Star Citizen Dev Progress Watch

[David-2]

Under "Known Issues": Doesn't it seem like there's been some regressions here? Like: "All mission givers are not functioning currently."

And doesn't most of this extensive list seem like ... small beans?  Like updating a configuration parameter in some data array?

And how does this track with the accomplishments in the "road map".  E.g., road map claims "[Flight] Improved AI Behavior" is done.  Of course, "improved" is undefined, but did you expect it to be more or less or the same as these items:

AI spawning into swarm modes should no longer occasionally be motionless.
Player should no longer be able to trick AI to flying out of their defensive area.
AI no longer goes unresponsive if a player moves outside of their defensive zone.
AI pilots should no longer go inactive if there are already 3 other AI ships attacking an intended target.

Still, some of these items are nice and I'm sure will be much appreciated.  Terrapin owners will be glad to have a better view out of their cockpit canopy now that some scratches have been removed.  And citizens who demand verisimilitude are breathing a sigh of relief now that player footprints will no longer appear facing the wrong direction near the poles of planetary bodies.

(I say that they won't appear in that wrong direction, but that's actually a claim that CIG isn't making.  They're only saying the footprints should no longer appear in that wrong direction.)

All in all, a job well done for 400+ hard working devs+testers over the last 3 months.

[dsmart]

All in all, a job well done for 400+ hard working devs+testers over the last 3 months.

Evocati 3.3 truck stop video leak. I just can't believe that stuttering and the low fps - without only one player in the level. wow.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6u4rhn

[dsmart]

wow, that's some thrilling FPS AI gameplay! I'm going to go increase my pledge

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6u4h79

[Motto]

Oh, if only I could turn back time and pledge my first born...

[jwh1701]

wow, that's some thrilling FPS AI gameplay! I'm going to go increase my pledge

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6u4h79

I'm sure this was all just all tier 0 implementation plus I only noticed minor shuddering, popping, shader issues. Plus its sad that cryengine which was developed for fps walking and jumping is so bugging that its still causing issues for 500 plus team working on it.

[David-2]

What I really like about those two videos is the way all the NPCs just stand there without moving.  The cargo guy behind his counter, and the guy ordering a ship (who is still standing motionless in the exact same position and pose when the 'camera' returns to him).  Just mannequins.  It's less distracting for the viewer/player, let's you focus on the cool (and unprecedented) high fidelity rendering of the scene.

On the other hand, I don't get what the little 'jump' motion is each time the guy starts moving.  Is he being goosed off camera?  Or is he just a spazz?

(And what's with all the flickering lights in these habitats?  30th century and they don't have 100% reliable long-life lighting?)

[kaylani.larelli]

Maybe Chris thinks the flickering lights allow the "fidelity" of the unprecedent next-generation lighting model to "shine" through better than boring steady lighting would...

[dsmart]

OK, I'm convinced that these chucklefucks don't have a clue. That OCS image explanation is pure and utter nonsense. Aside from it being standard culling, it will never - ever - work for this game in the manner they have described. Period. This is just them coming up with bs - 7 years later - to help kick the can down the road.

As it's client side, it will have minimal impact on overall performance on a loaded server with clients all at different locations.

[dsmart]

No progress this week on OCS. But I'm sure it's coming along great!

[DemonInvestor]

OK, I'm convinced that these chucklefucks don't have a clue. That OCS image explanation is pure and utter nonsense. Aside from it being standard culling, it will never - ever - work for this game in the manner they have described. Period. This is just them coming up with bs - 7 years later - to help kick the can down the road.

As it's client side, it will have minimal impact on overall performance on a loaded server with clients all at different locations.

I'm irritated by that visualization.
Is there a good reason to make the quadrants non quadratic? Is there a good reason as too why they only coloured some regions as being anyhow pre-loaded, while some completly uncoloured? Why a pseudo-3D based representation, when a 2D one would have been much simpler to do and be good enough to explain the concept? Why not a freaking ship in the centre instead of the char-model?

Not even talking about line of sight 'calculations' of objects not currently loaded for the player 

[David-2]

Now I'm confused.  I thought we saw OCS already being tested in Evocati in that video earlier this week where the guy was walking around on the moon and the rocks kept popping into place as he got near them.

[StanTheMan]

IIRC I don't think there is anything new here apart from the graphic.   

CRoberts was rattling on about this at least 3 years ago.

The 3D esque graphic doesn't seem to show all the area that the players character could end up in relatively quickly if for example it fell through the floor, was blown out of a hole in the ship during a fight etc...

I am no developer but how is what is being described (OCS) here much different from the popping you see in most games when a scene in the distance suddenly pops into view as the graphics card catches up ?

Is each area not coloured white meant to be the equivalent of a whole area accessed via loading screens in an older game  ?  It is all bullshit because older games dont load and process, draw everything in a zone the moment you enter it do they ?

I like thew way the verse is described as being at full capacity in 3.2 necessitating this new technology to enable them to get more in the game.

It is being presented here as a  reasonable excuse for not having developed any more planets, star systems etc and it will subtly influence some people to explain away a lack of progress by CIG and expect a waterfall of new content once OCS is up and running.

