Outerra forum
Outerra Engine => Technology => Topic started by: charlesmeryon on February 21, 2010, 08:36:47 am
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Hello,
Your engine is very impressive !
Is that possible to have any demo of a small area with one vehicle (like airplane ;) ) to test it ?
I hope it will not be like Infinity engine with impressive images and videos during many years without any chance to test it!
PS: sorry for my english.
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Your engine is very impressive !
Is that possible to have any demo of a small area with one vehicle (like airplane ;) ) to test it ?
I hope it will not be like Infinity engine with impressive images and videos during many years without any chance to test it!
Hi,
Thanks.
We would like to release a public demo when we stabilize the functionality and resolve some of the more serious issues. A major problem are the AMD OpenGL 3.2 driver bugs. As the engine quite depends on the new features, these bugs render the AMD graphic cards unusable now. As many of users have AMD cards we have to have this fixed. We are working to resolve these issues with AMD but their reaction times are rather slow. Still, it's better than when they were ATI.
So what will probably be in the demo:
* Tatra 815
* Cessna 172
* A free camera controller (UFO mode with limits)
* terrain data will be downloaded by bittorrent (but we are still resolving how and where to seed the data)
* there will be probably only one land type with one or two tree types and there won't be grass blades (only as texture)
Regarding the performance, as there are few posts in other forums whether Outerra needs a super computer to run. The minimum configuration is a dual core CPU and a SM4 graphics card with at least 512MB memory and performance similar to Nvidia 8800GT. With this configuration you will get at least 30FPS. This is what we are getting in the current development version which is not optimized very well, but there is also still lot of stuff missing like the building etc.
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Yeah a demo would be nice.
I remember reading a YouTube Post by Cameni saying that they hope to have a demo by January/February 2010. That post is about 7 months old now though.
Do you think there will still be a release in February?
Whoah, two posts a minute apart! :)
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Well i hope u guys fix the ATI gfx card problem, because i got their Latest Card that barely came out like 3 months ago. And i want to SET IT LOOSE! It hungers for graphics intense games!
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Well, we are currently at this with AMD cards:
(http://www.outerra.com/images/e-41-amd.jpg)
versus
(http://www.outerra.com/images/e-41-nvidia.jpg)
At least we aren't in a complete darkness like in the beginning :)
That's after a few bug reports filed, fortunately the guys from AMD seem to be quite helpful. We have some workarounds for all the bugs we've found so far, shame it took such a long time to isolate the causes.
We have found also a few bugs of our own; the most problematic issue is the "undefined behavior" that appears in many places in GL specification, and somehow on AMD it usually manifests as an unexpected one, whereas on Nvidia it does the presumed behavior anyway. Still, it's our bug, but the missing feedback from OpenGL that you are doing something wrong or not doing something at all really doesn't help to shorten the time spent on finding such bugs. It's real pain sometimes.
And from the screen shot you can see there will be some more of ones and/or the others.
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Haha that's a crazy screenshot, with the flying trees and the colored forests.
That's really good that you have a way to fix all the "known" bugs. I have an AMD.
When you say AMD you mean AMD processors right?
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No, AMD graphic cards. I should have rather said ATI :)
Their OpenGL driver is problematic.
Well, and there's apparently a lot of "unknown bugs" too :)
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Oh ok.
I have an ATI 4850. I hope your able to fix it soon. :)
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Yeah AMD bought ATI about 2 years ago. So from the pictures it seems to be some kind of texture problem, but then again I'm not a program just 3d artist , lawlz
I actually used to get a similar problem that resembled that on my old graphics card when it overheated running some intense graphic applications. But its probably not related.
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Phenomenal looking game engine.
With it being OpenGL based it’s too bad you couldn’t team up with the X-Plane development team, I think it would be a great fit.
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I think no existing simulator (or a simulator built on old principles) can easily use the engine, and it would be a huge amount of work to integrate it as well. But there are still some possibilities, like PSX (http://aerowinx.com/) where one can make a plugin for world rendering relatively easily, or the Jet Thunder (http://www.thunder-works.com/), possibly.
BTW there will be also a DX10+ back-end later.
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I think no existing simulator (or a simulator built on old principles) can easily use the engine, and it would be a huge amount of work to integrate it as well. But there are still some possibilities, like PSX (http://aerowinx.com/) where one can make a plugin for world rendering relatively easily, or the Jet Thunder (http://www.thunder-works.com/), possibly.
What would be an example of “old principles”?
BTW there will be also a DX10+ back-end later.
Interesting, I would really like to hear more about this. I have been under the impression that it's either OpenGL or DirectX when you are developing a game engine not both?
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What would be an example of “old principles”?
Hmm, for example, we are doing everything to be fractal refineable, so there's always detail as you zoom in. Another property of the approach is that level of detail management and streaming is very effective. However, this also means the data has to be prepared, preprocessed - it cannot use just anything. So you cannot simply take existing meshes and textures and throw it at the engine.
I have been under the impression that it's either OpenGL or DirectX when you are developing a game engine not both?
It's certainly not, there are engines that more or less hide from you the underlying API. Nowadays, with everything going in one direction - GPU, shaders and everything, it's in fact easier to do than before, if one can get rid of the obsolete stuff entirely.
We've modeled our core engine to follow the DX10 API style, but have implemented OpenGL back-end under it. So now it should be easier to implement DirectX 10+ back-end when the whole thing was designed this way.
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Hmm, for example, we are doing everything to be fractal refineable, so there's always detail as you zoom in. Another property of the approach is that level of detail management and streaming is very effective. However, this also means the data has to be prepared, preprocessed - it cannot use just anything. So you cannot simply take existing meshes and textures and throw it at the engine.
Thank you for the explanation, again very interesting stuff here.
It's certainly not, there are engines that more or less hide from you the underlying API. Nowadays, with everything going in one direction - GPU, shaders and everything, it's in fact easier to do than before, if one can get rid of the obsolete stuff entirely.
We've modeled our core engine to follow the DX10 API style, but have implemented OpenGL back-end under it. So now it should be easier to implement DirectX 10+ back-end when the whole thing was designed this way.
Does this approach have a negative effect on the performance of the engine in the end; is it less efficient not being “dedicated” to OpenGL or DirectX?
When you say “DX10+” do you mean DirectX 10 and 11?
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
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There should be no big impact; it's not like we are creating a thick layer to hide all aspects of the APIs. The engine is mostly the shaders and the graphics API-independent code. We are also using code generators that hide the specifics without requiring heavy abstract code.
Yes, DX10+ is anything from DX10 and above. Mainly that means we aren't addressing DX9 because that has quite different and old architecture.
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There should be no big impact; it's not like we are creating a thick layer to hide all aspects of the APIs. The engine is mostly the shaders and the graphics API-independent code. We are also using code generators that hide the specifics without requiring heavy abstract code.
Yes, DX10+ is anything from DX10 and above. Mainly that means we aren't addressing DX9 because that has quite different and old architecture.
So as far as the game developer is concerned would they have to choose between going OpenGL or DirectX with the Outerra game engine during development?
Could this be so flexible as to have an “in-game” option so that the end user could switch between an OpenGL and DirectX “mode”?
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Well in theory it could go that far as to have it an in-game option, although I don't see the point other than because-one-can. It's meant more to give the developers the choice during the development, to tune the game to it and to give the possibility to reuse their or a third party code.
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Any luck with the AMD card Problem?
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We've submitted about 5 bug reports so far, but what's worse - we don't have workarounds for the last two.
No word from AMD yet if they identified/fixed these. And even when they do, it will be 2-3 months before the fixed drivers are released publicly.
So we are waiting for the 10.3 drivers to see if they fix anything. Otherwise we'd have to find the workarounds .. or wait. But truthfully, we aren't much inclined to lose more time on this when there's so much work on many parts of the engine yet, and since these bugs will be eventually fixed.
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I guess if the bugs will fix themselves eventually it makes more sence to put your effort somewhere else. I am looking forward to another update! :)
It's to bad ATI haven't replied at all yet. I hope this is not something that will never get looked at.
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They replied that they have identified and fixed two less serious bugs we submitted, and they thank us for each bug report, so it's not that bad :)
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Oh ok it's good to know they fixed the other bugs. They probably have seen the other bugs if they fixed two of them already.
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Hello,
Can you tell me approximately when you will release the demo?
Greetings,
halobungie
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Well, AMD tells us that it takes 2-3 months until the fixes for the bugs we report are released publicly. But they didn't fix 2 more serious bugs that render the engine unusable now on AMD/ATI cards, so we have to wait. And poke them once in a while.
I'm going to test the 10.3 driver to see if it's any better.
We have also several of our own issues to fix before the release, but these only require labor, no praying :)
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ATI recently released the 10.3 drivers.
They didn't by chance fix the two major bugs did they?
EDIT: You should post that HD Video Capture update on MODDB. :)
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Ah don't get me started ..
When I tried it, the code didn't even compile because 10.3 introduced a new bug. Workaround will not be complicated, that is, after I cool off :mad:
I've posted the update on ModDB, but it takes long time until they approve it. And maybe they will archive it again ..
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The driver updates actually made it worse and now there's three bugs? That's kind of ironic. Good to hear that it's an easy workaround.
The update on MODDB is showing up now. :)
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Any word from AMD about the 2 engine breaking bugs? :|
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We will soon have access to beta drivers (under NDA) so we'll find out if these were fixed. We've received a note from AMD that the bugs have been fixed, or more precisely that they believe they have been fixed :p
This would be great, hopefully it will work and the remaining part of the rendering code that wasn't tested yet because of the blockers will be without problems too. It means that publicly available driver with these fixes will be available 2-3 months from now.
Still, that's much better than "someday+3months" date :)
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Well this is somewhat good news if everything works, cause i have that Dx11 AMD gfx card!
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Really good to hear that from ATI. I hope they were fixed and there aren't many other bugs (or if lucky none :)).
Let us know when the two major bugs are fixed! :D
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Did AMD actually fix the two bugs without creating any other ones?
I can't wait for the first release! :D :D
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We don't have access to the beta drivers yet. But we tested the 3.3/4.0 preview driver and found another bug :)
We've already received confirmation and it's being worked on.
Hence I could not test it completely, but it seems that some of the bugs that we reported previously are already fixed in that driver version, so it doesn't look bad.
One thing that I don't like about it is that a new driver version can break previously working code that easily. Obviously their test suite isn't very comprehensive, I'm hoping at least we are helping them to build one such.
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I just realized that ATI 10.4 was released on April 28.
Did it add/fix any problems? :|
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No, that 10.4 version seems to be actually older than the preview driver. Apparently the preview driver was released outside of the standard release procedure, so the final driver should come 2-3 months from that.
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Just signed up to support you in your efforts. Looks amazing. Those sunset pictures are perhaps the most beautiful of any I have ever seen. http://www.outerra.com/shots/k107.jpg
I imagine this has full-blown physics in the engine as well and not just trickery as with the Arma (Real Virtuality 3) engine.
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Thanks :)
Atmosphere rendering is not finished yet, I have to rework some parts of it to optimize the rendering and to fix some corner cases. And of course the clouds will enhance it greatly.
I've never played Arma so I don't know what physics is there; here we are using Bullet (http://bulletphysics.org) and trying to make it work effectively on large scale. Otherwise we want to make an interface for various physics engines that can be used with it. But generally, physics engines do not support spherical worlds directly and the scale is problematic too.
