Dont you just wish... they hadn't used a 3d engine?

ShadowDagger said:
First why don't you try playing the game on a truely highend machine. You stated yourself that you do not have one. My machine can handle huge, 18 civ games on highest settings and resolution, and so can many others. I am willing to bet that most people who have a high end machine don't have a problem either. The thing is that the people who do have a problem will be the most vocal and it will seem like everyone has a problem.

Progress has advanced in many more ways than graphics. Sheer processing power just to name one. With games pushing the limits on processing the hardware companies are forced to create faster processors. This is not just mere eye candy but it is performance which is what you are complaining about.

Because you do not understand how the engine runs, it is not an excuse to claim it is poorly programed.
First of all, your advice "why don't you run the game on a truely highend machine" makes you appear quite unmature.
There might be people around who just cannot afford a "real highend machine" just for a game's sake. Many of those people will have a family to provide, and therefore may not have the financial capabilities to buy a "highend machine" each time a new game requires number crunching power for almost nothing.

But, for your information, I am running all my games on modified gigantic maps of 220*140 tiles, minimum, with all 18 nations. This is something my machine can handle quite well with all settings at max, and it gives at least a feeling of an epic game.
I don't like the little sandbox games which are provided by the standard settings. That much to your brilliant machine which obviously prostrates already at huge maps.

But enough about this "but mine is thaaat long" babbling.

Obviously you haven't read the paragraph you've quoted. Regardless of which power your or mine machine may have, there are a lot of values calculated within this game, which seem to be either completely useless, or aren't used properly.
I have mentioned the example of calculating different individual values in diplomacy.
You may terminate trading with nation A and nation B. Both will react differently upon this fact, and this is fine. Yet, in total they may both have a net value of +12 in your favour. Nevertheless, they still will react differently.

I don't complain about their different behaviour, but if the outcome is different, where is the point in calculating the individual values?
And why do AI's gladly accept to go to war against another nation, but for nothing in the world they would stop trading with that same nation?

These have been the questions I have put in my posting you have quoted. Nothing of this has anything to do with pure machine power (and if you would have read more carefully, you would have seen that even if I don't have a highend machine, it will clearly be somewhere in the upper third).

Seems as if all you have intended was to tell the world, how great your computer is. Huge maps with 18 nations. Wow.
Machines like mine do that during breakfast.

For me it looks very much like you haven't understood what this particular game engine does. Sure, it utilizes my machine constantly at around 50% of processor capacity and in the late game it utilizes around 80% of memory (this is RAM, just for your information, not swap file).
But why? Why does it have to render a trillion polygones, which at the chosen camera angle and height never will be displayed?
Why, for all in the world, is it impossible to make messages appear at the same time as the appropriate incident is displayed at the screen?
Why has a modern game to have lags of 5 and more seconds between sound and display of the respective message?
Why is it impossible to make the mouse over tips appear each time? Why do one have to constantly manually update the respective routine?
Why don't those incredible, brilliant and never seen before wonder movies have to stutter, although even a Microsoft MediaPlayer is able to display complete movies without problem?
Why have units to "skate" over the screen, when they are moving more than just one tile? Why have the programmers not been able to create proper routines, as in other games?
This is bad programming, and has nothing to do with lack of processing power.
 
Commander Bello said:
First of all, your advice "why don't you run the game on a truely highend machine" makes you appear quite unmature.
There might be people around who just cannot afford a "real highend machine" just for a game's sake. Many of those people will have a family to provide, and therefore may not have the financial capabilities to buy a "highend machine" each time a new game requires number crunching power for almost nothing.

But, for your information, I am running all my games on modified gigantic maps of 220*140 tiles, minimum, with all 18 nations. This is something my machine can handle quite well with all settings at max, and it gives at least a feeling of an epic game.
I don't like the little sandbox games which are provided by the standard settings. That much to your brilliant machine which obviously prostrates already at huge maps.

But enough about this "but mine is thaaat long" babbling.

Obviously you haven't read the paragraph you've quoted. Regardless of which power your or mine machine may have, there are a lot of values calculated within this game, which seem to be either completely useless, or aren't used properly.
I have mentioned the example of calculating different individual values in diplomacy.
You may terminate trading with nation A and nation B. Both will react differently upon this fact, and this is fine. Yet, in total they may both have a net value of +12 in your favour. Nevertheless, they still will react differently.

I don't complain about their different behaviour, but if the outcome is different, where is the point in calculating the individual values?
And why do AI's gladly accept to go to war against another nation, but for nothing in the world they would stop trading with that same nation?

