Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Markavian]

quote:Originally posted by Fenrir:
<STRONG>Can you imagine DF in 3D? There's not a computer on Earth that can handle that kind of load.</STRONG>

One computer for the graphics, one for running the underlying game structure. Two computers -can- handle the load!

[tj124]

actuly i think there is a computer that would be able to DF with 3d grafix
infact my computer could if i wasent stuck with a stupid pentium d
a computer useing a duo core2 extreme  with 3-4gigs of ram and a 8800 ultra could very well run DF in 3d
i gess what im saying is "things are never inpossible, just not probable"      :roll:

actuly a computer dont's need to be that good ether to run DF in 3D seing that you can run it fine without the 3d grafix all u need is a high end grafix card to get the 3d in

tho 3d will be fun i think the reason we play DF is to get away from that fast paces mouth foaming cs type gameplay and sidback and play a slow paces more in depth game

[ December 26, 2007: Message edited by: tj124 ]

[ December 26, 2007: Message edited by: tj124 ]

[frostedfire]

why do you think it uses loads of computer power for graphics?  we only talking eg dungeon-keeper-2-level graphics, not crysis, albeit with units constructed out of individual segments for when axedwarves attack carnage  

[Mithaldu]

the main problems aren't so much the calculation of the world and the rendering of the 3d stuff, but how to get the information from the simulation to the renderer. with a seperate program that'll be quite slow, as there's no easy way for them to access each other's memory space without a good chance of shit breaking.
faster options are dll and direct integration by toady, but honestly guys, do you want toady to work on that?  

quote:Originally posted by frostedfire:
<STRONG>why do you think it uses loads of computer power for graphics?</STRONG>

four words: metric crapton of polgons. crysis looks nice, because it's able to throw shaders every which way to reduce the number of polys and because it has a completely static environment. df visualization can't be helped at all with shaders and the environment is constantly changing.  

[ December 26, 2007: Message edited by: Mithaldu ]

[mattmoss]

quote:Originally posted by Fenrir:
<STRONG>Can you imagine DF in 3D? There's not a computer on Earth that can handle that kind of load.</STRONG>

Somehow, I doubt that DF would be a serious problem. There is a lot of things that can be done to optimize, and certainly its current 3D composition (80x25 quads * 2 tris/quad = 4000 tris) is quite lightweight. There is, I'm sure, a lot more going on for fortress simulation, all on the CPU, but adding a decent 3d engine on it should impact it minimally. (That being said, part of what I mean by "optimize" could require significant rewrites in order to maintain structures that satisfy particular algorithms...)

I've worked on games that handled plenty more triangles than DF,,, Certainly, some of it is done in the shaders (as was mentioned), and I'm used to working on current consoles, but still...

I suppose some of the conversation depends on just how powerful your computer is, since it seems like DF will run on some older machines that other 3d games wouldn't.

EDIT: I'm actually tempted to grab that map_extract script and try another visualizer, just for fun. I have some ideas...  

[ December 27, 2007: Message edited by: mattmoss ]

[Fenrir]

Damn, I was trying to squash any foolish notions of 3D graphics, but that seems to have backfired. I don't care if it's possible. The ASCII must remain... wait, I'm dragging this thread horribly off topic, my apologies.

[sorbius]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't most of the additional load of 3d processing be handled by the 3d processor in your video card?

[Fenrir]

quote:Originally posted by sorbius:
<STRONG>Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't most of the additional load of 3d processing be handled by the 3d processor in your video card?</STRONG>

The my video card sucks, but that's not the only reason why I want ASCII graphics to remain. I may start a topic about this, but meanwhile let's let this thread get back on track.

[mattmoss]

quote:Originally posted by sorbius:
<STRONG>Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't most of the additional load of 3d processing be handled by the 3d processor in your video card?</STRONG>

If you get it there efficiently, yes...  There are ways, horrible ways, to make your CPU do lots of work just getting things to the GPU.

[mattmoss]

quote:Originally posted by Fenrir:
<STRONG>Damn, I was trying to squash any foolish notions of 3D graphics, but that seems to have backfired. I don't care if it's possible. The ASCII must remain... wait, I'm dragging this thread horribly off topic, my apologies.</STRONG>

Despite my interest in rendering it in 3D, Fenrir, I also enjoy playing the game in ASCII graphics. I wouldn't want to lose that...

[sorbius]

I actually have no interest in playing the game in full 3D.  the controls would get too complicated.  I would like some snazzier 2D graphics though.  but I am willing to wait until the bugs can be counted on one hand before that.

[TheSpaceMan]

Have you considerd tiletransition for the engine. I know it would be hell to make work.

9^nroftiletypes diffrent combinations. But it would produce a soft change between tiles instead of the clean blocks we are used to.  

[TheSpaceMan]

Another post.

About the 3D rendering, yes it is not so many polgons that need to be rendered per frame, the problem is the number of draw calls, with a dx10 card and directx10 some instaning could be done on the hardware quite easily. But i don't think everybody here want to run and buy a DX10 system and Vista just to paly DF. There are only 2 reasons I myself is considering vista and DX10.

1: Learning more Dx10 related programming
2: Alan Wake.

[Symmetry]

I think it can be done faster than DX10 instancing, at least for static geometry, by burning gfx memory.  It's not like df is using much of it anyway  

With static gemometry I can't see any reason it should take more than one draw call.

[Mithaldu]

remember how you can dig through shit? means constantly checking each tile for changes and rebuilding affected blocks when something happened. additionally there's liquids, buildings and all kinds of other nice stuff that change the representation. LOTS of cpu work, UNLESS it's directly integrated into the game mechanics, and well ... as mentioned, we don't want toady working on that.  

@ instancing: not sure if it is the same, but sinoth is already using display lists, which group 16x16 cells of tiles together, which i'm guessing would be the OGL equivalent.

@ TheSpaceMan: do you perhaps have poly numbers of serious engines? we're still trying to figure out just how effective the 3d viewer is.