Ultra High Mode in UT 2003
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Chalnoth said:Bigus Dickus said:Wow, magic lights... you blow them off the wall and they still shine!!
Would the game code be too complex to have it turn off when it becomes detached?
I believe most of the lightmaps are pre-generated, so it would cause a general slowdown if all movable lights were listed as dynamic, or a stall as the maps are "changed in status."
This is one thing that DOOM3 will bring that will be really nice: fully-dynamic lighting. By utterly doing away with pre-calculated lights (and losing some static light realism in the process), DOOM3 will be able to have amazing-looking moving light sources. The way I see it, JC figured that we finally had the hardware that was good enough to do halfway-decent lighting completely in realtime. We're still a long way off from computing lighting equal to modern games' static lighting in realtime. At the same time, by unifying the lighting model, the end result should be much better than what we've seen yet, even if there are drawbacks in certain areas (For example, UT2k3's lighting should look unequivocally better when there are no moving lights or objects in view, such as during a flyby, but DOOM3's lighting should look markedly better in motion).
That's all well and good, but this sort of engine is going to be totally unplayable for online play (due to insanely low FPS and dynamic content not being the same on all clients, as well as ridiculous server load). There's a reason why Doom 3 is not being marketed for multiplayer. Expect Quake 4 to have very limited use of dynamic stuff, if at all, even if it's based on the Doom 3 engine.
Mephisto said:
I saw that nVidia purchased ad space in the game's intro (which is not permanent--I've already replaced the nVidia logo with an ATI logo), but I can't see how this equates to "sponsoring". Sponsorship implies that something cannot be done without a sponsor's financial commitment. Of course, neither Epic nor its publishers needs a sponsor to underwrite UT2K3's publication.
I have to say though that allowing nVidia to place an ad in that manner was pretty "tacky" as my folks would have said--whether it was Epic or Infogrames which sold the slot. I don't want to see this again in the future.
Sharkfood said:
Vogel made some comments on the Infogrames forum in Mark Reign's "I'm-having-UT2-problems-with-my-ATI 9700-so-please-forgive-us-for-not-testing-the-game-with-a-9700-prior-to-shipping-it-but now-my-problems-with-the 9700-are-all-squared-away-and-it's-running-like-a-top" thread in which he stated that the current game would not completely fit into 128meg cards (no mention of anything delayed for any "nv30 patch.") He said that right now the game in certain instances is too big for a 128mb card, but from the context I gathered he was talking about it from a performance basis concerning AGP texturing in D3d.
But, I mean, considering how cpu-limited the game is it really doesn't seem like much of a reason to go with >128mbs right now. I'm not sure that would improve performance as the bottleneck is the cpu even in the cases where the entire scene is carried in the card.
Sharkfood said:Hahaha Dave.
We aren't even talking about UT2003 anymore, but instead a hypothetical situation.
And IMO, an IHV releasing intentionally crippled software to power their products would definately fall into anti-trust in my book.
Forming a partnership with another company makes no difference as the third party simply becomes a consultant to the original parent financeer.
But.. I have no issue with this hypothetical situation, as long as it is defined as such. The only important issue is such a device isnt used as a marketing tool to specifically slander/debase the capabilities of another IHV fictionally. Obviously, if hardware A is truly superior to hardware B, there is no argument.. but if A and B are equal (or opposite superiority), tricky usage of third parties to fictionally depict the opposite would be dirty tactics, to say the least... and to extort funds to remove the fictional lead illustrated would be anti-trust IMO.
I agree that your arguments and suggestions have not been properly characterized, but--Heh, Heh--that's inevitably what happens in an Internet forum. Happens to me a lot...
Anyway, considering that Mark Reign's admitted on the Infogrames forum that Epic never even tested the game with a 9700 before shipping it, and indeed, has admitted that they just let the prototype card ATI sent them sit in a box until after the game shipped--in light of that I think it is highly unlikely that there is *anything* relevant to "nv30" (whatever that is--guess we'll find out the end of next month) in the existing UT2K3 code base. I do consider Vogel's direct statement to be a denial of precisely that inference. Put together, I think the two present a pretty strong argument for the negative in the "nv30 patch" scenario.
Frankly, I think Epic would be nigh idiotic to do anything relative to nv30 without having silicon in hand and knowing when it would ship. Secondly, if they want to do anything particular for nv30 after the card ships, they can always release a patch later--they don't need to ship millions of copies of extraneous code out to millions of people who don't have an nv30, don't kow what it is, and won't be buying it if and when it does ship.
Basically, if Epic didn't make any optimizations for the 9700 when having one in hand--indeed, didn't even bother to test their software with a 9700 before shipping it, I can't see how their interest in "nv30" would be anything other than academic at this point in time.
