If CoD doesn't use the full potential of today's hardware..
 

Does that mean it was developed on (out)dated hardware and why doesn't it run on that hardware then?

It's simply that the sim is not optimized. No matter how fast the graphics cars and CPU's are, if you have bottlenecks in your code it will slow everything down. However, once the bottlenecks are cleared it's only then that we'll see if the sim can make full use of the hardware. We don't know that right now.

It's not working properly on all hardware because it has lots of bugs. That seems pretty obvious.

Which wasn't obvious to the dev's???
Did they not test it on multiple hardware config's?
On what hardware systems was it developed?
Did they not notice the bugs on their systems?



All water under the bridge,i know,just hoping they get it right!

I have no idea why they didn't test every configuration possible. Wait, yes I do. It isn't possible.

They also got hit with the epilepsy issue late in the process. I think they broke a bunch of things trying to get the game to pass the epilepsy test.

It's always very hard to test a program on multiple hardware config (and mutch more when it's developed by a small team), almost everytimes a new game with a new engine comes out it run poorly on any config. Let some time to the dev to optimize the game. I can see this kind of threads for almost any new simulation, just wait and see.

It is more easy than that. Publisher ( Ubi or 1C, I don´t know ) force a release date, so the game is not well finished yet. There are so many unfinished or hurry finished things and lack of optimization... of course beta testing has been minimun or nothing at all. All this can be seen in the whole game. But is only a matther of time that all this become optimiced and polished. They are working really hard now that the game is out. Be patient, this sim is going to be the new landmark in fligh sims as original IL2 was. All the potential is there. For now you need to know that you are a betatester, and I´m fine with that.

Yeah, I bet Michelangelo carved out a piece of stone that resembeled the basic proportions of a man before he turned it into David :)

The funny thing is, there are games that are developed for a console that contain many, many bugs, sometimes game breaking bugs.

Anyone play Test Drive Unlimited 2 on the Xbox 360? That game was broken beyind belief, yet it was still released...and this on a system where the hardware has been static for nearly 6 years.

What was Polyphony Digital doing with Gran Turismo 5 for what was it? Five years?
The game has non-existent AI and on many fronts the game was a big, big letdown. This with Sony's money funding the project...also on a system where the hardware had remained static for years and years.

Devs don't have it easy, especially PC devs devloping a complex game like this on a system with about 100,000 possible configurations. I don't envy them their job. (Although I'd love it, if you know what I mean.)

Well its possible now, since they sold us the game...;)

Salute !

The devs got hit with the epilepsy issue because the development was mismanaged. The team simply didn't have time to sort out everything that's been on Ubisoft's QA list when the chopping time came.

I don't mean that there are no talents in the team, but from a management point of view - they didn't make good decisions as to which features to pursue/refine in a given amount of time and funds.

They've bitten more than they can manage - time and money ran out. The blame lies, unfortunately, on Oleg and Luthier. They were the ultimate decision makers. I just hope that the team has enough cash flow from loyal fans to follow through.

In this case, my opinion is that it is pretty clear that this game has been a forced release (no matter whether was finished or not). For today, game market stablish two or three profitable release dates over the year. The best date is in christmas, the second early october, and the third is mid-late march.

So, Ubi wanted this game released in the first quarter of fiscal year, on the basis that the main core of the game was done.

Have you got access to internal discussions? If not then you are just guessing, just like everyone else.

The sim was released atleast a year too early. The epilepsy filter also probably set them back another few months. They are apparently releasing a patch in a few weeks that spreads the workload somewhat more in multiple cores. They are also working on SLI/CF support.

Hopefully while people are working on the optimizations they have others working on the huge amount of bugs, and writing tutorials on engine management, etc.

The early release is a huge publicity debacle, but it was probably the only way to keep Maddox games from folding altogether. Now atleast they have funds to continue development, and with a little patience, the community will have a very substantial sim in time. I've already had at least 30 hours of entertainment, some of it frustrating, but the good hours were alot cheaper than any of my other forms of entertainment. :)

I think you have it close but a little skewed. I think the game was pretty close to ready, in fact real close to where Oleg and crew wanted it to be for release, then Ubi sprang this epilepsy requirement on them and in any code this complex you're likely to break a whole bunch of stuff if you have to hack a feature in at the last minute. I think they were 100% forced to add this filter/make significant engine changes to meet the epilepsy requirement at the 11th hour and were given zero extra time to make it work. That would certainly explain Olegs youtube remarks about leaving game development, how frustrated would you be if you were nearing the release of all your labors and the result looked pretty damn good, then your contractual partner forced game breaking changes on you with no time to do it right or even make it work before release?


Yep, that's why Ubi forced Olegs hand regardless of the state of the product after the last minute epilepsy surprise.

