Registered: Jul 2001
Location: The 5th layer of Hell
Posts: 127

Oviously I wasn't serious but it sure would've made for an interesting mission.
Isn't there some kind of ship limit for missions?

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: The 5th layer of Hell
Posts: 127

Oviously I wasn't serious but it sure would've made for an interesting mission.
Isn't there some kind of ship limit for missions?

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To alcohol: The cause of and solution to all of life's problems. - Homer Simpson

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Vancouver, WA, United States
Posts: 1290

Prior to the release of the source code, extensive testing found that the ship limit seems to vary from system to system. The deciding factor in most cases was how much RAM one had.

Recent advances have allowed for the ship limit to be raised significantly.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Vancouver, WA, United States
Posts: 1290

Prior to the release of the source code, extensive testing found that the ship limit seems to vary from system to system. The deciding factor in most cases was how much RAM one had.

Recent advances have allowed for the ship limit to be raised significantly.

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Israel
Posts: 144

In theory, if there were, say, 200 ships on-screen, with an average 1k polygons per ship (That's higher than it actually is, unless they're all in like point-blank range), you'd have 200,000 polygons on screen. If you're aiming for 60FPS, you need 200,000*60 polygons per second, meaning 12 million polygons per second. Even a relatively weak GeForce2 MX can handle 15 million polies per second, if the pipeline is optimized. That leaves optimizing the source
(I'm assuming that the processor won't have problems with handling physics and AI, since my old P-II 350 with a GeForce 2 MX has no problems handling even the most crowded missions that I've seen (Except the Babylon project mission where you're close to earth (the last one), but that's the graphics card, because of the textures) without a hitch in framerates, and the average PC these days is at least 3 times faster)

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Israel
Posts: 144

In theory, if there were, say, 200 ships on-screen, with an average 1k polygons per ship (That's higher than it actually is, unless they're all in like point-blank range), you'd have 200,000 polygons on screen. If you're aiming for 60FPS, you need 200,000*60 polygons per second, meaning 12 million polygons per second. Even a relatively weak GeForce2 MX can handle 15 million polies per second, if the pipeline is optimized. That leaves optimizing the source
(I'm assuming that the processor won't have problems with handling physics and AI, since my old P-II 350 with a GeForce 2 MX has no problems handling even the most crowded missions that I've seen (Except the Babylon project mission where you're close to earth (the last one), but that's the graphics card, because of the textures) without a hitch in framerates, and the average PC these days is at least 3 times faster)

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-"Oh God, please don't kill me today. Tomorrow is so much better."
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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 882

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fry Day
In theory, if there were, say, 200 ships on-screen, with an average 1k polygons per ship (That's higher than it actually is, unless they're all in like point-blank range), you'd have 200,000 polygons on screen. If you're aiming for 60FPS, you need 200,000*60 polygons per second, meaning 12 million polygons per second. Even a relatively weak GeForce2 MX can handle 15 million polies per second, if the pipeline is optimized. That leaves optimizing the source
(I'm assuming that the processor won't have problems with handling physics and AI, since my old P-II 350 with a GeForce 2 MX has no problems handling even the most crowded missions that I've seen (Except the Babylon project mission where you're close to earth (the last one), but that's the graphics card, because of the textures) without a hitch in framerates, and the average PC these days is at least 3 times faster)

---

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 882

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fry Day
In theory, if there were, say, 200 ships on-screen, with an average 1k polygons per ship (That's higher than it actually is, unless they're all in like point-blank range), you'd have 200,000 polygons on screen. If you're aiming for 60FPS, you need 200,000*60 polygons per second, meaning 12 million polygons per second. Even a relatively weak GeForce2 MX can handle 15 million polies per second, if the pipeline is optimized. That leaves optimizing the source
(I'm assuming that the processor won't have problems with handling physics and AI, since my old P-II 350 with a GeForce 2 MX has no problems handling even the most crowded missions that I've seen (Except the Babylon project mission where you're close to earth (the last one), but that's the graphics card, because of the textures) without a hitch in framerates, and the average PC these days is at least 3 times faster)

---

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 97

anyone fancy making an uber PC uber mission like the proper high noon suggested (or battle of endor syndrome revisited)?