I also think that people are drawing way too many conclusions about the nVidia ad in the game. First, who sold the ad? It seems more likely that the publisher sold it--not Epic directly. Second, it's just an ad and Epic deliberately designed it so that it is very easy to remove the words "nVidia" completely from the ad by simply replacing the logo (as I have done with an ATI logo.) For all I know Infogrames might have offered the same ad deal to ATI and ATI turned it down. I think the ease with which the nVidia ad may be usurped says a lot.
No matter what, though, the ad is a strange thing to see in a game. I think it is in very poor taste, however, and would hope we don't see this again. It's one thing to place it in a demo--quite another to incorporate it in a shipping game. Love to know how much nVidia paid for the privilege, though...
Nagorak said:
While it is true that fully-dynamic enivornments won't be very viable online right at the time of release of DOOM3, it won't be much longer aftwards when they will be.
As far as netcode goes, there's essentially no reason why dynamic objects in the environment need to be completely synchronized for online play. So what if a swinging light has a slightly different swing on player C's computer than player B's computer? I doubt it will make any realistic difference. Given that, it should take very little additional bandwidth to sync the majority of dynamic effects, such as if light A is swinging on player C's computer, then it is also swinging on player B's (but maybe in not the same exact way). All that would be required is the syncing of collision detection. Of course, there are always the problems of, say, whether or not something got it, and there could be instances where the client-side prediction gets it wrong. But, these are problems that have been dealt with previously. I don't know why they'd be any harder in the future.
I have a very strong feeling that once DOOM3 is released, the gaming public won't want to go back to seeing environments that aren't fully-dynamic (with a unified lighting model and all that), for FPS's, at least.
The ad is definitely weird, but nothing new. There used to be Intel (Magic Carpet's "Pentium Inside" comes to mind, several Bullfrog games actually had them back in the early Pentium days) and 3dfx ads in some games, and while it can be irritating if you don't actually own a related product, I don't think its a bad thing. It's all a sign of the gaming industry "growing up" IMHO. We'll probably have to get used to more, even non-computer-related, product placement in general in video games in the future too. I might not like it, but I can live with it as long as it doesn't interfere with my gaming experience (and this ad certainly doesn't)...
BTW, there's also a small "They way its meant to be played" logo in the NOLF2 start-up screen, way less visible though.
BTW, there's also a small "They way its meant to be played" logo in the NOLF2 start-up screen, way less visible though.
Not quite the way I'd put it. If I'm listening to a commercial radio station then I tolerate the adverts between the 'free' music, but I'd get very annoyed if I bought a CD and the first track started with something like "Buy the new HiFi cleaner from Bloggs Inc!".Gollum said:
Joe DeFuria
Legend
Yeah...does anyone remember the day when you could go to pay and see a movie, and NOT have the feature preceeded by adverts? (I'm not talking about movie previews...but adverts for other products....)
Gollum said:The ad is definitely weird, but nothing new. There used to be Intel (Magic Carpet's "Pentium Inside" comes to mind, several Bullfrog games actually had them back in the early Pentium days) and 3dfx ads in some games, and while it can be irritating if you don't actually own a related product, I don't think its a bad thing. It's all a sign of the gaming industry "growing up" IMHO. We'll probably have to get used to more, even non-computer-related, product placement in general in video games in the future too. I might not like it, but I can live with it as long as it doesn't interfere with my gaming experience (and this ad certainly doesn't)...
BTW, there's also a small "They way its meant to be played" logo in the NOLF2 start-up screen, way less visible though.
That's a good point, but I have to say those early logos in games always struck me as more of a way for the publishing house to quickly identify the hardware their software was compatible with--as opposed to an out and out in-your-face kind of ad. In a number of those cases it always seemed as if the logos were put there by the software companies with the permission of the logo companies as opposed to any sort of direct advertising scheme paid for by them (ie, 3dfx wouldn't pay a company to use its logo for advertising, the company would ask permission of 3dfx to use the 3dfx logo to promote 3dfx hardware-optimization with its product, etc.)
I don't know that I can agree with the "coming of age" idea--I mean, I pay for computer games and often they aren't dirt cheap, if you know what I mean. Theoretically, the publishing house is earning its income from the sales of its software to distributors who then sell it to me. I can't see how, in that scenario, advertising is needed--it never has been up to now.
Now, if they want to *give* me the software in exchange for me suffering through their various ads, that's a different proposition. Of even if they want to discount it by 50% I'll suffer some ads, happily. But me paying full retail dollar to get slapped in the face with advertising? Nope, just doesn't do it for me. Paid advertising directly subsidizes the cost of television, radio, and newsprint, not to mention the Internet, to consumers. IE, we get some value for suffering the ads (broadcast TV and radio are "free", newspapers cost a couple of bits, and most of the Internet is still subscription free, and likewise most magazines subscriptions cost a fraction of what they would without advertising revenue--that's why I don't mind advertising in these venues.)
What would have been OK with me in this case is if Epic had included interchangeable logos from other companies with the shipping version. That would have at least muted the blatant effect of the ad in a product I paid full retail for.
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