The next Unreal engine...

[Nick Vargish]

Maybe they weren't friends and he just doesn't care.

If I'm sittin' in a boat with a dude I hate, and his head pops like a
balloon, I would sit up and take notice. I don't care if he's been
boffin' my wife, I'd be concerned for my own noggin.

Nick

 

[Xocyll]

If these "unfortunate handicaps" are what the average system is running,
there's your contradiction. Mr. Sweeney wants to deliver his graphics
engine; how many computers can actually run it is only relevant insofar as
the bottom line. If Mr. Sweeney was interested in targeting average systems,
his quote would have been "The only thing we could wish for is to be able to
come up with clever algorithms and optimizations that would allow our engine
to run smoothly on second-tier hardware".


FYI, I play Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries and Age of Mythology on a Voodoo3. I
have no complaints about the quality of graphics. It _could_ be nicer,
certainly, but it doesn't _need_ to be. That is, I've seen UT2k3 on a GF4
and I didn't think the small improvement over UT was worthy of a $200
upgrade. The games I can't play on a Voodoo3 are surprisingly narrow.
Namely, they're all FPSes that require hardware T&L or some equally useless
feature that adds little or nothing to picture quality, much less gameplay.

I beg to differ.
I upgraded from my Voodoo3 when I bought Morrowind, since the voodoo
didn't do 32bit color.

Now it resides in the old system.

While the whole 16 vs 32 bit color thing never seemed to make much
difference to me, there are games that really look like shit in 16bit
(or maybe the GeForce3's 16 bit color sucks.

X2 in 16 bit looks horrible.

And nobody said otherwise! But at the same time, that doesn't mean that Epic
and Mr. Sweeney are gunning for the average system, if you care to get back
to that point.

There's "average" and then there's "average gamer's".
Gamers will tend to have a much better video subsystem than non-gamers,
because it's a feature that _matters_ to them.
Non gamers generally don't care about video features, if they even think
about it all, because it's not something they need for e-mail, word and
web browsing.

Designing for systems that weren't really _designed_ for gaming isn't
particularly useful since you aren't going to be selling many copies of
a game to non-gamers.

It's really no different than a "you must be this high to ride on this
ride" signs you see at midways, fairs and carnivals.

They shouldn't have to design the rides to accommodate the size and
tolerances of 6 year olds, when it won't be 6 year olds riding it.


The whole argument seems to boil down to: Game devs should write their
games so that they are playable on systems owned by people who don't
care about gaming, and/or who bought systems without considering how
they would perform with games.

Frankly I think that's bullshit.
They bought a system without thinking, they got something that doesn't
play games well - it's their own fault.

Some idiot buys a Geforce 4 MX420 thinking it's a gaming card, why
should the devs care?

[I briefly considered buying one since they were cheap. Less than a
hour of reading online reviews convinced me the MX series were useless,
substandard crap for gaming.]

It's not like the information about the GF4MX cards wasn't _widely_
available on the net before he bought it and easily findable through
google.

He bought crap because he couldn't be bothered researching.

This is exactly the same kind of person who will install a game and NOT
actually check to see if the system can support it, has the proper
drivers, directx, etc and won't read the documentation and/or manual.
Then they'll whine and bitch to tech support and on web boards when it's
really _their_ stupidity to blame for their bad experience.

Gee I wonder why game devs don't want to cater to people like that.

Makes as much sense as limiting the max speed on freeways to what a
moped can achieve.

Xocyll

 

[Xocyll]

Nick Vargish <[email protected]> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

If I'm sittin' in a boat with a dude I hate, and his head pops like a
balloon, I would sit up and take notice. I don't care if he's been
boffin' my wife, I'd be concerned for my own noggin.

Maybe he'd just said "Hey Nick, watch this."

Xocyll

 

[Nick Vargish]

Maybe he'd just said "Hey Nick, watch this."

I've learned to look away whenever someone says that.

But then, I've got kids, so it's just common sense.

Nick

 

[Darthy]

I'm sorry, but what is the benefit of excluding a market of consumers with
average video cards?

