2000 Oildrums

Community Forums/Showcase/2000 Oildrums

JoshK(Posted 2008) [#1]


Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4mk-z-Yjww

Please rate the video and share it with your friends.


Amon(Posted 2008) [#2]
cool. :)


Ross C(Posted 2008) [#3]
That is verrrrrry impressive. Seems alot faster than the minib3d example with 1000 cubes. What are the system specs of the computer running that?


Ginger Tea(Posted 2008) [#4]
and not a single boom


JoshK(Posted 2008) [#5]
Very high. I think about 4 million polys are being rendered each frame.


stayne(Posted 2008) [#6]
Your tenacity is otherworldly. Amazing stuff Josh.


*(Posted 2008) [#7]

Please rate the video and share it with your friends.



nothing like free advertising eh ;)

Looks good :D


Grey Alien(Posted 2008) [#8]
crazy video dude + nice music.


squareiris(Posted 2008) [#9]
Well, I guess that's on a 8800 GT so I don't find it *that* impressive. Make your engines run on the Mac. That would really impress me and raise some interest.


Tab(Posted 2008) [#10]
Great engine, keep your exellent work.


Vorderman(Posted 2008) [#11]
Is it running realtime or is this like the Crysis demo where it actually runs at about 1 frame per minute and is rendered to a video file for playback at full speed?


smilertoo(Posted 2008) [#12]
I think minib3d is running within blitz, im not sure if leadwerks is using external dll's or not.


SabataRH(Posted 2008) [#13]

so I don't find it *that* impressive. Make your engines run on the Mac. That would really impress me and raise some interest.


Wow, I for one could give a rip less if it runs at all on a mac. ROFL how funny.

Nice presentation Halo.


JoshK(Posted 2008) [#14]
It runs in realtime on a fast multicore CPU. I couldn't record in real-time because when I save out .png images each frame, my framerate drops to about 1. The rendering is actually the fastest part; the meshes are being drawn about 10,000 times each frame, but it runs well on a good GPU. Including shadows, it's about 4,000,000 polys each frame.

Total scene polys without LOD:
terrain = 8.3 million
meshes = about 600,000
grass = 36 million


Vorderman(Posted 2008) [#15]
That's good - can you produce a standalone exe so we can get a feel for how it performs on our own machines.


Duckstab[o](Posted 2008) [#16]
Cant wait to for the new newton 2.0 looks like the solvers have been seriously optimised

Using the 1.53 vers atm and did a 2000 Dominio Test scene all visable tops out at 600fps but drops to 1-2 fps if more than 100 contact points are active hoping 2.0 will give me the boost it needs

nice demoreel :)


Retimer(Posted 2008) [#17]

Seems alot faster than the minib3d example with 1000 cubes.


A craptastic v-card and cpu can achieve a video like that by creating an image for every update; I did a test almost EXACTLY like this with Truevision3D on a radeon 9200 1.8ghz comp. Actual frame rate was about 5fps, but in the videos it looked like 80+. Not to poopoo it or anything but I believe the miniB3d example was done with fraps or of the sort, so this isn't really a good way to compare performance.

@leadworks
Any possibility of a demo soon to see the frame rate on our end?


JoshK(Posted 2008) [#18]
No because I have to test the renderer on a lot of video cards before I release anything.


squareiris(Posted 2008) [#19]
Wasn't v2 of the engine supposed to require at least a GF 8800? What do you mean with "a lot of video cards" then?


JoshK(Posted 2008) [#20]
No, it only requires a shader model 2.0 card.

I am talking to ATI about getting some free hardware for testing. I should probably get some old NVidia cards as well.


TartanTangerine (was Indiepath)(Posted 2008) [#21]
Too cool.


squareiris(Posted 2008) [#22]
Any plans supporting Mac OS X? Have you talked to Apple, maybe they can provide you some iMac hardware (ATi HD 2600 Pro)...
I would really love to see at least v2 of your engine run under OS X.


JoshK(Posted 2008) [#23]
The problem is that Apple is not interested in gaming. I do not know what it would take to do a Mac version, but I know I am not going to go out and spend $2000 on a computer I don't need.

When asked about why there have been no Mac versions, Newell claims that they have tried to work with Apple over the years, but there has been a definite lack of follow-through on Apple's side.
...we have this pattern with Apple, where we meet with them, people there go "wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming". And then we'll say, "OK, here are three things you could do to make that better", and then they say OK, and then we never see them again.

The cycle then repeats itself when a new group of people replace the old ones at Apple. Newell goes on to say that "they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there's never any follow through".



