the future of Clouds .

[CharveL]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

Clouds don't need to move.

Moving clouds is a huge FPS killer.

Fact is, in an aircombat simulation the player is always moving. Usually at a speed far exceeding any cloud movement. Cloud movement would be practically non-discernible to player.

Also, when programming for AI:

Not being able to see in the clouds it would be much more difficult for tracking cloud positions along with AI movement. This would affect the FPS as well.

It can all be done I'm sure, but to be honest with you. I would rather have the ability to have more moving objects that really mean something to gameplay.

So, give me static clouds that don't move, that AI cannot see through.

Above all... I want the best FPS possible. So give me eye-candy taht doesn't affect FPS.

Agreed. It's a shame we can't have it all but frame rate really is king.

Then again, they might be able to do some clever work to get them in without as much impact or offloading to another core but that would raise the minimum system requirements to 4 cores, much like the tree collisions Luthier mentioned. The other factor would be the effect on online play keeping track of them in relation to all players and AI.

Who knows, maybe DX11 will give us free clouds.