Gaming Space Engineers (now in BETA)

[orb]

Update 01.084

Update 01.084:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJweMz-IXJ8"]Space Engineers - Update 01.084: DirectX 11, Station rotation - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Gerdih]

That autopilot looks cool, specially if it can be combined with programming block.

I am not an expert in software, will the additon of DirectX11 improve CPU usage?

 

[orb]

I haven't tested it that much, but for sure I get 3 FPS more in "Easy Start 2" with DirectX 11 renderer (increase from 27 FPS average to 30 FPS), but also with changed antialiasing in the game settings from FXAA to MSAA 8x.

However while using it the astronaut's headlight currently doesn't illuminate anything in close range (0 to ~30 meters), but only farther away.


EDIT: The issue with headlight is apparently caused by MSAA. It started working fine after I switched back to FXAA and the average frame rate in the "Easy Start 2" jumped to 41 FPS.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Update 01.084:
Space Engineers - Update 01.084: DirectX 11, Station rotation - YouTube

Station rotation? GLORIOUS!!!

 

[RisingFury]

FXAA (Fast Approximate Anti Aliasing) runs faster than MSAA (Multi Sampling Anti Aliasing).

FXAA is a post processing algorithm that takes the rendered image and smooths the edges - but being approximate, it doesn't look exactly like MSAA and can make finer details like wires disappear.

MSAA works by sampling the same pixel of the image multiple times but at slightly different positions. If the pixel covers the edge, several of the samples will return the color from the edge and several from beyond it. That'll then be averaged. Naturally that ends up being more expensive.

 

[Gerdih]

I dont have any antialising options on the game, how did you change them?

Forget it, it appeared after DirectX 11

---------- Post added at 10:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 PM ----------

Despite waiting for 20 minutes for the game to start and load the Artalv server, the CPU usage has improved, 2 of my cores were at 50% while the other two at 80%. ( all of them were suffering at 100% before ) The game runs smoother and the graphics look much better, but its still slow, unplayable.

The background now seems so fake, and the ships have a strange aurea around them, like they are shining. When inside the cockpit, I am not able to see the controls anymore, I just see a bunch of textures overlapping.

 

[jangofett287]

DX11 seems to have some problems with its HDR

 

[Quick_Nick]

 

[Gerdih]

darn, I really need the pc of that guy :yes:

 

[orb]

Update 01.085

Update 01.085:

 

[Gerdih]

yay! docking without programming

I love how automated ships/drones are being developed

 

[orb]

Update 01.086

Update 01.086:

 

[Gerdih]

I would like to share some thoughts with you guys.

Since some months ago my computer have not been able to run this smoothly on multiplayer, on Artlav Server my sim speed is about 0.2 and FPS are 5. On single player I can make run this at sim speed 0.8-1, normally 1 and 12 FPS. Overclocking the GPU helps a little. But the other day it reached 96 degrees on MP so I just stoped the game inmidetly :lol:

So this months I have just been checking game progress on the forums. I checked all updates since 2013 to have an idea where this is going. I got a bad impression, I start noticing some peope are a little bit tired, specially after the last update, which lot of people say its quite useless ( to clarify, I am very happy they update us every week and I can understand they are working on something else, I dont think this is a bad update either ). But I come from playing not only Orbiter and Minecraft but from playing Rome Total War II and Skyrim and paying attention to games such as GTAV and its development. And I am sure here you guys know how gaming industry works nowadays, sell early and patch later.

I bought Rome Total War II for more than 60 euros a year ago, Total War is a great franchise but after 17 patches, YES, 17 patches Rome Total War II needed after its official release, lots of fans take for sure the death of the franchise. And after all that, they wanted to sell us Atila, a game almost identical as Rome Total War II.

Now, after 1 year and 9 months of development I am starting to be afraid this game is gonna follow the usual nowadays path; Free testing for the company, but not fully finishing the game. I am not an expert but I dont get why they didnt start the development with DirectX 11, I dont get why physics are not optimized after 2 years, maybe I did a good investment buying this game?
Maybe they finish the game, maybe they dont and just do a 3th game; SE+ME knowloedge and make us pay again for it.

