1. #11
    Originally posted by MrVH:
    Every screen I posted is capable in DirectX 9 (except for the head).

    There is NO excuse why BoB graphics can not be of nearly as high a quality. Using the OpenGL argument is an excuse (not by people here, by Oleg Maddox and team).
    Well, yes there is. Modelling and painting high detail objects takes time. Modelling lower polycount meshes with a clean mail that matches the high polycount mesh also takes time. UVing a high polycount mesh takes time. Plugging the high polycount normal maps into the lower polycount mesh also takes time. Adding a zillion of stupid details like light scattering, leafs with physical properties and the like for a combat flight sim is simply A WASTE OF TIME. This works this way wether you use DirectX or OpenGL, less people => less time and last I checked Maddox team was around 20 people at most. Bump mapping, specular level mapping and decent reflections is all the "tech" BoB needs to look great, then it's up to the artists to make it happen.

    Originally posted by MrVH:
    BoB can be DirectX9 and look ever so much as lovely as the screenshots and examples shown. The change from DirectX9 to DirectX10 is not as noticeable in these huge environments. Sure, there are of course increases in quality, but we are talking changes that ENHANCE realism with special mappings, not polygonal complexity.
    It has been shown already that BoB will have "special mappings".

    PF, and with it most likely BoB, doesn't have objects that push on DirectX6 quality!!!! [...]


    FSX has a fairly high quality environment, there's no reason why BoB shouldn't be able to equal or surpass it. No reason whatsoever.


    MrVH
    FSX has a fairly high quality environment if you have the best computer available and you have tweaked it to run OK.

    15-25 fps avg. for a flight sim = OK, for a combat sim 40-50 average is OK. If you have an average computer then it sucks bigtime, as expected. In my computer IL-2 runs better and LOOKS better than FSX at medium settings, minus the clouds of course

    BoB will most likely have a fairly high quality environment for a combat sim, the videos on youtube already show a very defined landscape with lots of good looking trees (something that cannot be said about FSX's stock vegetation). Different beasts => different preferences.
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  2. #12
    Originally posted by MrVH:
    How about accurately modeling every leaf on every tree including all the correct physics for each specific leaf so that they are all destructible or usable?
    Surely to Betsy that entails GOBS more computing power than 100 little planes.
    Yes please, show us a cockpit view video where an airplane is doing a low pass at 350mph so we can all laugh at the computer choking to draw the tree leaves at 1fps. If you are moving at 50mph at most, then this isn't that much of an issue.



    And not only that, our game example has 50 or 60 AI characters running around making their own decisions as well within this physically correct world.
    Not sure about this one, but I haven't seen any firefight of 60 AI characters simultaneously in Crysis. Most probably doable to some degree, since human AI doesn't have to calculate a jump (for example), it just reaches a point or it doesnt.
    And not only that, our example has real-life, real-time lighting throughout.
    That's up to the videocard.
    And not only that, but motion blur too boot.
    That's up to the videocard.

    "Ah, but there are much larger areas that are needed to be rendered with BoB". There is?? Look at those screenshots... those are not "backgrounds", they are part of the environment and can be reached and interacted with if so desired.
    (again) Yes please, show us a cockpit view video where an airplane is doing a low pass at 350mph so we can all laugh at the computer choking to draw the tree leaves at 1fps. If you are moving at 50mph at most, then this isn't that much of an issue.

    And even if, yes, the areas are much larger in the flightsim, why pray tell does the 'vastness' matter anyways?
    Because memory is limited in computers last I checked, and spaces take memory, and the more defined (m, cm, mm, ETC) you want this space the more memory it's going to need.

    Scalability should make that a non-issue when it comes to a flight-sim.
    Uh?

    When you're flying at 15,000 feet the vegetation detail is irrelevant, while the topographical detail remains relevant. If these other games can draw, render, and react to each and every leaf, branch, and blade of grass, surely a flightsim could drop the "physical leaves" and insanely detailed world of objects and throw that computing power into the topography... no? As Oleg says, "great map distances to render in relatively high details comparing say to shooters". Bull pucky.
    (...and again) Yes please, show us a cockpit view video where an airplane is doing a low pass at 350mph so we can all laugh at the computer choking to draw the tree leaves at 1fps. If you are moving at 50mph at most, then this isn't that much of an issue.


