I wouldn't get too concerned right now with the texture format, I think the alpha demo was just to get a guage on performance. I'm guessing Lee will implement code that can detect whether the assett uses the new or old texture naming convention. But without a doubt the new "surface" texture saves a TON of memory and is an industry-standard way of handling these types of textures, and uses only 1/3 of the texture memory. So 6 gigs of AO/roughness/metalness now becomes 2 GB

Oh i'm not doubting that, my mention of making up their own workflow was based on his mistake in the video, now that's been cleared up i know exactly what he's talking about, and yes that is becoming industry standard, it was the mixing of workflows i was questioning.

It makes a huge saving, I implemented it for the version of GG Classic I was using - reduced load times and where I was getting some stuttering because of overload of a 2GB video memory card, went smooth as silk after running with channel packing - not surprising as you say.

Cheers.

Materialize is a great free program, it especially shines for the purpose of updating older assets to PBR. It takes a bit of practice to get used to it but can give really great results. Never been a better time to make 3D art with all the great, free software around.



Thanks, it's nice to be back.

@wizard of id - haha, i have to say Max has got my interest. I'll definitely be watching over the next few months.

Yeah been using it for about 6 months or so, I don't use it just for older assets, I also use it for new assets, to tweak maps or create new maps altogether. When I started with PBR I had to deal with the annoyance of which application to use, substance painter versus quixel, ended up going to the quixel route, as I wanted to learn to paint normals and such. I needed to get to know photoshop, the trade off being the annual subscription, but well worth it. I still use gimp as it has a few plugins that kicks butt, like g'mic QT.

Flexibility wise quixel suite is better then substance painter, in many regards, especially to map outputs. But you need oodles of ram and mid-highend GPU to get the best overall experience, tried mixer not my cup of tea.


lol nomad FPSC is old dog, while I still miss the segments, gameguru opened the door for more exciting and more complex content and greatly improved my skills overall.

I don't want to derail this thread too much since the topic is about testing the alpha build, but keep in mind Materialize is a Unity-based software, which means it uses a gloss/smoothness map instead of roughness. You can still use it for GameGuru Max but you will need to invert the smoothness map to convert it to roughness. We should start a PBR texturing topic at some point since it will have a huge impact on how assets will look in GG Max.

Thanks for the tip Bond. Must remember to invert Materialize smoothness map for roughness ...

and then name it as _gloss because for some reason Lee added a roughness workflow, but named it _gloss ... see why i get annoyed when things keep changing now?

Maybe pbroverride=1 in setup.ini file has something to do with that glossiness looks, on the video scene.



I think the shaders included in alpha2 are already working on it.

Yes that was a huge point of confusion and frustration when I first started making stuff for original GG, nothing looked correct. I think the "gloss" naming structure should go away completely. IMO all legacy gloss textures should somehow be batch converted to be named roughness for GG MAX, and all NEW content going forward should use the packed "surface" format.

Anyhow, it looks like this time around things are getting sorted out and will have a proper PBR metalness/roughness workflow.

Absolutely agree, the roughness being named gloss isn't a huge issue with those of us that have been here since it was released and know about it, but new users get confused over it, that's why i posted my guide on steam. That's why i got a bit jumpy when the description of the new surface textures didn't add up, there's always some little thing that pops up and confuses things here when new stuff is added.

Bond

Yeah I understand with regards to off topic, I do think it is fine however, there isn't a dedicated section with regards to max yet.Lately this forum section has been quite busy with 100's of threads.Would rather not have to deal with another thread till there is a max section.

It is still however related to the demo, that said entirely my fault, was the first one to post about tinkering with the textures, which is fun.

However on topic, I am kinda surprised somewhat at the frame rates listed so far. It isn't a taxing scene at all, cards that should be getting 250-300 fps in a visually similar setting like cs:go , is doing quite poorly, and those frame rates are going to drop even more when the every thing is finally added.

I haven't had a chance to download it yet, is it a standalone demo, or is it a demo within the editor? If it's the latter then it might not be as bad as you think, cs:go is a compiled game, whereas if this is an in editor demo then it shou'd be taken into account that all the editor and engine gumph is running in the background and dragging down the speed, it might be double that in an actual standalone.

Standalone compiled Demo , No editor.

@thatandplaygames : Looks like you are running RTX 2080 Ti so should be getting blazing performance. Can you make a video showing the slow and choppy, thanks!

@Argent_Arts : Multi-monitor interaction is a concern. When we get the real UI back up under Wicked, we will look closer at that and make sure we work well with multiple displays.

