It's time for a feature freeze

kababkabab Join Date: 2003-12-15 Member: 24384Members, Constellation
With the latest patch the game has really fleshed out there is a stack of content which is awesome!

Although many of the performance issues from day one are still around, I don't think I'm alone here but stop adding features the most important thing now is to get the game running faster.

Now I understand not everone are programmers but those who are should solely focus on making it faster.

Perhaps adopting a tick tock strategy where one build focuses on speed and one on features.
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Comments

  • TalesinTalesin Our own little well of hate Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
    Not really the way it works, unfortunately. You get the features together, then you optimize so that everything runs better. Otherwise you can run into issues where it becomes two steps forward and one back, having to undo the code you just wrote (or worse, spend MORE time trying to keep it and work around it). Better to get all of your (current) implementations working, and working together, then speed it up.

    Only bit I'd agree with is that coding for multi-core use from the ground up tends to save time in the long run, too; you write functions that are designed to resist race conditions, and can redesign bottlenecks more easily with less code to take into account.

    But again. It's a beta. It'll be done when it's ready, as usual. :)
  • jkflipflopjkflipflop Join Date: 2010-10-13 Member: 74423Members
    Optimization is the last task you perform after you have the majority of your systems and assets in place. That being said, the game is perfectly playable as it stands.
  • kababkabab Join Date: 2003-12-15 Member: 24384Members, Constellation
    Normally i would agree with you guys (I have made games myself in the past) but there are some fundamental problems here I think which need to be solved..
  • wackowacko Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8283Members
    I think feature freezing would be a waste of time... We know there is some performance issues and we are working on them. If you have made games in the past you would know how this works. Any game I have worked on a lot of the major performance issues were fixed much closer to the end that you would think. Mainly because we really don't get to see the issues until we get it into peoples hands and thats why we have this beta is to get the feedback and see what issues people are running into.

    I have said it before and I shall say it again, Rome was not built in a day! Some of these issues do not take a day to solve or a week or a month they take much design and architecting to do it right. I am sure we could just throw in cheap hacks to fix some of these issues but thats not just how we roll. Furthermore there is a lot of work to be done on many fronts and taking all of the engineering resources and placing them on one or two issues would be a colossal waste of time and resources. But then again, you have made games so you already know this :D
  • kababkabab Join Date: 2003-12-15 Member: 24384Members, Constellation
    <!--quoteo(post=1850754:date=Jun 8 2011, 05:04 PM:name=wacko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (wacko @ Jun 8 2011, 05:04 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850754"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think feature freezing would be a waste of time... We know there is some performance issues and we are working on them. If you have made games in the past you would know how this works. Any game I have worked on a lot of the major performance issues were fixed much closer to the end that you would think. Mainly because we really don't get to see the issues until we get it into peoples hands and thats why we have this beta is to get the feedback and see what issues people are running into.

    I have said it before and I shall say it again, Rome was not built in a day! Some of these issues do not take a day to solve or a week or a month they take much design and architecting to do it right. I am sure we could just throw in cheap hacks to fix some of these issues but thats not just how we roll. Furthermore there is a lot of work to be done on many fronts and taking all of the engineering resources and placing them on one or two issues would be a colossal waste of time and resources. But then again, you have made games so you already know this :D<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I understand and appreciate the hard work :D

    There are 2 things that bug me more then anything...

    Pathing and server performance..

    Don't you think both these things are relatively independent area's from any future new features and that getting these 2 things running well now is not going to be a waste since all the new stuff should benefit from it..

    The game is awesome but when I try and play I want to cry because either things are lagging across my screen like mad or I spend half my time fighting with mac's, drifters' and arc's getting them to locations...

    The new features in this patch definitely are nice the bloom, new fade, arc, phases gates but i'd trade all these things to fix the 2 issues I listed...

