SoW:BoB 64-bit/Multicore optimised?

[Les]

Originally Posted by dduff442

...If Blah I is a classic, Blah II will be derivative, and Blah III is sure to add loads of half-assed junk options as the devs know the wheezing wreck of a codebase is already beyond rescue...This hasn't been the 1C:Maddox way in the past...

Sorry, not having a go at you, but I find that funny, as I think 'IL-2 Sturmovik', 'IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles', 'Pacific Fighters' and 'IL-2: 1946' fit your description quite well. We're just lucky there was more to it all than that.

About the 64-bit/multicore thing. After watching and waiting for SOW this long, I'd be disappointed if it's performance isn't more responsive to hardware upgrades than the IL-2 series. In fact I just can't imagine how it couldn't be.

The IL-2 series fell into the same unavoidable trap that the Microsoft Flight Sim series fell into (and is still in with FSX). And that is, when the sims were first built the only foreseeable (bankable) development path for CPU's was in terms of sheer single-core speed increases, and the software had to reflect that. But that path came to a shuddering, overheating, physically limited halt and we all went off down the multi-thread/multi-core path instead, leaving the single-core oriented software behind. Only, we didn't leave it behind, did we? It's still here. For the last few YEARS we've had the hardware and practically no software to make use of it. A whole generation of CPU's (dual core) has been superceded (by quad-cores), and now there are six-core chips about to come out and practically no game or sim has been coded to take full advantage of all those extra cores.

Now, I can't say whether it's even possible, practically speaking, for SOW to make use of those cores or not, as I don't know enough about it. But I'm much more sure about the fact that if there are still scenes in 1946 that a Core i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz can't handle, then SOW is going to be dead in the water judging by what I've seen and heard about it so far.

I honestly don't know how the thing's going to run, let alone expand, if it doesn't follow the hardware. Surely it would be madness to code for the past and not the future.

The fact that they've switched over to DirectX gives me hope that they're willing to make major changes to the way they do things to ensure the future viability of the series. And I'm left thinking, if they can (if anyone can) make it a truly multi-core sim, they will.

Again though, if it turns out to be code-limited like the IL-2 series is, which is to say, if parts of it remain unplayable even six or seven years after its release, I don't think I'll be the only one feeling a bit ripped off. Adding more (and faster) CPU cores and more powerful video-cards, (and therefore more RAM too I guess) must have a beneficial on-screen effect, for the duration of the whole SOW series (if extra features are added along the way, otherwise there must be a reachable point where the sim can be 'maxed out' while still getting a good frame-rate).

Sorry for the rant/over-reaction, but I just realized there is a possibility SOW might not be the combat flight sim I've been waiting for afterall, if it's neutered from the start and left with nowhere to go in terms of being able to take advantage of current and future hardware.

But who knows, maybe none of this multi-core/64-bit stuff is necessary anyway, it just seems illogical though that more in this case wouldn't be better...

Les.