Question: How is the new expansion going to work on the current engine? With the game used to dealing with 25th Century tech, will switching and downgrading to duotronic computers and 1960s retro styling be much easier to handle? I think this might be Cryptic's way of avoiding upgrading the engine! We're going backwards with our tech, flying much more dated ships and that will improve overall performance. Correct if I'm wrong. But yeah, now that we'll be able to fly a Daedalus, it's going to be waaaaay easier on the engine. No upgrades needed!
If I remember correctly, Perpetual was originally shooting for sometime around the anniversary date in Sept. 2009.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Question: How is the new expansion going to work on the current engine? With the game used to dealing with 25th Century tech, will switching and downgrading to duotronic computers and 1960s retro styling be much easier to handle? I think this might be Cryptic's way of avoiding upgrading the engine! We're going backwards with our tech, flying much more dated ships and that will improve overall performance. Correct if I'm wrong. But yeah, now that we'll be able to fly a Daedalus, it's going to be waaaaay easier on the engine. No upgrades needed!
Admittedly, Much of my computer tech knowledge comes from the "University of Google." Well that and insisting to my parents that I am NOT qualified tech support, no matter how many computer problems I handle for them. But is it even POSSIBLE for a computer to be "too powerful" to run a game?
My understanding is that the more powerful a system is, the easier it is to handle a game, even if the resources of the computer are way above and beyond what is needed for the game or its engine.
Admittedly, Much of my computer tech knowledge comes from the "University of Google." Well that and insisting to my parents that I am NOT qualified tech support, no matter how many computer problems I handle for them. But is it even POSSIBLE for a computer to be "too powerful" to run a game?
My understanding is that the more powerful a system is, the easier it is to handle a game, even if the resources of the computer are way above and beyond what is needed for the game or its engine.
In the old days, games were often programmed with very intimidate knowledge of things like clock speed or typical max memory. Old MS DOS games for example were designed for certain clock speeds, and worked fine on a 286 12 Mhz processor, but on a 486 with 66 Mhz they suddenly were playing too fast and you needed special tools to slow them down. (If you ever played a DOS Box game, for example from gog.com - DOS Box comes with tools to do that.)
On a Windows seminar about Microsoft's attempt to keep old software running with shims and virtualization techniques they mentioned I believe an old Need for Speed or similar racing game. That game tried to allocate all memory it could get beforehand and then allocating to its own purposes internally. Which was kinda okay when you had something like 8MB RAM and there was no virtual memory and your gam was the only thing running anyway, but with later machines and virtual memory that meant not just using up all the RAM, but also all the hard disk space devoted to virtual memory and killing all other programs (or alternatively, too much for the game to handle). So they had a shim that would detect this behavior from a game and stopped handing it memory before things could get bad, even if still plenty was availalble.
Today... It's probably less of a problem. There are probably a mix of abstraction layers or the need to have fallbacks in case ideal hardware is not available already. (Of course, the latter could feasibly become a performance drawback, if an old technology is no longer available and you have to go back to the fallback.) But just adding more RAM or processor power is not going to do it.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
But is it even POSSIBLE for a computer to be "too powerful" to run a game?
absolutely
there are many older games that either run poorly on newer, more powerful computers, only run when doing one or more things to its executable or one of the config files the game comes with or just flat-out don't run at all
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Is it that they are too powerful, or that they just don't have the software that makes the old game compatible with newer drivers?
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Is it that they are too powerful, or that they just don't have the software that makes the old game compatible with newer drivers?
People think that newer computer components and architecture magically means faster performance. No it does not always mean that. People think that replacing old but still usable game engine will magically solve all of their performance issues. No it may not and here is why.
The current engine may be inefficient in what it does but it does what it does with its limited optimization and also limited demands. People seem to fail to understand that even if you created an entirely new and more optimized engine for the demands of the old engine, you will still choke the new game engine with newer and more demands, functions and features. In the end you may have a more updated and more fancy and flashy game engine with many neat features... but performance wise we may still be where we are now.
I mean, ask yourself why games like first modern Battlefield on an early 2000 computer may generate the same amount of frame rates as the upcoming Battlefield 5 (called 1) does the same on a new computer. Even if you have more resources if the game demands more resources then the actual gains in performance may not be significantly better. It's like first earning $1000 and paying for something that costs $100. Then earning $2000 instead but paying $200 for the same item. You still have a ratio of 1:10.
The reason why many people want a new game engine is not because of a ton of fancy features but simply because they want the game to run better. However, it may not do that because you have the tendency to slow it down with new and more features and functions.
