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DEVS: STO 64Bit & DirectX 11 WHEN ?

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    swamarianswamarian Member Posts: 1,506 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    I believe the client is 64bit on 64bit machines. You can tell if it's 32bit by opening task manager. Look for GameClient.exe and if there is an asterisk next to it... then it's 32bit.

    It's 32 bit.
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    rattraps123rattraps123 Member Posts: 101 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Keep this thread going, Let Cryptic know we want a 64-Bt engine & full DirectX 11+ support.
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    wildweasalwildweasal Member Posts: 1,053 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Unless they do a MASSIVE revamp, this will never happen. Switching Game Engines from an established system to a new one is a logistical and development nightmare. Everything has to be redone. Artwork, game mechanics, modeling, animation, and probably a few others I am forgetting would all have to be recoded for the new engine.

    .

    yes but they need a NEW ENGINE yes its a nightmare but it will pay off in the end ......just ask guild wars ...a pain but they did it and now are reaping the rewards (that would be money)
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    phoeniciusphoenicius Member Posts: 762 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    this game doesn't uses more than 1.5GB memory and that is with everything at the very possible max(and i'm still exaggerating here), only thing cryptic truly needs to do, is fix their UI.
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    adamkafeiadamkafei Member Posts: 6,539 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    phoenicius wrote: »
    this game doesn't uses more than 1.5GB memory and that is with everything at the very possible max(and i'm still exaggerating here), only thing cryptic truly needs to do, is fix their UI.

    And sort out the culling priorities, I should be seeing the visuals that have a direct affect on myself before anyone else's ideally though they probably should build a new up to date engine that can handle all these things and work on the 64 bit level.
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    captainstevetngcaptainstevetng Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Tuesday...:D
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    eagledracoeagledraco Member Posts: 340 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Been a loooong time since I messed with NVIDIA SLI. Last I heard STO still does not take advantage of SLI or ATI Crossfire. Am I right? Has that been outclassed by DX11?
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    crypticarmsmancrypticarmsman Member Posts: 4,113 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Keep this thread going, Let Cryptic know we want a 64-Bt engine & full DirectX 11+ support.

    You do realize that to date no MMO is using a 64-bit engine (Cloud Imperium Games is right now modifying the CRYTECH Engine to a 64-bit because they need it to make large system maps for the game they're working on - 'Star Citizen'.)

    Also, as other have told you, it's the OS that handles memory access and can address and handle mapping to use more than 4GB (Whether the STO client is written to take advantage of this is anyone's guess.)

    Still a 64 bit client would mean a lot of players on older systems would mot be able to play the game as the minimum specs would require a 64-bit version of a MS Windows OS - and no MMO developer wants to spend time and money on a client that will exclude players - so I wouldn't expect the majority of rank and file MMO developers to go to a 64-bit client unless (as is the case for 'Star Citizen') a fundamental design requirement demands it.
    Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012
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    swamarianswamarian Member Posts: 1,506 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Also, as other have told you, it's the OS that handles memory access and can address and handle mapping to use more than 4GB (Whether the STO client is written to take advantage of this is anyone's guess.)

    Unless you tinker with the registry to make it think it's a server OS, no consumer Microsoft OS will give more than 3 GB to a 32 bit process.

    The Unreal Engine's been 64 bit for some time. (It defaults to 32 bit for games for performance reasons.)
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    danaleedanalee Member Posts: 73 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    I recently came back to STO. I used to play with max graphics easily. So, figured still should. I started the game and did a Starbase 24 STF and slowed to a crawl. Fiddled with options and found dynamic lighting was causing massive lag for me as 20 plays and dozens of NPC ships had their effects try to render lighting all at once.

    Turned it off and pretty much solved all my problems.
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    mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    IIRC, Galactic Civilizations III is pretty much the first game to be 64 Bit only.

    I guess more games will follow. But adapting an older game to 64 Bit may not always be so easy. Games tend to have a lot of fine-tuned performance tweaks that often are based on details of the processor architecture, and these could be a big stumbling point when converting to 64 Bit.

    And as long as a significant amount of STO players is limited to a 32 Bit system, you would need two versions of the game, because you can't just lose these players.
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
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    captainzheicaptainzhei Member Posts: 203 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Releasing a 64bit version of the game - I don't know enough about the difference between the two to care, to be honest. I'm pretty sure my laptop is a 64-bit machine, since it's only a few months old. DirectX11 I'm familiar with, and I'm all for seeing some upgrade love there.

