Set your reminders guys ..
1 pm GMT

1pm is 10 minutes after my lunch at work is over..... I will watch on catch up later, looks exciting. Any clues at to what this massive announcement is ???

Video was a bit of a tease lol. They should have done a demonstration, like udk and unity does. Unreal 5 had a really good interactive demonstration taking the time to explain and show various features. While max is in no way complete in the features department highlighting the features present and what they can do, would peak far more interest. The x10 demonstration of nearly a decade ago is the prime example of what this video should have been.

The terrain grass and foliage would have been a good starting point lol.

Bit of a let down to be honest.

Agreed .. Should have been called " April Progress " not " May Updates "
It was ok for what it was but disappointing for what i was expecting.
However we still have the Stream 42 coming Wednesday that Lee has been bragging about.
I guess i thought this was it

Bit misleading, made it look like you can animate an entity from the editor, but in reality you can only select existing animations and, if I'm not mistaken, only for the new characters.

Btw, if you do this does it update the fpe or is it only available when creating a new character?

Great work on the progress of MAX guys @ 7 months. I honestly mean it's looking good and the planning is great-- But no, this isn't a May "update" - A commercial for pre-orders?! Not yet for me, I'm waiting for certain things -- maybe Sooooon..........?!
I mentioned before; I'm completely all in for MAX success, and would like to see the TGC pages updated and MAX Steam page updated (with videos like this.) -- so maybe that's the idea. Super awesome.
I come here for motivation updates and to see great WIP projects by users, before I plunge into my ongoing project(s), though maybe my concentration in that field sometimes is getting worse than better?! I'll try to stay concentrated on that. So here's to the future in- Solo Game Making...

At last, the mystery of the P has been revealed, it means Patience[i], that everything will come.
Agree, that's not a may updating vid, just some product showcase, nothing wrong with it, but the video title does not match. imho.

True, 3com. I can't be snarky and gripey, active developers should be even more understandable.
In fact more progress has been done in MAX in 7 months than Classic has seen in much more.
That's an honest compliment. I will edit my post above, as it isn't helping anyone's productivity.

Well I would say your loss, besides if you get it now you can get into action now, which allows making suggestions, which in return can affect actual change, if you don't you really can't complain of not liking some thing which could have been changed. Also getting it will allow reporting bugs which might have gone unnoticed. Have reported several bugs related to multi textured objects, textures, shading, object scaling, which has all been fixed now as well as the addition of a few extra menu options during the import process.

Getting early access makes so much sense, as you can actually help with the development and make changes that not only benefits you but others as well.Rather silly not to get it now. With the exception of some lighting issues especially related to the depth buffer which Lee will need to get some help with and research.Max just in its current form with and without the GUI changes surpasses classic in pretty much every respect, visuals, performance, speed, lighting , model support. Sure there are stuff like water which in its current state doesnt allow for the same tweak controls but the actually water rendering is a million times better then classic.

Overall finer controls with regards to visuals is lacking for the time being it will be added eventually when the practical work is done on the frontend of GUI and background related stuff things should get really interesting.

Again your loss, You can just buy it considering the discount and let it sit till release and carry on as normal and have day one access on release day.

As it is I have already suggested a few things with regards to the new object and thumbnail system, which will be discussed at their next meeting next week.

Well considering you have been here only two years, considering the initial release was back in 2014, which actually saw the exact same development progress in first 3 years, with a engine rewrite, lighting as well as the additions of pbr shading and numerous code clean since then.

The product is 7 years old after all, it is the natural order of things, as the software reaches maturity and less and infrequent bugs, often not even game breaking bugs in most cases, it is practical to do updates at fixed intervals or when there is a serious bug or issue.Winding down of development isn't unique to tgc either, at some point the development reaches a stable point with frozen features with nothing new being added and the codebase only being maintained.You haven't been here long enough to see what the actual product cycles looks like and how every product reaches a winding down period.

