Misereor Posted May 16, 2007 Share Posted May 16, 2007 Lots of visible terrain + lots of units + photo quality graphics = Cray X2 supercomputer to run the game. The further out the render distance is, the more terrain and units have to be rendered. Your computer has to do this with a limited amount of processing power, a fact which many game reviewers seem to be somehow unaware of... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwazydog Posted May 16, 2007 Share Posted May 16, 2007 Hi Guys, Just FYI Im guessing the comments to do with terrain needing tidying are to do with LODs (level of detail models) on certain terrain objects, which we are currently working on...for instance are palm trees loose their leaves very quicky at the moment and look rather odd There are a lot of loose ends that need tidying up but they are all falling into place! As we get LODs in terrain reduction and overall detail can be increased, results in better performance and better quality visuals. Dan 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 Oh, I forgot all about the LODs! Heck yeah, that is killing the framerate in his version (and kinda still in ours). Remember what I said about CM trying to adjust the graphics quality to keep up the framerate? Well, in the reviewer's version there are hardly any LODs. What does that mean? It means that when you see a 3 pixel soldier, it is being animated as if it has several thousand polygons, even though you can really only see about 2. Multiply that by a couple of platoons and you get tens of thousands of polygons hitting the framerate but not being seen. All pain, no gain as they say. LODs are extremely time consuming to do when you start adding them up. I think Dan is on, what, week two of doing almost nothing but LODs? We put most of them in the game since the press review units went out, so for sure their systems are struggling hard to show just about nothing. I'd let you know how the framerate is right now, but Charles gave me a special debug version to track a DirectX bug of some sort. This means it writes every little thing that goes on to disk. If you think a lack of LODs kills framerate, you should see what Charles' little bastdardized debug version does to mine It's helping though... almost got it! Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homo ferricus Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 not to go back to this, but i still want to know how the game will do with dual-core CPUs, since i plan on getting one shortly before the game comes out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoxSpartana Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 I'm not really concerned about the "rudimentary graphics engine" comment... as long as CMSF looks like it does in the few vids we have... I'll be happy. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kineas Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 I think that remark about the rudimentary graphics was just thrown in as a necessary 'balancing' comment in the review. Hopefully the readers won't give it another thought (neither did the writer). Originally posted by Battlefront.com: A completely different part of his comment is the comparison with FPS games. It is very true to say that our environments do not seem as rich and as varied as the top FPS games out there, or top down RTS games. That's the trade off one has to expect from a game which offers: Isn't it a slippery slope to leave the handy, tile based abstract world and enter into the 1:1 "reality"? I mean you have to simulate every little thing and object on the battlefield, there is hardly any room for 'abstractional shortcuts'. E.g. if a bullet passes through a palm tree, you obviously won't check against every little twig, but rather say this bullet has a 30% chance of being deflected. (This was just an example) May I ask, did you find such shortcuts in great number, just to avoid the FPS level of detail? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 Nox, that's the thing - everyone can see how the game looks, and then evaluate the "rudimentary graphics engine" comment based on that. It depends on what you compare it with. We just released some new screens, like these: Is this rudimentary? Well, if you put it next to some of the new FPS or roleplaying games it sure is. Of course such a comparison is totally unjustified, or at least it's extremely superficial. Martin 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 Kineas, it is a very slippery slope indeed. Once you get down to a certain level of detail, abstractions have to be made in an even more careful way than for the first CM games. Thing is - it doesn't work without abstractions. CMSF has to pull a lot of tricks to remain playable on the average PC. Some are visible, some are not, and there is no doubt that this board is going to be full of discussions once the game and demo are out if the design decisions are ok or not. Martin 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steiner14 Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 Originally posted by flintlock: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Steiner14: Does CMSF support multi-core CPUs? A better question may be whether CM:SF is a true multithreaded application. A program can be only single-threaded, yet still support multi-core processors. </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 We have no specific support for dual core yet, though we do have some optimizations that do benefit from it. I run on a dual core Mac without any problems (other than me being stuck with substandard ATI video technology). It should not be forgotten that for all its detail and accuracy, CMx1 had tons of abstractions to make it playable on the PC. The beauty of CM, on the whole, is blanacing the abstractions with each other so that the overall results are both deep and realistic. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattpeckham Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 Originally posted by Battlefront.com: Therefore, I would recommend nobody pay any attention to that comment because it is too unqualified, and likely flawed, to have any real meaning.Yeah, but put another way, it's a legitimate reaction from someone with visions of Crysis and BioShock dancing in his head. Non-wargamers like Ocampo provide more of a mainstream perspective that'll hopefully filter out the kids that would just hit the forums and gripe needlessly anyway. I trust most BF forum-goers aren't part of that mainstream audience. That said, I'm not expecting unbelievable environmentals, but I am pretty hot for the vehicle and weapons fidelity. And I'd never play (or review) a CM game on the merits of its visuals unless they were prohibitively bad. If the visuals don't hamper the gameplay, and someone's still hacked off about 'em, they're not playing the game for the reasons it was made in the first place, plain and simple. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattpeckham Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 Oh yeah, I should add that I think the visuals in the Decisive Battles games get me vastly more excited than anything I've *ever* sampled in an FPS. Clean, functional visuals can in the right context be infinitely more satisfying than whether or not your engine has "breakable foliage" or whatever. It's the tragedy of a mostly superficial media that equates visual satisfaction with whatever the heck's meant by "immersive 3D graphics." Whatever happened to clean lines and "context-appropriate"? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarquelne Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 Whatever happened to clean lines and "context-appropriate"?"Context-appropriate" requires judgment. Thought. Effort. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoolaman Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 I don't know what the reviewer meant, but I must say overall I am fairly disappointed in the screenshots I have seen so far. The terrain is pretty boring and arid, there are apparently weird draw distance issues with grass and bushes, there are apparently no "woods" (ToW anyone), the buildings seem to rubble in weird ways, the tanks in the movies have weird suspension etc. etc. Everyone in this thread has been saying "well its only a beta" but this game is now 9 or 10 weeks away from being put in a box and sent to Joe Bloggs. I am also hoping the beta testing for this game doesn't leave the release plagued with glitches and moaning customers, considering a few recent battlefront releases have been less than perfect. I am confident that in the hands of the CM community there will be some beautiful maps and mods for the game, but I don't want the launch of BFC's flagship to be a fizzer. Remember this one actually was designed and made by BFC not just published so the buck will stop here! disclaimer: this post is meant to be constructive. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sage2 Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 Originally posted by Battlefront.com: Yes, there is realtime terrain deformation. And it is sweet Steve That. Is. Fecking. Cool. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sage2 Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 I think the graphics are nice, although they may not measure up to Bioshock or the like. Not a problem. :=) The only graphics thing I see that bugs me is the color timing of the bitmap used for the horizon does not seem to be the same as that of 3d batlefield portion of the graphics. It makes the background bit maps slightly more distracting than they would otherwise be. Very minor. Oh -- where are screenshots from the night battles? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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