WIP Beta released The Tennessee USA Roane County 0.71 Beta Discussion/Suggestion/feedback Thread 19.3.1

You should do just fine with medium video settings there, and a haswell i7 cpu will do just fine with this game and several cars. Just be careful as adding AI 'traffic' (using the span or random settings), will quickly eat memory up and if you rewind-fix the vehicles vs moving them with freecam & f7 could CTD the game - even if you had 16gb of memory Even 6 AI vehicles + 1 stationary or user-driven vehicle quickly goes through that amount of RAM. That being said, this game is awesome on any decently clocked haswell or later (as haswell has 256-bit FPU's which is what the physics use), so do enjoy, that configuration should work out pretty darn well for quite a while.
I don't think your 870 should be too limiting, it is a laptop, after-all, and should handle medium quite well, and not sure if it will be enough to do reflections or not (maybe on other smaller maps yes, my maps, not really, as my maps are absurdly poly-intensive by design).
I have a desktop Haswell refresh here, a 4790k, and it does about 200+ M/beams a second at around 4ghz, stock. Turbo is 4.4, so yours will do a rate proportional to your clockspeed. I don't know what haswell it is so do not know if it's a dual core quad-thread, or quad-core 8-thread cpu. Regardless, either should be very smooth, as the cores only dictate how many simultaneous cars you have in play.
Let me know what kind of performance figures you get, no rush, a 'when you find it convenient to' type of deal. Totally non-obligatory. Just let me know what kind of FPS you get randomly around the map, min/max/average, if shadows are on or off, and if reflections are on or off.
This way I know how to set my system specs under requirements as I cram more and more detail into the map.
If any parts are just too unplayable (meaning, too slow and choppy, below 20fps engine can not be full-speed), I'd like to know too.

Also to note, fixed a bug where part of PINE RIDGE rd was missing at the interchange with US40. Don't know if the release version was like this, but it sure was glaring.

 

I would like to thank and give a big shout-out to @Occam's Razer for his permission to use his newer house models, along with the older ones that have been in here in the last release, for this map project. I won't change up neighborhoods that are already done, but they'll get added to new ones that I have not finished (or possibly even started) yet. To clarify, yes you can download it and yes it's awesome.
So if you want to check out his realistic car-accident-friendly neighborhood of medium-town USA (not quite small town), go on and check out Garfield Heights here: https://www.beamng.com/threads/garfield-heights.16892/unread ... this really is a stellar map all-custom model work here. It's amazing, so if you haven't seen it yet, check it out.
You'll see more variety of homes in the future version of the map, thanks to him. I couldn't have made this anywhere near as well or nearly as immersive, without the many kind contributions from the community such as this one.

While I haven't been working on this map nearly as much as I did in the months prior to the release of the last version, I still sink time into it here and there as I am able. I have been playing some other games also, to have a bit of a break, but I should be able to get some new stuff done in the next few days.
Really had a hoot driving too fast through downtown Harriman (in the map, of course), so I will definitely add some more opportunities like that and more jumps hidden throughout the map as I did in Harriman, in the other towns scattered about. I want this to be fun, it's a game, right?

 

I'd love to see more places to spawn couse this map is so big.

 

You shall have your wish on a future version of this map. As the towns and activities (dirt tracks, jump courses etc) get completed, and major icons get built, you will have more things to do, and places to spawn in worth visiting. I had to completely remove-and-replace the spawn system in this map, which originally was 7 places, it's down to like 4 or something now, as it broke the map entirely at one point on the 0.9 upgrade (which happened as I was finishing up my last night of work before release).
Upgrades to the game always seem to drop as I am getting ready for release, so I tabled this temporarily to wait for hopefully-released-features-in-next-game-update to come out, like tiled terrain support and such, which will enable me to add in a more terrain detail per square meter and such. I am also on the wait as I am messing about with the modeling programs, as I've figured out how to model things into collada (native) format, but not natively have my own collisions yet. Working on getting collisions working, so I can add many more custom things to this and my other maps. I am also learning the modeling stuff to expedite releasing my own CITY map, "The Leading-Brand City" (as Generic City was already taken)... it's a re-do on Generic City on it's same plan in theme only, most everything will be new from the ground up. I will be taking assets from 3d Warehouse (due credit given of-course) and revamping/upgrading/correcting them as this will expedite the project and making new models where I have to. If I was making every last thing from scratch, that'd be different. The good side is as I ready these models for THAT map, and give them native collision, I can properly script them into this forest brush for this map, and use them here to no detriment of the total piece count. There's always a reason, and a method to the madness

 

Thanks

 

I am currently on a (fairly) new ASUS X555DA Laptop, surprising I believe a while ago when it was more RAM intensive it could run it on lowest settings without (much) lag in the Hirochi SRB4 (the fastest version of it). I will now list my setup.