The same reason we're still NOT playing with our ATARI 2600 or 8bit
Nintendo anymore. Or why not use your Pentium100 to get on the
internet? Why are you using Outlook Express 6 or IE6, when IE 3
would work just fine?

More graphics requires more hardware power.

How about an engine that runs great and looks beautiful on a large range of
systems? I'm all for progress and a more cinematic look, but Joe Consumer

The same reason that a Honda Civic cannot race with INDY or NACAR
races... its an AVG car for AVG functions.

shouldn't have to upgrade his computer every six months and stay on top of
hardware issues just because he wants to play the latest game release.

Uh... screw them... its called PROGRESS.

This is why people settle for consoles.

And consles they can have. but wait, new consoles come out every 4
years or so...

 

[Darthy]

I'm sorry, but what is the benefit of excluding a market of consumers with
average video cards?

How about an engine that runs great and looks beautiful on a large range of
systems? I'm all for progress and a more cinematic look, but Joe Consumer
shouldn't have to upgrade his computer every six months and stay on top of
hardware issues just because he wants to play the latest game release.

PS: HALO, (A crap game) - looks fine on a modern DX9 card and most
DX8 cards...

It DOES play on a GF2 card.... It looks like ugly mono color crap
that makes Unreal (1) look good.

If a MODERN game could work magic and look just as good on a GF2mx as
an ATI 9800XT - shit, nobody would ever need to buy a new video card!
But it doesnt happen that way, does it?

When UNREAL first came out, IT MADE ME GO OUT AND BUY A 3DFX Voodoo(1)
card! just for that game... then other games followed which looked
great on that card as well.

My price on the Voodoo1 was $125 (4mb card) - its in a friend's
brothers computer I think. - and its was a good price (The Voodoo2 was
$250+) In horse power, it was very state of the art back then...
but by todays standards, it makes the GF-FX5200 or ATI9600se LOOK like
BMWs....

Think UT2004 would work on a Voodoo1 card?

 

[ammonton]

news:[email protected]...

If these "unfortunate handicaps" are what the average system is
running, there's your contradiction.

For games, systems with integrated graphics are low-end - both in terms
of graphics performance and the system overall.

If Mr. Sweeney was interested in targeting average systems, his quote
would have been "The only thing we could wish for is to be able to
come up with clever algorithms and optimizations that would allow our
engine to run smoothly on second-tier hardware".

That would be trading graphics performance for CPU performance. Your
vintage hardware would still be struggling, the bottleneck would just be
different.

The games I can't play on a Voodoo3 are surprisingly narrow. Namely,
they're all FPSes that require hardware T&L or some equally useless
feature that adds little or nothing to picture quality, much less
gameplay.

The number of games that require shader support is growing, and it's not
just FPSes (eg. Prince of Persia). T&L let you offload calculations onto
the graphics hardware, which has slowed the rate of increase in CPU
minimum requirements. Shaders let you do all sorts of effects, but they
haven't really been taken advantage of so far - both because the
technology is relatively young and because developers want to support
old hardware that don't implement them.

And nobody said otherwise! But at the same time, that doesn't mean
that Epic and Mr. Sweeney are gunning for the average system, if you
care to get back to that point.

But an average-spec system then will have far better shader support than
any graphics card available now. The old cards will be sitting in the
old computers they were originally bundled with, and they're not going
to be the driving force in the game market.

-a

 

[Darthy]

I'm slightly confused about one point: one of the major new features
of UT2004 is a software renderer. All by itself its rather confusing.
I mean, at this point, who doesn't have SOME sort of 3d acceleration
card? There's probably what, 3, maybe 4, people who are going to
actually use the software mode?

Theres this kid, son of a client.... He thinks Counter Strike is hot
shit on his TNT-M64 P4 system.

I told him I couldn't play CS, its too old, looks like crap, plays
like crap... when compared to UT2004 or other modern games.

I'll be giving him a crap load of my screen shots.