    Also with the occlusion culling isn't that more of a GPU optimisation? why do that before other CPU optimisations? (unless of course this new method moving the culling from the cpu to the gpu I'm to sure how the old one worked)

    Oh there is another massive performance hit which is pretty obvious is with the particles that problem has been around for a while and it really hurts your frame rate at the worst time when your fighting... Surely optimising that is more important them some bloom filter?

    I guess what I'm getting at it seems like some of the priorities of things seems out of wack to me...

    If i'm talking ###### feel free to tell me to STFU and sit in the corner :D
  • wackowacko Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8283Members
    Well... I am not a cruel person so I will not tell you to STFU! But, I will say this the two issues you mentioned are being looked at. The pathing system I assure you by the time the game ships will be awesome LOL its not 100% broken at the moment; it has some annoying things about it but we are fixing those. The server issues are also being looked at and will be fixed by the time the game ships. The particle issues they will be fixed I assure you that its not like we live under a rock and don't see these issues or read these forums LOL

    Here again I am shocked... well not really that you would expect 100% performance out of a game still in development. I mean there are games that shipped that are far worse then what you have here and to be honest as I said I have worked on several AAA titles and going into beta for those titles the game had major issues. I mean we are not killing video cards like Starcraft 2 was in beta!
  • kababkabab Join Date: 2003-12-15 Member: 24384Members, Constellation
    I don't expect 100% at this point no way :D

    But when there a number of very obvious problems which get left for a long time in favour of more "bling" I think it hurts the game...
  • NurEinMenschNurEinMensch Join Date: 2003-02-26 Member: 14056Members, Constellation
    <!--quoteo(post=1850762:date=Jun 8 2011, 08:29 AM:name=wacko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (wacko @ Jun 8 2011, 08:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850762"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well... I am not a cruel person so I will not tell you to STFU! But, I will say this the two issues you mentioned are being looked at. The pathing system I assure you by the time the game ships will be awesome LOL its not 100% broken at the moment; it has some annoying things about it but we are fixing those. The server issues are also being looked at and will be fixed by the time the game ships. The particle issues they will be fixed I assure you that its not like we live under a rock and don't see these issues or read these forums LOL

    Here again I am shocked... well not really that you would expect 100% performance out of a game still in development. I mean there are games that shipped that are far worse then what you have here and to be honest as I said I have worked on several AAA titles and going into beta for those titles the game had major issues. I mean we are not killing video cards like Starcraft 2 was in beta!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Dude I like your attitude LOL
  • Soylent_greenSoylent_green Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11220Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=1850724:date=Jun 8 2011, 12:29 AM:name=jkflipflop)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (jkflipflop @ Jun 8 2011, 12:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850724"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That being said, the game is perfectly playable as it stands.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    <i>It performs worse than Crysis by quite a wide margin</i>. If your target is an action-packed, fast-paced shooter this is not acceptable.
  • SkwareSkware Join Date: 2006-10-31 Member: 58125Members
    <i>My computer is running NS2 consistently at 50+ fps with vsync.</i> If your computer is up to date the game is fine.
  • Squeal_Like_A_PigSqueal_Like_A_Pig Janitor Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 66Members, Super Administrators, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer
    edited June 2011
    <!--quoteo(post=1850760:date=Jun 8 2011, 07:22 AM:name=kabab)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kabab @ Jun 8 2011, 07:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850760"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I guess what I'm getting at it seems like some of the priorities of things seems out of wack to me...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    While a feature like Bloom is not high priority, it was a relatively quick and easy thing for Max to add on the side, while continuing to work on the other optimization tasks. Max is often working on multiple tasks at once, so its not like he drops everything to just focus on Bloom, for example. Not to mention, the optimization tasks tend to be complicated and time consuming, and involve a lot of dependencies, and integrating them into the game can cause large issues, so I'm sure, both for the sake of his sanity and to be able to see some short term progress, he likes to bang out a few of these smaller tasks on the side.