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Let us know what happens when you get a chance to test the "real 10.4"! :)
Yeah Arma doesn't have very much of a physics engine from what I saw, except I heard that helocopters in the game actually fly because they create a bigger force than gravity.
BTW: It's almost been a month and a half since the last update. Any hints for what's going to be in the next one? :|
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Let us know what happens when you get a chance to test the "real 10.4"! :)
BTW: It's almost been a month and a half since the last update. Any hints for what's going to be in the next one? :|
Yeah, we need some updates. :D And when will you see about getting a customer to use this engine in a game?
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Yeah if you need someone to test the Outerra Engine I'd be very interested!
I have:
XP Home Edition (32 bit)
ATI Radeon 4850
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core processor 3800+
3GB ram (DDR2) (If it matters)
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We wanted to publish an update already but a handful of complications emerged, delaying it. The update will be probably about integration of vector data overlay system for roads and runways and general terrain modifications. A video or two should be released as well.
We have several potential customers for the engine already, who are considering the engine for their forthcoming projects (mostly aiming for major engine and game style upgrades for their existing game line). Their development should start in 2011, provided we will have the technologies they require and that we'll come into agreement.
Otherwise we want to create a game demoing the engine too, and we are defining what it will be using also the feedback we are receiving. Obviously it will be something simpler as we don't have the resources do focus deeply on both engine and game development. Just now we are pondering how to get it more in line with the engine development path.
Maybe I should finalize the new forums and set up a poll about possible variants :)
As for the testing - there's no point in it now given the situation with the drivers and that we still don't have the access to the development version ourselves (hint: AMD legal department). It's possible that a working (or rather a `workaroundable') public driver will be available sooner than we'll be able to get our hands on the development version.
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The update will be probably about integration of vector data overlay system for roads and runways and general terrain modifications. A video or two should be released as well.
Update & videos excellent!
Just signed up to support you in your efforts. Looks amazing. Those sunset pictures are perhaps the most beautiful of any I have ever seen. http://www.outerra.com/shots/k107.jpg
If only FSX or XPlane could do lighting like that... Outerra would be excellent as an engine for flight simming!
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Maybe I should finalize the new forums and set up a poll about possible variants :)
Sounds like a great idea to me :) If you're still hesistant about SMF 2.0 RC3, you could use phpBB3. Here's a link to a site with several phpBB3 themes: http://www.phpbbhq.com/?cat=4 A poll also sounds great.
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I'm hesitant because of RC-ness of SMF 2.0, otherwise I'm quite satisfied with it.
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I'm hesitant because of RC-ness of SMF 2.0, otherwise I'm quite satisfied with it.
I wasn't asking about why you were hesitant, I was just giving a suggestion. I misinterpreted you when you talked about setting up a poll for possible variants.
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I hope 10.5 is going to be a "workaroundable" driver, so that maybe the demo could be relased.
I'll look forward to the next update. I check for one every day! :)
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Same here!
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As do I!
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Me too :)
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Me too :)
Wonder who's blocking the update then :D
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In the demo, will you be able to spawn an object (other than the Tatra T813 and the Cessna) and use it to play with the physics engine?
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In the demo probably not as the physics bindings are specifically written for these and not generalized yet, but later it will be configurable - that means new vehicles will be configurable by a text file. But when this will happen depends on what path we'll take - sooner if we will be making a sandbox-style game, but later if we are going after a FPS, story-based game on the engine.
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Oh ok that's good. I'm fine without much physics knowing that they will be worked on at a later time.
For the demo I'll still have a blast spawning Tatra trucks in the atmosphere and following them as they fall back to Earth! :D
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Hi,
will be interested in how you will cope with doing AI (path finding) on such a large open world. Usual method is using navmeshes but it would be a very large navmesh. Guess you are going to have to use a tiled/streamed navmesh or some other clever way I don't now about.
PS I've used recast on my stuff which works quite nicely.
Chris
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In truth we didn't give much thought to this yet. But I suppose it will be utilizing the hierarchical quad-tree index in some way, and/or reducing the problem by considering a smaller area.
Probably the navmeshes could be hierarchized, the segments assigned a level (like 0 for long distance routes, 1 for interstate and so on) and the algorithm would be selecting the level by the distance. This way it would not get lost in the detailed mesh when traveling large distances, it would use "highway" segments to cross the distance, detaching from it and using the more detailed meshes locally. Much like traveling by a road network I'd say.
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I just realized 10.5 was released on the 26th!
Any luck that it is at least a "work aroundable" driver and is good enough for a demo!?! :D:D
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This time the opengl version is higher than that of the preview driver, nevertheless the driver still crashes when compiling shaders that use some specific gl 3.3 functionality. ATI says that this problem occurs on 4xxx cards and that 5xxx series should be OK, I have yet to test it there.
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Ah well, just have to hope 10.6 works on the 4xxx cards. :|
It's good to know though that there has been some progress and that they are working on it.
Anywho, any hint on what's going to be in the next update?
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There was a hint in the previous one :)
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Oh yeah, is it angrypig's airstrips? :)
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Technically, airstrips are mine :P
Angrypig's Cessna at Lukla and around.
And something more :cool:
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Will you guys give the option to change the planet's size and height map when u release a demo?
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No, not for the demo. While changing the heightmaps and compiling a different planet could be possible after the mapper is polished and some parameters are pulled out to be configurable, changing the planet size would require a much larger effort. Many parameters that define the behavior of fractal generator and vegetation distribution and such are currently as constants in the code. Even if they were pulled out to a configuration file, without an extensive documentation or a deep knowledge it would be frustrating to break everything constantly when going blind.
Btw what do you want to create?
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oh okay, i dint know how deep the size of the planet was tied in with the parameters. I just thought it would be something simple as changing a number to modify the size, but i was going by a few other planet engines out there. Of course those engines don't look anywhere near as realistic as yours in terms of the graphics,physics and level of detail.
Basically what i wanted to create was a smaller manageable planet. I don't know if you played Spore, but a planet similar to that but with a better realistic rendering engine with physics, vehicles and stuff.
Now the planet size in spore are way too small, so i was thinking like 20 times bigger than that or a little more land area as in the game Oblivion IV or Fallout 3, Not including the oceans of course and not all in a single land mass but in other smaller manageable continents.
Mainly because trying to explore or populate a world the size of a realistic planet would be nearly impossible for the type of game i am envisioning.
But i was trying to see if the game i was thinking about would be possible with the planet size i was envisioning on Outerra.
The game play is simple, its a hybrid of an RPG like Fallout 3 or Oblivion IV and an RTS, where you can play in either first person or 3rd person view where u attempt to start up a village which evolves into a town then city to take over your continent and then the world.
I'm still working on the full design document though to cover 100% of the vital parts of the game before i ever attempt to start something like it.
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The 10.6 beta drivers are out.
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/ati%20catalyst.htm
Any luck?!? :D
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A nice find :)
All shaders now compile even though one bug wasn't fixed but I have a workaround for it.
However the engine can't get past the initial stages - there is a problem with multisampling initialization, and after disabling it there was another error with OpenGL buffers. Now the ball is in Angrypig's court who will have to investigate it.
Wish him luck :)
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YEAH! One small step for ATI, one huge step for Outerra!
Getting closer! Good to hear they fixed all of the non-work aroundable bugs.
I hope Angrypig doesn't have too much trouble finding a fix for the OpenGL. It sounds like it could be the last problem for ATI cards.
But as the newer versions of ATI drivers come out, wouldn't there be a chance that they would cause new problems?
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A few months ago the shaders compiled and no error was encountered on ATI, nevertheless the output was a mess. Some bugs were behavioral and we don't know if all these were fixed.
And I fear the newer drivers may break it again. For example these drivers brought new nonsensical warnings, what implies that the driver is still changing significantly and their verification process is incomplete.
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The official 10.6 drivers were released today.
Let me know what happens! :)
P.S. - Any hint about the next update?
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So how is the ATI driver situation looking like right now?
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We didn't find the problem yet, OpenGL isn't very helpful in identifying the causes of fails. But we are also busy right now preparing stuff for an internal presentation so it will take some time until we can bring our focus back on it.
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Just identified another showstopper in 10.6 drivers, not sure if it was there before as we didn't get that far the last time. Reported to AMD already, hopefully there will be a workaround because an updated driver could be available no sooner than in 2 months ..
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showstopper hopefully workaround 2 months ..
Isn't technology wonderful
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Did NVidea initially have problems like this too?
I hope AMD is able to fix it quick.
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There are about 3 bugs on Nvidia but luckily every one we are able to work around.
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I don't understand. Are you using very obscure features?
Can you elaborate on what these bugs are? Perhaps a big fat blog post detailing their bugs out in public would cause the two vendors to be more active :-)
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We are using very new features :)
It all relates to GLSL shader language support (version 3.30) which is still rather buggy. The problem is, most games are using DirectX so the bugs are ironed out there already. But we seem to be pioneers in utilizing every one feature in modern OpenGL shaders, constantly hitting and reporting some bugs.
The bugs in Nvidia don't burn us too much since there are workarounds, but otherwise AMD/ATI is much more responsive in handling the reports, the problem is only that it takes 2-3 months until the fixes are available in public signed/certified drivers.
With Nvidia the problem is probably that we don't have a right contact, their registered developers site is seriously outdated and I'm not even sure there's anybody alive there but automatic responders :)
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I remember reading somewhere that you would be focusing less on getting the demo out in order to get the engine ready for developers who are interested in purchasing a licence. (I can't remember if that was actually the reason or not)
I know the demo isn't much of a priority right now, but do you have an approximate target for when you plan to release the demo?
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Well, I can reveal something from the plan in this direction. Currently we are working on various scene editing tools and building some locations to be shown in a video that kind of sums up the status of the engine. Still needs a week or so.
After that we will focus on optimizing the engine (occlusion being the most important). We want to deal with the remaining ATI issues here as well.
The demo should come directly after that phase, if there will be a public ATI driver that works by that time.
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The demo should come directly after that phase
Good enough for me..
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Awesome! I appreaciate that you gave an aproximate time unlike many other developers who just say "when it's done".
Also looking forward to another video! Will it show ground to space transition?
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Awesome! I appreaciate that you gave an aproximate time unlike many other developers who just say "when it's done".
Also looking forward to another video! Will it show ground to space transition?
Well, I don't know .. estimating the time a development will take is one of the most fallible processes I know. But I'm glad you are satisfied with my sophisticated version of when it's done :D
Yes the transition should be there as well, hopefully it all fits into the maximum allowed duration of videos on youtube (10min), or it will be split, but that will not have the same effect ..
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the maximum allowed duration of videos on youtube (10min)
I think MODDB supports videos longer than 10 min.
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May I suggest NOT waiting for ATI drivers, and that's coming from someone who has an ATI card.
Perhaps publicly available bits may motivate them to work on the issue faster. When run on an ATI card you should popup a warning to the user saying that at the time of release ati drivers were not ready, and they should continue at their own risk and/or complain to ATI. This way users know whats up and hopefully ATI will get a few complaints.
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Actually that seems kind of like a good idea. That probably would speed up ATI's responce time significantly.
