87 replies to this topic

[oldradagast]

Alistair Winter, on 11 May 2015 - 03:23 AM, said:

That would be some of the exceptions I referenced above. Some people have really big issues with it, but I'm running this game on a computer that was entirely average 7 years ago. Even back then, I couldn't run new games on the highest graphical settings, but I can still run MWO ok with medium graphics settings today.

Yes, the game is poorly optimized, but let's not blow things entirely out of proportions. You don't need a monster rig to run this game. People like me are going to struggle with a FPS drop, but that's the cost of being part of the PC master race. It's expensive.

Understood - I'm just rather disappointed with the game's optimization and stability. It feels like a clunker held together with duct-tape sometimes, and every "neat visual thing" they add seems to cause problems. That's why I have so little hope for destructible terrain not causing a massive FPS hit... and then they'll either fail to optimize it or allow a way to turn it off in the game (same as with the stupid cockpit glass.)

[Alistair Winter]

oldradagast, on 11 May 2015 - 03:26 AM, said:

Understood - I'm just rather disappointed with the game's optimization and stability. It feels like a clunker held together with duct-tape sometimes, and every "neat visual thing" they add seems to cause problems. That's why I have so little hope for destructible terrain not causing a massive FPS hit... and then they'll either fail to optimize it or allow a way to turn it off in the game (same as with the stupid cockpit glass.)

Yeah, I'm also hoping they find a low graphics version of destructible terrain. I.e. just make it disappear in a puff of smoke instead of using physics simulation to make the tree fall over and bounce on the terrain.

[Joseph Mallan]

bad arcade kitty, on 10 May 2015 - 06:07 PM, said:

and it will

we should be ready for it for a huge fps drop is coming

My FpS can't get much lower.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I think it depends.

The trees are already modeled, so the model already exists in game. So there is that.

I suppose it really comes down to how complex the math is.

If the tree only has a few states it can be in, the hit is probably negligible. If the game is simply tracking...tree standing or tree falling, which direction was it hit so it falls in same direction, tree at rest in ground. If that's it, I can't see it affecting processing too bad.

If there is complex physics involved, that could be another issue. Tree standing, gets hit and bounces off of mech, what velocity did the mech hit it, how heavy is the mech, how much mass does tree have, I'd it rolling down a hill, how much momentum does it have. OK, now is the tree still active once it stops, can it be kicked, once kicked, how hard, what direction???

Well, I could see how a bunch of active trees being knocked down, and a crap load of physics being applied, slowing an older machine down. If they keep it simple, it probably wouldn't be that bad. Old games had stuff being knocked down, but they got away with it because not much active physics calculations were being done.

I think that's what it might come down too.

Plus, if they are looking at this now, maybe we will see another optimization pass (or at least an on-off selection in graphics settings for destructible environments).

[Tarogato]

Urrghh. All we see for three years is "we want destructible terrain! We want destructible terrain! We want to knock over trees! We want to smash cars and lightposts!"

Then PGI reveals a tech demo of destructible terrain and all I see on the first page of this thread is "We don't want destructible terrain, it's a terrible idea"

... wtf, people? Make up your minds.

[Joseph Mallan]

Tarogato, on 11 May 2015 - 03:45 AM, said:

Urrghh. All we see for three years is "we want destructible terrain! We want destructible terrain! We want to knock over trees! We want to smash cars and lightposts!"

Then PGI reveals a tech demo of destructible terrain and all I see on the first page of this thread is "We don't want destructible terrain, it's a terrible idea"

... wtf, people? Make up your minds.

QFT. Thank You sir.

[Raggedyman]

bad arcade kitty, on 10 May 2015 - 06:07 PM, said:

and it will

we should be ready for it for a huge fps drop is coming

suggestion: if it's going to break the game to an unplayable level the developers will either cut back on the implementation to a level that doesn't slow it down to much, delay the implementation until the engine can handle it (either through update or upgrade), or go "yeah, couldn't add it in without breaking the game. Sorry" and not putting it in.

Or they could look at the numbers and go "well X% will be able to still play, and we're happy with that" and put it in anyway.

Radical suggestion, I know.

[zagibu]

Seriously, if it's going to noticeably decrease FPS, they are doing it very wrong.

[Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson]

Hi
If they are going to do this why can't we get destructible hangers, airport towers, guard posts etc before we get trees that can be burnt or cut down with laser/Ac. For example would there not be lookout towers at bases and have guard posts at or around drop points in the base.

[TWIAFU]

Tarogato, on 11 May 2015 - 03:45 AM, said:

Urrghh. All we see for three years is "we want destructible terrain! We want destructible terrain! We want to knock over trees! We want to smash cars and lightposts!"

Then PGI reveals a tech demo of destructible terrain and all I see on the first page of this thread is "We don't want destructible terrain, it's a terrible idea"

... wtf, people? Make up your minds.

Community complains X feature is not in game.

Demo released X feature is coming!

Community complains X feature is going to be in game.

Rather typical and humorous.

[Dawnstealer]

Khobai, on 10 May 2015 - 06:32 PM, said:

i dunno why we even need destructible terrain...

its not like any of the things well be able to destroy will have an effect on the game.

we cant destroy anything meaningful like buildings for example...

It definitely will matter. Imagine Emerald Taiga with the trees knocked down. Or where the trees, now that they're physical objects and not sprites, actually block incoming fire.

