Can there be a Hi-Def version of WZ2100?

[JDW]

Hi all,

I came across MetalWarrior95's comment on another thread which intrigued me,

Warzone 2100 needs redesing...
WZ2100 was supposed to be realistic but because of limitations the models couldt look realistic and please make better textures for the repair turret, because the 3.0 version should have "HD" textures if someone wants "HD"...

So i propose that there is two version.
Normal one and the "HD". HD version should only have better textures,effects and models with more polygons/tris...

I think he was talking about hardware limitations at the time when the game was first released around ten years ago, like the power of the CPU, graphics cards, RAM, etc.

So now I am curious to know whether a separate pimped-out version, with higher limitations to polygons/triangles, is possible? Is the current development focused on achieving compatibility with legacy (old) hardware? Or is there really much more to it which we gamers don't get?

[KukY]

That would be trunk version.

[BlueMaxima]

Not exactly Kuky, (correct me if I'm wrong on this devs) only the terrain was given an uphaul in trunk - the models and/or poly/tri counts haven't been improved or increased.

I would like to see them improved myself.

[Wolftrak]

I would like to see them improved myself.

I totally agree.Anyway on a sidenote,i was looking through documentation for a joint project for a game called Infinity:the quest for Earth. It was surprisingly organized. These guys had really layed out requirements for every model ingame (polygons,triangles) based on a category (ships,stace stations) in a document which serves as a basic guidelines for modelling.http://www.fl-tw.com/Infinity/Docs/SDK/ ... rtwork.pdf
Also the style guide was something to look at.http://3d-output.com/spAce/files/direct ... _sheet.jpg
Maybe we can do something similar to this document for our project and include higher requirements for a HQ version of WZ.
HQ version of WZ could be implemented as the movies are right now (as download-on-install option).

[Zarel]

So now I am curious to know whether a separate pimped-out version, with higher limitations to polygons/triangles, is possible? Is the current development focused on achieving compatibility with legacy (old) hardware? Or is there really much more to it which we gamers don't get?

The reason we don't do that is because we don't have the development resources to maintain two versions.

The reason our graphics aren't upgraded is because no one has upgraded our graphics.

[JDW]

The reason our graphics aren't upgraded is because no one has upgraded our graphics.

Fair enough

That means supporting older hardware never was a priority. That's good to know.

P.S. I think the trunk version is looking great.

[Zarel]

Fair enough

That means supporting older hardware never was a priority. That's good to know.

P.S. I think the trunk version is looking great.

Actually, supporting older hardware is a fairly important priority.

It's just that our model/texture detail hasn't been a performance concern in a long time. Especially texture detail, since it's ridiculously easy to downsample.

[JDW]

The reason we don't do that is because we don't have the development resources to maintain two versions.

Are two versions actually required? Does that mean that it's not practically possible to have both,

• a) compatibility with older hardware and
  b) exploitation of the full power of today's hardware

in the same code base?

Just curious.

[Zarel]

Are two versions actually required? Does that mean that it's not practically possible to have both,

• a) compatibility with older hardware and
  b) exploitation of the full power of today's hardware

in the same code base?

Just curious.

It depends on how old. You want compatibility with old enough hardware, you'll need two rendering paths, at the very least. And with the rendering engine so tightly integrated into Warzone, drop-in replacements aren't really an option.

[JDW]

Interesting. Do you see WZ2100 code evolving drastically over the next 5-10 years, that it may end up leaving old hardware (of 1999) behind?

[Zarel]

Interesting. Do you see WZ2100 code evolving drastically over the next 5-10 years, that it may end up leaving old hardware (of 1999) behind?

We left behind 1999 hardware a long time ago, with the switch to OpenGL. Current arguments are more about ~2005 hardware, afaik.

[JDW]

Good to know, thanks again Zarel.

[Safety0ff]

To me (fairly new to opengl,) it looks like there are many things that can be done to improve the rendering performance of warzone's engine regardless of the graphics card used (though potential gains increase as the supported opengl versions increase).

That being said, untill someone improves the performance, the limits are probably best left where they are.

As for supporting old hardware, current trunk features have increased the opengl requirements:
Terrain (VBO's)
TCMask (Texture Crossbar Environment Mode or Shaders)

Which means that your card will need to support opengl 1.5 or have the appropriate extensions.

As Zarel stated, there has been discussion about what the new opengl requirements should be ( whether to go opengl 2+).
That being said, I am not aware of any implemented features that make opengl 2+ a mandatory requirement (though I'm sure there are plenty of ideas for features).

[coolkid]

To me supporting ridiculously old hardware inst worth is if comes to sacrificing engine preference and graphical capabilities. I know one thing that kinda bothers me is that the people here who are trying to update the game by the means of more polygons and higher res textures along with other graphical features such as bumpmapping etc. are extremely limited by the supposed engine limits.

There is a few things that I would like to share....
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ this is a great way to see what many current gamers use in there systems, and to be on the safe side even going along the lowered of the spectrum should allow far a lot of flexibility in warzone engine development.

also 2 major updates to the gl render is out with 3.3 being a back port supporting many new features while supporting current and previous generation hardware. while 4.0 despite the fact that incredibly having achieved parity with directx for the first time in like a decade supports only very new hardware and wouldn't be a good ideal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL#OpenGL_3.3
http://www.opengl.org/

[Zarel]

To me supporting ridiculously old hardware inst worth is if comes to sacrificing engine preference and graphical capabilities. I know one thing that kinda bothers me is that the people here who are trying to update the game by the means of more polygons and higher res textures along with other graphical features such as bumpmapping etc. are extremely limited by the supposed engine limits.

They're more limited by the fact that none of them can provide textures.

Seriously, we'd love to add them, but the ones we like generally suffer from the flaw of not being finished.

(Colditz, Jorzi, I'm looking at you...)

also 2 major updates to the gl render is out with 3.3 being a back port supporting many new features while supporting current and previous generation hardware. while 4.0 despite the fact that incredibly having achieved parity with directx for the first time in like a decade supports only very new hardware and wouldn't be a good ideal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL#OpenGL_3.3
http://www.opengl.org/

Yeah, well, if we want to support any reasonable percentage of computers out there, we're going to have to support OpenGL 1.4.