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 329

Wasn't XWA supposed to be able to handle a lot of ships on screen?
Of course, it managed this by not using the full potential of the engine. Otherwise we wouldn't need XWAUP.

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 329

Wasn't XWA supposed to be able to handle a lot of ships on screen?
Of course, it managed this by not using the full potential of the engine. Otherwise we wouldn't need XWAUP.

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 329

Oh, and since I don't feel like posting a new topic, how did you get Alpha 1 to say messages without making the player click through a bunch of errors at the beginning of the mission? Oh, wait, you just made a nav buoy or something invisible with the name "Alpha 1^" or something and had it transmit the message, right?

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 329

Oh, and since I don't feel like posting a new topic, how did you get Alpha 1 to say messages without making the player click through a bunch of errors at the beginning of the mission? Oh, wait, you just made a nav buoy or something invisible with the name "Alpha 1^" or something and had it transmit the message, right?

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Israel
Posts: 144

By my playing with the DirectX 8.1 SDK, I'd say it's a safe bet that a GeForce2 MX can handle a bit less than 20 million untextured, lit polygons, if that's the only thing it's doing, and the program is hella optimized. The MX's main penalty is of course large textures, even though it supports palettized textures (like FS2), so if you use those, the FS2 textures won't be a problem. Besides, after playing sacrifice in max detail, with lots of monsters on-screen (A bit of math got me to around 200k polies for monsters alone) smoothly, I think a GeForce2 MX can handle FS2 easily enough.

By the way, did anyone think of using Mipmaps? I play on the second highest model detail level (highest keeps all ships on LOD0, and without serious improvements to the engine, my Celeron 533 can't handle it), and there's plenty of aliasing on the textures when a ship is around 500 meters from me. I also thought of using a progressive-mesh type tech (like MRM), but I guess that could make turrets floating in space, and collisions would have to be redone (Luckily, I've read a bit of the .pof specifications, or I'd've made a fool of myself), but mipmaps would be great, and that's only like 1 line more in the texture-loading function(s).

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Israel
Posts: 144

By my playing with the DirectX 8.1 SDK, I'd say it's a safe bet that a GeForce2 MX can handle a bit less than 20 million untextured, lit polygons, if that's the only thing it's doing, and the program is hella optimized. The MX's main penalty is of course large textures, even though it supports palettized textures (like FS2), so if you use those, the FS2 textures won't be a problem. Besides, after playing sacrifice in max detail, with lots of monsters on-screen (A bit of math got me to around 200k polies for monsters alone) smoothly, I think a GeForce2 MX can handle FS2 easily enough.

By the way, did anyone think of using Mipmaps? I play on the second highest model detail level (highest keeps all ships on LOD0, and without serious improvements to the engine, my Celeron 533 can't handle it), and there's plenty of aliasing on the textures when a ship is around 500 meters from me. I also thought of using a progressive-mesh type tech (like MRM), but I guess that could make turrets floating in space, and collisions would have to be redone (Luckily, I've read a bit of the .pof specifications, or I'd've made a fool of myself), but mipmaps would be great, and that's only like 1 line more in the texture-loading function(s).

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-"Oh God, please don't kill me today. Tomorrow is so much better."
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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: belleville IL USA
Posts: 1428

are you a smarty programer person?

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 329

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alikchi
Oh, and since I don't feel like posting a new topic, how did you get Alpha 1 to say messages without making the player click through a bunch of errors at the beginning of the mission? Oh, wait, you just made a nav buoy or something invisible with the name "Alpha 1^" or something and had it transmit the message, right?

---

Forget it, I remember how now.

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location:
Posts: 329

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alikchi
Oh, and since I don't feel like posting a new topic, how did you get Alpha 1 to say messages without making the player click through a bunch of errors at the beginning of the mission? Oh, wait, you just made a nav buoy or something invisible with the name "Alpha 1^" or something and had it transmit the message, right?

---

Forget it, I remember how now.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Mönchengladbach, NRW, Germany
Posts: 2886

...oh well...the "#" rulez

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Mönchengladbach, NRW, Germany
Posts: 2886

...oh well...the "#" rulez

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HAMLET RULEZ!!

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