Star Citizen, Roberts Space Industries - Chris Roberts' life support and retirement fund [2012-]

[PSman1700]

Not too far off from DS i think. But like said above, abit hard to compare like for like. In total SC obviously looks next-gen compared to those. Walking sumilators aren't my thing though, dunno about that youtuber but he seems to be walking for ages.

 

[chris1515]

Well that i can agree on. Besides that, Crysis was next gen for it's time, could and still can compete well with PS4/XOne games.




That's what i don't like about it's creators, very true. But i assume i don't have to pay anything if i want to play it now? No loss for me then



The 'politics' behind the game are probably bad, but one can also ignore that and only look at the technical side of things.



And that's what i mean atleast, only the tech, since it's pushing SSD tech like next gen consoles will, it's looking like a next gen game, and it runs quite well considering (40fps on a 2080Ti).



Cannot agree more, i mean how else is tech going to be pushed without games like Crysis? That's just the nature of the pc, tech evolves and games followed that tech. For the PS4, the order still looks in the range of say last of us 2, in those 7 years. On pc RT made it's way but people needed to get expensive GPU's for that, but those games also did something new at the same time. Guess it's trade-offs then.



You gotta have to do better then that, a night still of a youtube video. it's like visiting the rockys at night lol. Seems cherry picked sorry.



True, DF is there for technical analysis and to admire graphics and compare them to other graphical intensive games. Not the politics behind them, for me atleast.

Currently everything link to some planets is not impressive and I know the game is not finished but this not looking like worse than a next-generation game. It is looking worse than current-generation games. I will not admire the graphics of something ugly. After face looks good, technology for creating the face is impressive and facial mocap using webcam too but out of this the ship and the world size and some technology I find the alpha of the game ugly for the moment.

This is an issue with content creation more so than the underpinning technology.

Well perhaps more accurate to say an issue with content creation with respect to the underpinning technology.

TLDR; it takes years to make good looking worldly scenes. These guys have been focusing on space more than the planets. There is just way too much scope in this title for it to be beautiful everywhere.

This is 7 years now and the production begins in 2014, 5 years and the result is not good and they have a budget of 250 million. I don't admire the idea of a game but the graphics I saw on a video or on-screen and this is not looking good.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

As much as they rewrite and add to their engine, legacy will be a burden, and the more game and content they have already built, the heavier that burden will be.

Though true of any other title, and the curse of the development hell long-duration games, it seems SC has the will and opportunity to rewrite the entire game repeatedly. So in two years time, they might well start afresh with a new design not bogged down by legacy designs choices.

 

[chris1515]

This is barren but it looks better than Star Citizen planet after they are procedurally generated but Death Stranding using the Decima engine, it is probably partially procedurally generated.

 

[Dictator]

I might as well post the full res captures of those things instead of YT captures, give people something to chew on and critque more properly.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Yup, there it is. Right in this thread: people comparing Star Citizen to something like Ghost Recon Breakpoint which is an actual released game that went through quality control and certification on 4 different consoles plus the PC.
Somehow, Star Citizen is being claimed as the better one despite not being a game at all.

I am surprised perhaps about the vehemence of the negativity at times reading some of the commentary on it.

You are surprised that people are reacting in a vehemently negative way on the developer's "trickle truth" of slipped release dates (original release date for SQ42 was something like 2014) and its funding methods?

My original script spent about 5 minutes talking about "why the game is controversial" - but then I realised I am not writing for EG; rather for DF. Also the "why is this game controversial" thing has been written 1000X times at this point from people that can explain it much better than me.

I think you're right. You did well in not spending 5 minutes talking about why the game is controversial because there are others who did so extensively.

What I do think is that viewers should have been made aware that the developer has a long history of controversy, and by putting money into them they're investing in something that has a large chance of never releasing.
That's just 10 seconds in a sentence, and then "with that out of the way" you'd speak up about all the technical marvels (which I enjoyed and appreciate that you did BTW).

