Attached is a screen shot of my settings in a test level which are the best I can cobble together.



At the moment with the current version I am held at stop here. I cant do any more to improve on screen quality, higher quality settings such as improve the veg coverage or add any more entities throughout the level or I end up with Reloaded wiping away (removing) veg cover and terrain paths painted completely which has happened a few times now so I now have some backups not that they can help.



No idea how those with high end systems and graphics cards fair as I am not in that position.



It seems that currently at least for those who don't have better hardware than I then there is a limit at the moment as to what you can ask of Reloaded or it will fail to play and fall over one way or another having had enough of that it seems



If you try and add too many entities or use quality settings which are too high for your system (presumably) at whatever level that may be in your case then it simply wont accept that and will try and do something about it or simply give up on you and punish you one way or another. Obviously if one asks too much of anything it simply fails and breaks as it has too. Everything has a limit and breaking point



I am stuck as I cant develop a level further than I currently am able at the quality settings you see below and there would be little point in that as the quality would be too low for acceptability even if one could lower enough to fill the level world up which currently would require a great deal more addition of all kinds of entities and additional features.



Not sure how much of this is due to the current version or not so will await further updates and see how those perform with trying some further development and additional content.

Looks excellent to me. I'd be more than happy with that. I haven't had a chance to do any significant testing of Beta4 yet but hope to after Xmas.

I think Lee deserves a well-earned break and we should spend some time on digesting what we've received so far. Various people have made suggestions for us to try out and I'm looking forward to doing just that.



On a another positive note, I gave a talk to our local computer club a few days ago and used it as an opportunity to put Beta3 through its paces. The audience didn't seem to care about the embarrassing glitches - like the Tab display wouldn't align correctly so I couldn't change the sky (something to do with the projector enforcing a screen resolution which differed from the one assumed by the Tab settings I suspect) - or the sudden crash after I created a lake. Much to my surprise I was able to complete the get-to-the-river test game (I usually have difficulty aligning the sight accurately). Most of the audience weren't gamers and hadn't seen anything like this before but all were very impressed. We should all bear in mind that this software enables newcomers to set up scenes and games very easily - even in its present form. Sometimes we can get a bit too close to the problems and lose sight of the bigger picture.



I also showed them the Gallery - several people wanted to get into the actual games themselves. Sadly we can't do that yet. So thanks to everyone for sharing your screenshots - they were well received.

reloaded has a very long way to go and performance wise is not looking very good at the moment.



If this is to compete with other AAA engines this has a very long way when I can run call of duty ghost at 60 to 70 fps on high and thats a well demanding game and struggle to get between 45fps and 60fps on almost an empty level with reloaded.



The major issues with reloaded is how the shaders are made and the extra cameras to get the nice effects.



I feel lee needs to look at this in a total new way or its going to end up being like another x10.



The funny thing is x10 does in fact work very well now.



I feel that reloaded needs to run at about 100 to 150fps with the demo map so people can have something to work with but its very early days and I do hope lee finds away to improve performance to a level so the engine can be used.



best s4real

No where near. The quality is below par shown there as its not using high settings.



If you have a fps of 22fps in an almost empty level with few features or complex content, no physics, no AI characters at all and so on yet running how will you maintain that which is already way to low (22fps) when you expand upon that level and expect to display high quality fidelity on screen for all kinds of advanced visual effects, advanced interactive AI and gameplay and so on yet to come and expected of an even reasonable modern engine.



Answer is you wont. I cant add any more content even now or use full quality and I have no AI or a single dynamic entity in the level at all, no advanced visual affects or anything complex in terms of world object content, no advanced terrain, water, weather or anything other than very basic content at all as seen in any modern game.



Still I can actually walk around at the moment but have nothing much to see or do, nothing that is required to make a game going on or in there. Just largely bare world at low quality.



Sure its early days and the pressure and demands on the engine can only increase by a major order of magnitude requiring a serious additional drain on its power and efficiency.



