I need help with ROW special effects

[kriller2]

Hi all,

I have found out a way to make the ROW special effects work with the new adoon, by using the old ROW particles and materials and making a new zone.cfg and cargo.def.

But there is a bug where you will see the oil-leak appear and disappear forever if you look at a burning oil-spot long enough

I have tried everything, reducing the lifetime of the effect in the zones.cfg, reducing the lifetime of the particles oilspot and can't make this work :damn: with a oilleak just burning once..

We need to find out if it's doable by using my work and importing it into the new particles / materials.dat..

Here is my test file with the oil leak allmost working 100%
http://www.4shared.com/file/42577899/9b18bae9/Install_Special_Effects_with_stock_zones_for_SH1_5 _Uboat_Missions.html

Here is a picture of the working effect:
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6963/rowspecialeffectwipra0.th.jpg (http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowspecialeffectwipra0.jpg)

I hope someone can help me with this?

[Factor]

hey kriller, thanx for all you do for us. can you tell us if the ship exhaust smoke being visable over the horizon has been addressed yet? again, thank you.

[kriller2]

Hi factor, yes we have it working, but I realy want to make the oil-leak effects work with the nice flames and smoke, before releasing it.

[Meridian]

I wish I could help you K2 because that screenie looks great. I just wouldn't know where to start looking.

[MONOLITH]

The burning oil was one of my favorite effects too. I still have the original ROW files Dave had sent me to test. Are they same? I could have a look at those. Otherwise send me your latest. At least it will be another brain looking at the problem.

Check your PMs too.

[Factor]

Hi factor, yes we have it working, but I realy want to make the oil-leak effects work with the nice flames and smoke, before releasing it.


:up:

awesome. the colors in PE2 are stunning. loving every bit of it. thanx again for what you have done w/ this already amazing game.:rock:


just dont release it before my current patrol is over with, LOL.

[Nisgeis]

I have stock 1.4 and the oil was re-appearing. I fixed it so the burning oil pool only appeared once, but left the none burning oil as it was re-appearing, but Kriller says that it doesn't work for him. Odd.

[DrBeast]

I have stock 1.4 and the oil was re-appearing. I fixed it so the burning oil pool only appeared once, but left the none burning oil as it was re-appearing, but Kriller says that it doesn't work for him. Odd.

Must be a 1.5-related problem. I too run 1.4 and never noticed this behavior (though I stumbled upon other weird side-effects after I upgraded my rig...see the Pacific Environment thread for details).

[Nisgeis]

I have stock 1.4 and the oil was re-appearing. I fixed it so the burning oil pool only appeared once, but left the none burning oil as it was re-appearing, but Kriller says that it doesn't work for him. Odd.

Must be a 1.5-related problem. I too run 1.4 and never noticed this behavior (though I stumbled upon other weird side-effects after I upgraded my rig...see the Pacific Environment thread for details).

I have stock 1.4 and the oil was re-appearing.

[DrBeast]

I have stock 1.4 and the oil was re-appearing. I fixed it so the burning oil pool only appeared once, but left the none burning oil as it was re-appearing, but Kriller says that it doesn't work for him. Odd.
Must be a 1.5-related problem. I too run 1.4 and never noticed this behavior (though I stumbled upon other weird side-effects after I upgraded my rig...see the Pacific Environment thread for details).
I have stock 1.4 and the oil was re-appearing.

Whoops...sorry, didn't notice that. That's what you get when you're speed-reading forums in the midst of an experiment! :p

[kriller2]

The special effects worked with the 1.4 patch, but the oil-leaks did appear and disappear, I think it was the solution Dave and Is4htl came to, because they couldn't solve the issue with the tool that existed at that time.

The appearing and disappearing happens now on my 1.5 installation, so if the file you send to me Nisgeis works with 1.4 (can you confirm that Dr. Beast?), then my guess would be it have something to do with the way the U-boat missions handles the particles / materials.dat?

It seems we are close to a solution,thanks for working on it! :up:

EDIT...Or Maybe we need to make two versions, one for the 1.4 patch and one for the U-boat missions?

[Nisgeis]

The version I sent you only has one of the oil patches fixed, as I wasn't sure exactly what you wanted it to do.

When a ship sinks, there are 4 or so oil patches, one of which is on fire. The fix I sent you had the normal oil patches re-appearing, but the one oil patch on fire (the one that I made float up a bit) now only appears once.