    "Ah, but look at all the ammunition that needs to be tracked in a flightsim". Pffftt... no more than the ammunition in our example game, and probably less.
    Simply not true, even less for multiplayer.

    I know we haven't really seen any real BoB screenshots of the topography, but I don't believe it will be anywhere CLOSE to most games out there today.
    You mean shooters? Right, it won't. IMO it will look more or less like Armed Assault, but without special effects like DOF and pseudo-HDR lighting, and maybe without all that grass. Not sure on the last one though.

    One problem is that it's like Duke Nukem Forever... [...]
    </end nonsensical rant>

    MrVH
    It's ok mate, we all want it badly!
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  3. #13
    It seems you may have slightly missed my point... could be because I didn't make it as clear as it could be, which is normal.

    My point is NOT that we should expect "every leaf and grass blade" to be render in BoB, nor that it have DOF or pseudo-HDR lighting, etc etc. My point was that these other games have quite vast extremely detailed envirnoments to the point of modelling every leaf, both the object itself and the real-world physics of each as well.

    Still with me?

    So, why can BoB not have just a very highly detailed topography (terrain)... I'm not asking for much else. Take all that computing power that would be needed for every leaf and blade of grass in the "shooter" and throw some of it into the topography of BoB. So instead of this:



    we have this:



    Yes, the ground objects in BoB will be much better than IL2/PF as we've seen:





    But will the topography be as detailed? Not from what I've seen... although I truly hope I'm wrong. I'm no idiot when it comes to 3D modelling, I've done a bit, and creating a more detailed mesh of the topography should not take NEAR the computing power that is needed to render every leaf and blade of grass in another game.

    One of the problems, which I've alluded to, is the desire, it seems, to create a game which can be played at the lowest of minimum specs. When BoB is released, the highest quality selection should choke on the most powerful systems today! That keeps the game relevant to me for years to come because as I grow the power in my computer I avail myself to an even more incredible experience. Instead what we will most likely get is a game that can play on a 1GHZ machine if desired! That's holding us back! Create the game for a minimum spec of a DX9 card and a 2.0GHZ processor and then we'll have something special. COD4's minimum spec is a 2.4G CPU and a GeForce6600 or better. Crysis' minimum spec is a 2.8G CPU and a GF6800GT or better. THAT'S one of the reasons these games look so good, they don't worry about that 1Ghz system out there. If one keeps worrying about the lowest common denominator one will never push the genre forward. You'll be stuck with flightsim games which have the graphical equivalent of 2 years ago.

    Like I said, I don't expect Crysis type of environments in BoB, I'm not an idiot. But I do expect at least the same quality of topography. When I purchase BoB (which is a no-brainer) I expect to see a revolutionary topographical system. It should look nothing like IL2/PF, it's been years since that series and we are way beyond those capabilities nowadays. It will make or break the game for me.

    MrVH
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  4. #14
    Originally posted by MrVH:
    ...

    Yes, the ground objects in BoB will be much better than IL2/PF as we've seen:
    ...

    But will the topography be as detailed? Not from what I've seen..

    One of the problems, which I've alluded to, is the desire, it seems, to create a game which can be played at the lowest of minimum specs. ...
    ... If one keeps worrying about the lowest common denominator one will never push the genre forward. You'll be stuck with flightsim games which have the graphical equivalent of 2 years ago.
    ...
    I agree...worrying too much about the minimal system specs is a lead weight around the Developer's ankle...Likewise, in my opinion, too much concern for On-Line considerations (preventing Cheats) can also be a lead weight with no payoff (Only 5% of 1C's customers are On-Liners, by his own admission... unfortunately for us, Oleg seems to be an avid On-Liner). But, Please do not let my comment hijack this thread...There are plenty of others out there addressing the On-Line versus Off-line issues.

    Look at the demographics of this IL2-series(Bofb eventually)community...The huge majority are adults (true adults), have jobs, take this hobby seriously, and can afford a reasonably decent Rig necessary to run a quality Flight Sim.



