chris330

Hi, That's good replies chaps. I'm not really interested in making addons or anything. I would prefer something I can write code for particularly in the way of AI and complete total user/scripter dictacted vehicle motion as I'd like to work on a flight model. Sounds good from you what you've said! Does anyone know specifically how much control you can get over the AI? Is there a setvector command? If so can I use it with people not just vehicles? I can't do much with the AI if it just runs off the old animation style OFP did where once an animation is triggered the unit completes it and its associated co-ordinate translation regardless of what's in the way with no possibility of interrupting it. The only thing that could interrupt it was the game engine, the user could not disturb an animation part way through I tried it many times when trying to do some rough domove substitution. They'd just walk thru walls! Thanks!

Wow more great info! You're a bit of a guru at this mate thanks! ;)

Oh my word this will no doubt provoke a big follow up post with loads of questions. Sounds like a really neat trick you've devised there I really like the sound of using code to display a plane at the player in the right way instead of rendering multiple polys. I'm tired right now but I'll post a digest and question post of your great reply later thanks!

Hi, I've always been keen to develop my own game purely as a hobby. I often think about it alot. I've gone back to uni (open uni) to study maths and I've read through a good book on physics engines and re-read a load of maths books at undergrad level and I'm doing really well at understanding stuff so I should be ok especially given how many pre-made graphics engines there are out there today. My main concern is always performance. Most games for me and I think many others play terribly with bad frame rates no matter how visually attractive they are. I'd much rather play a basic visually appealling game that ran fast, so much so I devote sometimes hours of daydreaming a day to thinking how to get optimum performance out of a game using clever tricks to give the appearance of greater computing complexity than that which is actually present. I was thinking for example of when flying aircraft and firing the machine gun instead of worrying about computing collisions for the first several hundred feet perhaps instead I could just ray cast along a distance that a bullet would travel during the first few moments of it being fired. Anything in the way would receive an instant hit and the bullet would be deleted after that occurence. It would mean alot less rendering and frame by frame collision detection I would think. At a point where the bullet would be expected to begin to fall from it's initial trajectory, then perhaps I could create an object at that point and then have it start to follow a route affected by gravity. I was also thinking maybe a single registered trigger press would infact cause a minimum amount of rounds to be fired and over a set time. For example when ever a trigger press was detected a minimum 10 rounds would fire over a period of a small fraction of a second. Any additional trigger detections during that small time period would yield no response until the time lapse had ended and then if the trigger input was still detected or a new one initiated the loop would go again. Some clever code trickery using random numbers could slightly alter the numbers fired by using small random deviations around a secret set number like as mentioned 10 rounds but randomisation might make it say 11 or 8 as arbitrary examples. This would give the impression it was much more sensitive than it was. Also during each round burst I was thinking of there being only 1 actual bullet course plotted. When acheiving a hit some more random numbers acting within a radius and some trig calcs could activate damages occuring within a circle centred at the plotted bullet's impact point. This would mean I'd get like around 10 bullets worth of action for only 1 actual computed trajectory. Nasty stuff like the impact centre being on a tree or lamp post or some small object could be gotten around by doing a quick check to see if the computed bullet had struck a plane surface (i.e. a wall or fuselage or whatever) and if it hadn't and it had struck a small object then another computation could be made from there on until the next thing got hit but with each successive computation carrying a variable containing the number of bullets still in that bullet cluster. Thus eventually you'd either hit a planed surface big enough to accomodate all bullets in the cluster or you'd compute out successive impacts till all were gone. The only issue I could see here would be if the evalution of the impact zone were too CPU heavy it would negate the benefits of not having to compute the trajectory of each round. This I think would work well at reducing nasty high speed computations. The other big problem would be trees. A big MMOG game I play has serious frame rate issues for only very basic graphics. We think it's due to alot of stuff being rendered that is unnecessary. I was thinking of using the same scheme OFP uses for muzzle flash and bushes. Two planes at 90 degrees forming a cross with symmetrical textures on them but I want something more appealing. Is it possible to construct whole trees using multiple versions of this mapped plane concept? I want good trees that are good enough to be believable but without any frame rate hits *especially* for bomber and helicopter pilots who will be having lots of these rendered on their screen. Can anyone give me any ideas or help or even just comment constructively on what's been said? Thanks ;)

