SmartSnap (snap the mouse to objects) - Garry's Mod

[QUOTE=Syranide]And objects that are interactable shouldn't have a grid.[/QUOTE] Buttons have a grid and you can use them. :) Including Wire Buttons. Please keep the grid on them. Once PHX is fixed I'm gonna need it.

Well, I have all my graphical options (minus AA) maxed, res is @ 1280x1024, and I average ~220 FPS on -most- maps with a -reasonable- amount of props active. Of course I am just using that as a general estimate, but my computer really has no issues running the game on the current settings. Even with my other add-ons removed I still experience the large FPS cut, anywhere from 50-150 FPS. Oh well, Smart Snap still works, I can deal with that issue. Thanks for a response, though.

[QUOTE=Benie]Buttons have a grid and you can use them. :) Including Wire Buttons. Please keep the grid on them. Once PHX is fixed I'm gonna need it.[/QUOTE] Buttons don't have a grid if they are interactable, they only have a grid if they aren't interactable OR you have specified that grids should appear on all props. [QUOTE=Zorlok]Well, I have all my graphical options (minus AA) maxed, res is @ 1280x1024, and I average ~220 FPS on -most- maps with a -reasonable- amount of props active. Of course I am just using that as a general estimate, but my computer really has no issues running the game on the current settings. Even with my other add-ons removed I still experience the large FPS cut, anywhere from 50-150 FPS. Oh well, Smart Snap still works, I can deal with that issue. Thanks for a response, though.[/QUOTE] That is really strange, I experience basically no FPS loss what so ever on reasonable settings. And I see no reason for it to happen either. If it dropped from 220 to 150 I would totally understand, but 50 is really odd. I just looked through the code again, and really there isn't anything that should cause that to occur. What happens if you increase/decrease the number of visible lines? Does the FPS increase/decrease as well at a similar rate or does it stay fairly the same? What graphics card do you have? [QUOTE=Xplodzion]I also have the FPS drop problem, it's really annoying, whenever the grid appears, all I have to do is move and my FPS drops and fluctuates like hell. I am only using a very few addons which are 100% compatible with the latest gmod.[/QUOTE] 100% compatible does not mean they are well written and doesn't conflict. ;) Same here as above, what happens if you change the number visible lines? And what graphics card do you have? As far as I know, certain cards are pretty shitty when it comes to drawing lines, coupled with poor drivers and smartsnap showing 1000 or so lines 100 times per second might be a bad combination. But that is just a wild guess.

Well, it seems if I disable the bounding box option it helps a little bit. But I still experience the FPS drop even if I change the number of lines drawn and the distance between them. Just for the record, I am using a eVGA 8800GT (vanilla)...it is over clocked to the SC specs, but before finalizing the settings I ran quite a few stress tests on it...so it is 100% stable.

[QUOTE=Zorlok]Well, it seems if I disable the bounding box option it helps a little bit. But I still experience the FPS drop even if I change the number of lines drawn and the distance between them. Just for the record, I am using a eVGA 8800GT (vanilla)...it is over clocked to the SC specs, but before finalizing the settings I ran quite a few stress tests on it...so it is 100% stable.[/QUOTE] I have tried the same things, but I have a Radeon X1950, The X1950 is not as fast as an 8800 but it easily plays all games I own at max settings so I don't think it's our graphics cards that are the problem. I update the drivers for everything I have monthly. Syranide, I don't know anything about lua but to take a guess, is it possible that your using some coding methods that the new gmod accepts but doesn't particularly like?

Oh well...as I said before, I can live with the issue. The mod itself still works, and that is all that really matters. But I will be sure to check back and see if any sort of solution may have been found.

I'm also having this FPS drop issue. It happens if I just spawn a door and look at it while moving up and down with a tool out. It seems looking at a big grid directly doesn't do it, just when you move along it. Maybe the problem could be in the way it draws the red / green dot on the snap points as you move between them? I have no idea about this stuff but that's when it seems to happen.

Thanks for your input/feedback! I tried it myself, and as you say, I also get sudden spikes every now and then. And I can see no reason why, I even turned off the grid and the spikes are still there. Just slightly less, and to be frank, even with smartsnap off, I can see some spikes, just a lot shorter and I don't really notice them. As for LordPie, no, that's the funny thing, the exact same thing is run every frame, again and again, it does a trace, transforms some coordinates and draws some lines. Snap lookup is constant time and everything else is either constant time or linear time (drawing lines). I honestly have no idea why this is happening and from what I can tell it doesn't seem like smartsnap fault, but simply a sideeffect of smartsnap using some clock cycles every frame which has some wierd affect on the spikes. [b]However, I wonder, did this occur when the beta was released? Or to be more precise, did these frame drops use to occur before the 19th?[/b] Because I see that he added mutex locking in Lua that day, and if it isn't properly done it can easily have such effects. But it is just a wild guess.

