Mabinogi's Text Rendering

• Rydian wrote on 2015-10-24 14:30
  - Intro
  So as many of you are aware, Mabinogi's text rendering is.... unusually slow.
  
  It's slow to the point that a portion of the lag people experience when in an area with lots of players (shopping areas, combat events, GM events, etc.) is actually from the name display. Hitting CTRL+N can raise your FPS by 15% or more in these situations. And let's not forget about the client lag that happens when you go to pull up your chat log, and the more that's in it the more you lag when pulling it up.
  
  Hell, a large number of players mod the game for "bitmap" fonts, causing the game to fall back on an older/simpler font rendering method that's faster. So why is Mabinogi's text so slow to pull up (lag when opening the chat log) and render (FPS)?
  
  
  - Explanation
  Turns out that Mabinogi, when using the default text routines, actually... creates 3D models out of each letter to use for text rendering, in every word, when it prepares text for display. I wish I was kidding.
  
  The reason that you lag when bringing the chat log up (or other things like it) is because when you do that it reads all the text that should be in that interface and then generates the models out of the font. It then uses those generated models as the text display. You can actually have the text modes mixed, 'cause it will use the models that it's generated until it thinks it needs to free them (if you close that window/interface) or re-render them if you resize the window.
  
  So here's the normal font rendering (with a custom font), normal and then wireframe.
  

  [Image: http://s9.postimg.org/y4ow5t463/mabinogi_2015_10_24_007.jpg]

  [Image: http://s9.postimg.org/l337fyfrv/mabinogi_2015_10_24_008.jpg]

  
  
  And here's the same scene with the commonly-used bitmap font mod.
  

  [Image: http://s9.postimg.org/cgzxvd3rv/mabinogi_2015_10_24_009.jpg]

  [Image: http://s9.postimg.org/mtm8hfxaz/mabinogi_2015_10_24_010.jpg]

  
  
  [spoiler="Gif Comparison"]Normal
  

  [Image: http://s22.postimg.org/ped8jo3a9/normal.gif]

  
  
  Bitmap
  

  [Image: http://s22.postimg.org/7n1m57nvl/bitmap.gif]

  [/spoiler]
  So what the bitmap font rendering does is it still generates a 3D object for the individual letters, but every single one is a rectangle, just 2 polygons (that presumably hold the letter as a texture) versus the large variable amount of other characters. It's still not perfect (should either be one rect per rendered portion or some sort of texture overlay depending on the game), but I can see how it's faster since it makes relatively less-complex text.
  
  
  - Conclusion
  I'm gonna' go cry in a corner for the state of this game engine now.
• SozenCratosFocker wrote on 2015-10-24 20:18
  That's insane even by Devcat standards...
• Qnjo wrote on 2015-10-24 23:15
  I think it makes sense. A game so full of innovations like Mabinogi could have been done only by people who had no idea how to make a game.
• Kenero wrote on 2015-10-25 03:40
  Actually, for a game like Mabinogi to even play, much less become an international success, shows that fate favors them despite the odds.
• SozenCratosFocker wrote on 2015-10-25 18:47
  It's not really fate, it's just the fact that it's more than a WOW clone, so people who like this game don't really have many options for what to replace it with when they try to quit.
  
  
  
  Is there anything left over in the code that suggests they were planning something that would actually use 3d text somehow? Or do they just like the idea of melting CPUs for no reason?
• Rydian wrote on 2015-10-25 20:42
  Yeah I've played some other MMOs and a number of them have their own unique additions but still play pretty generically... hell, if you looked at a screenshot of Archeage versus Tera's chat system you could confuse the two, they even have the same sort of options in the tab configurations. Similar controls as well, K to bring up the skills and stuff. Most other MMOs also lack the fine movement control Mabi has, in Mabi I can walk up to somebody and position myself with enough control to simulate giving them a hug, I find in other MMOs it's quite difficult to do this. I think Tera comes the closest in terms of the combat, what with the ability to move out of the way of attacks and junk, at least, but then it has the whole "limited labor points to mine/craft with" thing lots of MMOs do nowadays. Most other MMOs focus on the monsters and classes and gear drops, whereas Mabi has a focus on the character growth and controls and an attempt at immersion and such.
  
