculate

Originally posted by wsung:

The Brick Rigs, a game similar to Trailmakers but is more complex physics wise, also took several years to develop, and yet, it can maintain a reasonable framerate ( about 10 fps ) when simulating 100,000+ parts, which have more realistic mass and better strength, and it can also simulate the destruction of massive, 3000+ parts creation without breaking a sweat, and it uses a unmodified game engine, the Unreal IV, too, unlike some other highly optimized game like Space Engineers or Teardown, I have spent hundreds, or even over a thousand hours in a lot of sandbox games each, so I know how they performed.

Iirc from when i last played brick rigs, creations were much more static there, meaning outside of build mode creations behave much more like a single rigid object rather than something that can change shapes. Grouping blocks into rigid objects can be used to significantly reduce the amount of processing required by calculating the physics for the whole group at once (something that this game does as well), so usually what matters is the amount of groups rather than blocks. The issue with this is that rigid bodies can't deform, so the more dynamic the shape is the more of them you will need, and that comes at the cost of performance

Originally posted by wsung:

So there is clearly some problems in this game's code, but it's not possible to examine without the source code ( I programs as well ) , since this game's geometry is not complex, it's all about the code efficiency, I'm not sure what caused the performance issues, but since it took several years to only beautify the wheel problems, and there some glitches that don't exist in most of the games , so it might take a long time to finally fix them.

The game is able to run decently well on 10 year old consoles with CPUs that were already underpowered when they came out, so clearly it's not poorly optimized. The game is already at a point where further optimizations that don't change the gameplay (by making the physics worse/adding constraints to what you can do) are small and take a lot of work to achieve

[wsung]

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

From what i have heard, instruments of destruction has worse physics. There is a correlation between the quality of the physics and the performance: better physics are more demanding to calculate.

The information you is heard is not accurate, it is only partially true with vehicle physics, the building physics in IoD includes structual integrity simulation, which Trailmakers' physics lacks, it can also simulate the physics of buildings that have thousands of parts, the objects don't randomly accelerate and get launched when they collide and get damaged in IoD too. Also, there is a physics rework in IoD Version 0.360.

Note: IoD means Instruments of Destruction

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

Iirc from when i last played brick rigs, creations were much more static there, meaning outside of build mode creations behave much more like a single rigid object rather than something that can change shapes.

The Brick Rigs before 1.4.0 physics engine overhaul, or even 1.0.0 update can already simulate the collision of a dozen of long trains, which have a combined total of over 1000 individual rigid body objects smoothly on a computer with a i7-8700K, and the game undergo several physics engine updates, the 1.0.0 update made it capable of simulate 40,000+ parts structure that contains several dozens of colossal, 1000+ parts rigid bodies with playable framerates, and the 1.4.0 physics engine overhaul brought large scaled smooth simulation to the game, it not only crushed the collision simulation accuracy of Trailmakers, but it's also being called "Rigid Body BeamNG Physics" by some people, even well-known youtubers like Comodo Gaming. Here is two videos from Comodo Gaming that showcased that, and

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

The game is able to run decently well on 10 year old consoles with CPUs that were already underpowered when they came out, so clearly it's not poorly optimized. The game is already at a point where further optimizations that don't change the gameplay (by making the physics worse/adding constraints to what you can do) are small and take a lot of work to achieve.

The Trailmakers struggles to simulate the destruction of 500 part vehicles, the physics display even halts of several seconds just to compute it, on a better computer, and the Trailmakers's inconsistent part clipping problem and stock servo wobble and clipping are also bad. The Trailmakers even messes up the "rigid" part of "rigid body" since parts on complex creations drift slightly out of place. Also, Teardown, Kerbal Space Program 2, and Brick Rigs all multiplied the framerate while didn't change to the visible physics effect too much.

[alvaroping1]

Originally posted by wsung:

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

From what i have heard, instruments of destruction has worse physics. There is a correlation between the quality of the physics and the performance: better physics are more demanding to calculate.

The information you is heard is not accurate, it is only partially true with vehicle physics, the building physics in IoD includes structual integrity simulation, which Trailmakers' physics lacks, it can also simulate the physics of buildings that have thousands of parts, the objects don't randomly accelerate and get launched when they collide and get damaged in IoD too. Also, there is a physics rework in IoD Version 0.360.

Note: IoD means Instruments of Destruction

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

Iirc from when i last played brick rigs, creations were much more static there, meaning outside of build mode creations behave much more like a single rigid object rather than something that can change shapes.

The Brick Rigs before 1.4.0 physics engine overhaul, or even 1.0.0 update can already simulate the collision of a dozen of long trains, which have a combined total of over 1000 individual rigid body objects smoothly on a computer with a i7-8700K, and the game undergo several physics engine updates, the 1.0.0 update made it capable of simulate 40,000+ parts structure that contains several dozens of colossal, 1000+ parts rigid bodies with playable framerates, and the 1.4.0 physics engine overhaul brought large scaled smooth simulation to the game, it not only crushed the collision simulation accuracy of Trailmakers, but it's also being called "Rigid Body BeamNG Physics" by some people, even well-known youtubers like Comodo Gaming. Here is two videos from Comodo Gaming that showcased that, and

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

The game is able to run decently well on 10 year old consoles with CPUs that were already underpowered when they came out, so clearly it's not poorly optimized. The game is already at a point where further optimizations that don't change the gameplay (by making the physics worse/adding constraints to what you can do) are small and take a lot of work to achieve.

