Cars variety problem !

[gangstaunitg]

Well I don't know how you guys, but I have encountered a problem with variety of cars on streets, when carpack mod is applied. Or even when I replace only one car with sparkIV it also mess up the game.

 

I am talking about five same cars in a row, or bunch of taxi's everywhere, you know a very few numbers of cars shows on streets and usually in groups. It really makes the game unplayable and it also looks very unrealistic.

 

Please help me with that problem, cause I really would like to have some cars replaced.

 

Thank you

 

(sorry for my english, I am just learning)

[madforce2k]

I've had that same issue.

 

I'm not exactly sure what the cause is.

 

Is it a car model that isn't particularly optimized for a certain version?

 

Is it CPU power?

 

I'm at a loss really. The cars work fine, they load, and I can spawn any model on demand, no errors, but if I swap out one, even a model I would rarely see unless I initiate them (FIB Buffalo or Noose), it affects everything. Even just swapping in Lt Caine's LCPD Charger, I see all Taxi's, and patrol cars, with 1 other vehicle for every 10 cabs, and it will be the only other model for several minutes. Eventually, I would get a new model, but again, it would be the only model mixed in with the cabs.

 

I normally run on 100 distance and 100 Density so i would think processing power wouldn't be an issue. Turning it down to single digit distance and/or density didn't change the ratio. I like traffic, but modding one car, even the patrol car, and its a sea of yellow cabs. And Again, even with changing just a patrol car, the new patrol model will spawn just fine, as do the taxi's, but the rest of the models seem to take turns spawning into traffic.

 

And yes, I make very certain that I change one car at a time, and that Spark is closed before proceeding to load. So yeah, i'm at a loss too. I just kinda abandoned the idea for now and continued to work on completing the entire game for now since changing models will cause a crash sometimes during a cutscene thats looking for the old one.

 

EDIT: Corrected a misspelling.

Edited January 3, 2010 by madforce2k

[xsisT]

The cars are made with too many polys?

That's why I mostly use the ones from rockstar.

[madforce2k]

 

The cars are made with too many polys?

That's why I mostly use the ones from rockstar.

EDIT:

 

Tried a few things again...

 

If I take the LCPD Charger and replace police model, traffic is normal and littered with various models as expected.

If I take the LCPD Charger and replace both police. and police 2 models. Traffic becomes repetitive only spawning a model or two at a time in packs.

and again....

If I take the NYPD Tahoe and replace police model, traffic is normal and littered with various models as expected.

If I take the NYPD Tahoe and replace both police. and police 2 models. Traffic becomes repetitive only spawning a model or two at a time in packs.

And..

Replace police and police2 with one of each, charger and tahoe, same result, traffic variation is gone yet again with models coming one at a time in groups.

 

 

Does not appear to affect Taxi's or the actual police units, as they are the only models regularly intermixed even when doubled up, it just appears to affect every other model from spawning randomly in traffic, and it affects parked cars too, all parked cars are that same one model. So you drive around with varying taxi's, varying patrol cars but every other car in sight is the same car just different colors minute or two goes by, then you get a new model that replaces it but its still the only model.

 

I would think if a car had too many polys it wouldn't load that one car at all, but the actual car being replaced in these examples, police and police2 are unaffected, it just hinders every other model not a taxi. And with just one of those models, everything returns to normal. And therin my confusion continues.

Edited January 4, 2010 by madforce2k

[madforce2k]

And to update...since im outa time to play with it today...

 

Replaced one by one...

 

presidente with CTS-V

Landstalker with Civ Tahoe...

Feltzer with mercedes sl65 amg

bobcat with 94 ram

DF8 with bmw 535i

 

 

I still get some variation, but not as much as I do with the original unedited models. As it stood with those 5 model changes, apart from cabs and police, I would see maybe 3 models at max. So cruising thru star junction, and other high volume arteries its really noticeable.

 

It's a shame really at this point. Love editing in vehicles, making it more real, but seeing 20+ of them in star junction looks more like a car dealership.