In an empty level one has always needed to start with an fps in the hundreds of fps if you are to fill it up with any serious volume of content and alike and even then they always drop off very quickly to levels which have to be very carefully managed when it comes to indie engines. Always been the case and that has and will not change as far as I am aware.



I am now running my test levels which are all they are at full quality settings as I cant live the lower ones which are just not acceptable. The quality and on screen fidelity is OK and no more even at high quality - its not top title pro quality but good enough for an indie engine and game where you don't expect it to be AAA quality. The lower qualities are simply not so.



That's my personal opinion but I am sure lots of others wont agree.



Reloaded is still under development. Lee has done a good job to date and I am sure Lee and TGC are and will do the very best possible.



Things may well get improved and I am sure they will to whatever extent is possible. Add that if necessary to everyone having to get hold of top range hardware and perhaps that will do the job I don't know. I am not sure that your average user/game player computer will be of a great deal of use to anyone though unless you want to tailor the output to keep the games and game play content and quality below what everyone would expect and want to see.



i.e. If the engine efficiency is too low and the system requirements are too high then a lot of poor games or more likely few games both poor quality and perhaps some better or great overall will be made and game players in the main will have a very bad experience of games made with Reloaded due to the limitations faced by the developers in making and achieving anything better. Much like classic situation with bells on as said many times.



We all know its early days so we have to just wait and see how it develops.



At the moment we can only comment as we find at any stage or not at all.



The point that s4real makes is valid and has always been so and is the over riding one. How you improve on that in an indie engine at this level I don't know. Its not been done yet so we have to wait and see if Reloaded will be the first to do so and that may be some way down the road yet when actual users prove the engine by making some quality games proper with it that can deliver the aspiration of such to the end game players.



As always an engine showcase of finished complete and deployed games, commercial or not will give some indication of the standing of any engine so we may have quite some time to wait for any to appear to find out.



I am still open minded and would hope that we will see some good game eventually made with Reloaded even if they do need top of the range hardware to run them.



I wont be making any by the looks of it as I don't have the hardware that could do that at the moment so would not attempt it even if Reloaded was tooled up with the necessary features and so on at the moment to do so as my computer would grind to a halt if I asked much more of both the system and the product.



Personally I may try more testing and adding of content of building some different levels but I am about at my limit before it begins to fall over in fps speeds which it seems to do now in some areas approaching the lower limits though that may be down to the current seeming instabilities in this version or not as the case may be. Instability causes havoc as we all know so perhaps some improvement is to come there.



The next version may show some improvement in this so I have to wait for that and further versions with more updates, features and functions and so on added to see how that pans out for me at least. Seems like a long way to go yet before one can seriously make any solid judgement other than as said at any current stage in development - the rest is guesswork.



Hopefully 2014 will be a good year for Reloaded and all users. I wish it will be so far everyone and all the best for the new year to all.















Thats great presuming that such people would even have a computer that can run even the get to the river level at high quality settings. Remembering that get to the River level can hardly be called a game but we get the point and agreed. Reloaded is great for new users just the ticket if its usable by them and their own users.



TGC and Reloaded empowers people like no other product can do that's fantastic - lets have more of it for more people - its good for indie game making.



That's what we want lots of new users, games made and game players for Reloaded and to do that it has to be usable by those as referred too largely with an average computer spec so they can make or play the games with them at a reasonable, decent on screen quality and speed or it wont be enjoyable either to make or play and that is not good for the product.

Most people are running laptops now and not high end pc's with great graphics cards .

The future will be laptops and tablets . Will Reloaded run on a Windows (not RT) Tablet ?

My Dell Studio i3 runs at 12fps under Beta 1.0004 . Better than before but not good enough . The orginal GCS runs great on my machine .



Lance

I will post my stats here and state what I've seen:



I have a laptop with an i7 2670QM, 8 gigs ram, and an nvidia GeForce GT 555M dedicated video. I started a fresh level played with some terrain and added 2 of every building in the entity bank and about 50 trees and barrels. I then painted what I consider an LOT of grass. Tweaking all the settings I could push 22-24 fps.