And even though all the Nvidea owners would be able to experience Outerra while ATI users can only look at videos and screenshots, I would be ok waiting since it would mean a faster fix for ATI cards.
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I think we would receive a lot of negative feedback if the demo didn't work on ATI cards; even now many people don't understand why Outerra can't run on ATI cards when apparently other engines don't have the problem. Until there was no official OpenGL 3.3 driver it was easier to explain.
Anyway, I think the remaining issues will be solved soon. There is still some nonstandard behavior that has to be worked around, in such a way that fixed drivers won't break it again later.
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Do you use some beta drivers?
You can't post them with demo? :)
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Do you use some beta drivers?
You can't post them with demo? :)
We're under NDA, so no, we can't.
But it seems that the recent public drivers have only the workaroundable bugs, plus there are some unsupported formats that will have to be replaced. And probably some wrong settings that lead to undefined states in OpenGL, and ATI seems to have a knack for displaying the worst possible undefined behavior there is :)
It would be still our bug though, it's just that Nvidia usually exhibits the expected behavior in such cases, so it's a bit of a problem to identify it as such.
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I think we would receive a lot of negative feedback if the demo didn't work on ATI cards; even now many people don't understand why Outerra can't run on ATI cards when apparently other engines don't have the problem. Until there was no official OpenGL 3.3 driver it was easier to explain.
Anyway, I think the remaining issues will be solved soon. There is still some nonstandard behavior that has to be worked around, in such a way that fixed drivers won't break it again later.
Hmm, but it's the truth. Wether they understand it or not. Whats so hard to understand about:
"We have detected you are running Outerra on an ATI graphics card with a driver version dated 01.01.2011. To learn
Please note that at the time of the release of this demo, ATI drivers were not available that support some of the advanced OpenGL featureset that is at the core of the Outerra Engine. ATI and Outerra are working together to rectify this situation and expect to have a solution in the near future. In the meantime, you may want to let ATI know OpenGL compatibility is important to you. To do so, click here. To learn more specifics, please visit our forums, or click here.
Make sure you always run the latest drivers. To Check for new drivers for your ATI hardware, click here.
You may continue at you'r own risk, however graphical glitches and or instabilities may occur during gameplay.
Thank you for trying Outerra!
Sincerly
Team Outerra"
I believe a personal message like this is open, honest and let's people know whats going on. I don't think with your first demo you have to worry about Joe Sixpack, I think mostly more technical people and hardcore simulator fans will want to give it a spin. And they understand what it means and won't blame you, not as long as you don't treat them like a child that is :-)
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The thing is, we have to get the exact version of the drivers and allow only those we tested it with (and newer ones). That's true for Nvidia as well, because with older drivers it simply won't work. It's not about glitches - if there were only some glitches, I'd happily display such a warning message.
For ATI there's simply no driver that works as of yet.
But we have been considering releasing it the way you suggested, but decided to optimize some things first. If after that there are still driver bugs preventing it to run on ATI cards, we may release it that way.
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What are the ATI drivers looking like now?
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Not very good .. like 20 times slower than a comparable Nvidia card and no close terrain. Have to disable stuff bit by bit to identify the problematic piece .. a strenuous process.
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Well perhaps a mass mailing of forums members complaining could get Ati in gear. That or one phonecall to the correct person. Somebody hack into there servers and grab some home numbers.
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It's also likely that we are doing something wrong, OpenGL has a nasty habit of hiding various pieces of "undefined behavior" in the specification, drivers then don't provide any warnings, Nvidia chooses to behave logically which covers the cause of the problem, while ATI usually manifests something really unexpected when we test it after some time.
We had several of these already, the worst type of problems by far.
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Hello,
i know you don't want make any promise but what do you think can we play the demo this Year or next Year?
Thanks in Advance!
Halobungie
p.s. i can't wait to play with this fantastic engine/game!!!
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Should be this year if nothing nasty happens.
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Should be this year if nothing nasty happens.
I shall murder a chicken in order to guarantee there is no nasty.
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Should be this year if nothing nasty happens.
I shall murder a chicken in order to guarantee there is no nasty.
I "took care" of the sheep just now, preparing to dance, just hope the rain stops so this damn blood wont wash off.
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I shall murder a chicken in order to guarantee there is no nasty.
I "took care" of the sheep just now, preparing to dance, just hope the rain stops so this damn blood wont wash off.
I see the game should start in prehistoric times.
Forget the vehicles! :)
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I see the game should start in prehistoric times.
Forget the vehicles! :)
Silly, Chicken murder never goes out or style!
But seriously, dinosaur racing would be cool.
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Cameni mounts a T-Rex, while ZeosPantera mounts a Raptor. The two glance at each other, while AngryPig holds the flag up high, ready to start the race.
Three ...
Two ...
One ...
GO!!!
AngryPig drops the flag, and the T-rex takes one look at the Raptor and disembowels it. Then he turns his attention to AngryPig, who stands there like a deer in headlights. In a few seconds it will all be over. AngryPig hits CNTRL-ALT-DEL, and sighs a breath of relief.
Another day, another dinosaur, and all is well.
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So, just as I usually ask,
how are the driver issues going?
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Just few days ago we sent another bug report, it has been fixed promptly but now we are waiting for the fix to show up in a beta driver so we can continue testing it.
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How are the bugs looking in 10.12?
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Apparently as we added multithreaded optimization - loading textures asynchronously from secondary OpenGL contexts - we are now getting BSODs on AMD. Better and better. :/
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Apparently as we added multithreaded optimization - loading textures asynchronously from secondary OpenGL contexts - we are now getting BSODs on AMD. Better and better. :/
Awesome.. Why do I say that?
Because it is always darkest before the dawn.. And it don't get much darker then the BSOD.
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Apparently as we added multithreaded optimization - loading textures asynchronously from secondary OpenGL contexts - we are now getting BSODs on AMD. Better and better. :/
Awesome.. Why do I say that?
Because it is always darkest before the dawn.. And it don't get much darker then the BSOD.
Unless your GPU, PSU, or screen dies and you get a BLACK screen of death! :P
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Unless your GPU, PSU, or screen dies and you get a BLACK screen of death! :P
:lol:
Do you think it's possible that the BSOD bug is the last or one of the last bugs holding the demo back from release? (Also major thanks for taking the time to answer all of these small questions!)
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Do you think it's possible that the BSOD bug is the last or one of the last bugs holding the demo back from release? (Also major thanks for taking the time to answer all of these small questions!)
I don't think so, seems like any time we use some new functionality there's a bug. Since we are mostly being blocked on the AMD front waiting for fixes, we continue developing and optimizing stuff using new extensions .. only to find new bugs that happen to shoot the program down even before the old bugs manifest. It almost looks like we are the only ones using the modern OpenGL functionality, or that we are using it in a nonstandard way that is often not working there. But I don't really know how it's possible.
On the other hand, OpenGL's way of including heaps of undefined behavior in the specification, without usually any way of alerting about doing something undefined, leads to tremendous amount of bugs. Just recently I've found one such bug - of course by pure chance - but I can't test if it changes the game because of the BSOD.
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I can finally see why so many people hate AMD :P
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ikrite? I've had cards from both sides and had no issue that I knew about with either of them.
I've had a really hard time deciding on a card on the computer I want to build. Technically AMD might still be slightly better atm performance-wise in some of the games that I like, but these AMD issues have made me lean towards the new GTX 570.
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I can finally see why so many people hate AMD :P
And I can see why it is important to be a fan-boy. To fight the Nvidia people..
Any place we can send our complaints to ATi? Maybe a petition to allow OT to see beta drivers in advance or SOMETHING!
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We are getting the freshest drivers .. I'm afraid there's not much to do that could prioritize it, I expect our reports are not the only ones and they are busy fixing other stuff that gets the priority.
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We are getting the freshest drivers .. I'm afraid there's not much to do that could prioritize it, I expect our reports are not the only ones and they are busy fixing other stuff that gets the priority.
Then it sounds like it's time for them to re-prioritize..... or else.
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Blue Screens of Death?! Can't AMD fix their drivers?!?! Getting angryyyyyyyyyy........
(http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/entries/images/9c/54/914937/original_image.png?1235800055)
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....so what system do i need to play the Demo? :cool:
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....so what system do i need to play the Demo? :cool:
I think minimum should be considered 8800GT (250GTS) with 512MB. It's been tried with 8600GT - works, but it doesn't have the reserve that would hide occasional peaks in computation.
Recommended is 460GTX with 1GB memory.
CPU - something with 2 cores.
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How effectively does it use more CPU cores?
What would a 4-core Q8200 @ 2.33ghz, 4gb RAM, 9800GT 512mb, do? What sort of framerates would you reckon would be possible? It would be interesting to see considering the majority of flightsims I have played have pretty poor performance.
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The performance greatly depends on the GPU. CPU is not used that much, but it's expected that CPU will be utilized much more by systems simulation and addons.
Framerates - we know that FPS is used in flight simulators as universal measure of performance. But a stable frame rate fixed to the screen refresh gives much smoother experience while not wasting power that can be in turn used better for addons and out-of-order jobs that would otherwise impact the overall smoothness. Thus FPS are normally capped to 30 here, but lets say we could use raw FPS count to express what reserve there is in the system for additional graphics processing. Note that the reserve applies to graphic tasks only - addons that use mostly the CPU won't affect it.
9800GT is the same as 8800GT, you'll be getting 30fps safely in most locations except the ones that suffer from the not-yet-implemented occlusion - but nothing will be released before the occlusion is in anyway.
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9800GT is the same as 8800GT, you'll be getting 30fps safely in most locations except the ones that suffer from the not-yet-implemented occlusion - but nothing will be released before the occlusion is in anyway.
:o
Will it be possible to switch occlusion off if you wish to change the FPS-Detail balance?
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Sorry I shortened the term so it may have led you to a wrong conclusion - correctly it's occlusion culling, and it's an optimization that removes stuff that is not visible. So in mountains where the distant terrain is occluded, it would bring a serious performance boost.
For example here this view of Lukla:
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/dev/occ1.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/dev/occ1.jpg)
But here's what is currently being sent to the card:
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/dev/occ2.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/dev/occ2.jpg)
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/dev/occ3.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/dev/occ3.jpg)
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/dev/occ4.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/dev/occ4.jpg)
Note that it isn't that bad as it looks, the scene is drawn from front to back so there's almost no overdraw, nevertheless there's additional processing as the engine has to compute terrain tiles even for stuff that is not visible, consuming more memory as it should etc.
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Sorry I shortened the term so it may have led you to a wrong conclusion - correctly it's occlusion culling, and it's an optimization that removes stuff that is not visible. So in mountains where the distant terrain is occluded, it would bring a serious performance boost.
For example here this view of Lukla:
SNIPPED PHOTOS
But here's what is currently being sent to the card:
Note that it isn't that bad as it looks, the scene is drawn from front to back so there's almost no overdraw, nevertheless there's additional processing as the engine has to compute terrain tiles even for stuff that is not visible, consuming more memory as it should etc.
Very nice shots btw (well the first one)
So are you saying, without occlusion culling the card is rendering massive areas of land, even when most of it is not visible? And that occlusion culling gets rid of this, increasing performance? I might be wrong, but that sounds like it would increase FPS a fair bit...
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So are you saying, without occlusion culling the card is rendering massive areas of land, even when most of it is not visible? And that occlusion culling gets rid of this, increasing performance? I might be wrong, but that sounds like it would increase FPS a fair bit...
