Proposal for a new Game Engine

[Deadfast 43]

@deadfast if insantrix is wrong then YOU tell us what it is...

What is what? The source of all performance problems? I don't know, but how does that in any way dispute my argument?

[ric 1]

rd

Explain you what? That ArmA *insert number* is not made out of SQF scripts? Something else? Be so kind and say what it is you fail to grasp and i'll try my best to explain it to you, in an easy and digerable manner, so even you could, finaly, understand it.

does it really make you feel better coming off as a condescending Scheißkerl?

there is no new engine. It is an iteration (just like many others out there). And yes, it has problems, and constrains, and some things needs workaround.

but there is nothing out there (unfortunately) to compare it to.

I believe some one already pointed out that BIS had said it was " a brand new engine" but that is irrelevant at this moment . the fact thet there is nothing like it out there does not help or justify the state that it is in right now.

Now, from a bussines POV, trashing the existing code and creating a new engine from ground up is pretty much out of the question, just as much as licensing another engine designed for something else is. And that is something I and DM (and some others) do understand, unlike yourself.

one way or the other the issue has to be dealt with and since you are talking from a business POV then you should understand that this type of negative publicity is NOT good for business. I watched cliffs of dover(flight sim) which had 7+ million extra invested in development raked over the coals in reviews which ended 18 months later with the plug being pulled.

Does this engine have issues. Of course it has. And any game out there aiming for the scale, scope and openess would. Could BI improve on it. Yes, i am sure they could (and they most likely would).

Regarding TOH: of course it dropped the framerate. In the end, the engine needs to take into consideration a lot more variables, on top of the existing ones. I really don't see the problem here.

yes...all games have there "issues" but this is not a bug or glitch this is more fundamental and at the core and the TOH issue just exacerbates even more.

Such threads as in proposal for a new engine are funny from the get go, mainly because, all things considered, it is so unfeasible. Anyone who thinks otherwise has little knoledge regarding what software development is, and how the video-game industry work, or any bussines for that matter.

I did not start this thread :) and yes the OP is naive when it comes to what is involved in engine design and building but at some point that becomes mute as people dont care what is and was involved they only care that it does not work and again that is bad for business. My research into parallelization,concurrency, multi taking, multi threading logical vs physical cores ..etc has been enlighting in both directions..i have read where spread things across to many cores can have the opposite effect, i have also read where FPS went up %15 and that was just on rendering.

I have no excuses for the product, not for BI. I am saying, here, in this funny thread, one single thing: the next iteration of this game will be based on the same engine for obvious reasons. There is nothing to replace it with, and there is no way 15+ years of engine development would go to waste because some lad on a forum started a thread called "proposal for a new game engine"

Pufu, you what you have to do when you have to do it... and they have to do something. Can we agree that it would be much more profitable fur BIS to habe an engine that could easily make the transition to the new consoles? do you think this could be done with A3 right now?

you really are going to defend a car industry as poor as the american one? And that is no matter if it was 60s, 70s 80s etc or today?

you now that was not about American vs (insert car maker)

---------- Post added at 01:19 ---------- Previous post was at 01:17 ----------

What is what? The source of all performance problems? I don't know, but how does that in any way dispute my argument?

sorry that came off wrong, what i was asking was if insantrix is wrong you must now more and by default have a better idea of what the problem is, I

was not disputing your argument :)

[Planetside 1]

Runs like garbage, looks like garbage, it's too hard and too expensive to make animations, every time I join a server it just feels hacked together. I'm disappointed. Plus the mouse movement isn't smooth because the game runs like garbage.

By the way, development costs are overstated because the developer is based in a country where programmers are paid as much as janitors are in the west.

Edited June 30, 2013 by Planetside

[Big Dawg KS 6]

DM and Pufu your endless barrage of excuses will not help BIS sell product nor bring in new customers..there is a problem and its a major one as noted by the recent explanation of why the TOH flight model was not be added as it dropped the FPS by 10....

DM's attitude/tone aside, everything he said was a valid excuse. You really shouldn't argue with him; he knows what he's talking about.

@deadfast if insantrix is wrong then YOU tell us what it is...