 

It's just peculiar how replacing both the police cruiser models with the same charger causes almost all civilian models to virtually disappear and reappear only one at a time.

 

[Hendrick4life]

Yea it can become very frustrating at times. I Play with the Police Car mods and its very sad. But I love the cop cars too much to change it. Hopefully someone finds a hint or clue as to why this is happening and can tell rockstar so that they may hopefully make a fix.

[Phantom Mark]

I have a sneaking feeling it is something to do with texture memory allocation, there is an inbuilt buffer size I reckon, most addon cars seem to have a large texture size compared to the Rockstar supplied cars........I have similar problems here in my quest to add additional cars.

[gangstaunitg]

Hmm, I hoped there is a fix for that, but it seems like we all stil have this problem.

 

It is just very strange to me, that all the car mods which have been made so far, and none of the modders actualy didnt care about such important thing like ingame variation of this moddels. Personaly I think that it's useless in this case, so I returned to original rockstar cars

 

I wish someone can fix this

[ahatius]

 

It is just very strange to me, that all the car mods which have been made so far, and none of the modders actualy didnt care about such important thing like ingame variation of this moddels. Personaly I think that it's useless in this case, so I returned to original rockstar cars

It's not like they don't care about your variations. It's just the point that if they take low-poly, people start moking about how sh*tty the car looks like. But you'll have variation then. If they make the car real high-poly, people start moking about that they only get police & taxis in the traffic. Therefore the car looks good. The modder can't do much against this except to create good looking, low-poly cars.

 

It's the game engine which screws the variation ingame. To save memory, GTA just spawns vehicles that are already loaded to the memory. So if you take a car, for example Admiral, you'll see many other Admirals. That's because he tries to save memory in just spawning cars that are already in the memory. The rockstar cars don't need that much memory, so you still see other cars then the admiral.

 

If you install a high poly car, you'll only see the car you are using right now together with taxis and cops. Taxis and cops always spawn, because they are a pretty important part of the game. The high-poly car just takes away the memory for other cars.

 

You get more performance if he loads 20 times the same car rather than loading 20 different cars. You can't do anything against this, it's part of the game engine.

Edited January 4, 2010 by ahatius

[madforce2k]

That's what I suspected, but hopefully there will be some manner eventually to increase that somehow, I don't know. It is a very unfortunate catch 22. It's just odd that i can swap in 5 other civ models, and still have moderate variations, but swapping both police models with the same charger or tahoe and variation disappears is perplexing.

 

Hopefully, somewhere, somehow, someway we can find a way to up this limit/restriction or w/e it is thats killing the spawn process.

Edited January 5, 2010 by madforce2k

[r0llinlacs]

Ok, i have the same problem now. I downloaded the "FCV 2003 NYPD Precinct Version" crown victoria and replaced police and police2.

 

now in-game, there is nothing but a ton of taxi's and a few cop cars here and there.

 

I really really really want to find a way to fix this, cuz this is the car mod ive been waiting so long for so i want it to work right.

[Phantom Mark]

I have spent well over a working week on these problems, trying all the variations open to us, believe me, countless hours effort.

 

I would like to try reducing the texture overheads for the addon cars first of all, and then maybe trimming down the LODS in the models or something, get those overheads down to as little as possible without affecting general quality.

 

I have posted a couple of times in the modeling section for requests for a converter/modeler to join me tackling this problem so we can create a mod which will address these problems, sadly nobody seems interested and I do not know enough about how GTA IV works in modeling/packaging to do this on my own, my expertise is with Physics and general file hacking.

 

For me now it seems pointless to carry on with GTA IV until I can get the cool addon cars in, but with working and properly functioning varied traffic, otherwise all those cool addon cars are worthless sadly - to me anyways.

[XSB]

I've heard rumors that its a problem related to the porting of the game. Some people on a hungarian GTA community encountered this problem with unmodded GTA IV. I've heard that they solved it this way, so fewer textures/models would be loaded into the system memory->the game would run smoother.