Having been here since the original fpsc version 1(Have my EA physical disc) as well as my Fpsc X10 disc, your are definitely stretching the truth here, after all it is 7 years old this year, actually 8 if you count the time it was being developed in 2013. Supporting the software for this long is pretty impressive for most companies which bring out a new copy of their software each year and then charge you for that, often with little changes being made between the versions.

With classic you got a complete engine rewrite, updated to directx 11, pbr shading, lighting system overhaul and enough features that would have allowed them to release a new version every other year no problem. 7 years of development for $29 is a steal.Your comment is completely unfair and unwarranted.

@wizard of id
Right, exactly. Especially if I haven't paid for it, then where does it put me in the input department?! Nil. So, I'm all for promotions of MAX, and certainly understand all they are doing. To understand my position- where I am with MAX is this:
I want to get MAX for myself, and a development partner (or two) who have never had any TGC product before. If they find it a good, viable product-- if they are impressed, I imagine we could work together in it. So actually it seems like that would be silly to give them something that isn't ready to be put to use, in fact Alpha stage if all things considered. That doesn't mean I'm calling MAX silly or anyone else.
Therefore- patience like 3com said. Almost never my best suit- I'm afraid.

"Your comment is completely unfair and unwarranted."
Sorry, I can't keep up with you! How do you type so fast?
Anyhow, as you said, I've seen two years of GG-- which honestly has been mostly a bug zapping 2 years.
There's plenty of threads buried deep around here that present a dramatic novel of the situation.
But I didn't open the forums today to get into a long, drawn out discussion on the history of GG.
These are the distractions I should instead try to get further away from.
Just like most of us, I try to put a little game together in Classic- I try- no promises! Just hope.

Performance and speed I'll have to disagree on, even with a simple level with just a couple of hundred barrels in it MAX performance is awful, editor becomes sluggish, memory usage is through the roof (over 10x what GG classic uses, and in test game windows is lagging horrendously with RAM virtually all used up (paging like crazy methinks).

Lighting is a bit hit and miss, my experiments with dynamic lights under script control show that it doesn't even work the same way as classic so it is hard to compare when you can't get it working.

Model support I'll have to defer to you as I don't do modelling but seeing as one of the issues atm is that MAX crashes trying to load classic models ...

The visuals is purely down to the Wicked engine and what I've seen is definitely an improvement on classic but nothing really that mind blowing to me.

The UI changes don't really impress me that much either tbh, I find it very unintuitive and far too clunky, just doing something as simple as attaching a script and making it always active requires many mouse movements and mouse clicks, assuming you can actually find the settings to click in the first place.

Even rubber band selection of entities now requires a button press as well as the mouse, gonna take quite some time to retrain my muscle memory, especially for an old fart like me!

Oh and with the latest release I couldn't even find the start marker!

If it helps you can turn Drag Camera Movement in settings that will allow you to use the old rubber band settings.
In fact pretty much all of it can go back to classic settings.

Yeah no speed and performance is better max and they haven't actual cleaned up the code or completed some of the features which might be slowing down performances in some instances the actual memory management is much better in max then classic(do your self a favor set up two scenes with the same barrels or content, use GPUZ create a log file and it will show memory usages for the test run between classic and max) . Video case and point, 24, 50K polygon models with 12 multi textures with some of them being 4k at that with 1300+ draw calls. With a decently old rig like mine with the RX 460 iam using being slightly slower then the GTX 960 as the min requirement.

If you have the cold war pack, you would need to go back a few max versions you aren't currently able to import classic maps, the version just before the wicked engine was updated that still allows importing of classic maps.There is a massive performance difference between between how classic and max runs the example map, With the classic map having physical stuttering that is noticable in some section, the max run is butter smooth with none of the same stuttering being experience in the same area. The cold war pack is a really good example stress test map as it is big and contain lots of 4k textures and plenty of entities.

Frame rates in classic and max isn't the same, you really can't compare the two as it really isn't an indication of poor performance it is two completely different rendering engines. If you were to throw that dynamic realtime lighting system even the current HDR in classic, it will probably be unusable for the most part.

