Game Engine

[Thangorodrim Atanatari]

those numbers where examples, the point is performance will become increasingly smaller as issue (given the same game engine), and graphics will increasingly get a bigger issue over time.

ofcourse in general graphics influences the fun-factor less then performance (when performance is bad, fun is reduced alot more then with older graphics) while lotro and warhammer do have amazing graphics it doesnt keep me there playing. however there is like a minimum acceptable graphics-level that varies with every individual for an online game that requires a monthly fee. this minimum level goes up while technologies improve over time.

im talking in general here, and there are ofcourse exceptions to this rule, and other factors that outweight it (like a person that just wants to play a dragon for example)

WoW became big by performing good on old machines, while appart from being cartoony it doesnt offer anything very special or that is not in other games.

[Firebrand]

The game can look better with what it already has: most of places could be filled with furniture for example. Do you remember the Great Hall of Learning on the old Spirit Isle? It was a great place and it would be nice to have the same everywhere in Istaria. But currently, I don't think it's possible because of the lack of performances: furniture everywhere? Lag everywhere.

With a better engine, we could maybe have better events: Virtirum may spawn an armada of undeads near a town and all the players would have to gather to defend it. With current performances, that would be a nightmare for many players: an epic battle at 2 fps is not very fun, right?

[AmonGwareth]

You are right, Firebrand. And you can see what benefit furniture and a decent density of NPCs can add to a town by going to New Trismus.

[Guaran]

When I mentioned upgrading the (graphics) engine, it was solely to hope that the game would run better. The game is single threaded so even tho I have a dual core pc with 4Gb ram, gtx280 video card that has 1gb video ram, this game still chuggs along with 10fps or so for me. I play windowed at 1920x1200, texture qualities are maxed out but view distance is only about 1/3 of the max setting.

I'm happy with how the game "looks" (except please keep adding more those sweet murals). I just want to play as someone mentioned above with alot less lag, and be able to run into a town being raided by 150 WA, 50 gifted and not experience mega low fps such as .25fps. And it would be nice to not crash as much. If the texture memory leak (or whatever it may be) could be resolved the game would likely be ok staying in software rendered mode like it is now. But I have to believe alot of issues we face, were fixed and improved in the newer version of the graphics engine.

So again I ask, please look into it. Pretty please. It might seem like a gamble (money-wise) but at this point I think the game needs it to really grow the subscriber base.

[Takora Drakan]

With a better engine, we could maybe have better events: Virtirum may spawn an armada of undeads near a town and all the players would have to gather to defend it. With current performances, that would be a nightmare for many players: an epic battle at 2 fps is not very fun, right?

Even in the super-über-new-rockyourbutt-graphic-games you can't do that, neither in AoC or VG, because of the high graphics such armadas of npcs clashing against PCs will probably blow up every server. In a game where the grapic is not so high end that works somehow, but you will probably see only blubbs running around. >_>

And today it is not so bad with Istaira, due better PCs out that can handle more going on, it is sure possible to do that, but you should not cry that you have a diashow with graphics at max and spelleffects on, those are the memory monsters.

[Guaran]

Even if it wasn't huge raids, a typical raid can already cause alot of lag (due to all the players converging). So if that performance could be improved upon I think it would be a good thing. One thing I think happened in the last raid that went on was alot of simultaneous raids which helped keep players spread out, and lag wasn't a problem.

[gopher65]

Even in the super-über-new-rockyourbutt-graphic-games you can't do that, neither in AoC or VG, because of the high graphics such armadas of npcs clashing against PCs will probably blow up every server. In a game where the grapic is not so high end that works somehow, but you will probably see only blubbs running around. >_>

I don't know about the server, but even in the (still sparsely populated, sparely treed, and poorly furnished) new MMOGs, the clients run like garbage. And they still don't have proper light-sources (usually only one at a time), or proper multi-light source stencilled shadows (although LOTRO isn't bad shadow-wise if you turn all the graphics to max, including the DX10 box checked). And they still rip into my poor, poor overworked and under-appreciated harddrive as bad as HZ does.

As the games get bigger and prettier, I can only imagine that the situation will get worse.

I can't wait for the day when computer technology has progressed to the point where we can have a REAL artificial fantasy world like those in MMOGs. Where a house isn't just a model with a picture (texture) applied to it, but instead has all its bumps and bruises and colour as an intrinsic part of the object and its environmental interaction (ie, woodgrains and cracks built into the model, with colour determined by viewing angle and lighting conditions as much as the intrinsic colour of the object), just like in real life. That'll be nice.

And yeah, I'm still going to be waiting for that 50 years from now. I know. But I can dream.

[gopher65]

Oh, I got into a ramble and forgot to say what I was originally going to say. All MMOGs have a lack of furniture, clutter, trees, buildings, and the like. Especially clutter. Have you ever seen a messy desk in an MMOG? I guess the tech must not be up to making real looking landscapes and cityscapes yet.

[AmonGwareth]

You are correct, it isn't. Its not the poly count anymore, but the texture sizes and having to load/unload them that is now the bottleneck. The more objects, the more detail, the more demand for textures and the greater the hit on your cpu/harddrive.

