SoW:BoB 64-bit/Multicore optimised?

[Flyby]

I hope Sow_BoB does support 64bit multicore processors. I don't think we've seen anything yet from Oleg that will tax such a system, but perhaps that should worry us a bit? Dynamic clouds and weather. Water, complex AI, plus improvements to FMs and DMs FMBs (if they are in there) may tax a multi-core system. I think it's most of the behind the scenes stuff that will put a hurt on even a modern system. I recall that IL2 taxed my old 2.8P4 and 6800 Ultra in lots of ways. Couldn't have too much flak, avoid flying over big cities, not too many paratroops in the air at once, or watch the slide show. I know. Mere speculation until O.M speaks. Fair enough.
Flyby out

[Flanker35M]

S!

Falcon 4.0 used multicore to an extent and being quite old game So let's hope SoW will use more cores to even out the workload, could finally put my i7 to work!

[Flyby]

It's a sim I'm glad I never sold. I have the much-wanted binder version, and even went out and bought F4AF (though I never loaded it up). I guess I'm a bit nostalgic.
Anyway, I hope Oleg is into the multi-core thing. Wouldn't it be crazy if SoW came out without multi-core support? Imagine trying to figure out an affinity trick for it ala DCS-Black Shark! Wait! Isn't that blaspheming?
Flyby out

[yarbles]

My only knowledge of apps designed to work in multi-core/cpu environments is stuff like Oracle in Solaris/Red Hat on Enterprise workstations. In order for those apps to be optimized to take full advantage of the 32 cpu workstations w/ 256 GB of RAM - an army of coders were employed. Oracle's business depends on optimized I/O. I think our expectations for BoB are way out of wack. Folks want crazy AI, DoD quality FMs, etc.. it won't happen. There just isn't enough man power in Oleg's lab to code the stuff to fully take advantage of the modern day computing power. I would imagine will get something similar to what we've already seen but w/ better eye candy. We may see BoB have a better handle on how to deal with more planes in the air and better terrian but other than that under a very restrictive budget, I wouldn't expect to see things much more advanced that what's already been done.

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by yarbles

My only knowledge of apps designed to work in multi-core/cpu environments is stuff like Oracle in Solaris/Red Hat on Enterprise workstations. In order for those apps to be optimized to take full advantage of the 32 cpu workstations w/ 256 GB of RAM - an army of coders were employed. Oracle's business depends on optimized I/O. I think our expectations for BoB are way out of wack. Folks want crazy AI, DoD quality FMs, etc.. it won't happen. There just isn't enough man power in Oleg's lab to code the stuff to fully take advantage of the modern day computing power. I would imagine will get something similar to what we've already seen but w/ better eye candy. We may see BoB have a better handle on how to deal with more planes in the air and better terrian but other than that under a very restrictive budget, I wouldn't expect to see things much more advanced that what's already been done.

Wow! Wouldn't that be something if SoW came out behind the power curve instead of ahead of it? You may be on to something, yarbles. Then again, people spent billion$ trying to come up with a gaming system that would run IL2 smoothly with all options turned on (only to be hindered by single-core processors). So it's possible that a lot of items in IL2 that caused stutters, and single-digit fps might actually perform quite well with a dual or a quad. Still, I'm filled with an exquisite dread that when SoW comes out even the most powerful gaming systems out there won't be able to run it full tilt. In LOMAC the clouds could be an fps-killer, not to mention the water (but that was a coding thing too, iirc). I wonder how much of an FPS killer flying over London will be? Wouldn't it be ironic if, in BoB, people avoided missions over London because the city, and the flak brought a modern gaming rig to it's knees? Will Oleg allow that to happen to an area so crucial to the game- play immersion and the title? I think Oleg will have so much going on in SoW that a dual-core will be the minimum requirement. Remember those screen shots of ground objects (that can be effected by damage)? Also, even with a small team, SoW_BoB has been quite a while in the making. So it's possible that there won't be a system that can run it at full tilt. Funny to think about, eh?
Flyby out

[Les]

Originally Posted by yarbles

... We may see BoB have a better handle on how to deal with more planes in the air and better terrian but other than that under a very restrictive budget, I wouldn't expect to see things much more advanced that what's already been done.

