Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PCs

TA and Supcom had massive system requirements when they came out, and particularly for Supcom I think this hurt the game's popularity.

PA should be designed to be run on as basic a system as possible. I'm not sure what the main bottlenecks would be (but I'm sure the devs know), but I'd like to make some points about scalability.

Please make the graphics scaleable down to very low polygon models, and make every fancy lighting feature etc able to be turned off.

Supcom's main bottleneck used to be the CPU when the game came out and that's a difficult one to get round as the game has to do all the necessary calculations no matter what.

It used to be that high-end gaming PCs eventually became the norm, but nowadays GPUs particularly are so much better than the average user needs that they simply don't make it into bog-standard HP desktops, which tend instead to rely on on-board, shared-RAM workhorses. Chances are if you bought a mid-range, non-custom PC today it still wouldn't be able to run Supcom for instance.

I'm not sure what the answers are to making the game scale down as well as up, anyone got ideas?

Re: Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PC

I would like to see the option to disable unit models completely and use only strategic icons.

Re: Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PC

CPU intensive operations might be moved onto Servers for the most part and then scaling down graphics to extremes might work too. But with that noted, the game might only be able to be played in Online Mode only on low end machines.

Re: Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PC

Whatever happens, under absolutely zero circumstances should game size and scope be compromised for low-end cheapos using inferior garbage they think deserves to run games because they 'just bought it in 2006!'.

Re: Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PC

This, this, this.

If you still got trouble with running SupCom - it's your issue. Spend few bucks on a better PC. Don't force everyone to have crippled game or focus expenses on making game run on your decade-old PC just because you can't run any modern title.

Re: Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PC

Oh and part of the reason they do want to pursue the 'TF2' art style, on top of streamlining art development, was to keep performance impact low.

Re: Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PC

That's not what I meant at all.

Re: Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PC

I know you're talking about graphics, which is why I said 'whatever happens', meaning it's okay to scale down some things but if game size and scope end up being what needs to be culled for performance's sake, then that's where the line is drawn.

Re: Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PC

Agreed.

There should be the option to play on small maps though, both for gameplay and performance reasons. PA will be more efficiently coded to take advantage of multicore processors of course, but there are still fairly common gameplay modes on Forged Alliance that will slow down on even the best modern PC (e.g. Seton's Clutch, Phantom games, basically any game that lasts long enough to see large amounts of aircraft).

Re: Performance scalability - making the game run on slow PC

Scalability's always a tightrope to walk.

One the one hand, you want the maximum possible number of players to be able to have a smooth game on whatever hardware they're running - and these days, upgrades aren't practical for a lot of people. A game developer can't cater only to the hardcore crowd, and the worst thing to do with a crowd-funded project like this is to create something half the crowd can't play yet.

On the other, you can't be held back by the lowest common denominator, or advancement grinds to a halt and you wind up releasing games that date quickly and turn off the hardcore crowd that you *know* will buy the game. At that point you might as well be creating new Zynga games.

You gotta hit a balance between the hardware needed to run Farmville at launch vs the hardware needed to run Crysis at launch, or find some way to scale the game so that players with low end hardware can play fine, but in a much less pretty and gigantic environment, and lets high end hardware push itself to the limit.

I think Uber so far seems to be focusing on just that dichotomy, and from playing MNC, I think they can do it. Low end hardware won't be totally choked by next gen realistic graphics, and cell shaded "cartoony" graphics tend to date over the years better than ultra-realism (Crysis still looks awesome... Call of Duty 1, less so, but TF2 and WoW don't get too many complaints in the graphics departments). If the actual game graphics follow the same art style as the promo video, I suspect the grumbles about missing gritty realism will be overwhelmed by the gameplay and the scale. Besides, we all know modders will handle the gritty hi-res texture packs for the people who *do* have futuristic computers from space - take a look at some of the more popular Minecraft texture packs. Players with high end hardware should then be able to play and/or host extremely large scale games, while players with low end hardware can still play a smooth fun game, just on a more limited scale. The simple art style means the shift in that scale can be huge, from a tiny planet with a moon or two, up to a full solar system with massive planets and dozens of players, without demanding triple SLI'd GTX 690's.

That said, this is a PC game, and most PC gamers have built their own systems, and probably have their next upgrade cycle planned out at least a year in advance... so Uber can definitely afford to err on the side of heftier hardware.