Yep, sometimes too fast. I remember years ago I had gotten the kids a game called Designasaurus. The carnivore 'scenario' had a T-Rex attacking a Bronto. When I put that game on a Pentium 2 that T-Rex entered the field and took down the Bronto before you could even touch a key.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Yep, sometimes too fast. I remember years ago I had gotten the kids a game called Designasaurus. The carnivore 'scenario' had a T-Rex attacking a Bronto. When I put that game on a Pentium 2 that T-Rex entered the field and took down the Bronto before you could even touch a key.
Yeah, a lot of the old Win3.3 games have similar behavior. They have no code in the game to throttle execution. They're written to run full blast because that was the right speed on the hardware they were written for. But upgrading from a 486 to an i3... well... that makes the game run so fast that it might run the whole game in seconds instead of hours. I actually used to play this old MsDos game called Simlife. It let you create an ecosystem and watch it develop.... on a 286. On the K6-2 I was using at the time I had to pause the game every few seconds to see what was going on. The critters would move so fast on screen I couldn't see what they were doing.
Actually, The way I remember it the 18 month time frame was one of CBS's requirements for selling them rights. So Cryptic had two choices, agree to do it in 18 months or no sale.
This is correct. The timeframe was a condition from CBS for the license to trasnfer at all. It might be nice to think that some other company could have picked it up and run with it better than we did, but we got the license because no one else wanted to touch that dev cycle with a 10' stick. If Cryptic had not picked up the license, there wouldn't be a DIFFERENT STO, there would be NO STO.
And for the record, remember that Perpetual had almost nothing after 4 years. When we were 6 months into the process and could show CBS that we actually HAD a game going, they agreed to give us an extension. (Can't remember exactly, but it was something on the 3-6 month scale) I don't remember the original ship date, but it was in 2009.
THIS. wow. I've looked up the "Perpetual" STO. judging by its game direction, it would have been awful. and it wasn't even close to done. 4 YEARS and all they had was a tu*d. not even a shiny one.
then in less than two years Cryptic came up with an ENTIRELY NEW game and then had to abruptly rewrite part of the story cause JJ went and blew up Romulus...
I was here in the beta and the launch. I have watched this game grow for 6 years. this was a good game from the start. needed work but was already up there with Elite Force and Bridge Commander. and its only gotten better. my only major complaint over the years hasn't even been the game, its been the gradually eroding community that hardly talks to each other anymore.
but i digress. my point is the fact that they could do this in such a short time and then the game is still around (as is Champions, for that matter) is impressive in my book.
Edit: Apparently i cant say T followed with URD in the forums. when did that become a curse word?
I don't think the game engine is a problem, it is more likely the excessive use of Space FX that forces many Computers to their knees.
Or does anyone seriously think that THIS is helpful or even informative?
I'd be happy if i could switch off even 50% of all that FX.
Yup, this. We don't really need all this TRIBBLE on the screen. An option to shut off all of it, 100% is a must.
So here's a question: will this shut off the beam/cannon/torpedo fx too? That can stay on.
as much as I dislike most of that stuff, the real drag is the goddamn UI.
seriously, go into a semi-crowded area. then hit Escape, and watch your FPS skyrocket.
The UI is awful. If a UI window is open, it's basically displaying all of its contents, regardless of whether they're actually in the viewable area, and simply not showing you the ones that are outside the window area. Open the doffing window, go to a tab or category with a long list of stuff (like talking to sci officer, or looking at a list of 20 completed missions). Put the mouse above or below the doffing window, over an area that would have an item with a tooltip if that area was inside the viewable window. The tooltip will pop up.
All the updates are cross-platform and launch this fall. Did you even read the blog?
We did, it says the updates will be coming to PC later in the year, so the console first mentality has already begun and the port isn't even released yet
We did, it says the updates will be coming to PC later in the year, so the console first mentality has already begun and the port isn't even released yet
Errr... "will be coming to the PC version of the game later this year as well" doesn't mean "later the the console release".
Considering that the console version is scheduled to go live this fall (and I strongly suspect it is going to be somewhere close to late fall) it is quite possible that the new lightning will come to PC first.
We did, it says the updates will be coming to PC later in the year, so the console first mentality has already begun and the port isn't even released yet
Errr... "will be coming to the PC version of the game later this year as well" doesn't mean "later the the console release".
Considering that the console version is scheduled to go live this fall (and I strongly suspect it is going to be somewhere close to late fall) it is quite possible that the new lightning will come to PC first.
If it was earlier, they would have said summer or with AoY, if it was with the port they would have said coming this fall as well, they instead said later this year which implies it will be close to the last patch of December
Comments
Captain Proton Expansion next!*
*Not really.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
My understanding is that the more powerful a system is, the easier it is to handle a game, even if the resources of the computer are way above and beyond what is needed for the game or its engine.
