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DrawCallMonitor

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arno

arno

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As a side product of the logic I made for ModelConverterX, I have now made a little tool that will display some statistics about a FSX MDL object. This help you to get an idea of how optimized your object is for performance.

The tool will show the amount of triangles, drawcalls and texture vertices for each LOD in your object. And if you show all details, then it can also show the amount of texture vertices and triangles per drawcall (and it shows the texture used if any, so that you get an idea which part of your object this is).

You can drag and drop your files on the tool to show their statistics or just use the open button. If there are any more suggestions (or bugs), please let me know.
 
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Rats. I get an error when trying to load an FSX .mdl file:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'ObjectModel3D, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

EDIT: Never mind... Fr. Stupid forgot that he needed to install/register the parent program first... :tapedshut
 
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Dear n4gix:

Download the program ModelConverterX and copy the file ObjectModel3D.dll to the folder where is the program DrawCallMonitor.exe

Thanks.
Alfredo Mendiola Loyola
Lima, Perú
 
Hi Bill,

This is not your fault :), it was supposed to work without ModelConverterX. I will update the ZIP file to include the other DLL file as well.
 
New ZIP file uploaded now that contains all the needed files.

That is what I get from testing on my development PC that has more installed than the end user has :D.
 
Many thanks Arno!

You are quite amazing, all the work and pioneering you have done in the FS world.

Bill
LHC
 
Ah, now THAT is a useful tool! Arno, what would the FS dev world do without you? Thanks, mate. I'm off to measure my MDLs and weep now. ;-)
 
A nice tool, thanks for it.

I doubt what it calls drawcall is what MS calls a draw call. On an aircraft with 10 tires, each tire using the same material, it counts them as 10 drawcalls, while my understanding is that this is one only ( and the frames go down a far way when I used ten different textures for it ).

Best Burkhard
 
Indeed, Burkhard. Objects that use the exact same FSX Material & Material Properties are "batched together" into a single draw call.

However, it is still a very valuable tool as long as one compares one's own model against a similar default model.
 
Hi Burkhard,

Objects using one material don't have to be one drawcall. If they are animated for example, then they will probably be multiple drawcalls. And also the material is not only specified by the texture, but by all settings of your FSX material.

If there are some default files that have this same possible problem or if somebody has a testfile, let me know, then I can see if it is a bug in the tool.
 
Hi Folks

Arno -
Nice tool.

Please consider incorporating the following -
- Write full results to a text file, (including filename & path).
- Drawcalls for FS9 mdls.
- Drawcalls for scenery BGLs, (FSX & FS9).

This last item is where most FPS damage is being done.
That'd give us some ammunition for encouraging conversion.

HTH
ATB
Paul
 
The truth will be the batching - even when there are several draw calls, as long as it is the same material ( not only texture, but really material slots in GMAX as example ) its the more relevant number.

But the comparison is intersting. I wondered why it counts 50 drawcalls for the nearest LOD of my AI planes, but when I throw in the stock 738 it has 162 - so I do not wonder my planes are about 3 times faster.
 
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arno said:
Hi Burkhard,

Objects using one material don't have to be one drawcall. If they are animated for example, then they will probably be multiple drawcalls. And also the material is not only specified by the texture, but by all settings of your FSX material.

If there are some default files that have this same possible problem or if somebody has a testfile, let me know, then I can see if it is a bug in the tool.
Click to expand...

Arno, let's ignore for the moment anything except say three objects, all of which use the exact same Material (i.e, all Properties are identical). FSX will 'batch' these three seperate objects into a single draw call, but your tool reports 3 draw calls.
 
Hi Folks

Arno -
Please could you look at the default - cruise_linerA_sm.mdl
located in - \SimObjects\Boats\cruise_linerA_sm\Model

Seeing dual sets of LODs
e.g. 25,50,75,100,25,50,75,100

I've no idea if it's -
- Correct/Wrong.
- The models themselves.
- DCM decoding them.

Occurs on several models.

HTH
ATB
Paul
 
Hi Bill,

n4gix said:
Arno, let's ignore for the moment anything except say three objects, all of which use the exact same Material (i.e, all Properties are identical). FSX will 'batch' these three seperate objects into a single draw call, but your tool reports 3 draw calls.
Click to expand...

I can not reproduce this. I made a simple scene in GMax with three objects, all using the same texture. After I export to MDL and open it in the tool is shows as one drawcall. This is because the exporter optimizes everything.

So when the tool shows multiple drawcalls, that means that inside the MDL there are multiple parts. If somebody can send me a MDL that shows multiple drawcalls for the same material, please send it to me so that I can debug the tool.
 
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