Well it's not actually rendering the hidden areas of land, because the pixels get rejected earlier, but it's processing the meshes and generating them, which may be costly mainly during a movement. There will be raw FPS increase for sure, just not that huge as it may look from the screenshots. There's also very effective LOD working, so what may seem as large stretches of land are just several levels of terrain.
But yes, it should help a lot.
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Cool stuff.
So if I could get 30fps BEFORE occlusion, that's got to be good. The only issue may arise if add ons create densely populated areas such as cities, but even then it'll probably be good considering the effective LOD.
Sorry to ask so many questions, but when the LOD is developed further and we start having more detail close up like 3D trees and stuff, will the frame rate be affected much? I would doubt it, just clarifying :D
Merry Christmas btw, you really should take a break!
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It depends on the amount of detail added, surely one can add so much that it would kill performance on any card :)
But of course we want to continue using the same techniques that are giving us the performance on existing parts of the engine.
Merry Christmas to you all too.
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It depends on the amount of detail added, surely one can add so much that it would kill performance on any card :)
But of course we want to continue using the same techniques that are giving us the performance on existing parts of the engine.
Merry Christmas to you all too.
It is Xmas and Santa Claws is coming for us all.
Now onto business. The first picture shows the side of a mountain obstructing everything in the distance but In the second picture from above, all the land we can't see behind the mountain is still shown. Is that this..
it's not actually rendering the hidden areas of land, because the pixels get rejected earlier, but it's processing the meshes and generating them
I presume that is what I am referring too. Will that also be culled to nothingness? Or would the intense disappearance / reappearance of that much land screw things up smoothness-wise?
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Yes the land that is shown with different camera will be culled out by occlusion culling algorithm. Sudden reappearance should not affect the smoothness too much, the occlusion culling mainly deals with not sending invisible chunks to renderer at all which enhances the performance.
However, it's not entirely problem free if we also want it to ensure that terrain from certain detail level won't be generated and it won't consume GPU memory uselessly. A sudden reappearance could lay a sudden burden on the generator part that may affect the smoothness if not handled properly.
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When Demo will be out?
Som fanatik do Tatier :) a myslim tím Autá :) ale aj hory su fajn
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When Demo will be out?
Som fanatik do Tatier :) a myslim tím Autá :) ale aj hory su fajn
When ATi fix the issues with OpenGL.
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...that could be in Years. :( :rolleyes:
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Do u plan Engineupdates for the Demo? If u do, u can bring the ATI Support whit an later Update, when its done. ;)
Just an Idea. :rolleyes:
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IMO tactically it would not be a good idea to release the demo without ATI support. I still believe the issues will be resolved soon .. for some definition of the word soon :)
We are also reconsidering how to position the demo with regards to our recent game plans. Should be something that lures players towards it.
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We are also reconsidering how to position the demo with regards to our recent game plans. Should be something that lures players towards it.
That would be difficult I imagine due to the fact none of the game plans are integrated in any way. I'm sure anyone here who knows about it already would be fine with it just how it is, with no plot, just the freeroaming world, but that does make it difficult to appeal to lots of people, specifically the market(s) you aim to target.
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Well, yes. I mean, we have to think how to execute this. One thing is a technology demo, and another one is the game and a game demo. But by the time all issues are fixed the demos could as well converge into one. Or not, given the different interests there are for the technology.
Btw, what are your expectations from the demo, what do you want it to bring to you? It may help us to separate it so that the expectations are addressed better.
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For me the demo with all features that was already shown in videos is OK. But I'm just a civil flightsim enthusiast, not a possible investor or big developer, though I'd like to make at least some vehicle addons for Outerra, like planes, boats and cars.
I'd like to see in the demo mostly a possibilities of the engine for addon makers, I always thought that procedural technology is not very addon-makers friendly (it may have a lot of restrictions I guess). Hope that's not the case with Outerra :)
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For me the demo with all features that was already shown in videos is OK. But I'm just a civil flightsim enthusiast, not a possible investor or big developer, though I'd like to make at least some vehicle addons for Outerra, like planes, boats and cars.
I'd like to see in the demo mostly a possibilities of the engine for addon makers, I always thought that procedural technology is not very addon-makers friendly (it may have a lot of restrictions I guess). Hope that's not the case with Outerra :)
Almost exactly the same here. I'd want something like a flightsim, where we can just explore the world. I'm not even too fussed about systems, because I'd happily fly VFR everywhere. One of the main attractions for me is other vehicles- the ability to get out of the plane and drive somewhere.
I want just to have the world exactly as it is now, with no plot or anything, just the ability to explore and create our own roads, cities, airports. Which is basically exactly as it is now- I wouldn't change anything before demo release (except graphics, bugs etc)
Not for the demo, but one other thing I would be interested in is a combat game. Mainly, it would be just like DCS Black Shark, but you could have many different campaigns going in different parts of the world in different types of vehicles (a flying campaign, a heli campaign, driving campaign etc). Oh hang on, wrong forum... :rolleyes:
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Well... for me it would be nice to hop into a Jeep or MotoX-Bike, banging around the hills.
I remember a great MotoX-Game, made by MS. Motocross Madness 2.
I dont even dare to ask for a Demo, in which i could fly that Apache, without Time-restrictions ;)
Just flying around Hills and forests, through Canyons...
Hmmmmmmmm Delicious
Right now, DCS A-10C is the top Number in Flight-Simulation. BUT, the engine sucks (just my 2 cents).
A Sim with a depth of A-10C AND your engine would bring me to my knees, crying like a Baby.
One important thing. Dont make a time restricted Demo. Such Demos are really anoying.
Better make a not THAT BIG area. I dont need the whole world to wander around. BUT i need time to check the existing area :)
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I really hope that the new video card survey is some kind of preparation for the demo to come out.
If AMD is still #@&&@#g with the OpenGL implementation then it would be really nice to release the nVidia only version. We're dying for it ;)
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I really hope that the new video card survey is some kind of preparation for the demo to come out.
If AMD is still #@&&@#g with the OpenGL implementation then it would be really nice to release the nVidia only version. We're dying for it ;)
Don't make me hate Nvidia peoples any more then I do. Its all or nothing or a killing spree. Your choice.
Also, how do on-board gfx setup's handle ot? (intel etc)
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Also, how do on-board gfx setup's handle ot? (intel etc)
On-board gfx aren't powerful enough, and you can notice the discrete cards in the poll do not start from the low end models, not for no reason.
Intel gfx is a joke.
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Also, how do on-board gfx setup's handle ot? (intel etc)
On-board gfx aren't powerful enough, and you can notice the discrete cards in the poll do not start from the low end models, not for no reason.
Intel gfx is a joke.
not necessarily, before I got a graphics card, I used gfx to play COD4 in almost full detail, but I had a C2Q q8300+8gb DDR3 RAM... :/
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Yeah, if the game is CPU intensive it's probably different. As with FSX, from what I've read.
But Outerra relies on GPU, on-board graphics is not enough.
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not necessarily, before I got a graphics card, I used gfx to play COD4 in almost full detail, but I had a C2Q q8300+8gb DDR3 RAM... :/
not that surprising as it was probably developed primarily for xbox, which is pretty old hardware now.
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well I think you should just release a simple tech demo asap (ability to fly around 50mpp earth dataset with your procedural upsampling - that's all...forget the multi-user stuff, even forget the chromium integration if you want) I don't think anyone here is primarily interested in whatever game idea you've got. We're interested in how seamless your LOD system is, how nice your fractal generation is, how good your atmospheric scattering works with it all....y'know, the graphics. Also stick a couple of drivable vehicles in there.
Whatever you do, don't make the same mistake Infinity's made - release your demo soon or people will just lose interest. I don't even bother visiting the Infinity site any more, or Ysaneya's blog....they could have released a game by now and I wouldn't know, and I don't really care any more. At one time I followed it daily.
Publish or perish.
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I'm think all the features needed for the demo are pretty much done now. From what I read the only thing holding back the release are the AMD driver issues. It sounds like AMD is putting in a lot of effort to fix the bugs though.
Have to say though that I do have an interest in their game idea, as it will be the first ever "game" built on this engine. Also think it sounds pretty unique and interesting.
I used to have a pretty big interest in Infinity as well, but kind of lost interest when they only updated like twice a year. I think Outerra is a lot better anyways, even though it can't render 200 billion systems (Yet?).
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Publish or perish.
Another impatient Nvidia user. My poor boy. There is still no guarantee that the next drivers will fix previous problems. And I can't see releasing anything if he they have plans to put together the "game". Especially if the game will have a price attached.
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There's a part of me that agrees with you, knackered, and a part that does not. The GREED in me wants to experience Outerra right now, no matter what. But an engine (or game) that has errors due to hardware issues right from the start tends to get negative feedback (why won't it work on X system, why won't it work on Y graphics card?). Best to wait until the driver issue is fixed, as much as I hate to say it.
Besides, you don't want to see Zeos go on a rampage in NYC, do you? :D The blood vessel in his left temple would explode with the force of a 100MT Tsar Bomb :)
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We won't release it before ATI issues are fixed. Nvidia users may not care, but we would receive enormous backlash from people who will not be able to understand why it doesn't work on ATI when all their games do.
ddenn, grabacr 31770, Aman, thanks for the feedback about the demo. What will be ultimately in the demo is still not decided, but I think it's understandable that we will want to leave some features for the game.
For now we are thinking that the demo could contain several islands around the world, also in order to keep the demo size down without having to deal with possible P2P download problems there. Runways and roads will be predefined, active modifications of terrain will be reserved for the game, that should be also more mod-friendly.
But please note, everything is subject to change. Possibilities come and go ...
PS: You could blame Infinity for teasing and hyping the community prematurely, and it's something that maybe we are doing too, to a degree, just by showing off the videos. Projects like these need the feedback from community to continue working on stuff that no ordinary corporation would risk (and permit to breathe). But few people can really imagine how far is it from candies to a final product, especially if there's a hard-headed perfectionist in the middle.
Community can be a two-edged sword, easily taking on the project it guarded. Nasty stuff :P
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ddenn, grabacr 31770, Aman, thanks for the feedback about the demo. What will be ultimately in the demo is still not decided, but I think it's understandable that we will want to leave some features for the game.
For now we are thinking that the demo could contain several islands around the world, also in order to keep the demo size down without having to deal with possible P2P download problems there. Runways and roads will be predefined, active modifications of terrain will be reserved for the game, that should be also more mod-friendly.
Aw. :(
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ddenn, grabacr 31770, Aman, thanks for the feedback about the demo. What will be ultimately in the demo is still not decided, but I think it's understandable that we will want to leave some features for the game.
For now we are thinking that the demo could contain several islands around the world, also in order to keep the demo size down without having to deal with possible P2P download problems there. Runways and roads will be predefined, active modifications of terrain will be reserved for the game, that should be also more mod-friendly.
Then maybe you don't need public demo at all, only techdemo for potential investors, which one you already have? I can wait for alpha version of the game.
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Then maybe you don't need public demo at all, only techdemo for potential investors, which one you already have? I can wait for alpha version of the game.
I think a demo still has its place - it could be delivered sooner with less effort and lesser expectations on completeness, reaching farther to people that would not otherwise get the game, and maybe also appealing to more developers that will be able to contrive their ideas when experiencing the environment there.
