Clearly it is possible for other developers to create game engines which are heavily multithreaded.... cough cough frostbite 1.0 and above. This game supporting DX11 would only force people to use a somewhat modern graphics card, it would also benefit the players who have a proper gaming computer. There is NO reason for ANYONE to be running their computer with a DX9 graphics card, if there are players using DX9 cards they should simply resign from PC gaming of any sort.
I never said it was impossible for SOE, just that it's a)very hard and b) doesn't always cure anything and infact can sometimes slow things down. Just because another engine can support multithreading to a significant degree doesn't mean they all can.. As for your DX11 comment, that isn't an answer. Why should SOE support something that will reduce profits? In order to get any performance benefit dx9 would have to be stripped out completely meaning fewer players.
Just come back in about 6 months and see if the game is still having the issues. There are way to many mmos and other great games coming out to waste time and get frustrated trying to play a game with a pc that is beyond the recommended specs that runs like crap in battle. I will check back in a couple months but until then other gaming company's get access to my wallet. Basically until it runs like advertised on pc's that are in the specs it is still in the "looks good on paper not in execution" phase.
How would this reduce profits ? to be quite frank the people still using DX9 cards are people who aren't going to pay for ANYTHING in game as they are too cheap to buy a midrange or even low end DX11 card which would perform much better than what they have. If anything players using DX9 cards are dead weight.
Some good points there TheOperation bit I disagree on a few. Heavy load on the server end can and does affect clients. Your PC cannot render/process information it has not yet received from the server, hence performance degradation sets in. While your PC does not have to track 2k players the Server does. It has to have a complete handle on every asset and event going on in the entire game, that's gotta be a hefty load. No the game looks nothing like BF3, Hell I wish it did! For me it is acceptable looking with all ultra setting and a RQ of 1.4, motion blur off, AO on , shadows high. I had poodoo performance around GU 4 and experienced that "desync" bug floating around. They must have done/fixed whatever it was they broke with regards to FPS because I am back to playing with out screaming every 20 seconds "W.T.F. is this sh*t" haha. The Desync, I performed a simple work around so I dunno if they've fixed that yet but reading the thread about it - it appears to still affect players. I'd still like to see even better performance. For me, Long gone are the days of single digit FPS bio lab fights or the horrid 20FPS drop as you approach AMP stations, the old stutter from back in December or when ever that was, gone. It's playing well enough for me now that I'm not constantly hitting "alt-F" to check. I'm sure the devs are not done with optimizations and I'd like to play with the game pegged at 60 or 120 FPS but I just do not think that is possible given the overhead the server/servers will always be faced with. If they can nail it so it stays above 40 for players (as long as players use respectable INI settings) then I think that would be a big plus for the game.
If they could just release options for the menu to boost some of those gfx settings ... that way we could also stop wondering what the actual settings for Ultra and such are.
Again, you're talking about DX9 cards, completely ignoring the fact that there's DX10 cards and a DX10 OS out there. Go check out the Steam survey page for people who would no longer be able to play the game. You're also equating low spec players not spending money. Not only is that not true, but they also provide a larger player base. A multiplayer game depends on its user base. Lower player base means a lower game experience for those flush with cash. They're not going to spend excess money if there's no one left to shoot at.
People running DX9 cards probably dont have adequate power to run this game properly so therefore they will most likely quit after a very short period of time negating the possible gain in user base. Also I seriously doubt any one is going to spend money on in game items especially considering the cost of the average in game items, if they cannot even afford a proper graphics card. Also DX11 is backwards compatible with DX10 therefore the user base of players who have DX10 cards wouldn't be left in the dark. Honestly there is absolutely no logical reason for their choice of whole heartily supporting DX9.
Assumptions of someone elses playing habits does not back up your arguments. Also, the average cost of an ingame item is £4 which is nothing compared to the price of a decent GPU. Last, again I point out that DX11 is Win7 only. A DX11 game would require Win7 to run, which based on the Steam survey page means SOE just lost 50% of its user base. There are plenty of logical reasons to support DX9, considering the vast majority of games still do so. DX10/11 games are a rarity still.
Honestly, lavans, it quite simply transpires that you're a DESPERATE, and miserable, fanboy. All points brought against ps2 good programming practices are OBVIOUS to anybody willing to see them. It just suffices to say that -you can't toggle anti alias off-. It's honestly GARBAGE, yet you can't toggle it off. The issue here is not 'go play something else'. There's people here who care about planetside to the point that they come and post about its fallacies. There's honestly no need for imbecile dim flame carriers like you to take a stand for ps2's team. Their job is **** compared to the original planetside 1. Ps2 is still playable by some, but nevertheless garbage in comparison to the old game. ps. for the idiots rambling about dx and so versions: the game runs better with 10 - 20 more fps under WINDOWS XP 32 BIT than on windows 7 64 bit. The only reason you are lead to believe 7 and 64 and 16gb of ram are better, is that you usually get that bloated **** when buying a new rig with ludicrous cpu cores to boot. this game is not better at running under 64 bit than a rock is.