For me, this has happened since the update came out of beta and I switched to 0.9.2, (I think that was the version) I just blamed the tiny hang I would get when snapping to places on the update still being new and possibly buggy, and me hosting a listen server. I just recently saw people in here having the same symtoms so I ticked smartsnap off in the menu and the hanging was gone for the most part. I just did two 30 second fraps benchmarks of me jerking my view side to side on a 4x4 PHX metal plate, and you're right the drops happen even with it off, just not as much and they are shorter. SmartSnap On: Frames: 1108 - Time: 30000ms - Avg: 36.933 - Min: 16 - Max: 89 SmartSnap Off: Frames: 2177 - Time: 30000ms - Avg: 72.567 - Min: 24 - Max: 83

@ Syranide, this issue never occurred for me before the update. Even during the beta it was problem free.

Thank you all very much! I'll compile a mail to garry about this issue.

[QUOTE=Xplodzion]I also have the FPS drop problem, it's really annoying, whenever the grid appears, all I have to do is move and my FPS drops and fluctuates like hell. I am only using a very few addons which are 100% compatible with the latest gmod.[/QUOTE] Same here! I was really concerned, thinking it was because of the new update. When the grid shows up in SmartSnap I get a bunch of stuttering and "micro-freezes" that last like 0.5 - 2 seconds at a time. That translates into my FPS tropping to the teens for a split second. I wonder why that's happening?

Good luck, I was researching this problem for 9 days during the beta. It was driving me nuts. My normal frame rate would be like 80 then it would drop to 6 for a second every 30 seconds or so. Seems to do with the amount lua drawing that's done, seems to build up over time and snap back to normal. It got better in several of the updates, but I still notice it with smartsnap or with a lot of wires.

[QUOTE=tad2020]Good luck, I was researching this problem for 9 days during the beta. It was driving me nuts. My normal frame rate would be like 80 then it would drop to 6 for a second every 30 seconds or so. Seems to do with the amount lua drawing that's done, seems to build up over time and snap back to normal. It got better in several of the updates, but I still notice it with smartsnap or with a lot of wires.[/QUOTE] But even without addons its there (although some Lua is still running I guess), I can clearly see my FPS drop quickly every now and then, when I enable SmartSnap it simply gets amplified most likely because SmartSnap is required to draw every frame and thus for some reasons the drops gets unusually noticable. Garry said that he will try to look into it, but I'm guessing the cause might be quite complex to find.

The amplification is the troubling part; the more lua drawing you do, the more frequent and longer those drops get. Sometimes I'll be get 80 average for 25 seconds then it will drop to 6-8 for 4 seconds, then return to 80 and repeat.

it still does not work with the gmod update :( I deleted the old version and put there the new one. Anyone knows what to do? I have it enabled in the settings

[QUOTE=VitasLoWang]it still does not work with the gmod update :( I deleted the old version and put there the new one. Anyone knows what to do? I have it enabled in the settings[/QUOTE] Check the console for errors, and just to make sure, look through the settings to make sure nothing is odd (like fully transparent grid, etc).

oh I made it working again! I have recently moved all lua, materials, models and sounds from addons to their folders, because I have read somewhere, that it will speed up loading of gmod. OK maybe it did, but the file client.lua stayed in lua/autorun and was not overwritten by it's newer version from addons :o Why? Now it seems I have the sasme problem with wire - it does not appear at all in the game :-] [b]Edit:[/b] aha I got it! I had wire folder and under it another one and wire model pack 1 instead of having it directly under addons...

I have .9.4 but since the update the in-game menu for smartsnap (and propsecure too, but that's another issue) has vanished when on my usual server. The server has the same version of SS installed, and other users report it working fine. Any ideas? =/

SmartSnap is the building assistant to end all projects, it's helped me through planes and tanks, boats and artillery, and everything in between. This has been a great asset to the community.

Sorry for the late response Syranide, the idea you stated (Auto-Toggle off) was interesting and I'd like to see that happen (perhaps also an option to turn Auto-Toggle on/off). Another thing that would be rather handy is the ability to change the color via the color wheel (the wheel in the Color stool that allows you to change colors).

any news from garry for the FPS drops ? i binded the mouse4 and mouse5 to turn on/off the smartsnap, because even if i'm not aiming at something to see it's grid, i get fps drops and freezes, it's impossible to play like that...but if you turn it off when you aren't going to use it, the game works great :)

Still useful, just installed for the update.

