Grafic code and handleing of it

[vomitusdk]

i wonder why Ao dont use Doom3 engieen .. is there a reson why .. to costy or ?
Ao got a grafic lift after the pacth , but it tent to lag alot when set on max .
i got a P4 exterm edition 3,2 / 2 GB ram / sata disks / gainward ti 6700 ultra something .. and 8mbit internet connection ..

can any from FC answer this

[K4lib4n]

Answer what?About your PC?Does it have nice flowers painted on the side and a transparent case with neon lights?
The question about the engine is kinda lame.AO is like 4 years old...Its like asking why your 20 year old car doesnt have factory mounted GPS and a grid terminal.

[Technogen]

the doom3 engine wouldnt work for this type of game do to how the game handles itself. The porting over itself would simply take years todo since they would have to completely rebuild the engine. What really needs to be done is the Dx code updated to 9.x DX then the game would run smoother, but that in itself will take a while todo. how ever it would be a greatly needed update for say LE.

[Imnotamonkey]

Yeah I would love to see it expand into the DX9 SDK, and they may be doing that with the LE graphics update (I sure hope so, just DX anything would be nice) though usually a game is using a DX library from 2 versions ago.. Even many of the newest games aren't using DX9 but rather DX 7 or 8 (8 being kinda standard and 7 being kinda behined) which your PC's DX9 compliant card can fully interpret , and then some.

I believe that the entire code base for AO is based on Unix / Linux server topology and therefore uses the 'native tongue' for it's graphical libraries and so forth, these simply don't compare (in my opinion) to the latest greatest graphical libraries, which is a problem for the 'edgy gamer' crowd and makes these sorts of updates a real chore.

The plus in all this though is that the libraries have been (since AO first arrived, it was bleeding edge at the time though) pushing towards a universal accessibilty accross Windows and Linux / Unix of the best technologies, so there are ways now to get that low-level compatibility (you may have heard of the software industry embracing MS's .NET initiative for some years now).

I think the major problem is almost philosophical though. Unix programmers tend to code for Unix compatible with windows being a secondary though (just because Windows knows the instructions and will run the instructions) but hardly 'optimized' for Windows or taking advantage of the things say Doom 3 does, and Windows programmers design for Windows with the penguin OS as a non-issue. It's really a matter of "not being with the times" lol (from a nerdy point of view). They have common ground now , onwhich to meet, and though I don't see that in use in AO *yet*, I expect to, and hope deperately to soon...

So far as the Doom engines specifically (which is a common game codebase that the makers of Doom license out so other games can use them), Tech is totally right, AO wasn't based on any real prefab engine, I think, and you can't go back and re-base it on that without essentially a complete re-work.

But they *can* expand in different ways. There are some amazing new abilities in play that rival any game engine (beating most of them handily) involving extremely efficient graphics vectors. I suspect FC is at least looking for ways to use these in new expansions...

[Trypha]

Bump for any improvements to the graphics engine. AO is really old, it has faults even beyond that. If you look at the other games that were released around the same time, they consistently put more polys on the screen at equal or better texture or screen resolution with no graphics lag.

I almost, almost, almost don't care that AO has so few polys. The realism of the graphics is enough for me in most cases. What does get to me though, is the fact that so few polys are on screen and yet it still lags. Something horribly inefficient must be going on here. SL made things worse by increasing the number of polygons on the screen and AI made it even worse than that. It's like designing HL2 levels and trying to run them on the Quake1 engine. Result = LAG (minus the obvious compatibility problems, this is just an example).

Upgrade the engine, make the pipeline smoother and take advantage of the hardware that everyone has now. Do this before anything else, graphics wise. I'm sure many agree.

[dualShock]

i wonder why Ao dont use Doom3 engieen .. is there a reson why .. to costy or ?
Ao got a grafic lift after the pacth , but it tent to lag alot when set on max .
i got a P4 exterm edition 3,2 / 2 GB ram / sata disks / gainward ti 6700 ultra something .. and 8mbit internet connection ..

can any from FC answer this

doom/quake has never been good to do landscapes, not to mention the huge sizes that are in AO, the Unreal Engine could do it, but I remember how much Ons lagged all the time and it would not make AO lag free if they changed to use DX tecnology.... and we would proberly loose the ability to run in Windowed mode = no more click saver :/

[podlore]

I think the major problem is almost philosophical though. Unix programmers tend to code for Unix compatible with windows being a secondary though (just because Windows knows the instructions and will run the instructions) but hardly 'optimized' for Windows or taking advantage of the things say Doom 3 does, and Windows programmers design for Windows with the penguin OS as a non-issue.