Just about all of his information was inaccurate, which is all Deadfast was trying to point out, and you can't form a credible argument on incorrect facts. The only thing I would like to correct from Deadfast's post is that SQF did in fact exist in a primitive form in OFP, but it doesn't really matter, everything else was pretty much accurate.

As for the actual topic, I think that most of the arguments for a new engine are based on a misunderstanding or lack of knowledge on the subject. Working on VBS, I've seen the RV engine capable of doing things I would not have ever expected it to do. So I know the engine has great potential, but as DM already pointed out the team working on the engine has limited manpower and resources. There are a lot of things that need fixing or improving, and all of these issues have been considered and prioritized. It's not like anyone is ignoring them. They absolutely can be addressed given enough time.

Now, switching to a new engine would at this point be foolish. The entire team would need to learn a new environment, become familiar with new technology, tools, etc. before they can even stary working on the game, and would then need to reimplement every single feature from the existing engine. They would run out of money just trying to reach the level of capability they already have, before they even got to adding anything new.

---------- Post added at 01:49 ---------- Previous post was at 01:42 ----------

a robust engine would generate millions and bring in a new customers along with all the other possibilities....

You may be right, but you have to understand that it would be a tremendous risk for the devs. Engine optimizations/improvements alone won't pay the bills, and with the current size of the development team they can't afford to take devs off of the revenue generating projects to do this. As BIS grows and becomes larger, as I hope/expect it will, then at some point in the future they may have enough resources to do just what you suggested and have a dedicated team working on engine optimizations & support of liscensed 3rd party projects. It's just not feasible with their current size.

[chortles 263]

Now, switching to a new engine would at this point be foolish. The entire team would need to learn a new environment, become familiar with new technology, tools, etc. before they can even stary working on the game, and would then need to reimplement every single feature from the existing engine. They would run out of money just trying to reach the level of capability they already have, before they even got to adding anything new.

From what I understand, this was already a problem for Arma 3 development since there was (however inevitable) dev turnover and, while there was Internet talk about "hiring devs with DayZ money," that meant that said new people already had to go through the above process just for the existing RV4 engine, much less any future engine, which impeded Arma 3 development... so doing it for yet another engine sounds like it would just magnify the problem further.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

From what I understand, this was already a problem for Arma 3 development since there was (however inevitable) dev turnover and, while there was Internet talk about "hiring devs with DayZ money," that meant that said new people already had to go through the above process just for the existing RV4 engine, much less any future engine, which impeded Arma 3 development... so doing it for yet another engine sounds like it would just magnify the problem further.

Yea, and training new devs is still far less costly/risky than retraining everyone and redocumenting everything. As far as programmers go, I suppose as long as there are some senior devs who are familiar with the intricacies of the engine and there is sufficient documentation, getting new guys up to speed (provided they have sufficient general programming knowledge) and onto a task would be pretty streamlined.

[chortles 263]

Yea, and training new devs is still far less costly/risky than retraining everyone and redocumenting everything. As far as programmers go, I suppose as long as there are some senior devs who are familiar with the intricacies of the engine and there is sufficient documentation, getting new guys up to speed (provided they have sufficient general programming knowledge) and onto a task would be pretty streamlined.

Cue a certain someone's complaint that said "senior devs" are all working on DayZ. :p Not naming names, nor the more negative stuff he said about Arma 3's devs, but... yeah. I'm reminded of something InstaGoat said back after Gamescom 2012 last year where he told him that the official stance was "no new AI features til we can get the current ones working properly" and that the reason for this was a mix of feature pileup and documentation (read: collected "learning/continuing education" for devs) that didn't keep pace with that.

I'm probably misquoting if I suggest that someone outright suggested that no one left at BI actually knew everything about AI or the engine itself by themselves... but it sounded bad enough that "make a new engine" would seem to basically be piling on top of an already troubled situation (insufficient documentation) which itself was already compounded by having to get new devs up to speed (thanks to "DayZ money").

[Insanatrix 0]

All I care about is learning what the problem is exactly, and then getting exposure for it in the hopes that it will get fixed. I hear you guys saying, "The dev's know, it will be fixed when it's fixed" etc... but it certainly doesn't seem or feel like that's the case. How many times do I need to buy the different iterations of the same game + expansion before they have enough funds to expand their team so they can fix the problems? What is a valid length of time for these recurring issue's to be fixed?

