Friday 2011-02-04 Dev. update and Discussion

[Sutts]

Originally Posted by luthier

Let me also try to be extremely clear.

1. You can fly over cities on my PCs, just not at the highest settings, or at a low resolution with no FSAA. Stutters are only apparent at low altitude. Stutters mean short dips in FPS every few seconds by about 25%.

2. Whether the world's best PC will or will not stutter over cities depends on resolution and FSAA. If you run the game on three monitors at 5760 x 1080 with 8xFSAA, you will experience stutters while flying over London at altitudes under 200 meters or so.

3. The Buildings video option limits the number of buildings on the screen and offers fluid performance while still offering a picture superior to that of Il-2.

4. FPS is highly situation-dependent. We give you a huge sandbox to play with. So I cannot possibly make any blanket statements about performance on any hardware because we give you the tools to bring the game to a screeching halt.
Any game on the market can be made to run at 0 FPS with enough action on the screen. It's just most other developers ration the action very carefully and balance the game to make sure your FPS does not dip below a set minimum. We do that with our stock campaign and online missions but we do not limit what you can do with the game by yourself. Anyone can crank up the resolution and create a large enough low-level dogfight in Cliffs of Dover that will run at 0 FPS and possibly even crash the game.

5. To sum up: your FPS depends on factors beyond your hardware. It also depends on your resolution, on your FSAA setting, and on the amount of action on the screen.

This is the last I will ever address the topic.



I'm actually not sure, I'll have to ask Monday. CoD usually sits at around 1.8 Gigs in the memory. I don't think I've ever seen it go anywhere near 3 gigs.



Our future is highly dependent on the success of CoD. If everything goes well, then yes, dynamic campaign and dynamic weather are items 1 and 2 on the list.



It's not a big deal to code it in, it's just the guy who could do it is buried neck-deep in other stuff. I need to play around with the Warthog some more myself before we begin to think about actions.



No. Nor is one planned for any foreseeable future.



It depends on AI skill level. AI at any level checks the sky in segments, i.e scans the airspace. They also always take clouds and sun into the account.
Lower-level AI pilots have some periods when they don't scan at all. They scan a smaller overall area of the airspace. They focus on each segment longer - i.e. if he looks at his 8 o'clock you can attack him head-on and he won't spot you. Sun blots out a larger portion of the sky for them.
However the sun is not a 100% blind zone and there is a chance even the dumbest idiot will see you coming out of the sun, chances increasing the closer you are to his 12 o'clock high.

In the end, since you're rarely aware of your opponent's skill level, this results in a very realistic picture. You're never sure whether he breaks and turns into you from 3 miles away, or if you can keep sneaking up on him for a no-deflection shot at 50 yards. Very frustrating when you end up holding your fire just a second too long, and he spots you and breaks away after sitting dead square in your sights.



No, it's much more advanced. We have different customization options for different axes. For example you can not only adjust the curves but also set your idle, 100% and WEP positions for the throttle axis. I'm pretty sure this could be seen in some Igromir videos.

Wow Luthier, some seriously advanced AI going on there. I like it.

Originally Posted by luthier

Let me also try to be extremely clear.

1. You can fly over cities on my PCs, just not at the highest settings, or at a low resolution with no FSAA. Stutters are only apparent at low altitude. Stutters mean short dips in FPS every few seconds by about 25%.

2. Whether the world's best PC will or will not stutter over cities depends on resolution and FSAA. If you run the game on three monitors at 5760 x 1080 with 8xFSAA, you will experience stutters while flying over London at altitudes under 200 meters or so.

3. The Buildings video option limits the number of buildings on the screen and offers fluid performance while still offering a picture superior to that of Il-2.

4. FPS is highly situation-dependent. We give you a huge sandbox to play with. So I cannot possibly make any blanket statements about performance on any hardware because we give you the tools to bring the game to a screeching halt.
Any game on the market can be made to run at 0 FPS with enough action on the screen. It's just most other developers ration the action very carefully and balance the game to make sure your FPS does not dip below a set minimum. We do that with our stock campaign and online missions but we do not limit what you can do with the game by yourself. Anyone can crank up the resolution and create a large enough low-level dogfight in Cliffs of Dover that will run at 0 FPS and possibly even crash the game.

5. To sum up: your FPS depends on factors beyond your hardware. It also depends on your resolution, on your FSAA setting, and on the amount of action on the screen.

This is the last I will ever address the topic.

.

Thank you Luthier, that information is very useful, just one more question if I may, are there any plans to weather the 109 before release?

Many Thanks

Originally Posted by luthier

CoD usually sits at around 1.8 Gigs in the memory. I don't think I've ever seen it go anywhere near 3 gigs.

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

but you need more than 4 [GB] to escape the one of the types of shuttering.
As Ilya already told - huge space with good resolution terraine need more memory both graphics card and PC itself.

So why do we need more than 4 GB then?

[Sven]

Originally Posted by Hecke

So why do we need more than 4 GB then?

Because you need 1 for your OS and maximum 3GB for CoD, it's just like they said Hecke, read better.