So, you are saying that AO client was developed for unix/linux, and then ported to Windows? Interesting information. Where did you hear that? Where can I get that linux client?

[Darkbane]

So, you are saying that AO client was developed for unix/linux, and then ported to Windows? Interesting information. Where did you hear that? Where can I get that linux client?

He's just living up to his name...



Changing engines is a major undertaking, using an off-the-shelf one designed for an entirely different game type even more so...

[Metalynx]

Actually he's using that as a example. Point is...espcially to some of the newcomers to this game is this: It isnt as simple as you think to upgrade the Graphic Engine. They didnt design the original very well in the first place, and becasue of that design flaw, they cannot easilly make changes without a compleate evamp of the system (and unlike ...lets say Everquest, who did the very same thing a few years ago, Funcom isnt a huge company comparativly, that can spedn resources to make sucha revamp).

I'd eb shocked to see any form of improvment when LE comes out. Sorry Funcom if I've lost Faith in ye..but 4 years here and seeing wehat ive seen, I stand in large dougt of any form of game fixing.

*reaches up and slides his Shoulderpad back in place and scowls*

[Numbfreeze]

The first rule of game engines is: if you're not a game programmer, and you use the word "engine," you do not know what you're talking about.

[Numbfreeze]

Bump for any improvements to the graphics engine.

Yeah, that'll do it! They weren't gonna upgrade the "engine" but then a post got bumped on the forums.

[Imnotamonkey]

So, you are saying that AO client was developed for unix/linux, and then ported to Windows? Interesting information. Where did you hear that? Where can I get that linux client?

No no, my bad for not going further with that (the post was pretty long-winded as is )

The coding used for AO (all this is what I *suspect* mind you) was a C / C++ based language that can run on either Unix or Windows, but the prefab libraries used for all this were more favorable to Unix style programming and platform, so they don't take advantage of other types of graphical capabilities that might focus more on a Windows style approach (DirectX being one of those to a large degree).

All this amounts to is that AO sacrifices a lot of technology for the ability to play on low quality PC's and high-end PC's, with different operating systems on them...

And while I think this is a good idea in getting anyone the ability to play it with low hardware req's , I personally think the time has come for them to offer a "High-end" version as well that can be run with more advanced options..

Hope I explained that well ?

[Imnotamonkey]

He's just living up to his name...



Changing engines is a major undertaking, using an off-the-shelf one designed for an entirely different game type even more so...

Dont bother reading

I said it was... But this kind of dissmissive attitude is what keeps the game so far behined...

Now go test stuff eh?

[Imnotamonkey]

The first rule of game engines is: if you're not a game programmer, and you use the word "engine," you do not know what you're talking about.

Hmm well you clearly don't understand his / her post or the game development profession...I think you're flinging bitterness for lack of anything productive... He / she said it completely correct . It is the Doom 3 "Engine", and was a completely valid question in the first place..

It's very easy to question people, correct....?

The engine is the core product release with development api's that a game creator uses to hook into the lower level lighting / texture etc... code that was written for a game (Doom / Unreal, there are lots of them now). ID software licenses theirs to anyone wanting to use it as a basis for their game (saves amazing amounts of time in turning over a well made game in a relatively short time frame)

[Numbfreeze]

Hmm well you clearly don't understand his / her post or the game development profession...I think you're flinging bitterness for lack of anything productive... He / she said it completely correct . It is the Doom 3 "Engine", and was a completely valid question in the first place..

It's very easy to question people, correct....?

The engine is the core product release with development api's that a game creator uses to hook into the lower level lighting / texture etc... code that was written for a game (Doom / Unreal, there are lots of them now). ID software licenses theirs to anyone wanting to use it as a basis for their game (saves amazing amounts of time in turning over a well made game in a relatively short time frame)

lol, I don't understand the game development profession. Are you a professional game programmer?