    Check this out: Oleg's own words yesterday on the new 1C forum:
    There will be many surprises in time. Like with Il-2 we put in engine many things that will be open later depending of middle PC power on the market.
    ...
    I rest my case...Our case, MrVh.


    I've said many times and in many forums that UBI and 1C have a very poor business plan and marketing strategy...which backs into their design/development decisions...and does so negatively.

    imho
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  5. #15
    Yes to all of the above, here's someone low flying cockpit view in Arma including flying over towns, I can do this on my mid range system and mid range card (64x4600,1gig ram, geforce 7900) admittedly not with everything up to the max but with no stutters.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Asf557ThY
    As this is essentially using Arma as a flight sim there's no reason why flight sims cant look like this. If I'm honest I dont actually expect BOB to be nearly this good which is sad for a couple of reasons, firstly because it's possible to actually do it for a flight sim so why not and secondly believe it or not this engine is already out of date, Arma 2 has been announced for next year with a new graphics engine and terrain. I'd be happy if I thought they were at least striving for this kind of environment in BOB here's hoping.
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  6. #16
    Originally posted by wolfbics:
    Yes to all of the above, here's someone low flying cockpit view in Arma including flying over towns, I can do this on my mid range system and mid range card (64x4600,1gig ram, geforce 7900) admittedly not with everything up to the max but with no stutters.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Asf557ThY
    As this is essentially using Arma as a flight sim there's no reason why flight sims cant look like this. If I'm honest I dont actually expect BOB to be nearly this good which is sad for a couple of reasons, firstly because it's possible to actually do it for a flight sim so why not and secondly believe it or not this engine is already out of date, Arma 2 has been announced for next year with a new graphics engine and terrain. I'd be happy if I thought they were at least striving for this kind of environment in BOB here's hoping.
    No actually I DO think it's going to look like Arma to some degree. Arma's first limitation? visibility distance, and for a good reason. Second limitation? maximum altitude. See a pattern?

    No matter how effective you can make a system SWAP different levels of detail, it is always going to be ruled by hardware limitations. Newer games benefit more from object instancing and the like, which is why more objects (trees, buildings, etc) can be cloned without taxing fps so much but in any case the computer needs time to render those, it needs time to swap LOD models and textures and it needs time to draw the terrain, the different textures in it... you get the point.

    ArmA sucks as an air combat sim, I love the graphics but as a sim it is a joke. As a ground combat sim it's really good, although again, with many limitations (physics? pardon me, what's that?)
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  7. #17
    Originally posted by MrVH:
    It seems you may have slightly missed my point... could be because I didn't make it as clear as it could be, which is normal.
    Maybe, we'll see
    My point is NOT that we should expect "every leaf and grass blade" to be render in BoB, nor that it have DOF or pseudo-HDR lighting, etc etc. My point was that these other games have quite vast extremely detailed envirnoments to the point of modelling every leaf, both the object itself and the real-world physics of each as well.
    Yeah, I know what you are talking about. "Pushing it to the limits", right?
    Still with me?
    I hope so.

    So, why can BoB not have just a very highly detailed topography (terrain)... I'm not asking for much else. Take all that computing power that would be needed for every leaf and blade of grass in the "shooter" and throw some of it into the topography of BoB. So instead of this:
    Ok, you lost it here. Stop thinking about that island for a second, and focus on another one: southern England. Compare the size of each one... and now think of a second if the small island is representing a real island or is it just "based on" something else; last but not least, think about the small island terrain... is the mesh THAT detailed for the whole island or just parts of it?. I'll get back to this at the end of the post. Answer me some questions first if possible:
    1- Do all the trees show in high detail regardless of the distance they are from the viewer?
    2- Do all the "physical" objects have their physics loaded and ready to be used at any distance?
    3- What's the maximum distance bullets can travel?
    4- How many unique objects can the engine display at once on the screen and what are the fps? (ie: different objects with different textures on them, not palm trees! )
    5- Can you interact with objects that are, say, 3km from you? (ie: shooting trees that far away)




    we have this:


    Still with you, don't worry!