Yes terrain editing and grass painting isn't great currently as it isn't completed features, however the terrain system and grass painting system multiple grasses ect is already miles better considering the overall map size for max will be a 100% or more bigger.Simply put max is better as it is now in many regards and will be when all the puzzle pieces are slotted in.

As it is now it is better, handles polygons better, better visuals, better model support, better shaders, due to the better lighting system albeit still having some issues, even multitexture support which wicked supports from the ground up is better. The best part it is still in development, go figure. ?


Just a quick test video, I could probably drop a 100 of these buildings into the level and should still get the same frame rate.
100 buildings At 50k each, literally 5 million polygons, what is evident from the draw calls is that instancing isn't currently working correctly
which makes it all the more impressive, that still actually works no issues.
You try and get 4000 drawcalls in classic and we will see how that ends up So no, I have physical evidence that says otherwise.

100 versions of a model is not the same as 100 unique ones of course, instances are always faster. I have to agree with Amen here, at least as a full product goes. Max is ok with a flat empty map and objects, but sculpt and texture the entire terrain and add foliage around and fps drops through the floor. I've seen it down to about 12 in places when you place enough trees. Not an unreasonable amount by modern standards and even for GG, but it really struggles (or did a couple of versions ago).

I'm also in two minds about the GUI, there's things that look and sound a good idea until you use it to start putting a level together. I definitely miss the simple options that pop up when you click on an object as an example. I will almost certainly never use the click and drag option to move about either. Was rubbish in Black and White, is rubbish in Unreal and its just faster to use wasd to navigate. That's just my preference though, others may find it useful.

I know it is unfinished and I'm not complaining, but Game Guru is far more capable of making a game at the moment. Max for me is a mere curiosity I fire up every weekend to check the updates. I think it has great potential, but I wouldn't suggest trying to actually make a game for quite awhile yet. At least until all features are actually in and working. I certainly wouldn't make plans to start a team and start buying multiple copies of it either! Of course, it may help to get it on pre-order if you are hoping to make models and such for it and want to test them.

Shouldn't have to mention for the 100th time, whether or not you are aware that the terrain and grass painting features aren't completed, even the terrain physics aren't working correctly current. So no you can't compare classic and max on incomplete features.

It is in no way representative of performance if you take a incomplete feature and call it proof that performance is worse in max.It's a stupid argument and it has been mentioned time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time again it is a incomplete features. Hopefully that is enough "and times" to let it sink in that you are trying proof performance discrepancies on some thing that is incomplete or doesn't even exist at present.

So no you can't use terrain as proof of poor performance, you can however compare on like for like abilities like indoor environments, pixel shading, mesh handling, memory management, texture management , realtime dynamic lighting and HDR which isnt present in classic but you can however compare the visuals differences between the two.Max has certainly improved on those fronts and much better.

Max is capable of handling more polygons period, more draw calls, GPU memory management is better.Pretty much every aspect of the rendering engine is better and faster period.If it were possible to back port completely populated levels created in max to classic I would bet the performance will be worse. I guess you can also port over levels created in classic to max, however that isn't currently possible, it's likely it will never be 100%.

So no it isn't about disagreement or opinions, it is based on physical and factual data available at present and as such max kicks classic's teeth in, with regards to rendering speed, GPU memory management, mesh management, polygons, texture and multitextures, considering the realtime dynamic lighting system, which classic will not be able to handle period.Basing the argument of poor performance on a incomplete feature as proof is silly, literally makes no sense, additionally being aware that the terrain system in max will be much larger boggles the mind. I suggest we revisit this when the terrain system has been fully implemented and the actual terrain physics has been properly added. Lets not forget the entire engine gui and every thing else is 64bit, larger memory caps for one, with better multi threaded support the overall GPU usage has actually gone down, go figure. I haven't even touched on the fact with 64bit support the 4gig ram cap isn't applicable, which means less reliance on page file requests, and with 64bit support larger chunks of data can be processed it also increases the overall bandwidth between the ram/cpu/gpu. While technically 64bit computing in general would be faster, however being able to more because of it does even things out a bit. which does mean you can erode any gains made as a result. But it does mean overall you can take advantage of that with more complex scenes and faster data crunching overall which may not be necessarily possible under a 32bit application with less resources.