That's a great reply! Some questions I hope you can answer: Does the Unity engine license allow you to go in and change stuff in it like remove things you don't need and all that? I don't want to rely too heavily on using things made by other people as I really want it ultra optimised. What's a workflow? Is it an abstract concept I'm not familiar with the term. I'm also unfamiliar with how important shading is. I know almost squat about the technical methods of rendering textures and even less about how those aspects relate to performance. Is it linked also to lighting in some way? Sounds like this unity thing is the way to go from what you've said so far! If the questions seem a bit basic you'll have to forgive me I'm a bit of a n00b when it comes to rendering lingo and details. Cheers ;)

Hi as promised I've returned with a theory of how to do this. Interesting points by the way Rhammstein thnx for the realism tips. PuH if you're still interested it goes a bit like this: Bullet package created when gun fired. Could be from plane, infantry, tank lmg whatever. Ray cast a certain distance that the bullet would be travelling so fast through it near enough reaches the end of the ray distance instantly. Anything that is in the way receives full damage from bullet number in package. After that intiate a circle that is facing 90 degrees to the bullets travel direction. At each frame render a new circle and create a cylinder (abstract concept) back to the last circle and chk to see if anything is in the way. If something is discovered find the first contact point moving forward from the first circle till it touches the collision object. There use random numbers to place the number of bullets in the package at various radius from the circle's centre. Store the radius values used in variables. Now check forward using the idea mentioned above with pens and paper from these points to the place where the second circle in the original pair was placed. If any of the bullets hit anything do damage and delete. Return to the place where the second circle in the original pair was placed and continue as before, but the next time a hit is detected the bullets must be placed randomly between their old point radius and the radius of the circle, which is why their old radius was stored in a variable mentioned above. Otherwise their positions within the circle could fluctuate randomly and they could for example get through an open window only to render and inflict damage in a way that woud be impossible. Once their position in the circle has been obtained it can only go outwards from that in the next frame not inwards as obviosuly bullets are spreading outward from the centre tracer they cant go out then come back in a bit!! Wth each passing frame the circle could be made bigger to simulate the spread getting larger as the bullets got further from the firing point. I've had a good think and this works for me right now. Only worry is will this be even more intensive than calcing each one individually?

I'm sure glad you two know what you're talking about I wouldn't have a bloody clue! Lol. Thanks for clearing that up it allays my fears that I'd bought something dodgy or possibly even at a collector's item grade of rarity :D I'm going to buy that PSU now. Thanks again I hope there's something I can do to help you two guys someday - I also doubt it'll be long before I'm begging for help on here again too ;)

Hi here's some pics: Is it possible this is a mis-build or the wrong version. Is it possible it's even counterfeit maybe? Thanks for your info on the fan by the way ;) ---------- Post added at 11:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:06 PM ---------- *Update* Even the user manual's picture doesn't match this model's appearance and it has a 6 pin power attachment shown in the drawings. So what do I actually own here? I still have the receipt from the company I purchased it off. Is this counterfeit? I've e-mailed zotac about my motherboard and heard nothing. I'll e-mail them again. Absolutely everything in the box looks like the genuine article down even to a little ZOTAC sticker they sent with the card. Maybe I've got the last of an old model run prior to an upgrade? As long as it will work I don't care to be honest. It's unlikely it's fake as the serial number on the side of the box it came in even matches the one on the sticker actually on the card. I think it's a discontinued or rogue model. One of the potential causes of no display on start-up is listed in the manual as an insufficent power supply. ---------- Post added at 11:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:15 PM ---------- Here's a copy of an e-mail I just sent to them:

Hi thanks for the reply. I'll go for the single rail models. Thnx for the info about the PSU it doesn't look that bad actually. The card is a ZOTAC 9600GT and its only source of power is from a 4 pin 8981 Mate-n-LOk connector (the one with the triangular corners at the top). I've found some good PSU's now in a reasonable price range. Thnx again for the help mate ;) ---------- Post added at 03:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:31 AM ---------- *Update* Found this one which delivers single rail 52A at 12V. One quick question though theres a small connector with 2 black and 2 yellow wires (no red ones) going into the CPU on my PSU. It has 2 connectors on one row and 2 on the other in a 2x2 arrangement. I see this PSU is listed as (on another site) coming with a 1x4+4pin CPU connector is that what that is? I'm probably worrying too much here. I assume that little connector is quite standard these days. My motherboard manual says its an ATX 12V connector. Once I know for sure this is ok I'll order that PSU in the link. I've checked all the other connectors it comes with and there quite sufficient to cope with the hardware demands. One more thing. I was thinking of buying a small fan the likes we used to put into lighthouse control panels at work to help keep the machine cool. A simple square cut and file in the side of the PC casing and some holes drilled means I could mount a 240VAC fan that would blast cold air right into the motherboard. Or I could set it up so it drew air out of the tower perhaps this might be better - sort of setting up a strong permanent draft. What do you think?

