QANGA Update - Hotfix v0.0.24c

Greetings, Cyborgs.

A new hotfix with two pieces of good news. The game finally launches on AMD Radeon RX 7000 and RX 9000 graphics cards. And your graphics card now computes where vegetation goes by itself, instead of receiving it from the processor: the game runs smoother, especially in flight.

Important fix

Crash at launch on AMD Radeon RX 7000 and RX 9000: since 0.0.24, the game crashed at startup on these cards, and the 0.0.24b fix didn't solve it. We found the real cause: some terrain calculations were prepared in a form the AMD driver couldn't handle. Fixed. In exchange, the very first terrain shader preparation takes a little longer.

Vegetation: placement moves to the graphics card

Since 0.0.24, your graphics card generates the terrain and displays the vegetation. But where each plant goes was still computed by the processor, then sent to the graphics card. Now the graphics card computes it itself, straight from the terrain it generates: picking spots, respecting climate, slope and water, grouping plants into clusters, orientation and size. The result is written directly into what it displays, with no round trip through the processor.

No more flickering: in fast flight, vegetation and its shadows no longer flicker when an area refreshes.

Faster to appear: the vegetation around you regenerates much faster, and far fewer areas are left empty in fast flight.

Fewer freezes: several small freezes are gone, notably when teleporting and when the amount of displayed vegetation rises sharply.

Sized to your PC: generation adapts to your graphics card and uses the time it has left each frame, without asking for more.

Same trees on servers: dedicated servers, which don't display anything, still compute vegetation on their processor, but they didn't place it in the same spots as your screen: AI went around invisible trees and rocks and walked through the ones you could see. Placement is now identical on your PC and on servers.

Terrain & performance

Faster terrain: terrain calculations are grouped together and no longer wait on each other, which speeds up its generation.

Teleporting: world elements around you load in the background after a teleport instead of blocking the game.

Smoother: on our test PC, with exactly the same route before and after (spawn, walk, high-speed ship flight, U-turn, teleport), the game runs smoother everywhere, especially in fast flight and during ship U-turns, with far fewer stutters. Gains vary with your hardware.

Thanks to everyone who plays, tests and sends us feedback, and especially to AMD players for their patience. Spotted a bug? Drop it in our Discord, it shapes what we work on next and helps us greatly going forward!