[Trypha]

Yeah, that'll do it! They weren't gonna upgrade the "engine" but then a post got bumped on the forums.

Well I dunno about you, but when I refer to the engine I'm mostly speaking about whatever code they have that renders geometry on the screen, passing it through the texture and effects pipelines and such...I've messed around with DX before, and my programs were lousy and slow because I'm a novice. Other programmers, using the exact same API and hardware, were able to render more complex scenes much more efficiently than me, and I see that same thing going on here. If you're a professional then you know that not all culling algorithms and quadtree, bsp, etc etc algorithms are created equal, and it sounds like FC picked a bad one to start with.

BTW, whatever you say, ++ :P

[Trypha]

One more thing. I am under no illusions as to how difficult and expensive it will be to redo the graphics engine. However, just because it is difficult doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. I agree, however, that it probably won't be.

Honestly I wouldn't push this issue if FC would've just made an AO sequel instead of Age of Conan. In fact, if FC said today that they would release a sequel to AO I would forget about this issue entirely and just await the sequel.

But since that won't happen anytime soon, getting 4-15 FPS in a game that is years old and should be running at 40-50 FPS is getting quite annoying, and only gets more annoying with time. Also, I would argue that the old school graphics prevent many, many new players from trying the game or sticking with it.

[Imnotamonkey]

lol, I don't understand the game development profession. Are you a professional game programmer?

I have worked on 4 large scale game projects Hurf, that's planning / coding them from the bottom up. I have also been a programmer and worked on more than 20 large scale enterprise n-tier mission critical software projects over nearly 10 years with multiple Fortune 500 companies, since I was fresh out of high school.
BA MCSD / .NET MCDBA OCP MCAD A+ (as if that matters) , and several more, so yeah..I am... And you are??

It's not necessarily a bunch of out of work shoe salesmen and 4th graders here ...
And if you think I'm lying to sound cool well Im afraid that being as big a nerd as I am will never be cool....

If you'd like to swap credentials, I think you'll find that you do in fact kinda suck on this subject..

If the posters in this thread don't know *everything* about game programming, but still have a question, let them ask without badgering them. You clearly don't know enough to be correcting them, and the minions that will undoubtedly say something sarcastic and pithy following this to try to sound like they know more than college-level C loops in vai ed code, can blow in advance

You are just being a mud slinger from what I can tell, I would prefer you didnt on this subject anyway, and let people with valid (if not entirely defined) questions ask them without you treating them like S@#t.... m'kay?

[Cheapthrill]

Dood wtf?!? I jus installed doom3 in my AO directory and now AO uses the Doom3 engine... i just haven't seen any guildmates for the past week...

[Imnotamonkey]

Back in the context: Doom / Quake isnt really the sweetest with some texturing and rendering no, Unreal is better imho (but ID has totally revamped the Doom product from what I understand, so Im surprised if they didn't address this). Technogen was right in the first place and Darkbanes additional about game types is true too those are not much like AO even if the codebase weren't so old on AO.

There is an active database element to AO that is very much different than these games. The unique details of each character, the different dimensions, the items and all the details about those, make AO a world different then the games where you are given a relatively small set of options that can be quantified and optimized.

I'm not sure if EA is really even selling a game core for what they used in Battlefield 1942 / Bf2 , but I think they are, and that would be more appropriate in my opinion, though it too would be a massive undertaking like any of the others.

In the end the best thing AO could do (IMO) is try to offlload much of this stuff to the client which can then decide how best to do it, and let the streams inward do as little as possible... If they were to include DX code (or what ever graphics core) and the myriad graphic enhancements this way, they *maybe* could pull it off without the core being entirely reworked, but it's work either way.

But you know, customers do *pay* for work... Not like you'd be doing it for charity, unless they intend AO to be free entirely and forever (inwhich case buh-bye). As I understand it, no game has ever gone this long without a *complete* rebuild...

Lets see what LE holds... (if they ever tell us anything about it)

I'm really hoping for at the very least some graphical efficiency changes...