    As for whoever suggested rebuilding the game engine - you daft, bruh. So daft.

    I would like to see a more neatly organized Heads Up Display. Something tidily stacked against the left and bottom edges of the screen.

    Compact target plates (perhaps without portraits), A colour-coded bar-stack to represent HP/Shields/XP on ground, and a sandwich-cut square with a bar stack underneath for the Shields, and Hull/XP in space. I did a few tests with rudimentary tools to gauge how large the stacks would need to be so that they were distinct and easy to decipher at 720p (a reasonable benchmark, for which my screen exceeds). The results I wound up with, which I will post a link to if I can figure out why uploading images on this browser is so hasslesome, suggest that even with the LCARS/KDF motif retained, but tightened up, you can clear up almost half of the currently blocked space on the screen.

    I'm just mentioning it because I was attracted to the game by the space action, and not the 10-by-3 hotbar eating up the bottom of the screen!
    ==========================================
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    jeffel82jeffel82 Member Posts: 2,075 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Expecting the STO team to write an entirely new engine is an incredibly goofy idea.
    You're right. The work here is very important.
    tacofangs wrote: »
    ...talking to players is like being a mall Santa. Everyone immediately wants to tell you all of the things they want, and you are absolutely powerless to deliver 99% of them.
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    belidosbelidos Member Posts: 452 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Releasing a 64bit version of the game - I don't know enough about the difference between the two to care, to be honest. I'm pretty sure my laptop is a 64-bit machine, since it's only a few months old. DirectX11 I'm familiar with, and I'm all for seeing some upgrade love there.

    Age of machine doesn't really dictate whether it is 32bit or 64bit (unless it is a very very old machine), it all depends on which version of the operating system has been installed, even Windows 8.1 has a 32bit version.
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    rattraps123rattraps123 Member Posts: 101 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    THANK YOU to everyone who supports this idea, it's important to keep this thread going to get the attention of Cryptic & the game devs. Removing space clutter would help out with the 11 year old Cryptic game engine and it needs major upgrades.

    Guys KEEP this thread going, I ran Starbase 24 yesterday and my FPS got down to 1-5 FPS. is was like watching a slide show. my CPU is a Core I-5 quad core & GPU is a Nvidia 650 TI 2GB card.

    THE CRPTIC GAME ENGINE NEEDS TO BE UPGRADED !!!

    I would like to bring to your attention to another thread I started about upgrading the engine to an removing Space Battle Clutter. They are both important to the future of star trek onine if there is to be one.

    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1189081
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    mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Guys KEEP this thread going, I ran Starbase 24 yesterday and my FPS got down to 1-5 FPS. is was like watching a slide show. my CPU is a Core I-5 quad core & GPU is a Nvidia 650 TI 2GB card.

    THE CRPTIC GAME ENGINE NEEDS TO BE UPGRADED NOW TO SUPPORT 64-BIT & DIRECTX 11+ GRAPHICS !!!
    What you actually want is better FPS and probably no disappearing SFX.

    It is generally better to tell a developer team what you want to achieve, not how to. Because if they read "Direct X11 / 64 Bit" - maybe they give you that (though it seems unlikely for 64 Bit), but it might still not fix your issue, because that requires more than just a general upgrade of the engine they use.
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
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    gagocashgagocash Member Posts: 150 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Yeah, i agree and support the threadstarter. my machine with 64-bit win7 and 3 gpus and 8 core cpu and 2 ssds needs more workload, my watercooled system is not even sweating with the current comic graphics of sto. lol

    P.S. now after a little thinking. no, it's better they don't upgrade the graphics on sto, we all know what happened the last time they tried to "upgrade" the graphics in sto. hahaha

    remember kids: never touch a running system
    M.A.C.O. ELITE COMMANDER & KIRK'S PROTEGE
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    zipagatzipagat Member Posts: 1,204 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    IIRC, Galactic Civilizations III is pretty much the first game to be 64 Bit only.

    I guess more games will follow. But adapting an older game to 64 Bit may not always be so easy. Games tend to have a lot of fine-tuned performance tweaks that often are based on details of the processor architecture, and these could be a big stumbling point when converting to 64 Bit.

    And as long as a significant amount of STO players is limited to a 32 Bit system, you would need two versions of the game, because you can't just lose these players.

