Originally by: Internet Knight

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bugfixes > lagfixes > new features > eyecandy

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Originally by: MysticNZ

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You have to remember that a new rendering engine will enhance performance since the current one does not use the graphics card at all.

At the moment all calculations are done on the cpu, hence why it is so painful running more than one or two clients. Some of this needs to be off loaded. This is what the new clients are going to be bringing to the table (hopefully).

So while you bash the current performance, a new engine would probably solve alot of this performance related lag etc by itself. I myself think it is a must to stay competitive with other games that are currently coming to the market.

The sound engine is a different story... that thing needs to be shot.

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Originally by: Matae

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I find it hard to get excited about new ship models or anything else that shows better looking objects. When I am fighting another player or involved in fleet battles, I really couldn't tell you any details on another ship. As long as I can tell what it is, it makes no difference whether itÆs a block or polygon.

The only things I look for in patch notes are things that claim to reduce lag. These get me excited. A 2 fps increase gets me excited. Seeing new ship models with rich detail makes me just want to go cry knowing that every angle could possibly slow down a fight. Walking in stations, seeing posts about realistic ship damage, or anything else adding eye candy all ranks the same..

Anyone else feel this way or is fantastic looks important to you? Are you more for a mixture? To be honest, I would love this game if it were almost a mudd with zero lag and no freezes during large fights. If we could get this and the candy then so much the better but performance before I say. What say you?

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Originally by: ghosttr

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Originally by: MysticNZ

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You have to remember that a new rendering engine will enhance performance since the current one does not use the graphics card at all.

At the moment all calculations are done on the cpu, hence why it is so painful running more than one or two clients. Some of this needs to be off loaded. This is what the new clients are going to be bringing to the table (hopefully).

So while you bash the current performance, a new engine would probably solve alot of this performance related lag etc by itself. I myself think it is a must to stay competitive with other games that are currently coming to the market.

The sound engine is a different story... that thing needs to be shot.

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I would however like some 3d sound for my surround sound speakers. So if i get shot from behind I can hear what direction its coming form and not have to move my screen all over the place.

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Originally by: MysticNZ

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[...]

I'd love a new sound engine, would to take advantage of my Audigy. I really hope the new client is built from the ground up from scratch.

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Originally by: Twin blade

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Simple fact for any good gamer Gameplay-eyecandy
Simple fact for any noob gamer eyecandy-Gameplay

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Originally by: Wrangler

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We don't want to discriminate anyone! We want *both* anti-social *and* social players to grief each other!

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Originally by: Redundancy

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I've said it before in almost every single discussion of this, and I'll say it again...

Eve's original engine is perhaps 7 years old. In terms of modern games engines, it's a dinosaur. A dinosaur that's missed out on most of 7 years of rapid evolution, that doesn't have the first clue about how to use more than one CPU, and thinks that graphics cards exist exclusively to do hardware transform and lighting, and would typically like to believe that there's perhaps 5000 players online, never more than 20 in local, and assumes your card can just about handle DirectX 8.

There are precious few things that we can do to improve client performance that DON'T involve major surgery to the engine, and even fewer if you exclude those that are going to require radical surgery to a large amount of the graphic content.

How stupid would we be, if we made huge changes to the art content of Eve, and made major changes to how the engine works to try and start taking advantage of multiple cores and GPU shaders, and we *didn't* update the look of the engine at the same time as part of that huge cost of engineering and asset redevelopment?

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Originally by: Redundancy

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I've said it before in almost every single discussion of this, and I'll say it again...

Eve's original engine is perhaps 7 years old. In terms of modern games engines, it's a dinosaur. A dinosaur that's missed out on most of 7 years of rapid evolution, that doesn't have the first clue about how to use more than one CPU, and thinks that graphics cards exist exclusively to do hardware transform and lighting, and would typically like to believe that there's perhaps 5000 players online, never more than 20 in local, and assumes your card can just about handle DirectX 8.

There are precious few things that we can do to improve client performance that DON'T involve major surgery to the engine, and even fewer if you exclude those that are going to require radical surgery to a large amount of the graphic content.