At the end of the day, I think this is a realistic expectation.

Oleg has stated we probably won't be able to switch views from plane to plane like we can in IL-2, so as to avoid having to render all planes in such detail, and therefore have more of them in the sky at the same time. I don't think a measure like that would be made if it were possible to keep that feature in by using some multi-threading technique. Or maybe that's more of a current graphics-power issue/limitation.

Whatever the case, in relation to this coding for multi-core thing, it's interesting for me personally to realize I probably have been sucked in by the Intel marketing/hype/spin. I actually believed them when they said games could be coded to make use of multi-cores. When in reality, that's probably just not practical for the most part, if possible at all.

It's interesting to note too that all the new SOW features we've seen on recent updates can be had as a result of the increases in graphics power and CPU core power (not the number of cores) that have taken place since the IL-2 days. And the old SOW features we saw and heard about ages ago, all the meaty nuts and bolts stuff, was never quaranteed to make it to the final version anyway. It was all, we can do this, we can do that, now we've just got to go find a way to put it all together and still have it run at more than 10fps. That's why no promises are made. It's all got to be made to fit, and no single feature can be allowed to drag the whole thing down.

Not saying SOW is just going to be IL-2 all cleaned up graphically, with just enough new CPU-intensive features to make even the most powerful release-date system crawl, but...it's probably just going to be IL-2 all cleaned up, with just enough new CPU-intensive features to make even the most powerful release-date system crawl. With less planes.

And if it is, well, okay, it's just a game, or a sim, or a way to learn about history and what some people have experienced for real in the past. So, it's no big deal.






But if they can get that multi-core thing working...!

(That would make SOW as innovative as the original IL-2 was, and that, all these years later, would be amazing.)

Les.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by Les

Whatever the case, in relation to this coding for multi-core thing, it's interesting for me personally to realize I probably have been sucked in by the Intel marketing/hype/spin. I actually believed them when they said games could be coded to make use of multi-cores. When in reality, that's probably just not practical for the most part, if possible at all.

Well. It's not all spin But it's a hell of a lot harder than making an Oracle database use all the cores/sockets for all those parallel queries. Falcon 4 is a good (and old) example where the multithreaded code works rather well with the ground war running on a separate thread. FSX also implemented a usable multithreaded code in SP1 where the texture loader was placed on a separate thread so that the loading of ground textures did not pause (stutter) the main render loop (much more fluid gameplay after that). Most modern block buster FPS games are multithreaded to some extent, but using it with mixed results... The bottom line is that it's not the salvation that Intel tries to make it (at least for gaming). Games using 4 cores in a way that really improves performance significantly does not exist as far as I know...

So sure, I guess with a lot of work the overall strategic AI in SoW could be placed on a separate thread handling the stuff outside of "the bubble" around the player, and stuff like object loading and textures. Maybe that won't be that important in a game that does not use unique satellite textures for the ground. I guess most of it will be loaded at mission load (especially if it uses the extra memory that the process may use on a 64-bit system ).

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by Flanker35M

S!

Falcon 4.0 used multicore to an extent and being quite old game So let's hope SoW will use more cores to even out the workload, could finally put my i7 to work!

There was quite a bit of genius behind the development of Falcon 4. While not perfect by any stretch it was a multithreaded application back in the day of 1998. It basically gave the game a 40 -60% improvement of FPS when over the FLOT. The only time this really came into play was in the campaign mode. It ran the real time 2D world as a separate thread. It also helped out when dealing with the Disaggregation in the 3Dworld. Amazing game even to this day in its current form it has an even better improvement working with multiple cores.

FSX is a bit of a misnomer in terms of utilizing Multicore. The team kind of cheesed it a bit because all it does is deal with the preloading of the game when coming into other areas. Sure it helps out but nothing like leveraging other cores to handle things like AI, and Flight Modeling. To my knowledge there won’t be a real time campaign element to it. But like someone mentioned the sky has opened up in terms of processing power. Lots of memory now and CPU/GPUs to leverage.