LAG while modifying a terrain

Unity Engine
1

First of all, hello everyone, this is my first post on Unity forums :slight_smile:

About a week ago, I decided to move to Unity from UDK because I thought it’s a better engine. Well downloaded engine, found some really good tutorials online, and started learning. But… when I got to Terrain stuff, I encountered a problem. Whenever I try to modify terrain (raise/lower ground, paint…) I get quite a big Lag, and it makes almost impossible to modify terrain normally. My system requirements are quite high, and I dont think tha’ts the problem, especially when I could run UDK on high settings, but still this is my system:

  • Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
  • 4 GB of RAM
  • NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT
  • Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit. DirectX 10/11

Well, I hope I explained everything well, and thanks in advance.

2

What is the heightmap resolution?

edit
Didn’t notice it at first, but you mention it also affects painting, so most probably the heightmap resolution has nothing to do with it.
But still, check ‘Heightmap resolution’ and ‘Control Texture Resolution’, for me setting any of them over the default 512 (well, 513 for heightmap) results in quite a lag while painting textures or heightmap. And my computer specs are pretty close to yours (except the graphic card, I use a 8500GT)

3

Thanks for replying, but no it didn’t help, I still get lag :frowning:

4

I don’t get any lag even if I set all the terrain resolution values to the maximum, on a Mac Pro with a Radeon 5870. Although I didn’t really get any lag on my old G5 with an X800 either, so I doubt it has anything to do with computer specs.

–Eric

5

Yes I thought so too.

Anyone has some ideas maybe? Everything depends ont his for me, because I won’t be able to work in Unity at all If i have this kind of problem, and then I have to go back to UDK :frowning:

Help would be greatly appreciated.

6

Thanks for replying.

I tried configuring some of the settings you mentioned, but nothing helps. The main problem is that it Lags everytime, if there are trees or lots of object, or not… It does the same thing on just a plane terrain, with nothing in the scene (tried with 1 ligh once).

7

I also experience some lag on my machine (i5, 4 GB RAM, GTS360M 1GB video, Windows 7) when editing a 1K x 1K terrain when I use maximum sized brushes. I don’t use the built in terrain editor much (I prefer other apps for this) so it’s not a major issue for me.

8

Thanks for replying guys, here what I did:

As runner said, it may have been the problem of Nvidia driver. Well I already have latest drivers, but still went on nvidia website, downloaded the driver, and re-installed it. Then I deleted Unity completly off the PC. Downloaded it again, and installed freshly. But problem was still the same. Now I tried to tweak some terrain settings, and when I tried seriously changing the Heightmap resolution, the lag dissapeared. Instead of 513 I changed resolution to 257. Well I got quite happy, and started making my own terrain, until I got to the part where I have to paint it… It lags almost same while painting the terrain.

I don’t know what to do more. And if anyone knows, why does it lag on 513 heightmap resolution terrain? Is it because my PC can’t handle?

Oh and bigkahuna, It doesn’t matter if it’s biggest brush or not, and terrain size doesn’t matter either, lag is same…

9

Try changing ‘Control Texture Resolution’ to 256

10

It did work! Thanks mate, I didn’t even notice that.

Thanks everyone very much for your time. Now I can begin my Unity studies…

11

I am also having the problem while designing the terrain as my system lags very much .Is it due to this that I have 1Gb video ram ??

Anyone help please.
@vortex69