Game Optimizations, New Shapetests And More

ragempdev · February 13

Hello everyone,

Today, we're rolling out a new client update with new features, fixes and improvements. In this post, we’ll go over the changes and provide an update on the progress of 1.2.

1.2 Status Update

Following the latest platform update, our development focus in January largely shifted to 1.2, and several milestones have been reached:

The new 1.2 player/pedestrian/vehicle/object synchronization system is now feature-complete according to our planned roadmap. It is powered by an overhauled server architecture designed for better scalability and efficiency and implements replication for additional game entity states that were not present in 1.1.
"GTA Experience Mode", a feature designed to populate the game world with NPCs, has been fully transitioned from its heavily customized 1.1 net-code to 1.2’s new architecture, which was built with this feature in mind.
The new client launcher and in-game UI has undergone heavy polishing and is now generally ready. We can't wait to share more!

Advancing The Rockstar Advanced Game Engine

With this client update, we’re introducing new game engine optimizations to enhance CPU performance, resulting in increased average FPS and reduced overall CPU usage. These improvements were achieved by implementing several patches targeting the key subsystems of the game engine, be it replacing the original algorithms with new implementations, fixing performance-related bugs within the engine, or optimising it to better take advantage of the modern CPU microarchitectures.

Summary:

5-15% average FPS improvement in CPU-bound cases. While actual improvements vary by the game scene, we’ve tested these changes in a wide range of scenarios — from an empty server to heavily populated areas on actual servers.
Improved frame smoothness, leading to better "1% Low" FPS, especially with higher FPS.
Reduced overall CPU usage.

Extended Shapetest API

The new "visual drawable test" feature introduces an advanced point-to-point ray-casting API that provides detailed information about hit triangle, including position, normal, tangent, UV texcoords, and relative coordinates, enabling advanced player interactions such as mouse input to headless CEF browsers rendered over 3D objects or improved world object selection.

This feature supports most world entities (buildings, MLOs, vehicles, props, etc.), but not pedestrians, yet. While we may introduce asynchronous API variants in the future, we currently recommend using synchronous shapetests with caution to ensure smooth performance of your client-side scripts.

New APIs:

Added client-side Object mp.raycasting.testVisualDrawablePointToPoint(mp.Vector3 rayStart, mp.Vector3 rayEnd, number flags = -1)
Added client-side Object mp.raycasting.testVisualDrawablePointToPointForEntity(mp.Vector3 rayStart, mp.Vector3 rayEnd, number entityHandle)

Runtime Asset Streaming

You can now fetch and stream remotely hosted game assets into the game in real-time using file URLs. Runtime assets can be replaced dynamically without restrictions, but the server-side game assets intended for replacements must include the "rta_" prefix in its name.

New APIs:

Added client-side Promise<boolean> mp.game.streaming.requestRuntimeAssetFromUrl(string resourceName, string url)
Added client-side mp.game.streaming.releaseRuntimeAsset(string|number resourceName)

CEF Events Isolation API / QoL

We’ve expanded the CEF events API to improve browser-to-client isolation. This could be now achieved by setting client-side events allowed for calls from the browser on a per-instance basis, including for mp.gui. If a non-empty list of allowed events is set, all incoming events (e.g., playerChat, playerCommand) and RPC calls will be checked against it before execution.

Additionally, we've implemented several user input handling improvements, including improvements to the signal pipeline from the OS to the game. Another enhancement in this update is the introduction of native HTML5 Drag and Drop support. Our new implementation differs from the stand-alone browsers implementations, being specifically designed for games and providing lower overhead and the OS isolation.

New APIs:

Added client-side browser.setAllowedEvents(Array<string> events)
Added client-side mp.gui.setAllowedEvents(Array<string> events)

Miscellaneous

Several new APIs have been introduced to enhance player animation task management, provide content creators with dynamic player decorations, offer more customization options for voice chat, and give developers greater control over vehicle physics.

New APIs:

Added client-side player.stopTaskByType(number taskType, boolean force)
Added client-side player.addDecorationEx(number collection, number overlay, number zone, number uvPosX, number uvPosY, number rotation, number scaleX, number scaleY, number alpha)
Added client-side property number mp.game.vehicle.spoilerDownforceMultiplier (get/set)
Added client-side property number mp.voiceChat.gameOutputSound (get/set)
Added client-side property number player.voiceGameOutputSound (get/set)

All these updates are available in the testing client branch we've provided earlier in our Discord. We would also like to thank everyone who participated in the public testing of these updates, especially these who reported us regressions they encountered. Thanks!