Character geometry as native code: more fps on 4-core CPUs
The biggest single piece of PS3 work this port runs on your CPU is Sony's Edge Geometry library. On the PS3 it ran on the SPUs and prepared every character and skinned mesh each frame: about 940 pieces a frame. Its largest step, skinning (bending meshes to the animated skeleton), now runs as native PC code instead of translated SPU code.
The result is bit-for-bit the same as the PS3 code: during testing, more than half a million skinning calls were compared byte by byte against the original, with no difference. Anything unusual automatically uses the original code.
Measured in the first big fight (the gate), limiting the game to fewer CPU threads:
| CPU threads | Before | Now |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 31.3 fps | 32.8 fps (+4.5%) |
| 6 | 43-44 fps | 44-45 fps |
More of this library (triangle culling, decompression) is next.
To compare, or if something looks wrong: PC Settings > Frame > CPU > Native geometry processing (Off = the original SPU code), then restart.
This update changes the toolkit and how the game's SPU jobs are translated, so the next build re-translates the SPU jobs and recompiles everything once. Press Update now in the launcher, then Build/Play. Or download inFamous2Recomp-v0.1.29-windows.zip / inFamous2Launcher.exe below.
If you see anything off with characters or animated meshes, please send a Save report from the launcher with a note of where it was.