    Most EA games using frostbite are 64 bit only and some predate Galciv III . I don't see how it will help with STO though, 64 bit games main advantage is they can use more than 4GB of RAM which is not what is causing problems in STO.
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    zipagatzipagat Member Posts: 1,204 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    gagocash wrote: »
    Yeah, i agree and support the threadstarter. my machine with 64-bit win7 and 3 gpus and 8 core cpu and 2 ssds needs more workload, my watercooled system is not even sweating with the current comic graphics of sto. lol

    P.S. now after a little thinking. no, it's better they don't upgrade the graphics on sto, we all know what happened the last time they tried to "upgrade" the graphics in sto. hahaha

    remember kids: never touch a running system

    If you think that more than 2 or 3 of your processor cores are being utilized by STO or any other game then you are going to have a bad time.
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    gagocashgagocash Member Posts: 150 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    :eek:
    zipagat wrote: »
    If you think that more than 2 or 3 of your processor cores are being utilized by STO or any other game then you are going to have a bad time.
    Yes they are, if you start 8 games at once. lol
    M.A.C.O. ELITE COMMANDER & KIRK'S PROTEGE
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    policestate76policestate76 Member Posts: 1,424 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    baudl wrote: »
    i sincerely doubt that 64 bit and directX11 would change the current problems this engine has in STO.

    There seems to be something fundamentaly wrong when a huge number of players are in the same spot and fireing their weapons. 64 bit client may help, but i think to solve the problem a more fundamental change of how the UI works and what kind of effects are shown and which are not can only solve this problem.

    Not saying they shouldn't upgrade, just saying that it might not be a big improvement anyway.

    People still dont understand that there is a big problem with the actual game engine. I agree with you, even playing this game on the best computer of the universe you will still get those game-breaking issues. Because, again it doesnt matter what OS do you have or what directx libraries are you using, it is a problem of the game engine. The only solution will be to upgrade the game engine, and in the process to keep it updated to support 64 bits Os and dx11. Im afraid that will never happen (it cost money... :( ), so i really dunno how cryptic will fix it. But they need to , or eventually the game will be totally unplayable.
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    baudlbaudl Member Posts: 4,060 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    People still dont understand that there is a big problem with the actual game engine. I agree with you, even playing this game on the best computer of the universe you will still get those game-breaking issues. Because, again it doesnt matter what OS do you have or what directx libraries are you using, it is a problem of the game engine. The only solution will be to upgrade the game engine, and in the process to keep it updated to support 64 bits Os and dx11. Im afraid that will never happen (it cost money... :( ), so i really dunno how cryptic will fix it. But they need to , or eventually the game will be totally unplayable.

    well who knoes exactly, but it very much feels like if there are "too many" entities in one spot atthe same time, the engine basically breaks down.
    Obvious solution: reduce entities that are present at any specific moment. Undine space battlezone can very well be reduced to 5 people...it seems overkill with 15 people anyway.
    Same with crytaline entity, 5 is good enough. For the undine battlezone i don't even think the number of NPC needs to be adjusted...the hole zone is faceroll...

    *by entities i actually mean more than just NPCs and players...all weapons and consoles and boff abilities have an effect in this case.
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    mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    People still dont understand that there is a big problem with the actual game engine. I agree with you, even playing this game on the best computer of the universe you will still get those game-breaking issues. Because, again it doesnt matter what OS do you have or what directx libraries are you using, it is a problem of the game engine. The only solution will be to upgrade the game engine, and in the process to keep it updated to support 64 bits Os and dx11. Im afraid that will never happen (it cost money... :( ), so i really dunno how cryptic will fix it. But they need to , or eventually the game will be totally unplayable.

    Everything Cryptic does costs money - an engine upgrade has the advantage of affecting many titles. But also the cost of such titles - art assets may need changes or upgrades to use the new technology. So it could very well end up costing more than it is worth. Of course, part of any cost of an upgrade will be measured in manhours - and that means it doesn't happen close to the time someone complains about disappearing weapon fire. It could take a months, or a year, until the required time is available and all the subtasks to implement the improvement have taken place.

    But it's not like the Cryptic engine isn't improved over time.
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
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    policestate76policestate76 Member Posts: 1,424 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Everything Cryptic does costs money - an engine upgrade has the advantage of affecting many titles. But also the cost of such titles - art assets may need changes or upgrades to use the new technology. So it could very well end up costing more than it is worth. Of course, part of any cost of an upgrade will be measured in manhours - and that means it doesn't happen close to the time someone complains about disappearing weapon fire. It could take a months, or a year, until the required time is available and all the subtasks to implement the improvement have taken place.