How stupid would we be, if we made huge changes to the art content of Eve, and made major changes to how the engine works to try and start taking advantage of multiple cores and GPU shaders, and we *didn't* update the look of the engine at the same time as part of that huge cost of engineering and asset redevelopment?

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Originally by: Baleorg

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Originally by: Redundancy

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I've said it before in almost every single discussion of this, and I'll say it again...

Eve's original engine is perhaps 7 years old. In terms of modern games engines, it's a dinosaur. A dinosaur that's missed out on most of 7 years of rapid evolution, that doesn't have the first clue about how to use more than one CPU, and thinks that graphics cards exist exclusively to do hardware transform and lighting, and would typically like to believe that there's perhaps 5000 players online, never more than 20 in local, and assumes your card can just about handle DirectX 8.

There are precious few things that we can do to improve client performance that DON'T involve major surgery to the engine, and even fewer if you exclude those that are going to require radical surgery to a large amount of the graphic content.

How stupid would we be, if we made huge changes to the art content of Eve, and made major changes to how the engine works to try and start taking advantage of multiple cores and GPU shaders, and we *didn't* update the look of the engine at the same time as part of that huge cost of engineering and asset redevelopment?

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Ultima Online anyone? still works nice (2D client, i always preffered the 2D client)

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Originally by: Redundancy

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How stupid would we be, if we made huge changes to the art content of Eve, and made major changes to how the engine works to try and start taking advantage of multiple cores and GPU shaders, and we *didn't* update the look of the engine at the same time as part of that huge cost of engineering and asset redevelopment?

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Originally by: Xorus

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Originally by: Baleorg

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Originally by: Redundancy

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[stuff]

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Ultima Online anyone? still works nice (2D client, i always preffered the 2D client)

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IMHO EVE wouldn't be as good as it is if it used a 2D client, having 3D adds to the feeling of freedom.

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Originally by: Whiners

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THE DEVS arent listening to us. buuuhuu.. noone does bugfixing anymore, its like they dont care *cries*

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Originally by: Redundancy

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How stupid would we be, if we made huge changes to the art content of Eve, and made major changes to how the engine works to try and start taking advantage of multiple cores and GPU shaders, and we *didn't* update the look of the engine at the same time as part of that huge cost of engineering and asset redevelopment?

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Originally by: Cyclops43

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It is the gameplay that attract people, not the fancy graphics.

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Originally by: Redundancy

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I've said it before in almost every single discussion of this, and I'll say it again...

Eve's original engine is perhaps 7 years old. In terms of modern games engines, it's a dinosaur. A dinosaur that's missed out on most of 7 years of rapid evolution, that doesn't have the first clue about how to use more than one CPU, and thinks that graphics cards exist exclusively to do hardware transform and lighting, and would typically like to believe that there's perhaps 5000 players online, never more than 20 in local, and assumes your card can just about handle DirectX 8.

There are precious few things that we can do to improve client performance that DON'T involve major surgery to the engine, and even fewer if you exclude those that are going to require radical surgery to a large amount of the graphic content.

How stupid would we be, if we made huge changes to the art content of Eve, and made major changes to how the engine works to try and start taking advantage of multiple cores and GPU shaders, and we *didn't* update the look of the engine at the same time as part of that huge cost of engineering and asset redevelopment?

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Originally by: Daar

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Play Homeworld 2 to see how gun effects should look (and the special effects on damaged ships).

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Originally by: Internet Knight

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Originally by: Cyclops43

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It is the gameplay that attract people, not the fancy graphics.

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Now if only Electronic Arts would learn that...

Originally by: Redundancy

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I've said it before in almost every single discussion of this, and I'll say it again...

Eve's original engine is perhaps 7 years old. In terms of modern games engines, it's a dinosaur. A dinosaur that's missed out on most of 7 years of rapid evolution, that doesn't have the first clue about how to use more than one CPU, and thinks that graphics cards exist exclusively to do hardware transform and lighting, and would typically like to believe that there's perhaps 5000 players online, never more than 20 in local, and assumes your card can just about handle DirectX 8.

There are precious few things that we can do to improve client performance that DON'T involve major surgery to the engine, and even fewer if you exclude those that are going to require radical surgery to a large amount of the graphic content.