IF true, that is sad news indeed. That still doesn't explain the lack of multi core or multi card rendering support by a piece of modern software that was engineered from the ground up to utilize modern computers for the purpose of BoB era flight simulation (otherwise why not just release another add on for IL2?).

It wasn't ready for release two weeks ago. It isn't now. I can see where it's going to be an absolutely glorious piece of work when it's finished. I don't even mind paying for the privalege of "beta testing" this monumental piece of work - but I do understand the frustrations of the developer, the customers and even the publisher - who has at some point to say just release it already.

This release has been something of a perfect storm for all involved. Which is a shame - because in the end I think we are going to get something I think we will all really be able to enjoy. S!

Of course we are guessing because we don't have the official story from Maddox. We can only gather conclusions from whatever Oleg and Luthier had said.

Team Maddox is small - that's a fact.

Luthier had invoked him feeling overwhelmed in this interview.

So yes, the team bit more than they could manage, given the sorry state of the release.

I can't find the exact quotes from Oleg or Luthier regarding the money situation. But consider this, given the length of the development (5+ years), any publisher would have to somehow recoup their investments. Do we really have to blame Ubisoft for this?

I don't see any reason to blame anyone.

I don't think Ubisoft is to blame for the Epilepsy issue. This has been a practice with Ubisoft for several years.

If Oleg signed on with a publisher, then it would be the Oleg's fault for not reading these requirements, and subsequently setting the wrong release date - again, a management mistake.

Luthier also had officially said that Ubisoft wasn't at fault.

You may not see any reason to blame some one, but I believe many customers who thought that they paid for a playable game are pretty miffed.

to some degree I think everyone is 'miffed' but some get irrational, like their world has ended because of it.

Is blaming someone going to make them feel better?

No, but we can't civilly discuss the short comings because we might make devs cry? They are grown adults.

I'm buying CloD day 1 to support the devs, I assume you would to. That's the best way to make them feel better after all.

I don't see the point. Everyone knows there are problems. Discussing who you think is responsible whatever problems serves no useful purpose.

It's as much point as you and I constantly checking and replying to this thread. It's a forum, people talk.

We are derailing from the thread, I will stop for now. Hope to meet you in CloD's skies soon.

The only point I'm trying to make is that people should stop beating that poor dead horse. But since they continue to beat that poor dead horse, I am probably wasting my time.

I bought it a few weeks ago. Thanks to everyone for doing the BETA testing. Your on a deadline, April 26. Quit your bitching and get to testing.

Mud

Rushed out the door or not , they had years. Surely they would see that it runs like balls in this scenario and try to fix it. Nobodys system could really run it until last week with the NOSSA tweat . Now most people get great fps. A week after release and a customer found a fix.

I would like to note there is a few problems here:
1. Optimization, the current engine is currently rediculously inneficient not only in what it processes, but the fact that it is badly bottlenecked on even last gen hardware. So efficient use of more than one thread, SLI and Crossfire support etc. Anti-aliasing needs immediate loving too.
2. Once the above issues are addressed, they can start looking at how it will use the current gen high end hardware and software (that means 4 core CPUs efficiently and possibly 8 threads (althought the top end is 6 cores) and DX11-tesselation, direct compute etc) Also efficient use of 64bit.exe with memory over 4gb. Also needed is support for 3 way SLI and crossfire which is becoming very common (for example 3 460s).
3. Once the above is done they can start working on next gen hardware that will be released mid way-end to the end of this year, so by the time they get to it will probably be high end current gen (aka point 2) which is 8 core cpus, with 16 threads (AMD Bulldozer) and a possible 32nm 8 core and 16 thread intel cpu for 1366 socket. At the end of 2011 Nvidia is coming out with their brand new 28nm (current is 40nm I believe) GPUs, AMD is likely to do the same (AMD since ATI was bought out and they are phasing out the use of ATI brand name).
4. By this time then they can start looking at what is coming in the future :rolleyes:

Pfiooooouuuw ! That means at least 400 gallons of Vodka ....:rolleyes:

Salute !

He he, there is also something called "gold plating" regarding software development... That is when a developer puts down way to much time on some insignificant thing and makes it perfect beyond the demands of the customer while they miss doing a lot of other rather easy stuff that are important for the customer...

We have cockpits that are clickable which only a few percent of the users will use more than a few times (Olegs own words) - while we don't have force feedback which is a major issue for a good percentage of the core users, horrible input mappings etc... It sure will be fixed but it hurts seeing the control settings pages for a game of this calibre.

Still - as a software developer myself I can imagine the horror of tracking down bugs in a piece of software this complex where you don't know the hardware it will run on, or driver versions etc... As it is now it really is getting really enjoyable even on old mid range computers like mine (new one will be ordered when a bonus lands in two weeks).

