Behold the Yuuzhan Vong Army! This mod adds the Yuuzhan Vong Race as a playable faction and all units of this era. We are a community of modders working for the greater goal, so anyone who wants to help or support us is welcome!
So this is a 56,000 poly model.
It is one of the most poly intense model we have. This is one of our many orbital cities, this one features a drydock for capital ships. We have many of these, courtesy of EVE Online and help from Gilly6666.
So, our first test:
The goal was to determine IF EVE models would actually render in the game, and then to determine how many. This is only the start of many tests while we learn and discover the limits of the game and how things work. We will build upon all these tests to eventually determine the optimum playing requirements of the game, and the bare minimum.
Without knowing any factors of what the game could handle, we have done the first preliminary test on Cheezecake's computer.
Cheescake's computer specs:
Laptop
8gb ram
Processor: Intel Core i7-2670QM @ 2.20GHz, 2201 Mhz, 4 Cores, 8 Logical processors
Motherboard: Inspiron N5110, Dell
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M
The majority of our ships are between 5,000 to 20,000 polys. Most are safely around the 10K mark. Some SSD class ships add up to about 60K poly with shadows.
Results:
Cheese made a test map. He increased camera zoom in, and cameral zoom out. He then began placing the station. He successfully tested 222 of these stations in game, with no lag. Around 403, lag was noticed.
Using the benchmark of 222, at furthest zoom, that totals 12,432,000 total rendered polys on screen.
Conclusion:
When playing the game we understand that total rendered polys is not just the models, but also the particles. So, ships, props, asteroids, stations, lasers, explosions all add up. Still, if we have a 12 million poly cap for the game, we can at least now start being more conscience of fleet sizes, population caps, and number of props added to the space maps. We are doing our best not to rush into the mod blindly, for we are striving to create a well working product and share our knowledge with all.
We are learning, and we learn more everyday.
I'm still trying to tell my computer the pain was worth it but he seems to have a bit of trust issues now. He'll never forgive me for placing more than 2,000 of these on the same map and trying to run the game :O
If your supercomputer had pain with this, then i'm screwed beyond belief. My computer is 5-6 years old...
Cheeze's laptop is considered to be more of a mid-range, average computer. My computer would be considered on the high-end, but also not super.
We are attempting to develop a very professional looking mod. It would be the same as if someone went out and bought a game like Black Ops 2 and wished to play on high-settings.
While we are attempting to take preventative measures, lower-end less power computers will probably not be able to play our mod. This is the same for any other large scale mod such as Phoenix Rising, RAW and Thrawns Revenge.
Well i can play RAW and TR on MAX without any problems, i hope this mod will be the same :P
I envy you Cheese, mine didn't like the 406 stations! Might help if I actually cleaned all the mods and models and textures off of it though. I am keeping too many resources currently :p
...Why do I keep thinking that some cable station will come out with a show about Hoarding data on your computer?
I had lag with the 400 or so actually, but it was not terrible.
Hm. I think your processor is better yet my graphics card is better so I aughta be able to run if you can.
AMD Athlon II 650 quad core, 8 GB RAM, Nividia Geforce GTX 550 Ti 2 GB
Sorry to tell you, but your conclusion is plainly wrong. The maximum ship size is not only limited by the maximum poly size. It is possible to aquire for the game a large amount of VRAM and GPU-time, since these two factors have been rising up over the past and there was no 32-bit limitation at all with them. However, it is a totally other thing with both RAM and CPU. RAM is in a 32-bit program limited to ~2GB (no, the 64-bit patch doesn't fix that), means the amount of scripts and total models, which are different, are limited. The worst thing is the CPU. It doesn't even get the CPU to coughing, when computing 222 non-moving, non-firing objects. It's a totally different story, when it comes to fighters, particles and firing. The CPU needs to compute every shot (hit/miss/which target to aquire?), every movement (e.g. of 200 fighters) and every particle. The first two things even when they happen off-screen. Since FoC is only a single-core application (32-bit XP developed), with 2,20GHz and a sandy bridge you would NEVER EVER be able in a realistic simulation to even render half that amount of polys, with full 30FPS.
Thank you, this is helpful.
But again, how is a limit determined? The answers you provide keep making it seem like the work is impossible. We are at least attempting to understand limits before proceeding with some very time consuming projects. You are doing a very good job at pointing out our misunderstandings, but you are also not providing any solutions.. Surely by now it should be obvious to see what we are doing. We are trying to determine what the maximum allotment of polys on the screen can be so that we may begin developing space maps.
The purpose of us posting what we are doing here is to get help and corrective measures from the community. We are not coding experts but we are at least trying ways to learn how things work without blindly rushing into development.
Can you offer any methods for developing a testing system? It seems foolish to rush into rigging 500 models and coding them all into the game only to determine that they won't all work.
You're correct with what you say. The problem is, that you can't determine a poly limit by testing with an unfinished game (since the result says like nothing), but you can't finish/continue the game before testing, right?
