Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!

Optimizing of games.

One of the scourges of modern developers. On the one hand, they can be understood: computer technologies are developing very quickly, and games are being made for a long time. Besides, professional optimizers are very expensive. On the other hand, there is such a thing as "compatibility". And when games slow down and have other problems, even on powerful computers, it doesn't look very respectful towards the players. I hope the developers of this game will pay due attention to this aspect. Just not two years of beta test, please, like the "Rift" :))))) Although it must be admitted, "Rift" just "flew" on the computer, even in massive fights one hundred to a hundred for the world boss. Well, I want to say that one of the things that brought the World of Warcraft success is optimization - a huge coverage of the computer hardware of the players.

And finally, I would advise the company to introduce an analytics department, which would be engaged in predicting the consequences of this or that decision, if there is none yet. Well, or at least always remember that it is the players who feed the producers, and not vice versa - it is very important to keep in touch with the players, especially when you have already become a huge corporation. Poor Blizzard ...

In general, I wish you not to step on the same rake, but to be wise and learn from the mistakes of others. Good luck for all of us :)))

Comments

  • daveywaveydaveywavey Member
    edited November 2021
    These were the requirements from Alpha-1:

    Ashes of Creation alpha testing minimum system specification.[3]

    Operating System: Windows 10 64-Bit
    Processor: Intel Core i3-2125 3.3GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 3.3GHz
    Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon 6870 HD with 1GB and DirectX 12
    Memory: 6 GB RAM
    Network: Broadband Internet connection
    Storage: 35 GB of available space
    Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card


    Recommended specification.[3]

    Operating System: Windows 10 64-Bit
    Processor: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz / AMD FX-9590 4.7GHz
    Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon R9 Fury with 4GB and DirectX 12
    Memory: 16 GB RAM
    Network: Broadband Internet connection
    Storage: 35 GB of available space
    Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card


    https://ashesofcreation.wiki/System_requirements
    This link may help you: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/
  • I didn't ask for requirements :)))
  • I didn't ask for requirements :)))

    True, but you seemed to be interested in the hardware needed to run the game. There it is anyway, regardless.
    This link may help you: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/
  • No, it was not interesting to me. I just pointed out a mistake made by modern developers. Optimization is one of the factors influencing the popularity and success of the game.
  • I didn't ask for requirements :)))

    You asked for them indirectly - because optimization has only 1 goal and a result - which is to lower requirements
    “Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.”

    ― Plato
  • My main message was about compatibility, which allows thou to reach as large an audience as possible. And optimization contributes to this. I do not need the requirements of the game, I can watch them myself.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    This is a strange thread already.

    The way I am reading the OP, it is mostly talking about server optimizations (which is what allowed Rift to have 100v100 fights with no issue).

    The OP talking about compatibility now makes no sense - compatible with what?
  • VoidwalkersVoidwalkers Member
    edited November 2021
    My guess is the OP likely has mixed a few different concepts together (server & client performance, code optimization, OS/architecture/hardware compatibility) and was worried about performance in general.

    Anyway, given what Intrepid is aiming for, I'm confident that both server & client performance are among their top priorities, also since Ashes is still in alpha stage, I'd say it's still too early to worry about performance because ...
    ... code optimization ("the process of modifying a software system to make some aspect of it work more efficiently or use fewer resources.") is something one usually does NOT do until relatively LATE in the development stage, like AFTER most features have been stabilized and sufficient testing (with profiling on) have been carried out to pinpoint performance issues.

    In fact, premature optimization is among one of the worst things a software engineer can do. Coz we're usually wrong about what we THINK might be causing a performance issue, and what actually IS causing one.

    Therefore I would have no reason to worry about performance unless I see some serious issues in beta-2, or if Intrepid suddenly declares that they're gonna do something crazy (foreseeable performance nightmare) like full real time action combat in large scale sieges.

    And compatibility is a different concept, usually about OS/architecture/hardware.
    e.g.
    "Playstation 5 can run PS4 games but not PS123 games" is a is a compatibility thing.
    "Latest mobile apps can run on iOS 10+ but not older versions", is a compatibility thing.
    But "a new game can't run on old, low performance PCs" is NOT a compatibility issue.
  • Noaani wrote: »
    This is a strange thread already.

    The way I am reading the OP, it is mostly talking about server optimizations (which is what allowed Rift to have 100v100 fights with no issue).

    The OP talking about compatibility now makes no sense - compatible with what?

    Not entirely. It's both server and client optimization. Server optimizations will fix your ping, but client (game) optimization will fix your FPS issues. Both are needed for a good experience.
  • VhaeyneVhaeyne Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Ashes runs pretty good right now. Compared to other "Alphas" and "Betas" I have involved myself with. Granted, it lacks many systems and features, but in general walking around the world has not been a mess for me.

