Breaking the Engine

Breaking the Engine

Various things about Spring that do not fit in any of the other forums listed below, including forum rules.

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Dragon45
Posts: 2883
Joined: 16 Aug 2004, 04:36

Breaking the Engine

Post by Dragon45 »

Just thinking it might be a good idea to start establishing limits and guidlines as to the maximum possible values for unit poly maxes based on their cost, unit size maxes, speeds, etc so we can know exactly how far we can push this new engine. The biggest ones i can think of are

Unit properties
  • Polygon count
    Model size
    Footprint size
    Speed
    Max Damage
Script Properties
  • Max number of functions
    Threads
    max number vars
    what functions do/don't work
etc etc
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Buggi
Posts: 875
Joined: 29 Apr 2005, 07:46

Post by Buggi »

Build 50 Krogoths and check it out :)

Polygon count would be the biggest factor.

Right now theres a major limit on texture memory that needs to be addressed.
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Ace07
Posts: 348
Joined: 21 Apr 2005, 20:46

Post by Ace07 »

There is still a lot that is floating around. This engine isn't like an engine built by a developer; meaning that it can change (for the better). However, finding the limits of the current engine would be interesting, but its really more theorycraft than anything.

For polycounts, your best bet would be to turn the gfx to a respectable default and make a script that creates X numbers of units on the map. Then, you can up the polycount of the particular unit you placed everywhere on the map. Increment it until it becomes unbearable, and there is your upper limit. :wink:
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zwzsg
Kernel Panic Co-Developer
Posts: 7052
Joined: 16 Nov 2004, 13:08

Post by zwzsg »

I suspect it either varies depending on the hardware the player has, or is nearly unlimited and not an issue compared to TA.

Having charts showing FPS on a diff machines / diff poly count board could already be started however to fix ideas. I guess we'd need to agree on a given script, and a given camera position, to be abel to draw comparaison.
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Ace07
Posts: 348
Joined: 21 Apr 2005, 20:46

Post by Ace07 »

zwzsg wrote: Having charts showing FPS on a diff machines / diff poly count board could already be started however to fix ideas. I guess we'd need to agree on a given script, and a given camera position, to be abel to draw comparaison.
Yep, the trick is always trying to standardize it. It would also be nice to be able to see an FPS hud somewhere on the screen, since that would help with testing quite a bit.

However, if you have the minimum requirement computer test the game, that is what the true limit on the number of poly's is. You just have to find someone with the "minimum" specs to do the test for ya. =)
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zwzsg
Kernel Panic Co-Developer
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Joined: 16 Nov 2004, 13:08

Post by zwzsg »

Ace07 wrote:It would also be nice to be able to see an FPS hud somewhere on the screen,
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10053r
Posts: 297
Joined: 28 Feb 2005, 19:19

Post by 10053r »

My Duron 950 with 384 MB of RAM can't handle dogfights that involve 50-200 fighters, I'll tell you that. The thing slows to about 1 frame every 5 seconds. I have a GForce 4 MX 400 Ultra graphics card, but the main system is a dog. It also can't handle terrain deformation without issues.
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smoth
Posts: 22309
Joined: 13 Jan 2005, 00:46

Post by smoth »

http://mods.moddb.com/gallery/image/25447/

as you can see it can handle my stuff well enough...

let see face counts:

gouf custom: 633
gelgoodg(red sheilds): 408
zakuII(machinegun) :469
zakuII(rl) :471
Dom: 421

What i can count:
8 gelgoogs
15 doms
mixed gouf customs and zakuIIs.

that is alot of polies and spring handled it well.
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Caydr
Omnidouche
Posts: 7179
Joined: 16 Oct 2004, 19:40

Post by Caydr »

Built 100 marauders in my mod by accident. To display them onscreen wasn't an issue, but when I gave them a move order I got down to about 0.2 FPS.
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GrOuNd_ZeRo
Posts: 1370
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 01:10

Post by GrOuNd_ZeRo »

I broke the engine! try 2000+ different textures :D on average they are 32x32, some much smaller, some up to 64x64.
Gurkha
Posts: 81
Joined: 31 Aug 2004, 01:53

Post by Gurkha »

proposal:
-1280x960
-Everything to max or as high as the graphics card will support (anything below max needs to be noted)
-TA style camera, zoomed right out
-some map small enough to fit entirely on screen
-someone make a script filling the map with kroggies or a selection of high -texture/poly count units
-nothing else running, obviously (lose the firewall too, pull your network cable out if necessary)

we need some way of measuring the results, does the engine have something like that built in?

Right, then on to movement tests:
-get the script to put everything in one corner and then move it to another corner
-Another script to create 200 different aircraft, dogfight
-Can we script camera movement? a flyby of a formation would be good, how about a moving formation?
-large quantity of long-range artillery, all targetted in different places with 1/2 high & 1/2 low trajectory.
-Screen full of some unit with a lot of moving parts (I had some sort of a core unit that made insane ammount fo metal once, it has 4 steam things and turning blue bits and was generally really fancy looking)

Anyway, you have access to my PC for bechmarking if you want:
Athlon64 3200+, 1Gb RAM, ATi X800XL graphics

-Gurkha
el_muchacho
Posts: 201
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 01:06

Post by el_muchacho »

I am having major problems with my system. I am not sure it's not a hardware fault though, although I've never had such problems with other games before (Doom3, LockOn, TrackMania Sunrise).
When I have more than 120-150 fast moving units (planes) and I push the speed to x4, the screen goes black. It looks like my graphic card, an ATI 9600 Pro, can't handle more than that. :cry:
I wonder if my power supply, an LC Power 6420 rated at 420W, is failing under the heavy load that TA Spring represents.
If it fails with 120 units on screen at speed x4, I expect it to fail at less than 500 units at speed 1. :|
Yet my system should be able to handle this :
Athlon 2700+@2314 mhz
512 Mb RAM
Graphic ATI 9600 Pro
el_muchacho
Posts: 201
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 01:06

Post by el_muchacho »

I seem to have found the solution of my problem : getting rid of the Omega drivers, and some tweaking of some options in the Bios (AGP 8x instead of 4x and RAM set to 2.5T instead of 3T for instance) seems to have done the trick. Now in my tests, the game is fluid up to 200 units (among which many planes moving and firing) at speed x2, and then, it seems limited by the CPU. But the screen no longer freezes like before.

This game pushes the hardware to its limits like no other I know. 8)
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