I am able to push 3-4 times that as far as characters and entities go in other engines and stay at 40-50 fps on this machine BUT I know this is all Beta and I have faith that Lee and his crew are going to make this engine perform with the best of them so I'm not worried. We should all be going at this knowing that we are dealing with a technically incomplete product at this time. I see Lee posting here so I'm sure he is taking our feedback and working with it.



I do have a higher end Dell Studio XPS series i7 desktop with 16 gigs ram and an Radeon 1 gig video card and a 2 mb front side bus (I think, might only be 1 mb going off memory) and with this same level I can get 75-80 fps.



I know from experience that an Intel integrated HD graphics display does not perform well when using any engine. My last machine had that and I could not get above 15-20 fps in classic ad other engines barely even started let alone ran above 5-10 fps.

For surfers and schoolwork - yes. For real gamers - no.

You never get the same performance out of a laptop/tablet as you can get out of a desktop computer. Not to mention the possibility to upgrade/change parts.

@s4real



[quote]reloaded has a very long way to go and performance wise is not looking very good at the moment.



If this is to compete with other AAA engines this has a very long way when I can run call of duty ghost at 60 to 70 fps on high and th

To avoid further confusion, this is not the FPSC engine (at least not anymore it's not) it may have been close at the start but I don't consider it as such now and won't compare them, never mind state it is the same animal.



The tech demo was built in DBP.



Culling and LOD needs work, the imposters system needs some work and all shaders could still be trimmed down. For example vegetation uses a wind effect animation, this isn't necessary for all veg over an entire level.

Lee has in fact in a post above said he will tackle all this but this seems to be ignored and all opinions based on what we have in front of us right now.



If all that was wanted here was instance stamping and a parallax shader then it would be simpler to go back to FPSC Classic and use that, this is supposed to be a completely new product and built from the ground up and that's how it's been going. I don't think it will be the case that TGC will take any advice to drop it all at this stage and go backwards so there's no point in trying to get them to do so.



It would be easier for you to donate to s4reals new mod, request these features from him and continue to use FPSC Classic for now.



I agree that performance and core features should have been handled first and then adding the hooks in there, but also now realise that this would not have attracted many pledgers at start and the product may fail without it. With no users around to test these very early Beta's. Saying we are 4 Beta's into things as if this were late in development is inaccurate and misleading as it gets. It will be a long time before it's even near finished.



As far as I can see the dynamic lighting is from one source, the sun, not much use for indoor scenes at present. what I would like to see though is other light sources placed by users being more editable than they are just now and working as they should, they don't seem to cast shadows of any kind and range and colour are fixed.



The whole point from the outset is that Reloaded would be as far from the limitations of the grid system and the 'boxy' levels seen with Classic as it was possible to get. I don't remember any segment instance stamping solution Lee did for Reloaded, other than the floor he did when it was Kickstarter related (before the 'blob's idea), so cant comment on that , as far as I am aware since then segments have never been intended for Reloaded and in Classic segment culling was always in there with no need for improving anyway. Entity culling was a newer feature at the end of Classic, and entity instancing was a feature of X10.



When performance is up to scratch (not if) as with Classic it is going to be down to users to understand that on their end a large part of performance is going to be level design, you cant just throw everything in there and expect it to run like a dream, all engines require at least a basic knowledge to get the best out of them.

I do realise that at the moment many users are seeing poor performance with things as they currently are, but even at this time you could improve things yourself by simply reducing camera distance if you feel all that terrain is unnecessary in your scene and ensuring your not using too many models that have no LOD (i.e. custom models and old legacy FPSC models).

It is also necessary to reduce terrain and object view in the map editor itself as this is causing issues.



If we give things a chance, and keep advice and comment to whats in hand rather than what we want right away, I am sure we will see an improvement in performance as this seems to be priority. You will most likely see a removal method for terrain and a snap system to place entity's together for indoor scenes adding to this 'room blob' system. (Snap is already in there so you can convert your old segments into entity's and do this, which should effectively remove the terrain from render even at present) but without the proper lighting yet for indoor scenes it is a moot point anyway.