I'm saying this as a 2012 backer (almost exactly 7 years ago), who did the leap of faith at the time believing the game would come. Out of empathy, I would like others to at least be warned of the facts because now (unlike 7 years ago) it seems clear to me that Chris Roberts doesn't really want to launch a game. Not as long as he has constant funding, at least.

So Crysis was kinda cheating cause almost no one was able to run it smooth?

Crysis didn't cheat because at some point it went gold and it released. Some 5 years after its release, mid-to-high end hardware could run it flawlessly at 1200p.
As I stated: 4 years ago I couldn't play the game decently. Now, I probably could play the alpha that released at the time fast enough with my Vega 64, but this GPU isn't good enough for their current builds.
Star Citizen is a bunch of disconnected tech demos that constantly chase a moving target. 5 years from now, it'll have moved their recommended specs towards some hardware that will only be available to general audiences 10 years from now, and so on.

Sotc on ps2 was pushing gfx on that platform, and it was doing 15/20fps for the most. Some enjoyed it anyway, with nice graphics for a ps2 late gen title. 40 fps with next gen gfx ain't that bad.
Some current AAA games run at 30 and still drop below that, which then in your eyes run like crap.

1 - Shadow of the Colossus is a game that released. And on a $300 console, not a $2000 PC.
2 - You don't really know how fast Star Citizen will run when you enable the whole thing instead of self-contained tech-demos with very limited gameplay.
3 - AAA games running at 30FPS is great, I'm not a 60FPS purist. As long are they're playable games.

 

[chris1515]

I might as well post the full res captures of those things instead of YT captures, give people something to chew on and critque more properly.

And this is the same this not looking good for the moment but the game is on Alpha stage. If the game is finish one day it will probably looking much better but now

This is beautiful.

 

[Globalisateur]

And this is the same this not looking good for the moment and I know ti find it ugly the game is on Alpha. If the game is finish one day it will probably looking much better but now

This is beautiful

100% agree with Chris on this. On paper SC might be better technically than the best looking open world games: more polygons, higher res, higher res assets, bigger vistas, better image quality, RT lighting and such.

But it's often ugly, not realistic at all and lack artistic vision.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What I do think is that viewers should have been made aware that the developer has a long history of controversy, and by putting money into them they're investing in something that has a large chance of never releasing.
That's just 10 seconds in a sentence, and then "with that out of the way" you'd speak up about all the technical marvels (which I enjoyed and appreciate that you did BTW).

I can see DF not wanting to be drawn into politics. I don't think they should be voicing consumer advice this way. Saying there are controversies and pointing people to them is I think fair enough. Ensuring they spell out, "this is just a look at the tech," is IMO fair practice and it's viewers/readers' fault if they take that as a game endorsement.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

And this is the same this not looking good for the moment but the game is on Alpha stage. If the game is finish one day it will probably looking much better but now

This is beautiful.

Can we please limit comparison to tech analysis or, at the very least, a critique of what's artistically 'better'. 'Beautiful' is a subjective term, so people need to qualify what they're seeing that they prefer and where games (and tech demos ) are getting good results.

 

[PSman1700]

Currently everything link to some planets is not impressive and I know the game is not finished but this not looking like worse than a next-generation game. It is looking worse than current-generation games. I will not admire the graphics of something ugly. After face looks good, technology for creating the face is impressive and facial mocap using webcam too but out of this the ship and the world size and some technology I find the alpha of the game ugly for the moment.

Well yes true, the worst of SC looks worse then the best of even older games then HZD i think
Those planets will probably never be finished cause that's impossible.

This is barren but it looks better than Star Citizen planet after they are procedurally generated but Death Stranding using the Decima engine, it is probably partially procedurally generated.