How stupid would we be, if we made huge changes to the art content of Eve, and made major changes to how the engine works to try and start taking advantage of multiple cores and GPU shaders, and we *didn't* update the look of the engine at the same time as part of that huge cost of engineering and asset redevelopment?

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I'm not saying that new graphics aren't good. I am saying that new graphics shouldn't come at the cost of either degraded performance or delayed bugfixes. I think that's what most people are saying.

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Originally by: Wrangler

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We don't want to discriminate anyone! We want *both* anti-social *and* social players to grief each other!

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Originally by: Redundancy

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A large part of the upgrade is centered around improving client performance by rewriting and redesigning the engine to eliminate fundamental problems with it, and allow (not require) it to take advantage of new technology.

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Originally by: Isyel

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Originally by: Internet Knight

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Originally by: Cyclops43

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It is the gameplay that attract people, not the fancy graphics.

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Now if only Electronic Arts would learn that...

Originally by: Redundancy

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I've said it before in almost every single discussion of this, and I'll say it again...

Eve's original engine is perhaps 7 years old. In terms of modern games engines, it's a dinosaur. A dinosaur that's missed out on most of 7 years of rapid evolution, that doesn't have the first clue about how to use more than one CPU, and thinks that graphics cards exist exclusively to do hardware transform and lighting, and would typically like to believe that there's perhaps 5000 players online, never more than 20 in local, and assumes your card can just about handle DirectX 8.

There are precious few things that we can do to improve client performance that DON'T involve major surgery to the engine, and even fewer if you exclude those that are going to require radical surgery to a large amount of the graphic content.

How stupid would we be, if we made huge changes to the art content of Eve, and made major changes to how the engine works to try and start taking advantage of multiple cores and GPU shaders, and we *didn't* update the look of the engine at the same time as part of that huge cost of engineering and asset redevelopment?

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I'm not saying that new graphics aren't good. I am saying that new graphics shouldn't come at the cost of either degraded performance or delayed bugfixes. I think that's what most people are saying.

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You know, i believe you're missing a little detail on purpose or just fail to see the point entirely. He basically just said they ~cannot~ fix stuff on the current engine over a certain amount without it needing a very deep rewrite. Which a new engine... *gasp* IS!.

And then people complain about the devs not giving any details or not talking on the forums. Sure, when they do people miss the point entirely it seems.

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Originally by: j0sephine

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They don't have to give the facelift to the graphics but they can do it if the new architecture of gfx engine grants them enough boost to do it without performance loss.

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Originally by: j0sephine

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After all the artists don't write the code so they may as well do something useful along with the coders.

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Originally by: Internet Knight

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You know, I believe you missed my point entirely. There is a difference between "engine internals" and "graphics engine". You do not need an awesome graphics engine to have bug-free engine internals. Sure, you might need a complete re-write of the engine internals and/or the graphics engine to fix bugs, and re-writing the engine internals could mean re-writing the graphics engine. But re-writing the graphics engine should not mean that they have to go increase the polygon counts on everything.

And then people complain about the devs not giving any details or not talking on the forums. Sure, when they do, idiots try to think they understand everything.

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Originally by: Xenofur

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Everyone wants to kick you in the nuts until your voice is stuck at the pitch of a japanese schoolgirl for the rest of your life. quote]

New Siggy

But i say performance is better than eye candy... my cumputer aint the omgwtfamazing quality, but it runs WoW/Ryzom and a few other games at full GFX, with no performance issues... but yet when i play eve i instantly lag, 2-4 sec freezes while jumping to a gate and yes before any questions i do hang around low sec where the empire huggers dont go... Honestly i do think this game needs some sort of performance upgrade.

Originally by: Xenofur

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Originally by: j0sephine

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They don't have to give the facelift to the graphics but they can do it if the new architecture of gfx engine grants them enough boost to do it without performance loss.

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You're forgetting one thing: We don't have enough performance available as it is NOW. It would require an obscenely huge boost in performance to give enough of a margin to increase details further. Also keep in mind, if they keep going like they have until now, you won't have any choice with anything. You get more details and you better like your low fps or you have to buy a new gfx card.

