Stress Test Video
For the video I created a galaxy with 75 planets and placed 60 ships in each of them (4500 ships in total)
Each of the smaller ships have the most CPU intensive weapons (rapid fire auto-cannons) to fire at the indestructible capital ship all at once. This was to test that the game will handle the large number of objects and sound effects.
There are no simplified calculations in the game for battles that you are not currently viewing (apart from rendering optimizations). All AI, ships, collision detection, projectiles and missiles are always fully simulated.
I expect the ship count could be significantly higher for normal game-play as there wont be battles happening all at exactly the same time like in this video. In a typical game you will most likely have the majority of ships transporting cargo, mining or patrolling. Those kind of tasks don't require much processing power at all.
The frame-rate displayed in the video would normally have been much higher but the recording software was limiting it quite badly. Running the same test scenario without recording I averaged around 50 FPS.
System specs used:
AMD Phenom X4 9950 (2600 MHz, 4 core)
Nvidia Geforce GTX 260
4 GB RAM
Audio Library
I recently switched the audio library that Galaxial uses over to irrKlang as I was having problems with OpenAL drivers and sound crackling. Overall I'm really pleased with irrKlang's performance and ease of use.
In the video there are often over 300 sound effects playing at once! Each individual projectile from the auto-cannon weapons have their own firing and impact sound effect. Ships also have engine rumbling sounds which sound great when there's not much going on.
A lot of the sound effects I'm using at the moment are just placeholders, but I am planning to get professional effects made by a sound designer when the game is almost feature complete.
Cargo Transfer
The drag and drop user interface for manually transferring cargo between docked ships and colonies has been finished. Holding shift while dragging items will let you set the amount to transfer.
The Load/Unload buttons at the bottom will attempt move all items from one cargo hold to the other, so long as there is available space in the ship. Colonies will have unlimited storage space.
Bonus Screenshot
(New Jumpgate graphics)
Development Blog: www.galaxial.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Galaxial
Twitter: twitter.com/stuart_morgan
Awesome! Looking great, can't wait to play it!
Does Galaxial perform most simulations on the CPU or GPU side? Can the game utilize multiple cores?
The game performs simulations on the CPU and will use as many cores that are available to it.
Looks great! I noticed you have some sort of 2d SSAO shader, but I think it's making everything look a bit plastic because of the pillow-shading effect it creates inside the shapes. Also, the outline might be a bit too intense too.
Fantastic progress, what kept you so long? :)
And btw, i know you want to make the game's contents moddable, but will we also be able to change the interface?
You can change the interface colors which is shown in this development log: Galaxial.com
Changing the UI graphics files will be tricky, as a lot of positions, sizes and the way they operate are hard coded.
I love the interface! Why would you want to change it? :D
Anyway, great looking effects. I'm really astonished by how well it performs.
I've been looking into making something similar - your tests have built my confidence that my project will work out :)
Only thing wrong with this game is the OS it's running on :(
I'd love to play a Linux version. You list "custom built" as your engine. Any reason (dependencies?) why you're not making it cross-platform?
Time is the issue mainly, I have never done cross platform development before.
If the game is a success on Windows after it releases, then I would very much like to get it on Linux and Mac also.
I'm not an expert, but I've done a fair bit of development on Linux. So if you need any help, feel free to ask.
Until then, good luck with development! I'll track it.
Well honestly, i don't like this rounded layout of the interface that wraps around its content with thick borders like a casing of protecting rubber. And also a practical reason: It needs alot of space that goes to waste. It's not that it doesn't have its charme, it just appears very impractical to me in contrast to the style of the other game elements.
Maybe smaller circles at the edges and less accentuated borders would help?
I cannot contain my excitement for this game.
Is there a chance for Steam Greenlight or Early Access?
Im wondering if there will be formation commands? I think it would be awesome to surround the enemy with like, 5 delta formations of cruisers.