New Models1

[tg626]

I've seen some discussion in game and forums about the models used in the game. I wanted to put my perspective out there.

#1 - while better textures and models would be nice, they would also be harder on older comps. What would be ideal to me would be a downloadable "patch" somewhat like the Duke Nukem 3d models mod. So you could run the game under it's original specs or modern ones.

#2 - I notice that the starbase interiors are w3d models. Progen bases with their VAST open (tho inaccessable) areas were always hard on frame rates. I'd LOVE a set of replacement model files that had those open areas sealed off and deleted from the mesh - they look great, but in a game that otherwise runs just fine, Progen bases always slam my frame rate, turning the game into a slide show....

[Daywolf]

I think it’s more about the antiquated engine itself rather than the models and textures. If Westwood/EA had opened the source code (e.g. like Ryzom did) before ending the project, the engine could have been updated with new performance tweaks over the years, modernized. The texturing format updates here should have increased performance on most systems, but there is only so much that can be done without the ability to recode the rendering engine. Honestly, when these projects get dumped, they really should release some or all of the source code, SDK’s or whatever. I’ve always felt ripped off by EA since they canceled EnB and just left all us retail box owners with nothing. I know that there are most likely some licensing issues (as with 3rd party vendors) so that they cant release everything, but they should have release something, enough to work with, even if it took an additional purchase for the SDK or what have you. I still feel rotten about EA, enough to pass their games by on the shelf in *most cases, to this day.

I agree though, I mean on anything that would burden this engine even more, in it‘s present state, changes that would slow down rendering speeds or even complicate it beyond the engines actual ability …which is quite limited.

Ideally, what should be done, or would be the absolute best direction to go is as Tienbau said recently with using something like Freespace 2. I would take that as not a replacement to the current game client but as an alternative (e.g. as UO did with multiple clients). That would dramatically decrease performance problems, not just now but thinking five or ten years down the road as OS’s move along and become not so friendly with old emulation. Hah, think DOS, how fun is that to try to get working on a modern system? Not a pretty site, indeed. Heck, I don’t even think I could install my box set of Visual Basic for 3.11 on my current system, well, not something easily done, anyway. Of course that’s years of work, introducing Freespace 2, and it wont be about eye candy so much as about stability, performance and usability. Not to mention ease of use for content expansion, so much easier.

You get low FPS as it is now? If you are not on a laptop, it’s best to find an new GPU and something that doesn’t leech using shared memory, cram it in. If you have a desktop, you don’t have much of an excuse, but I totally understand the laptop thing, and know how there is not much that can be done in that case beyond some system tweaks or altogether replacement. I don’t know how the new ASUS ~$350 laptops do, but I’d probably be contemplating some change in the near future if I currently had performance issues with an antiquated game engine. Oh I do though, but on my laptop that I don’t use for games, just for writing and scripting etc. and even that has pretty much gone beyond it’s intended lifespan. My current desktop I’ll probably just convert it to a Linux media server soon enough, though it runs EnB very well, it’s becoming even a bit too antiquated just for the interwebs, well slightly. Edited January 20, 2012 by StarbuckJD

[Overtkill]

I believe i the starbases, the game only renders one room at a time, which would be the room you are standing in.

As far as the older puters go, the graphics settings applied at after using the EnBconfig.exe, determine what your best capabilities are in game, and applies those settings as such. There are also the graphics options in game that a person can tweak. Also, be aware there are several different models exist for mipping. Mipping is several models of the same object in game for varying levels of detail. For example: You are flying towards a planet and see it coming toward you. Internally, the object for the planet can consist as many as 10 different models of the same thing. The difference is texture size and number of poly's applied to each mipping level of the object.. Your graphics settings combined with the distance of a model decides which detail level of model will be displayed. The further away you get, the less detailed the model will be while drawing it on screen. This is why many objects appear fuzzy at a distance, and high detail close up.

In a nut shell: Mipping is the built in, automatic adjustment done by the game engine to best render what is closer and thus better quality than more distant objects. This function applies to not only texture size, but also for the 3D models in the game. This is why sometimes when you approach a mob, planet, station, or whatever, you sometimes see the object start as a blur, then "snap" into a higher detail levels as you get closer. The .dds texture files for example, contain many copies of the texture for a given quality/mip level. That is why when viewed in a compatible image viewer or editor, you see the same texture many times in decending order, larger to smaller. Each of those copies of the same texture are referred to as mip levels. The largest copy of the texture is the close up view, where as the smallest is most distant. This can save you in terms of cost by lowering the needed system resources by drawing/rendering more distant objects with the least amount of detail (texture and mesh), and the closest with the highest detail. So what you were asking for in a reduction of model detail is already in the game. It varies with your enbconfig.exe graphics test and your settings in the game.

So, what do we make of all of this? Don't run your game at max settings unless you have a powerful video card, CPU, and so forth. Also, pease keep in mind that the rendering engine and objects in this game were developed between the years 2000 -> 2004. So, any system build in the last 7 years with either an ATI or nVidia based video card shouldn't have any problem running this game at max settings. I was doing that in "Live" on an old AGP based Geforce 5950 video card in live, with no issues. For EnB these days, I have a custom profile that I've been working on for my new nVidia/EVGA Classified Geforce 590, in the nVidia Control Panel. I started with the base settings for an older Westwood title, and have been tweaking and turning up the settings/detail appropriately. You might have the ability to do this to tweak your own system as well.

