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[Uhfgood]

Why not allow the software engine be able to do everything the hardware engine does (even advanced effects), even if it's not very fast?  Because I see no reason to use any special features if someone without a 3d accelerator can't use it.  It would take some of the game away, and if I had to, i'd rather just use the base features so that someone without the hardware can play the same game as someone with.

The other suggestion is to support music module playback (.mod, .xm, etc) without going to something like fmod or bass, at least unless you're planning on buying a resale license (and i'm sure they're expensive).

While Ogg is better than mp3 for just about everything, the music files would still be huge, of course if you have dialog you'd use ogg anyways but still, mod musics would be neat :-)

Keith

[Mnemonic]

Sorry, but I disagree. The compatibility mode is there only to be compatible with the (few) old video cards. My long term plan is to drop the software renderer completely when the right time comes, I'm certainly not going to improve it. You said "it would take some of the game away", but it won't take away any significant functionality, it just won't look that good as the accelerated version. IMHO it's exactly the same case as the 3D FPS games, you need to lower the resolution, lower the details etc.; you make the game look worse to make it run on your outdated hardware (at least *my* hardware seem to be *always* outdated when running those games :-))
Besides, those advanced gfx features would be too slow to be usable anyway. Actually, Direct3D8 provides the "reference rasterizer", which is a software implementation of all the 3D features and believe me, you wouldn't want your game to run *that* slowly...

About the MOD files... although I'm not completely convinced about the size issue (didn't Brassfire say her MOD file became much smaller after converting it to ogg? ;-) and those files are being streamed anyway, so size doesn't matter (not in term of used memory, that is), I can promise you that if I find some nice MOD library without licensing problems, I will gladly build it into WME.

[Scarpia]

Hi again. I was just wondering. When I run in hardware accelerated mode on my system, the demo seems to run significantly slower than without. Doesn't this kinda defy the meaning of "acceleration"?


Scarpia

[Brassfire]

mod file: 3.25 MB
wav file of the same thing: 10.7 MB
ogg file from that wav: 0.99 MB

mod file, using the exact same samples and merely changing the composition patterns so it's twice as long: Very close to the same size.

ogg file of twice as long a composition: twice the size.

mod file, using the exact same samples and going FOUR times as long: Very close to the same size.

ogg file, FOUR times as long a composition: FOUR times the size.

So, for game music, where it is important to have a lot of music but not be too repetitive - such as during a long conversation or wandering around in a forest or city - mod definitely wins.

IF mod files were able to use the same compression as ogg for their samples... it would be the clear winner.

Midi would also be ok if there was a custom soundfont loader, you could make a couple of 20 MB soundfonts for your game rather than having 100-150 MB of ogg files.

Of course, being a musician, I'm planning on a LOT of music. For just a small amount of music, and definitely for sfx, ogg rules.

Basically:

mod - can make long music without worrying about lack of compression ratios, worry about sample quality
ogg - can make short music without worrying about sample quality, worry about repetitiveness and ease of looping

[Uhfgood]

dropping the unaccelerated mode are we? That's harsh... Well I suppose I can find something else when the time comes.

Keith

[Mnemonic]

Brassfire: Oh, ok, thanks for making it clearer for me.

Uhfgood: Like it or not but I really do believe the 3D accelerator is a standard today. At least I don't know of anybody near me who doesn't have one. Maintaining two separate renderers for WME is time consuming and I could spend that time on other features instead. Therefore I'd be happy to get rid of the less perspective renderer.

[Uhfgood]

Not to sound like a jerk or anything, but there are thousands upon thousands of old computers out there without a 3d accelerator.  As far as it being time consuming to support both, you're right, but if I knew how to do it, to me it would be worth it because it means everyone would be able to play games made with my system :-)

In anycase Wintermute is still the best system i've come across to date.  So i'll at least be prototyping my game in it, and possibly if I end up changing my mind, i may still use it anyways.

As far as mod musics verses ogg.  That ogg she made is only 1 minute.  The strength of a mod file is the fact you can have alot more time than that in music.  so 3.25 megs, is probably from the samples.  Now, if she were to expand the music to say... 10 minutes, it would still not grow that much bigger than 3.25 megs, wheras an ogg would still be 10 megs for that 10 minutes.  (Since an ogg is essentially like an mp3 with better compression).

The reason I say not much bigger than the original 3.25 megs, is that the patterns and notes might take a slight extra, but in my experience, the patterns aren't usually that big.

Now if you compress the samples in ogg format, in a mod, then you can really get the size down ;-)

Keith

[Mnemonic]

Keith, you seem to be forgetting about one important thing. Making an adventure game takes some time. Actually, it takes lots (LOTS!) of time. By the time you finish your game, things will change. Those "thousands upon thousands" old computers will be peacefully resting on a junkyard and you'll end up with an outdated piece of junk yourself. I certainly don't wanna WME to end up like that. Please respect this my strategic decision because I'm the one who's responsible for the engine, I'm the one who has the responsibility to the WME users.


