Can the Cobra engine handle detailed populated planets with cities?

[Marc_Hicks]

I am not too worried about whether it is technically possible, but I am perplexed at the thought of all the assets FD would have to create to make it feel alive and real.

Personally I think that FD should not try to give us free access to entire cities, but make use of Hubs with limited accessible city areas.
Fundamentally this is a spacesim and if they can give me the illusion of being in a huge city that would be more than enough for me.

Like others said I would already be very happy if I saw npc walking and driving around current planetary stations.

I think this is almost certainly the way they will go.....and will even be able to explain it-in Lore terms-by the fact that no major city is going to want Aircraft Carrier Sized ships constantly zipping across their airspace.

I believe we will see a largely "cookie cutter" approach to city-styles, with slight variations mostly based on economy, population & government type.....which is more than sufficient for my needs.

 

[Iskariot]

I think this is almost certainly the way they will go.....and will even be able to explain it-in Lore terms-by the fact that no major city is going to want Aircraft Carrier Sized ships constantly zipping across their airspace.

I believe we will see a largely "cookie cutter" approach to city-styles, with slight variations mostly based on economy, population & government type.....which is more than sufficient for my needs.

I agree that this is the best way to do it for big city areas. Even then the amount of assets FD has to create is huge.
Just look at what it takes to create one single believable city in GTA or Watchdogs. It simply is not doable on the scale of a Galaxy.
What they could do is give us free access to smaller settlements, rural areas etc.


And in the far future when the base game is largely finished FD could sell special expansions in which they give us access to a fully realized city on the scale of GTA with full story campaign etc. It would be a game in a game.
I would gladly pay 50 bucks for such an expansion.

 

[Hellfire85]

Everyone is always so negative about FD...

Be it the engine, the content, the lore, the game as a whole, the team of devs behind it...

Why are you guys even bothering playing this game?

 

[Darkfyre99]

I'm getting 100-160 FPS around stations in 4k with a stock 1080Ti. [???]

I feel the same way.

I've got a regular old 980, not even the Ti version, and yet I can play VR High without judder in stations, on planets, and in rings. I can actually get the same results on VR Ultra if I take the time to kill every single task not necessary to play Elite, but I'm too lazy to do that on a daily basis, and many of those things I need.

I was taught there are four data bottlenecks in computers:

• CPU
• RAM
• Motherboard
• Hard Drive

The slowest of which will always be the hard drive.

Whenever I build a new computer, I've always spent most of my money to getting high data transfer rates in those four areas, and then move my current graphics card into that rig. A year or two down the line, I'll get a better graphics card, but I've never felt the need to get the latest and greatest, because anything over 60 frames per second is wasted IMO, or 90 if you're playing in VR.

So again, I don't think the question is whether or not the Cobra engine could handle populated cities. I think the question is if players with sub-par computers, with or without high-end graphics cards, can handle populated cities.

 

[Robert Maynard]

The slowest of which will always be the hard drive.

Especially as Microsoft, in its demonstrably finite wisdom, defaults the page-file to "system controlled size" - which means that it grows and shrinks at need - which exacerbates fragmentation of the drive. The first thing I do on a new install is to set the page-file to fixed size, i.e. min = max. Then I disable auto-defragmentation (on Windows 10).

 

[Kemo]

Everyone is always so negative about FD...

Be it the engine, the content, the lore, the game as a whole, the team of devs behind it...

Why are you guys even bothering playing this game?

well... not 'everyone'

I'm still very much enjoying ED, can't wait to get back in my ship when the weekend arrives, and am very much looking forward to future expansions and updates. Been playing this since Alpha, have spent more cash on this than any other game I have ever owned (direct on the game + all the additional stuff, VR, HOTAS, TrackIR, PC parts etc) - it is defiantly my hobby - and i'm in my 40's.

I, like almost all folks here, want FD to continue to expand on this game, and would more than happily support this financially where needed.

 

[verminstar]

Everyone is always so negative about FD...

Be it the engine, the content, the lore, the game as a whole, the team of devs behind it...

Why are you guys even bothering playing this game?

Im not...playing the game, I just follow the forums in the hope things improve.

