Din’s Legacy Early Access Updates

The Early Access version of Soldak Entertainment’s dynamic action-RPG Din’s Legacy has received a number of additional updates since we last checked. Patch v0.813 focused on networking and loading times, patch v0.814 improved the game’s UI, patch v0.815 rebalanced a bunch of things, patch v0.816 fixed some crashes and reduced monster damage, and finally, the latest v0.817 patch improved the game’s overall performance.

Here are the patch notes for the latest update and you take things from there:

Better Performance! This patch speeds up the game’s frames per second, reduces hitches by precaching assets way better, and speeds up loading times.

0.817 change list:

• fixed long loading times on some maps (Doesn’t Learn From Mistakes/Destro)
• moved ogg decoding to own thread (music and 2d sounds) – should be a bit faster and allows music to play during loading
• now static models (1 animation with 1 frame) always go down static vbo path (test went from 50.8 to 60.8 fps)
• now all dead monsters of the same type shares the same vbo (test went from 66.2 to 71.0 fps)
• fixed addObject in spawnAreaBlock to not reference modelResource so much less likely to pause waiting for resource to load
• fixed effects being generated in light and shadow mapping passes (speeds up test from 48 to 60 fps)
• no longer sort draw surfaces in normal draw and shadow mapping pass (already sorted in light pass)
• fixed explosion precaching not working correctly
• improved projectile precaching
• now make sure don’t get in an infinite loop when precaching (don’t think it has even happened yet, but as it gets more complex it would happen without protection)
• now precache hazards
• now precache objects
• precached a bunch of small things better
• now precache swipes better
• hooked up 4 new mail/plate male player skins
• now precache money sound and soulstone model
• now precache footstep sounds
• now precache basic elemental effects
• precached status effect assets better
• now precache level ambient objects
• fixed a bug in PlayerClient::getTitle that might have been causing a rare Character menu crash (eddieray7)
• fixed music not playing in menus
• sped up StatusEffectBase::processDatabaseEntry (test went from 23 to 12 seconds)
• now more particles combine into the same surface – speeds up particles a little (4% in stress test)
• now gameShared->getPackedDatabaseEntry uses database hints – should speed up loading some
• fixed PlateSteel_d.tga being wrong tga type (prevented it from being compresses and included in public build)
• no longer calculate hash multiple times for DatabaseEntry::getAllValues type calls (overrides/addsTo/base)
• now when looking up each database entry base, uses the hint from the current subdatabase to speed up search
• fixed infinite loop if change SERVER_FRAME_TIME
• can now change the server frame time with serverFrameTime user var (default is 50)
• fixed on old whirlwind effect being referenced