On the other hand, the whole of DS, as far as we know of looks like that. Or about. It's so barren (like the SC mountains), that it doesn't even impress all that much. HZD on the same engine does a much better job imo. With HDR, even on a non-Pro, it looks stunning, the attention to detail is very high and the animations are top notch. But comparing the best of HZD to the best of what SC has to offer, they don't compare, even though it's unfair seeing what hardware seperates them. For that the devs of HZD did a much better job though, how much they got out of that 2013 low end machine. And i'm sure we will approach SC graphics and beyond by the time real next-gen games come, across all platforms (pc/xbox/ps). But as for now it's only SC pushing SSD tech, the so much talked about thing for next gen, level of detail, vastness, assets etc.

I also understand the whole thing behind SC, it's creators spending 250 million on the whole thing and it never finishes, it just doesn't do the game any good, and overshadows the tech/graphics for many.

Star Citizen is a bunch of disconnected tech demos that constantly chase a moving target. 5 years from now, it'll have moved their recommended specs towards some hardware that will only be available to general audiences 10 years from now, and so on.

A playable tech-demo, none the less.

1 - Shadow of the Colossus is a game that released. And on a $300 console, not a $2000 PC.
2 - You don't really know how fast Star Citizen will run when you enable the whole thing instead of self-contained tech-demos with very limited gameplay.
3 - AAA games running at 30FPS is great, I'm not a 60FPS purist. As long are they're playable games.

SotC didn't compare to well to games of it's time either. It was a PS2 game by all standards, a very good looking one, but below 20fps most of the time wouldn't be acceptable today, would it?
Like in the DF video, fast travel without an SSD would be just a stuttering mess. AAA games running 30fps with drops, then you have been too ambitious somewhere.


Guys, i'm not defending the politics behind SC, it doesn't look better then other games in ALL departments either, but to discredit it's tech as a whole, and DF's video.... I mean Alex even mentioned the politics behind the game very well, he knew he was going to catch some negativity surrounding that, but on beyond3d forums, were only interested in the tech right?

 

[Rootax]

I'm puzzled about SC. For a lot of things, I don't know if they are pushing boundaries, or just not optimizing. Like the performances with HDD vs SSD.

Everything is looking good but not amazing imo. Optimisation is not having useless stuff too. Like seeing bullets in the canon, this kind of stuff... Seems to me they don't care about performances or bein smart, and rely on the latest hardware to make it run.

 

[chris1515]

Can we please limit comparison to tech analysis or, at the very least, a critique of what's artistically 'better'. 'Beautiful' is a subjective term, so people need to qualify what they're seeing that they prefer and where games (and tech demos ) are getting good results.

There is much more detail and polygons on the rock or ground and the draw distance is as impressive in Death Stranding.

I saw footage of Mars the ground does not look like a flat texture.

 

[PSman1700]

and rely on the latest hardware to make it run.

Just imagine what they could do if the scale was smaller, or a less ambitious project, i agree on that. It still looks, although not in all departments, but in total, better then anything else out there.

There is much more detail and polygons on the rock and the draw distance is as impressive.

Then again, were comparing mountain terrain which SC clearly doesn't focus on. Their not light years apart either in that department, in my eyes.
For the hardware though, RDR2 does a better job, requiring not more then a FX6300, GTX770 2GB (or comparable, ie 670), a HDD,and 8gb ram. That's optimisation, yes.

 

[Dictator]

I'm puzzled about SC. For a lot of things, I don't know if they are pushing boundaries, or just not optimizing. Like the performances with HDD vs SSD.

This one you can read about if you follow their game dev blogs or status updates.
Originally the game engine was designed around standard HDD principles - preload with long load times and get in game and utilising as much of your system RAM as possible. But that was still causing them massive stuttering problems when large complex entities would need to be brought quickly on screen, stalling the game a lot since not everyone has 64 GB system ram. So they rewrote I/O to not be focused on sustained speed but rather burst i/o and multithreading - grabbing in tiny chunks of data constantly for different objects all the time. It had the positive aspect of greatly increasing performance if you had an SSD and also the positive aspect of the game loading much quicker overall on SSDs.
They actually targetted the game to not work correctly on HDDs basically, but designed loading around that burst i/o that SSDs excell at.
It made it so the game did not stall for example when a large carrier style ship would enter the view port/simulation range or when a planet would come into view.