I might be going mad though.

[DrBeast]

The appearing and disappearing happens now on my 1.5 installation, so if the file you send to me Nisgeis works with 1.4 (can you confirm that Dr. Beast?), then my guess would be it have something to do with the way the U-boat missions handles the particles / materials.dat?


See, that's why I never sign up as a tester: confirmation or not will have to wait until tomorrow, as I don't have internet at home :-?

[kriller2]

The appearing and disappearing happens now on my 1.5 installation, so if the file you send to me Nisgeis works with 1.4 (can you confirm that Dr. Beast?), then my guess would be it have something to do with the way the U-boat missions handles the particles / materials.dat?


See, that's why I never sign up as a tester: confirmation or not will have to wait until tomorrow, as I don't have internet at home :-?

Sorry dr. beast, but I don't have the game in a 1.4 state, so I thought it would be nice if we could confirm that Nisgeis is working in the right direction.

Will take a look at this again later when I get home ;)

[DrBeast]

kriller2, I'll test it nevertheless. Delayed feedback is better that no feedback, after all. Speaking of "home", I think it's time for a last smoke and then I'm homeward bound. So, catch you tomorrow!

[kriller2]

@Nisgeis it works on the oil floating in the air on 1.5 and the oil leaks disappear after 10 minutes, the way it should. I tested this yesterday, but didn't wait long enough :oops:

Here is a sequence:
11.04
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/486/1104oa1.th.jpg (http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1104oa1.jpg)
11.09
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1283/1109kk9.th.jpg (http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1109kk9.jpg)
11.10
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5363/1110vc7.th.jpg (http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1110vc7.jpg)
11.19 the oil and fire is gone :cool:
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8607/1121ed7.th.jpg (http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1121ed7.jpg)

Can you make the changes to the oil on the ocean surface allso? :up:

[l3th4l]

haven't read the whole topic yet so idk if you've got the answer you've been looking for...

however - tomorrow is my final exam this semester (actually for last semester as the next one begins on the 7th :nope: ) and i'll be "back in action" modding wise :ping:
there are already a few things i'm looking forward to sinking my teeth in and row is at the top of the list of course :)

[Nisgeis]

@Nisgeis it works on the oil floating in the air on 1.5 and the oil leaks disappear after 10 minutes, the way it should. I tested this yesterday, but didn't wait long enough :oops:


Hurrah! I'm not going mad.

Can you make the changes to the oil on the ocean surface allso? :up:

Sure thing, I'll get on that right away. Do you mind if I experiment with the smoke a bit too?

[kriller2]

You are welcome to experiment with the smoke :yep:

[Nisgeis]

You are welcome to experiment with the smoke :yep:

I've changed the oil patches, smoke and fire. The oil patches now start off small and grow larger over time to simulate oil coming up from below and I took the rotation of the oil out. The fire stands up much higher than previously and the smoke also is much denser and looks choking. I found the following oil fire picture:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg307/Nisgeis/_41138284_oil_fire_pa_416.jpg

And used it as a template to create in SH4:

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg307/Nisgeis/oilfire-1.jpg

Photobucket is doing weird things to my pictures, so the above might look pixelated. This is near the start of the oil slick (the tanker was in a column behind the sunk freighter) so the oil slick has been forming for about a minute, the individual pools join up when they all grow.

Kriller is going to test this and see if it's OK for him and also see if the frame rate is OK.

Does this look OK to everyone else?

EDIT: Gave photobucket a kick up the bum.

[Digital_Trucker]

It looks absolutely wonderful to me:up:

[kriller2]

Hi Nisgeis,

I have just tried your new particles and it looks very realistic :D, here is a screenshot of a warship from the training mission, the oil tanker would create a bigger oil fire (like your screenshot)
http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/1167/nisgeisparticleszv7.th.jpg (http://img238.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nisgeisparticleszv7.jpg)

And the issue from ROW with the oil flickering is gone, now the oil is floating nice. I don't know how you did it, but I am pleased that we now finaly can enjoy this effect i3sthl and Dave worked so hard to get in the game.

BTW. My framerate with 2xAA and 16Af was steady at 30, have you done some kind of optimization?