Hi yes I am going to game with this PC. So I suppose I need to upgrade it regardless. Can you recommend a decent manufacturer or model? How hard is it to do realistically? Do they come with wire bundles pre-attached or do I have to wire it up at both ends? I'll have a read of the motherboard's manual tonight. Thanks. ---------- Post added at 09:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:14 PM ---------- Hi one quick quesiton I've had a look at alot of PSU's online. It seems theres one big question with their design. Are they single or multi-rail. I notice some rather expensive PSU's have low amp ratings but several of them. It'll say something like 12V1 20A & 12V2 20A. Does this mean a combined loading potential of 40A? Also the connector I have for the auxialiary power on my card is of the type with four big pins and two triangulated corners at the top it's white about just under an icnh across is this a molex connector? Can I wire to my card with a multi rail PSU or should I just get a big amp output single rail PSU to avoid any wiring issues? It sounds like it would be alot easier! *Edit* the power connector on the card is of type Molex 8981 AMP MATE-N-LOK type.

I'm sorry bigs I can't help you there you might want to try and provide some more information that's not really enough. I have a problem with my new PC. I've installed my graphics card and now the monitor won't display anything. I can boot it without the DC power lead plugged in however that's obviously no use at all because although windows recognises it the driver cd doesn't because it isn't working properly. The reason is as I found out because the power supply isn't strong enough. It is above the required wattage (card needs 400, my PSU is rated to 450W) however it cannot deliver the required minimum of 26A at 12Volts DC. It can deliver maximum 22A at 12Volts DC. I assume the card cannot draw enough current to display properly and thus is refusing to display at all. So here's my questions: 1)Is it definitely the power supply? The graphics card's manual lists an incompatibility with the motherboard as a potential problem too. The motherboard on the machine is an: ASRock G31M-GS/G31M-S. I know nothing about these things but I assume the presence of a PCI-E slot means it's unlikely to not support this card. 2)What do I do now? Do I: Get a new power supply? Is this easy enough to do? I've seen a few knocking about for around £60 that look pretty good. I've looked inside my machine however and there's no universal plug between the internal power distribution wires and the PSU. Does this mean all the existing power supply wires would have to be removed and re-fitted if I bought a new power supply? Or can I leave them in situ and just do the connecting up at the PSU end? Should I really get this done professionally? Do I leave the PSU alone and source a new card? 26A at 12VDC minimum sounds awfully consumptive to me for a graphics card. Maybe it's the cards unreasonable demands that are at fault? Would I better off hassle and practicality wise just leaving the PSU alone and returning the current card I have (I've kept all the boxes) and getting a different less consumptive card? I'd appreciate any advice you can offer thanks ;)

