Adding many modded cars in game leads to crash?

[Vills SkyTerror 25]

Hello. A little bit of side note: I used to be long time SA modder (didn't made any mods) but I have good amount of knowledge about how each and different kind of mods works for SA only. I had many modded cars replaced as well as added in my SA with the help of limit adjuster, about 450+ added and replaced vehicles combined.

 

Now I am getting a better gear to run GTA 5 very smoothly and will also like to try my hands on GTA5 mods after I complete the storyline. Recently I came into discussion online saying that having many good vehicle mods in GTA 5 leads to crash because of insufficient memory pool. First of all is that true? And secondly is there any way to counter that instead of compromising the amount of car mods I could add?

 

I plan to replace all the existing vehicles in V and also add some more if necessary. Will that lead to crash?

[LeeC2202 210]

The simple answer is yes, expect to deal with lots of crashing if you plan to replace all the vehicles. Many of the modded vehicles are badly made, have too many polygons, too high texture resolution and no LODS. One modded car can equal as much as 10 or more normal game cars, because even at the furthest distance, they will still be at their highest LOD level. Expect parts of the map to disappear, textures to disappear and the game crashing.

 

"Good" vehicle mods are ones that leave your game stable, not ones that have 700,000 polygons, 4K textures and no LODs... and there aren't enough of them to replace every car in the game. You'll be lucky to find enough to replace 5% of the ingame cars to be honest. There are about 300 vehicles that class as a typical "car" in the game, replacing them with typical addons is like making the game handle 3000 cars instead.

 

You will need a modified gameconfig file or you may get crashes with as little as 3 cars added.

Edited November 23, 2018 by LeeC2202

[LeeC2202 210]

Here's a fine example... this single car needed a modded gameconfig on its own. https://www.gta5-mods.com/vehicles/jzx100-mark-ii-add-on-tuning-template

 

Just to give you a comparison, here are the Zentorno file sizes:

zentorno+hi.ytd		-	305KB
zentorno.yft		-	943KB
zentorno.ytd		-	105KB
zentorno_hi.yft		-	1,142KB

And here are the ones from that addon:

mk2100.yft			-	15,555KB
mk2100.ytd			-	12,639KB
mk2100_hi.yft			-	14,302KB
vehicles_mk2100_interior.ytd	-	4,130KB

Tuning Parts			-	184,231KB

That interior ytd file is bigger than all of the Zentorno files put together... look at those tuning parts. It has a 27,000 polygon interior tuning part, that is two headrests and some cup-holders. The actual car itself, is over 600,000 polygons and has no LODs.

 

Admittedly this is an extreme case but this is what you will need to watch out for. Be prepared to export textures, fix the sizes and then to put them back, on a regular basis, because you will find people releasing textures that are 5000x5000, which is an 8K texture when it's in VRAM.

Edited November 28, 2018 by LeeC2202

[Vills SkyTerror 25]

Thanks for the info. May I ask what is difference between *_hi.yfd and *.yfd same with yft. I am guessing yfd is model and yft is texture. Also guessing _hi in name stands for details. One model for distance rendering and other for close detailed rendering?

 

Also the modded vehicles have separate files for interior and exterior model? wa da hek

 

I have patience and practice for lowering the texture size from my SA stuff because my previous PC was crap, so that won't be a problem. But I won't know how am I going to lower the poly count. Probably have to edit the model and do adjustments hoping the mod is not locked for personal use.

 

BTW what is default texture resolution which game vehicles or other models use? I think 1024x1024 is good enough, 2048x2048 at most.

Edited November 28, 2018 by Vills SkyTerror

[zmudziak32 319]

I think these are textures loading depends on graphic settings.

[LeeC2202 210]

yft files are the model files and ytd are the texture dictionaries. In some cases, you see 4 files:

modelname_hi.yft is the high detail model.

modelname.yft is the file that holds the other LOD levels for the model.

modelname.ytd is the normal texture dictionary and you sometimes get modelname+hi.ytd, which is for certain higher detailed textures, for when the model is at the highest detail level. Quite often the game uses that file for the higher resolution interior file.

 

This is the first vehicle I have seen that has a dedicated interior ytd with so much in it.

 

99% of models are locked, which means you can't edit, or should I say *fix* anything model related. Texture files are always editable, so those can be fixed or changed as you see fit. However, whilst you can fix the sizes to some extent, you can't fix the bad UV mapping. So when someone has chosen a texture size, like 324x96, instead of building a proper texture sheet and UV mapping things properly, you're going to be stuck with that.

 

With properly made models, there is no real default texture size. You always make the textures as small as possible to acheive the effect... the smaller the better. The zentorno has the full interior in a 1024x1024 texture for the +hi version and 512x512 for the normal ytd file. This mod I linked to, has a 2048x2048 texture for just part of the seat, that could have been done in 128x128 with proper UV mapping. What makes it worse is the normal map is the same size. It has 2K tyrewall, 2K tyre normal map, 2K tyre specmap and 2K tyre dirtmap, all completely unnecessary.

 

I come from game development days where we had 256x256 (if we were lucky) to do everything on a car, inside and out, so texture optimisation is a built-in state of mind. Always power-of-two and always as small as it can be.

Edited November 28, 2018 by LeeC2202

[Vills SkyTerror 25]

3 hours ago, LeeC2202 said:

This mod I linked to, has a 2048x2048 texture for just part of the seat, that could have been done in 128x128 with proper UV mapping. What makes it worse is the normal map is the same size. It has 2K tyrewall, 2K tyre normal map, 2K tyre specmap and 2K tyre dirtmap, all completely unnecessary.

I highly agree. Just a tirewall, tiregrip, etc for 2K seems overkill. 256 would have been good enough for texture which are not normally visible and 512 for full body map. I am not an expert but won't 128x128 for say 2D logo or air vent look blurry when playing in FHD or higher and camera focused on that part?

 

Anyways, this was really helpful and informative. Thank you so much. I have a better idea for what to expect and do.

 

Also found a game config link. Which claims to add limitless vehicles if I add bigger dlcs filled with batches of vehicles together. Since game has a dlc limit. So I'll try this first.

Edited November 28, 2018 by Vills SkyTerror

[LeeC2202 210]

10 minutes ago, Vills SkyTerror said:

I am not an expert but won't 128x128 for say 2D logo or air vent look blurry when playing in FHD or higher and camera focused on that part?

Well yes but from a developer/creator's point of view, you have to consider what percentage of time is the player going to be focused on that part?  Every bit of VRam an addon uses for pointless things, is VRam taken away from the game to render important things. That's what causes textures to start disappearing. So it becomes a case of what's more important, that highly-detailed air vent, or some building/map textures?

 

But the majority of addon creators can't see the bigger picture and that's when everyone else is left to clean up the mess, by providing support to people with problems caused by those addons. Because the creators of them don't give two f*cks... sad but true.

 

That's a good gameconfig and the one I recommended to the person having the problems with the addon car I linked to. 👍

 

Have fun anyway.