These have been the questions I have put in my posting you have quoted. Nothing of this has anything to do with pure machine power (and if you would have read more carefully, you would have seen that even if I don't have a highend machine, it will clearly be somewhere in the upper third).

Seems as if all you have intended was to tell the world, how great your computer is. Huge maps with 18 nations. Wow.
Machines like mine do that during breakfast.

For me it looks very much like you haven't understood what this particular game engine does. Sure, it utilizes my machine constantly at around 50% of processor capacity and in the late game it utilizes around 80% of memory (this is RAM, just for your information, not swap file).
But why? Why does it have to render a trillion polygones, which at the chosen camera angle and height never will be displayed?
Why, for all in the world, is it impossible to make messages appear at the same time as the appropriate incident is displayed at the screen?
Why has a modern game to have lags of 5 and more seconds between sound and display of the respective message?
Why is it impossible to make the mouse over tips appear each time? Why do one have to constantly manually update the respective routine?
Why don't those incredible, brilliant and never seen before wonder movies have to stutter, although even a Microsoft MediaPlayer is able to display complete movies without problem?
Why have units to "skate" over the screen, when they are moving more than just one tile? Why have the programmers not been able to create proper routines, as in other games?
This is bad programming, and has nothing to do with lack of processing power.
Nice strawman. You manipulated my arguement to make it mean something I did not intend. My response to playing it on a truely high end machine was in response to your statement that people with higher end machines were having trouble to play the game. I also understand that some people cannot fiscally afford to upgrade their hardware, but this does not imply that they must be able to play the game. They can either go for the high end market of computer gamers or the low end. Fireaxis went for the gamers with the higher end of gamers. No one is forcing those with low end machines to play the game.

You then contradict yourself. In your original statement you say that you wish that you could play these gigantic maps with 18 civs but then in your response you state that you have no problem running them on the highest settings. And if your computer can't run these gigantic games....well dont play them.

I am not going to religiously defend the programmers of the game because sure they made many mistakes. But to criticize the whole team for producing a bad product is ridiculous without taking an inside look at the engine. The diplomacy thing you refer to, how do you know that those are the only factors? There could be factors that the engine takes into account which are invisible to the player that explain why two nations with the same diplomatic bonus behave differently. These seemingly random outcomes with "useless" calculations might actually be using these calculations to determine the probability of the event occuring. There are way too many things that we can't find out unless you have taken a serious look into the actual mechanics of the game engine. If you have in fact done so, I apologize for this, but if you have not, there are just too many question marks.

You yourself said that better machines play the game with no luck
Although some players indeed have machines lower or just reaching the requirements, a lot have much better systems with no better luck.
So I was just stating that my "better system" can play the game easily.

Huge maps with 18 nations. Wow.
Machines like mine do that during breakfast.
Then there is no problem with the 3d engine for you because your computer is perfectly capable of handling the game. In my personal opinion huge games are plenty big enough. But if your opinion is that they are not, why should Fireaxis cater to your own personal needs? Maybe when CivV comes out they will be able to have maps the size you like run smoothly with a 3d engine on the standard system of that time. This is what the progress of the computer industry is all about.
 
mjs0 said:
As I understand it there are actually two important factors here.
  1. Firstly, the way a business would look at it is in terms of dollars. Even without the natural inclination of any business to follow what is perceived as a successful recent trend, it simply costs more to produce the 2d models. So since the budget for the game is typically a constant any extra money spent on graphics takes money away from another area, which may or may not have been AI development, we will never know. The important point is that doing 3D is going to be less expensive on the bottom line of the project plan.
  2. Secondly, graphics do interfere with the AI and the game logic if they burden the CPU. 3D graphics are less effort for the CPU as they are offloaded to the GPU. This leaves more cycles for the CPU to handle the volumes of data involved in modeling the world in which the game takes place. Civ may graphically look simpler than most FPS and RPG games but the CPU has a *LOT* more number crunching to do and anything that reduces the load on the CPU is a good thing.

Both of those are sort of untrue.
1, these days to get 2d models they just run an app that renders an image of the 3d models in the different animated positions, you can even download apps yourself to do it for games. with old games like doom they used a different method because they couldn't model 3D models as high quality. The process the convert a 3d model takes virtually no time at all. Its no more exspensive than doing 3d.

2, 2D graphics can also be processed in the same way as 3D models... only if the coders decide not to initialise and use a hardware device will it ever burden the cpu. Dont use civ3 as your definition of 2D graphic's... when someone says to use 2D it doesn't mean they dont want it to make use of hardware devices.