 

[Darthy]

FYI, I play Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries and Age of Mythology on a Voodoo3. I
have no complaints about the quality of graphics. It _could_ be nicer,
certainly, but it doesn't _need_ to be. That is, I've seen UT2k3 on a GF4
and I didn't think the small improvement over UT was worthy of a $200

GF4 what? GF4mx cards are actually GF2 technlogy. UT-Classic is
about 1/10th the graphic detail of UT2003/2004.

If you played UT2k3 on the GF4mx, the settings are WAY low. Go to the
unreal.com site, check out the screen shots... that is WHAT I see or
better on my setup.... in 1280x1024.

upgrade. The games I can't play on a Voodoo3 are surprisingly narrow.
Namely, they're all FPSes that require hardware T&L or some equally useless
feature that adds little or nothing to picture quality, much less gameplay.

heheh... yeah, right. That's just you. I've owned a 3 Voodoo3
cards (more than one system), I still have one of them that I just
want to hang on to, a piece of history. but since then, I've
upgraded to the TNT2-Ultra > GF2mx (both played UT better than the
Voodoo3) > GF3 > GF4 TI4200 > ATI9800Pro.

I've only recently retired UT-Classic. which I played almost
everyday since it came out, I haven't played it in weeks since I DLed
the UT2004 demo... the UT-Classic was getting WAAY old.

 

[Kevin C.]

Not that your points weren't valid but:

Designing for systems that weren't really _designed_ for gaming isn't
particularly useful since you aren't going to be selling many copies of
a game to non-gamers.

I think Maxis would disagree.

Again, it's a matter of perspective. "Gamers" probably go through dozens of
games in a year. Having the right hardware is of critical importance to be
able to play every new release and therefore it seems to us an "obvious"
thing that people must upgrade if they expect to play the newest games.
Despite that, "gamers" only constitute a small minority of people who buy
games. And granted, if a game developer is more interested in the niche
market than in the mass market, it's entirely their choice, but here we
simply disagree on what is meant by "average".

 

[Kevin C.]

GF4 what? GF4mx cards are actually GF2 technlogy. UT-Classic is
about 1/10th the graphic detail of UT2003/2004.

Yes, I'm aware of the two product lines. Though since you brought it up,
that makes an interesting point for me. GF2 technology is still being sold
TODAY. So what was being said about (real) GF4s not being around in 2006?

gameplay.

heheh... yeah, right. That's just you. I've owned a 3 Voodoo3
cards (more than one system), I still have one of them that I just
want to hang on to, a piece of history. but since then, I've
upgraded to the TNT2-Ultra > GF2mx (both played UT better than the
Voodoo3) > GF3 > GF4 TI4200 > ATI9800Pro.

And? Are you saying that you saw an increase in picture quality due to
hardware T&L? I'll make it even easier: are you saying you saw an increase
in picture quality? Because it's almost universally accepted that UT looks
better in Glide, for which it was optimized (you can ask in
alt.games.unreal.tournament if you want to take a poll). Throwing in better
GPUs might have given you a higher framerate and/or resolution, but I said
_picture quality_, which is neither of the two.

 

[Asestar]

The same reason that a Honda Civic cannot race with INDY or NACAR

races... its an AVG car for AVG functions.

Well.. according to NeedForSpeedU, my civic can It might even win..

 

[Mr. Brian Allen]

Far Cry on a 9700 Pro graphics card gave me a "wow". Even seeing the

rain on water in Morrowind in a GF4 was a "wow" moment for me. There
has been a lot of innovation in hardware and software since the GF3.

Beyond Good and Evil is doing that for me. The sense of speed in the
hovercraft looter missions and the look of the water is just amazing.

 

[Mr. Brian Allen]

Playing Vietcong I'm continually astounded in the variety of AI

placement and behavior that this game offers. For instance I'm now trying
to complete one of the quickfights (Arroyo). It's quite difficult, and I've
restarted the level literally dozens of times, and each time the initial AI
placement and behavior is slightly different. Very impressive.

I played Swat 3's singleplayer aspect for probably 4 months until the
multiplayer patch was released in late 2000. That game had awesome AI too.

 

[Mr. Brian Allen]

Theres this kid, son of a client.... He thinks Counter Strike is hot

shit on his TNT-M64 P4 system.