I have solutions for complete systems and I could tell you nearly exactly what we did in UEaW, how many polys we have there/CPU time and what the limits are. Based on that, I could estimate the result when assuming, that there are 10k polys on average more, or less detailled particles and so on. Of course, this would be an estimation with an error rate of ~±10%, but that still would be much better than this one.
Thats your problem - You lack experienced modders, who understand every area of modding and the engine itself, who can tell approximately if your concepts will work in the very end or not. And you won't attract any experienced modders, if you continue with these tests, because they show, that you are more or less blind.
And, before you think this is only hot air boiled into the atmosphere, here an estimation, based on the average poly count I see in your renderers (so an estimation based on an estimation :D): I think you are fine if you add break-offs for the MAIN HPs, the doubled (maybe even trippled) hardpoint amount of vanilla, a 1.5x particle complexity, and the same maximum scale as vanilla with an unit cap of...mhmm...50-75, assuming that fighters are 1 and capitals around 10, while full-scale battle stations are limited to a maximum of 2-3 per map (non/rarely firing stations excluded, they are not very CPU/GPU intensive). But as I said: Thats an estimation based on an estimation, so the error rate is even higher, at around ±30% I would guess.
Ah, btw: shadow meshes requires more computation power than normal meshes, so without a shadow it's even more inaccurately ;)
This is much more helpful, coming from your experience.
These tests do many things for us, such as demonstrate our areas of inexperience and show where we need help from the community and fans. We are not ashamed to state that we are inexperienced or that we do not know/understand something. Our team exists for one unified purpose: to learn and finish the project. If showing a test that screams "look at us, we don't know what we are doing" is embarrassing, so be it. It has brought people together and pointed us in the correct direction, and we are not ashamed of that.
We are the last that remains of the experienced modders. There are no others. Either everyone else is occupied with their own projects, has moved on, or cares nothing for our chapter in SW history. If there are experienced modders out there who wish to help, now is the time.
While you make valid points, you come across as a major A-Hole, there's no need to be condescending about It. These guys have been doing fantastic work not only in this mod but individually as well. Thats the problem with the modding community not just in FOC but across the board with all games, There seems to be this elitist element that would rather **** on hard workers who are willing to experiment and push the limits, then help them and encourage them to aspire to their true hights and get them excited not just about modding but the gaming industry in general. So drop the Alpha bull, be a bit more humble and encourage these guys rather then say and I quote,
"Thats your problem - You lack experienced modders, who understand every area of modding and the engine itself, who can tell approximately if your concepts will work in the very end or not. And you won't attract any experienced modders, if you continue with these tests, because they show, that you are more or less blind".
They seem to have pretty damn good vision to me, and so what if their willing to test it? Some of the models, textures, particle work I've seen have been phenomenal certainly a lot better then what I could ever hope to do, and alright UEaW is good and no doubt your work is good, but help the guys out with the mod, the testing work but cut the the condescending act, no disrespect but give the guys some slack honestly your no bloody messiah.
wait why do you guys say it's 55,000 when i loaded the model i was sent the other day in 3ds max to remove the shadow and it was over 120,000
Dl.dropbox.com
it looks like someone optimized it in that screenshot and put on a turbosmooth
The model you were sent was edited and the shadow mesh was removed.
Good testing. I like knowing that mods are tested to the limits as to what they can do.
Are EVE models going to be in the game, or was this just for testing purposes? And by the way, 222 of these things on one map? This mod is going to be AWESOME.
We are utilizing a few resources provided by EVE Online with permission and full credit given of course. We have a few sources which we discovered allow free use of their materials for modding. The ships will be textured differently and will have believable descriptions that flow smoothly into the SW universe that we are creating. In the end, you may be battling a pirate fleet and not even realize that the ship's model was from another game, at least this is our goal.
Honestly I'm a bit sad about this. I was really excited to see what you guys could create for space stations and stuff. Even though I'm sure it'll look fine in the end at heart I'll know it's from EVE and doesn't truly belong in SW :( . Oh well I guess.
Well, I've never played EVE, so I guess I can't tell the difference anyway.
The mod is much larger than most realize, and we only have 5 full time members (Seregruth, enpremi, cheeze, me and wariscool) with Warb and Triangulum working when they can. There is a lot to create , and we are trying to finish within the next few years. The stations from EVE look like any other space stations seen in any other game, just much better quality. They are also not the main centerpiece of the game (the ships are) , but just the decorations needed to create the ambiance.
You will not be disappointed in how we use these materials, and they will be intermixed with many other props provided from the Freespace Tides of War mod and others.
Meticulous care will given to each space map to ensure that each of the 120 maps have a completely unique look and feel.
I'm sure we wont be, Strobe.
I think I am going to buy a laptop just for this mod. :)
If i may offer a suggestion:
Originpc.com
I am currently saving up for one of these beauties myself ;)
one of my best awaited mods with my favorite game stations. What else ?