    --Cory
  • RehnquistRehnquist Join Date: 2009-09-01 Member: 68672Members
    Wasn't the SC2 issue really nvidias fault for shipping a bad driver for some of their cards?
  • playerplayer Join Date: 2010-09-12 Member: 73982Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1850762:date=Jun 8 2011, 09:29 AM:name=wacko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (wacko @ Jun 8 2011, 09:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850762"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The server issues are also being looked at and will be fixed by the time the game ships. The particle issues they will be fixed I assure you that its not like we live under a rock and don't see these issues or read these forums LOL

    Here again I am shocked... well not really that you would expect 100% performance out of a game still in development. I mean there are games that shipped that are far worse then what you have here and to be honest as I said I have worked on several AAA titles and going into beta for those titles the game had major issues. I mean we are not killing video cards like Starcraft 2 was in beta!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    You're killing CPUs instead. Of course this is a beta (well it's not, but lets not get into that again), but I'm not as confident the issues will be sufficiently solved by release, as we're looking at a real snag with Lua right now. Other AAA-titles with issues cannot be compared to NS2, as they are not fundamentally broken. The Lua-scripting isn't working out for you at all, and the occlusion-culling is downright non-functional, mappers are expected to hack around it via visibility-hints (hello 90s where have you been).
  • Squeal_Like_A_PigSqueal_Like_A_Pig Janitor Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 66Members, Super Administrators, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer
    <!--quoteo(post=1850828:date=Jun 8 2011, 01:55 PM:name=player)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (player @ Jun 8 2011, 01:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850828"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The Lua-scripting isn't working out for you at all, and the occlusion-culling is downright non-functional, mappers are expected to hack around it via visibility-hints (hello 90s where have you been).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Battlefield 3 and plenty of other new games use occlusion culling meshes. You might want to go let those guys know that they are stuck in the 90s as well.
    -cory
  • Skyforger2Skyforger2 Join Date: 2007-10-19 Member: 62681Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1850854:date=Jun 8 2011, 04:33 PM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Jun 8 2011, 04:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850854"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Battlefield 3 and plenty of other new games use occlusion culling meshes. <b>You might want to go let those guys know that they are stuck in the 90s as well</b>.
    -cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    LOL nice one :D Get them Cory !
  • playerplayer Join Date: 2010-09-12 Member: 73982Members
    Obviously visiblity-brushes will be present, being in fact an integral part of the rendering-process, but the idea was the engine would deal with this on it's own (making use of the map's geometry). Now it turns out all the maps are full of holes when the engine visualises them (floating-point precision problems?), this can be seen using alien-vision (look for +++s in the seams). The mappers are there to collect the pieces. Tell me, are they running into this with Battlefield 3 too?

    There's a lot of speculation and guessing-work on my side, as what goes on inside the engine, and what plans there are to fix things, I haven't an idea.

    This also goes for Lua, any quib remarks for that too? Maybe some games you could reference...
  • Stele007Stele007 Join Date: 2004-07-23 Member: 30063Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1850828:date=Jun 8 2011, 09:55 AM:name=player)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (player @ Jun 8 2011, 09:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850828"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You're killing CPUs instead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    No, Starcraft 2 was literally killing GPUs. Like they would burn out and no longer work. Period.
  • JibrailJibrail Join Date: 2009-04-16 Member: 67200Members
    ohhh player u just cant drop the smart @ss attitude can u? do u feel compelled to allways drop a negative line here and there? cause I see that in allmost every comment u post.
  • m3liorm3lior Join Date: 2011-06-07 Member: 103181Members
    The forums just have too many people who have no perspective, or understanding of the awesomeness that is going on here. They just want the game and they want it naow! I bought the game 2-3 days ago, and I can tell you right now, it runs better than Brink did at release, and it is WAY more fun. For a game in development, these guys are doing it the right way, and getting all of the bugs and development issues out in a beta testing environment.

    Props to the devs, I am absolutely loving what I see here.
  • Dank McShwaggerDank McShwagger Join Date: 2009-06-10 Member: 67784Members
    I was going to create a thread suggesting the complete opposite.