[DrBeast]

*le sigh*
I'm this close to throwing in the towel on this, guys. Just when I think "that's it, I found what's wrong!", repeating the same test throws the exact opposite results! :damn:
I think I'm gonna wait till you guys come up with something more FPS-friendly (either with regards to textures or particles.dat) until I resume testing.
Here's my breakdown of the tests I did yesterday:
I loaded up Nisgeis's particles.dat and checked to see if burning oil (re)appears. It does, though it's floating a couple of meters above ocean surface (though I believe that was deliberate, to separate it from other oil spills), but the slowdown was back with a vengeance. I decided to remove all entries of oil spills from zones.cfg, in my attempt to separate the cause of the slowdowns, and things proceeded smoothly until the test subject (a Kongo) began to sink. I also noticed that when I hit the lifeboats, they'd be engulfed in the Flame Of Doom which (as I stated before) did all kinds of bad stuff to my frame rate. So I proceeded to remove all oil explosion entries from zones.cfg as well (substituted them with another explosion effect), and things smoothed out substantially...or so I thought. I loaded another test mission, with a Huge Passenger Liner as my test subject, and the #$*^%!!! slowdown was there AGAIN, from the VERY first torpedo hit! And to add insult to injury, when I reloaded that test mission, I also had a performance hit under foggy conditions as well! AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!! :damn: :damn: :damn:
Like I said, I'm going to wait till you guys come up with a working configuration. I know this forum doesn't condone of obscenities, I'm an impulsive guy who swears fluently in three languages, and I'm sure if I continue these tests my next posts will look VERY ugly! :oops:

[Nisgeis]

I have just tried your new particles and it looks very realistic :D, here is a screenshot of a warship from the training mission,


Erm, that doesn't look like a screenshot of my version of particles.dat, that looks like the original version. So, that's confused me :hmm:.

Yes, just looked at it again and it's definately a screenshot of the original. So that's working now?!?

[kriller2]

Yes it it your particles Nisgeis, I downloaded from the link you send to me and installed it today, the oil-leaks was getting bigger than I have seen before and there was no flickering, that must have been your file?:o Now I am confused... :88)

[DrBeast]

I have just tried your new particles and it looks very realistic :D, here is a screenshot of a warship from the training mission,

Erm, that doesn't look like a screenshot of my version of particles.dat, that looks like the original version. So, that's confused me :hmm:.

Yes, just looked at it again and it's definately a screenshot of the original. So that's working now?!?

:huh: :dead: :rotfl:
Sorry, that's frustration laughter...
...well, partially at least! :rotfl:

[kriller2]

welcome to the club dr. beast :hmm: You should try the one I will send to your in 2 secs.

[DrBeast]

I've playtested mods for other games (well...only one mod for one other game - Medieval 2: Total War...lost ALL the custom work I had done for that game when I stupidly Shift+Delete the whole game folder from my old drive :damn:), but this is the first time I experience performance problems after UPGRADING! :/\\!!

[kriller2]

That ***** d.r beast, What's the problem with your rig? - maybe it's a harddrive / OS thing needs adjusting, try run a program like TweakXP and set the corrects memory size and cache.

BTW this is me taking a nap:
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/4703/maneo5.jpg

[DrBeast]

That ***** d.r beast, What's the problem with your rig? - maybe it's a harddrive / OS thing needs adjusting, try run a program like TweakXP and set the corrects memory size and cache.

BTW this is me taking a nap:
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/4703/maneo5.jpg
I've checked those settings (using CachemanXP), seems ok. Also set Virtual Memory to correct amount with regards to my total RAM. I only have a few programs running in the background, and it's a new disk with very few programs installed to begin with, so it's not a question of fragmentation or registry overload. Haven't done any real tweaking to Win XP apart from that though, as I'll be installing english XP soon. I really hope getting rid of my crappy greek Windoze will solve some of the problems, but still...it's the same crappy greek Windoze I was using before!

Enjoy your nap! :lol:

This is me being frustrated at computers in general :rotfl:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5327/working3py2.th.jpg (http://img96.imageshack.us/my.php?image=working3py2.jpg)

[Nisgeis]

Yes it it your particles Nisgeis, I downloaded from the link you send to me and installed it today, the oil-leaks was getting bigger than I have seen before and there was no flickering, that must have been your file?:o Now I am confused... :88)

Just as I thought I wasn't going mad too :shifty: .

