Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

[VR Golgot]

You do realise that not all games are created equal? some have better graphics fidelity that require better hardware, others can run on a potato but look like crap and some are better made than others, they have more talented developers who can make a game with very high levels of fidelity run at the same level of performance as one with lesser fidelity.

Lol

This a wonderful just-so story. I can't wait for your GDC talk

(I reckon they can squeeze you in between 'How a physicalised universe can smell of bacon' and 'The collateral gains of perpetual alphas'.)

SC has so much more load to come, and falters in so many areas required for even an MVP title launch right now, that I think you'd have a better benchmark for comparison when those things are closer to being in. Comparing the genious of its gloss-to-GPU ratio would be more telling at that point

Still, looking forward to Crusader V3 in the meantime eh?

 

[Discjirm]

You mean you're not running it off a PCIev9 SSD, with 512GB of GDDR12 VRAM in an RTX 99999XT graphics card?

I'm saying my PC was so annoyed with the EDO Alpha that it decided to blow its motherboard ...

It's actually put me in a bit of a quandary: I'm time-poor at the moment, and I don't think it's worth repairing my old PC (besides, some of the bits have gone elsewhere...) I'm fortunate to be able to afford a new rig, but I'm wondering if I delay for six months until after Christmas. Hopefully the chip crunch'll be over by then, and I only have an hour or two a week to play atm anyway. But I do miss those few stolen hours ...

 

[Intrepid3D]

Funny thing is, there are games out there that look much better than Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous but somehow don't bring computers to their knees.

There is clearly a matter of optimization issues for both games.

In ED's case it seems to be direct issues with lack of optimization.

In SC's case it seems that CIG (especially CR) focus way too much on fidelity to the point where there is a limit to what optimizations can bring. When they have ridiculously high textures on the soles of boots you have to wonder if they even care about performance or just assume people will buy the computers required to render it all at a good frame rate. It can certainly limit the number of people who can play your game. Back when Wing Commander came out, very few people i knew actually had PCs that could run it, and even then, to get it running at all, CR basically had to make it so that it unloaded the OS from memory once launched to eek out extra bytes. "Thank you for playing Wing Commander" you'd be greeted with on exist, before you rebooted the computer so you could use it again.

To some extent what looks good or not is in the eye of the beholder. But in a broad sense most people can see the difference. SC is not the best looking game out there, i agree but its certainly up there.

Another thing to keep in mind when comparing games is, and in this case this example is relevant, its much easier to create a small First Person Shooter map, like Call of Duty or Battlefield than it is to create an open world game like Red Dead Redemption II, in BF5 you're not looking into infinity, the draw distances are a couple of KM, your assets, the lighting, the shading only needs to work in a few square KM, having an area that's 10X that size is a world of difference and that much more difficult to balance visual quality with what the hardware can handle.

There is about half as much detail in some of SC Ships as there is on an entire map of CoD.

 

[Xink]

Good thing CIG didn't choose a small scale map FPS engine to make their large scale space game in then right?

Oh wait..

 

[Agony_Aunt]

To some extent what looks good or not is in the eye of the beholder. But in a broad sense most people can see the difference. SC is not the best looking game out there, i agree but its certainly up there.

Another thing to keep in mind when comparing games is, and in this case this example is relevant, its much easier to create a small First Person Shooter map, like Call of Duty or Battlefield than it is to create an open world game like Red Dead Redemption II, in BF5 you're not looking into infinity, the draw distances are a couple of KM, your assets, the lighting, the shading only needs to work in a few square KM, having an area that's 10X that size is a world of difference and that much more difficult to balance visual quality with what the hardware can handle.

There is about half as much detail in some of SC Ships as there is on an entire map of CoD.

True. Valheim is an absoloutely stunning looking game despite using lower resolution graphics. However, in this case I was actually talking about high poly/detail games, some that came out years ago, looking as good as SC (if not better) and yet quite playable with high framerates on my PC.