[N0mad]

Now I'm confused.  I thought we saw OCS already being tested in Evocati in that video earlier this week where the guy was walking around on the moon and the rocks kept popping into place as he got near them.

Rocks and trees popping into place are just because you don't want to draw all the rocks on the planet at the same time - the rock was likely to be in memory already. It's the same as grass surrounding the player but not drawn at a distance in most open world games. Thing is, you're not really meant to notice the effect.

OCS is all about memory, at the moment if you start at Port Olisar you're loading all the assets needed for every NPC / object in Levski aswell even though you won't draw them on the screen until you get up close to Levski. With OCS, only Port Olisar gets loaded, then once you start your QT to Levski, Olisar is removed from memory and Levski is loaded in the background.

Thing is, OCS isn't anything new. This is what every other open word game does. Normally they get it working at the start of the project, nor do they make a big deal about it. For example: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Programming/Assets/AsyncLoading (I don't know Unreal) this is all about finding and loading assets in a background thread, this is the core bit of technology and a game would build some custom code on top of this to suit their specific situation. Although I can't find anything similar for CryEngine with a quick Google - which may explain why they have taken so long to implement it: they have to rewrite the core engine to make it work.

OCS is just the latest in a long list of technologies where CIG have invented a new term for something that already exists in other games, it's just that other studios don't bother talking about this stuff except to other devs at GDC. By calling it something unique it means that the idiot whales will only find the term associated with SC on Google and think that CIG are inventing new technologies. They aren't, they've just invented a new word for it and barely been able to implement it. We laugh at it, but it's a serious issue because it's just another part of the scammy marketing tactics used by CIG.

[StanTheMan]

Rocks and trees popping into place are just because you don't want to draw all the rocks on the planet at the same time - the rock was likely to be in memory already. It's the same as grass surrounding the player but not drawn at a distance in most open world games. Thing is, you're not really meant to notice the effect.

OCS is all about memory, at the moment if you start at Port Olisar you're loading all the assets needed for every NPC / object in Levski aswell even though you won't draw them on the screen until you get up close to Levski. With OCS, only Port Olisar gets loaded, then once you start your QT to Levski, Olisar is removed from memory and Levski is loaded in the background.

Thing is, OCS isn't anything new. This is what every other open word game does. Normally they get it working at the start of the project, nor do they make a big deal about it. For example: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Programming/Assets/AsyncLoading (I don't know Unreal) this is all about finding and loading assets in a background thread, this is the core bit of technology and a game would build some custom code on top of this to suit their specific situation. Although I can't find anything similar for CryEngine with a quick Google - which may explain why they have taken so long to implement it: they have to rewrite the core engine to make it work.

OCS is just the latest in a long list of technologies where CIG have invented a new term for something that already exists in other games, it's just that other studios don't bother talking about this stuff except to other devs at GDC. By calling it something unique it means that the idiot whales will only find the term associated with SC on Google and think that CIG are inventing new technologies. They aren't, they've just invented a new word for it and barely been able to implement it. We laugh at it, but it's a serious issue because it's just another part of the scammy marketing tactics used by CIG.

Thinking through this as a non programmer...

If CIG are running a demo of the latest release .. it is running on some ridiculous specced machine with 18 cores and shit loads of memory..(2 to 5 TB) .why isnt it running smoothly in their demos before they did OCS if it is about the cpu and memory v graphics cards processing bit (where there is much more of a limit on what cards can draw even on a crazy specced rig because  you can only add so many graphics cards and their spec is much narrower than the processing and memory gap between a reasonable consumer gaming rig and some beast you made in the studio when money is no option)?

Also I dont understand why if you can load the code that draws the scenes  in memory and only execute that when you need to why cant you do that with large chunks of the rest of the code that calculates/executes etc what is going on and if you can ... then just how badly written has the rest of the code got to be for that to be what is stopping the game running at a reasonable FPS...on the best rig you can get your hands on to make it look good to the Shitizens ?

An 18 core processor can do a lot of calculations ..... or is it simply that  a game designed for typical higher end gaming consumers can't/ doesnt have the capacity to use those extra cores (and memory) so it comes down to writing efficient enough code to run on say 4 cores and 16GB of RAM ?

CIG are so screwed the code has been written in such a way that they are left trying to work out how to chop it up and process it as needed but it is so badly written or there is so much of it it cant be processed in time to work in real time ?



 

[GaryII]

An 18 core processor can do a lot of calculations ..... or is it simply that  a game designed for typical higher end gaming consumers can't/ doesnt have the capacity to use those extra cores (and memory) so it comes down to writing efficient enough code to run on say 4 cores and 16GB of RAM ?

 Current version of SC can fully utilize 2 cores ;) and I guess  something extra on others..

 I remember on WTFwourus stream he started to investigate why his FPS was low compared to "plebs" PCs with 6-Core CPUs like 8700k - he has 10-core Intel Extreme CPU...
 And he discovered that his CPU was running only at 3Ghz or even less compared to plebs PCs whitch run at 4Ghz...           
 And only 2 cores were at 95-100 % load...

 Cyrengine older versions are known for bad multicore support I remember there was some guy on old SC forumus who tested different CPUs, but I can't find it anymore... 
 He basically started his post with "Cryengine hates multicore CPUs and so does SC..."