Hero Engine: why?

[JScranton]

Actually, have more than two cores can help, in some cases significantly. Running TOR is never the only thing your computer's doing, and having extra cores beyond the two TOR needs allows the system to offload those processes to cores the game isn't using.

 

Okay, indirectly, yes, you're correct, having multiple cores will improve that and lighten the load for the game. But, the game itself, sadly, directly will not benefit from a quad core, 6 core, or 8 core processor, as it only runs 2 instances of the program, simulating multi-core support, when in reality, it does not.

[Mallorik]

Did they rebuild the hero engine for swtor?

 

And god knows im no bioware fanboy but im rpetty happy with their first pass at fixing the ability delay thing, mine is almost all gone it happens very rarely now.

[Sai-to]

People who don't know how engines work shouldn't post about them... and especially shouldn't make ill-gotten conclusions from their misinformation.

 

An engine is just a collection of coding tools. Unreal, Hero, Cry engine... they're all just names attached to a basic collection of coding tools.

 

When a company decides to use an engine, they almost never go with basic engine. The only notable exceptions are the companies that created the engines. Companies will add tools and customize it.

 

The engine that TOR uses might have began as the Hero engine, but the current set of coding tools they're using now can't rightly be called the Hero engine anymore.

[VoXPCS]

People who don't know how engines work shouldn't post about them... and especially shouldn't make ill-gotten conclusions from their misinformation.

 

An engine is just a collection of coding tools. Unreal, Hero, Cry engine... they're all just names attached to a basic collection of coding tools.

 

When a company decides to use an engine, they almost never go with basic engine. The only notable exceptions are the companies that created the engines. Companies will add tools and customize it.

 

The engine that TOR uses might have began as the Hero engine, but the current set of coding tools they're using now can't rightly be called the Hero engine anymore.

 

so then let me ask you this:

 

Can the "used to be Hero Engine" that SWTOR is running be upgrade in it's current form to take advantage of DirectX 11 and Multithreading to produce a game that is worthy of 2012?

[Taurusaud]

So this is why the game is such an epic fail...

[Holocroncrystal]

Ok let me get this straight the two cores the game does use isn't considerd multi-threading, because actually the game is only useing one core? Data from the game only passes through one core the other core handles the OS which is multi tasking, but as far as the game goes, it isn't multi tasking because the hero engine only use on core, nothning more.

[VoXPCS]

Ok let me get this straight the two cores the game does use isn't considerd multi-threading, because actually the game is only useing one core? Data from the game only passes through one core the other core handles the OS which is multi tasking, but as far as the game goes, it isn't multi tasking because the hero engine only use on core, nothning more.

 

Yes.

 

Also, the floors are shiny in the Imperial Fleet. That should be enough.

[Taurusaud]

SWToR is what happens when you outsource your development team to India where they don't even know what Star Wars is.

[Sai-to]

so then let me ask you this:

 

Can the "used to be Hero Engine" that SWTOR is running be upgrade in it's current form to take advantage of DirectX 11 and Multithreading to produce a game that is worthy of 2012?

 

 

Yup, if they choose it to be.

 

They had High-res textures for all models in Beta, but when they began stress testing, they found that there were processing problems when large amounts of models were in small areas (i.e. the Fleets).

 

 

Now, I don't necessarily agree with their decision, but they decided to remove them temporarily while they try to fix the issue, rather than have people crashing.

 

The engine already makes use of all cores, so there is no issue with that... as for DirectX 11, I think that was a design choice. They went with a stylized look to avoid high-end photorealistic graphics. MMOs aren't like FPSs and SP games. FFXIV went with high-end graphics, and the rest of the game suffered because of it.

 

 

But regardless... High res textures will be re-implemented. They'll be starting in patch 1.2.

[Taurusaud]

The question is:

 

Why didn't they take full advantage of the Hero engine? It's actually a very advanced and powerful engine. Yet TOR doesn't utilize any of its advanced features. It's so...vanilla.

 

Reading the documentation takes too much time! Better just stick with the basic features...

Edited January 27, 2012 by Taurusaud

[Vicen]

Why did you choose an Engine that wasn't developed to your exact specifications? I mean, EA and BW make enough, you could have outsourced your Engine development and made the engine fit your game.

 

Instead, you chose the lazy way and are trying to make a game fit an engine. Not only that, you picked a terrible single-threaded engine that can't even process commands before animations finish, hence all of the ability delay rage you're seeing.

 

 

Seriously. Blizzard built an engine to fit their game, they're billions (trillions yet?) richer. You didn't, and you're missing out on Billions in part due to this decision.

Why?

 

Not a big fan of this engine either...When you can run every game on the market at High settings or above and yet this games forces me to put half of them on low...its not cool! Also the ability delay is hella annoying!

Edited January 27, 2012 by Vicen

[VoXPCS]

Reading the documentation takes too much time! Better just stick with the basic features...

 

Ok so the Hero Engine did come with a "ReadMe" file, it's just no one at Bioware has read it yet. Got it.