Here's a side by side of my screenshot and your screenshot. They don't look the same.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg307/Nisgeis/OilFireComparison.jpg

[kriller2]

I just downloaded the file again and overwrited the particles.dat in data/library and sees the same oil effects as I posted this morning. This time I double-checked! :yep:

It may have something to do with my video card or something? it's a ATI x1950 running in 1360 x 1024 2XAA and 16AF

Here is the oil leak I am seeing :
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/7575/testnisgeisparticles2apla3.th.jpg (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=testnisgeisparticles2apla3.jpg)

[Nisgeis]

I don't understand what's not right... Sent you another PM. Hopefully we'll get this straight.

[kriller2]

Okay you have to laugh of this.....

First I installed your fingers crossed mod and saw the same picture as I send to you in the previous PM, thinking "what the hell is happening here, am I getting mad?", then I checked that the file was indeed the 22.41 and it was!! :hmm:

.... Then I saw there was a copy I made called: "particles_old.dat" !! and was thinking "Can this realy be the reason, maybe I should try delete that file..."

And started SH4 with allmost my heart beating....

I am seeing the green smoke (thank god it works! :D ):

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/7792/greensmokeqq4.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/my.php?image=greensmokeqq4.jpg)

Now here is a lesson for everyone modding with SH4:

Don't make a backup-copy in any silent hunter directory! :arrgh!:

Now if you can make the smoke back to black so I can see how it was suppose to look like?

[Nisgeis]

Now if you can make the smoke back to black so I can see how it was suppose to look like?

I've fallen for the 'made a backup of a dat file in the same directory' thing before. The good news is, it's safe to say I'm not going mad. I'll do a black smoke version when I get home.

[DrBeast]

Green smoke...? :huh:
Am I missing something? Here's what it looks like on my rig with the file I d/led yesterday

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc262/blacksavvas/SH4/SH4Img2008-04-02_210649_171.jpg

Unfortunately, I'm still getting immense slowdowns, but I've managed to "cook up" a configuration that exterminates it. It does, however, involve getting rid of lots of explosion and fire effects, including the burning oil one. But hey, at least I've got oil slicks appearing as debris when the ship sinks. WernerSobe is to credit for that, I'm basically using his zones.cfg file as a template, and I'll do only minor adjustments to that (copy over the Crash Depths and cargo types from ROW SFX).
BTW, I also ran a test without NSM4 (it becomes a crazy witch-hunt when you're trying to find just what the hell is causing the slowdowns), and man...I could NEVER play the game without that mod! Kongo sank in a minute or two...yeah right!

[Nisgeis]

Green smoke...? :huh:
Am I missing something? Here's what it looks like on my rig with the file I d/led yesterday


Kriller wasn't sure if difference of screenshots was caused by his graphics card being different to mine, so I made the smoke green instead of black, to make it really obvious if the particles.dat file was being read by the game properly, or if it was a graphics card issue. You must have downloaded the second particles.dat file I sent to him, which does work properly, but Kriller2 was having issues with it, because of the backed up old_particles.dat file.

[DrBeast]

Green smoke...? :huh:
Am I missing something? Here's what it looks like on my rig with the file I d/led yesterday

Kriller wasn't sure if difference of screenshots was caused by his graphics card being different to mine, so I made the smoke green instead of black, to make it really obvious if the particles.dat file was being read by the game properly, or if it was a graphics card issue. You must have downloaded the second particles.dat file I sent to him, which does work properly, but Kriller2 was having issues with it, because of the backed up old_particles.dat file.

Ok then...I'm not going nuts either! Well, I am, but for other reasons :88)

[Gunfighter]

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f163/ABThing/SHunter4/OilSlick.jpg
This is OilSlick I am getting on Nvid 8800GTS 640mb looks like yours, from file you advised me to use ?Hope this helps:hmm:

[kriller2]

Hi Nisgeis,

The effect you have created looks great! :up:

What do you think D.r Beast of the new effects?, btw. I will send the new Pacific Enviroments (with the effects) to both of you today, you can see some of it on this picture, been working on the sky and clouds ;)

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/1131/nisgeissmoke21ji2.th.jpg (http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nisgeissmoke21ji2.jpg)

Kriller2

[kriller2]

Green smoke...? :huh:
Am I missing something? Here's what it looks like on my rig with the file I d/led yesterday

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc262/blacksavvas/SH4/SH4Img2008-04-02_210649_171.jpg

Unfortunately, I'm still getting immense slowdowns, but I've managed to "cook up" a configuration that exterminates it. It does, however, involve getting rid of lots of explosion and fire effects, including the burning oil one. But hey, at least I've got oil slicks appearing as debris when the ship sinks. WernerSobe is to credit for that, I'm basically using his zones.cfg file as a template, and I'll do only minor adjustments to that (copy over the Crash Depths and cargo types from ROW SFX).
BTW, I also ran a test without NSM4 (it becomes a crazy witch-hunt when you're trying to find just what the hell is causing the slowdowns), and man...I could NEVER play the game without that mod! Kongo sank in a minute or two...yeah right!