At least I hope the ATI issues will be resolved before the alpha could come out.
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We won't release it before ATI issues are fixed. Nvidia users may not care, but we would receive enormous backlash from people who will not be able to understand why it doesn't work on ATI when all their games do.
Bad news... :(
As I understand we're all waiting for AMD to fix their BETA driver, which will arrive to the Outerra team, and IF everything are perfect then in best case after 2-3 months (!) this driver will became public. And after that point the Outerra demo will be released.
So waiting for AMD means the demo will not be released before May / June, right? :rolleyes:
It's not good. I think you SHOULD release the demo ASAP even if it's only working perfectly on nVidia cards: just name it as a closed BETA demo test version and provide download only for registered forum users who have nVidia cards. That's all.
In this case you'll get plenty of really useful feedback from the forum users to implement while waiting for AMD to fix the driver issue. It's a win-win solution.
Look at the ArmA team: they published ArmA II as a full game while having bugs in the engine, but continuously working on posting BETA patches. And people won't lose interest, there's quite a community at ArmA II forums.
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So you are implying that we should urgently release a free technology demo because the fact that BI released their Arma II game prematurely is .. comparable?
I would understand that argument if we were talking about a game and not about a demo. For the game we already said that the model would be releasing it in alpha version etc. Plus we are interested to receive feedback for the game, but not so much for the demo - a technology demo is just a snapshot of game engine functionality and we are pretty aware of all its shortcomings and unfinished state.
You are right about the drivers, but it is the worst case. Currently we aren't very happy wasting time on looking for the workarounds, when the situation should be getting better with time during which we can continue working on engine features. But once the game should come out, we will have to focus on that.
Maybe you can see why we aren't rushing with the demo at all costs - we are rather working on the engine itself now, so that the final result is better. And even if the drivers were fixed tomorrow, we would have to prepare the demo into a demoable state.
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Sorry if I seemed too pushy, but it's not funny that AMD working on their bugfixes nearly a YEAR!
So to be honest currently there's no guarantee that they'll EVER make it right... :P (sorry, bad joke).
I think they're too busy now with releasing new video card generations, and fine tuning the drivers for those needs (and of course mainly DirectX compatibility).
As I said the demo should be released ASAP - As Soon As POSSIBLE, not urgently! I think it's quite possible because the engine should run perfectly on nVidia cards based on the demo videos.
So no offense. ;) Take your time as you wish to polish this extraordinary engine to be even better.
The only thing that we (the users) can do, is to push AMD to work better on their drivers. I already made my push. Changed my AMD card to an nVidia. :D I'm really tired of the driver issues.
By the way: there're specific nVidia PhysX demos, which run on nVidia hardware ONLY.
And no one complains from the AMD users group why those demos don't run on their card, because the answer is simple: currently the AMD card does not support all of the features needed.
It's the same with your engine: AMD currently does NOT support OpenGL 3.2 correctly. That's all.
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I must say that their responsiveness got much better since ATI was acquired by AMD. We were previously considering to (painfully) switch to DirectX because of the stagnating state of OpenGL and ATI drivers, but seems that both these wheels got turning, although it still takes quite a lot of time with the drivers.
If we left the engine in the state when we first encountered the bugs, it would be all fixed by now. It's the new functionality that we are adding constantly, that somehow always manages to break their stuff.
It's also likely that a considerable portion of bugs roots in the stupid "undefined behavior" that is present everywhere in OpenGL standard. It's good from the performance point of view - not having to check for unsupported combinations - but it's hell to develop with. Especially when Nvidia is much more tolerant and everything works as expected, and there's no mechanism that would help to detect these kinds of errors.
But as I said, I'm being positive that it will all resolve soon because those guys are really interested in getting it fixed. Understandably, they have to focus on commercial support first. I don't think we would be generating big enough alarm to speed it up there if demo came out without support for AMD .. that would need something bigger.
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no, i think if you just released a demo that states that it's unsupported on ATI hardware because of their driver bugs then ATI would get their shit together pretty quickly. If your videos are anything to go by, you'd certainly rapidly get huge exposure all over the I.T. blogs. It would be shameful only for ATI, not for you.
Incidentally, do you support Intel's crap?
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Two things: we don't need worse relations with AMD, and we don't need a huge exposure at the moment, looking for example how Infinity fares. Moreover, general gaming public would moan about grass, trees and effects, so we would like to get these done before that. Meaning, it's not the demo that should get the attention, but the game.
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For now we are thinking that the demo could contain several islands around the world, also in order to keep the demo size down without having to deal with possible P2P download problems there. Runways and roads will be predefined, active modifications of terrain will be reserved for the game, that should be also more mod-friendly.
You're thinking about limiting the size of the demo world?? :/
That's one feature I really wouldn't want missing in the demo. Heck, it's not just a feature, it's one of the main qualities of the engine!
What if you just released the demo with all the features available at the time and everything else that you implement after that would show up in your game?
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We would like to release the demo as is and stop caring for it. Having to provide download service for 13GB dataset isn't exactly such. Besides the size of the world won't be limited, just the amount of land on the globe, to cut the data size down.
But don't worry, for qualified forum members it would be .. different :)
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Having to provide download service for 13GB dataset isn't exactly such.
Use torrent to solve this problem. I promise to seed it as long as I can on my 30/20 Mbit/s connection... ;)
(By the way 13 GB is smaller than i.e. a good quality HD movie. And I know some people who download and seed such amount of data on a regular basis - of course it's not me. :D )
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Do you mean you will just be lowering the terrain resolution in order to cut down on the download size?
If that's the case, why don't you just provide both a 13GB dataset download and a larger one for people who would want and have the space for a higher quality dataset? (I personally have around 1TB of space that is not being used)
Sorry if I misinterpreted your post wrong.
But don't worry, for qualified forum members it would be .. different :)
What are you hinting at? :P
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ah right, as Lou Reed says, I'm beginning to see the light. Things like your trees being collisionless screen aligned billboards (nicely directed videos by the way, you avoided showing this quite well), all the LOD popping etc. I wouldn't worry too much about that. Crysis was a mess of popping, and having recently played Just Cause 2 I can confirm that it's very obvious in even 2010 sandbox games. Personally I blend like a mad bugger to avoid single frame pop of any kind. I find it incredibly jarring - not a minor artefact at all.
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one thing - I can't find any blog posts on how you tackle the shorelines with your water renderer. Could you give a brief outline on what you're doing?
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Do you mean you will just be lowering the terrain resolution in order to cut down on the download size?
I said that demo could contain several islands around the world. I meant several real islands of the world, like .. Sicilia, Taiwan, New Zealand and such, residing in their proper locations. No reduced resolution.
It could be an interesting sight in itself, wouldn't it? :)
But don't worry, for qualified forum members it would be .. different :)
What are you hinting at? :P
Me, hinting? I'd never :P
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one thing - I can't find any blog posts on how you tackle the shorelines with your water renderer. Could you give a brief outline on what you're doing?
There will be a separate blog about the water, when I get the damn thing right.
But currently it's driven only by how the terrain gets refined by fractal, there's no explicit shoreline correction from vector data yet. Though for certain game types it won't be necessary.
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Speaking about the 13GB data, is it possible to use a second computer on a LAN to house the data (basically acting as a server)?
Also wondering if the engine, when it downloads particular data for your area over the torrent, will it "discard" data you are no longer using (so that your computer's hard drive doesn't continue to fill up as more and more areas are explored), or does it still keep it?
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Well you can use another machine on LAN with data using a normal sharing.
Engine doesn't discard the data once loaded, but I don't think the dataset is too big for today's hard drives. Additionally, the heuristics of the removal would be a bit complicated. The data are going through two caching mechanisms in engine, and it's hard to determine what can be removed while not affecting performance. Perhaps only the distant locations that were visited some time ago.
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Heh, true about the hard drives, but I tend to use a LOT of space :) I'm going to have to eventually make tough decisions for the game version of Outerra :D
Actually, but the time a demo or game comes out, I should be up to a few free TB of space, so it's not that big of a concern. I was curious because I'm contemplating building a third system to act solely as a file server and backup for my main two systems, leaving me more space for video editing and graphic print design (the raw unedited videos I typically render in Lightwave can be as large as 25GB, and "print quality" graphic files can be a few hundred MB, easy. And I have a LOT of those :))
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I said that demo could contain several islands around the world. I meant several real islands of the world, like .. Sicilia, Taiwan, New Zealand and such, residing in their proper locations. No reduced resolution.
But wouldn't those islands be there normally just with the information from the datasets and not have to be added in manually?
So you're not saying that only some islands will exist and all other land is replaced by water? Why not just use the dataset for the whole Earth? I don't thinking holding back most of the planet in a planetary engine demo is a very good idea. Holding back other features for your game like road and runway creation or 3d trees makes sense, but I think limiting the land is really going to take away from the demo, since it's one, if not the biggest feature of Outerra. I can see though that saving the rest of land for your game would help keep the world "fresh". (only if exploring the Earth could ever become boring that is)
But don't worry, for qualified forum members it would be .. different
Nah don't only give certain forum members the full dataset.
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The problem with releasing the full dataset is two- or three-fold:
First, the large download size. No matter how you look at it, it will be an initial problem.
Second, the full dataset containing EVERY land area on the planet Earth would be more less redundant for the purposes of a demo ... There's just too much too look at. Yet islands would provide hours (if not days and weeks) of exploration, and help alleviate the first problem. I'd be more or less content with a "lesser world," just to experience what the developers have been experiencing and teasing us with :)
Third, the full dataset IS the biggest feature, and some things should be held back for teaser reasons. It could help generate more enticement for developers, just experiencing a little of the dataset and leave them wanting more.
As for the "qualified forum members" thing, this thing has been used in the past with almost every game development alpha release. Some members are selected, usually based first on system requirements, and secondly by those who've been around awhile and actively engaging the development (as well as be willing to truly submit bug reports etc). This is not much different, if at all.
It'll be disappointing not to visit certain areas, but this is just a demo, a demonstration of what WILL be possible when the engine comes into maturity.
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The problem with releasing the full dataset is two- or three-fold:
First, the large download size. No matter how you look at it, it will be an initial problem.
Second, the full dataset containing EVERY land area on the planet Earth would be more less redundant for the purposes of a demo ... There's just too much too look at. Yet islands would provide hours (if not days and weeks) of exploration, and help alleviate the first problem. I'd be more or less content with a "lesser world," just to experience what the developers have been experiencing and teasing us with :)
Third, the full dataset IS the biggest feature, and some things should be held back for teaser reasons. It could help generate more enticement for developers, just experiencing a little of the dataset and leave them wanting more.
As for the "qualified forum members" thing, this thing has been used in the past with almost every game development alpha release. Some members are selected, usually based first on system requirements, and secondly by those who've been around awhile and actively engaging the development (as well as be willing to truly submit bug reports etc). This is not much different, if at all.
It'll be disappointing not to visit certain areas, but this is just a demo, a demonstration of what WILL be possible when the engine comes into maturity.
I agree with the limited landscape area- but don't limit it too much. I'm not sure how I would proportion it, I think just a few islands would be far to small; though I don't know what would be a reasonable size, that would be for the devs to decide.