I can be totally wrong about the "why" in these issue's that exist. For me as a consumer, the "why" means very little, it's only me trying to understand it better by putting my foot out there. What matters to me is that they are fixed so I can actually use the software that I purchased. I realize the topic of this thread is "Proposal for a new game engine" and I don't agree with that for most of the above mentioned reasons like having to get familiar with the tools and the capabilities. That doesn't mean that there isn't something seriously wrong with this one that hinders the performance on A LOT of users computers.

As good as this game looks, with the ragdolls and such, I would honestly give all of that up to have something I can actually use. All these improvements mean very little if the software just doesn't run. I would rather time be spent on fixing core issue's than adding in things that while great in their own right and certainly add to the experience, are eclipsed by the unfixed issue's that still persist. It's pure frustration at this point, expecting improvements and getting very little except visual stuff that almost compounds the issues.

[dm 9]

crap?..no it was spot on your just splitting hairs...was Audi, BMW, Mitsubish, producing these engines in 1970? no they were putting lawn mower engines in golf carts and calling them cars...let me shorten the analogy for you hemi=power with headroom, tuner engine (RV)=Maximum limit reached and as you have said (per the writers of the engine) throwing more cores at it wont help with performance...why is that DM? unlike you analogy of the 1.6L producing 500HP RV is not cutting edge..because if it was we would not have to constantly turn up the clock speeds along with turn that off turn this down...etc

Also getting it back to front I see. I'm going to avoid going deeper into the car maker analogy (everyone knows European and Asian cars have been vastly superior to American ones since the Model T).

However, using the car-engine analogy, the hemi is more like RV, and the tuned engines are more like cryEngine, Unreal, etc etc.

The hemi allows you to up the performance from the baseline, because it is not already working at its maximum potential. If that means you overstress the drivetrain or the chassis, or burn out the tyres, well thats the risk you take when exceeding the initial spec.

The tuned engines are more like cryEngine, Unreal, etc where they are already working at their maximum potential for the chassis/drivetrain/tyres they were designed for.

whether you think its bullshit or not the new consoles are here ...there 1.8GHz and companies will be adapting or writing engines to use this architecture.

Well in the case of RV it is totally bullshit. As is this thread. For one very simple reason:

You're working on the assumption that BI wants to be an engine-provider. As far as we can tell, based on the fact that BI does not push the engine as a solution to peoples game-creation needs, BI is happy just using their own engine(s) to produce their own projects. As far as we can tell, they have zero desire to expand beyond what they are doing now - projects that interest them, and make them enough money to do more projects that interest them.

Beyond Deans wild ramblings, BI has not really expressed any interest in moving the Arma series onto console.

They tried with OFP Elite, and learnt a lot of things, but it has been stated since that Arma (and by extension the RV engine) is PC exclusive.

(I think you meant performance)

Ouch, burnt by my own typos :butbut:

1, so you telling me a well known and established company like BIS could not find investors in what in an industry to generates hundreds of millions in revenue? the fact that they are here after 13 years profitable and well known tells me you are wrong.

The fact that they have not tells me you are. :) Again, your argument is based on the idea that they want to expand and be a big AAA player. Maybe they're perfectly happy with the status quo as it is?

2, its no longer about hardware when people with low and highend rigs are getting the same performance ..its about the engine.

3, agreed and that is paet of the problem the engine is not equipped to take advantage of what is there

How are you not getting that just throwing more hardware at the problem (i.e. the "what is there" part) is not going to be a magical performance solution? Would you be making these assumptions if RV3 (Arma 2) then RV4 (Arma 3) had been fully utilising all cores on a multi-core CPU at the same performance level? Is this request based on some kind of placebo effect? "Its not using ALL my cores, so it must be under performing!"

really..well let me help you out again.

Thanks for re-posting some PR drivel in here.

your timing is off.. and asking people to turn down,off options and quality or jack there CPU to 5GHz is no answer either..

My timing seems fine to me?

So when your hardware is not capable of running those quality options, it is clearly the engine at fault? Superb logic. Sticking with the car analogies: my car isn't big enough to transport the 8 friends I want to go somewhere with. Should I tell some of them they cant go in my car (turning off options) or should I complain to the car manufacturer that the car is poorly designed/optimised?