Hi thanks for the reply. Wow to be honest most of that went way over my head! I'm going to write my own game in the future and I'm thinking a long way ahead of how to optimize the hell out of it using tricks. That's what I'm really interested in. If you know of better ways to do things I've suggested please share them, or if you know of good ways to do something I haven't mentioned please say also. I'm not really clued up at all on all the advanced stuff you talked about with regards to modern hardware, most of my concerns at the moment are just about finding very lean optimized ways of performing calculations that relate to flight & combat simulations. Stuff like what you mentioned about processor orientated code is something I don't understand and best left to people like yourself who obviously have very good and advanced understandings of such things. You mentioned something really interesting about planes rolling and pitching whilst firing. If the bullet is created at an instantaneous moment during the plane's roll then I assume it's correct practice to just perform a typical trajectory computation from the point of origin when it was fired. I assume given how fast the bullet leaves the airplanes gun barrel, the plane's roll speed has no real affect on how the bullet flies from the moment it's fired. Surely if at that moment the bullet is just created at the right place at the end of the barrel you can just plot a normal trajectory as if it had been fired from a stationary gun in the sky. You made a brilliant point about the velocity of the plane affecting the damage inflicted by the rounds fired from it. I assume here the faster the plane is flying the greater the damage inflicted by the bullets. I was thinking about this alot. I reckon I could simulate this nicely by using an equation with some kind of linear decay in it which affected the damage of bullets in relation to their speed. Shoot I wouldn't even have to actually change the value of the bullets' speed in the game world at all, I could just keep a computational track of what their speed *should* be then obviously this would dictate how much damage they did. This way I can again just perform a simple trajectory calc using 1 bullet (a tracer) representing several others and have its range pre-determined in the game code. This means it can fly at a constant speed throughout its lifespan along its trajectory before being deleted when it hits its max range value. Again it's actual max range when instantaneously fired could be slightly altered using a random number. It's not quite realistic but it would not be noticeable given how fast it all happens. Bascially to cut all that b/s down to something readable - I could leave the way the bullet was rendered in the game world unchanged yet through some simple calcs alter its damage in relation to the speed of the plane that fired it. It would be a nice toy for guys who say wanted to dive strafe tanks to get through their armour. I have thought of a problem with the single bullet computation method. The original idea was to have it fly until it hit something then activate some code which plotted a small circle centred around the impact point plotted at right angles to the bullet's direction of travel. It would look if you can picture it, like a pen (the bullet) being pierced through the centre of a circular piece of paper. Some more code could come up with some quick random dispersion plots of points within that circle (think of taking a permanent marker and putting a few small marks randomly on the circlular piece of paper). Then some more code could check forward from these new points along the same direction as the bullet was originally travelling (think of putting a new pen through each mark on the circular paper and having them point the same way as the one in the middle). If after checking a set distance forward from each new mark no objects where found (thus no impact) then a new trajectory would plot from that point. Think of it as any pens on the new marks that weren't touching anything were deemed still active. Those that were touching something did damage to it and were deleted. A major problem with this is that technically if the centre bullet hit a small object very early on then it would produce a perpendicular cirle with new rounds created that all hit nothing and thus then all had to be rendered from then on totally negating any CPU saving benefit. The other massive problem with it is the opposite scenario. Say the centre bullet went through a very tight gap. Obviously in reality some of the bullets distributed around the one at the centre would not make it through the gap. That wouldn't happen with this method. With this method the centre bullet could make it through the gap, register no collision then hit something else and then decompose into several impacts to simulate other bullets in the cluster. That would look so silly. Imagine getting a round through a gap between the semi closed shutters of a cottage window only for the game to then render impacts across a 10 foot radius inside the room! Anyways I'm rambling now but that's all I want at this stage. Just ideas chucked out raw. I've actually thought of a full solution to this problem and tomorrow I'll post up with pics a full and clear method. ;)

Thanks alot! I'll keep away from Belkin then. Sounds like it's not too bad. Is there any speed advantage to using a PCI port I wonder? Anyway more good info cheers, I'll go and have a look for a wireless adaptor (I didn't even know that's what they were called!):o ;) ---------- Post added at 11:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 PM ---------- Hi check this one out. Seems quite good, reasonable make and it comes with a USB beacon. Thought I'd run it past you chaps first though before buying anything ;) P.S. Is it worth bothering with refurbished ones? Or is that just asking for trouble?

Hi I'm also as a last thing going to need a wireless router. I noticed most retail around £30 and go up to 54MBps which I assume is fast enough. One question though, how tricky are they to install? Will I need to buy a network card for my PC or anything (I'm sure I remember having to do this for an industrial computer we used at work once) or do I just install a driver and plug it all in? Also do most packages come with a little USB beacon to plug into remote machines or do you have to buy them seperately? I've had a good look through but couldn't see anything. The set-up will use an existing phone line and this computer I'm using now to host the wireless router. My new machine will be in my bedroom and will access the net through the wireless router sited at this machine, if that helps make things clearer:rolleyes: Thanks.

That's great!:o Cheers I understand that very well now. The two drives I have are both IDE (PATA) they use the big long tape type connector with all those pins. I'll stick them on the internal bus, and I'll buy that graphics card cheers;)