ASUS X555DA Laptop, non touch-screen version.
Processor: AMD A10-8700P Radeon R6. 10 Compute Cores 4CPU+6GPU 1.80GHz
Installed Memory (RAM): 4.00GB (3.86GB available/usable).
OS: 64bit, x64 based processor.
NOT LISTED BUT IM PRETTY SURE: 4k Radeon Graphics screen.

The fact the crap laptop has a 4k screen and it also has a special always cooled handrest and keyboard obviously points to the fact most of the laptop is about luxury and not speed. Its the Rolls Royce of laptops. And it was only 300$ so its not that luxurious. its just crud.

Ill just ask a question, maybe another version that is laptop optimized for sorta my set-up, I dont know one lick about computers but im assuming this isnt great for current gaming, and thats why im saying try to optimize it for this because if I can run it OK, anyone can run it amazing at 2000 frames a second.

The map was so big I got about 5 minutes down a road and gave up so I would love to work with you making a laptop optimized version and test how I perform in different parts of the map and in different cars.

And yes I have car collisions off, mostly as I dont spawn multiple cars, to save my laptop from death. I can still collide with buildings and trees and stuff though, so it doesn't affect me.

This has gone on too long, hope you can make this the best map on beamng (it sorta is already but not for laptops)

 

Oh don't feel too badly, there's a map if you get lost. It's hard to drive around for 20 minutes and not hit the highway, but it has happened, 'tis why I made the map more readily available on the resource main page
Generally it takes about 12~15 minutes around the speed limit to go from one side of the map to the other, on the highway, on other roads with slower spots (lower limits in towns, more turns, less direct route), it could take 20 minutes without a super-fast sports car. An experienced racer can cross it in 5~8 going insane speeds though. It's roughly 12 x 12 miles, 144 square miles, not including the surrounding backdrop mountains that are mostly just 'for show'. If you start in Harriman and work your way south, and drive about 4~5 miles, you should get to the highway US40. There's also map targets (LOTS of them, HUNDREDS if not a thousand or two), for the AI, you can set it to auto-drive if you get lost (because it can and will happen if you're not from 'here'). There's plenty of fun places to go and things to do but it's mostly driving/jumping for now. There will be much, much, much, much more in the finished product when it's done, I can assure you that. Your laptop should run this good enough, though the person above me who replied about getting an i5 laptop, is pretty spot-on. Recent intel chips run this pretty well, but if you just want to drive, you should be okay. Make sure shadows are off as it helps FPS on the cpu side of things, which is where your laptop can use the boost, and make sure reflections aren't enabled also. Best of luck with not getting lost and thanks for writing in!

To everyone else, I have been learning Blender, on advice that I get to learn things a little better on modeling. I've got how to move about in the program down, and I can resize things, I just haven't quite figured out how to work the meshes yet. Once I get that and UVmapping / texturing down, I should be set. I am working on doing collisions for my city map, built into the models, which will be able to be used almost infinitely in the forest brush, both here and in my city map (Leading-Brand City). This is why no new version has come out for a while. It could be a bit yet, another month or two, but once Blender 'clicks' with my brain, it's off to the races. This in itself will open up absolutely limitless options with mapping in this game, and will maximize the fun-factor of it all. So, here's to hoping for the best.

--Best regards!

 

Ill definitely look into it, thanks!

 

EEXXCEELLEENNTTTT.

 

When I spawned it was dark and changing the time doesn't fix it

EDIT: Nevermind I fixed it XD

 

for me most of the road signs are super tall, what is up with that?

 