    With this new patch the game has become playable enough, for me atleast. I had some really fun games last night. The ARCs add the much needed team play element as they are escorted to their destinations. The phase gates look and work awsome. Spreading infestation as alien comm was extremely easy and fun. The game is finally starting to feel like a real game. Of course it had its usual spikes and bugs here and there but nothing so bad that i couldnt continue playing.

    I WANT TO SEE THE BIG GUNS!!!
  • CaptainCavemanCaptainCaveman Join Date: 2006-10-31 Member: 58119Members
    <!--quoteo(post=1850925:date=Jun 8 2011, 08:16 PM:name=Dank McShwagger)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dank McShwagger @ Jun 8 2011, 08:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850925"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I was going to create a thread suggesting the complete opposite.

    With this new patch the game has become playable enough, for me atleast. I had some really fun games last night. The ARCs add the much needed team play element as they are escorted to their destinations. The phase gates look and work awsome. Spreading infestation as alien comm was extremely easy and fun. The game is finally starting to feel like a real game. Of course it had its usual spikes and bugs here and there but nothing so bad that i couldnt continue playing.

    I WANT TO SEE THE BIG GUNS!!!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    I have to agree that when playing last night the game ran quite well for me with no real lag issues. Still a few bugs here and there of course plus some balance issues but they will get ironed out in due time.

    Keep up the good work dev team!!
  • Soylent_greenSoylent_green Join Date: 2002-12-20 Member: 11220Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=1850815:date=Jun 8 2011, 09:29 AM:name=Skware)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Skware @ Jun 8 2011, 09:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850815"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><i>My computer is running NS2 consistently at 50+ fps with vsync.</i> If your computer is up to date the game is fine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    I have a q6600(the graphics card is not important, but if you really care, it's a HD6870). My framerate swings wildly between 10 and 100 FPS(if I spectate from outside the map, my frame rate is ~10 FPS, so what that's telling you is that the occlusion culling is broken).
  • AlignAlign Remain Calm Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5216Forum Moderators, Constellation
    I have a HD4770 and 2*2.1GHz, XP32 & 2GB RAM sort of computer and get ~40 fps.
    It seems to be random.
  • InsaneInsane Anomaly Join Date: 2002-05-13 Member: 605Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
    <!--quoteo(post=1850865:date=Jun 8 2011, 04:16 PM:name=player)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (player @ Jun 8 2011, 04:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850865"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's a lot of speculation and guessing-work on my side, as what goes on inside the engine, and what plans there are to fix things, I haven't an idea.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Yeah, there clearly is. I don't know why you feel in a position to be so heavy-handed given you have just admitted you don't really know what you're talking about. When it comes down to it, you just seem to be disgusted that an unfinished game is unfinished.

    You are manufacturing a non-existent controversy over occlusion meshes. They are a common part of occlusion culling in modern games, and treating the issue like level designers are having to be brought in to clean up after sloppy code is... just silly.
  • Classic319Classic319 Join Date: 2010-11-06 Member: 74789Members
    edited June 2011
    <!--quoteo(post=1850724:date=Jun 8 2011, 01:29 PM:name=jkflipflop)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (jkflipflop @ Jun 8 2011, 01:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1850724"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Optimization is the last task you perform after you have the majority of your systems and assets in place. That being said, the game is perfectly playable as it stands.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Perfectly playable? Come on, it's not that good behave of fans. It's completely not playable. Gap between amount of buyers of NS2 and players of NS2 shows that it's completely serious problem. Computers which can easily run Crysis are still hard to run NS2. This is biggest problem, why should lots of man spent 34+ dollars cannot play this? Liar :( :( :( It's playable for people who have super computer as NS2HD. So till when would this game be played by maximum 100 players? If it runs as it says on official website, i sware that this will be one of the most popular game ever, cos' it's innovate, and fun! But would this fun game survive unless they have players??