Last thing I want is an improved FPSC Classic with boxy levels, I want something better than that, which is a lot more advanced, and I am willing to wait for it.



In plain terms it won't help to start from scratch here when it would be best to move forward to improve it.

Hi Uman, I always enjoy your long posts I agree the low quality settings are way too low! I am guessing that as it was a bit of a mad rush to get the patch for the 20th that it was a bit of a rush job. I'm hopeful they will be improved so the quality will be somewhat better with each shader type in future. There's no reason why not, you only have to look at old games that used older shaders at the time. Morrowinds water was the best I saw for years, and was only shader 2.0!



I'm not sure how everyone else finds them but I actually find the lowest quality floor shader to be better than the medium! I really feel like there is major legroom in these shaders, and if done correctly they should resemble the top ones, albeit with less detail. Shadows are just not supported at all, and that just seems like the top shaders have been tweened down rather than coming up with new older shaders from scratch! Just look at older games when newer shaders weren't in existence, they look good, not overly bright horrible things as they stand in FPS at the moment. Perhaps all those games used texture baking for effect, I couldn't say, but they certainly look better than the ones in FPSC at the moment!



The latest release is better and faster. The main problem I see is filling those huge terrains with stuff without it crawling. I can't see that happening any time soon though. I hope I am wrong. How do games like Oblivion, Skyrim and Crysis manage it? Even comparing Oblivion, which is not exactly new (Crysis is possibly older!) to Reloaded is comparing chalk and cheese. Somehow these games treat the backdrop with hundreds or more trees etc easily. Until the Reloaded engine comes at least close to these older systems, we will have rely on making small compact levels to keep up performance.



As I have said in one of my FPSC videos, we can't expect Crysis. It was THE engine for some time and still is very impressive, actually better than the Crysis 2 engine, which caters for lower spec machines. They learned not all PC users have top end systems! Still, we need to at least get in the ballpark, otherwise we have no chance of selling anything down the line.



Obviously people are getting impatient as far as game making options go. We all want to play about making some sort of game, with triggers and enemies etc. Perhaps a 50/50 split between performance and options would be a good bet from now on. Just to give us testers something new to work on rather than just build a scene and see how fast it runs. I for one would like to see roads improved. At the minute its a little difficult to paint em and requires a steady hand at best. The ability to place roads point by point, with options for curving would be great. More so if it could ramp and smooth gradients as making any road that is not flat is practically impossible at present. Look at the Crysis engine (again) for the road system in that, really nice! Also, more textures! If we can only have 3 texture types per terrain, then it is pretty poor! Plus the top down editing is rather rubbish as well, and I can really see no problem with implementing a 3d view, I'm sure lee will be using the pick command in DB, which works ok in any angle. If not, well I'm sure he can sort it out!



One last thing, perhaps it's just me, but why is all the media Middle East looking? Great to have a theme, we always end up with not enough of any particular type to make a decent game. But I must admit I'm not wanting to make COD or anything like it. We always seem to end up with stock media being military based, and personally that is boring to me. The original FPSC was all WW2 based, hmm, me thinking there is a pattern here, lol.



Not all of us want to recreate the popular games of the time ( Medal of Honour and now the COD series). For one we won't be able to compete with em and 2, they are boring, well imo they are! We want to make more original titles. Give us more civilians who work for lots of things! None of this soldier nonsense! I have so many soldier models from the past I have NEVER used, as well they just don't fit the game I want to make. They limit your options immensely!



Okay, I'm done ranting lol. I'm sure others will get my meaning on stock media. I'm sure most people would prefer stock civilian models, which can be used in a whole lot more situations!



Edit - Just as an example of the sort of views you can expect in Oblivion, I've included a screenshot. In honesty it's not a great one, but it gets the idea across. Trying to replicate this single screenshot would, at present be impossible on Reloaded. Yet it runs fine and dandy on my system. So anyone saying you need better hardware is pretty much wrong. Yes, better hardware will improve it, but try telling that to someone who runs these games all the time with no issues, then tries to play yours! I know it is a beta, and am okay with that, I never try to do much with each update rather than play at present. But we do need far better performance than we have, or all other stuff is just pointless!

