Super Thin Client?

Hi UberEnt,

Is there any scope for a super thin client for PA?

It seems the server does all the heavy lifting and the client just render pretty graphics. Is it therefore possible to have a client that doesn't render pretty graphics? Something that just logs you in, paints a basic sphere with colours for terrain, menus, and icons for units and buildings. Something with such small graphical demands on the client computer that it could be run from a USB stick without installing. Or even in a HTML5 web browser.

Any chance of this?

Rebuilt

I vote for color ASCII.

i thought that the idea where there could be a version of the game where there is no actual models of the units and you play by the tactical icons alone. that by itself would make a version that can be handled much easier with almost any computer. i pretty much play souly by the tactical icons already.only zooming in to watch battles or find resources and of course find available spots for buildings.

So what you want is Planetary Annihilation: Dwarf Fortress Edition?

If I can use my netbook to ssh into my home server to play a game, I would be quite happy. As long as it uses vi hotkeys. (Or if the emacs hotkeys can be rebound to vi hotkeys.)

All this would do is reduce the GPU requirement; CPU and RAM requirements would not be greatly affected.

Textures/Models/Animations greatly affect RAM usage.

True, I was thinking specifically of the models rather than textures or animations. But the problem is still keeping track of massive numbers of units and data, which would still require significant amounts of RAM. The only was to avoid this and have a true super-thin client is to stream the output image from one device to the thin client, so all the thin client needs to do is display what is essentially a movie, and pass back and commands given.

The short answer is yes this could be done.

Now the question is what are the chances of Uber doing that? ;p

Mike

love the implications of this idea

"spectator" streams of artistically low-end visuals .... cool

Anytime soon? Zero. Simply don't have the resources for things that aren't important core features.

It's much better for us to put time into making the current client better and faster. Regardless this is something that's possible though and it would certainly be possible to spectate games on a thin client, and even to give orders etc.

Well, as long as the server protocol is available, some enterprising modder could rewrite the client from scratch to support their ideals. Such as Ascii-Annihilation.

So basically space invaders?

I think this could provide interesting options for multiplayer, if expanded properly.

A mod could set it so there is an over-arching general, who can watch what all his teammates are doing -- his sole purpose is to unify forces and create the large-scale plan.

Via lots of small, render-easy screens, he could view everything at once, and relay important information to people who focused more on small-scale situations. If people really worked together this could provide a truly incredible experience.

You have spawned, you hear the faint sound of music coming from an unknown source.

You seem to be standing in a large grassy field, to the north you see a large mountain, to the east you see a river. Far away you notice the horizon curving slightly out into space.

There is a metal patch here...

C:\>_

Ctrl+D

You have spawned, you hear the faint sound of music coming from an unknown source.

You seem to be standing in a large grassy field, to the north you see a large mountain, to the east you see a river. Far away you notice the horizon curving slightly out into space.

There is a metal patch here...

C:\>^D

I'm not sure if linking to StarCraft related material is considered heresy around here.. but this thread reminded me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B16eAS1dwA

Just something to think about but since the idea is for multiple windows open at once, if the devs run into performance limitations this might be an idea to increase the potential open screen count. Idea being you would have X number of normal render clients for main play and Y number of Low res one's to monitor other things.