[Phantom Mark]

Hmm starting to wonder if it will help.......

 

Running a 280GTX here, and 4gb system ram.

 

I have plenty of overhead here by running the game in lowest possible setting, and I have in fact used the command line to increase VRAM to 1.5gb, and still exactly the same issues as without doing so..........seems it must be something else, maybe the actual size of the model mesh is too large ?? no sure at all that it's model texture sizes.........

[r0llinlacs]

Personally, i dont think its a memory problem. Why I say that is, I have modded tons of other cars and never had this problem. Installed the cop car and BAM taxi heaven. (multiplayer variation still seems normal though)

 

If it is related to file size, it's probably a "check" to make sure the file size hasn't changed. (maybe rockstar doesnt want us to have real cop cars?)

[Phantom Mark]

Maybe there is an internal "cap" on the size of either the mesh or the textures, it could simply be that the textures are too big in size for example and not even related to file size, in my years of modding I have seen weirder

 

I have many ideas I want to try out and have posted a request for a modeler/converter to join forces with me to solve this problem once and for all, sadly nobody seems willing to try and fix this, which is a real shame, so many nice models and no way to use them properly..........

[r0llinlacs]

i just find it odd that multiplayer is unaffected, even if you're the host.

 

Does multiplayer have it's own cargrp settings?

[Phantom Mark]

I have not done any testing in MP, what are the differences please ??

[madforce2k]

Maybe there is an internal "cap" on the size of either the mesh or the textures, it could simply be that the textures are too big in size for example and not even related to file size, in my years of modding I have seen weirder

 

I have many ideas I want to try out and have posted a request for a modeler/converter to join forces with me to solve this problem once and for all, sadly nobody seems willing to try and fix this, which is a real shame, so many nice models and no way to use them properly..........

Thats specifically why we say its a memory problem with the game itself. Its not affected by how much you have in your system, but its affected by it appears there is some form of cap in the game itself that affects how may models it will load. The more custom models, and the larger they are, the sooner you hit what appears to be that cap.

 

Alot of the custom models, especially the police models, are 3-5 times the size of a normal model, and in the case of the crown vic, even larger.

[Phantom Mark]

It wont stop me trying to find a work around

 

Firstly I want to see if it is texture or mesh size which is causing the problem, hence the request for some help, pick a car and work with it until we get it working 100%, to better understand for all what limitations we are working with.

[r0llinlacs]

I have not done any testing in MP, what are the differences please ??

well multiplayer variation was never as good as single player, but it seems unaffected. everything is a-ok on MP, besides the random crashes.

[dj jazzy death]

just be happy u have alot of taxis and not alot have the same car. ex. 20 calvalcades on one street. i say alot of taxis are realistic in nyc.

[rumba]

EDIT i just read some more and it's not compatible with 1.0.0.4

 

here is something to help with this problem i just found it on another forum,

 

TrafficFlow V1 BETA,

 

here is the link to the topic..

 

http://www.gtapolicemods.com/forum/viewthr...?thread_id=2539

 

http://xgweb.co.uk/TrafficFlow_v1.zip

Edited February 3, 2010 by rumba

[commanderz]

SAme problem here!!after applying some car mods....now the game is full of taxi and few police car in EVERY WAY!!!any fix of this thx??

[mangbhoy]

Is there a solution for this now?

[ZZCOOL]

Is there a solution for this now?

nope still nothing i want a solution aswell i still want high poly cars

[Gus-84]

Oh, now you're looking for a solution to the taxi bug?

I tought you really didn't care about that. (thats what you always said)

 

I'm glad to see that my project have pushed you forward!

[ZZCOOL]

Oh, now you're looking for a solution to the taxi bug?

I tought you really didn't care about that. (thats what you always said)

 

I'm glad to see that my project have pushed you forward!

once again stop using google translate

 

it's funny now your lying about me again