Originally Posted by Sven

Because you need 1 for your OS and maximum 3GB for CoD, it's just like they said Hecke, read better.

You're right thx for the help.

If you have a 2 GB GFX card + 1 GB OS you then should have 6 GB Ram, right?

[alexei1789]

Hi Luthier and Oleg,

thanks so much for still answering our question !
you say engine overheat realism is improved compared with il2...
What about cooling ? when air-cooled engine is at idle in a long descend, it stresses the engine (fast external cooling and slow in the center). Is this modeled in the sim ?
just wondering, and already happy to receive the sim as is

A.

[luthier]

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

Hi again Luthier. I wonder if you'd seen this one earlier. Wiek Luijken is an aviation artist and fan of the Il-2 series. He would be happy to work with you.

Like the others have said, we don't decide on the box art, the publisher does.

We could certainly benefit from some top-notch 2D art both in the game and in our marketing - promotional materials, but it's way too late at this point to do anything.

Originally Posted by furbs

Do you know how the AI reacts to damage to their airplane,will they try and break off and run for home?

Yes. Moreover, it reacts to damage and especially losses to other planes, and may decide to run for home even if his plane is intact. Whole formations of newbies may scatter and run if you shoot down their leader etc.

Originally Posted by furbs

And does the AI try and use real world tactics, Boom and zoom, attack from the sun, neg G dives, hit and run(one pass and away, not staying to fight to the death like IL2) and such?

Not staying to fight till death was one of the most important requirements for me for the AI. They do use real-world tactics more than in Il-2. You'll see them working in group a lot more for instance.

Originally Posted by furbs

How does the AI suffer from engine overheat, fly untrimed, suffer from high G and blackouts?

AI engine model is greatly simplified compared to that of the player plane, but we do try to make sure it doesn't give them an advantage.
You can study this in detail when flying the real sim. Autopilot is very verbose, you can see exactly what levers they move etc.

Originally Posted by furbs

Would also be interesting to know if the AI will know if not to attack when at a disadvantage...low and slow

Well they try to extend away and take it from there, but generally even most humans would be doomed if caught in a situation like that.

Originally Posted by Ctrl E

can i be so bold as to ask about your korean war project. i'm guessing it's on the backburner somewhat?

Yes. It's not looking very hopeful for the next immediate sequel either.

Originally Posted by Insuber

How are the Flight Models done? Parametric, fluidodynamic as in X-Plane, mixed ? Are they different from Il-2 ones, or just an evolution of them?

We did a huge technical interview for a print magazine, where our FM programmer wrote like two pages of stuff on it. I'll see if we can publish it here, because that would be a much, much better answer than anything I can type up.

Originally Posted by alexei1789

What about cooling ? when air-cooled engine is at idle in a long descend, it stresses the engine (fast external cooling and slow in the center). Is this modeled in the sim ?

Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.

[imaca]

Originally Posted by luthier

It depends on AI skill level. AI at any level checks the sky in segments, i.e scans the airspace. They also always take clouds and sun into the account.
Lower-level AI pilots have some periods when they don't scan at all. They scan a smaller overall area of the airspace. They focus on each segment longer - i.e. if he looks at his 8 o'clock you can attack him head-on and he won't spot you. Sun blots out a larger portion of the sky for them.
However the sun is not a 100% blind zone and there is a chance even the dumbest idiot will see you coming out of the sun, chances increasing the closer you are to his 12 o'clock high.

In the end, since you're rarely aware of your opponent's skill level, this results in a very realistic picture. You're never sure whether he breaks and turns into you from 3 miles away, or if you can keep sneaking up on him for a no-deflection shot at 50 yards. Very frustrating when you end up holding your fire just a second too long, and he spots you and breaks away after sitting dead square in your sights.

Best update info ever, the AI sounds like it's going to be a huge improvement over anything existing.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Yes thanks for that, but can you not see where your answer is fundamentally flawed, in that we dont know how it runs on a high end system, we keep begging Luthier and Oleg to show us some video on a real high end PC, we want to wave the Cliffs Of Dover flag and say jeez look how good this game runs if you've got the the right kit, hundreds of people are waiting to buy or build new systems and spend thousands just to play this game, but for some reason the devs are holding back on showing us this game run on a top end gaming rig.

Actually, we are not all begging for this. Some are and others aren't.

From where i'm standing it looks good enough at its current state to the point that, especially after Luthier's explanations, i'm starting to think that any more graphical excellence would start detracting from the really important stuff. You know, things like AI or the new complex engine and systems management that Oleg Maddox told us tracks as much as 500 parameters for a single airframe, things that have an impact mostly on the actual gameplay.

Tastes can vary and it's all well and good and a difference of opinion should be acceptable by all of us. It's just that the requests for graphics features being the loudest or most common doesn't mean they are shared by the majority of mostly silent posters on this board or the people who prefer discussing issues that pertain to actually flying the simulated aircraft more than they discuss how these aircraft look. They are just being a bit quiet, but there's many of them too

It's not that i consider graphics unimportant, they are important. It's just that i agree with this poster.