*(Posted 2008) [#24]
Yup Apple definitely dont give a toss about games, unless you do the initial outlay for hardware or software yourself then your screwed.


squareiris(Posted 2008) [#25]
Ok, killed my original post here, writing a new one because it was too harsh and not really what I meant:

I just checked your forums and your announcement of LE2 (is this the official denotation?). I don't agree with Mr. Newell. He's a "Windows fan" (I didn't say that, he said that himself!) but that is not the main reason I don't agree with him. Anyway, I think you are targeting the Indie developers. As you wrote on your forums (I really like that one, that's a sentence to print out an hang above my bed!) "A few geniuses are much better than lots of employees working on salary." I think such "geniuses" (which are not you and your partner; I usually call them Indies) are your potential customers and I think many of them would like to develop for the Mac as well. It's right if you say the current situation of Mac gaming is not sunshine and teddy bears. But while PC gaming loses sales every year (afair) Mac gaming wins sales (I don't mean Macs are getting sales from the PC!). How can that be? Because publishers like Activision or EA are now bringing their titles on the Mac. Macs are capable of decent 3D graphics. And by supporting Macs with your engine you not only have a product that hasn't much competition but you can also help changing the situation.

I understand that you don't want to spend $2000 just for a dev machine. But I guess you already have a mouse, a keyboard and a TFT or CRT. Maybe Apple could supply you a MacMini. It's the cheap Mac (costs $599) so it may be acceptable for Apple and the graphic card should be enough for a bit of internal testing and compiling (Intel GMA 950, crappy but at least supports Shader Model 3.0). I don't know but if your engine is built on OpenGL, it would be wasted potential to not make it run on other platforms than Windows.


SabataRH(Posted 2008) [#26]
Yah this engine im watching closely, as soon as josh can get the art/media pipeline under control I'll probably grab it, but won't even consider it in it's current state..


Dreamora(Posted 2008) [#27]
Looks very nice indeed :)
Newton seems to get more and more usefull.

And I don't think his engine has a market on Apple. Apples are ruled by Unity which has no even "low end matchup" on the PC side where the best similar system, Conitex A7 engine, costs several times more than it for the usefull entry level version without web deployment or multi platform deployment


squareiris(Posted 2008) [#28]
The Problem with Unity is, that you need the expensive version for Windows deployment.

I'm curious how you would sell a Windows only engine that has no DirectX renderer. I think this can lead to serious problems if someone REALLY wants to use it for a Indie project.


North(Posted 2008) [#29]
I'm curious how you would sell a Windows only engine that has no DirectX renderer. I think this can lead to serious problems if someone REALLY wants to use it for a Indie project.


Care to explain?


squareiris(Posted 2008) [#30]
OpenGL + unexperienced user that just wants to play games = most likely OpenGL driver problems

You can do a search for yourself. A "OpenGl driver problem" Google search gives me a chronologic release list of OpenGl games, the last being Enemy Territory Quake Wars...


JoshK(Posted 2008) [#31]
I agree that using OpenGL makes cross-platform development a natural progression. I wrote Apple a while back, and they just sent me a link to a developer's club thing I could pay money to join. Maybe I will send them a demo of my latest stuff or some videos, but I don't want to spend the time on it right now. Mac is a definite possiblity in the future, but it's not a priority right now. What I need to focus on is getting the PC version out. I know a lot of people will want this, so I need to think about my business plan more as well.


squareiris(Posted 2008) [#32]
I'm glad to hear that. Of course Mac can't be your priority! more than 90% of the computer users today still use Windows! But the market is there, keep an eye on it ;-)


Doiron(Posted 2008) [#33]
The problem is that Apple is not interested in gaming.

Jeff Tunnell said something along these lines too in his "Should you make games for OS-X?" article a year and a half back:
http://www.makeitbigingames.com/blog/?p=32

Things didn't change too much since then. I guess Apple's userbase is too casual to let the company bother about hardcore gamers.


JoshK(Posted 2008) [#34]
That article was filled with a lot of assertions and very little evidence.


squareiris(Posted 2008) [#35]
What Josh said.

The article is a rant about Apple has no controller support, no iTune game download and how it is difficult to develop games for the Mac.

First: I don't know about the controller support, I've got a XBox 360 wired USB controller and it's the only thing that doesn't work "out of the box". A quick Google search and a little bit of bandwith later I was playing games with the controller.

Second: iTunes is all about music and movies. There are a few games for the iPod but I really can't blame Apple for no "iGame" when most of the "blockbuster" titles on the Mac are published by an other publisher in each different country. If I see the problems with the law, why doesn't the guy from GarageGames see them? Maybe he has seen and used Steam and thinks: hell, that would be nice on the Mac as well.

Third: how can development for the Mac (which has only a handful of different hardware to chose from) be any harder than PC development? If one can develop for the PC, Mac development is far easier. If one can't develop for the Mac, then maybe it's time to change the job.

In the end I'd say Mac can't be priority for most developers. But since it's not that hard if you have a portable solution (like BlitzMax with OpenGL) and the hardware, it should at least be on your "any extra cash is good"-list.


Warren(Posted 2008) [#36]
Apple doesn't care about games because they won't give you a free computer? lolwut?


Naughty Alien(Posted 2008) [#37]
..no really, what does it mean exactly >>The problem is that Apple is not interested in gaming. << ???

If I make my game for MacOSX, does that mean that I cant sell it for MAC platform without Apple permission or what?


North(Posted 2008) [#38]
it means Apple has other priorities... always did.

But if anyone has an apple sitting idle why not give Josh remote access? ;)