That's huge.

[Mechteric]

My bet is the UI fps drop will continue to be the worst hit, kinda doubt this will do much.

[Tom Sawyer]

Maybe I am being selfish but I did not build my high end gaming rig and keeping it upgraded to have to throttle it back for all those who could not or choose not to.

I really hate the trees in this game. They only block vision aka concealment but fail to provide cover.

Either take them out or make them provide cover.

I can compromise. Make them provide cover but when hit by a 30+ ton mech make them explode or simply disappear

Something.

Edited by Tom Sawyer, 11 May 2015 - 07:10 AM.

[Wintersdark]

bad arcade kitty, on 10 May 2015 - 06:07 PM, said:

and it will

we should be ready for it for a huge fps drop is coming

Why? They discuss this in the video - the physics are extremely simple, and the performance cost is very minimal.

[FatYak]

Part of the problem to is that people have to get past the "my 486 DX 2-66 with my 256k VGA card and 8mb RAM" should still be able to run it

EDIT

Actually, more like 4mb RAM =D

Edited by FatYak, 11 May 2015 - 07:31 AM.

[EgoSlayer]

Anjian, on 11 May 2015 - 12:56 AM, said:

That is what exactly optimization is. You don't have to draw that much polygons when you can achieve it for less. Optimization is about proper allocation of the total polygon budget. It is not a silver bullet but carefully planned degradation, done so seamlessly you don't notice the magic.

For example, you don't need 10,000 polygons on the mech in your screen all the time. If the mech is rendered as something at a far distance away, you can degrade the number of polygons to lets say, less than a hundred, or even less than fifty. You won't tell the difference if the mech is described as a far object. Heck, since in combat, all the mechs are seeing are going to be some distance away and are relatively small to your eyes, they can go with much less. The only time you probably need 10,000 polygons is when you are examining and gloating at your mech in the Mechlabs. With a lower polygon count on the battlefield, you can display multiple mechs. Zooms will increase the polygons you see obviously, but it also drastically cuts down the number of mechs you see in your field of view. Mechs not in your field of view are simiply not rendered.

World of Tanks boasts some 8,000 to 100,000 polygons on their new tank HD models, but this is not what you are going to see in the battlefield. You will probably see all that 100,000 polygons in their HD glory when you are viewing your tank in the workshop.

Occlusion and hidden surface removal are done at the engine level, e.g. Cryengine code for MWO. WoT wrote their own game engine, and are not drawing 100,000 poly tanks on low end DX9 systems. It's far easier to rewrite the hidden surface algorithms when you wrote them yourself, rather than relying on a purchased engine.

And I would rather have them fix things like hit registration then spend time on rewriting the rendering engine. People already complain about the lack of detail on mechs, something that was better in closed beta. But it was 8v8 then, larger maps and 12v12 pushed that level of detail down. Something that will "fix itself" if we could get to DX12 and could bring back the better damage modeling.

[Hydrocarbon]

So 24 mechs with jointed/articulating arms, legs, and torsos that leave wreckage on the ground all akimbo in random orientations is going to have a serious issue when the server says "make that tree fall"? lol

I can see PGI messing it up horribly, but I can't see it being worse than smoke/steam effects. Honestly I've been annoyed for too long that I can't equip the adamantium armor made from the trees on Viridian Bog. I'll settle for whatever BS they give us that lets us make even a dent in those f***ers.

Kristov Kerensky, on 10 May 2015 - 08:38 PM, said:

Seriously, PGI has to have DX9 and a 32bit application for the game because the majority of the playerbase can NOT run higher than DX9 or in 64bit, and you are trying to tell us the coding is the problem? Get out of the catnip.

Got to love a game that offers $500 mechs but has people playing it that can't afford $50 for a used GPU. I spent $100 in my 7950 and bought my 3570k quite a while ago and the game runs fine besides the typical smoke issue.

[xe N on]

Sorry, but in if destructible terrain drops your frame rate in 2015 it is either a bad game engine or a bad game designer or both.

There are plenty of games that use collision physics and destructible objects that are multiplayer online and provide good fps on average systems.

[N0MAD]

So tell me why in a game like WT, with HUGE detailed maps that have massive areas of well rendered and detailed trees/buildings in huge numbers, and i mean massive areas, destructible assets, vehicles colliding, lots of fire and smoke, massive amounts of NPCs tanks, AA vehicles, armored cars, naval units, arty and AA constantly firing, flak happening constantly, 32 human players travelling at 400km+, and a lot more i wont mention, i can get 100+ constant FPS on my system (at max graphics lvls) and yet get 40 to 60 FPS that is just never constant (at low graphics lvls)?.
BTW, my system is..
AMD 8350 , 8 core @ 4 ghz.
16 gig of good ram
SSD main drive.
Radeon R9 200 series.
Bad system that is only bad in MWO or is it MWO?.

Edited by N0MAD, 11 May 2015 - 06:21 PM.

[Kira Onime]

EgoSlayer, on 10 May 2015 - 08:12 PM, said:

But I don't think that will happen since we are stuck on DX9 to support most of the player base.

DX9 is something that was released in the early 2000s.
There comes a point where you have to stop supporting 13 years old software.

I'd have to confirm this but I heard that some devs will be dropping DX9 with Dx12 comes out.