How is the optimizing of the zones.cfg going Dr. Beast?
It would be awesome if you can make two version of the special effects one for stock 1.4 - 1.5 and one for NSM4.

Are we forced to remove some of the special effects? - it works okay on my rig, but there are a slow-down when the ship explodes in a big bang, whuc you should remove it looks like it explodes 3 times! that's a little to much :hmm:

[Nisgeis]

Hi Nisgeis,

The effect you have created looks great! :up:
Kriller2

Glad to help, it can get frustrating when you get stuck with one problem. How does the frame rate compare to the original version?

With the original version and my version, I was getting slow downs with the ships on fire. FRAPS was reporting a fairly high frame rate of 55, but the game engine was stuttering slightly and producing much less than 55 - very strange. One the ship sinks and the oil fire has appeared, the game returns to normal.

[DrBeast]

Seems I'm not the only one with slowdown problems, then. But it's really bad on my rig. Under normal conditions I'm getting between 20-40 FPS (even in heavy fog). With zones.cfg from NSM4, I get a temporary slowdown when the torpedoes hit, but as soon as the kaboom is over frame rates return to slightly over 20 FPS and they drop to as low as 15-16 FPS when I zoom in really close and the ship is about to sink. With ROW SFX it's grinding to a halt from the time the first torpedo hits till the ship finally sinks: 7-9 FPS!
Problem is, I don't really know how the effects are supposed to work. I suspect that an explosion effect might lead to a fire effect, even if it's not defined in zones.cfg. :hmm:
BTW Nisgeis, I mentioned this to kriller2 as well: can you work on a better effect for shell explosions? I remember people complaining that they looked a bit dull, and I'm inclined to agree.

[kriller2]

, I get a temporary slowdown when the torpedoes hit, but as soon as the kaboom is over frame rates return to slightly over 20 FPS and they drop to as low as 15-16 FPS when I zoom in really close and the ship is about to sink. With ROW SFX it's grinding to a halt from the time the first torpedo hits till the ship finally sinks: 7-9 FPS!

Me to! :o , there is a slowdown when the torpedo hits the ships for a sec or two :hmm:

I will try testing with the stock particels to see if it helps..

And yes the ROW sounds takes a few FPS, I think it's because of the s3dl.dat which controls so that you will hear more sound-effects around you, it's nice though.

BTW Nisgeis, I mentioned this to kriller2 as well: can you work on a better effect for shell explosions? I remember people complaining that they looked a bit dull, and I'm inclined to agree.

It would be awesome if you can take a look at the shell-effects Nisgeis


EDIT: I just tried the stock particles and the slowdown is less noticeable, so it seems the engine loads the particles effects / textures when the torpedo hits, maybe we can do some more optimizing by editing the textures / effects ?

BTW Nisgeis the new particles works better than the previous :up: , I gained 1-2 FPS during the oil fire / leak.

[DrBeast]

And yes the ROW sounds takes a few FPS, I think it's because of the s3dl.dat which controls so that you will hear more sound-effects around you, it's nice though.

Slippery fingers, kriller2? :D I don't think the work on sh.sdl impacts performance, really. I've tried various 3D sound settings, and running the game with realistic sound travel both on and off. I couldn't discern a performance boost or hit.

Here's some more info, regarding my rig:

Intel C2D E8200 2.66GHz (o/cing this baby btw, I'm close to the 3GHz barrier!) CPU
Asus P5K SE motherboard
WD 320GB SATA2 16MB cache 7200 RPM hard disk
Asus HD3650 PCI-E 256MB DDR3 graphics card

All drivers up to date, though I'm running the ATi display drivers without CCC (using ATi Tray Tools, and it doesn't like Catalyst Control Center).