Sorry, been busy lately, anyways. [QUOTE=Nick Seafort]I have .9.4 but since the update the in-game menu for smartsnap (and propsecure too, but that's another issue) has vanished when on my usual server. The server has the same version of SS installed, and other users report it working fine. Any ideas? =/[/QUOTE] No idea actually, it has changed placement though, it's under player now I believe. Or I just remember wrong. [QUOTE=Killer_Steel]SmartSnap is the building assistant to end all projects, it's helped me through planes and tanks, boats and artillery, and everything in between. This has been a great asset to the community.[/QUOTE] Glad ot hear it ;) [QUOTE=aX Banano]Sorry for the late response Syranide, the idea you stated (Auto-Toggle off) was interesting and I'd like to see that happen (perhaps also an option to turn Auto-Toggle on/off). Another thing that would be rather handy is the ability to change the color via the color wheel (the wheel in the Color stool that allows you to change colors).[/QUOTE] Ah, color yeah, never thought of that, I'll add it when I get a chance. Of course, auto-toggle would be toggleable, same here, when I get time. [QUOTE=HarZens]any news from garry for the FPS drops ? i binded the mouse4 and mouse5 to turn on/off the smartsnap, because even if i'm not aiming at something to see it's grid, i get fps drops and freezes, it's impossible to play like that...but if you turn it off when you aren't going to use it, the game works great :)[/QUOTE] Sadly no, if he finds what the problem is it'll probably make the blog since it is quite major. By the way, you can actually bind one button if you want instead, don't remember the command right now, but you can toggle the grid using a command. "snap_toggle" or something like that.

that's good to know, i will find the command myself, thanks =)

I downloaded "29276_smartsnap094". If I understand its purpose correctly, it is a tool to aid placing props quicker and more precisely. The problem I am having is that when I follow the instructions: "If you press use (e), the mouse should snap to the point you look at, and will signal with colors how precise the placement will be... I switch to the tool gun and I am left with whatever tool I was using before (ex. duplicator), so how do I pick up another prop to align it with the first one?

I'm having a bit of a dilemma here, using the latest version I've got no control panel in Utilities and when I press "use" once the grid will click off. This makes it very hard to get SmartSnap to actually align for me, oftentimes for only a second before the grid clicks off. Is there some way to manually disable the toggle? Such as editing a line in the code somewhere?

Sorry for the delay, been somewhat busy. [QUOTE=Brinnie]I downloaded "29276_smartsnap094". If I understand its purpose correctly, it is a tool to aid placing props quicker and more precisely. The problem I am having is that when I follow the instructions: "If you press use (e), the mouse should snap to the point you look at, and will signal with colors how precise the placement will be... I switch to the tool gun and I am left with whatever tool I was using before (ex. duplicator), so how do I pick up another prop to align it with the first one?[/QUOTE] Well, it is not a tool for placing props quicker, but a tool for aiming more precisely. So it's basically just a helping hand for the other tools, for instance easy-weld and so on. So, you cannot place them in free air with precision, but you can weld and place stuff with perfect precision. And some people have come up with their own "combinations" to make certain setups etc, like axis-welding etc. [QUOTE=MrDoomBringr]I'm having a bit of a dilemma here, using the latest version I've got no control panel in Utilities and when I press "use" once the grid will click off. This makes it very hard to get SmartSnap to actually align for me, oftentimes for only a second before the grid clicks off. Is there some way to manually disable the toggle? Such as editing a line in the code somewhere?[/QUOTE] Hmm, that's strange, in 0.9.4 I moved the menu up a notch (in the player one now I believe), is it really in utilities, I thought it was in "options", but I might remember wrongly. I changed to garrysmod internal preset system for saving options (should be safer), but it's really strange how certain gmod installations seem to turn on the gridtoggle by themselves. Anyways, yes, there is a convar, don't have access to smartsnap at the moment, but check the "snap_*" convars, should be something like "snap_toggledelay", "snap_griddelay" or something like that, there aren't many of them anyway. Just set it to zero.

"Well, it is not a tool for placing props quicker, but a tool for aiming more precisely. So it's basically just a helping hand for the other tools, ..." Thanks for the explaination. Is there a tool for aligning props , for ex. rails, bricks ...?

That's what this tool is. It creates a grid on a prop that allows you to properly align it with the grid on another prop, or to evenly align thrusters on touch rockets, or dead-on accurate hydraulics. It's an excellent build help tool. And yes, it lets you align rails and bricks.