I hope this explains a few things a bit for you.

-Overt.

[Daywolf]

heh yeah, I wish my NVIDIA CP would pass all that eye candy settings to the client, especially antialiesing. My desktop is definitely old, well at least drive access and CPU a bit dated (GPU and DRAM is always my endeavor), yet EnB is hardly even a minimal stress at best quality settings. I think I was on the Voodoo card (4or5) when EnB released, was a fragging great Quake rig in the day (which I still play lol). You would probably need to mention your specs someplace, because even old systems (desktop) shouldn’t shudder at the best settings beyond super high resolution settings which require huge monitors anyway. That's pretty much it though, shootout between NVIDIA and ATI, though either one even five years old should max your performance ...provided you are not trying to shove it into a commodore 64 heh.

But yes, newer assets don't always mean greater system requirements. Development usually has more to do with pushing the limits, but the technology is always refined to give greater performance even at very low poly count with models or even my fav texture format DDS (DirectDraw Surface) which saves on DRAM (the only format that retains compression in memory). Edited January 20, 2012 by StarbuckJD

[Lucy]

I've actually been tempted to start making a whole new client. I have a fully licensed engine which is highly optimized for doing so. Thing is, I need two things.

1: A white paper on the protocol
2: At least one other person with experience in C# and networking to assist me. I'm a pretty decent programmer, and fluent in C#, but networking is not my forte. When I have done networking, it's always been in straight C, and for operating systems other than Windows.

(edit)
A third thing I thought of
3: Permission to run an untested, pre-alpha client on one of the test servers.

(edit again)
If I do this, once the client can communicate with the servers just fine and it's playable, a new client would need all new artwork for everything. In theory we could keep the same visual styles and themes, but the art itself would have to be new. Otherwise we'd be distributing a client with assets we don't own the IP for. Edited January 20, 2012 by Mouse

[Daywolf]

[quote name='Mouse' timestamp='1327095769' post='51864'] I've actually been tempted to start making a whole new client. I have a fully licensed engine which is highly optimized for doing so. [/quote]
You might need a lot more things actually. If it’s a licensed engine, it’s quite probable there are license restrictions which for the most part wont let you mod an existing game and linking them together. Game engine developers are pretty strict in most cases, not willing to have their wares being linked with anything that even hints on infringements to intellectual property rights even if the final product is given away for free. It’s a reputation thing. So you will usually find heavy modders turning to open source with more laxed licensing. Additionally, to such a degree of work involved in this type of modification, you will probably need more than one to help. You will probably need a carpenter too …one that is good at carving square blocks into round blocks so they will fit into the round holes lol such as modding. Actually, it is probably more expedient to replace all the content assets, basically building a whole new client side system though with the EnB theme in this case, and open source would probably be the most appealing approach for any involved. My 2¢ anyway.
Yeah like what you edited in (again), basically that. And that is the big job. Edited January 20, 2012 by StarbuckJD

[Lucy]

[quote name='StarbuckJD' timestamp='1327100092' post='51866']
You might need a lot more things actually. If it’s a licensed engine, it’s quite probable there are license restrictions which for the most part wont let you mod an existing game and linking them together. Game engine developers are pretty strict in most cases, not willing to have their wares being linked with anything that even hints on infringements to intellectual property rights even if the final product is given away for free. It’s a reputation thing. So you will usually find heavy modders turning to open source with more laxed licensing. Additionally, to such a degree of work involved in this type of modification, you will probably need more than one to help. You will probably need a carpenter too …one that is good at carving square blocks into round blocks so they will fit into the round holes lol such as modding. Actually, it is probably more expedient to replace all the content assets, basically building a whole new client side system though with the EnB theme in this case, and open source would probably be the most appealing approach for any involved. My 2¢ anyway.
[/quote]

Nope, no such license restrictions. I have the engine fully licensed. The only restriction on what I can do with it is that I cannot use it to make a game development kit. Like basically I can't go and make a scripting engine with it and then release it as the engine with this scripting engine for the purpose of allowing other people to make their own games with it. That's it.

The engine I'm talking about is closed sourced, and interestingly enough, Electronic Arts has used it for a few games, but they didn't make the engine. Then there's the fact that I'm not talking about a mod for an existing game, but a reimplementation with all new code and all new assets. It would be like saying "oh, no, sorry, space mmos have already been done, you can't do that. No sorry, Doom did zombies and demons first. Hey what're you doing there? Ultima did the medieval fantasy game back in the 80s, you can't do that." Or in fewer words, nihil novi sub sole.

I honestly wouldn't need more than one person to get the project started and get some momentum behind it, which is what I'm talking about doing.

As for open source, I was intending on it. Even though the engine I have is close sourced, it has an absolutely beautiful IDE that lets you do just about anything you want, entirely through Mono. It's the assets and Mono based code that would be open sourced. What's more, the engine itself is actually free in a basic form. Like I said, I have a fully licensed version, so I get access to extra features like calling out to unmanaged code, render to texture, screen space effects, low level graphics access, etc. Though a replacement client for EnB is totally possible in the free license for the engine. The engine is called Unity. You need the pro version to use its built in access to SVN, but there's nothing stopping you from slapping the code and assets on an SVN externally.

{edit}
To follow this disccussion go to the topic "New Models2". It has been split into two topics due to strange behavior with posts following this one. Edited January 21, 2012 by Dakynos
added explanation