[Evironrage]

It is interesting to me, because I know nothing of programming or what makes a good engine or not, but what I do know is I did test a post here stating that there is a serious memory leak in the hero engine. I opened my task manager and every hour, on the hour, I checked to see how much memory this game was using.

I was astounded to find that in a period of 3hrs time I went from using 1.1g to 2.3g. Is there any other way to combat this issue barring a game restart? I have been doing that since that is what one of these posters suggested. Is there anyway for BW to "plug" the leak or am I resigned to knowing that will be a constant?

Great thread btw, very informative and frankly quite eye opening.

[Jswizzle]

It is interesting to me, because I know nothing of programming or what makes a good engine or not, but what I do know is I did test a post here stating that there is a serious memory leak in the hero engine. I opened my task manager and every hour, on the hour, I checked to see how much memory this game was using.

I was astounded to find that in a period of 3hrs time I went from using 1.1g to 2.3g. Is there any other way to combat this issue barring a game restart? I have been doing that since that is what one of these posters suggested. Is there anyway for BW to "plug" the leak or am I resigned to knowing that will be a constant?

Great thread btw, very informative and frankly quite eye opening.

 

That doesn't mean it's a memory leak. It could be a number of things causing that issue. Memory leaks are incredibly hard to spot without using developer debugging tools. If there is one they will get to it and fix it.

[Frostvein]

It is interesting to me, because I know nothing of programming or what makes a good engine or not, but what I do know is I did test a post here stating that there is a serious memory leak in the hero engine. I opened my task manager and every hour, on the hour, I checked to see how much memory this game was using.

I was astounded to find that in a period of 3hrs time I went from using 1.1g to 2.3g. Is there any other way to combat this issue barring a game restart? I have been doing that since that is what one of these posters suggested. Is there anyway for BW to "plug" the leak or am I resigned to knowing that will be a constant?

Great thread btw, very informative and frankly quite eye opening.

 

Someone said that there was a third party program that checks memory leaks and contains them somehow...i think turbo-memory was the name, or something similar.

[TheHeadCapper]

Did they rebuild the hero engine for swtor?

 

And god knows im no bioware fanboy but im rpetty happy with their first pass at fixing the ability delay thing, mine is almost all gone it happens very rarely now.

 

Companies make a ton of changes typcially after buying an engine. people saying you can't fix x and X really have no concept of coding. You can fix anything by rewriting parts of the engine.

[PinkSugar]

Very interesting post! this explains a lot! Thank you OP! Thank you!

[Tekniko]

Why did you choose an Engine that wasn't developed to your exact specifications? I mean, EA and BW make enough, you could have outsourced your Engine development and made the engine fit your game.

 

Instead, you chose the lazy way and are trying to make a game fit an engine. Not only that, you picked a terrible single-threaded engine that can't even process commands before animations finish, hence all of the ability delay rage you're seeing.

 

 

Seriously. Blizzard built an engine to fit their game, they're billions (trillions yet?) richer. You didn't, and you're missing out on Billions in part due to this decision.

Why?

 

I have personally used the Hero Engine for my MMO and I think BioWare made an excellent choice. Idea Fabrik keeps the HE up to date and includes a huge amount of support resources. HE is constantly evolving and without limitation. So, please, think (or research) before you speak.

[PinkSugar]

I have personally used the Hero Engine for my MMO and I think BioWare made an excellent choice. Idea Fabrik keeps the HE up to date and includes a huge amount of support resources. HE is constantly evolving and without limitation. So, please, think (or research) before you speak.

 

Can you please provide us with sources to back up what you are saying? You should cite after you speak! It would make your claim more believable.

[Mandrax]

Warhammer did the same thing. If I could kick the guy in the nads who chose Warhammer's engine I would do so gladly.

 

The hero engine is bad. Champions has the same ability lag this game suffers from.

 

Actually Warhammer used a modified version of the DAoC engine.

[djsmileey]

I love that there is a huge discussion about the Hero Engine, when 99.9% of people have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what the engine even does.

 

Perpetual Ignorance is hilarious.

[Jagerinho]

I love that there is a huge discussion about the Hero Engine, when 99.9% of people have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what the engine even does.

 

Perpetual Ignorance is hilarious.

 

Quoting for truth

[Dantragk]

I love that there is a huge discussion about the Hero Engine, when 99.9% of people have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what the engine even does.

 

Perpetual Ignorance is hilarious.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine

 

Not hard to figure out.

[truedark]

Why did you choose an Engine that wasn't developed to your exact specifications? I mean, EA and BW make enough, you could have outsourced your Engine development and made the engine fit your game.

 

Instead, you chose the lazy way and are trying to make a game fit an engine. Not only that, you picked a terrible single-threaded engine that can't even process commands before animations finish, hence all of the ability delay rage you're seeing.

 

 

Seriously. Blizzard built an engine to fit their game, they're billions (trillions yet?) richer. You didn't, and you're missing out on Billions in part due to this decision.

Why?

 

Blizz didn't build the engine for WoW. They built the engine for WC3 then modified it for WoW.

[Dantragk]

Blizz didn't build the engine for WoW. They built the engine for WC3 then modified it for WoW.

 

Who built the WC3 engine?