Originally by: j0sephine

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After all the artists don't write the code so they may as well do something useful along with the coders.

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New stuff = yay. More detailed stuff = **** off.

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Originally by: j0sephine

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[...]

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Originally by: Redundancy

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Edited by: Redundancy on 30/12/2006 19:10:59

Originally by: Internet Knight

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You know, I believe you missed my point entirely. There is a difference between "engine internals" and "graphics engine". You do not need an awesome graphics engine to have bug-free engine internals. Sure, you might need a complete re-write of the engine internals and/or the graphics engine to fix bugs, and re-writing the engine internals could mean re-writing the graphics engine. But re-writing the graphics engine should not mean that they have to go increase the polygon counts on everything.

And then people complain about the devs not giving any details or not talking on the forums. Sure, when they do, idiots try to think they understand everything.

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-snip-

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Originally by: j0sephine

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"Also keep in mind, if they keep going like they have until now, you won't have any choice with anything."

You mean like currently you don't get any choice when it comes to enabling turrets graphics, effects, additional eyecandy like occlusion, ship trails, level of detail calculations, extra dither etc?

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Originally by: j0sephine

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"New stuff = yay. More detailed stuff = **** off."

Personal preference i guess. For me it's rather "good looking stuff = yay". If it takes more detail then as long as they can keep performance reasonable it's still all good. And since current EVE engine is indeed ancient, i'd wait with the '**** offs' until i see how the new thing actually performs, rather than guess based on what current thing can(not) do O.o

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Originally by: Big Al

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Well, if there was a law against stupidity, the server would certainly lag less.

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Originally by: Rafein

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Meh, I play for the gameple more than anything else.

If playing in simple wireframes would allieviate all lag in fleet battles, wireframes it is.

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Originally by: j0sephine

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Hmm i just checked in game out of curiosity. My computer is ancient piece of junk with 1.7 ghz athlon processor, 512 mb ram and radeon 9550 gfx card. Running in window mode, 32-bit, all bells and whistles on, am getting ~15 fps in the middle of asteroid belt with triple battleship spawn, zee guns firing, explosions all around etc.

If you aren't getting at least 3x that with much stronger machine, everything turned off and sitting at POS and doing nothing then i don't know what to say except something seems wrong... but i wouldn't automatically place the blame on EVE client (under)performance, here. (then again, enforcing 16 bit depth doesn't necessarily have to be help here, with modern hardware optimized for 32-bit processing pipeline... either for 3 colour + 8 bit alpha or float point buffer depth)

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Originally by: j0sephine

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Based on the experienced difference in performance when i play with these settings i can only disagree. I'd also have to guess that given how many people make use of these options and the general outcry that happened when turret/effects shortcuts were temporarily disabled after one of code rewrites ... that wouldn't be just me disagreeing.

Your mileage may of course vary, as evidenced by difference in performance mentioned earlier.

And it's all sidenote anyway, since the main point was, contrary to your claim we *are* given ways to finetune graphics/performance. Hence it's not that far-fetched to consider possiblity of extra switch added to make the client use the current models rather than new ones.... which would be pretty much what you ask for, isn't it? (more robust engine and gods forbid there's a single triangle more to render)

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Originally by: j0sephine

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"my bone to pick here is, they intend to put these in without actually waiting to see how the new engine performs on everyone else's pcs."

But you are doing the very same thing here -- jumping to conclusions without actually waiting to see if the new engine and new models result in anything worth crying fool about... o.(

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Originally by: Wrangler

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We don't want to discriminate anyone! We want *both* anti-social *and* social players to grief each other!

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Originally by: Redundancy

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I've said it before in almost every single discussion of this, and I'll say it again...

Eve's original engine is perhaps 7 years old. In terms of modern games engines, it's a dinosaur. A dinosaur that's missed out on most of 7 years of rapid evolution, that doesn't have the first clue about how to use more than one CPU, and thinks that graphics cards exist exclusively to do hardware transform and lighting, and would typically like to believe that there's perhaps 5000 players online, never more than 20 in local, and assumes your card can just about handle DirectX 8.

