Tharka Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 This isn't meant as a 'OMG BW!! OMPTEEMIZE NAO!!!' or a demanding post attacking the dev's. I am just simply curious. I have searched for the answer on the internet but I cannot find anything concrete. I have been wondering if BW do have plans to update or optimize the engine in future updates and has there ever been a response on the forums indicating yes or no? The reason I ask is that I have been reading a lot of posts, all across different websites, about the limitations of the engine and the effect it has had on open world PVP as it cannot handle a lot of people in one area. Of course I do remember the lag-tastic days of the first ilum pvp matches, I was fortunate enough that my machine handled those matches fairly well, but other people were reduced to a slide show. Loading times are of course still an issue and my machine still takes over 2 min to load Makeb, others is my guild have loading times of 5 min plus for Makeb and the Black Hole areas. During my search I have been reading that the Hero Engine has since received major updates improving it's quality etc but I have also read that these changes are not applicable to SW:TOR due to the modifications made during development. With that being said other MMO's have updated and improved their engine as time went along, Blizzard have updated WOW's with almost every major expansion not only to improve looks but to add new features and of course CCP did the complete overhaul on EVE Online years ago which was extremely impressive. Is this something the Development team are considering for the future of SW:TOR or is it still to early in the games life to consider this? What about bypassing the performance issues faced in open world pvp or large player numbers in areas? Is this something the Dev's are working towards? Might we see large (but instanced) objective based PVP again soon? I realise a BW response is slim, you can't answer everyone but at the same time if you don't ask, you will never know! Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swalsugmass Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 An answer would be great, Bump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedimasterjac Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 The issue is how long that would take. Plus the hundreds of bugs that would arise just in the difference of codes the engines use. By the time they used a new engine, they would have to spend twice as log ironing out bugs they had solved on the previous version. Though I can assure you, if this game lasts 4 years, well see amazing things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tman_ac Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Some patches ago they improved the performance already. They fixed that massive memory usage of the game. However, with 2.1 the performance decreased again. Terminals at the fleet are loading forever. Dunno what the patch broke again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TieJu Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Won't happen, optimizing and/or rewriting the engine wont generate revenue, so its against the ea cash grab doctrine... On release of SWTOR a Dx11 version was 'considered' (proof here http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,767634/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Bioware-considering-Direct-X-11-in-the-future/News/ some stuff in that interview is also not true, like multicore stuff and support for a broad space of hw configs), but after the massive fail, not a single word about it ... (btw a dx11 version would not help with the poor performance, the root of problem is a poor core design). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ansalem Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 I should go hunt down those old posts and comments on other sites of interviews. Pretty sure BW admitted to using a 5 yr old beta version of hero engine that once purchased they never bothered to call to ask for tips on anything...ever. So they are using an oudated incomplete engine that will never be truly optimized and will puke anytime more than 10 people decide to fight in open world. I fully expect to have to deal with this clunky combat with its delays and psuedo GCDs for the remainder of the time I play this game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcgregorya Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) The issue is how long that would take. Plus the hundreds of bugs that would arise just in the difference of codes the engines use. By the time they used a new engine, they would have to spend twice as log ironing out bugs they had solved on the previous version. Though I can assure you, if this game lasts 4 years, well see amazing things. Not really. Optimizations tend to be 'pure wins' unless you're cutting corners. I guess it depends on what you consider a really long time - personally I'd imagine I could get it done in 3-6 months with 2-3 programmers to get a 20-30% improvement at least. I say this not completely talking out of my rear but based on what I know of the game engine - namely: 1) The client does not scale well. If it did, when it was stressed, the machine would be struggling. It's not. This tells me there's some easy wins either client side or server side right off the bat because there's contention issues that are not resource bound. 