I like dnd games neverwinter nights, baldurs gate, and stuff like that. I think I will try to make something like that when the time is right for the engine, assuming any1 has the time to make models to suit?, maybe I would have to go to a studio or something for them if not from tgc I don't know tbh. but yeah middle eastern themes so far not my thing either.



as for the shaders options, they help abit for fps but in no way are they easy on the eyes hahaha, im not using it and putting up with the lower fps myself and smaller maps. I would like to see the map size option soon so I can get better fps for the size I would like rather than better fps for a size that's at least 4x to big for me most of the time. I cant even begin to imagine how long it would take to fill that great bit wonderful world lol, and how much fps to start with to get a good amount when its filled.

The media provided as standard is a bit of a gripe for me. It seems inspired by the latest top budget (not budget as in cheap) games and isn't really useful, apart from a Middle East combat game. Standard civilian models would be far more useful in the main, although not for the olde world stuff I would like to do. I can't tell you how often I have tried to alter the soldiers textures from the original FPSC to make em more civilian! It never really works

The character editor sounds a blessing, but also limited from early descriptions. TGC needs to look at existing games, and how they handle character models, they offer all sorts of customization, not just a different head and body. I'm talking fat levels, height, clothing etc. It will probably take a lot more doing, especially for media creators, I wouldn't even know where to start myself! in the end though it would make for a great engine and would solve many issues regarding media. Imagine being able to purchase clothing, hair styles, that sort of thing that can apply to any of your existing models! It would be just awesome! This needs to be sorted sooner rather than later, and yes, it would be difficult. In wouldn't like to imagine coding it myself! but then again I'm only a hobbyist who has had a passion for game making since getting hold of an Atari 2600!

I had written this post once and lost it so will try again.



Everything you will need from an indie game engine is well known and has been reiterated endlessly. TGC know what's, what, so they will do their very best I am sure under prevailing circumstances.



Reloaded is a long job and TGC have a feature vote list to get done. As to quality, stability and performance that will likely be needing keeping an eye on in order to add all of the feature vote listed items, all of which will be most welcomed by users and will require that to be the case.



Unfortunately as game engines in most instances cant simply ignore performance work by having an in built excess over any performance influences to cover any need then such has to be considered and accommodated. Lee has stopped much other development to work on this and we can understand that for many users, some perhaps not so active here as posters at the forums just want to get on and make a game. Fair enough, cant blame people for that - they pledge and support and have an opinion and a say just as everyone does.



TGC Ask for feedback on Betas so that's what we are doing - someone has to give feedback good or bad, right or wrong, or there would not be any. We clearly cant comment on the future only what we have now. We could of course all say nothing or not comment at all but the forums would not be very populated if that was the case. I don't expect TGC to be guided by everything or anything said by anyone - they will use their judgement and knowledge sometimes perhaps of things we don't have information regarding in shaping Reloaded.



At the moment we can't talk much of Reloaded game making while the product is under development so by and large that's what most comments are about. Most posters here at the forums and above take the opportunity to reiterate what each user personally sees as good, lacking, needing improving or wanting and so on for Reloaded and that's all good. Have your say. Community driven so say TGC so drive away and TGC can pick what they want from users feedback and suggestions and use anything they see as helpful and disregard the rest



Personally I don't think we want to be going back to anything FPSC classic and the large world size should be maintained to allow those that want to take advantage of it to do so in their games - for those who don't want or need it then presumably they wont have to use it or require to have it taking up any uneeded use of engine resources. Thus all users should optionally be able to have what they want. Outdoors, indoors or a combination of both as is required by their particular game or project.



Accommodating and providing for outdoor environments is clearly an advantage to Reloaded. At the end of the day users will need to make use of that to best advantage perhaps. If the product at the end of the day proves not to be able to be able to manage and handle that too well then so be it, however you cant fault TGC for trying to give it to you. Better to try and fail than to never have tried at all as it goes. TGC have a vision for Reloaded and all credit to them for going for it.