The Trailmakers struggles to simulate the destruction of 500 part vehicles, the physics display even halts of several seconds just to compute it, on a better computer, and the Trailmakers's inconsistent part clipping problem and stock servo wobble and clipping are also bad. The Trailmakers even messes up the "rigid" part of "rigid body" since parts on complex creations drift slightly out of place. Also, Teardown, Kerbal Space Program 2, and Brick Rigs all multiplied the framerate while didn't change to the visible physics effect too much.

Destruction physics aren't the only part of the physics engine, there is much more than that. For example, last time i played brick rigs it didn't have any sort of drag physics (creations would endlessly accelerate with thrusters until you hit something), and flight/friction/wheel physics were also lacking compared to trailmakers.

As for the clipping issue, i'm not sure what you mean. If you are referring to piston glitch, that's intentional to remove self collisions in the cases in which not having them gives a better user experience. For parts drifting out of place, that happened with entire rigid bodies (since they can't deform) and has already been fixed afaik

[wsung]

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

Destruction physics aren't the only part of the physics engine, there is much more than that. For example, last time i played brick rigs it didn't have any sort of drag physics (creations would endlessly accelerate with thrusters until you hit something), and flight/friction/wheel physics were also lacking compared to trailmakers.

As for the clipping issue, i'm not sure what you mean. If you are referring to piston glitch, that's intentional to remove self collisions in the cases in which not having them gives a better user experience. For parts drifting out of place, that happened with entire rigid bodies (since they can't deform) and has already been fixed afaik

First, the Brick Rigs after the 1.0.0 update can simulate the fluid dyanmic of all parts, including air physics and water physics ( after update 1.3.0 ), while using more accurate simulation method ( collider based, I suppose, since it's effects look like that, it is more accurate than block based approach, and is capable of simulate things like all-part directional drag, which Trailmakers' physics simulation can't ) and the wheel physics is better than Trailmakers' one prior to 1.0.0 update: there is tire pressure and deformation simulation with costumizable tire pressure setting and custom wheels, and also, there is ultra HD PBR textures in Brick Rigs (after update 1.3.0), unlike the basic ones in Trailmakers.

Second, the inconsistent clipping means that the joint clipping is not consistant and pistons/joints sometimes get stuck, and I managed to compress the joint between wedges that have skis attached to them by adding several tonnes of weight on it in Space Bound update.

By the way, when did you played Brick Rigs last time. Just asking.

[alvaroping1]

Originally posted by wsung:

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

Destruction physics aren't the only part of the physics engine, there is much more than that. For example, last time i played brick rigs it didn't have any sort of drag physics (creations would endlessly accelerate with thrusters until you hit something), and flight/friction/wheel physics were also lacking compared to trailmakers.

As for the clipping issue, i'm not sure what you mean. If you are referring to piston glitch, that's intentional to remove self collisions in the cases in which not having them gives a better user experience. For parts drifting out of place, that happened with entire rigid bodies (since they can't deform) and has already been fixed afaik

First, the Brick Rigs after the 1.0.0 update can simulate the fluid dyanmic of all parts, including air physics and water physics ( after update 1.3.0 ), while using more accurate simulation method ( collider based, I suppose, since it's effects look like that, it is more accurate than block based approach, and is capable of simulate things like all-part directional drag, which Trailmakers' physics simulation can't ) and the wheel physics is better than Trailmakers' one prior to 1.0.0 update: there is tire pressure and deformation simulation with costumizable tire pressure setting and custom wheels, and also, there is ultra HD PBR textures in Brick Rigs (after update 1.3.0), unlike the basic ones in Trailmakers.

What do you mean with "all-part directional drag"? If you mean drag force for each block in each direction, trailmakers' physics does calculate that as well. Trailmakers has also had tire pressure since it came out in early access in 2018, it just didn't have visuals for it (it's the reason why wheels used to visually clip the ground, for the physics engine they were being compressed). With the friction/wheel physics i meant more that brick rigs' physics felt worse to me while playing, specially with things like traction/grip. Not sure how textures are at all relevant for the physics though

Originally posted by wsung:

Second, the inconsistent clipping means that the joint clipping is not consistant and pistons/joints sometimes get stuck, and I managed to compress the joint between wedges that have skis attached to them by adding several tonnes of weight on it in Space Bound update.

Can you post an example blueprint? Skis are implemented as 2 wheels in the game, and since wheels can compress so can skis

Originally posted by wsung:

By the way, when did you played Brick Rigs last time. Just asking.

According to steam, mid 2020. I haven't kept up with its development since then

[wsung]

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

What do you mean with "all-part directional drag"? If you mean drag force for each block in each direction, trailmakers' physics does calculate that as well. Trailmakers has also had tire pressure since it came out in early access in 2018, it just didn't have visuals for it (it's the reason why wheels used to visually clip the ground, for the physics engine they were being compressed). With the friction/wheel physics i meant more that brick rigs' physics felt worse to me while playing, specially with things like traction/grip. Not sure how textures are at all relevant for the physics though

It means all parts can act like tail fins in Trailmakers and can provide directional control, also, the collider based simulation is a type of simulation that uses actural colliders as drag models, which eliminates problems like the flat front part of objects ( such as the fighter cockpits' hull in Trailmakers ) produce way too less drag. Some other games such as Besiege and KSP also uses this method, but with some differeces.

If the wheel sinking glitch is a simulation that lacks visual, then why did the rim of the wheels sink as well, also I can't upload blueprints since my computer isn't avaliable till Saturday.