Oh, and dont forget the access for modders to source code;

knowledge from SE + knowledge from ME + knowledge from modders directly on source code + free testing + money from testers = profit

What do you guys think?

 

[Artlav]

I dunno.

But there is a business concept called an MVP - minimum viable product, the smallest implementation of an idea that would be a self-sufficient product.
There is also a concept of testing your ideas as fast as you can, so you can let the bad ones die (aka "fail fast").
Test the idea against the people, and see if it works.
So, if the idea IS good, you will end up releasing a barely functional game, and then can easily get stuck constantly patching it.

Beyond that, i have no idea where SE is going.
It does not look particularly optimized to me, feels almost as if they completely forgot about the preconditioning stage of collision detection. The result would be a quadratic drop of performance with the amount of objects in game, instead of a n*log one.
Which is fine if you're testing out a game idea on the public, but not something you leave out in a product.

 

[RisingFury]

They didn't start with DirectX 11 because the vRage engine they initially developed didn't use DirectX 11. They built a game on it before.

Space Engineers is their second game.

That said, SE is not very well optimized. It seems that instead of optimizing as they go, they're adding new features that drain the system.



The development is slow, but at least there are weekly updates. That said, Minecraft and KSP are really to blame. They're examples of two games that had a popular paid early access run and still needed years of work.



That said, you do have a choice in buying or not. They're not taking your money, you're giving it to them. Don't get the two confused.

 

[Gerdih]

Yep Artlav, the performance is something I think should be improved right now, I am feeling its getting worse and worse on every update. If they ever add planets or other big demanding things I can see my computer exploding. But once again, I am not an expert about programming so I dont have a valid opinion.

I wanna clarify I am not blaming SE, just being skeptical and sharing ideas, I still support them and I am very happy someone is delevoping this idea, which is very ambitious.

 

[Dantassii]

My $0.02 worth on performance

As a software developer with nearly 37 years of experience in 38 computer languages I can say that optimizing code for speed BEFORE all the basic functionality is in place can and usually is a waste of time. That being said, it would not surprise me if every few weeks we see a performance improvement in the SE code base as they clean-up the code once they get all the initial bugs worked out from some functionality that was added a few releases earlier.

My computer is a quad core I5 with 8Gb of RAM and a decent 2 year old video card and it had just started to slow down due to the size of my main processing station that I am building in survival mode. With over 600 large storage containers, over 300 refineries, around 100 arc furnaces, around 100 O2 Generators, around 50 O2 storage tanks, about a dozen programmed LCD screens, and about 1000 conveyors, I would expect nothing else. I've still got to add over 300 assemblers to the station (currently it has 16) before I can start using it to mine entire asteroids in 1 pass.

I'm currently stuck in Dx9 because 1 of the mods I'm using hasn't been converted yet although I am seriously considering removing the modules from that mod from my ships and stations so I can upgrade to Dx11.

I think it amazing that they have come so far with this in such a short time. Now if they could just add realistic orbital mechanics and require fuel for all thrusters....

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS (and SE) shipbuilder

 

[Gerdih]

How fast are your processors?

Mine:
i3-2310M CPU @ 2.10GHz
8.00 GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6300M Series 1GB for graphics

 

[Dantassii]

How fast are your processors?

Mine:
i3-2310M CPU @ 2.10GHz
8.00 GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6300M Series 1GB for graphics

I was mistaken, it is an I3 not I5
i3-3220 CPU @ 3.30GHz
Not 100% sure what the video card is, but I know it's about 2 years old.

 

[Hielor]

As a software developer with nearly 37 years of experience in 38 computer languages I can say that optimizing code for speed BEFORE all the basic functionality is in place can and usually is a waste of time.

Sure, if your plan is to write it however works and then optimize for speed, you might as well wait until you're done.

The rather more effective solution is to design with speed in mind, so you don't even need to go make an optimization pass (or, at worst, not much of one) later.