At the moment we don't know how Reloaded will handle anything else yet to come either so we have to keep faith and wait and see. Its early days.



Hopefully the current progress can be sustained and all improved over time.



However it pans out we are all likely to be better off with it than without it.



When was the last time anyone here was able to create any game levels like those you can see from users in the Gallery in such a short space of time before Reloaded Betas were released?



I thank everyone for their support for Reloaded to date and their valuable input and hope that everyone will continue their support in the coming year. I thank Lee and TGC too for their aspiration for the product and hard work.



Personally I have enjoyed very much working with it thus far and seeing the results. Its a great piece of software for many like myself I am sure who wish to be creative in making something which may otherwise not be possible for them to do so easily with any other software. I hope it continues on to become a very successful product used by many people.



I hope everyone had a good Christmas and wish everyone a very Happy New Year.



Looking forward to all those features to come next year.

As I mentioned before it is very important that there is an option to turn off water. In the future the ability to turn off the terrain plain as well. So if we want to create just interior maps. This will provide us with much better performance on cutting down the things we won't see or need on some maps.



I will also will agree with rolfy that vegetation should not animated in the distance.

Ok so maybe it would not be a good idea to drop terrain completely but its completely unrealistic to populate these terrains with content at the moment without having terrible performance or running out of memory.



If we are going to continue down this path of getting Reloaded to a point where it can handle the size of terrains currently being used it will be a very long time before anyone can start making games.



I would like to see a compromise where there are options to reduce the terrain size significantly and making maps that do not use the terrain so we are not crippled by these performance and memory issues.

Makes a lot of sense and something I suspect will be coming sooner rather than later as it would be a performance boost in itself, still. it makes as much sense to keep pushing it with full terrain as your guaranteed performance increase once it can be removed from the equation



I still believe a lot of drain is from shader and entiy culling at present, Dark Imposters when working at full steam should help a lot with this, particularly where foliage,trees etc are concerned.



At present there is not a lot of content for Reloaded so we are seeing a lot users putting models with no LOD into scenes as well, as time goes on and the content library builds up along with Artists getting a handle on how to create the proper models for FPSCR we will see a big improvement on both fronts.

To be fair we have gone from FPSC classic looking to something which is high in its aspirations. People talking about Pro Engine, AAA Titles and all kinds of advanced dynamic features and so on along with high quality on screen. Something in its entirity which is a massive undertaking and requiring massive resources to develop.



Reloaded is an evolving development and I don't think anyone new or knows exactly where it can go and what it can become or exactly what difficulties will present themselves along the way which will affect smooth development. Bit like making your game really. You make and change accordingly and find solutions. Its a WIP and is being sculpted like a model as it develops if necessary adding bits and removing them. Lee and TGC have done very well so far.



I am sure that Reloaded will settle down somewhere in between whats gone past and what is perhaps over realistic enthusiasm for something much better.



For end users Reloaded will eventually offer the best TGC can provide whatever that may be. It will be what it will be and we can't do much about it other than try to help best we can. Then users will make games with it with results governed by what it makes available to them and their own creativity and ingenuity which I must say is considerable. Whatever level of game quality that may become is not quite known yet but realistically it may not be as some may aspire too due to the status of the engine. Its an indie engine after all and one which is limited by various factors.



2014 is a new year and I am sure that this time next year things will have settled down and I guess all those who are waiting to make a game may then have a chance to do so proper perhaps using whatever it becomes when more features are added. When they are then we will all have a better idea of what it can do and what kind of games you can make in each users case and like TGC and the product "Tailor the suit according to the cloth" NO doubt as said users will find ways to make the best possible games they can with it whatever the tools available and we will see some good games made by some of the users here.



2014 is is also a year which we should again see advances too in the game world in general outside of these walls. Technology like Rift, New advanced Games and new engine technology like The Division that push expectations forward for game players and perhaps game makers alike.



Indie Game Makers and Reloaded cant really compete at that level so we have to accept that, though that does not mean we should be happy to remain where we were in the past. TGC had to look to something better so that is what we are seeing develop.



