Improving FPS

If Theatrical: Realistic Pack (TRP) is causing lower FPS than expected, the best approach is to reduce rendering cost progressively rather than disabling everything at once.

TRP separates several parts of its rendering system, including:

• Fixture models
• Volumetric beams
• Surface projections
• Impact lights
• Beam occlusion
• Model level of detail
• Pixel effects
• Disco-ball reflections

This makes it possible to identify which part of a production is responsible for the largest performance cost.

Start With the Biggest Performance Changes

If you need more FPS quickly, try these changes first:

1. Disable external shader packs.
2. Change Model Quality to Performance.
3. Change Beam Occlusion to Legacy.
4. Reduce Detailed Model Distance.
5. Reduce Maximum Beam Reach.
6. Reduce Volumetric Beam Segments.
7. Reduce Realistic Projection Steps.
8. Reduce Minecraft Render Distance.
9. Reduce simultaneous pixel/effect output.

These changes usually have a much larger impact than minor visual adjustments.

1. Disable External Shaders

External shader packs can significantly increase GPU workload when combined with TRP’s own integrated rendering systems.

If you are experiencing low FPS, first test the same scene with the external shader disabled.

TRP already provides its own systems for:

• Volumetric beams
• Projections
• Gobos
• Impact lighting
• Other fixture-related effects

Third-party shader compatibility and performance are not guaranteed.

2. Reduce Model Quality

TRP provides three fixture model quality options:

• Performance
• Balanced
• Quality

Default: Balanced

For improved FPS, try:

Performance

This reduces the rendering cost of detailed fixture bodies while allowing TRP’s optical systems to continue operating independently.

This is especially useful when many fixtures are visible at the same time.

3. Reduce Detailed Model Distance

Default: 9 chunks

TRP uses distance-based model level of detail.

Reducing Detailed Model Distance means distant fixtures switch to simplified rendering sooner.

Good values to test include:

• 4 chunks
• 6 chunks
• 8 chunks

This can provide a noticeable improvement on large festival or arena builds where many fixtures are visible at long distances.

4. Use Legacy Beam Occlusion

TRP provides:

• Legacy
• Realistic

beam occlusion modes.

Legacy performs less detailed world-geometry sampling and is therefore the more performance-oriented option.

Realistic can inspect more geometry information such as:

• Faces
• Corners
• Floors
• Walls
• Undersides

and therefore requires additional processing.

For large shows, use:

Legacy

unless Realistic interaction is specifically needed.

5. Reduce Beam Reach

Default: 96 blocks

TRP can render beam/projection reach from:

0–512 blocks

Longer ranges require the lighting system to consider larger areas of the world.

For indoor stages, try:

32–64 blocks

For normal concert setups:

64–96 blocks

Only use very long ranges when the venue actually requires them.

6. Reduce Volumetric Beam Segments

Range: 8–48
Default: 32

Higher segment counts can produce smoother beam volumes but require additional geometry.

For better performance, try:

• 24
• 16
• 12

TRP can also adaptively reduce beam segmentation when appropriate.

7. Reduce Projection Steps

Range: 8–128
Default: 48

Projection steps affect TRP’s detailed world-interaction calculations.

For performance-oriented setups, try:

• 32
• 24
• 16

This is especially useful when using many:

• Gobos
• Projections
• Long beams
• Complex world geometry

8. Reduce Minecraft Render Distance

Minecraft itself may already be rendering a very large amount of world geometry.

A high render distance combined with:

• Detailed fixtures
• Beams
• Projections
• Other mods

can create significantly more load.

Reducing Minecraft Render Distance can therefore improve performance even if TRP settings remain unchanged.

9. Watch Pixel Fixtures

Pixel fixtures can be significantly more demanding than simpler fixtures when their detailed personalities are actively used.

Examples include:

• Spiider
• Arianne 6
• LEDBeam 150
• TetraX
• Tetra2
• WTF!

These fixtures may contain many independently represented lighting elements.

For example:

• Tetra2 — 18 RGBW pixels
• TetraX — 9 RGBW pixels
• WTF! — 2 RGBW zones, 16 RGBW pixels and 12 white pixels

If FPS drops during large pixel effects, reduce the number of simultaneously active pixel fixtures before assuming the problem comes from fixture count alone.