More great info, thanks again. I assume the SATA or IDE drives run off the internal bus is that correct? The game in question is revolutionary in concept but has been created by a bunch of guys who although we think have alot of pro qualifications have been pretty much learning many aspects of the job as they go and thus their code is nowhere near as slick as modern standards of code are so the hard drive hit is quite common, and it has a nasty tendency to occur when your dive bombing and the ground objects are rendering in increased stages of detail and normally right over an intense MMOG battle with lots of onlookers around on both sides to watch your Blenheim Mark 4 fly straight into the ground. The machine will have 2Gig of RAM and I'm going to run it on XP bare bones which should be fast but I'm still expecting the odd hard drive hit. Given what you've just said I'm going to put the paging file on the internal bus or buses (are there more than one?). I need to have a look though I'm not sure if the one I have is SATA or IDE? Are SATA & IDE abbreviations that relate to the communications bus type they use within or are they references to the type of actual hard drive being used :confused: *Edit* I'm looking at this graphics card BTW. Is the DDR rating relevant to compatability on these? I know the one I've bought comes with 2Gig of DDR2 memory, does this mean the DDR3 memory on board the graphics card in the link is still ok?

Hi quick one chaps I'm formatting an external drive ahead of my new comp arriving (assuming it does :rolleyes:) and I've got an option to alter the 'Allocation Unit Size'. I'll be using this external drive to host the paging file on is there any optimum setting for this when formatting it, that will make it as fast as possible or am I thinking too much? Thanks :) *Edit* I've also got a recent 80Gig hard drive which I could put on the internal bus of the new computer. Would it be faster to have the paging file hosted on a drive on the internal bus than it would having it stored on one which connects through a USB cable (external drive)?

Wow that's great! Thanks alot pal that makes much sense, I've done some work in the past with DCS controllers in industry so that bus part makes alot of sense. Does PCI stand for something like processor interface or something? You've been a great help, I'm in the process of building a new desk for my eagerly awaited PC as we speak!!!;)

Wow more great info ch 123 thanks alot. Does anyone know what it refers to when a spec talks about a PCI-E slot being x 16 or x 1? I'm looking at a machine which has a PCI-E x 16 slot and also a PCI-E x 1 slot. What on earth does all that stand for? Is there a book I can buy which can educate me as a n00b on the basics of PC hardware? Thanks again ;)

I'm glad someone has mentioned the issue of graphics card compatablity, as it's made me think of a few things. I know all cards these days use a PCI slot not and AGP slot, but I notice the new geforce ones are listed as being suitable for a PCI 2 slot. Is there a difference between a PCI and a PCI 2 slot? Does anyone know if the machine in the link can accomodate a PCI 2 stated graphics card? This might have saved me alot of trouble so thanks for mentioning it.;)

Ok great! I've got a rough idea what I should be doing and what area to be looking in now thanks to you cheers ;)

Hi again, I'd say around £400 tops for the machine. I suppose the machine in the link would leave around £100+ for a decent card maybe, or is there a better way to spend my £400? Thanks ;)

I found this one. Would prob do the job well enough and it's near to where I live. Less than 3 or 3 miles. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AMD-Athlon-X2-Dual-Core-7750-Desktop-PC-computer-5-4GHz_W0QQitemZ130303769904QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_DesktopPCs?hash=item1e56b5bd30&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 Still trying to understand all this stuff. I don't need anything to run a modern game with just something that has a processor that'll be in date for a couple of years and something that has graphics card expansion possibilities. I was looking at some things and I learned that some motherboards have on board graphics cards which means no expansion possiblities - no thanks. I noticed most PC's even the cheap ones have PCI slots now for a card upgrade seems AGP is dated out now. Also I'm quite pleased with the amount of RAM being offered seems 2Gig is roughly standard. With XP I assume that means plenty for game power especially with a bare bones set-up. Can anyone xpand on this or help me out with new info or confirm what I already suspect is true? Thanks. *Edit* One more thing there's a slightly dearer one going which has an intel processor rather than an AMD one, is that preferable?

Sadly not old bean, this machine doesn't belong to me and I need to purchase my own. It has 2 Gig of RAM and uses a GeForce 7050. I'll need something similar or better preferably but as I won't be using Vista I assume that will free up alot of RAM?

Ah excellent some good info! Ok then can you give me an idea of what I should be aiming for? The game in question (Battleground Europe) runs ok (ish) on the machine I presently have access to which is a Packard Bell machine with the following processor (I have no idea what this means): Interl® Pentium® Dual CPU E2160 @ 1.80GHz 1.80GHz And has a pretty standard graphics card for the era it was purchased (about 12 months ago). Ideally I'd like something a little better than that and definitely not something that I hear uses a whole GIG of ram just to run i.e. Vista - I want to use XP instead. What sort of £ price range am I in there and is it worth buying 2nd hand? Many thanks ;)