I do think you should include the road and runway editor and the ability to customise the world. Along with a flightsim, this was one of the main things that attracted me to this project. Even if it is not as advanced or easy to use as in the full game, I think it definitely needs to be implemented in the demo.
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I am pretty sure its all or nothing. Shutting off continents would be ridiculous. The whole point of Outerra is to give you the world. So converting Australia into more ocean won't improve the gameplay or usability of the engine in any way. Besides if all goes as planned then the demo/game would have some cost attached and the accruing revenue would be set forth for improvements (like minecraft only coded better). So starting with the whole world should be a gimme. The extra content we expect out of cameni and lovely pig would come in the form of engine features, improved graphics, better physics implementation and finally refined multi-player support.
Best was I can think to describe it would be as if you go to a restaurant, hand the chef $20.00 and he hands you a lovely golden finely detailed plate with no food. You then just have to wait patiently for it to be filled. (wow I must be tired because that makes sense.)
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Shutting off continents was meant only for the distributable demo, getting the size down below 300MB or so. Additional data could be available via torrent, although it's questionable the demo needs it, being just a technology demo.
Nobody said anything about limiting the game, that would be ridiculous indeed.
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Shutting off continents was meant only for the distributable demo, getting the size down below 300MB or so. Additional data could be available via torrent, although it's questionable the demo needs it, being just a technology demo.
Nobody said anything about limiting the game, that would be ridiculous indeed.
Ah, and here I was believing the demo and game were one in the same. Foolish on my part. So yeah, screw those lame demo people, they can have fun on Fiji and nowhere else!
FIJI... is pretty
(http://www.travelvivi.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/turtle_island3.jpg)
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Again. /sadface
North America is an island!... just a really big one :lol:
Ok... How about Australia? :P
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As I said, the whole dataset may be available as a torrent, seeded for a limited time. In the demo it will be all grass and pines anyway, but I understand you want to see your home lands.
The whole reduction to islands thing was needed to be able to have a more reasonable size for a public demo, one that can be put on various download sites. But as long as the torrent lives, skilled people should be able to get the whole thing.
But maybe the public demo and alpha of the game will come out at once. Cost of dataset download in the game will be covered in the price, and that download will be much more reliable and fast.
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Shutting off continents was meant only for the distributable demo, getting the size down below 300MB or so. Additional data could be available via torrent, although it's questionable the demo needs it, being just a technology demo.
Nobody said anything about limiting the game, that would be ridiculous indeed.
Ah, and here I was believing the demo and game were one in the same. Foolish on my part. So yeah, screw those lame demo people, they can have fun on Fiji and nowhere else!
FIJI... is pretty
(http://www.travelvivi.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/turtle_island3.jpg)
That is pretty
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I must say, 13gb is a lot of file. But this is Outerra, and thus would be worth it :D
You could have a few torrents with all the different parts of the world, North America, South America, Europe etc but it would still be a large file and if you are going to download that size, you may as well download the whole world, though I think, I you want to keep the size down to a large island, it would have to be New Zealand. Unbelievable country geographically, it would be the perfect place to showcase Outerra- mountains, hills, flat land, coastline, small islands, it would be perfect.
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It's nice that the forum members arguing on the proper dataset for the demo, as if it would only take 1-2 weeks for the demo to come out... :/
The fact is as Cameni said, that the terrain will be covered by grass texture and pines, and water, maybe snow. Some roads / buildings are welcome, and the nice road generator. :D
Isn't it indifferent in this state WHERE on the world can someone wander when it's only a DEMO? If only the Himalayas region would be included that would be also awesome! It would take HOURS to fly / drive through it, trying to build roads etc.
Just include those areas where you were filmed the demo videos with the Cessna / Tatra / Apache. That's more than enough!
Hey guys! I'm sorry but currently it seems that this demo won't come out in the near future. The first post in this thread is nearly one year old... And you're arguing on the dataset. :|
Of course if you're planning to include new features in the demo as well (grass blades, different vegetation, sandy areas, underwater, different weather conditions, etc.) then never mind what I wrote.
The best question would be the following: If the AMD drivers were working properly, the demo should be released by now, or not?
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The best question would be the following: If the AMD drivers were working properly, the demo should be released by now, or not?
Sure. We are periodically (monthly or biweekly) getting to a stable state for a brief moment so we can make a snapshot for demo purposes for our commercial wannabe customers, so one of these could become a public one after the conditions are met.
Although, we'd probably have to fix several issues that we are used to avoid mindlessly, but for others it's disturbing.
Still, it will be aimed at people that can understand what is an alpha techdemo.
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I must say, 13gb is a lot of file. But this is Outerra, and thus would be worth it :D
I have a 13 gig copy of watchmen. I think I can muster another 13 for a game experience that should overpower all things I have ever played.
Hell my Steam folder is 120 Gigs and I dont use nearly any of the games on there. Maybe 4-5.
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The best question would be the following: If the AMD drivers were working properly, the demo should be released by now, or not?
Sure. We are periodically (monthly or biweekly) getting to a stable state for a brief moment so we can make a snapshot for demo purposes for our commercial wannabe customers, so one of these could become a public one after the conditions are met.
Although, we'd probably have to fix several issues that we are used to avoid mindlessly, but for others it's disturbing.
Still, it will be aimed at people that can understand what is an alpha techdemo.
In that case it seems that it's really only the AMD driver issue which forbid the demo to be released for "public". :(
Ain't that possible that the registered forum users with nVidia cards who state that they really understand what an alpha state techdemo is can have a version earlier? Maybe by signing an DNA or something? :D
I just hate the fact that we're waiting for the AMD team to fix their driver, when this issue probably the 10th or 20th most important for them. Sorry but I'm getting angry, that such a big company can work so bad and slow. It's ridiculous.
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Maybe by signing an DNA or something? :D
Yeah, just send me your samples :lol:
But in fact DNA would be better than NDA, can't imagine we would be able to actually enforce an NDA, being a tiny company we are. :rolleyes:
But hey, you have to be patient. Relax.
< :cool:>
\\
\,\,
Usually people would not be getting alpha tech demos in any case, because it could also harm the developer a lot if not handled properly. Now I'm wondering if we started to show the engine to the world a bit too early :)
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Maybe by signing an DNA or something? :D
Yeah, just send me your samples :lol:
But in fact DNA would be better than NDA, can't imagine we would be able to actually enforce an NDA, being a tiny company we are. :rolleyes:
But hey, you have to be patient. Relax.
< :cool:>
\\
\,\,
Usually people would not be getting alpha tech demos in any case, because it could also harm the developer a lot if not handled properly. Now I'm wondering if we started to show the engine to the world a bit too early :)
What a typo! :lol: It should be NDA of course, but if you can handle blood, spit or hair samples then the DNA is such as good. :P
Anyway, do the best you can to develop the really best engine in the world. I will be patient I promise. For a week or so... :D
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As I said, the whole dataset may be available as a torrent, seeded for a limited time. In the demo it will be all grass and pines anyway, but I understand you want to see your home lands.
The whole reduction to islands thing was needed to be able to have a more reasonable size for a public demo, one that can be put on various download sites. But as long as the torrent lives, skilled people should be able to get the whole thing.
But maybe the public demo and alpha of the game will come out at once. Cost of dataset download in the game will be covered in the price, and that download will be much more reliable and fast.
I read that the complete dataset for earth will be about 14GB compressed
and that the engine/game/demo will be downloaded progressively.
So if I understand your post right, it will it be possible to download the whole thing at once
instead of the progressive download ? Will there be a DVD that one can buy
with the data on it for those who do not have a good internet connection ?
greetings,
SF
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We have yet to perform final tests (once new dataset comes in) to determine what internet connection will be required for seamless streaming of planetary data in worst case when players move around in fastest vehicles. Downloading the whole dataset would be a waste in majority of cases, but I can imagine that for people with bad connection there could be a service to buy the data on DVDs.
But as I said we'll be doing the tests so that people can decide if it's necessary for them.
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We have yet to perform final tests (once new dataset comes in) to determine what internet connection will be required for seamless streaming of planetary data in worst case when players move around in fastest vehicles.
Well considering the 14 gigs then the square mileage of the earth divided by the amount of it you can see all at once divided by the speed you are going Id say most internet connections could handle it. I think you mentioned that standing in one place on the ground and looking to the horizon was ~40 MB of data. So if you traveled to the horizon you would need another 20 MB in that time because you have the half that is behind you. Going to space and quickly falling to earth would require the full 40 MB to be downloaded before you hit the ground.
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I think you mentioned that standing in one place on the ground and looking to the horizon was ~40 MB of data. So if you traveled to the horizon you would need another 20 MB in that time because you have the half that is behind you.
Not entirely right, looking to the horizon doesn't require all levels of detail for visible area as the needed level of detail decreases logarithmically with distance. On the other hand, those 40MB include data for a larger area than just the view point you landed on, a several tens of kilometers around it doesn't need to load further data, as far as I remember.
Can't test it now because angrypig broke the bittorrent downloader and climbed up the tree :D
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I think the DVD thing is worth the effort because in some country there is only limited bandwith and we didn't talk about situations when you don't have internet near. So as a hungarian I prefer dvd thing over streaming. I would definately buy it by the way.
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I was wondering if there are new developments on the demo front ? :drool: :)
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Nope, no news from AMD yet. Seems we'll have to find the conditions leading to BSOD ourselves. It's also possible that it is a bug in our code wrt the infamous undefined behavior, but of course it should not cause BSODs.
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AMD released some new drivers, something about fixing tearing. Will that fix Outerra?
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I guess we have newer beta drivers than the public ones, but in fact we didn't check the most recent drivers as our build is now somewhat broken. We have to get it back together before we take another try on AMD.
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fingers crossed
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idea: maybe for the demo we could select any area we wanted but obviously limited area like 150km/s x 150km/s ...
then we could choose where we live etc. :) lol my first post :D
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idea: maybe for the demo we could select any area we wanted but obviously limited area like 150km/s x 150km/s ...
then we could choose where we live etc. :) lol my first post :D
I think the demo will get a bigger area then that. But it will probably be an island like Hawaii (or Australia). The Game you/I/we will pay for will have the entire earth.
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I think the demo will get a bigger area then that. But it will probably be an island like Hawaii (or Australia). The Game you/I/we will pay for will have the entire earth.
the 150km/s was an example and an island would suffice for the demo.. i will 100% buy this game, i have known about it for a little while but just signed up for the forum today :)
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I was thinking that maybe the UK as an island for the demo, or maybe somewhere like iceland. Neither are massive but both offer plenty of stuff to explore (although iceland may be outside the 90m dataset).
Just a thought but maybe, although i like the idea of fiji or hawaii.
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screw amd. give us a demo! :mad:
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I can't wait for demo anymore. :) Please release the demo for Nvidia users.
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screw amd. give us a demo! :mad:
I can't wait for demo anymore. :) Please release the demo for Nvidia users.
I can predict an answer to this..
no
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I switched out my 9800 GT to two HD5770 not very long ago and ATI is what's having troubles :c
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So, as I usualy ask, how are the AMD issues going? Is it still looking like a summer release? :D
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I will check again probably this weekend. Noticed there was a new beta driver build, even though AMD guys didn't notice us that the last bug was fixed.
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I've been testing another beta driver, there is still some problem that crashes the driver when rendering instanced geometry that is used for model rendering. With models disabled, we are getting close to the desired results, though not quite.