Indie Game makers and the indie engine developers in the main are in a different position to the game making companies and engine developers. Not specific but a varied lot with all kinds of individual wants and needs and games that they wish to create - much like all things to all people. Hard to deliver is that.



Something has to be missed out - cant have everything me thinks so priorities have to be focused upon at some stage. No doubt as said TGC have a plan tailored by users feedback to some extent so they have to run with it.



I am not sure about Reloaded underlying technology at the moment regarding things like draw calls, polygon counts, occlusion and so on. For example if one places a building entity or other world object does that block the camera seeing polygons beyond it? or even behind the player. If you are close up to a tree and cant see past the tree trunk what is Reloaded actually having to calculate - does it see through walls or other objects currently? if there is a high terrain hill or mountain in front of your face does the terrain polygons beyond it get calculated? and will that always be the case if so? What Reloaded currently sees in calculating what resources it draws upon and needs is not something I am an expert on. There may be numerous things that can be updated or improved to save resources and gain better performance now or later I don't know.



Whatever You cant make it to better than any limiting restrictions so I am sure Lee is and will continue to do the very best possible with as said the tools and technologies and resources available to him and that is what Reloaded will provide and we have to live with that at the end of the day. Then users will have to take that and tailor themselves their own games to take best advantage of what it provides.



I don't think that there will be a vast number of users being able or wanting to get into creating content which is optimised themselves unless such facilities are provided in Reloaded for them to do so. e.g LOD versions and so on so such things will be limiting for many who will just use what comes out of the box by and large - some dedicated users may and will go further of course I am sure.



2014 is likely to see more development in the area of adding the features comprised in the Vote list so many will begin to see the features they need included. What already exists in terms of features may be improved and updated and may well need to be in tandem but the priority is lost for good or for bad.



Depending upon the complexity and how advanced those new features to come are to be then there may be a lot of work there yet to do and no doubt we will have an exciting year ahead to come. A daunting task and whatever we get, I am sure there will always be more wanted by users as always.



Obviously with the bar and status of modern games and advanced engines of which we are used to seeing and aspiring too which will only get even more technologically better and advanced in the coming years its understandable and only natural that users look to the best to help them achieve the best possible in their own endeavours. We are all an aspiring lot and just want to do better ourselves.



Its nice to have advanced features like dynamic veg systems, advanced Terrain, advanced AI and water and so on but at the end of the day its better say to have grass that does not move at all than have none at all or grass that impacts severely on your game players experience so you have to take what you can and make the best choices for what will deliver the best outcome given what you have to work with. Its all common sense really and I am sure TGC have enough of that to make the choices as we go. Those things that cant make it will have to be left behind in favour of the best possible outcome. We simply cant have everything we would want.



A lot of users/people including myself perhaps think to themselves and or ask why is it that I can play a modern game at high quality but Reloaded cant do the same? Why not? They expect a game engine to be able to do so. Not really being concerned about the Why which is not in their dictionary. As game makers and humans we should be able to understand Why even if its not something we can or wish to accommodate.



The reality is Reloaded being developed by a small company with specific technologies and with limited resources is not in a position to deliver better than any limitations imposed by those things whatever they might be. Not very palatable perhaps but that's the way it is during this round of engine making and the trend is set. We have to consider too that Reloaded is somewhat low cost and that users are getting life time updates at no further cost and so we cant have it all ways which of course we would like. Its a good deal for what you will be getting and tailored to what indie developers in the main can afford. TGC are not going to be making vast amounts of cash (profit) to invest in developing a Top Notch world leading game engine and overall users have not only a usable tool but at the best price they are likely to be able to find. A bargain to boot. The only way to get a better deal is that someone would have to create an advanced modern game engine that you could use freely and at no cost to you by giving you the engine and rights to distribution of games made with it for free - which is not likely to happen or perhaps Reloaded generate many millions of dollars profit for the company to make such an engine.



Perhaps if Reloaded is successful it may be improved upon later. In any case its probably the best and perhaps only real option for small indie game makers.



