No Shadow setting feature please

[Orillien]

Hello there, it is possible to add a setting to remove ALL the shadows ? With dozen of thousands of robots goes down the fps. The remove of the shadows would increase the fps a bit. Or can someone write a mod for that ?

[ssilk]

Hm, I doubt that this will bring a significant increase in fps, you’re removing at best case eventually 10% of the sprites.

Can you provide us more information of what you’re doing? timing stats-screenshot?

[robot256]

If you really think it's the sprites that are the problem, give this mod a try: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/invisible-robots

[Rseding91]

Are you thinking that because disabling shadows in other games improves performance significantly it will do the same in Factorio?

[Orillien]

Are you thinking that because disabling shadows in other games improves performance significantly it will do the same in Factorio?

Actually yes, i mean the game has not only to render the 50k robots, it also has to render their shadows. I am sure it would help because it has something less to render.

[Orillien]

If you really think it's the sprites that are the problem, give this mod a try: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/invisible-robots

It doesnt help a lot. My fps are still around 30. What else can i do for better performance ? Except use less robots. I need all 50k of them. Or it is better to use less but they are 100 times faster ?

[Rseding91]

Are you thinking that because disabling shadows in other games improves performance significantly it will do the same in Factorio?

Actually yes, i mean the game has not only to render the 50k robots, it also has to render their shadows. I am sure it would help because it has something less to render.

Shadows in Factorio are simple sprites so they have no more cost to render than the robot itself. Most games do dynamic shadows which are far more expensive to render.

[robot256]

What else can i do for better performance ? Except use less robots. I need all 50k of them. Or it is better to use less but they are 100 times faster ?

You can ask over in the base optimization megathread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17501

Start by using the F4/F5 debug overlay to see which parts of the game engine (or mods) are using the most CPU time. (This is the timing stats-screenshot ssilk asked for.) It might not be the bots at all, but other things they are connected to. Then try the most common solutions for each of them. The most common things people encounter when they first start trying to optimize a save are:

- Biter spawning / path planning: Kill all the nests in your pollution cloud, look for nests on islands that can't reach you.
- Train pathfinding: Caused by too many U-turns, roundabouts, crossovers, and signals in a dense rail grid, or stations constantly enabling and disabling themselves.
- Sheer number of inserters, etc: This would be impressive if it were the bottleneck. Building with beacons and direct insertion reduces the number of components you need for a given output.
- Robot planning: If it really is the robots, segregating the bot networks (one network per city block or group of blocks, fed by trains) is one way to reduce the total computations needed.