DO NOT FEEL BAD AT ALL. I say this in caps not rudely, I'd give you a hug if it was possible, MY HERO. I hate Blender, but not near as much as it hates me. That's possibly the must unfriendly, most overly complicated, easiest to mess up thing I have ever tried to use in my 25 years or there-about's of computing.
I figured out and learned a doom editor (DCK) and then 10~12 years later Doom Builder...
I figured out how to reload the software and even fix and repair and upgrade, and build anew a whole computer, just to keep said doom editor going.
I figured out and used the WORLDCRAFT (Hammer) editor by Ben Morris, the same person who made DCK (Doom Construction Kit 2.2f) for DOS.
I figured out that Nvidia cards are the reason for Coil Whine in many PC's sans having a cheapo PSU or motherboard with lousy cheap coils.
I repaired and rebuilt CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives in mass quantity. I still have a box or two of these somewhere.
I figured out the unreal editor in circa 2012 or so after many years of failure, trying to make something for the most family-unfriendly Postal 2.
I figured out how to do textures pretty darn well and no not just copy-paste marathons (OK OK there was SOME of that but let's not re-invent the wheel here, there's only one of me!)
I figured out Sketchup, which to it's credit, while not being the best thing for gaming, is certainly very friendly.
In this time I've also fixed our (new!) roof because the folks who put it on SUCK and it still rained in the house. It shouldn't rain in the house.
I've repaired my Toymotor Crammy ('03 Corolla), multiple times, and it's still a worthless piece of [expletive deleted] and I hate that [censored] car.
[lots of muttering that either can't be understood or shouldn't]
So, not bragging, but there's things I can do, and there's things I can't understand. I can't understand that program. I just don't think it's possible for me to use Blender to any degree of success. Unless someone comes over here and sits down with me and physically shows me this, I am not going to be able to learn this thing. No, I am not necessarily asking for someone to come over and teach me this, I just want to make that clear.
So I will do what I can, with what I have, I am almost to the point where I've got the collisions working properly (right now they're off center but working otherwise, after removing small surfaces that eat cars). Hey I even faced my normals the right way. So yes, while my models are somewhat ugly with temporary textures (I made better textures for DOOM ~15~20 years ago for crying out loud), they DO work, they DON'T have native collision until I tell it to use visible collision. This method uses an item slot up, one per item, vs forest items which use none.
*HOWEVER* when Beamng.drive is fixed, meaning, the shape editor bug is removed, I can use separate models, and stitch them together inside Beamng.drive, and all will be well. Then I shall continue with this method of making models. So I've not stopped, I am still working with my models, as there's much to do on that end, before I get to the fun part of assembling a scene with it. Working with Torque3d to make my models stitched together doesn't work quite in the same manner of Beamng.drive, and actually causes the Beamng.drive to get stuck in a seemingly endless loop upon loading Ding! Error msg. Ding! Error msg. Ding! Error msg. For what it's worth, I've heard enough of The-Price-is-Right ding sound, which is my system default.

So RANT aside, this issue with Blender won't really negatively affect the outcome of *THIS* map, however, my 'Leading Brand City' map (GC Remake) will be sitting by the way-side as far as beamng.drive progress goes until the bug is remedied.

I have submitted the bug and it will be fixed eventually, I hope. It would be nice. Mod support is the key to long-term value of your product in the PC GAMING marketplace. Those without mod support drop off the radar and into the discount bin much quicker. I understand we're not even to BETA yet so I will patiently wait here, like I said, much to do. A loss for things to do on a daily, is not one of my worries in the least!

See that you don't have an older version, or that one of the following directories inside your documents folder in Windows contains it:
beamng.drive/levels (this is where extracted levels go, it would be listed as SouthernHighway as this was the project name initially)
beamng.drive/mods/levels (this is where we always did put levels)
beamng.drive/mods (somehow, this might be the newer folder structure; it works the way I mentioned above too, for better organization)
If in mods folder, it should mostly or cohesively share the name of the downloadable file.

If that still fails, take a picture of your level selector screen. See what version it says when you select Roane County Tennessee.
The current version is listed. If you use a version from before the 0.9 game version release available here, it will have humongous road signs, as they are like 500 feet tall or something, when they're supposed to be 7~8 feet tall. So they're spawned in at 0.025 size, and they come out just right. Luckily I fixed these all with a text editor. It has something to do with the conversion process to the new game version from older maps.

Yes, the large road sign bug does NOT exist with the current version, only the old version. Only times it comes up is when an older version exists already because for some reason, beamng.drive keeps older files in precedence.

And why does this rediculous spell checker not like when I use the word REDICULOUS. This spell checker doesn't like the word unintuitive either. It's not my brain, it's this [redacted] [BLEEP!] spell checker. ARGH. Somewhere, in a land far-far away, some server is choking and gasping it's last breaths trying to translate my poor grammar into whatever other language users need it. Hope you have an extinguisher handy or are at-least wearing a nice fire-resistant asbestos sweater while reading this.

