A way to turn off accumulator electricity effect

[Reiker]

This is a pretty simple request. On my low-end laptop, Factorio runs pretty well. But there are two graphic effects that cause a lot of FPS drop. One is the steam that pours out from steam engines, which can be turned off in the options (hurray!). The other is the electricity effect when accumulators charge, which can't be turned off (boo!).

[Sparkerish]

I second this request. Anytime I am near accumulators that are charging or discharging my computer lags horribly. (won't run Factorio at all without low graphics mode)
Being able to turn off accumulator electricity effect would be great, anyone know a workaround for this?

[murillokb]

I also would like to have this option. In late game I have hundreds of accumulators and their effects kills my fps.

+1

[Nahon]

Same here, on the laptop with having only an emulated video card, the (dis)charge effect kills the fps.

[Chthon]

The arcing of the accumulators ALWAYS makes me nervous to stand near.

[Kotu]

maybe there could be a mod to replace accumulator with kinetic accumulator.

[Gammro]

I don't have any trouble myself with the animations, but I suspect the lightning effects as I've heard complaints before about fps drops when the lights at night went on.

Could someone test if commenting the lines "charge_light =" and "discharge_light =" in the basic-accumulator entity helps with the performance?

You can find this in \data\base\prototypes\entity\entities.lua on lines 2948 and 2960. You can comment it by adding -- in front.

[Sparkerish]

Could someone test if commenting the lines "charge_light =" and "discharge_light =" in the basic-accumulator entity helps with the performance?

WOW, such a simple thing and completely eliminated the FPS drop (in my small scale test)

EDIT: Tested with small grid (sub. w/2 "rings" of Charged accumulators 1 (center) "ring" of solar, linked to power pole & added 3 radar to trigger discharge)
Start testing (discharge) @ 31 fps
Initial (no commented lines) drop to 19-22 fps
with commented lines fps @ 31

did this twice each, similar result both times
EDIT: I only tested Discharge FPS, I assume Charge FPS will react similar ...

THANKS Gammro


(and for fun) -- entire animation section (except the "cool down" values) fps @ 31 fps (but had to open power grid to "see" if it was discharging)

[Gammro]

(and for fun) -- entire animation section (except the "cool down" values) fps @ 31 fps (but had to open power grid to "see" if it was discharging)

No problem, that feeling of being correct is enough ( )

I don't think the the animation itself causes trouble, since practically any machine in the game also has an animation without much impact on the FPS. You can see this in that you don't get any more performance improvement when you remove it.