@cybernescence : Yes the shimmer on the crates is a puzzler, and may be related to an asset or the volumetric lighting. Time will answer this one!

@GubbyBlips : We are not benchmarking anything other than pure rendering speed and system compatibility/stability at this stage. It is also a useful early indicator to pre-order users whether they need to upgrade their systems for September.

@Burgos : Can you send me a link to the laptops you have which crash out when using the dedicated GPU. I may be able to pick one up on eBay so I can reproduce what you see.

@Niijel2 : Thanks for the feedback on the visuals of the assets, I can pass this along to our artist but the effect we wanted was wet walls, does anyone think the walls look more metallic than wet?

@synchromesh : I would say the settings of this demo represents HIGH settings. The MSAA is set to 8, and this can be dialed right down to 2 to get more performance, and other lighting effects can also be scaled down too. Reducing the texture sizes, polygon LOD level and other classic tricks can improve performance further too. For now though, I want to stay in the 'HIGH' area so we can play with the best looking effects, then decide what our minimum spec should finally be set at to guarentee a certain visual quality expectation.

@MadLad Designs : Anyone who changes their mind or discovers they cannot run the MAX alphas and betas are encouraged to apply for a refund from TGC. We only want happy customers You can always check out the free trial demo in September and decide again to buy, or further down the road when you have upgraded your system or seen evidence of cool games created with MAX. No pressure from us on this one, and of course if you have GameGuru Classic we will continue to support that with bug fixes and functionality improvements.

@wizard of id : I made an error in my video presentation on Wednesday, the SURFACE texture format is AO, Roughness and Metalness (not gloss as I mislead everyone about). Its the standard you also find in Unreal I believe, and some other asset stores so worth checking out this composite texture format and see how we compare with what is out there too!

@IceVANPS : I take your point the NVIDIA should not crash, we should look closer at that with some logging info. Generally speaking, both your systems are under the min spec and will not run MAX very well I expect. P.S. Nice detective work on finding out the part of the graphics engine that causes the crash - you are well on your way to becoming an excellent developer!

@Zigi : I would not do it for this alpha, but your idea of a public binary everyone can test is a good one, and would also help promote the forthcoming release of MAX too! I think a good demo would be one that is running the actual GameGuru game loop though, so we have an honest picture of all the systems in play, rather than just the rendering side.

@synchromesh : I might make an exception to the min spec. GTX 960 or above or a C64-X [I will call it Nostalgia Mode]

@Nomad Soul : The download will not give you a Steam Key as well, you will have to decide which one suits your purposes. The danger by giving the key with the download is that users will use the download installer, and the bad apples will just sell the key, taking money from the developers, those nice chaps. Also I prefer it if no-one shares the alpha builds with the public as they are a special thank you for pre-ordering with us at this early stage. Given your concerns, you might be best waiting for the free trial we will release in September and keep watching the broadcasts and videos of progress, there won't be much you can do with the software until we are close to release anyway. X file will still be supported for backwards compatibility, and DBO will remain the destination format for fast loading, but we are opening up better support for FBX, GLTF and OBJ so you can import assets from the outside world instead of relying on our DLCs and other proprietary asset sources. Still using Bullet for Physics and scripted AI from Classic in MAX. On the surface texture format issue, we will still support the Classic PBR naming, we are just adding a few more for easier importing (_rough and _albedo) and of course _surface (which may also have a few variants based on popular asset store naming conventions).

@Belidos : As you say, Lee made a booboo Check out the Wicked Engine specs for more details on the SURFACE texture format. It's pretty simple, adding the various surface texture properties into a different color channel of a single texture - most efficient and used by most modern games these days.

@cybernescence : Absolutely agree, please do not take anything as final until we enter BETA phase. Alpha phase is very early development, and Lee may change his mind eight times. I would not like to think you go out and convert a thousand textures to _surface only to find I changed the order for kicks and giggles. The MAX engine would have to pack the separate textures into the _surface format internally, but we will still be supporting the separate PBR texture set files for backward compatibility. By providing the _surface texture instead of the _gloss, _ao and _metalness files, you save disk space and speed up loading (and memory usage) so new assets should definately use the new method (it just means your asset will no longer be 100% compatible with GameGuru Classic).