DM's attitude/tone aside, everything he said was a valid excuse.

I prefer "reason" rather than "excuse" ;)

[chortles 263]

Well in the case of RV it is totally bullshit. As is this thread. For one very simple reason:

You're working on the assumption that BI wants to be an engine-provider. As far as we can tell, based on the fact that BI does not push the engine as a solution to peoples game-creation needs, BI is happy just using their own engine(s) to produce their own projects. As far as we can tell, they have zero desire to expand beyond what they are doing now - projects that interest them, and make them enough money to do more projects that interest them.

This makes sense: for better or for worse, if Maruk decides that BI needs a totally different engine that already exists, I see the way-more-likely move being to try to acquire a studio that's already versed in/resourced for that engine (Arma 3's QA lead came to BI through one such acquisition), while right now Arma remains the core product at least until whenever DayZ standalone gets off of the ground publicly (emphasis on "publicly") while CC: GM and TOM are thoroughly side projects.

Hell, the bit about "projects that interest them" reminds me of people's complaints about Arma 3 having underwater and a 2035 setting but not other changes... hey, maybe underwater was something that made the devs actually give a shit enough to try, unlike the complainers' pet features? :rolleyes:

Beyond Deans wild ramblings, BI has not really expressed any interest in moving the Arma series onto console.

Considering a certain someone's complaining about how Arma 3 had so much rolling-back whereas DayZ has so many "requested in Arma" features yet having no evidence for this disparity other than Rocket's claims of what he's looking to design into DayZ... characterizing Rocket's words as "wild ramblings" is amusingly topical. Thank you for that. :lol:

[PuFu 4600]

rd

does it really make you feel better coming off as a condescending Scheißkerl?

no

I believe some one already pointed out that BIS had said it was " a brand new engine" but that is irrelevant at this moment . the fact thet there is nothing like it out there does not help or justify the state that it is in right now.

What state you on about?

one way or the other the issue has to be dealt with and since you are talking from a business POV then you should understand that this type of negative publicity is NOT good for business. I watched cliffs of dover(flight sim) which had 7+ million extra invested in development raked over the coals in reviews which ended 18 months later with the plug being pulled.

If you want to talk about publicity, ArmA3 is getting a lot of good publicity, even though it is an unreleased game. Neither A2, nor A1 had this sort of media support.

Remember A2 had an pretty low average when reviews are concerned. Surely, DayZ might have saved the boat, but nevertheless, it sold pretty well even before.

You see, there are enough games out there that do a single thing very well. Most of them roller costers. The target has changed, but also the audience had enough of the same COD/BF iteration each year.

yes...all games have there "issues" but this is not a bug or glitch this is more fundamental and at the core and the TOH issue just exacerbates even more.

maybe so. So what would you suggest? So far you went for rewrite parts of rather than bin and start over in your arguments.

I did not start this thread :) and yes the OP is naive when it comes to what is involved in engine design and building but at some point that becomes mute as people dont care what is and was involved they only care that it does not work and again that is bad for business.

My research into parallelization,concurrency, multi taking, multi threading logical vs physical cores ..etc has been enlighting in both directions..i have read where spread things across to many cores can have the opposite effect, i have also read where FPS went up %15 and that was just on rendering.

There is one thing to read about it, another to do it.

To give you an example, the mamute Autodesk has been rewritting parts of the 3ds max legacy code for the last 4 years. There are still not done doing it.

There are certain things you can improve (such as collapsing parts of the code etc). There are things that you cannot improve further, nor you can make them multi-threaded (such a single operation).

Can we agree that it would be much more profitable fur BIS to habe an engine that could easily make the transition to the new consoles? do you think this could be done with A3 right now?

It might be more profitable, but i would rather have them not to. Reason are quite a lot. A port over, maybe. multi-platform design, no thank you.

[purepassion 22]

Since this thread is nothing but "I want X and Y to be better" without any valid thoughts for a "new engine" for Arma, which is already turning into a plethora of personal disputes (and yes, german insults are insults as well), it's best to be closed.

If you wish to finish your personal discussions, please do so via PM.

If you are having trouble with performance or want to discuss requested features, you are encouraged to post in the Arma 3 feedback tracker or the Community Wishes and discussion threads and continue a civil discussion there. :)