2) The fact that they instance everything off tells me that the approach they take to load is purely infrastructural. They throw hardware at every problem. Which doesn't make sense when you consider #1 - we're not stressed, client side at all, so why is the game not performing faster? This means that in addition to the easy wins on optimizing here, there's a significant cost advantage to spending some time refactoring the code. The fact that this isn't happening on its own, in spite of #2, tells me that whoever is in control of the tech side of the server architecture is not a very reasonable, experienced or open-minded person. Don't mean to sound messed up or insult people - but that's pretty often the case when you're talking about people who just want to throw more servers and hardware at a problem that doesn't appear to be resource dependent. Either that or they have no access to the underlying source code - which sounds crazy to me - because that's a massive business risk. Edited May 21, 2013 by dcgregorya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ansalem Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) http://www.heroengine.com/2011/11/heroengine-meets-starwars/ “I need this,” said Gordon. “I am about to start a special project and these tools will let us build and prototype fast and get something running in a hurry.” Gordon is not an excitable guy by nature but this had his adrenaline flowing. “This is just what I need! I want to license your engine.” We had thought about offering our engine and tools to developers but we had expected that we would have to actually ship a game first, like Epic did with Unreal Tournament before they licensed the original Unreal Engine. “It’s not productized yet,” we told Gordon. “There are whole sections of code that is only roughed in and not optimized for performance or security. And there are very few comments and very little documentation.” He didn’t care. “We are going to have tons of engineers. We can finish it ourselves. We’re going to want to modify your source code for our special project anyway.” Edited May 21, 2013 by Ansalem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tharka Posted May 21, 2013 Author Share Posted May 21, 2013 Won't happen, optimizing and/or rewriting the engine wont generate revenue, so its against the ea cash grab doctrine... On release of SWTOR a Dx11 version was 'considered' (proof here http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,767634/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Bioware-considering-Direct-X-11-in-the-future/News/ some stuff in that interview is also not true, like multicore stuff and support for a broad space of hw configs), but after the massive fail, not a single word about it ... (btw a dx11 version would not help with the poor performance, the root of problem is a poor core design). No offence but I think thats a pretty limited view. An engine improvement would certainly generate more income as it would attract more players and improve playing quality. As I mentioned other games have done it but they didn't just roll out a massive update. I think Blizz started with a new shader model, then added better water effects and optimisation with large expansions over the course of years. It would be nice to get a yellow BW post on this, even if was just a "Yes, this is something that is still being considered" It would certainly make me more confident in investing my time into playing this game because I really do like it. There are so few good Sci-Fi MMO's and this one is Star Wars too! It fixes all my geek tendancies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedidreamer Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Not gonna lie, the graphics engine isn't the best and it could definately use some tweaking but for me, it works and in some areas of the game, is just beautiful. Of course I have all my settings on "very high." My friend helped me build a new gaming rig over the summer and so I have a Intel i7 3770 3.5ghz quad core processor, 16gb of ram, two evga GTX 680s in SLI and I run the game off an SSD drive so I can't complain. Of course recently what was odd was the game was running very sluggish and I figured out it was because of the nVidia SLI profile that nVidia has for the game so once I changed it to the Alternative frame rendering option 2, it ran beautiful again....But yeah overall, yes it could use an upgrade but even without one, I still think the game is pretty beautiful and on my system, runs good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tharka Posted May 21, 2013 Author Share Posted May 21, 2013 Not gonna lie, the graphics engine isn't the best and it could definately use some tweaking but for me, it works and in some areas of the game, is just beautiful. Of course I have all my settings on "very high." My friend helped me build a new gaming rig over the summer and so I have a Intel i7 3770 3.5ghz quad core processor, 16gb of ram, two evga GTX 680s in SLI and I run the game off an SSD drive so I can't complain. Of course recently what was odd was the game was running very sluggish and I figured out it was because of the nVidia SLI profile that nVidia has for the game so once I changed it to the Alternative frame rendering option 2, it ran beautiful again....But yeah overall, yes it could use an upgrade but even without one, I still think the game is pretty beautiful and on my system, runs good. Agree. I think the graphics are fine in the basic sense, any MMO which has ultra realistic graphics ages very badly. The graphics in SW:TOR are just right to avoid that. WoW is the same, it has aged pretty well. I still love running around on Tatooine, awesome scenery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nkitch Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) /bump I would like an official word from BW on this too Edited May 21, 2013 by nkitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TieJu Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 No offence but I think thats a pretty limited view. An engine improvement would certainly generate more income as it would attract more players and improve playing quality. As I mentioned other games have done it but they didn't just roll out a massive update. I think Blizz started with a new shader model, then added better water effects and optimisation with large expansions over the course of years. It would be nice to get a yellow BW post on this, even if was just a "Yes, this is something that is still being considered" It would certainly make me more confident in investing