Thanks for all the feedback so far, and keep it coming. Not a bad response in the first 24 hours, thanks everyone! In regards to general FPS expectations, it is dangerous to compare apples with oranges, and I am pretty sure the game "cs:go" is cram packed with baking and pre-processed everything to give them excellent performance on almost any system. GameGuru MAX will be pitched primarily as a real-time graphics engine, with a system requirement higher than a game that targets lower-end systems. We will be keeping the lightmapping in GameGuru Classic if you want to target integrated and older graphics cards, and I will also be keeping my eye out for a third party open source lightmapper that can be integrated into MAX in the future. If I have learned one thing over the last 5 years, I have no business writing (or more accurately modifying in the case of the DarkLIGHTS lightmapper) a light mapping system, and much prefer to hook up something that will match the expectations of the modern gamer.

@Lee


That really is my job. I've been a video game developer for 15 years
I have even done some work with Darkbasic Pro.
I'm happy to help in any way.

Oops it looks like "planar reflections" was accidentally turned on for this asset, treating the crate as if it were a body of water shimmering.

@lee

Yes thanks going to mess around some more with the demo textures

With regards to light mapping, being realtime, it poses some serious concerns with regards to indoor levels, which would rely on quite a bit of lighting. Considering it is realtime, I would hazard a guess it would be able for the wicked engine to turn lights not in use or in view off.Sounds like there will be hard limits with regards to the lighting.Is a one fit all solution really the best, wicked engine can bake light maps this was added in 2018 ?. I guess it would defeat the purpose of realtime lighting. This would mean, we will have to have an exceptional control over in test game tab settings, to get right balance of ambience and realtime lighting

~287 - 332 FPS @ 1920 x 1080, dual monitor

GPU: RTX 2070 SUPER OC 1815 MHz
Driver: 26.21.14.4187
----------------------------------------------
Other:

OS: Windows 10 64 bit Professional
Version: 10.0.18363 Build 18363

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Memory: 16 GB DDR4 3600
M/B chipset: X570
Storage: M2 SSD 500GB
(run from)

Well it actually ran which was good - at between 13.4 and 16.4 fps
system:
dual boot Macbook Air running Win 10
cpu 1.7Ghz Intel Core i7
8GB 1600 mhz DDR3
Intel HD graphics 5000 1536mb

Onboard graphics definitely not going to cut it for Max. Dedicated video card is a must.

This was to be expected since GG also needs a dedicated card, I had to buy a GTX 1060 card myself since the intel 4000 card did not provide the necessary performance.

About ~130 fps

Lowest 125 fps
Highest 140 fps

RX 570 8gb
Ryzen 2200g
16gb Ram

I'll be replacing my GTX 1070 Founders Edition card next week, so I'll run the alpha again and post new frame rates, etc.

(BTW - if anyone in the USA is looking to upgrade their video card, mine will be available at a very reasonable price. Feel free to message me about it if you're interested or have any questions).

Thank you Bond1 for the materializer link. Very nice.

Only got around to making the RGB map this morning, pretty simple and straight forward only takes a minute or two to do and works a charm.I am sorted now, so this can stay on the back burner till I can get my hands on actual graphics build

thanks for the explanations (all of you)

Decided to throw some 3D scanned PBR material at the renderer. Not bad. Of course, this is the wicked engine, not GG.

Um......... that was me lol !!

It's worth mentioning the new '_surface' texture format can actually handle 4 channels: R = AO, B = roughness, B = metalness, A = reflectance. Don't think I've ever made a reflectance map before, not sure how to works in conjunction with metalness and roughness to produce the final reflectivity of the surface.

With regards to converting legacy assets, I heard a rumour Max would automatically convert and pack the textures into the new surface format.

Lee, is this something you can shed more light on?

AE

moved now everything back under the compiled max exe.

Just for fun, to show how good GG Max will become, alternative rendering of similar scene. Those PBR demo assets are great !



Cheers.

From what i understand it isn't in place now, but Preben has some ideas on how to get it working that way and they will look into it after release.

Hi,
I can run GGMAX but when I try running the Alpha 2 demo I get only a white screen for a couple of seconds and then it disappears, I have a high spec machine and Win 10, running Half Life ALYX in VR on occulus Rift S, RDR2 on ultra settings no problem so cannot see why this will not run, have changed VR mode in setup.ini but still nothing.... very odd.

Win 10
Intel i7-6700k cpu@ 4.00ghz 4.01ghz
32gb Internal memory
64 bit O/S

Nvidia Geforce GTX 980 Ti

Running from folder on desktop....

Specs in sig
88-129 FPS
Average around 110.

Thoughts:
Looks nice - especially having depth to the scene (something Classic doesn't have at all in either indoor or outdoor scenes), and the lighting is awesome. For looks it is fantastic step forward.