    An advantage Ashes has going for it is that they are making a PC exclusive game. This is fantastic news for us as because it means that the dev team will be hyperfocused on one version of the game and not beholden to other governing bodies to push updates. For example, Microsoft or Sony could halt or slow updates for any number of reasons, slowing the rate the game gets updated.

    Another advantage is that Intrepid is a private and independently funded studio. The funders of Ashes are Steven and all of us. This means that the incentive to cut corners to increase the bottom line for investors is lowered. Assuming Intrepid is acting in good faith and this is not a cash grab. The studio can actually focus on optimization if they need to. From what I have been led to believe, this was not the case with CP77.

    For these reasons, I am pretty optimistic that Ashes will run smooth. The bugs I have encountered so far have all made perfect sense to me. Unlike CP77, which ran okay on my rig at launch, but I will admit did have its share of glitches. I just pretended like my optical implant was... "after market".
    TVMenSP.png
    If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
  • Those requirements might be too high in modern times though. People can't upgrade due to the chip shortage. So they may need to develop lower spec options. The game may fail if the chip shortage doesn't enable people to afford to upgrade.
    zZJyoEK.gif

    U.S. East
  • maouwmaouw Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Problem: Global Chip Shortage
    Solution: Build more Chip Factories

    New Problem: Need $$$$ to build clean rooms for chip factories
    Solution: Research cheaper clean rooms

    New Problem: This tech is very far away
    Solution: Patience

    Original Problem: cannot upgrade PC
    S-

    hmm... :/
    I wish I were deep and tragic
  • I wonder how much more those requirements are going to jump as the game progresses. Makes you wonder how CPU dependent the game will be VS GPU dependent. I wonder what their optimisation goals are for the game on default settings/resolutions.

    Are we getting a constant 60+ fps in those 500 player battles with those requirements? What kind of performance can we expect with higher numbers in/out of combat/nodes?

    These would be interesting things to discover and know :smile:
  • Tragnar wrote: »
    I didn't ask for requirements :)))

    You asked for them indirectly - because optimization has only 1 goal and a result - which is to lower requirements

    Thats not entirely true, a poorly optimised game can run on a entry level gaming pc but will still run like shit on a $10000 pc.
  • VhaeyneVhaeyne Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I wonder how much more those requirements are going to jump as the game progresses. Makes you wonder how CPU dependent the game will be VS GPU dependent. I wonder what their optimisation goals are for the game on default settings/resolutions.

    I went down quite the rabbit hole just now looking for a good answer to this. Unreal Engine 4 seems not to have great multicore CPU support. Especially when I played ARK a lot at the launch of Early Access. After a few hours of digging through forum threads and the like for Unreal developers, I am still not understanding the situation as well as I would like. I don't think the situation is as easy as Epic can just make multicore CPU support good in a patch or something. It looks like it's on the individual game devs to make their game optimized. Which I thought was the case, but am still not 100% sure on.

    In any case, eventually Ark did get optimized to the point that my old rig went from like 22fps to 80fps on higher settings. I bring this up because it is the very situation that taught me, exactly how big of a deal, optimization can be.

    So far, Ashes has run great for me. I don't think I have seen frames lower than 60fps on a 2060. I am not certain how many CPU cores the game is using, but it runs about as well as any other MMORPG I have played. Better if you consider that the sieges I have participated in had numerous people and seemed to run just fine.

    A far cry from the slide show sieges in Aion back in the day.
    Are we getting a constant 60+ fps in those 500 player battles with those requirements? What kind of performance can we expect with higher numbers in/out of combat/nodes?

    I think the verdict is: They are going to try like hell.
    TVMenSP.png
    If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
  • maouwmaouw Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Not that I'm professional by any means, but coding for systematic multithreading is D I F F I C U L T and a source of many headaches.

    I'm pretty sure UE's Blueprints don't support multithreading, but iirc Intrepid has a squad dedicated to optimizing Blueprints in raw C++ which may or may not include multithreading. (Also, I'm not sure how dependent they are on Blueprints in the first place). AND I have a feeling this is hitting a topic that some of their engineers would LOVE to talk about but can't because of security concerns.
    I wish I were deep and tragic
  • edited December 2021
    @Vhaeyne you will be able to see by keeping an eye on CPU usage during testing vs GPU usage. It's not a way to determine absolution this early in development as optimisation progresses but it will give you an idea with some of the fluctuations/spikes you could come across in different scenarios.

    I am not entirely sure their methods for optimisation but judging by certain new games or ones currently in development (more specifically MMORPG's), some are quite heavy on the CPU as well as GPU's. It's an interesting discussion especially since they're using UE4 and doing their custom work with it.
Sign In or Register to comment.