RELEASED Optimizebound (Performance Improvement) 1.3

OzonSF submitted a new mod:

Optimizebound - Compressed .png images for a increased game performance

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Are you using lossless compression(something like PNGGauntlet) or a lossy one (like TinyPNG)?

Lossy compression/optimization would result in even smaller files, but at the expense of quality. Where as lossless of course keeps your pictures pixel-perfect but still notably smaller than otherwise. You should probably note which method you're using in your description.

I thought about doing this myself with PNGGauntlet, but decided I didn't want to keep up with such a mod. Most of all because my internet is slow and unreliable so it would be a pain to update. A powershell etc script could handle finding which files are new so that part isn't horrible.

I also tried to get the dev's attention on this subject in a couple threads, but apparently to no avail. Also I from time to time I try to convince other modders to do this. I do so with my own.

 

Thanks for the heads up, already edited the description. I used lossless compression because I wanted it to not have any artifacts in which could make the game looks weird, but if someone wants a lossy one I may consider doing it.
Its something so simple and easy, I don't know why the devs didn't compress it before, heh.

 

I also don't understand why they didn't. New/edited assets could be optimized automatically by a script that runs once daily or something. It does seem to be one of the larger sources of slowdown people experience with relation to animated objects. Although some seem to suffer more than others(I'm fine personally).

One possible theory as to why they haven't taken this step - maybe they're partially unaware. They might have heard of image optimization programs but the one they first looked at was lossy and they assumed that's just how it is. Not wanting to reduce quality, they never looked further at the concept.

As for this mod - I'm glad if it is lossless as that's what I personally prefer. I'd assume most would prefer this, but then I can't speak for everyone.

I have 2 recommendations

1. Assuming you aren't already doing this - add to your _metadata file

Code:

"priority" : -9998,

This is alter load order. The base game assets are -9999 so as to load before everything else and thus be over-written by anything. The default priority would be 0 if you aren't defining it. So it makes sense for you to use -9998 as to load right after(but before all other mods) in the event any mods might alter the vanilla PNGs. Those altered PNG files will overwrite your own, which is the desired behavior.

2. Go ahead and include parallax files. I can assume why you didn't. You didn't want to conflict with the Parallax Optimization mod, and probably didn't want to step on Xaliber's feet either. But you don't need to worry. Recommendation #1 ensures that when people have both mods, your images would be over-written by his. Furthermore his parallaxes are optimized with TinyPNG (which is lossy). They'll be smaller than your lossless optimized images, but at the same time won't look quite as nice.

Thus you'd be helping those who don't want lossy images, but the option remains for using his parallax images - to obtain further lag reduction - for those who need all the help with lag they can get.

 

Yeah i definitely need this. My CPU is mid low
FX 6300

 

Thanks for the recommendations bk3k, I've set the priority to -1, I think its ok for now right? When I update it with the parallax .png I will change that and also give a better description to it (my english sucks heh).

 

Someone had to make a mod for it someday. Thanks for sharing. Now if only all the servers could support it.

 

I'm not familiar with how the mods and multiplayer goes along, but I don't think that there will be any problems using it on a server which doesn't have it. The game will only load the textures of this mod instead of the default ones, and they are all the same, except that the latter are uncompressed.

 

Don't worry about that. It's more a server admin problem than a client-sided issue since some servers have very strict vanilla assets requirements enforced in them.

I do hope you keep up with this mod regularly as the game gets updated. You'll probably want to make an organized workspace or repository for yourself to make things easier as the updates come by.

 

I am a bit skeptical of this. While all compression algorithms sacrifice CPU usage to improve disk usage, different algorithms use different amounts of CPU. PNG is actually one of the slowest image compression algorithms when it comes to CPU usage. Most compression algorithms wind up with compression being slower than decompression, so reading it (which happens more often) is faster. But with PNG, that is not true: both reading and writing speeds are equally bad.

In addition, a switch to compressed images would not create a framerate improvement like what you are observing. The applicable bottleneck would only be during the initial loading of the file. So, whatever is causing the purported framerate improvement in this mod, it's probably less because you used PNGs, and more because Starbound may be using an inefficient or overly-simplistic asset loader.

 

You'd be right about that theory.

What matters is that these PNG files are stripped of needless data they contain and that Starbound doesn't support, which sometimes heavily outweigh what is important.

Most excess data in a PNG is usually metadata that is added from some image editing programs like Photoshop, IIRC.

 

Something else these programs do
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indexed_color

 

Is their any difference between vanilla and ur mod?? [I mean the resolution]

 

@amirmiked12
Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics

 

OzonSF updated Optimizebound (Performance Improvement) with a new update entry:

Optimizebound (Performance Improvement)

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

I wonder why after 1 year of laggy for lots of players starbound (since 1.0) developers have not even compressed graphics. Seems that they dont care

 

They look exactly the same as the vanilla, but they are smaller in size.

 

The more you wonder about things like this or stuff like why are more features getting piled on top of a poorly optimized, buggy game, the more annoyed you'll get.

 

Woah, finally some hope of performance upgrade. I play starbound on a MacBook Air, so not really a beast performance-wise. Normally it runs ok with some occasional FPS drops. It gets kind of annoying in the snow/sand storms, I can solve that by avoiding them (I take it as a bit of a role-playing element ). But in some missions it got literally unplayable. Yesterday I tried the final mission and I somehow got to the importat part, but it was a pain and once I died I sadly didn't have any desire to try again... So! Will try your mod and see if it gets to some reasonable rate Thank you very much!

It's really sad the developers don't really do anything about the performance issues. Except for the resolution there aren't even any performance options in the game menu. It would be really cool to be able to make the game playable even in harsher parts for the price of bringing the looks down a bit.

 

OzonSF updated Optimizebound (Performance Improvement) with a new update entry:

1.2 Update

Read the rest of this update entry...