It has been a while since the last update and I thought I would give everyone a heads up. Don't worry, no bad news. Perhaps just interesting to know.
The last month I wasn't able to make much progress. Mainly because everything that can possibly go wrong with a computer went wrong with my computer. Software failed, drivers failed, updates failed and even hardware failed. When I finally fixed one thing it caused two other things to break.
The number one issue was that I tried to update my AMD graphics drivers since I was still using drivers from 2013, resulting in some software not performing well. These drivers caused a bluescreen everytime I tried to install them. When I finally managed to get them installed, it turned out that Cinema4D crashed constantly because of these drivers. This has happened with pretty much all latest AMD drivers. So I was unable to make any progress.
Therefore I've now decided to get myself an NVIDIA graphics card instead and installed it into my computer this weekend. So far everything finally seems to work without any crashes or bluescreens. Fingers crossed!
At this moment I'm doing a big cleanup within the project folder and making everything a lot more organized. Once that is done I will be able to work far more efficiently on the mod without any redundant or mundane tasks.
Also Cukier from Mafiascene.com has written a script for Zmodeler (Converting tool for Mafia) which will tremendously speed up the converting process by automatically fixing up all imported materials. So a conversion that would usually require an hour of manual labor can now be done within five minutes. An amazing step forward.
When everything is well organized I will proceed on the corridors. You can expect some screenshots any time soon.
Also Patrik is working on something nice. More info about this is yet to follow.
Hello MrRobville, nice to see you back!!
As a hardcore mmapper/modder i know how important our hardware is to use developers, we, at least sometimes forget this till we start to have troubles. Then suddenly we see how much we depent on our tools to make great things. Personally i always have choosen for NVidea cards, they suit me best, did try AMD very long ago but other then that, NVidea.
So, i should say wise choise, specially when you have troubles like you had, with drivers and such.
And great to hear you now can use that Zmodeler so much quicker and easier.
Makes developing so much easier, when you have tools that take away simple but very time consuming work.
much success,
Leon
It's indeed an asset often forgotten of how important it is.
I used to choose AMD all the time, but these problems were specifically related to the stuff I was doing so I was forced to go for Nvidia.
At my job I also use Nvidia on my work computer. It performed really well so I was already becoming a bigger fan of it.
Oh God I had a mini heart attack.
Oh haha, forgive me. :P
Everything is up and running again and better than before. Nothing to worry. ;)
And should my PC suddenly explode into a giant fireball, I have made two separate backups from which one is located a hundred miles away safe and sound.
Haha, glad to hear, mate^^
Glad you are still working on this mod, i still have Mafia installed waiting for it, btw has a AMD user my experience has been very nice, i have no drivers problems, so is surprising to me that you add that many issues, what AMD GPU do you add? Just curious.
It's indeed a little odd I had these problems. The bluescreens were mostly caused because there were three monitors connected during the installation. I also found that more Cinema 4D users had the same problem with the software crashing on the latest drivers, so I was forced to switch to Nvidia.
Something that surprised me also was that AMD's TressFX renderer in the Tomb Raider reboot performs better with Nvidia than with the AMD GPU's. When enabled, the Nvidia GPU doesn't show any difference in performance whereas with AMD I had an astonishing 40-50 FPS framedrop.
I had two AMD Sapphire HD 7850's with both 1GB of RAM in my computer. Sometimes in Crossfire, but mostly for my third monitor since most games didn't support dual GPU's.
I now have an EVGA GeForce 970 GTX with 4GB of RAM.
I have a XFX AMD HD7850 2GB and have never had any problems. Although I very rarely play any games after about 2002.
Relief...
Good to hear it's still going on. I used to own Mafia, but hell it's been a while, and I don't know where it is. I would probably buy it again for this mod, but have you tried talking to the company/studio who's name I forgot and asked them, if they would allow a standalone release for this mod? They could offer it for free on their website as a small token to all us mafiosis. I think it's good publicity for the studio and free releases always draw in a lot of people.
I once wrote a letter to 2K Czech (Formerly Illusion Softworks) about using the game's SDK. ( Moddb.com )
They did reply to my question but they didn't mention anything further about what they thought about the mod itself so I don't have high hopes in this project ever getting featured on their website unfortunately.
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