Regarding bugs and bad performance... Just look at this video I did last night on my 4 year old computer (Core 2 Duo E8400@3.3 - GTX275 - 6GB memory and W7x64):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVw0pPopaQQ

That is with the latest patch and the nossao mod, I have no complaints about the performance there...

The vid looks good - now what the irony here is that if its running well on that rig but someone with a far better rig (this applies to anything since whats high end soon becomes mid etc) does not see any improved performance, that is very worrying. How is performance around buildings, or with many planes in the air?
The reason the ssao off helps is because you are on a 275gtx, which is old dx10 hardware (its not dx10.1) which uses an updated shader and lighting pipeline very similar to DX11 (Shader model 4,4.5,5) while dx10 uses a pipeline closer to DX9 I believe (Shader model 2.0,2.5?,3.0).
The way it manages rescources is different, 10.1/11 brings a big performance boost if you run on more than 2 cores.
They are stuck in a tech rut...

Also your criticism of the nit picky perfectionism I think is 110% on the spot. You hit the nail on the head, they have focused alot of energy into perfectionism and very niche (within the already small niche) features instead of investing in the infastructure.

You have a source for this? I seem to recall Luthier (or perhaps Oleg) saying that they only had one programmer working on a particular aspect of the sim, but that isn't the same thing at all. Yes, it is a small team, but throwing extra man(person?)power at a problem is often not the best way to produce efficient code. Anyway, regardless of who is doing what, either the core of the sim is right now, or it never will be - and from what I've seen, it doesn't look far off, in spite of the problems.

I made a mistake here, they do have more than 1 programmer so my apologise for posting that info as it was not true. I misrememberd a post by Luthier which said: "3. We continue to optimize the game. Our chief programmer - the optimizer is sick the third day, but it does have a concrete plan of work, which again is in a fairly short period of time will improve the framerate. Wonders of course we do not promise, but the flight over the landscape will be dramatically different than the flights have to water."

I normally would ammend my original post by adding this but as to not cause confusion (since you already quoted me) I removed the comment to prevent further confusion.

IMHO, I got Call of Juarez 2 (BiB) based on the original. Little did I know I was getting a console port which had essentially removed all of the features which made me enjoy the original.

To make matters worse, there is a certain level where you get shot through the back of the carriage - I tried it several times - each time three shots through the back wall (no chance to fire back). To make matters worse, they essentially removed the ability to handle saved games...

No problem, Heliocon - with all the information (and misinformation) we've been getting, it is easy to get confused. The 1C:Maddox development team is small, and this does cause problems, I'm sure - but so do large teams. This isn't just confined to software production of course - basically, once you get beyond the point where everyone can see what everyone else is up to, you have to employ more and more effort on coordination, and less and less on creativity. I suspect a bigger development team would have worked quicker, but come out with something with less potential for long-term expansion. Time will tell though...

Yes, they didn't had only one programmer, they actually had two of them. Have a look at the credits in the Extra section of the IL2 CoD's game menu.

Exactly. In most contractual business situations there are deadlines to be met. I highly doubt that any investor would agree to a six year long development. My guess is that the deadlines were not met a couple of times by Maddox Games.

Blaming UBI is easy, but it's also getting very old.

Also "the small team argument" is totally invalid, since the game's price is exactly the same as any other AAA titles from major software studios. And the price is the ULTIMATE factor for ANY product. You can't sell Hyundai's priced as Ferrari's and expect people to be happy about the performance of the former.

Interesting nugget/article here: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost...4&postcount=28

New patch they offloaded textures to another core to greatly improve performance, just keeping a record here ;)

I have an idea. Why not create a community driven "bug tracker".
Bohemia Interactive did this and the community actually HELPS instead of complaining.
Some of you may already play the game I speak of and know how amazing it is because of it.

Anyways ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_tracking_system Can use anyone you want
Here is the one I was referring to: http://dev-heaven.net/projects/cis/wiki

I know we got talent in the community that can make this happen.
Just need some motivated individuals and some web space.

Would be good but there are language barriers atm to things like this. Also I could imagine the devs could get jumpy about supplying any code, especially since its now tied into steam to a degree. Normally this stuff is done by beta testers...

For the record the new patch(beta) today helped - it now seems to use multicores :-) It's not far off (once sli comes in or cf) from being at a point where the devs can sort out all the other stuff - stick with it, it's coming :grin:

Of the things some whiners said would never be fixed? :rolleyes:

No of the things I said that would fix the problem. I have advocated alot for multicore support and a strong push towards multithreading aswell as dx10.1 and especially DX11 to solve the problems. Many on the forum said that multithreading was not worth it and would not give major performance gains, or that it was me overhyping something that would not help or that it was not worth the devs time.

Turns out I was right (again). ;)

Hopefully 1C will award you a medal.

Keeping my fingers crossed ;)