Re: [Algorithms] Scalability costs

[Jamie F. <j.f...@re...>]

It's a nice idea, but is it worth the cost in development time?

Jamie


Jim Offerman wrote:

> Hail to scalability :-)
>
> Jim Offerman
>
> Innovade
> - designing the designer
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tom Forsyth" <to...@mu...>
> To: <gda...@li...>
> Sent: Monday, July 31, 2000 11:04 AM
> Subject: RE: [Algorithms] Terrain Organization
>
> > Indeed - my goal for graphics systems is that when they are released, they
> > should be able to bring even the best existing machine down to sub-1Hz
> speed
> > if you turn all the detail levels up, and yet have perfectly acceptable
> > performance on five-year-old machines with the auto-LoD system on. That
> way
> > you know (a) you've done a good job of scaling stuff, (b) you're pretty
> sure
> > you can re-use the engine (or something derived from it) for the next
> > project, and (c) people will still play your game in five years - it won't
> > look sad. Oh yes, and (d) you might get some good bundling deals with new
> > graphics cards - and they're always welcome.
> >
> > Tom Forsyth - Muckyfoot bloke.
> > Whizzing and pasting and pooting through the day.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Jim Offerman [mailto:j.o...@in...]
> > > Sent: 31 July 2000 08:09
> > > To: gda...@li...
> > > Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Terrain Organization
> > >
> > >
> > > > As for not everyone having TnL cards, well, I thought that
> > > any game which
> > > is
> > > > *now* in development will probably run on fast systems. By
> > > fast I mean
> > > either
> > > > TnL, or on CPUs which are fast enough that regular cards
> > > don't suffer too
> > > > much. Anyway, this is up to you, it depends on you budget
> > > and a lot of
> > > other
> > > > things.
> > >
> > > If you are going to implement some form of CLOD (this is
> > > where Tom Forsyth
> > > would promote using VIPM - which is not a bad idea at all), I
> > > think you
> > > should couple the runtime error calculations to your fps...
> > > i.e. if your fps
> > > drops, crank down all lod levels in the game until the fps reaches an
> > > acceptable level. Your gime might be spitting out 100K tris
> > > per second on a
> > > souped up PIII with GeForce2 GTS and pump through a humble
> > > 15K on a PII with
> > > TNT PCI.
> > >
> > > And, since you have tied your CLOD calculations to the fps you could
> > > (theoratically) also truly design your game for the future -
> > > i.e. use models
> > > which by todays standards contain far to many triangles, the
> > > CLOD will keep
> > > performance acceptable on today's high end hardware and
> > > increase detail on
> > > tomorrow's hardware. Imagine playing Half-Life again, finding that the
> > > overall detail has increased by a factor ten.
> > >
> > > Jim Offerman
> > >
> > > Innovade
> > > - designing the designer
> >
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> >
> >
>
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