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/ati02r.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/ati02r.jpg)
A bigger problem is that the performance is way too low, and what absolutely doesn't make sense is that unoptimized debug build is twice as fast - but renders close parts incorrectly :rolleyes:
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/ati02d.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/ati02d.jpg)
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What about doing the whole of the carribean, like FSX? Guess that doesn't show off road building and the like too well though.
Either that or Tunisia. Why? Because there's tuns of things to do in outerra there.
Are you planning on including any sort of premade civilization in the demo to show off stuff?
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Are you planning on including any sort of premade civilization in the demo to show off stuff?
Nope, we don't plan doing any significant content for the demo ourselves. It may be a kind of demo front-end for the game, and the game should be a sandbox with people building the world. The way of Minecraft, except everybody is in one world and there's some basic economy simulation and such.
Outercraft :D
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BUILDCRAFT! lol kind of redundant.
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So are we hanging on ATI alone? You said you don't have any special plans for the demo right (more like a tech preview), so once it works on them we are good to go? Please say yes :-)
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Seeing how the ATI issues are being resolved, and adding obligatory 2 months time until the fixed driver gets published, I now think the demo and alpha sandbox game will be coming out together, or close. With that in mind the demo will be probably strategically positioned as a lure for the game itself :)
But we are still thinking what exactly will be in it.
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Well, looks much better than:
(http://www.outerra.com/images/e-41-amd.jpg)
It looks to me like it's almost there!
You're planning on releasing the Alpha in a couple of months? That seems like a very small amount of time to put an alpha together, let alone with only two (or three?) people working on it.
I know you were talking about using a pricing model similar to Minecraft's and I like that idea. Are you still planning on doing something that?
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Meh, I would even be happy with just the world and the ability to fly/drive/swim(/drown).
Simply watching those smooth movements and awesome fly-by's, makes me want to do it myself. :)
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Meh, I would even be happy with just the world and the ability to fly/drive/swim(/drown).
Yeah same here. :cool:
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It looks to me like it's almost there!
You're planning on releasing the Alpha in a couple of months? That seems like a very small amount of time to put an alpha together, let alone with only two (or three?) people working on it.
How about this: the demo allowing free exploration and flying/driving around the whole world in a few stock vehicles, while the (sandbox) game will bring the ability to import your own models, define vehicles, build roads and place buildings on the land that you choose to capture for yourself. It should also gradually bring synchronization of world state so that players will see the structures built by others if they visit the land, and there should be also statistics showing how the world is being colonized using attributes that players set for themselves (nationality, hierarchic allegiance to alliances/states etc).
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Building roads in the demo would be awesome (and maybe a stop sign and directional signs?). I guess it could do without the other stuff at least at first (add limited availability to the other things eventually, especially a few stock buildings like houses (or maybe just a house) and maybe some other common buildings and stuff like that.).
Do we know (about) how much the sandbox would cost?
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Any chance for a Linux version?
I've no Windows anymore on my workstation, except in a virtual machine...
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And an additional question:
Could you add a network based remote control to the demo?
I'd love to use FlightGear as the simulation engine and Outerra as the visualisation engine...
(FlightGear has mighty tool that'd allow such a remote control already built in, additional ones could be easily added)
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Building roads in the demo would be awesome (and maybe a stop sign and directional signs?). I guess it could do without the other stuff at least at first (add limited availability to the other things eventually, especially a few stock buildings like houses (or maybe just a house) and maybe some other common buildings and stuff like that.).
Might be, might be. We are seeking the right balance between the effect of spreading of a free demo and the potential to lure players to buy the game.
Do we know (about) how much the sandbox would cost?
Somewhere along the lines of other similar indie projects, for example the Minecraft.
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iam ok with the demo just being some vehicles and islands, you have to earn some money for Outerra Engine 2 :)
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Any chance for a Linux version?
Yes, later on. We are keeping everything portable.
Could you add a network based remote control to the demo?
I'd love to use FlightGear as the simulation engine and Outerra as the visualisation engine...
(FlightGear has mighty tool that'd allow such a remote control already built in, additional ones could be easily added)
One-directional connection as an image generator would be easy, but the question is if/how the tool can get the terrain data from Outerra, since these are fractal refined.
We would be actually interested to hear how this could be accomplished for the best effect.
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Have you thought about a time-limited demo (10 mins or so) but allowing import of models? Reason being perhaps someone who does modelling would just like to check it out quickly to see whats possible to import, how it works, etc.? They created a model for another sim and would like to know if it can be importet into outerra. Yes I know if its cheap and they do modelling they will likely buy it, but any roadblock out of there way should be encouraged IMO.
If you want to release it in a similar fashion to minecraft (great game btw), I really do think you need to release early and often, finished/polished or not. I have doubts it would work by simple releasing something when its "done". Another game dev that does something similar is wolfire (http://www.wolfire.com/) for their overgrowth game. They do weekly dev video updates, and anyone who preordered the game can play up to date alphas. Their game too is more of a tech-demo right now.
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I don't think a time limited demo and import of models goes together much, importing isn't such a quick process and usually involves several iterations. And people don't like time limited demos. As you have said someone who's capable of creating models and is really interested by the possibilities won't be shy to buy it for the price.
Yes - the indie model requires us to release early and often. Earliest for us is when it works on ATI, but it won't be polished by any means. Semi-automatic version download and update will be incorporated from the start.
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Hello Cameni,
can you show us some Screenshot's from the Sandbox? :)
Greetings,
halobungie
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Sandbox is at the moment just a bunch of embedded tools with simple UI used to mod the world - making roads, runways, placing objects. We are working to make it consistent and user friendly for the release, while also focusing on extending the functionality in this direction.
The UI needs a major overhaul though.
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Outerra Sandbox is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work when you go to church when you pay you taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. What truth? That you are a player.
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Outerra Sandbox is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work when you go to church when you pay you taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. What truth? That you are a player.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NkVC9NHli4#t=42s ;)
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Outerra Sandbox is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work when you go to church when you pay you taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. What truth? That you are a player.
woah..
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Do we know (about) how much the sandbox would cost?
Somewhere along the lines of other similar indie projects, for example the Minecraft.
! That... is... awesome! :D :cool:
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Outerra Sandbox is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work when you go to church when you pay you taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. What truth? That you are a player.
" Sweet" just so...
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Have the Enginedemo 3Dsupport? :P
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Have the Enginedemo 3Dsupport? :P
?
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....for 3D Monitors or red/cyran Glasses whatever... ;)
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Oh I see, that makes sense I guess.
But isn't that really more of a graphics driver question?
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But isn't that really more of a graphics driver question?
3D needs support in the game engine because the game engine has to render two frames (left and right) for one 3D frame. Left and right frames have different camera positions/angles and there is no way how to do that on current programmable GPUs without the game engine support.
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....and is Outerra 3D supported? :|
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....and is Outerra 3D supported? :|
Not yet, we definitely want to have the 3D support in Outerra but i'm not sure if we will be able to incorporate it into the first alpha release.
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So, no demo this year? Of course it's better to wait forever and we can wait another 5-6 years, when all ATI problems are solved. But hey, outerra may be little bit outdated then... I think everyone who like outerra can change their videocard to Nvidia. Clever users never buy ATI-videocard. I will never take ATI-videocard, even if they give it to me for free (even the latest model).
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Clever users
Says the person who's not following the conversation properly. :rolleyes:
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So, no demo this year? Of course it's better to wait forever and we can wait another 5-6 years, when all ATI problems are solved. But hey, outerra may be little bit outdated then... I think everyone who like outerra can change their videocard to Nvidia. Clever users never buy ATI-videocard. I will never take ATI-videocard, even if they give it to me for free (even the latest model).
I smell nvidia fanboyism, lol.
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A little bit. :P
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So is it still going to be a summer release in 2011? (like indicated in another thread)
I understand that the demo/alpha will be streaming p2p for the world? What will be the size of the base download? Can we get the entire dataset on a set of bluray or dvd? Will the entire dataset be seeded as a bitorrent?
How much will be the cost of the alpha/beta?
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Should be the summer, unless we are derailed somehow.
Demo will use p2p for streaming of terrain data, Alpha (preorder) will use cloud servers to serve the data more reliably and quickly. We won't distribute the world data separately, but it should be downloadable via bittorent. Note though that the data will likely change in the course of time as better datasets are incorporated, and only the online service will be kept up to date.
Initial size will be around 14GB, with other datasets coming in it will possibly grow a few GBs.
The price for alpha will be similar to Minecraft and other games released this way (via preorders), but it's not yet definitely set.
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Excellent cameni, looking forward to it..
How is the northern part e.g. Norway (Scandinavia) terrain coming along?
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We already incorporated new terrain databases that contain also the northern parts, see the post about comparison of the old and new datasets (http://outerra.blogspot.com/2011/04/comparison-of-old-and-new-datasets.html)
Here's also a comparison of what was there before and what's there now. An older request above 60° north:
It would be great if you could take a screenshot of this mountain as well. It's the mountain that you can see in the horizon in the previous picture.
http://www.areskutan.se/bilder/galleri15.jpg
Coordinates for the mountain
63° 24′ 0″ N, 13° 5′ 0″ E
In the old dataset where the resolution up north was just 1km it looked like this:
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/s-daddyd1.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/s-daddyd1.jpg)
Here's how it looks now:
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/s-daddyd2.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/s-daddyd2.jpg)
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Keeping my mouse pointer over PayPal button and in the meantime brushing up my C knowleadge. Mmmmmm. Though, let's have the demo after the summer, day is shorter and one has more time to play with it :> :D :D :cool:
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Hi i just registered and i have to say this is very impressive and looks very good but when is it coming out?You said summer well its august 1 month is left from the summer.Can you tell us when is it coming?
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Welcome here.
Well, I said we would like to release something this summer, if everything goes right. But we won't rush it - we are still working hard on fixing issues with different graphics hardware and newly also with older Windows versions. Only when the major issues are fixed we will release a tech demo. We still believe it could be this "summer", but we don't guarantee it.
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The Outerra engine looks amazing thus far in the screenshots. I have loved the prospect of planet-wide rendering in some sort of simulator of a type. This looks like it really has that potential. However, most have come and gone as just screenshots and little more than vaporware. While I am thankful for your incredible work (from the screenshots) I believe your logic is somewhat flawed...
From what I see, you guys have been working on this for more than 2 years without putting out anything rather than pretty screenshots and videos. When asked about release it seems to always be too buggy or "this summer", etc. It seems that the Summer release has already been passed.
I believe the problem is that you guys want "perfection" for the demo release or not release anything at all. This is where your logic becomes flawed. People like me find videos of this amazing tech time and time again. After further investigation, it is nearly always vaporware that will never actually come out and has no sort of demo to try. The problem is that we move on, once again disappointed, and forget completely about your engine when the next video about planet wide rendering comes out on Youtube. People need something to play with and physically see for their interest to be kept. People don't expect zero-bugs when they download a demo--its part of what a demo is.
I personally can care less if something this awesome has a CTD once in a while or doesn't work completely right on a certain computer. I would still be amazed, and because I have something to play with (the demo) I can tell my friends how amazing it is. This means more publicity for you. I am not inclined to spread the word about this in its current state because it is vaporware in my mind.