--It's been a good RANT, but I must tend to some other things. -Cheers to y'all. I have a Nevada Interstate and So-Cal FPS improving/view distance reducing update coming this week/weekend sometime. Where Nevada went 20~30fps on high it now goes 100fps. It's staying above 45fps in even the worst spot. So-Cal will get this same treatment, no worries though, you can still see approx. 2 miles or so in both maps.
So-Cal also stays above 60fps in most all spots, with nothing below 45fps. It was just indecently slow. I already have that update in Roane County so that won't need a FPS-fix update.
EDIT: Yes the Nevada update fixed the retaining wall power-of-2 error and guiderail texture path error too.

 

MOAR progress, that means, hey "I've picked up this map for a while to work on it again"
A few new road textures scripted (used in parking-lots here, and may be featured on some back-roads).
LOTS of new forest objects scripted in (an urban jungle's worth)... heh.
Added in the JRI bridge too, it's 100% perfect for the railroad track bridges in downtown Harriman.
I've spent hours detailing a 1.5 block by 2 block area... yeah... that's it... 8 hours... ARGH! There's 200+ blocks in this map and like 50 of them are done, I will have plenty to do.
Hood-cam shots here all except one, Queen st. & Devonia st. for the first 5 shots:





Lots of time-consuming details, hats-off & many, many thanks to @Occam's Razer for the fancy new content - it's awesome! You rock!

Other railroad bridge I fixed up (haven't done this one up fully, this is at the south end of Devonia st.)

For orientation, this is taken from the west, looking East/Northeast (2 o-clock on compass) into downtown Harriman's Queen & Devonia Streets.

Also for orientation, looking south (7 o-clock direction on a compass) @ the same area (further distance is unfinished, working there next)


Just giving a heads-up. Bringing even more detail. Most all of this except the road textures/parking lot textures is Forest objects.
What I used adding detail towards object count is mostly a wash as I simplified the Railroad bridges (they're 2 objects instead of 7 each now).

 

Looks fantastic. Will you bring some extra optimization with this new detail or is it just for looks?

 

Well, I am somewhat up the crick, to render more FPS here, aside of dropping the view-distance, which may cause people to get even more hopelessly lost. I need more road signs and directions before I start dropping the draw distance any more. I can always release that lesser draw distance as a patch. If I can't hold 60fps here I will consider reducing distance in the main version.
I do have a map here but who keeps that handy and present when driving this area? Unless you live local & have a paper map.
On that note, this week I am doing the 'normal' textures (bump-mapping stuffs), so I should be able to have reflectors in the road-surface that catch the car's lights like we have here, in the next version - because it looks cool and helps lots at night time.
On a side note, I was zipping about (this part of the map is actually quite fun, because it's got lots of jumps - and will have even MOAR, hit a brick box (building) at about 80mph and got an upright car out of it!


I haven't done much there besides add curbing and taper the crossroads (so that you get air if you fly through over 55-65mph). Taper = high spot in the middle, it's also called the 'cant' of the road, which helps water drain off. That is present in many intersections in Nevada Interstate, and I do have endless fun hopping them in cars, trucks, truck stuffed full of pianos, etc.
It's got to be FUN! I don't care if it's 100% perfect. I am for it to look good but it's got to play good first and fore-most.
Function over form, but not by so much it looks hideous or incomplete. I said I was going to finish this map, and I am, slowly but surely.
A few trees and this side of the road should be complete:

 

Nice. IMO you should reduce draw distance but only a little. As it stands its unlimited, right? maybe you can have something like draw distance limited to 2 km?

 

It's around 2 miles in the latest version.
Looks like it will be 1.3~1.6 miles in the next version (2km?), or something like that.
I took grass shadow off, that should help, seeing as there's so much of it. The grass in yards doesn't need shadow (it's so small you can't see it anyways unless you're standing in the lawn itself). Trees still have shadow, unless you've disabled those.
Also, FPS should be a bit up around some of the bridges as they're being replaced by single-piece solutions from the base-game (just railroad bridges are getting updated for now). The meshes I built some of the bridges will are hitting FPS if they're within the view distance.
Currently: laying the grid-like streets in ROCKWOOD, TN. This will be like Harriman, and fairly far along by the time this sees the light of day.
EDIT: This grid! (looking west, into Rockwood, the large main route was there in the last revision)

That's 4.5~4.6 more miles of road that weren't in the last 163+ mile version of the map.
Those roads are 98% done enough to be driven down (and I just did), and few hill-crests to fly off of at high speed, because admit it, we ALL do that whenever we can in Beamng.drive!
The grid isn't 100% perfect but it's darn close, close as it needs to be to reality in Beamng.drive anyways.
I moved & regraded Joiner-Holler Rd a bit to the north, to fit the grid properly, it wasn't quite the right angle, there's just a bit more of a turn at the bottom-right of the screenshot than in the real world but then angle of the road in town is correct. I didn't have a road overlay when I made this map (still don't, working off eye).
There's another 2~3 miles (maybe) to script into the area right in Rockwood, too.
Also, I've got assets for the airport now, hooray, thank you Jungle-Rock-Island
So yes, there will be more than just a runway and some semi-visible lights when it's ready. Ace-pilots rejoice!

