Hardware, software and the future of flight combat sims.

[flyingblind]

With the sad demise of CloD a thought occured to me. What is the future for realistic combat sims?

All serious simers want ever more realism and deeper immersion. Up until now the limiting factor has been the hardware. Even way above average home computers simply did not have the power to cope with photo realistic video, complex interactive objects plus processor hungry systems like lighting and partical effects and weather on their own let alone online with a whole bunch of players and AIs.

This is all now rapidly changing. CloD has shown that even a home PC is reaching the point where they can indeed handle that level of complexity. The problem with CloD was not the code as such as the problems could have been fixed or even better code written. The problem was that there was simply insufficiant funds available. Or rather the amount of money required was too large to see a return on the investment.

So my point is - are computers now so powerful they hold out the prospect of unbelievable realism and complexity but the cost of developing the code and the modeling to realise this is so prohibitably expensive that developers are reaching a point where a profit cannot be made if hardware coming out now or the near future is to be fully utilised.

If this is the case (and please feel free to disagree) then what are the solutions?

Is this as good as it will get for some time? 777 Studios have already stated quite bluntly that they will be taking a few steps back from CloD purely because of time and cost constraints.

This also has serious consequences for hardware manufacturers and vendors. As long as they are playing catch up with PC users asperations they have a ready market for their wares but if those asperations are being thwarted by the developement cost of games then the point and need for upgrades vanishes.

Thoughts anyone?

[SlipBall]

There are extremely strong computers coming in the near not to distant future...if there is demand, software will still be coded for flight combat

[baronWastelan]

You answered your own question with: "Is this as good as it will get for some time? 777 Studios have already stated quite bluntly that they will be taking a few steps back from CloD purely because of time and cost constraints."

They know how many "serious simmers" there are, did the math and determined the potential pay-off from catering to this market.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by baronWastelan

You answered your own question with: "Is this as good as it will get for some time? 777 Studios have already stated quite bluntly that they will be taking a few steps back from CloD purely because of time and cost constraints."

They know how many "serious simmers" there are, did the math and determined the potential pay-off from catering to this market.

Yes I think that you are right on...lack of objects, now thats another story

[flyingblind]

Yes, thats my point. If there is enough demand. But if the cost of writing the code becomes greater than the demand can support then no one will write it.

It is why console games do so well. Because the power of a console is limited in comparison to a good PC there is no point in producing large, complex maps and all the other things simers expect plus the users are quite happy with the limited input of their controllers. If it can be done on a PC people want it but they will only get it if developers get a return.

[SlipBall]

Call me crazy but If Oleg could have delivered (everything), I would have payed much much more.

[JG52Uther]

IMO people are too greedy these days.I'm sure a lot of people who bought CoD were new to the il2 scene, perhaps younger, and, because they owned an o/c i5 2500k etc simply expected to wind the settings up to max and play. It took me several years before I could even fly il2 at max settings.
il2 was always like that for me, the game was far above the tech available to run it at full whack, and I was constantly upgrading just to get a few more FPS.
Things have changed somewhat now, and there is some fantastic tech available, but after CoD, I think things will be simplified, people expect a game to run flawlessly these days (and why wouldn't they TBH) but it was never my experience.I'm probably just too old, and remember the good old days.
Games like WoT, WT etc have great graphics, but are 'sim lite' and will sell millions, and have thousands playing.That seems to be the future.

[SlipBall]

When I first bought Il-2 I could not play it, took me a year to get a decent rig it sat on the shelf

[Skoshi Tiger]

Damn! I just spent half an hour crafting a beautifully worded response to this topic - distilling my thirty years experiences in computing, software development and flight simming and - my bloody computer turned itself off!!! **&^%$* %%^&&% $#^%%^ - Heres the short version

One of the problems is that although our hardware is still improving and processor power is increasing and following the old moores law, we haven't developed ways of harnessing that power.

All the major CPU and GPU platforms have plateaued in terms of clock rate and that increase in power is being increased in terms of number of processors Cores or texture units or whatever you wan't to call them.

To take advantage of that power the programs need to be multi threaded and contain tasks that can be solved using parallel processing, Graphics cards work good using this approach. Other areas of programming the sims are not so good.

In a recent interview at Sim HQ Albert Zhiltsov, one of lead ROF development people, was talking about the complexity of modern fligh sims and said

I am an optimist. I believe that right now — somewhere in the doorway of a university or an office — a young man leaves with a solid idea to make a project better than Rise of Flight. But, as we said earlier — it will be harder for him to do than it was for us, because the speed of life will increase even more and financial crises will put into question all existing business models again and again. James Cameron dove to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, using his own funds. Perhaps this young man will find an opportunity to test his strength; I wish him luck and will be happy to share my experience with him. I am an optimist.

Hopefully the person Albert was talking about will have the idea about making the program scalable accross miltiple cores (to realise that improvement in performance), be able to create a demonstator as proof of concept and will then be snapped up by one of the bigger development houses rather than out lay the costs from his own funds.

The scary thing is is that any development needs to be spending part of their profits on
research and development or the life of their product will be limited. Oleg knew this and this approach showed it through out the life of the Il2 series up until present. Unfortunately he forgot that they do have to make an actual profit and they couldn't get it together before funds ran out and COD development came to a crashing halt.

My biggest fear is that the new il2 sim will go the other way and will not get that fundimental development to the core of the product and the development will be focused on content. The problem with this approach is that when something does arive that is fundimentally better it will be too late to catch up.

To fund this development a steady stream of income is required. It shows how distructive the whinning, and snide remarks can be to these products.

[SlipBall]

They say that the memristor will have the same leap forward for mankind this century, as the resistor did in the last century.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise...hp-memristors/