Could the cobra engine handle cities? I dunno...could FD handle the task of building them? And would the cities come in any other colour than beige? Id be much more interested in asking those two questions than taking a guess at what a game engine can cope with ^

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

You could probably link the surface structures we have now into city sized areas.
Its going to use procedural generation which as we've already seen can produce an enormous amount of content.

 

[Calebe]

Can the game engine handle cities? My guess is yes, the real question is, can your PC handle cities? If yes how many will increase settings to the point the game stutters and then instead of lowering the setting just complain it is the game (game engine) fault. My PC is top of a 1080TI etc... but I stutter when I max everything possible. Yet how many remember the original Crysis game? Top of the line everything and no one could max the graphic settings on release or even the next year. Why because it pushed the envelope. How many blamed the engine or instead waited to get the GPU power to finally max the settings? You had to wait no single GPU could handle the game on maximum on a high res screen on that generation of graphic cards.
.
So now we have the question on cities. Can they do it? Again I think they can. Can your system handle it? A lot will not be able to. So instead of saying I need to upgrade, FD will get the blame, the game engine sucks, the game sucks. Why do I need to upgrade to handle cities on planets with atmospheres? Sure I can lower all settings and the game looks bad, the engine is to blame. (Just wait for it, it will happen).
.
Already FD is talking dropping 32 bit support and some people are still on 32 bit and don't/can't upgrade to 64 bit. Just imagine the uproar what do you mean I need a GPU/CPU upgrade for the expansion to land on a planet with an atmosphere and cities? Just grab popcorn the fun will begin anew.
.
Calebe

 

[lenna]

I think the question isn't if the Cobra engine can handle cities. It's if the players running running Elite on potatoes (with or without 1080s installed) can handle cities.

I would wager that my rig would be able to handle cities to an acceptable level.

I have not noticed a single stutter so far in ED.... i7-9650X, 64GB DDR4, GTX 980 Ti... Rock-steady 45Hz using VR Ultra Mode with Adaptive Half-Refresh NVIDIA Synch mode... when I was running on the 144 Hz monitor I was also not getting any stutter as I recall (72 Hz using Ultra Settings with Adaptive Half-Refresh NVIDIA Synch mode). I am not certain I actually need to use the Half-Refresh Synch mode but the resulting frame rate is more than adequate for me.

The ED engine is far from broken and those claiming it is don't know as much as they think they do.

 

[Siranui]

Actually, I doubt it. Current lifeless rocks cause a major impact to frame rates and this is with simple single source lighting and fairly low levels of detail. Stations also seem to stress the engine as you can hear the video card fan really crank up when inside. The Cobra engine is probably one of the biggest limitations to DB's vision. If there's any doubt then simply look at that other game SC and how it's needed to be totally rewritten to try and support similar objectives.

Sounds like your PC spec is more of the issue than the engine.

 

[Spyro Jance]

I don't recall Frontier ever saying they intended to simulate cities.

They intend to have atmospheric planets, and they intend to give us the ability to walk around, but that does not mean cities full of people.

What I can imagine is atmospheric planets where you can walk/drive around, like in No Man's Sky, with some flora and fauna, and probably some game play around it (Braben mentioned big game hunting)

And from a realism perspective I imagine all populated planets would have strict no-fly rules - the people living in those cities would never allow spacecraft to come anywhere near major population centres!

If we ever get the chance to land on planets like Earth, then the simplest thing would be to put all the major cities under domes. There may be small "trade missions" where commanders can interact - but no mingling with the native population (the excuse can be due to strict quarantine regulations).

 

[Barking_Mad]

Thank you for confirming the need to put you on my ignore list. To me, there is no real difference between an "apologist" & a "hater troll" two sides of the same coin who will outright lie to defend their entrenched positions.

Why do a sense an SC fanbois who still won't admit that he got scammed by the game's designers?

Can't rep you again. So +1.

 

[DaveB]

There's no question that with appropriately created assets the Cobra engine is capable of rendering city-sized environments. In many ways, these would be potentially less arduous for the engine than space scenes - The sight-lines shorter etc. With proper object occlusion leading to culling asset geometry that is obscured by nearer structures before any considerations of LODs or texture maps enter the equation, rendering a detailed interior environment or a built-up exterior scene is not necessarily any more complex than rendering a single "room".