This brings me to my next point. As of now you are two (I believe) people building an immense project that companies take many more people to make. How can you guys expect to find every bug on your own? No game releases without a larger test with many people and many different configurations. If you guys released the demo as is, you would have thousands and thousands of bug finders. 5000 people can find bugs a lot faster than 2. Without this, you'll only be releasing something that works on your computers, but not 4998 others.
And this finally brings me to the topic of "Minecraft" and its comparisons (indie, small developer, etc.). Minecraft has always been up for download ever since it first began. Notch (the dev of MC) did not wait until every bug was gone before releasing a demo (in which case we would still be waiting 2 years). Do you recall how buggy Minecraft was originally? It was nearly unplayable. But players didn't care. It was amazing and worth playing. The players reported bugs and before long it became the best selling indie game ever. The secret was always having something to play and show your friends what you have done.
Imagine if we only could see screenshots of Notch playing Minecraft for more than 2 years. They would look boring and not fun at all. From screenshots alone, Minecraft just looks like horrible graphics and trees. It was the demo that actually brought popularity. Please keep this in mind.
I hope you take no offense from my post and I apologize for its length. However, this is yet another "vaporware" project I have stumbled across that I will never be able to try. Sure, it looks cool, but I've seen 100s like it. None of them actually let me try, just look at pretty screenshots. From what it looks like, I'm just going to move on from an otherwise awesome project and ultimately forget about it like many others. You'll get some loyal people I'm sure, but the general public isn't interested in just screenshots.
Please prove me wrong. Once again, keep up the great work, it looks beautiful. But please reconsider your publicity tactics. I would be willing to pay $60+ on this engine alone, but only if I can try it myself--before I forget about it.
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Infinite: To focus on one of your points:
Yes, they want to release something decent and the MAIN reason why they haven't released yet, is because the ATI Drivers are buggy. We have seen the screenshots of what it would look like on all ATI cards, and it isn't pretty, I can assure you.
Secondly, Notch, and other indie-devs, released a game (and a pretty simply one, let's admit that). These guys are working on a full-scale planetary engine, which started out as a hobby as well.
Lastly, I think they are close to a first release. There is absolutely no point in putting pressure on the devs, I trust that they know what they are doing.
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Not to mention the fact that most games (and I stress here, GAMES) take two to three years for development before even a Closed Beta is offered to the community. I've seen many a game go five years without a beta.
These guys are working on an engine with the hopes of developing a game that will show off its features. They just as well could have not put this site online, and we wouldn't know anything about it today, until they were ready to release an alpha demo.
I think we've been lucky that we've been able to see the potential of what they are trying to accomplish, and I for one will never presume to debate their decisions on withholding a demo release. If nothing, I think that this has created enough "hype" that leaves most of the active followers drooling with anticipation, and the fact that the developers answer honestly to the questions from the community speaks even more volume to their dedication.
Patience, my friend, is a virtue. Even though the alpha demo might not be released until the end of this year, I'm still going to have to wait another year or two before what I want this engine for will start seeing development. I'm content with that, even though it'll leave me biting my nails until then. At least I'll have the time to work on the project the engine is destined for in the meantime :)
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He does have a point though, I'm inclined to say it doesn't matter how buggy a tech preview release would be. Yes, even if it wouldn't run on half the computers out there (ATI, and I have one of those myself), but you have to put the real thing into people's hands.
If you are at a stage where it runs as seen in your videos (on nVidia hardware), you are able to drive vehicles around, and you have some sort of fast fly thingy, then people don't need anything more for now. Even if it crashes every 30 mins, so what. It's a tech preview, nothing more. Something to play with and get excited about its potential, not its exact current state.
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corona, I have the same opinion... Better to have something, than nothing. Of course somebody wants to wait years, to get fully functional version without bugs. Those customers are just so scared of tech demo versions...
I think that public tech demo may help developer to solve the problems much faster, than trying to solve them alone.
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Why your postings have such an enforcing character? That seems very egoistic and unfair. You are trying to increase the pressure for enforcing a demo release. It doesnt matter how many features will be supported. The only thing which is interesting is the demo release for you. That annoys me.. -.-
Thats my opinion and has nothing to do with the developers opinion (camenis post would be more diplomatical):
Its not your project and so just the developers have to decide when, if, how and where they will release a demo. They owe you nothing. So just sit down and wait. You didnt contribute anything (but ideas) and thats why you dont have the option to increase the pressure.
I think that public tech demo may help developer to solve the problems much faster, than trying to solve them alone.
Why it should? They also have an 24h day. Maybe they'll find bugs faster, but that has nothing to do with solving them.
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A public tech demo release would help developers to find bugs faster. But in this stage of development, they are very well aware which bugs need fixing. So no, a public release wouldn't speed up development.
Also, think about it as a developer who has spent years working on a project. Releasing after all this much work, would STILL piss off half the community, having ATI cards. A first impression is very important, and this really wouldn't be a good start for Outerra.
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Releasing after all this much work, would STILL piss off half the community, having ATI cards. A first impression is very important, and this really wouldn't be a good start for Outerra.
Is it difficult to write a large red colored text before and after the download link: This demo will not work on ATI cards!
So, let them sell their buggy ATI cards and then to buy right ones. =) Who cares.
Why your postings have such an enforcing character? That seems very egoistic and unfair. You are trying to increase the pressure for enforcing a demo release. It doesnt matter how many features will be supported. The only thing which is interesting is the demo release for you. That annoys me.. -.-
Yes, that's true. They must do like I say, because I know what is better for me.
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What you don't want to do is release a tech demo that crashes every few minutes and has a terrible unfinished or refined UI and still has buggy drivers for half the video cards on the planet.
You only get to release a tech demo once and make an impression. Better make it a good one.
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well from the blog alone this "engine" has been in active development for more than 3 years, but i know for sure it's been floating around for longer than that, in what seems like an infinite loop of refactoring. Again, from the blog the procedural displacement was in place on blog day 1 (july 2008), and a couple of months later the collision was in place. The progressive torrent downloading went in over 2 years ago....since then what....err...angrypig's tweaked his tree generator a bit more while cameni's rewritten the apparently incompetent data processing work of his unnamed 3rd colleague. He's rewritten his atmospheric scattering algorithm a few dozen more times, which I believe he's still not satisfied with.....oh yes and the last blog entry was some monumental procrastination about fog not appearing white...........still no demo of any kind, just grainy videos generated by his own plugin (which makes me very suspicious....his frame rate could well be in single figures but he steps the clock on 16ms per capture....we have no way of knowing).
when I first started following the blog it all looked impressive, the only question for me was "how good and how consistent is the framerate?" because that's the only thing that's difficult to get right. Still no demo, so 3 years later i still don't know. As the other guy said - it's been surpassed by other projects and it's lost much of its gloss now.
Mind you, if you do release a demo next year or whenever and it is genuinely impressive then I'll be glad to eat my words.
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As the other guy said - it's been surpassed by other projects and it's lost much of its gloss now.
I dont think there are many planetary rendering engines out there right now (that I know of).
Maybe you can elaborate on which other projects you mean?
It seems the only ones in a somewhat advanced state are: "I-Novae Engine" (Infinity), an engine from Eric Bruneton,
"Space Engine" and "Outerra".
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Lost much of it's gloss? Nobody knows about this engine. There are like 20 people active here on the forums watching in awe of all the accomplishments completed by only two individuals who had no intention of releasing this as a gaming platform before a year ago.
Patience is rewarded usually. Three years to get to this point is incredible and the fact they are even going to try to fully finish this to a gaming level is amazing.
Sh|t's still broken. Let them fix it.
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game engine?!! are you kidding? this is just a terrain renderer! you obviously have no idea what's involved in developing a game engine.
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:rolleyes:
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WOW!! I'm amazed at how people can be so ungrateful and from what I remember, this was just a side project up until a year ago I think.
Also I'm not sure if he missed this thread Tech demo - Getting Closer (http://www.outerra.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=400/)
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game engine?!! are you kidding? this is just a terrain renderer!.
Doesn't take much to go from one to the other. Sound, physics, lighting.. All things implemented or being implemented currently.
http://www.outerra.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=9
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I laughed at Shawn's post! :P
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well abc94, that's very telling.
ZeosPantera, okey dokey, off you go then, draw up the functional requirements for a game engine. What you've just said is an insult to all the hard work the people at epic/crytek/id/criterion etc. The arrogance is breathtaking and totally misguided.
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But zeo is right. A game engine is also just a derivation of an engine. Especially outerra has some features of a gameengine. You can drive vehicles by using an approximated physic-engine. So why you are crying? E.g. Ogre is a gameengine and supports the same things as outerra does. Outerra probably even more. Outerra has the possiblity to add content on each coord and some kind of interaction. In my eyes it seems to be very close to _your_ definition of a gameengine.
Even in ogre you have to implement the logic for firing guns. There is no logic brick which does that for you. Nevertheless Ogre is a gameengine.
So please, stop trolling around if your comprehension doesnt barely suffices..
Btw. i dont think that epic will cry a lot of tears if you compare their engine with outerra.
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I believe, nobody here wants to disregard work of people at epic, crytek, id, criterion, ... and at least 20 more (note: 20 is blind guess ... put 50 there if you like ... ) ... (various sizes of companies as well as their products ... )
As well as nobody wants to disregard what them guys at Outerra do ...
So let's have a look at wiki ... what it says about Game Engine ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine ) :
Let's check with Outerra:
The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes :
- a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics - check,
- a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response) - check (currently Bullet and JBSim engines integration),
- sound - check (AngryPig sent some teaser post about work in progress ... ),
- scripting - check ,
- animation - I've seen some waves on the sea in the outerra ... so ... check (we will be getting more definitelly ... :) ),
- artificial intelligence - not yet, but on the list,
- networking - at some level - check,
- streaming - check,
- memory management - check,
- threading - check,
- localization support - not sure about this, but in every normal development - people follow i18n (or something like that ... to some extent),
- and a scene graph - check.
So I would say ... Outerra is a game engine ... too ... (I believe, that Cameni himself used an term somewhere: rendering engine)
(currently it's rendering some amount of screens per second ... (as said with some extent of humour) )
It's being developed with modularity in mind ... so it might be used as an simulation platform (in the scientific sense), if you plug in what you need ... and I believe many more ... (I'm not in the mood to go through this forums to look for all proposed possible usages of this engine ... plenty ... )
There is one important term : (Game) Engine Tools ... as far as I know ... it's getting better in that area too ...
So ... work in progress ... and I wish it stays like that for next 20 years+ ... it would mean it was sucessful ... and is being used ... and old features refactored (where required) ... new added ... etc. etc. ... ;-)
Yeah ... evolution ... ;-)
cheers,
Miro
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It's not an insult, Knackered.
A game engine is not that hard to make; however, adding all the extra functionality is.
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Just to reiterate what others have stated. This was just a hobby and only in the past one or two years has it become full-time development for two guys. Do you really expect something like Crysis when those other companies have way more employees than two?
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game engine?!! are you kidding? this is just a terrain renderer!
Knackered, they've mentioned many times that they want to make their own game with Outerra. I'm pretty sure that if they managed to build an engine like this from scratch with only two (or three) people, they should know very well what their own engine is capable of.
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@knackered why you gotta hate man? you couldn't do any better.