Not talking about whether its easier to create a specific game or not, which i feel is a separate topic and has little to do with how well it renders and looks.

I mean, take SC (and EDO), where you can get terrible framerates looking at a wall from point blank range. That just shouldn't happen. Its just rendering a single texture/model. Yet somehow my graphics card is trying to catch fire while showing just 20 FPS.

What no game should be doing is trying to render a whole world when staring at a wall. That just smacks of bad optimization.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Good thing CIG didn't choose a small scale map FPS engine to make their large scale space game in then right?

Oh wait..

You surely mean Star Engine! The game engine they effectively created from scratch because creating their own engine from scratch was not the right thing to do initially but apparently turned out they had to do that anyway.

 

[Intrepid3D]

True. Valheim is an absoloutely stunning looking game despite using lower resolution graphics. However, in this case I was actually talking about high poly/detail games, some that came out years ago, looking as good as SC (if not better) and yet quite playable with high framerates on my PC.

Not talking about whether its easier to create a specific game or not, which i feel is a separate topic and has little to do with how well it renders and looks.

I mean, take SC (and EDO), where you can get terrible framerates looking at a wall from point blank range. That just shouldn't happen. Its just rendering a single texture/model. Yet somehow my graphics card is trying to catch fire while showing just 20 FPS.

What no game should be doing is trying to render a whole world when staring at a wall. That just smacks of bad optimization.

My point is visual quality on its own is not the be all and end all of how well a game should run, its not as simple as that.
If your render budget is 2m vertices its much easier to get that budget into a 4X4 KM area than it is into a 40X40 KM area, if you can get the later to look anything like as good as the former you've done very well.

RE: the wall thing. It shouldn't, yet it does, its obvious to you and me, its just as obvious to the developer and if it was easy to put right the problem would not have been there in the first place.

I can make games, i know how to use Unreal Engine, and Cryengine, i've worked with Cryengine for years, i know it inside out, CIG or FDev wouldn't hire me, i don't have the talent they require.

$400 Millinon buys you a lot of talent.

 

[VR Golgot]

What no game should be doing is trying to render a whole world when staring at a wall. That just smacks of bad optimization.

Interestingly it seems that their culling itself is now pretty decent in SC. They're sometimes just rendering the toilet. Full in-the-moment fidelity achieved!

The vid vape shared is an interesting watch:

Source: https://youtu.be/JdP0U4XA7C0


But of course performance is still super poor in city locations. So if it ain't greeble overload, what the hell is it?

That guy's guesstimate seems to be that the CPU is perpetually querying the SSD re stuff that's been loaded there (and is perpetually waiting on it)

So maybe it is still greeble overload after all

(And it all leaves out the elephant in the toilet which is server performance. Which is bad everywhere )

 

[Dementropy]

You do realise that not all games are created equal? some have better graphics fidelity that require better hardware, others can run on a potato but look like crap and some are better made than others, they have more talented developers who can make a game with very high levels of fidelity run at the same level of performance as one with lesser fidelity.

All games are conceived equally, yes - often on a napkin as a way to generate revenue. The creation process, however, is not equal.

Would you compare SC to another MMO that has developers and deadlines? Would you compare a game that has no oversight to a project with an actual PM who can lay down the hammer and say, "These need to be removed or moved to a later date so we can provide an actual deliverable?" Would you raise questions when top leadership has been missing in action for over a year? When concerns are rebuffed with shiny new things instead of real explanations?

Are all games created equal?

 

[VR Golgot]

$400 Millinon buys you a lot of talent.

400 interns for 10 years?

Let us hope the bang to Buck-Rogers-developer does indeed work that way. (Maybe they can pack Chris off to the year 2419, and make a game at some point )

 

[hairychris]

Art direction is more important than polygon count. Fo sho.