By far the biggest challenge will be the combination of procedural generation of the structures themselves and how that corresponds to asset usage. The assets will have to be modular in nature, with appropriate rules in the PG engine to dictate how the modules may combine into individual structures, with variances on those rules dictating different structure types etc.

It's far from an insurmountable challenge, either to generate or render at acceptable levels of visual fidelity, only the sheer scale of the effort in providing sufficient diversity in each environment makes it daunting.

I could probably answer in more precise detail by hooking the render pathway on this box and tracing stuff individually but honestly, it's too much hassle to do that if I'm not being paid for it when I could instead just be playing the game

tl;dr version - if your current rig handles the current ED graphics ok, it will probably handle cities/megastructures/whatever they add to it without much difference in your experience. If it doesn't, I wouldn't point at the engine as the culprit without a LOT more evidence than "I get a framerate drop in these scenes..." - particularly when other folks with similar hardware don't report the same.

 

[lenna]

If we ever get the chance to land on planets like Earth, then the simplest thing would be to put all the major cities under domes. There may be small "trade missions" where commanders can interact - but no mingling with the native population (the excuse can be due to strict quarantine regulations).

I imagine the space ports/cities would be largely like the current space ports at least initially. Over time though, I would expect them to be more sprawling and more realistic. Dome based cities may exist on some planets but I would not expect it to be the norm.

The level of activity I would expect to see from the air is probably something comparable to hover cars/shuttles and mag-lev like trains. The only times I would expect to see NPC Avatars walking about would be with-in confined areas or perhaps in limited numbers as part of free-roaming events (c/f hunting parties).

None of the above is unrealistic, but as for what we will actually get... we will just have to wait and see.

I would say, I do not expect to see cities like London, Paris, New York, Sidney, etc all modelled to the nTh degree with even hundreds of people walking around their streets. I would perhaps expect to see at least some of the well known landmarks modelled/represented to at least some degree but as we are talking over 1000 years in the future the key landmarks may not look exactly as they do today.

 

[KG_Jedi]

I'd expect CMDRs not being able to land in cities (anyway, who will allow huge spaceships with bunch of weapons modified from some self-made engineers to land in city?). Perhaps CMDRs will be only allowed to land on some bases few dozen km away from city, and if CMDR tries to go there, he will be instantly shot down by super AA guns.

Still, CMDRs will be able to visit everything on planet except enclosed cities... Just look around visiting random flora and fauna and take bunch of screenshots along with harvesting 1000 pcs of random materials for god-knows what purpose.

 

[Old Duck]

Can the game engine handle cities? My guess is yes, the real question is, can your PC handle cities?

I'm a console player, so I'm definitely interested in this aspect. I bet my console could, if cities were "no fly zones" under a certain altitude. I run FS2004 in fairly old hardware via Wine on Linux, and the cities render surprisingly well on this old, very much NOT a gaming machine. There are many tricks that FDev can do to make a city look alive and 3D at altitude that won't be a computational burden.

People do need to have reasonable expectations. Every city can't be "Grand Theft Auto" or "Paradise City". Like I said, make it so you can fly over it, but if you try to land on the city streets, you get shot down (just like IRL). This is a space / flight sim after all, not a city sim.

-- edit --

Concept ninja'd !!

 

[Oddball]

If FD continue to improve the cobra engine over the next five years then YES. Also, in 5 years time people would have significantly faster graphics cards.
So I would say that in 5 years time the cobra engine would be able to do stuff that the Cryengine can do today.

 

[Ian Skippy]

If FD continue to improve the cobra engine over the next five years then YES. Also, in 5 years time people would have significantly faster graphics cards.
So I would say that in 5 years time the cobra engine would be able to do stuff that the Cryengine can do today.

Then again, Cobra can already do what CryEngine after many years cant. As CIG has learned.

 

[davedf]

Well, it won't have to for a long time yet

As an aside, everyone assumes that rendering a city would be more difficult than a bare planet. The thing about big buildings is that they occlude the assets behind them and make the horizon much closer, so the rendering load may not be much greater.

Also, cobra will be switching to DX12 or Vulcan for the next release, which should benefit performance.