About the MOD files... It's important to make clear what we want to achieve. Do we prefer a smaller distribution package or do we prefer smaller memory usage? Because, although OGG files may be bigger, they are streamed from the disk piece by piece, thus taking up only a small piece of memory. I can image MOD files will consume much more memory due to multiple channels playing simultaneously. Like I said before, the biggest advantage of MOD files is IMHO in the ability to dynamicaly change the music. The old Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Dreams games are great examples of it.

[Uhfgood]

How am I not respecting your decision?  I'm just voicing my opinion as well as praising your system.  As far as the adventure game taking a long time, yes and no, it really depends on the requirements, who's making it, etc... It could be done shortly or a long time, and still have high quality, then again, it could be done in a short period or a long time, and still be junk quality too.  And I will still disagree about the "old" computer thing...  They're still being used, and will be for years.  Especially with the economy (in the US i don't know about other countries) in a slump, people aren't upgrading as quickly as previously.

As far as OGG's and MOD's go, i'm talking about disk space.  It's more important to me (your milage may vary ;-) ), Plus mod's don't have to take up a lot more memory if you use your memory wisely.  (It would take X amount of memory when you preloaded the mod in and then processed it, and then of course your final buffer that you're playing from would be only the size of the one you would use for an ogg or mp3.  In fact you still have to decompress ogg's into memory for streaming, so in a sense there is not much of a difference.

Of course if you dynamically change the music the memory requirements can be bigger.  But then again you're only putting the samples in memory and the patterns, so it would still only be a matter of mixing them into a single buffer.

In any case, you can do what you like :-)  Like I said, when the time comes of actually implementing stuff, i'll figure something out, whether it be to use wintermute, or some other engine, or just start developing my own.

Keith

[Brassfire]

From the help file in ModTracker:

IT: Impulse Tracker Music Modules

Like XM modules are an extension of MOD modules, IT is a superset of S3M. Impulse Tracker Modules represent a major improvement over the other ones. If you never used instruments with FastTracker, IT songs could be considered exactly as S3M songs. However, the major improvement, besides the fact that, like FastTracker II, it doesn't have the 64-rows limits in patterns, and can have comments in the song (No need to edit sample names anymore), is the support for volume/panning/pitch envelopes and especially NNAs. The New Note Action option means that when you play a new note, the old one doesn't have to be cut abruptly, but can fade in the background, for example. If you are just starting to write your own mod music, I recommend starting with S3M modules (Or IT modules with no instruments), and then get yourself used to the volume envelopes and NNA effects.

Also, the tracker and the player will open zipped mod files. That's saving it in winzip and renaming to have an extension of *.itz

When I zip my file it's 2.02 MB instead of 3.25... worth looking into.

There is a faq about mod music at http://www.modplug.com/modfaq/index.html
And more info throughout the site.

[Scarpia]

I really don't want to get mixed up in this argument^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdebate, but I'll post my two cents anyways..

About the gfx accelerators.... I, for one, have a computer w/o an accelerator (or perhaps it was just buggy, I'm not sure which), so I'm actually one of the people who experience problems with graphics acceleration, and I still think dropping the software renderer is the right decision. Sure, older computers exist, but they ARE slowly going out of use. I know that in a lot of lesser-industrialized countries, the older hardware will be in use for years on, but I'm not counting on one of my games to be the next world-wide adventure blockbuster, especially with a stagnant market for 2d point-n-click adventure games. I'm more concerned about the fact that even if my game is really great, chances are that very few will care (compared to modern 3d first person shooters or MMPORG's).


About MOD / OGG files: C'mon people, value the fact that WME already has good audio format support, and instead just go searching for a (quote) nice MOD library without licensing problems if you really want Jan to implement it ;-P


Scarpia


PS: Uhfgood: No matter how long you think creating a game will take, it will take longer. A lot longer

[Uhfgood]

I already have experience making/finishing games, just not adventure games yet ;-)

Keith

[Scarpia]

Anything online for download?   always curious


Scarpia

[Uhfgood]

http://www.uhfgames.com

The gemfall and smiley demos are combined into one product (the uhfgames puzzle pack as I called it), and then LX1 demo is it's own thing.

They're not spectacular but they're finished :-)

Keith

[Jeroen]

Euh, I completely agree with Jan on the hardware acceleration matter. We decided to drop software rendering for Project Joe a long time ago.

Several reasons for this choice:

1. What Jan described: I think hardware support is standard nowadays, even a computer I own with a Matrox G400 runs Joe. If you want "old school adventures" which need to run on old computers; perhaps less hardware demanding engines like Sludge, AGAST or AGS are good options.

2. Development time. Very early in development we found out, in order to let everything look good, that we had to constantly keep track of what changes in software mode and not.... For example, a scene with free entities suddenly have ugly borders etc. I don't want someone to say "the game has serious graphics flaws" while he has acceleration turned off.