There are precious few things that we can do to improve client performance that DON'T involve major surgery to the engine, and even fewer if you exclude those that are going to require radical surgery to a large amount of the graphic content.

How stupid would we be, if we made huge changes to the art content of Eve, and made major changes to how the engine works to try and start taking advantage of multiple cores and GPU shaders, and we *didn't* update the look of the engine at the same time as part of that huge cost of engineering and asset redevelopment?

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Originally by: Rock Lobster

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When EVE uses my second 7600GT I'll be happy. It barely makes a single 7600GT sweat as it is. Offloading graphics to *shock* the GPU will improve performance for just about everyone, which is a Good Thing (tm).

The quicker the new engine arrives, the better.

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Originally by: Isyel

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To those STILL crying that graphics quality is the problem.

I upgraded my old x800xl to a (then) brand new x1900gt a few months ago. Wanna know how much fps difference in eve that made? About.. 5 fps? Actually it tends to run slower in bigger fights.

Oh and if you ~STILL~ believe the quality is the problem. You that sit at your pos. CTRL-TAB and turn off that UI. See the performance increase? I see it, more than 60% actually.

I'd say that indicates the graphics are far from eve's main problem and we're far from the spot where GPU is the limit.

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Originally by: Elesen

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Eye candy sucks me in, and gameplay keeps me. I am excited about the new ship models though. I'd upgrade my video card for stuff like that. It just adds to the realism, and keeps my imagination fired up.

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Originally by: Mastin Dragonfly

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Wish I had known this before I bought a new graphiccards I could hardly afford. What's the ETA for the new engine anyway?

P.S. Gameplay > Everything else

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Originally by: ghosttr

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I would like something for those of us who have invested in better computers, to get almost no boost in performance. I upgraded my computer this winter because I thought my old hardware just wasnt fast enough. (P4 3.2ghz, 2gb DDR400, 512mb 6600GT Video Card, Sound Balster Live! Sound Card) so i got a new one hoping to improve my performance (SLI With 2 7800GX's, 28.ghz Core 2 Processor, 2gb DDR2 800 Ram) nothing went faster. And to add even more insult to it I got a random ctd error, which made me file several petitions for lost stuff due to it (all of which are still unanswered btw).

I want eye candy that is made so that it takes advantage of system specs. And to make it so that if you have a faster computer you should get less lag.

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Originally by: Matae

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I guess my only concern is that when the engine gets overhauled the graphics will be overhauled to match. This would balance each other and leave pretty much the same fps for the high end computer users and actualy worsen the low end user. Being cought in the middle is my current situation so it could go either way.

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Originally by: Baleur

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My GOD you people are stupid. Sometimes, honestly, it seems that the majority of EVE players are 80 year olds with a Voodoo2 graphics card that mostly enjoys to play solitare on the computer..

The thing you all gotta do is to STOP trying to be smartasses about something you have NO IDEA about. Most of you have no ****in clue about how a graphics engine work!!
I'd suggest you actually read up on the dx9 - dx10 differences and architecture, as well as how an advanced graphics / game engine actually WORKS and uses the cpu/gpu.

The thins with real life, including virtual stuff like computers, is that one thing does not cancel out another!!
As technology, even just software technology increases, you can get increased visuals and preformance! This is no magic, these are very smart new techniques and methods of distributing and managing each cpu/gpu-cycle!
We dont live in 1980 anymore, this is the future, it is now, it is 2007 and i cant believe poeple have such a hard time accepting the fact that things nowadays come with SEVERAL advantages at once, without disadvantages.

Its like that with everything, even things like battletanks in real life. New composite armor is stronger AND lighter.
New graphics cards and dx versions are capable of more visually impressive things AND are way more "stuff-gets-done-per-cycle" efficent than the previous generation.
This is a FACT, not science fiction. We can friggen put a man on Mars now if we choose to, why cant you people accept that we can have improved visuals AND improved preformance? Some ppl just amaze me with their stupidity..

Read up on it, learn what you are talking about, THEN act like a smartass.. You dont think the EVE devs know about graphics engines? Yeah, the average empire miner must know more about that!

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Originally by: kieron

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The Carrier was never intended to be a solo OMGWTF mission-farming PWNmobile.

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