10. Reduce Simultaneous Beams

The current renderer does not simply stop rendering beams after the legacy maximum-visible-beams setting.

Instead, active beams are handled by the newer rendering system.

This means very large numbers of simultaneously active beams can still create substantial rendering workload.

If necessary:

• Reduce active fixture output
• Use shorter beam ranges
• Use Legacy occlusion
• Reduce beam segments

11. Reduce Gobo & Projection Usage

Projected gobos can include:

• Rotation
• Indexing
• Shake
• Focus-dependent blur
• Surface projection

TRP also provides multiple precomputed blur levels for projected gobo textures.

Large quantities of active projected gobos can therefore be more expensive than simple open beams.

When troubleshooting performance, compare:

Open Beam

against:

Projected Gobo

to see whether projections are a major contributor.

12. Watch Disco Ball Reflections

TRP disco-ball reflections are derived from real active fixture beams.

The system calculates:

• Source beam colour
• Intensity
• Rotation
• Ray intersections
• World collisions

The reflection workload is adaptively budgeted, and the active source-beam registry is internally capped at 256 entries.

Large numbers of active beams combined with several disco balls can still add noticeable rendering load.

Use Diagnostic Rendering

TRP provides diagnostic switches that can independently disable parts of the renderer.

Available controls include:

• Physical Fixture Models
• Volumetric Beams
• Projections
• Impact Lights

These are particularly useful when you do not know which system is causing the performance problem.

Diagnostic Test: Fixture Models

Temporarily disable physical fixture models.

If FPS improves significantly, the main problem may be:

• Model complexity
• Too many visible fixtures
• Excessive detailed-model distance

Try reducing:

Model Quality

and:

Detailed Model Distance

Diagnostic Test: Beams

Temporarily disable volumetric beams.

If FPS improves significantly, review:

• Beam Reach
• Beam Segments
• Beam Occlusion
• Number of simultaneous active beams

Diagnostic Test: Projections

Disable projections temporarily.

If performance improves, review:

• Gobo usage
• Projection Steps
• Beam Reach
• Realistic Occlusion
• Number of projected effects

Diagnostic Test: Impact Lights

Disable Impact Lights temporarily.

If this produces a noticeable improvement, impact-light rendering is contributing significantly to the scene cost.

Performance Profiling

TRP includes optional renderer profiling.

When enabled, accumulated renderer information can be reported approximately every:

120 rendered frames

This can be useful when comparing different settings or diagnosing unusually expensive scenes.

Profiling is primarily intended for:

• Troubleshooting
• Development
• Bug reports
• Performance comparison

and does not normally need to remain enabled during everyday gameplay.

If Performance Suddenly Collapses

If TRP performance suddenly becomes much worse than normal:

1. Check whether an external shader was enabled.
2. Check whether Beam Occlusion changed to Realistic.
3. Check whether Beam Reach was increased.
4. Check whether a large pixel effect was activated.
5. Check whether many projected gobos are active.
6. Check whether multiple disco balls are receiving beams.
7. Reduce Minecraft Render Distance temporarily.
8. Use TRP diagnostic switches.

Change one variable at a time whenever possible.

Large Production Strategy

For very large stages, it is usually better to optimise the entire show rather than simply lowering every visual setting.

For example:

• Use detailed models near the audience.
• Allow distant fixtures to use LOD.
• Keep beam reach appropriate to the venue.
• Use Realistic occlusion only where its visual benefit matters.
• Avoid unnecessary full-pixel output on every fixture.
• Limit complex projections when they are not visible.
• Disable external shaders during performance-critical shows.

TRP’s renderer is designed so physical fixture detail and lighting effects can be managed separately.

Recommended Troubleshooting Order

If FPS is still too low, follow this order:

1. Disable external shader packs.
2. Set Model Quality to Performance.
3. Reduce Detailed Model Distance.
4. Use Legacy Occlusion.
5. Reduce Beam Reach.
6. Reduce Beam Segments.
7. Reduce Projection Steps.
8. Reduce Minecraft Render Distance.
9. Reduce pixel fixture activity.
10. Reduce simultaneous projected gobos.
11. Reduce disco-ball reflection complexity.
12. Use diagnostic renderer switches.
13. Enable performance profiling if further investigation is required.

This approach normally makes it much easier to identify the actual performance bottleneck instead of reducing every TRP feature at once.