...And lastly.
Pre-rendered image's and animations take up horsehockye loads of space, for example BG2 takes up 5 cds plus expansion, fallout tactics takes up 3, diablo takes up 4 .. and so on. If they did high quality 2d graphics for civ4 you would be looking at 2 dvd's rather than 1. From that perspective it is actually wiser to use 3d, also that means that the cost of redistributing the software has just doubled because of the extra cd.

where 2d is better than 3d is, 3D has to calculate how the image is going to look in realtime, with 2d this has already been done.

where 3d is better than 2d is, if a degree of realism is needed, saving space on cds.

seeing as civ4 has no need of realism i would've preferred 2d, partly for nostaligic feel and partly for less burden on the 3d card.
 
ShadowDagger said:
Nice strawman. You manipulated my arguement to make it mean something I did not intend.
Ok, I apologize for my harsh posting. Maybe, I just misunderstood your intention.
ShadowDagger said:
[...]Fireaxis went for the gamers with the higher end of gamers. No one is forcing those with low end machines to play the game.
Granted. My question, yet, is for what is the processor power really used?
ShadowDagger said:
You then contradict yourself. In your original statement you say that you wish that you could play these gigantic maps with 18 civs but then in your response you state that you have no problem running them on the highest settings. And if your computer can't run these gigantic games....well dont play them.
I don't see a contradiction in my statements. I can run those over-huge maps with each and everything.
Nevertheless, even in early ages units tend to freeze their movements for a second, or are "skating" over the screen.
Furthermore, you may see a certain incident at the screen during the AI's turn, and get the respective message later, when you are already maintaining your units' movements or your building queues and what not.
There definetely is a timing problem somewhere. Typically, you hear the sound of an explosion, THEN you see the enemy's unit racing towards your unit. Then your turn starts, giving you all other kind of acustic and visual information, and finally, somewhere, there may be a message telling you what really happened.
You can live with this, as the game is not affected much by it, yet it is a major annoyance to have to go to the log at each turn to make sure that you really didn't miss anything.
ShadowDagger said:
[...]The diplomacy thing you refer to, how do you know that those are the only factors? There could be factors that the engine takes into account which are invisible to the player that explain why two nations with the same diplomatic bonus behave differently. These seemingly random outcomes with "useless" calculations might actually be using these calculations to determine the probability of the event occuring. There are way too many things that we can't find out unless you have taken a serious look into the actual mechanics of the game engine. If you have in fact done so, I apologize for this, but if you have not, there are just too many question marks.[...]
Unwillingly (as I assume) you've hit the nail.
Under the assumption that there are other routines contributing to the AI's final behaviour, what is the point then in displaying those individual elements?

Imagine, the same would apply to combat: You see your values, you see the opponents values and all modificators - and in the background, hidden from the player, the engine would calculate a "secret" influence? Well, that would really cause an uproar.

To make it more clear: if the engine displays figures, they should have a meaning. If they don't, don't display them.
ShadowDagger said:
[...] But if your opinion is that they are not, why should Fireaxis cater to your own personal needs? Maybe when CivV comes out they will be able to have maps the size you like run smoothly with a 3d engine on the standard system of that time. This is what the progress of the computer industry is all about.
I am not (very much) complaining about the map sizes Firaxis has chosen to be available "out of the box".
What I am complaining about is that they have been limited due to their technical requirements, since I have the strong feeling that exactly those requirements are "artificially" high.
With artificially high I mean that the engine consumes "horsepower" of the processor for something where you don't get anything.
Examples for this thesis of mine I have given in my previous postings, yet I will add another one:
When you are sending your airplanes around, even the "target square" is aligned to the landscape. That means, it will follow the outline of an adjacent hill or peak, for instance.
So, the game recognizes different altitudes for graphic purposes. Yet, is there any use made of it? No, we have just the same options available as we had in Civ3. We just have plains (including grassland and so on), hills, and peaks. And there is no game related impact of those 3D features - at least none, which couldn't have been achieved in a pseudo-3D world as for instance of C3C. Gameplaywise, a hill is not different from a plain, except that there are different defense and output modificators. This doesn't make for a "living 3D world".

For me, this once again constitutes the use of "horsepower" with no gain.

All these things lead me to my assumption as stated in that posting above:
it looks very much like many more things have been intended, yet haven't been achieved. Ok, this may happen.
Unfortunately, the engine still consumes all the capacities which would have been needed for those things which now are not in the game.
As far as I see it, they didn't clean up the mess after they realized to have to reduce their scope.