    Yes, the ground objects in BoB will be much better than IL2/PF as we've seen:

    But will the topography be as detailed? Not from what I've seen... although I truly hope I'm wrong. I'm no idiot when it comes to 3D modelling, I've done a bit, and creating a more detailed mesh of the topography should not take NEAR the computing power that is needed to render every leaf and blade of grass in another game.
    So... how many large scale terrains have you modelled? Do you know what they are using to model them? no? Maybe satellite data? Do you know how that's handled? no? I've done some of that (not to the point of modelling half France though) and in my experience you just slam a greyscale texture of the terrain into a high detail grid and BAM, your terrain is modelled. You want extreme accuracy? well use more polygons and more detailed satellite data.

    Let's say you want to do a small area of 250*250km, and you want to have some decent terrain fidelity, maybe 250m res. Ok no problem , that's only 2 million polygons, I mean that's cake! Actually, 250m sucks, you want 50m res. 50 million polygons. That's only what, 2000 characters of a good looking shooter on screen at full detail, at once.

    Still with me?

    What about the textures? 2048x2048 to have some sweet terrain, and many different textures so it looks sweet. That's 4mbs per texture, using 8bit color depth (256 colors). 50 different textures to have a good looking map of England, that's only 200mbs that will fill your video card memory. Now the planes... 1 main 2048x2048 texture map, plus the cool effects, but toned down to 1024x1024.

    So 3 1024^2 textures (bump, specular and reflection) and one 2048^2 texture... for the external model. Add one more 2048^2 texture for the cockpit detail. Only 7mbs per plane (11, if it's yours), and you have 5 different planes flying. Ok, 39mbs. At this point my poor 256mbs video card is about to be filled. Add some more textures for the clouds, some more for the buildings, some more for the trees and at this point my computer is going to need to start doing some magic just to swap textures on memory.

    Are you getting the picture now?

    Fortunately SoW is going to use adaptive terrain meshes, according to the 2nd DVD of IL2 1946, to reduce/increase polycount where it is needed, when it is needed. Hey, that's cool, with a visibility radius of 50km(?) at 6000m and reducing the detail geometry to 250m res that's only ~ 130k polygons, if it's optimized it may even be 100k. If 50km is not enough, try 100km? -> ~ 500k polygons. Taking into account other things like aircraft polycount the thing is most likely going to skyrocket a bit, but again, there are LODs for these aswell, so that's O.K. The problem is that all these optimizations eat CPU resources. Throw in the flight calculations that are done per plane, per tick (I'm guessing) depending on wind, turbulences, etc, etc, etc and that's some CONSTANT stress to the CPU resources available. Add AI on top of that, and you don't really have much room left.

    The main difference from shooters is the traveling distance, really. If the game loads textures, 3d models, etc on the videocard to have quick access to them, at some point it's going to have to dump something and get more stuff from the ram BEFORE the event takes place to avoid any artifacts. My example on the aircraft doing a low pass was a bit extreme, but that's the main reasoning behind it: if the changes that are taking place have enough time in between them, then everything will load in time and everything will look good; otherwise you'll get either blank materials or stutters or screenlag because the game cannot keep up. This applies to textures, to models, to sounds, to physical properties... etc.

    One of the problems, which I've alluded to, is the desire, it seems, to create a game which can be played at the lowest of minimum specs. When BoB is released, the highest quality selection should choke on the most powerful systems today!
    I'd swear that I've read Oleg say that once the game is released, only the most powerful computers would be able to run it at max detail, and STILL some features would be disabled for future upgrades when computers improve. What's wrong about it? I certainly don't want to play at 5fps at MAX settings if my computer is the best thing around (if that was the case!), I want it to be playable.

    That keeps the game relevant to me for years to come because as I grow the power in my computer I avail myself to an even more incredible experience.
    Well the future patches that would enable this extra stuff would keep it relevant then!