 

[AlNom]

TLDR; it takes years to make good looking worldly scenes. These guys have been focusing on space more than the planets. There is just way too much scope in this title for it to be beautiful everywhere.

So you're saying that Star Citizen devs need to be a little more down to earth.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I can see DF not wanting to be drawn into politics. I don't think they should be voicing consumer advice this way.

I don't think making a 10 second disclaimer saying "beware this isn't a game and there are problems with development so far" is going into politics. People need to know CIG has been promising deadlines that get constantly pushed back, year after year.
Everything is consumer advice, regardless of whether you frame it as a technical appreciation video, a review or a paid promotion.

 

[chris1515]

Just imagine what they could do if the scale was smaller, or a less ambitious project, i agree on that. It still looks, although not in all departments, but in total, better then anything else out there.



Then again, were comparing mountain terrain which SC clearly doesn't focus on. Their not light years apart either in that department, in my eyes.
For the hardware though, RDR2 does a better job, requiring not more then a FX6300, GTX770 2GB (or comparable, ie 670), a HDD,and 8gb ram. That's optimisation, yes.

I link the wrong video I compare to Death Stranding and it is much better on Death Stranding side, the rock, the ground has much more details. In Star Citizen this a flat texture with a few blocky rock. And I prefer to compare to Death Stranding because this is the same type of barren land. This is why the photogrammetry was done in Iceland for Death Stranding.

Two direct feed images if you are not able to see there is much more details and polygons on the ground in Death Stranding.

EDIT: Photo of Mars

 

[PSman1700]

This one you can read about if you follow their game dev blogs or status updates.
Originally the game engine was designed around standard HDD principles - preload with long load times and get in game and utilising as much of your system RAM as possible. But that was still causing them massive stuttering problems when large complex entities would need to be brought quickly on screen, stalling the game a lot since not everyone has 64 GB system ram. So they rewrote I/O to not be focused on sustained speed but rather burst i/o and multithreading - grabbing in tiny chunks of data constantly for different objects all the time. It had the positive aspect of greatly increasing performance if you had an SSD and also the positive aspect of the game loading much quicker overall on SSDs.
They actually targetted the game to not work correctly on HDDs basically, but designed loading around that burst i/o that SSDs excell at.
It made it so the game did not stall for example when a large carrier style ship would enter the view port/simulation range or when a planet would come into view.

I'm understand more and more why the next-gen consoles are going to ditch HDD's and opted for speedy SSD solutions. It was the only way forward, stuffing 32GB+ or even 64gb main ram in there would have been ridiculous. Looking at SC is abit of a look in the future, what SSD's can bring to us.

People need to know CIG has been promising deadlines that get constantly pushed back, year after year.

Why do they need to know that, in a pure technical analysis? It's up to themselfs if they want to sink money into the project.

I link the wrong video I compare to Death Stranding and it is much better on Death Stranding side, the rock, the ground has much more details. In Star Citizen this a flat texture with a few blocky rock.

Your right, looks impressive, even more so then SC's mountain areas. That doesn't make it, or those games, look better then SC overall though. The planets are probably the least impressive of SC, while the mointains of DS are the most impressive of DS. Were basicly cherry picking here.
That i give you is how great DS looks for being on 7 year old hardware, very pleasing to the eye and i would just play it for the graphics, even on a non-pro.

On a note, i haven't laid any time on finding comparable shots in SC's favor.

Edit: dang it's a hot topic to say the least, interesting.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Why do they need to know that, in a pure technical analysis? It's up to themselfs if they want to sink money into the project.

Everyone should be aware of CIG's practices.