Display driver settings:
4xAA (Adaptive AA set to Smoothest)
8xAF (Quality with tri-linear)
Catalyst AI off

Game settings:
Resolution: 1024x768
All graphics settings on and maxed out, except VSync (off) and Gamma (set to 53).

[kriller2]

And yes the ROW sounds takes a few FPS, I think it's because of the s3dl.dat which controls so that you will hear more sound-effects around you, it's nice though.

Slippery fingers, kriller2? :D I don't think the work on sh.sdl impacts performance, really. I've tried various 3D sound settings, and running the game with realistic sound travel both on and off. I couldn't discern a performance boost or hit.

Here's some more info, regarding my rig:

Intel C2D E8200 2.66GHz (o/cing this baby btw, I'm close to the 3GHz barrier!) CPU
Asus P5K SE motherboard
WD 320GB SATA2 16MB cache 7200 RPM hard disk
Asus HD3650 PCI-E 256MB DDR3 graphics card

All drivers up to date, though I'm running the ATi display drivers without CCC (using ATi Tray Tools, and it doesn't like Catalyst Control Center).

Display driver settings:
4xAA (Adaptive AA set to Smoothest)
8xAF (Quality with tri-linear)
Catalyst AI off

Game settings:
Resolution: 1024x768
All graphics settings on and maxed out, except VSync (off) and Gamma (set to 53).

Yes or just not english ;),that's a nice rig Dr. Beast, it should run anything :cool:

I have made the textures controling the explosions effects in a lower resolution but compressed them as good as possible in DDS, I think it helped alot on the slowdown, will send it to both of you in a sec.

Why are you runing with gama set to 53? - try set the gama at 50-51.

:hmm: Okay maybe it's just me experiencing the fps hit with the sound mod, because of the onboard soundcard.

[DrBeast]

Why are you runing with gama set to 53? - try set the gama at 50-51.

:hmm: Okay maybe it's just me experiencing the fps hit with the sound mod, because of the onboard soundcard.

Nights are still a wee bit too dark sometimes, is why. Depending on the lighting conditions in the room when I play, it's either at 52 or 53.

Onboard sound chip here, too (ALC883 I think...?). The only drawback I've noticed is pops in the sound, especially when my FPS is really low (using headphones).

[Nisgeis]

BTW Nisgeis, I mentioned this to kriller2 as well: can you work on a better effect for shell explosions? I remember people complaining that they looked a bit dull, and I'm inclined to agree.

I can take a look. Which effect do you want me to work on and for what calibre? The water splashes as they hit the water, or them exploding against ships?

[DrBeast]

Water splash looks ok. It's the impact explosion that needs a rehaul. I think it's one effect regardless of gun caliber. Oh, and cheers!

[kriller2]

Water splash looks ok. It's the impact explosion that needs a rehaul. I think it's one effect regardless of gun caliber. Oh, and cheers!

Yep it's the "explosions" when you fire the gun at a merchant that looks like giant dishwashs of fire :rotfl:

[DrBeast]

Ok...I think I finally nailed the Special Effects! I don't know what magic Nisgeis did on the particles.dat file I d/led yesterday, but slowdowns are history! I also resized reflex_pac.tga down to stock size, and it looks pretty smooth now! I've made two versions, one for stock and one for NSM4 Classic. Kriller2, expect a PM soon! ;)

[McHibbins]

Yes it it your particles Nisgeis, I downloaded from the link you send to me and installed it today, the oil-leaks was getting bigger than I have seen before and there was no flickering, that must have been your file?:o Now I am confused... :88)
Just as I thought I wasn't going mad too :shifty: .

Here's a side by side of my screenshot and your screenshot. They don't look the same.

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg307/Nisgeis/OilFireComparison.jpg
At first I got the right Pic all the time, but the smoke seemed too bright for me, so I played a little bit with the Files in the Textures/TNormal.

For some reason I got the left Pic after deleting ALL PIERRE.E.Test Files in the Textures/TNormal (Still using ROW).

The Result : Getting "only" a white splash from Torpexplosions instead a mix of white/brown BUT thick black smoke, oil-slicks and intensive fire-effects

So the Choice for me was clear.

Edit : Still also using NSM 3.3 and ROW Special Effects with stock Zones vs.5b because of the darker Ship smoke and better Fire Effects.

Edit2 @ Kriller2 : These PIERRE-Files could be also the reason for the difference of the two Pic´s of DrBeast´s Post in your PE2-Thread.