my time into playing this game because I really do like it. There are so few good Sci-Fi MMO's and this one is Star Wars too! It fixes all my geek tendancies Don't be naive, cartel market generates revenue, rewriting stuff 'that works' does not. And with the current trend of the released content, revenue is more important than a good product and happy costumers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedFox Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 it would be nice if they could redo the lighting engine and add a day/night cycle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tharka Posted May 21, 2013 Author Share Posted May 21, 2013 Don't be naive, Likewise, and I don't think I am. You shouldn't be so dismissive, EVE Online never generated a lot of revenue and the developers overhauled it's engine. Anyway I don't mean for it to be overhauled in the way CCP did. I would expect the changes to come slowly with content patches, making small changes to avoid bugs and develop them over time. Also slight improvements to the engine also provide an opportunity for better items and features in the Cartel Market. Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stncold Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) Their heavily modified version of the Hero Engine is a complete mess and the guys who knew anything about it were probably fired well over a year ago, which is why some parts of Makeb have absolutely terrible performance, and performance as a whole just seems to be getting worse. So no, I wouldn't expect any updates to the engine, even though an engine update/overhaul would be more beneficial to the game overall than any amount of content. Edited May 21, 2013 by Stncold Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toweleeeie Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Would like a dev response to this question please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuuuuucky Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Well if they ever consider to bring back Open PvP they have to work on the engine. I think it this is a typical example for overestimation on Biowares side if you read Ansalem's post. http://www.heroengine.com/2011/11/heroengine-meets-starwars/ “I need this,” said Gordon. “I am about to start a special project and these tools will let us build and prototype fast and get something running in a hurry.” Gordon is not an excitable guy by nature but this had his adrenaline flowing. “This is just what I need! I want to license your engine.” We had thought about offering our engine and tools to developers but we had expected that we would have to actually ship a game first, like Epic did with Unreal Tournament before they licensed the original Unreal Engine. “It’s not productized yet,” we told Gordon. “There are whole sections of code that is only roughed in and not optimized for performance or security. And there are very few comments and very little documentation.” He didn’t care. “We are going to have tons of engineers. We can finish it ourselves. We’re going to want to modify your source code for our special project anyway.” Sad that it works out that way. The performance is ok for what the game provides now in most cases. Makeb is one of the planets which bring my PC to the limit while other planets run smothly with max. settings. Loading times have gone up crazy since a few weeks especially on the planets with longer loading times like corellia, hoth or belsavis. Also what already mentioned, terminals on the fleet are often invisible for 5 to 10 seconds before you can see them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radzkie Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) I don't even remember seeing a post from a dev admitting that the engine could be improved upon. Edited May 21, 2013 by Radzkie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenzali Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) I'm optimistic that it will very slowly improve. But it's got a really long way to go. - The engine can't handle chat bubbles, which was why they still haven't been added. - Whenever you mount or dismount, or summon/unsummon a companion the game stutters for 1 or 2 seconds. - Any activity (such as open world PvP) involving more than around 12 characters becomes a slideshow even on the best computers - Extremely low frame rates on Makeb and Voss-ka if there are lots of people around Edited May 21, 2013 by Jenzali Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordArtemis Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) I'm not sure a complete overhaul can be done. I would say, however, the game could use more refinement. A few folks on the forum (much smarter than I am with respect to coding) have pointed out the memory management is not optimized in this engine. Edited May 21, 2013 by LordArtemis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
space_mechanic Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Would like to see developer's post here and here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TieJu Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 ... - The engine can't handle chat bubbles, which was why they still haven't been added. ... Chat bubbles can be done by extending the unit nameplates ... but even such simple things like unit nameplates are for some people a major performance problem... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuuuuucky Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 Not only for some. You can increase performance significantly when you disable nameplates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TieJu Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 (edited) Not only for some. You can increase performance significantly when you disable nameplates. And this is just sad, that such simple things are obviously done wrong. Edited May 21, 2013 by TieJu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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