Just the fact that max is 64bit automatically gives it an edge over classic in raw processing power and speed, if managed properly it can indeed be faster but you still end up negating gains made with more complex scenery and data crunching it entails. Which means classic would probably not handle the realtime dynamic lighting and HDR very well, in return the better lighting system and HDR does cost max some performance, the question is whether or not it is worth. The short answer is yes.

Don't believe me, well get GPUZ out and compare two scenes in classic and max.GPUz has the ability to log memory, usage for, system, pagefile, and GPU load, memory controller and if you add CPUz to the mix you can also monitor and log CPU and cache usage as well.


When I hear max terrain performance is worse, when it hasn't even been implemented fully or completed after lee has stated it over and over again it isn't being worked on and several things needs to be completed before the actual backend can be worked on.
This image sums up my general feeling.........when terrain performance is mentioned.

I just know that these guys are doing hard work. They are following a very well-crafted script, and they must not stray out of the way. imho.
The results obtained so far, although not definitive, prove it, that's why I try to show you every day the potential of GGMax, the things that can be done with GGMax, and a lot of hard work, but everything has a price, and if you want to achieve something, you have to pay the price.

I myself, in order to illuminate my refinery, had to go find each light marker in the middle of the ocean, and then transfer them one by one to the destination site, which I felt frustrated and even somewhat irritated, yes, absolutely yes, many times, But as I said before, GGMax requires a little extra effort from the user at the moment.

The matter atm is not what you want to get with GGMax, but what you can get with GGMax, and work with the tools you have, and try to replace those that you don't have with imagination and a bit of work, it rather than be an issue is a challenger, and the challenger is the best that GGMax has atm (at least for me), it is exciting and I enjoy every day with them, that's all. atm, LOL.

I have, Classic used around 500Mb, MAX came in at 11Gb!

Even the empty map in MAX is 1.5Gb.

Memory leakage isn't going to be uncommon at this point, classic has similar issues during development. However you seem to forget that max unlike classic is a realtime dynamic lighting render with the editor being what you see there is what you get in game, this allows for reasonably quick game starts. Considering the lighting, shadows and there movement whether the map is empty or not is actually being constantly calculated, if you haven't noticed there is the additions of shadow draw calls ?

Is it abnormal to have higher memory usage with a realtime render, no, it isnt some thing that lies as dormant till you go in game it some thing that happens in realtime and resources needs to be allocated to it from the start.

Considering the resident memory just to use the editor is bad. Not really, memory usages is going to differ from editor to build game. Developing overall uses and requires higher resources then the end product.You say 1.5 gig how was that memory split, between, GPU/RAN and pagefile, the devil is in the details. Using 1.5gig in memory is mostly meaningless, if you don't specify or attribute it to the associated hardware, is it uses 1.5 gig GPU memory then it is abnormal, however much like system ram having pagefile memory to work with. GPU can create a virtual memory block is the physical RAM on a computer.Some people seems not to be aware of this fact.

While GPU can also make uses of the pagefile, it does indeed have it's dedicated virtual memory block in the system ram. So you need to check memory controller load.So the questions are 1.5gig of what memory, why does it need that much memory, is it abnormal use?, does other engines with physical realtime dynamic rendering systems have similar usage.?

If you can answer that and understand the memory usage, you shouldn't have a reason to complain unless there is a physical memory leak somewhere like I said not uncommon, with classic having similar problem during development when Lee blogged about it during development.

Is it an indication of performance or lack there of no.

Additionally actually forgot about it. With regards to 100 unique versus 100 same objects, while both definitely stresses the hardware and engine both stresses different performance metrics of the engine neither one is a true indication of performance in normal use, which why a program like 3Dmark has several different tests, which tests various aspects as well as one or two tests that tests the overall performance under normal circumstances but generally at the extreme ends.