I told him I couldn't play CS, its too old, looks like crap, plays
like crap... when compared to UT2004 or other modern games.

Man, no kidding. I played CS religiously for 2 years, but when I started
playing multiplayer COD in December, it was over. It's painful to play CS
now.

 

[Philip Callan]

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Asestar wrote:
|>The same reason that a Honda Civic cannot race with INDY or NACAR
|>races... its an AVG car for AVG functions.
|
|
| Well.. according to NeedForSpeedU, my civic can It might even win..
|
|
My Impreza can kick its ass Now if I can just get a WRX Rally edition....
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[Bateau]

_.--""--._ On
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Maybe if you snipe...

If you use an assualt weapon he hears you and will go by boat to you
and will try to find you on land.

He should always react if someone in his LOS gets shot. Does this game
have those goldfish guards that forget that they've been attacked if you
leave them alone for 30 seconds? I can't believe developers ever decided
to do that. I don't care if a guy I shoot goes and alerts the whole map.
That should be part of the challenge.
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`-.-' K I N G O F T H E M O N S T E R S

 

[drocket]

That's exactly what the developer of UT2004 said on the Screen Savers last
night. Its to support laptops.

It STILL doesn't make much sense to me. First off, most notebook PCs
come with a 3d card anymore. Not a good one, true, but I'm sure that
it would still be a whole lot faster than software mode.

Then, to run a game like UT2004 in software mode, you're going to have
to drop your resolution to something like 640x480. Considering that
most notebook PCs have a LCD screen with a resultion of 1024x768, the
picture is going to look like crap when you stretch it out (and if you
bought a notebook PC with a resultion of 1280x960 (which could just be
doubled), you probably got one with a decent 3d card.)

Finally, I can't image the god-awful pain that it would be to play a
3d shooter with a notebook interface. Once again, I suspect we're
down to 3-4 people using software mode...

And it still doesn't make sense that they're targetting their current
game at a tiny, tiny market (people who want to play 3d shooters on a
notebook), but with their next game, they're planning to cut out a
large chunk of the market (anyone who doesn't have a high-end
videocard from the next year or so. And that's going to include the
entire notebook market they're currently trying to cater to.)

 

[Xocyll]

Not that your points weren't valid but:


I think Maxis would disagree.

Again, it's a matter of perspective. "Gamers" probably go through dozens of
games in a year. Having the right hardware is of critical importance to be
able to play every new release and therefore it seems to us an "obvious"
thing that people must upgrade if they expect to play the newest games.
Despite that, "gamers" only constitute a small minority of people who buy
games. And granted, if a game developer is more interested in the niche
market than in the mass market, it's entirely their choice, but here we
simply disagree on what is meant by "average".

"Gamers" are far more than a minority of the people who are going to be
buying the games that would _require_ newer hardware.

You don't need much of a system to play the Sims, you certainly don't
need a new video card, probably not even within 3 or 4 generations of
new.

You do need a good video system to play the latest shooter with state of
the art graphics.

If Maxis were producing a game like Unreal or DOOM3, I bet they wouldn't
be supporting every possible graphic chipset no matter how underpowered.


Bottom line: If the game is going to run like crap on a low end system,
why support that system?

How many sales are you going to make to people with low end systems when
the game runs badly?
How much did it cost in extra development time?
How much is it costing for tech support?
How much "bad advertising" are you suffering from people who are having
a horrible game experience on their low end system and are telling their
friends and posting on your web forums?

Are you ever going to make enough sales to the low end to make back your
expenses?

Xocyll

 

[Andrew]

And it still doesn't make sense that they're targetting their current
game at a tiny, tiny market (people who want to play 3d shooters on a
notebook), but with their next game, they're planning to cut out a
large chunk of the market (anyone who doesn't have a high-end
videocard from the next year or so. And that's going to include the
entire notebook market they're currently trying to cater to.)

I dare say they have good reason to believe there is a bigger
potential market than you do, I can't imagine they went to all the
pain of writing a software renderer just to satisfy a couple of users.