    Instead what we will most likely get is a game that can play on a 1GHZ machine if desired! That's holding us back! Create the game for a minimum spec of a DX9 card and a 2.0GHZ processor and then we'll have something special. COD4's minimum spec is a 2.4G CPU and a GeForce6600 or better. Crysis' minimum spec is a 2.8G CPU and a GF6800GT or better. THAT'S one of the reasons these games look so good, they don't worry about that 1Ghz system out there. If one keeps worrying about the lowest common denominator one will never push the genre forward. You'll be stuck with flightsim games which have the graphical equivalent of 2 years ago.
    Care to provide a link to where the actual system requirements for SoW:BoB were revealed? Maybe you are comparing it to IL2-1946... a game that's a few years old, obsolete (and stretched to its max), and the main reason as to why BoB development started a few years ago? Why not compare it to the original IL2 when it was released instead? Did it improve its graphics over time? I'd say so!

    Like I said, I don't expect Crysis type of environments in BoB, I'm not an idiot. But I do expect at least the same quality of topography. When I purchase BoB (which is a no-brainer) I expect to see a revolutionary topographical system. It should look nothing like IL2/PF, it's been years since that series and we are way beyond those capabilities nowadays. It will make or break the game for me.

    MrVH
    "Same" quality of topography, I'd say it will have it at a certain distance, as in, the detail seen in Crysis at 1km... maybe even 5km (it is my understanding that you want those nice, highly defined cliffs, right?) will be the max. detail at 0m for BoB (only talking about the terrain mesh). If you are talking about having the same level of detail seen at 10m for Crysis, I don't think that's possible unless you have a fat wallet to buy the satellite data and a few hard disk drives to store everything on them. Doing it by hand is out of the question obviously because of the sizes involved.

    If you have '46 with the 2nd DVD you can actually see a poor soul drawing stuff on the map with some height curves ref. on the background (honestly, I felt sorry for him when I saw it), adding roads, rivers, etc with some serious accuracy; there are also other interesting bits such as some early physics for ships (breaking in two a la Titanic)... really there's a lot of hidden info in it and that's from 2006. I'm sure the graphics will look nothing like IL2. I'm positive it's going to look so good that we'll both have to upgrade our computers (well, I know I will!)

    EDIT: Corrected my terrible spelling
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  8. #18
    ArmA sucks as an air combat sim, I love the graphics but as a sim it is a joke. As a ground combat sim it's really good, although again, with many limitations (physics? pardon me, what's that?)
    I totally agree that it draws goats balls as an air combat sim but remember this is the movie makers forum so there's a reason why people get peeved about what visuals they might or might not be getting in relation to whats realistic in other sims. We're not talking about flight models etc which dont even exist in Arma it's a platoon level sim, I personally hate using aircraft and choppers in it. The physics I meant in my first post is referring to vehicle and tank movements which admittedly have some strange bugs but on the whole actually look right in terms of animations although if you see a real tank sim you'll know they're wrong but thats not the point, looking real in a movie is what folks here are concerned about, with good reason considering how vehicles look and move in the present IL-2.
    You are far more optimistic than me if you think the terrain in BOB will be like Arma, I really hope you are right.
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  9. #19
    it is always going to be ruled by hardware limitations.
    Exactly. But instead of making the benchmark of that hardware limitation a GeForce MX400, create the engine so it needs a minimum of a GeForce 6600GT.

    We all know that these higher qualitys demand horsepower. Don't be so scared! Create it to a higher minimum! Instead of having the attitude of "you can't do that, it would required a DX9 video card with 256MB minimum and it would exclude everyone with lesser machines!", have the attitude of "we want to create the best software we can, and to have it run, you're going to need good hardware".

    When SoW:BoB comes out it should look, at minimum, as good as FSX... at minimum.


    MrVH
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  10. #20
    Originally posted by MrVH:
    <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">it is always going to be ruled by hardware limitations.
    Exactly. But instead of making the benchmark of that hardware limitation a GeForce MX400, create the engine so it needs a minimum of a GeForce 6600GT.

    We all know that these higher qualitys demand horsepower. Don't be so scared! Create it to a higher minimum! Instead of having the attitude of "you can't do that, it would required a DX9 video card with 256MB minimum and it would exclude everyone with lesser machines!", have the attitude of "we want to create the best software we can, and to have it run, you're going to need good hardware".

    When SoW:BoB comes out it should look, at minimum, as good as FSX... at minimum.


    MrVH </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
    So... again, where did you read the minimum specs for BoB?
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