Is it wrong to use either method, no, each have their merits and stresses particular aspects. I find it rather perplexing and silly complaining about some thing without reasonably looking at the problem and actually considering the various cause and effects of the aspects of max. What classic did/ does, doesnt automatically translate to max. Because max isn't using 500mb memory on a empty map, does it it make it automatically bad, considering both are completely different engines, lighting tech among other things.So yeah no......Have to lol a bit.

GGMax terrain should be entirely re-write, till done, it will be using a lot of ram than expected.

It's system RAM.

Others have claimed that they don't get this on their systems but I can replicate it really simply, just open MAX, select the default green barrel and start placing copies of it down on the map.

When I got the RAM usage up to just over 11Gb the whole machine became sluggish (Windows paging most probably).

Oh and if you delete the objects you don't get the RAM back!

It's not a memory leak btw, haven't detected any new memory leaks with the most recent build otherwise I would have reported them.

That's true, I've experienced it sometimes. Looks like GGMax does not collect garbage right, memory allocation/deallocation.

Double post, sorry.

Um just between you and me that is actually the very definition of a memory leak a pretty common, where memory doesn't get released. A space leak is where it uses more memory then it should under normal circumstances.

As you can see, just opening photoshop and not doing any thing else, not even a blank project uses 1gig, with max using 1.5gig comparatively it isn't all that much. As you can see memory usage on the GPU didn't actually change much if at all, while system memory did increase but that is to be expected. I used higher polygon models compared to you barrels included some random ones as well.Ironically had I added another round of models I would have reached the 32bit limit of classic.

Considering I have used more models and variety then the barrels you used, memory management overall is actually pretty darn good in max. Considering that having 4 x 4k texture windows open, with textures having several layers in photoshop can eat as much as 4gig or more of system memory. Your memory leak was likely due to to external factors like drivers and or windows, not necessarily max.

So again memory management in max is actually far superior then classic.......













While Classic does use less system memory, but considering it isn't a realtime render, it does make sense, max is going to use more resource due to the realtime render just a fact of life. What is however interesting, is the larger use of GPU resources and overall GPU load and memory controller load, which isn't present in max, being a realtime render and all that, it is pretty low compared to classic and the scene had WAY more going on overall. While using more memory it's overall management of that resources is indeed better than that of classic, even thought it is using more. So yes max is better in handling resources whether you like it or not.........

There is definitely some thing else at play here, considering I have used higher detailed models far more complex with several multi textures and not just the barrels either, and don't even remotely get the same ram usage considering I have far more happening in my scene.But you seem to stubbornly not willing to acknowledge that some else might be at play, even when presented with several screenshots basically showing the complete opposite ?

Perhaps try it with another object, count them let me know if you are able to get the same result, and I will test it my side either I get the same result or it is an isolated issue, fair enough.? Will test the same green barrel tomorrow and revert back

1240 sandbag walls.

I was going for a nice symmetrical square but after about 800 the editor becomes so laggy I can't position anything accurately anymore.

It is really odd lol.Mate you definitely have a memory leak there not talking about the actually usage. That said I don't get the same ram usage, mine is pretty much half of that.When I start deleting stuff My memory doesnt drop right away but does eventually by about 2 gig a minute or so afterward so I don't get every thing back.But I get no where near that 11gig usage.

Pot. Kettle. Black

AE

Of course I am set in my ways too .

Nope, an app can keep hold of the memory allocated for late re-use, that isn't a memory leak but does indicate poor housekeeping.

A memory leak is where memory is repeatedly allocated by a program but not released and effectively becomes unusable as it can neither be reused by the program (as it has lost the pointer to it) nor released by the memory manager.

The bug I reported before was a memory leak because over time RAM usage just climbs until the app keels over, that was tracked down and has been fixed in MAX but not fixed in Classic yet.

The excessive memory usage issue is different as MAX may very well reuse that allocated RAM so can't be classified as a 'leak' yet.

Could be however after I deleted my entities my memory dropped back down again 300- 400 mb from the start allocation. So I don't know it is probably a leak