And this limits many players, as you can read in all the forums. Fortunately, I have the luck not to be harmed too much by this. But does this make things better?
No.

I really hoped they would have learned their lesson from their problems with C3C especially. Nevertheless, I see them making the same faults once again.
Constantly we read from various testers: "Oh, this hasn't been tested. ... And this has been included afterwards...."
What is the point of having a big beta tester crew, if the final release wasn't tested?
 
AvianAvenger said:
Both of those are sort of untrue.
1, these days to get 2d models they just run an app that renders an image of the 3d models in the different animated positions, you can even download apps yourself to do it for games.

Working with artists who do this on a daily basis, I think that you are wrong. While these tools exist and are used, they are inadequate. The artists still have to look at each frame and tweak and adjust them. This takes a lot of time (not as much as hand drawing them).
 
Willem said:
Then it's time for people with those low end machines to upgrade. They can't expect game developers to cater to obsolete systems forever.


You should also be practical and not only have the best machines to be able to run the game.

My AMD Sempron 3100+ and 1GD DDR Ram still lags on huge maps. They need to make the requirements lower.

I can play Doom 3 on this thing, just not Civ 4 very well.
 
Fallen Angel Lord said:
I can play Doom 3 on this thing, just not Civ 4 very well.
Doom 3 isn't so new anymore. More and more of the latest games are requiring more up-to-date hardware to run well. I'm afraid with the new consoles coming out it will only get worse as PC games tries to surpass consoles graphics. Oblivion is a good example; unless you got a powerful PC you will be better off get it for the X-box 360.
 
I used to play Civ3 on my laptop running about 3 hours on batteries. Just sitting in my chair with the laptop in my.... well.... lap... and having fun. That's impossible with Civ4. The laptop has a mobile ATi X300 so it does run Civ4 ok, but the GPU can't be underclocked anymore, and same with the CPU. I wouldn't go far running on batteries, and also it gets hot, it gets noisy...

Other than that I don't really care if they used 3d or not...
 
Smidlee said:
Doom 3 isn't so new anymore. More and more of the latest games are requiring more up-to-date hardware to run well. I'm afraid with the new consoles coming out it will only get worse as PC games tries to surpass consoles graphics. Oblivion is a good example; unless you got a powerful PC you will be better off get it for the X-box 360.

Doom 3 may not be that new but its FPS, Where Civ4 is a TBS game. I can play all the latest RTS games(like AOE III) just fine on my machine. TBS is supposed to be the type of game that takes the least amount of graphics power or processing power usually and Civ II and III did that. In my opinion Civ III was looking good enough. There's no reason to have the full-blown 3d. Accidently rotating the angles hurts the game more than helps it.
 
Fallen Angel Lord said:
Doom 3 may not be that new but its FPS, Where Civ4 is a TBS game.
Of course there are two different types games. Doom 3 isn't design for Mods either plus doesn't have to have to store the map into memory at once. unlike doom3 you can instantly jump to one point of the map to another in civ4 but FPS you have a path you must follow. I do know Doom 3 work my GPU a lot harder than civ4 does. Tree movenment works the graphic card more than anything in Civ4. as trees get chopped my gpu runs a lot cooler.
than I can play all the latest RTS games(like AOE III) just fine on my machine.
Yet I'm sure they are gamers who having trouble getting AOE III to run while running civ4 just fine. I read on Galciv2 forum someone who gcould run civ4 on his pc but had trouble running Galciv2.
TBS is supposed to be the type of game that takes the least amount of graphics power or processing power usually and Civ II and III did that. In my opinion Civ III was looking good enough. There's no reason to have the full-blown 3d. Accidently rotating the angles hurts the game more than helps it.
Civ3 had it's share of problems also ; the slow AI for example. Civ4 AI runs a lot better than civ 3 did. Also I just played HoMM5 demo and it's 3-d engine runs worst than civ4 on my new pc. Hopefully the framerate will improve when the game is released. The benefit of 3-D has already been mention by others so there atre good reasons to go 3-d.
 
Smidlee said:
[...]
Civ3 had it's share of problems also ; the slow AI for example. Civ4 AI runs a lot better than civ 3 did. [...]
But this has nothing to do with going for 3D. Certain routines of C3C were just poor, considerably slowing down the machine.
Those routines for sure have been drastically improved for Civ4, nevertheless this is not based on using 3D.
 
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