My point is visual quality on its own is not the be all and end all of how well a game should run, its not as simple as that.
If your render budget is 2m vertices its much easier to get that budget into a 4X4 KM area than it is into a 40X40 KM area, if you can get the later to look anything like as good as the former you've done very well.

RE: the wall thing. It shouldn't, yet it does, its obvious to you and me, its just as obvious to the developer and if it was easy to put right the problem would not have been there in the first place.

I can make games, i know how to use Unreal Engine, and Cryengine, i've worked with Cryengine for years, i know it inside out, CIG nor FDev would hire me, i don't have the talent they require.

$400 Millinon buys you a lot of talent.

However, if you're throwing polygons at the screen in a search for fidelity then you had better be intelligent about how you do it, otherwise you have the old motorway enlargement problem (traffic expands to fill the road space) but with video hardware.

I wonder which way CIG have jumped...

 

[Agony_Aunt]

My point is visual quality on its own is not the be all and end all of how well a game should run, its not as simple as that.

Indeed, totally agree.

$400 Millinon buys you a lot of talent.

It can do. One wonders why they have so many seniors who look like they still haven't passed through puberty or why they seem to have such problems with hiring people with currently almost 80 vacancies and its been over 100. It may be that CIG do not pay above industry average and word on the grapevine is some experienced people would never work for CIG. If what The Agent says is true, then CIG might have real trouble hiring that talent, and it would explain why the CIG staff on average look so young.

And this isn't just a problem for CIG, I understand its a problem across the whole gaming industry. Why work for a gaming company where crunch is the norm and salaries are not great when you can work a regular 9 to 5 on a financial product without crunch and where the employer actually pays a competitive wage.

 

[MTBFritz]

Good thing CIG didn't choose a small scale map FPS engine to make their large scale space game in then right?

Oh wait..

It actually IS a small scale map its just that every asset is tiny small to make the whole thing appear bigger to a degree where the game engine has problems distinguishing one tiny pixel from the next and a lot of hilarious bugs happen

On a sidenote, I recently received my desktop out of the oversea shipment (these things sure take their sweet time). Have bridged over with my wifes "gaming laptop" to fill those free hours of mine. Its not bad but its a frickin laptop....yknow?

Anyway....my desktop is of course a much more powerful machine, specifically put together for gaming. Delving into whats currently on it I booted up Assassins Creed Odyssey and set it on ultra high graphics. You know open world sandbox, single player but with a vibrant living environment reacting to your actions with NPcs everywhere doing their thing. It runs butter smooth and looks gorgous. just one of the games AgonyAunt might have mentioned earlier. When it comes to great looking games...you dont have to look very far. Star Citizen today stands out not because of its graphics (tho I d say they DO look good but its not leading the pack anymore thats for sure) but because of its promises and personally...I ve watched this crap show long enough to not have high hopes for the SC we all envisioned back in 2012 coming together ever. When even small steps of progress take 3+ MONTHS and every step forward includes another step back.

I think if people would deal with the present more than they do with the potential future Star Citizen would ve going under a long time ago. So many people are strung along...waiting "just another month/year" to give it a chance, temporarily forgetting setbacks and frustrations because "the new ship sale looks just so good" and never bothering to keep their total in mind running into hundreds and thousands of "pledges" which are used to keep the company above water for another month.

Cant really say the people who think this is a scam are "crazy"....its borderline obvious by now. Would various agencies show more interest in this project we would know for sure by now.

 

[Intrepid3D]

Art direction is more important than polygon count. Fo sho.



However, if you're throwing polygons at the screen in a search for fidelity then you had better be intelligent about how you do it, otherwise you have the old motorway enlargement problem (traffic expands to fill the road space) but with video hardware.

I wonder which way CIG have jumped...

SC is a lot of flat low poly surfaces with high detail textures, Diffuse maps, Specular maps, Bump maps, Dirt maps, they also use Parallax Occlusion Mapping to fill in 3D detail, including rounding off edges, one thing that is obvious to me is FDev don't do this which is why you have a lot of shimmering on edges, which they try to minimise with Anti Aliasing and that's expensive.