[Pharcellus]

Oh, I got into a ramble and forgot to say what I was originally going to say. All MMOGs have a lack of furniture, clutter, trees, buildings, and the like. Especially clutter.

Dunno, Guild Wars has an awful lot, and it runs well on my older computer. Most of GW's setting is outdoors, though, but what there is indoors in some places has quite a bit of "clutter".

Have you ever seen a messy desk in an MMOG? I guess the tech must not be up to making real looking landscapes and cityscapes yet.

I can build one in Second Life for ya in a few minutes. It's not really a MMOG, though.

[Steelclaw]

You are correct, it isn't. Its not the poly count anymore, but the texture sizes and having to load/unload them that is now the bottleneck.

The client /unloads/ textures?

*points to ever growing TexMem bar*

[Thangorodrim Atanatari]

Even in the super-über-new-rockyourbutt-graphic-games you can't do that, neither in AoC or VG, because of the high graphics such armadas of npcs clashing against PCs will probably blow up every server. In a game where the grapic is not so high end that works somehow, but you will probably see only blubbs running around. >_>

true for Aoc and VG but false in general...
warhammer can do this, having hundreds of very high res chars running around in 1 screen without lag with distant landscapes and high res world, allready a long long time ago dark ages of camelot(predecesor to warhammer) could do this even on my 4y old 2.1Hgz laptop with just 128mb vid mem.
mythics client and server tech really rocks

[Thangorodrim Atanatari]

I have a dual core pc with 4Gb ram, gtx280 video card that has 1gb video ram, this game still chuggs along with 10fps or so for me. I play windowed at 1920x1200, texture qualities are maxed out but view distance is only about 1/3 of the max setting.

thats strange, im not below 40fps in hz, most of the time around 60..
and i have a crappy 49euro vid card; geforce8600 with just 256mb mem (ok its DDR3, so fast)

[Takora Drakan]

Well warhammer has not such highend graphic, it is kinda Wow-ish graphic. So those armys on your screens are possible.

[Thangorodrim Atanatari]

i dont know what screens you saw or if you played it yourself. (i know pre-release screans lacked anti-aliassing and LOD so even with superhighres textures looked a bit unfinished)

i played both wow and warhammer. and really warhammer has much MUCH higher detail textures, wow has more bling bling however.

[Spirit]

i dont know what screens you saw or if you played it yourself. (i know pre-release screans lacked anti-aliassing and LOD so even with superhighres textures looked a bit unfinished)

i played both wow and warhammer. and really warhammer has much MUCH higher detail textures, wow has more bling bling however.

Not sure about Warhammer, but Wow certainly has very limited dynamics going on in the terrain. It's all on your computer already, and that is it. Istaria is designed to be a dynamically changing world streamed over the net. In WoW Nothing in the terrain changes, so you've only got to load players and npcs/enemies. Since it doesn't have to stream over the net, you can afford to really go overboard with detail. Of course you can simply have more fancy building blocks, but the complexity of your 'cluttered desk' would still take time to load over the internet.

Rakku

[Vahrokh]

Well warhammer has not such highend graphic, it is kinda Wow-ish graphic. So those armys on your screens are possible.

The following is a frame off a video clip taken at about 1/4 resolution, low quality settings. There were about 100 people inside + outside the keep.





The following are taken at medium-high settings, then (to save bandwidth) size reduced by Photoshot to "medium quality" JPG quality:


Random outdoor, on my mount:

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/l...iningGroun.jpg


Outdoor when I dinged 40:

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/l...ah_Level40.jpg


Random quest camp:

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/l...2-18-26-59.png


Character creation screen excerpt:

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/l...enshot_005.jpg

Even if it looks "impossible", this is actually what you see in game when you look at them.



Random level *2* outdoor training camp:

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/l...erah_F_007.jpg



Me (my main actually ) in the capital city, wearing one of the Halloween event masks:

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/l...h_WithMask.jpg




PS: I might believe it's better looking than WoW.
PS 2: yes my skin is un-naturally white due to game lore.

[Takora Drakan]

I don't envy your character, she must to be cold at all time with this outfit.

[Milandra]

You are correct, it isn't. Its not the poly count anymore, but the texture sizes and having to load/unload them that is now the bottleneck. The more objects, the more detail, the more demand for textures and the greater the hit on your cpu/harddrive.

Congratulations for the work done for the Vista client.
It is an important step, players will be soon able to join back live shards.

Does an upgrade to a newer version of Intrinsic Alchemy would help for those issues met in this topic?
If so, do we have an idea of the cost for such an operation ?
Version 3.0 is over 5 years now isn't it ? It might be an interesting solution.

[BlueFire]

Grats from me too I have a solution for the money issue that could help solve a bit of the problem...

Donations

Probably that most of us cannot afford to give money, but others can. Put it in a visible place, like the home page or the community page. Yes, it may look like the game is in dire need of funds if you put a donations section, but it may help. The Endless Forest survived for years with donations and little funds and I think it has a similar player-base (number of players, I mean).

I agree with the engine update. Maybe they could lower the price because Virtrium is a little company... no?... yes?...

Another solution would be to "borrow" money from a bank... yes, I know it is one of the causes of the recession

Brainstorm, everyone