Oleg Maddox's Room #1

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by 99th_Flyby

I wonder if Oleg and Nvidia are working on the SLi aspect of this sim. Since individual game performance with dual GPUs is still tied to driver support I would hope this is being tended to. BTW don't want to forget ATi's Crossfire either. Same story. Lucid's Hydra probably won't get here soon enough for dual GPU owners.

Oleg will definitely need to look at all ways to improve fps. I have a decent system and I'm surprised at how much the Slovakia, and Canons Chan Map tax my system. I doubt these maps have as much as a quarter of the detail of the SOW map. I haven't seen much advancement in computer capabilities over the last few years so SOW code will have to be really good to run on average computers. Although we will have the option to turn down details.

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by Chivas

Oleg will definitely need to look at all ways to improve fps. I have a decent system and I'm surprised at how much the Slovakia, and Canons Chan Map tax my system. I doubt these maps have as much as a quarter of the detail of the SOW map. I haven't seen much advancement in computer capabilities over the last few years so SOW code will have to be really good to run on average computers. Although we will have the option to turn down details.

then maybe some PhysX support might prove handy. But I think the code has been "done" for some time now. Maybe just adding odds and ends to it now. At least SoW will support multiple cores (fingers crossed).
Flyby out

[flyingbullseye]

If I remember correctly Oleg made mention that SOW will support multi core (dual), guessing quad support will exist as well. My big concern is the cpu eating ground vechile detail (not terrain) that for the most part will be lost on us causing lower fps.

Flyingbullseye

[proton45]

Originally Posted by 99th_Flyby

then maybe some PhysX support might prove handy. But I think the code has been "done" for some time now. Maybe just adding odds and ends to it now. At least SoW will support multiple cores (fingers crossed).
Flyby out

I don't know a lot about the physics cards, but don't they calculate collisions (gravity effects & inertia) and things bouncing around? I'm not sure what kind of calculations a physics card would be useful for in a flight sim? It seems to me that the bottle necks in processing power are in visual calculations and damage calculations...

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by proton45

I don't know a lot about the physics cards, but don't they calculate collisions (gravity effects & inertia) and things bouncing around? I'm not sure what kind of calculations a physics card would be useful for in a flight sim? It seems to me that the bottle necks in processing power are in visual calculations and damage calculations...

Well, the damage calculations, and other special effects like drifting smoke, bomb blasts and the sort might all benefit from PhysX implementation. NVidia now makes PhysX a software implementation on it's GPUs. This link sort of explains it, and does so much better than I.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2340015,00.asp
As I recall, AMD/ATi have their own version, so once again here we go with the Crossfire vs SLi thing. No common standard except maybe OpenCL. I bet sim developers are way behind the curve on this stuff.

Oh, Flyingbullseye, I agree with you. Too many cpu-cycle-sucking ground objects may have a negative effect on smooth gameplay. I know some guys are building their core i7 systems in preparation of the release of SoW, among other sims. I'd hate to read of how SoW just brings the latest and the greatest to it's knees. But I guess they won't have to turn down quite so many settings as less-than-topnotch gaming rigs might. Good thing Oleg is making it scalable. I'd much rather spend my cpu cycles on complex weather, and clouds and stuff. A good sim is hard on a good cpu. Ain't it?
Well. can't worry about every thing.
Flyby out

[flyingbullseye]

The thing about physX so far is that it kills frame rates unless you have either a high end gpu or running sli. For the time being I like ATI's direction and planning on using Havok, which is cpu bound but in the future either one may prove to be superior or someone else can come out with something better. We'll see.

Glad you agree with me flyby. i7 or not, for me at least, the vehicle detail is getting turned down to say medium though I'd be willing to bet a good 775 quad should run this mostly fine. I do have hope and faith in Oleg that he won't produce a flight sim crysis, but get the code in order for better game play.

Since I am on the topic of the sim scaleablity (sp?) I do want to ask Oleg something for the next update whenever that is. Sorry if they are asked before.

1. How many options in the option menu are we going to get in order to make it not only playable but have at least some kind of improved graphics? ex: aircraft detail, cloud detail, terrain, vehicle, wind, so on and so on.

2. How many levels are there going to be for each specific option? ie...low, middle, high, ultra (PC killing)

3. Can the next round of pics show level of detail when choosing low, medium and high option?

Flyingbullseye

[proton45]

Originally Posted by flyingbullseye

The thing about physX so far is that it kills frame rates unless you have either a high end gpu or running sli. For the time being I like ATI's direction and planning on using Havok, which is cpu bound but in the future either one may prove to be superior or someone else can come out with something better. We'll see.

Glad you agree with me flyby. i7 or not, for me at least, the vehicle detail is getting turned down to say medium though I'd be willing to bet a good 775 quad should run this mostly fine. I do have hope and faith in Oleg that he won't produce a flight sim crysis, but get the code in order for better game play.

Since I am on the topic of the sim scaleablity (sp?) I do want to ask Oleg something for the next update whenever that is. Sorry if they are asked before.

1. How many options in the option menu are we going to get in order to make it not only playable but have at least some kind of improved graphics? ex: aircraft detail, cloud detail, terrain, vehicle, wind, so on and so on.

2. How many levels are there going to be for each specific option? ie...low, middle, high, ultra (PC killing)

3. Can the next round of pics show level of detail when choosing low, medium and high option?

Flyingbullseye

+1...ya, was about to mirror your comments. SOW is likely to be so GPU dependent that most people will not be able to spare the "HP" to run the physics program....

[flyingbullseye]

Originally Posted by proton45

+1...ya, was about to mirror your comments. SOW is likely to be so GPU dependent that most people will not be able to spare the "HP" to run the physics program....

I'm not so sure SOW would be so gpu dependent. Traditionally flight sims are cpu bound but this could change things. Mum seems to be the word on this. Though reading all the details that Oleg plans on putting in this sim I go between figuring we may need a govt super computer just to get playable frame rates to figuring certain aspects like the radar grid could be implimented on a simple basic way. But alas, frickin mum!

Flyingbullseye

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by proton45

SOW is likely to be so GPU dependent that most people will not be able to spare the "HP" to run the physics program....

Actually, I'd bet granny's drawers SoW will be more cpu-dependent rather so than the GPU. PhysX actually works by taking some of that computational work off the cpu and sending it to the GPU. In an SLi format, once card could actually take on that extra bit of workload. Articles on PhysX claim that's oow it works, and does so because the GPU supposedly has more computational power
http://www.blachford.info/computer/articles/PhysX1.html

A nice OCP forum discussion here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1336975

I'm hopeful that a powerful GPU with over 512mb of memory will be sufficient for SoW; something like a 4870-1gb card, or even a GTX 260-12 should nearly dominate SoW. But the cpu...well that's another matter, especially with all those ground objects milling about. I'm only hopeful we can turn them down or off.
Flyby out