 

[Xink]

CryEngine3 is a 12 year old engine at this point (from 2009). It being too fidelicious is the least of CIG's problems.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Interestingly it seems that their culling itself is now pretty decent in SC. They're sometimes just rendering the toilet. Full in-the-moment fidelity achieved!

The vid vape shared is an interesting watch:

Source: https://youtu.be/JdP0U4XA7C0


But of course performance is still super poor in city locations. So if it ain't greeble overload, what the hell is it?

That guy's guesstimate seems to be that the CPU is perpetually querying the SSD re stuff that's been loaded there (and is perpetually waiting on it)

So maybe it is still greeble overload after all

(And it all leaves out the elephant in the toilet which is server performance. Which is bad everywhere )

Its a good video. I think there is some truth to what LA has said in the past regarding DX11 as well, although not the whole picture and hoping that Vulkan will solve everything is a false hope. There are multiple variables at play. But even once those issues are resolved (assuming they ever are) SC is going to remain a resource hog anyway, thanks to the insanely high details/textures on everything.

 

[Intrepid3D]

This entire thing is probably no more than half a million vertices, if that.

All of the detail you see on it is made entirely by textures, including everything that appears to have 3D depth, they use POM to bend the shading to carve out what looks like panel seams and pipes, cables, recesses in the structure..... when in fact the underlying asset surface is completely flat and with it low poly.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

This entire thing is probably no more than half a million veracities, if that.

All of the detail you see on it is made entirely by textures, including everything that appears to have 3D depth, they use POM to bend the shading to carve out what looks like panel seams and pipes, cables, recesses in the structure..... when in fact the underlying asset surface is completely flat and with it low poly.

Ok, so those 3D textures and effects also take processing power right? Its not like you are getting that detail for free. Trading one type of processing for another. It might be that CIG's way is more efficient, but if it is, god help CIG if that is the more efficient way of doing things!

Also, if the models are largely flat, that's going to introduce clipping issues where you can clip through apparently solid looking objects.

 

[VR Golgot]

hoping that Vulkan will solve everything is a false hope.

Yeah I’m yet to see a Vulkan overhaul where anything changed radically. NMS got slightly better performance on low end gear. That seemed to be about it from a user perspective.

 

[Intrepid3D]

Ok, so those 3D textures and effects also take processing power right? Its not like you are getting that detail for free. Trading one type of processing for another. It might be that CIG's way is more efficient, but if it is, god help CIG if that is the more efficient way of doing things!

Also, if the models are largely flat, that's going to introduce clipping issues where you can clip through apparently solid looking objects.

Textures have little impact on a GPU's ability to render, it has some effect but not as much as Tessellation.

Tessellation is a series of triangles that make up the shape of an object, the more you have in your scene the harder the CPU needs to work to render it.
If you don't use enough Tessellation your assets look like Minecraft, blocky.

What you can do after you made your assets in 3DSMax is pass it through some optimisation software, that will reduce the visual quality, the level of detail in the object, but you can use textures to manipulate the shading in such a way that it brings that detail back but without the underlying surface being so heavily tessellated, this requires a lot more work than just shoving an asset densely packed with triangles into the game.
pretty much anyone can make an asset, refining it using various techniques is where time and talent comes into play.

An example of an utterly insane road bollard, each red line is a vertices making up triangles, there are millions in this, there should only be a few hundred with all the pitting on the surface made with POM and Bump Mapping textures.

Its an extreme example but this asset was made by someone who doesn't know how to do that. consequently that bollard alone was giving any GPU that saw it a hard time.

https://imgur.com/hH58ViA

Source: https://i.imgur.com/hH58ViA.jpg

https://imgur.com/QyGzxLM

Source: https://i.imgur.com/QyGzxLM.jpg