It also runs smooth for a lot of other people, I mean... My whole outfit says the game runs smoothly for them... Get a new computer
Mate ive read all your points and i agree with them and i think most intelligent people do too, you are wasting your time with these people. They are used to console games that run on the same crappy engines in dx9 as we had in 2005, they see a couple of flashy special effects and they think the game looks amazing. You cannot get through to them mate they are simply not intelligent enough to understand what you are saying, its all "game is massive so it must use more resources" or "game is a different type of game so cannot be judged by any other game"... foolish arguments that at their core make no sense. Its a PC exclusive in 2012/13 that runs in DX9 and has textures that are worse than in half life 2, only the character models look good, it has the most basic(and limited) scripted physics ive ever seen, arma 2 actually embarrases it, and it runs really badly. People just dont get this they really dont.
Your post would have had some credibility until you started suggesting that claims that the game is reasonably resource intensive, are simply bunk arguments. That couldn't be further from the truth. As a fellow PC gamer, I was surprised to see someone needlessly insult other people (with good arguments) as being stupid, especially when the counter argument is even worse. The game needs optimizations, yes. Any competent PC gamer can confidently make that claim, seeing as the game doesn't utilize hardware to it's fullest potential. Processing hardly utilizes more than 50% of a higher end processor which means there's plenty of processing power to be tapped in to, to improve performance. This argument is not in dispute. Even the developers themselves admitted it. However it's critical to keep in mind that these kind of games are far from easy to create. There are a number of variables that most PC games never have to take into consideration. First and foremost, the obvious. This game has a lot of people doing a lot of stuff. None of which is predictable by the game, so it can't process in advanced for things it doesn't know will happen. Second, the balance between hardware configuration needs to be considered for various rigs. You can't make compromises for lower rig systems that will result in an unfair advantage for people on higher rigs. This puts a lot of pressure on how to fairly prioritize what is and isn't important to be rendered and processed. Third, the game is not graphically intense. The reason graphic affinity is lower has nothing to do with the graphic cards ability to handle the stress. The graphics card doesn't magically take over everything you see in the game. The processor is needed to calculate information that the graphics card will be expected to handle. By expecting the processor to calculate more information for the graphics card to handle, you're increasing the time it takes for more important things to be processed. So lowering the graphic affinity is indirectly improving processing performance in the long run. Fourth, the game needs to process more than what you care about. Just because you're in a particular area doing your own thing, doesn't mean everything else around you is irrelevant. The game doesn't know the difference between an anti-air gun on the mountain shooting at aircraft you don't care about, and a sniper who could possibly snipe you. So the game needs to take a 'better safe than sorry' approach and process everything that might be necessary. Not just what you think is necessary. Fifth, the ONLY other game like PlanetSide 2, is PlanetSide 1. Yes, I understand there are plenty of other MMOFPS out there, but none of them demand of the processor, what PlanetSide does. Simply because of it's unpredictable and broad nature. You could limit what people can do, sure.. but you're destroying a major part of PlanetSide by doing that. Sixth: Variables, variables, variables, variables. People want more flexibility, more customization, more control, more everything that costs processing power to produce. Since the game has no idea what the guy around the corner is going to do, it needs to account for the fact that it may effect you, directly or indirectly is irrelevant. So it needs to process it. Multiply that by every other variable and suddenly the scale get's a little overwhelming. Get the picture? Last but not least, simulation. The bottom line is that in a game like this, where everything is being simulated... bullets, movement, animation, rockets, vehicles, everything is being calculated... it's a lot to process. "But my processor is plenty powerful enough", yes it is. But your processor is different from mine and probably everyone else's. Making a specific optimization for your processor might not be hard, but making an optimization that works for your processor without crashing someone elses processor, is difficult. Take into account too, dividing this load across multiple cores. Now you've got a problem bigger than I think you can reasonably argue is 'easy' to fix. Look, I'm no SOE apologist. I think the game needs to be optimized and fast. However claiming there's "absolutely no excuse" for the lack of optimization and further, insulting people because they're defending a reasonable position, results in little more than anger and hatred. So with all do respect, cool it. We're all here to enjoy a game. Don't turn this into politics.
http://www.planetside-universe.com/character-5428010618042276097.php Character Created: 2012-11-20 10:06 PM Last login: 2013-02-06 01:03 AM Time Played: 2d 5h 0m So just because I disagree with a naysayer, I'm automatically a desperate and miserable fanboy? Grow up.
Im sorry man i cant agree with you. The argument that their job is hard is irrelevant, its hard for me and you because were average joes but the guys at SOE do this every day the code for a living. Do firemen complain that their job is hard? or soldiers? or even chefs?... no because chose that proffesion they went through the weeks and months and sometimes even years to do that job. At the end of the day their are much smaller companies that make game engines that will effectively and efficiantly use multiple cores and more of the comupters resources. Egosoft have put up a video showing their work on the pathing for the AI interactions in X Rebirth and in the video the dev says the game looks at what resources the computer has and how many cores and will attempt to make use of unused cores or threads as it deems nessecery. He states that in theory the engine could use 32 cores and he actually makes a joke about it being ready for "computers of the future" lol. He also states that none of it is scripted, the game makes use of it on its own and doesnt have to be told what to send where, the game decides what resources it needs. How can a small but successful german company pull this off and Sony Online Entertainment (a part of Sony one of the richest companies) has struggled to release a game that is at least stable? You can forget everything ive said but just please answer me that last one.
