Graphics Update: Making things go faster by doing less

i must say varrak (and probably echoing the entire community)....

MOOOAAAR POSTS!

Indeed!!

Really great job making stuff do less than it did before

amen. I find that the more projects I have that use more scripts and less code coincide with how many work.

I want @sorian to create a long post explaining how he made an AI that is fairly competent.

*Someday* is the word your looking for

What I like about LOD, is when you go "off the map" in older games, and it becomes clear that you're walking through a forest of cardboard cut-out trees.

It tuns out that the cheapest and pretty accurate shape approximator is a set of spheres. But in my case it was in high dimensional (>1000) space, so YMMV.

On that theme - I noticed that when I area build a gas planet, all the build outlines show when the planet passes in the background (I don't have this option set - I don't see them when it's the focus planet) That's an awful lot of unnecessary geometry in the background.

Speaking of gas planets, one more thing for the backlog @varrak: There's a pretty steep FPS dropoff when a gas planet packed full of jigs comes into view behind the focus planet. Even though the "straws" aren't occluded by the jig's icon, I, for one, wouldn't mind if you didn't render the jigs.

Icons don't show for any units that are on a planet in the background, so this can happen even for land structures.

I wont pretend to understand most of it, But i like the whole GO FASTER!. stuff going faster is good

Queue Jeff Goldblum, just pretend the T-rex is a commander.

The game is definitely most fun when it runs really fast and smooth.

So "not so soon"?

You need to find something more nuanced then "soon".
"Soon" (we are working on it or really want to finish it fast if possible - if possible at all)
"Not so soon" (it is on low priority or turned out harder to finish)
"Not anytime soon" (longterm goal or inherently slow process)

For the fun of it I am programming my own 3D game using C# and Monogame. When I started to render lots of 3D objects my GPU grinded to a halt (R9 290!!). After contemplating on the issue I rewrote the render part so 3D objects outside the screen area weren't drawn. I was expecting that the GPU was smart enough to figure out what to render and what not, but it seems the GPU isn't smart.. Using C#, abstract classes and Linq I implemented the solution rather fast with great results.. How much work is it in C++ to do the same?

wow see, I didn't even know this. I might have told someone else the contrary if I hadn't seen this.

Thanks for the answer and good speed on fixing this. I know you're the guy capable of doing it!

considering some play with icons always on (I know, it would drive me nuts too) , Zaphod, for example did it back in the day where he POVed FA, some other PA casters currently do it, it's perfectly reasonable and indeed it could be a very interesting option.

especially for a web-based replay-only version of PA (I'd talked about this in another tread).

LOL.

We shall name the : "UBER's offichial chart of SOONs"™

Ever piece of hardware or software is only as smart as the least skileld programmer who worked on it
Deciding what to draw and hen to draw it is what Graphics engines are all about.
Some engines are more effective for some scenarios. I.e. you would be hard pressed to use a RTS Engine to make a FPS.