Yes. See below for reference:
In the old days, games were often programmed with very intimidate knowledge of things like clock speed or typical max memory. Old MS DOS games for example were designed for certain clock speeds, and worked fine on a 286 12 Mhz processor, but on a 486 with 66 Mhz they suddenly were playing too fast and you needed special tools to slow them down. (If you ever played a DOS Box game, for example from gog.com - DOS Box comes with tools to do that.)
On a Windows seminar about Microsoft's attempt to keep old software running with shims and virtualization techniques they mentioned I believe an old Need for Speed or similar racing game. That game tried to allocate all memory it could get beforehand and then allocating to its own purposes internally. Which was kinda okay when you had something like 8MB RAM and there was no virtual memory and your gam was the only thing running anyway, but with later machines and virtual memory that meant not just using up all the RAM, but also all the hard disk space devoted to virtual memory and killing all other programs (or alternatively, too much for the game to handle). So they had a shim that would detect this behavior from a game and stopped handing it memory before things could get bad, even if still plenty was availalble.
Today... It's probably less of a problem. There are probably a mix of abstraction layers or the need to have fallbacks in case ideal hardware is not available already. (Of course, the latter could feasibly become a performance drawback, if an old technology is no longer available and you have to go back to the fallback.) But just adding more RAM or processor power is not going to do it.
absolutely
there are many older games that either run poorly on newer, more powerful computers, only run when doing one or more things to its executable or one of the config files the game comes with or just flat-out don't run at all
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
sometimes both... theres a reason gog.com wraps old DOS game in their own version of DOSbox so it works in modern Windows OS
The current engine may be inefficient in what it does but it does what it does with its limited optimization and also limited demands. People seem to fail to understand that even if you created an entirely new and more optimized engine for the demands of the old engine, you will still choke the new game engine with newer and more demands, functions and features. In the end you may have a more updated and more fancy and flashy game engine with many neat features... but performance wise we may still be where we are now.
I mean, ask yourself why games like first modern Battlefield on an early 2000 computer may generate the same amount of frame rates as the upcoming Battlefield 5 (called 1) does the same on a new computer. Even if you have more resources if the game demands more resources then the actual gains in performance may not be significantly better. It's like first earning $1000 and paying for something that costs $100. Then earning $2000 instead but paying $200 for the same item. You still have a ratio of 1:10.
The reason why many people want a new game engine is not because of a ton of fancy features but simply because they want the game to run better. However, it may not do that because you have the tendency to slow it down with new and more features and functions.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Yup, this. We don't really need all this TRIBBLE on the screen. An option to shut off all of it, 100% is a must.
So here's a question: will this shut off the beam/cannon/torpedo fx too? That can stay on.
My character Tsin'xing
as much as I dislike most of that stuff, the real drag is the goddamn UI.
seriously, go into a semi-crowded area. then hit Escape, and watch your FPS skyrocket.
THIS. wow. I've looked up the "Perpetual" STO. judging by its game direction, it would have been awful. and it wasn't even close to done. 4 YEARS and all they had was a tu*d. not even a shiny one.
then in less than two years Cryptic came up with an ENTIRELY NEW game and then had to abruptly rewrite part of the story cause JJ went and blew up Romulus...
I was here in the beta and the launch. I have watched this game grow for 6 years. this was a good game from the start. needed work but was already up there with Elite Force and Bridge Commander. and its only gotten better. my only major complaint over the years hasn't even been the game, its been the gradually eroding community that hardly talks to each other anymore.
but i digress. my point is the fact that they could do this in such a short time and then the game is still around (as is Champions, for that matter) is impressive in my book.
Edit: Apparently i cant say T followed with URD in the forums. when did that become a curse word?
The UI is awful. If a UI window is open, it's basically displaying all of its contents, regardless of whether they're actually in the viewable area, and simply not showing you the ones that are outside the window area. Open the doffing window, go to a tab or category with a long list of stuff (like talking to sci officer, or looking at a list of 20 completed missions). Put the mouse above or below the doffing window, over an area that would have an item with a tooltip if that area was inside the viewable window. The tooltip will pop up.
doesn't help me as I dont own either console, and since those updates arent coming at the same time as the console supposedly...
So you are switching to Unity engine to make this a console game! I KNEW IT!
We did, it says the updates will be coming to PC later in the year, so the console first mentality has already begun and the port isn't even released yet
Star Trek: HALO? I'm sorry but my Fleet Admiral Master Chief is distracting me too much with lighting effects to focus on your post.
The wording made it pretty clear that it was coming AFTER the console port
Considering that the console version is scheduled to go live this fall (and I strongly suspect it is going to be somewhere close to late fall) it is quite possible that the new lightning will come to PC first.
If it was earlier, they would have said summer or with AoY, if it was with the port they would have said coming this fall as well, they instead said later this year which implies it will be close to the last patch of December
I haven't seen that much BS passed off as authentic logic since the last presidential debates.