For sure we want better than before and to move Indie Developers forward a little at least with Reloaded and not get left too far behind. At the end of the day its about making and playing games and no doubt you will be able to do that.



The rest is not quite clear at the moment but will soon become so.



Happy 2014 Reloaded game making everyone.

I got this error when working on a map. I ran the map and the screen went blank. Had to recover from task manger.



Windows 8

Intel(R) Core(TM)i7-3770 CPU @ 3.4GHz 3.40 GHz

Ram 12.0 GB

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650

Oh I get that crash all the time, and out of memory, array out of bounds and image does not exist. You have to save often and preferably a different name every time, in case it crashes while saving. I'm sure that will be fixed as time progresses.



One point I'd like to mention regarding the engine speed. Minecraft was developed by one man in his bedroom. It is a seriously impressive engine and although everything is a block, there are a lot of blocks to handle. If this is possible, TGC can get Reloaded up to a better standard. It's early days, they have a lot of work to do, but it is possible to get a pretty decent engine going these days, even without a massive budget.

Yes you are correct in as much as many wonderful pieces of software have been actually made by 1 single person in the bedroom effectively by programming something themselves from scratch as it were.



That's not the case here though. The core programming technology is fixed and not necessarily one of best choice and out of necessity TGC being an in operation commercial business its not a case of well we can do it in our spare time and do it right no matter how long it takes and no pressure. Its never been that way with TGC or with many other commercial operations.



The pressure to move on and just add something is already there as we can see.



As to things like Minecraft or any other engine at all - Reloaded is not those - not sure its that easy as far as Reloaded goes. Certainly what was potential or possible and considered some time back would require a seriously powerful engine. That has been tempered somewhat perhaps and may yet be more so in the light of reality. If it can be done so by others we are OK then. No worries.



As always most are still waiting for another day in the future to find out.

I understand that using DB Pro as the base language for Reloaded is a limiting factor, but, Lee is improving it as he goes. Well, that was the plan. So he can update the main core of DB to speed it up considerably I would imagine. I've also heard he is prepared to go to machine language level if needed for some things, so using DB Pro is not as limiting as it would be for us lesser programmers You only have to look at the Starwraith series to see what can be done with even an old language, they were in the original DB classic!

My main point is just because TGC are a small team, don't underestimate what they will be able to produce. I am fully confident that in even a couple of months, most major performance issues will be all but gone. This won't be a DB Pro product, it will be a DB Pro+ product, using a new revamped and faster DB Pro, which incidentally, will be another product they can sell in the future. this way they get to develop 2 products at the same time!

I make comparisons to Oblivion, merely to show that even an old game can handle a pretty nice vista, and we really want Reloaded to be able to compete with that sort of thing. The big engine makers such as Unreal and Crysis etc have done a lot of work for us in that regard, and techiques they spent a lot of money developing must surely be filtering down to indie devs by now.

Oops! My internet is so slow sometimes! I apologise for the double post

The frame rate i get at this moment is not bad. it stay around the 60 fps.

But the memory issue for me is more a problem. my map and builds are also on a stop now.i placed 5 large buildings and some lower ones ,if i place one more i get strange errors runtime errors.dds. files that doesnt exist etc. i think they all related to memory.



My system is not really slow,and my video card is a Gforce 660TI. so that can not be the problem.





Gr

Harry

My first series of tasks for 2014 was to peek into the memory issues and see what was happening. I found leaks, and some big ones. As I write this, I am tracking down all leaks over a few Kb and making sure they are eliminated from the next update. Once I'm happy the memory is looked after, I will then look at reducing the overall allocations to get the footprint down to allow larger levels to fit into the memory available. Once I have ticked that box, I will be returning to performance with some aggressive optimization ideas I had over the Christmas break Thanks for your patience, and the huge role of feedback, and your thoughts and instincts are along the same lines as my own thoughts. We need speed, no matter what you place down into the game world, fast enough to play smoothly and impress your end users. Hopefully we can chip away at this task together, and eventually get to a happy place.