FPS is way too low imo. I was expecting a LOT more.
Is this running in 32 or 64 bit?
I worry that if there was a whole map outside the cellar the FPS would be crawling.

So hopefully there will be some optimization techniques that will be used to keep the FPS up, on larger maps.

OldFlak

Just been looking at the Wicked Engine Website. There is a very basic editor and a few things to play with.

I won't post a link here, the editor is very basic on looks, and a bit awkward to use, but for seeing what the Wicked Engine runs like on you system. It's good.

The images below are from my laptop, hence the low framerate, but there is a lot going on in this scene, the green cloth is moving and there are a lot of shadows and lights, so it is amazing really.

AMD has some option to configure Surface Format Optimization
I can't see any similiar option on Nvidia card GTX 1060.

@ SOLO DESIGN
If you have another integrated card and Nvidia as a dedicated one, maybe you want to check this link.
Windows tend to use the integrated cards rather than discrete ones, anyway, now it gives the chance to change it from windows itself.

3com,
Clicked your link and did what you stated so it is run by the Nvidia Geforce GTX 980 Ti GPU, but it just shows a white window and then nothing after a few seconds....

Not to mention actual gemeplay, AI, pathfinding, physics, player interactions. Etc
The FPS people throw around here is really not great considering it is just a rendering of a small room with few lights and entities and frankly, visually it is nice, step forward but nothing jaw dropping. I really hope it is gong to be improved and not just collecting info to determine the minimum specs and may end up saying "okay then based on the feedbacks, the minimum spec is Core i9, 32GB RAM and RTX 2080"

Considering people with decent configs running this "small" demo at 70-100 FPS makes me a bit worry to be honest. At least if the graphics was outstanding but it is not. So, I hope the work on the graphics engine is not done here.

For those experiencing low frame rates (or lower than you'd expect), isn't this because Lee has the settings set pretty high? I mean, he's got MSAA set to 8, for example. And this is an alpha, so who knows what else is going on behind the scenes. Also, the demo is using 2k and 4k textures/materials (look inside the demo folder to see the texture sizes). That's going to burn through video card memory pretty fast, which could slow some things down on some cards, depending on video memory available. It's early yet, and these frame rate tests should help Lee sort out some of these issues, too.

@Lee
will u put some suggested features from github in the final product?

Wicked Engine runs fine on my PC using VS2019 to compile direct from github. Love the Emitter particle 2 example. The GGMax doesn't work at all for me, although I did get a black screen with some info on it then bombed out again (post visuals.ini mod). Anyway new GFX card in the post to me + VR headset etc.

@ SOLO DESIGN
What's about Nvidia Geforce GTX 980 Ti drivers?
Do you have Geforce Experience installed? You can update the driver from there among other settings, even record your game.

Hi 3com,

Yes checked all that, all up to date and running fine, GFORCE experience installed and drivers up to date. It still does not run.....

@ BOTR
I have tried it from VS2017 days ago and it works fine as well, I was messing around with physics.
Sorry mixing post

@ SOLO DESIGN
So if you have rebooted pc after changes, then I think we have exhausted the standard options, it is time to wait for Master Lee, perhaps he has some clue that we ignore.

I have the same problem as SOLO Design...(i also checked drivers and VR)
but my card is not as powerful GTX 750 Ti

1. I get the small white window.
2. Then the large white window.
3. This window remains white.
4. Checked in Task Manager [ Performance ] tab. only very small wavy line in 3D window,
Dedicated GPU 2GB memory only halfway use shown in graph window.

So I was thinking is it something to do with the [ Ti ] in the graphix card name.
( some kind of tek )

I know my card is below spec but I was hoping to use until September then get new Card..
It seams strange all these none dedicated game cards are able to get the screen to show.

PC Spec:
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz
memory 16.0 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

Ti = Titanium

"Ti" is normally the upper-end for whatever card type. For example, a GTX 1080 Ti is a much better, faster card than the standard GTX 1080. So, it's not the "Ti" part. However, your card is way below specs, specially the 2GB memory part. There are several 4K and 2K textures in use in the demo. It may be that the demo could not load them into memory?

OK I seem to now keep getting a black command screen and files not found, it shows the path to textures which are on the pc in the right folders.... so I do not understand why it cannot find the files, I have tried to screen capture the screen but it closes too quickly.

I know my PC is fast enough and my graphics card is way capable of this demo so I think it is something else that is conflicting with it... but unsure what at this time...