Originally Posted by kestrel79

My brother brought up a pretty good point as well. We were talking about probably having to run the sim on lower settings on our computers...and he's like "even on the lowest settings I'm sure CoD will look just as good as IL2 currently does on our systems (unmodded)." And I was like yeah, that's a great point. CoD can't look any worse than IL2 right? That's positive right there as I still think IL2 looks great.

People who are wanting specs and videos of high end pcs, maxed graphics and whatnot just chilll out. Wait a few more weeks, get the sim yourself and fire it up on your super computer and test til your hearts content. I'm sure it will be FINE.

Is it looking better than IL2? Yes it is, in fact is seems like CoD at medium is better than IL2 at high settings. Let's chalk one up for improvement over the previous version in the graphics department and move to something else. Frankly, at this point i would be more interested in seeing some of Luthier's design documents with his ideas for the dynamic campaign, a tutorial on engine management and systems operation (in a somewhat complex aircraft like a twin engined bomber) that's representative of what the release build will look like, or some in-game sounds, because we already know the visuals are up to the job and we know what it takes to run them. There's so much substance under the hood in a flight sim, so let's see some of that for a change.


Finally,

Originally Posted by luthier

If I had a high-end PC, the recommended specs we've released a while ago would have been the minimum specs.

I'm using a mid-range PC for a very specific reason.

You have to understand that my job is to make a good game. It is NOT to market and advertise it. We're a tiny developer working on a shoestring budget. If I have to stop working for a day each week to make videos, we will end up with a kick-ass marketing campaign for a crappy game. I'd rather have it the other way around.

...this a thousand times over, because it's good old fashioned common sense. Also, thank you for the rest of your points and posts (very informative stuff the lot of it) your patience and most of all honesty.

It's not often you see a lead developer come forward and calmly say "we have a good game on the whole, but i also want to improve this and that because it's not on par with the rest of it" like discussing it over a drink in the local bar, most of them will just say "we have an awesome game".

I too would like a dynamic campaign and i'm a bit underwhelmed to hear it's pushed so far back, but seeing how much you want to do with it i'm having high hopes for the final result. As far as i'm concerned, i don't mind waiting if it's half as good as the ideas we all provided in that 40-page thread.


Edit:
It seems it's my lucky day

Originally Posted by luthier

It depends on AI skill level. AI at any level checks the sky in segments, i.e scans the airspace. They also always take clouds and sun into the account.
Lower-level AI pilots have some periods when they don't scan at all. They scan a smaller overall area of the airspace. They focus on each segment longer - i.e. if he looks at his 8 o'clock you can attack him head-on and he won't spot you. Sun blots out a larger portion of the sky for them.
However the sun is not a 100% blind zone and there is a chance even the dumbest idiot will see you coming out of the sun, chances increasing the closer you are to his 12 o'clock high.

In the end, since you're rarely aware of your opponent's skill level, this results in a very realistic picture. You're never sure whether he breaks and turns into you from 3 miles away, or if you can keep sneaking up on him for a no-deflection shot at 50 yards. Very frustrating when you end up holding your fire just a second too long, and he spots you and breaks away after sitting dead square in your sights.

No, it's much more advanced. We have different customization options for different axes. For example you can not only adjust the curves but also set your idle, 100% and WEP positions for the throttle axis. I'm pretty sure this could be seen in some Igromir videos.

and there's more

Originally Posted by luthier

Yes. Moreover, it reacts to damage and especially losses to other planes, and may decide to run for home even if his plane is intact. Whole formations of newbies may scatter and run if you shoot down their leader etc.

Not staying to fight till death was one of the most important requirements for me for the AI. They do use real-world tactics more than in Il-2. You'll see them working in group a lot more for instance.

AI engine model is greatly simplified compared to that of the player plane, but we do try to make sure it doesn't give them an advantage.
You can study this in detail when flying the real sim. Autopilot is very verbose, you can see exactly what levers they move etc.

Well they try to extend away and take it from there, but generally even most humans would be doomed if caught in a situation like that.

We did a huge technical interview for a print magazine, where our FM programmer wrote like two pages of stuff on it. I'll see if we can publish it here, because that would be a much, much better answer than anything I can type up.

Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.

Originally Posted by luthier

The systems we do model are crucial however. Watching the gauges and controlling mixture, prop pitch and radiator is essential. Our office is obviously filled with Il-2 online veterans, and for a while we could only play online with Complex Engine Management disabled completely. We could barely fly the Spitfire, and the 109 not at all. We fly with CEM on now, but we still to this day fly with Overheating disabled because damn it is hard!

That's just awesome features right there, now that's what i'm talking about!
I can't wait to see all this in action, it will force us all to fly and fight in a much more similar way to how it really happened. (Plus, we 190 drivers will have a better chance at high altitude fights in future add-ons...we'll have our kommandogerat and the radiator while they'll have 4-6 different engine controls )

Sure, i like looking at all the pretty airplanes but most of all i'm interested in actually flying them and this avalanche of information answers most of my questions about it that i've had all these years.

[NSU]

hello luthier
you say it does not give dynamic weather in the release version
you make 1/12 to 12/12 clouds like in IL2 Sturmovik 1946 as Placeholder?