Look forward to more progress in Rockwood and more furnishing of the Airport in the coming days.

This is the settings I've been using to do my 60fps tests, on:
i7 4790k 4.4ghz turbo locked on @ 1.2v
Rx 480 8gb 1288 core (not OC'ed, fan's falling off, rigged with additional case-fan)
16gb 2400mhz cas11 DDR3 RAM

It's bouncing 56~64fps ... if it doesn't seem steady*, this is with a bunch of stuff and 20+ tabs & google street-view open on Firefox with the music player running in the background, and the Steam-y pile of course.
If you think I should adjust those settings, let me know, but this is how I run it.
Shadows and detail-cranked (but not entirely far distance) reflections are on. Default day/time settings.
This is the burger-world spawn with my rust-bucket 88 Rustoleum Racing Special Pessima...
EDIT: No, Harriman downtown does not run 60fps at that setting, try 30fps~50fps OR turn off dynamic reflections. It's very detailed, very! However, it shouldn't get much worse there. Maybe I can hide some occluders...

*Temps reported on the card with the case-fan hanging out nearby to huff & puff on it (thank you parts box, zip-ties, twist-ties, etc), are max 78c so I am not throttling. Just FPS bounces about a bit, likely other things running doing it. Being a pack-rat can sometimes pay off.

 

*sigh* (warning, this is a 'rant')
XFX (the video card manufacturer), I am less than impressed.
I dread dealing with your tech support, it's = to purgatory.
"Dealing with them (the tech support) is worse than when I had to try and return the Asbestos sweaters I got on fire-sale online, for my niece's birthday, when they didn't fit."

A case fan tied up with zip-ties, suspended in the middle of my PC case is the difference between running & not running right now. I've been MCP/MCSE + N for almost 20 years now (about roughly 18 years), and they wanted me to try changing the motherboard bios to fix a worn out broken fan I already examined (and determined to be faulty, manufactured improperly) before I started with this RMA.
Yes. They tell me have you tried to "Change up that bios on the perfectly working motherboard"/computer because XFX manufactures RUBBISH. So then after I non-wisely mess with the motherboard I can break too, another part, then two RMA's to mess with (trying to fix what isn't broke, much less!).

So yes, because I am a bit of a pack-rat/hoarder when it comes to computer components, and have boxes of misc junk no one would find much value in, unless they were a PC tech hobbyist, I can still edit maps, play games, etc, when the GPU fan gives up the ghost.

I didn't even have to shut off the PC, or even the game I was playing (I was blowing up 1000's of exploding rad-rats in Fallout when I realized "hey it's not working right")... to wire that fan up. Keeps temps in line and I swear it's quieter with that case fan suspended where it is. I didn't even have to beat my computer like "WhyBeAre" did to fix his water-cooling pump (thank goodness I never got into water-cooling with a box full of electric, with my past luck, I wisely avoided that "Blundering Mis-adventure").

Boxes of parts including pulled server fans - check!
*Zip ties and wire-ties - check!
*Mug a y-cable out of an old PC in the corner so I didn't have to wreck my back going through a dozen boxes to find another - check!
*Bracket to screw into the side of the case to not have fan wildly swinging as we get minor earth-tremors now and then - check!
*No need to shut down as DC doesn't arc and won't trip short-sensors in the PSU if plugged properly - check!
*Hear big crash in closet next day as you realize a load-bearing box of junk was crucially mis-aligned when you were doing this - check!
*Don't open closet door for a few days because 'you don't want to know' - check!
*Play game/ edit map - check!

Don't buy XFX anymore - check!

 

Could've been worse. Could've been a Sapphire....once bought a 3850 w/ a defective core: nice colors & contrast, no 3D!
Explained the cheaper than dirt price, though.

I've been lucky with Asus and MSI so far. Couple fans died out way after the warranty ended, easily replaced with fans from ebay.

That's all the trouble I had with my last 4 cards.

 

my 6950 lasted 5 years until it gave out.... Well, "gave out". It still works, the fan lubrication for the cooler just gets shitty and starts making this chirp noise all the time. Other than that the GPU works fine.

Cant say the same for the crap drivers and lack of product compatibility. Will be buying nvidia from now on.