  ANYWAYS as far as the interface, the windows and stuff are 3D and item images are textures and all that jazz (sometimes with the right camera angle you can get objects clipping into the interface, like some tree branches in my HS like to do this when I talk to my maid). I assume they did this for a way to make sure they had interface opacity that worked on all video devices back then.
• SozenCratosFocker wrote on 2015-10-26 02:36
  TERA does have some similarities but the dodging system they're so proud of was done very poorly, and the main reason I lost interest. Monsters spend a comically excessive amount of time announcing their next move with an animation so dramatized it's hard to watch. Vindictus(which came out earlier in NA) messed that part up a lot less.
• Yoorah wrote on 2015-10-26 05:30

  Quote from Rydian;1288967:

  It's still not perfect (should either be one rect per rendered portion or some sort of texture overlay depending on the game)

  
  ...but that's not how graphics rendering works. A quad has to be made of two triangles.
  As to why devCAT chose to go this route, I have no idea. Text rendering is actually a pretty involved area with quite a bit of material available out there for those interested in learning about it.
• Rydian wrote on 2015-10-26 09:01

  Quote from Yoorah;1289045:

  ...but that's not how graphics rendering works. A quad has to be made of two triangles.

  I said rect, not tri. :P
• Osayidan wrote on 2015-10-26 13:08
  This is why even on a GTX 780 mabinogi has more fps degradation than a skyrim modded for ridiculous photo-realism.
  
  New hardware benchmark: calculate how long it takes to open mabinogi's chat log on ch1.
• Yoorah wrote on 2015-10-26 14:26

  Quote from Rydian;1289050:

  I said rect, not tri. :P

  
  
  From the screenshot it looks like it's already doing one rect per character for rendering bitmap fonts. You said it like you wanted it to magically render on a rect without building it out of two triangles first. xd
• Esileruf wrote on 2015-10-26 16:30
  I can only imagine the ONLY reason at all for this is the overlapping of text due to perspective and position. Swiveling the camera changes which text and boxes overlap, and even with that, I'm fairly certain there'd be little viable point or a better way without lagging the client to death.
• Rydian wrote on 2015-10-26 17:41

  Quote from Yoorah;1289056:

  From the screenshot it looks like it's already doing one rect per character for rendering bitmap fonts. You said it like you wanted it to magically render on a rect without building it out of two triangles first. xd

  But one rect per character is still wasteful in terms of polycount and overhead.
  
  A message is a consolidated thing (that the engine should be aware of), it should be one rect per separate text piece written. Hell, the chat log itself could even be done as just two tris with occlusion (for scrolling) since the stuff would be re-rendered if the window changes size anyways.
  
  

  Quote from Esileruf;1289058:

  I can only imagine the ONLY reason at all for this is the overlapping of text due to perspective and position. Swiveling the camera changes which text and boxes overlap, and even with that, I'm fairly certain there'd be little viable point or a better way without lagging the client to death.

  They may have done something strange to try to stop in-phrase clipping.
  
  

  [Image: http://s22.postimg.org/h2wvozbtt/name_clip.png]

  
  [SIZE="1"](Crappy representation of a possible issue.)[/SIZE]
• Yoorah wrote on 2015-10-26 23:11

  Quote from Rydian;1289060:

  But one rect per character is still wasteful in terms of polycount and overhead.
  
  A message is a consolidated thing (that the engine should be aware of), it should be one rect per separate text piece written.

  
  Not as wasteful as the amount of effort you'd need to invest in order make your idea work--and you'd gain almost nothing as even old graphics hardware has no trouble rendering the extra few polygons you'd be saving. You might actually not gain any performance benefit at all. Rendering a rect per char is a pretty standard thing, and while there are more advanced methods of doing things (in part to improve rendering quality), it's not what we should be concerned with here. :P
• delight wrote on 2015-10-28 08:53
  No wonder when I was trying on my 3D glasses earlier it seems like all texts are floating on a layer of thin glass in front of everything,
  
  it's just weird, but kinda amusing to watch XD.
  
  Also, I am curious why there is no noticeable lag in text rendering in non-English based Mabinogi client. For example, I am not experiencing any lag from texts even when there are 100+ people in sight, either in a concert or in a field raid?