    There're not that many people who upgrade their own computer just to play a game. Devs, i love your hard-working and gret achievements, but the most important thing is still still with questions. I know you're working on it, but it's not that simple to solve IMO, the biggest task!! Most of people are still using computer of 2006~7's. Because they can run most of games, but no NS2!

    p.s. I'm now far away from home and having just a notebook without graphic cards so that barely runs CS. Just for working.. therefore I've never waited for playing by this notebook NS2 here. So I'm not complaining, but representating the all-time requests of 90% of fans of NS2!!
  • AtoneAtone Join Date: 2009-09-21 Member: 68839Members
    Aren't most features added through LUA by Charlie while Max and the other nerds bang on the engine?
  • JirikiJiriki retired ns1 player Join Date: 2003-01-04 Member: 11780Members, NS1 Playtester, Squad Five Silver
    edited June 2011
    I do agree performance is an issue but we have to remember Knuth's wise words.

    <!--QuoteBegin-Donald Knuth+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Donald Knuth)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Premature optimization is the root of all evil.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Of course, since this is public beta, the issue is a bit more complicated (PR etc.).
  • SgtBarlowSgtBarlow Level Designer Join Date: 2003-11-13 Member: 22749Members, NS2 Developer
    edited June 2011
    <!--quoteo(post=1851106:date=Jun 9 2011, 12:19 PM:name=Atone)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Atone @ Jun 9 2011, 12:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1851106"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Aren't most features added through LUA by Charlie while Max and the other nerds bang on the engine?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    Max is the only one working on the Engine, They are looking for another engine programmer but they are few & far between.
    Game Programmers & Engine Programmers is like the differance between a Brain Surgen and a local GP. The GP does not have the years of specialist knowlage to be able to jump in and help a brain surgen.


    I thought Players knowlage on programming and his level of understanding was better than that.
    The current occlusion system seems to be somewhat clumbsy. That is being addressed with a new system Max is working on where the mapper builds a simple shell version of the level.
    Just so happens that when they attended the GDC they picked up on the fact that Battlefield 3 has already taken that same approach.

    Look at page 45, for scene on page 46 of this:

    <a href="http://publications.dice.se/attachments/CullingTheBattlefield.pdf" target="_blank">http://publications.dice.se/attachments/Cu...Battlefield.pdf</a>

    Flick through from page 39 onwards.
  • kababkabab Join Date: 2003-12-15 Member: 24384Members, Constellation
    Can I just make a point/observation...

    Sure in typical game development you do optimisation at the end..

    NS2 is not being developed in a typical manner its completely open people are paying/playing a game which the <b>general public would never see</b>..

    Its obvious to everyone the biggest barrier between more sales and active players now is performance... You can see when ever there is media about NS2 the comments are always about performance which is very damaging to the game...

    I would say up to this point in time the game definitely needed more features but this patch 178 has more then delivered on that front the game it finally feels like NS!!!

    What you guys need to do now is change public perception of the game at the moment it has a bad stigma about performance which is very dangerous if this isn't handled soon particularly given all the press NS2 is getting now and the influx of new players the last thing you want are people bad mouthing the product because of performance...

    If the next patch has as much performance related improvements as 178 had features then I think things will look very very good! I urge you guys to drop everything and do this! Sure it might not be the most efficient long term development strategy but I can assure you it will generate more sales which of course give you more money to keep expanding the game...
  • InsaneInsane Anomaly Join Date: 2002-05-13 Member: 605Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
    Optimisation is left to the end, not because that's when it starts getting shown to the public, but because that's the best time to do it in terms of development efficiency.

    If you do your optimisation before features are added, then every time a big new thing is included there's a good chance it will break some of the work you've done before. So instead of seeing a sudden, PR-tastic leap in performance, you'd get repeated fluctuations in performance, which I wouldn't say is better for PR than slow, steady improvement.

    I don't think doing what you're suggesting will be as beneficial, over and above steady improvements, as you seem to think.
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