    But it's not like the Cryptic engine isn't improved over time.

    The cryptic engine was never improved. And the fact is, that it needs to. Better sooner rather than later..
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    foolishowlfoolishowl Member Posts: 102 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    One of the things that surprises me about the Windows world is that it's exceedingly rare to see any 64-bit executables -- and most of those I've seen are experimental variants of 32-bit executable, which regular users are mildly discouraged from using. I've never actually seen a game for Windows that was compiled as a 64-bit executable.

    By contrast, with Linux distributions, if you've got a 64-bit OS, then by default, every executable you install will be 64-bit. Even though there's no particular advantage to 64-bit for most applications, there's also very little disadvantage; it simplifies things if you just compile everything for 64-bit, for the sake of the few applications that can take advantage of it.

    The odd thing is that, for most users, games are the most demanding applications they run on their computers; it's not difficult to imagine how sophisticated games could take advantage of greater addressable memory and multiple threading. But, they don't.

    My guess is that this is because console games have a strong influence on the market, and consoles are, by and large, still 32-bit. A game that actually takes advantage of a 64-bit system couldn't be ported to a 32-bit console. Secondarily, as a consequence, most graphic engines and game development tools target 32-bit platforms and not 64-bit platforms.
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    meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    The game already supports DX11. :D And the light is so much prettier with it. For instance, try and look at the 'Haywire' glow glistening off your bow, with DX11 enabled: it looks awesome.

    As for 64 bit, the game doesn't really need it.
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    deadspacex64deadspacex64 Member Posts: 565 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    You do realize that to date no MMO is using a 64-bit engine (Cloud Imperium Games is right now modifying the CRYTECH Engine to a 64-bit because they need it to make large system maps for the game they're working on - 'Star Citizen'.)

    Also, as other have told you, it's the OS that handles memory access and can address and handle mapping to use more than 4GB (Whether the STO client is written to take advantage of this is anyone's guess.)

    Still a 64 bit client would mean a lot of players on older systems would mot be able to play the game as the minimum specs would require a 64-bit version of a MS Windows OS - and no MMO developer wants to spend time and money on a client that will exclude players - so I wouldn't expect the majority of rank and file MMO developers to go to a 64-bit client unless (as is the case for 'Star Citizen') a fundamental design requirement demands it.

    warframe has both a 32 and 64 bit client and dx9/dx11 flavors. wolfenstein the new order is only 64 bit. so not sure what you're date was, but both of those, even though one is a single player 64 bit has been they way its going for awhile.

    on topic:
    as to sto going for better dx11 support and 64...yeah, they need a new engine. this thing is falling apart, can't handle many poly's on screen, large textures, multilayered textures at high rez, effects of various types. bogs badly trying to render a lot of stuff.

    textures would have to be redone to take advantage of higher resolutions possible, and not required to be powers of 2. models could be shoved through a convertor, maybe add some detail they wished they could have, or leave it to tessellation. which if it supported more dx11 features like tessellation you could have dynamic battle damage ^_^ with the required molten metal glowing edges.

    but it would take them weeks or months just to decide on an engine, whichever one lets them keep as much of the assets as possible with conversion pipelines. new biped/misc/animal models and animations, and new textures for everything. ground comabt would be a lot less clunky can't stand how jerky the animations are, no blending, no physics, hair and cloth bits except for capes are locked in place like they were over starched.

    game needs new engine, trying to build on this one...like trying to add another story onto a house that's already caving in under the weight of the other floors. just a look at ancient bugs that are still here, squashed ones that come back, textures still turning black in dx11 in some cases. and the list of known issues and the ones not listed that seem that they cannot be solved.
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    rattraps123rattraps123 Member Posts: 101 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    The game needs new engine, trying to build on this one...like trying to add another story onto a house that's already caving in under the weight of the other floors. just a look at ancient bugs that are still here, squashed ones that come back, textures still turning black in dx11 in some cases. and the list of known issues and the ones not listed that seem that they cannot be solved.




    I totally agree for this game to have anykind of future, Crptic needs to either build or buy a new engine or watch star trek online be made by another company who can do this game justice. ~ Travis@OOP
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    rattraps123rattraps123 Member Posts: 101 Arc User
    edited September 2014
    Keep this thread going guys. Let the DEVS know you support this ~ T
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