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#26 2006-03-19 12:48 pm
- LoupGarou
- Member

- From: Montreal
- Registered: 2001-12-28
- Posts: 206
Re: New 2007 picts
The Cynic wrote:
The point of all these games is to simulate reality.
Erm... it's called Unreal Tournament. 
I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist Loup's den
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#27 2006-03-19 9:33 pm
- The Cynic
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- Registered: 2004-01-25
- Posts: 1934
Re: New 2007 picts
In an unrealistic way, in this case.
Semantics aside, you should already know.
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#28 2006-03-19 9:51 pm
- The Cynic
- Member

- Registered: 2004-01-25
- Posts: 1934
Re: New 2007 picts
unreal
adjective
so strange as to appear imaginary; not seeming real
• unrealistic : unreal expectations. • informal incredible; amazing.
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#29 2006-03-20 4:43 am
- LoupGarou
- Member

- From: Montreal
- Registered: 2001-12-28
- Posts: 206
Re: New 2007 picts
Uptight
Main Entry: conventional
Part of Speech: adjective 2
Definition: unoriginal
Synonyms: bourgeois, commonplace, conforming, conservative, demure, doctrinal, dogmatic, drippy, hackneyed, hidebound, humdrum, illiberal, inflexible, insular, isolationist, lame, literal, moderate, moral, narrow, narrow-minded, not heretical, obstinate, parochial, pedestrian, prosaic, puritanical, rigid, routine, rube, run-of-the-mill, sober, solemn, square, stereotyped, straight, straight-laced, strict, stuffy, uptight
I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist Loup's den
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#30 2006-03-20 5:49 am
Re: New 2007 picts
I actually wen't back and played UT again and found that without the increased geometric and physical detail, compared to UT2004, it was just too plain and simple minded to hold my attention (and Quake3 is even worse). I really loved old school domination too.
Ho Eyo He Hum
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#31 2006-03-20 12:29 pm
- The Cynic
- Member

- Registered: 2004-01-25
- Posts: 1934
Re: New 2007 picts
LoupGarou wrote:
you are uptight
annoying
adjective
causing irritation or annoyance : annoying habits | unsolicited calls are annoying.
We could go on forever.
Last edited by The Cynic (2006-03-20 12:30 pm)
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#32 2006-03-20 12:59 pm
- LoupGarou
- Member

- From: Montreal
- Registered: 2001-12-28
- Posts: 206
Re: New 2007 picts
The Cynic wrote:
LoupGarou wrote:
you are uptight
I never said anyone was uptight. I just like to post synonyms in a random fashion. You're just reading into it what you want to. 
I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist Loup's den
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#33 2006-03-21 1:00 am
- The Cynic
- Member

- Registered: 2004-01-25
- Posts: 1934
Re: New 2007 picts
Sorry, I just clicked the quote button and that's what came out 
So... can we try getting back on topic?
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#34 2006-03-21 10:55 am
- LLEVIATHANN
- Itch you can't scratch

- From: 22 Acacia Avenue
- Registered: 2001-03-14
- Posts: 7158
Re: New 2007 picts
The Cynic wrote:
can we try getting back on topic?
Yup!
Socamx this isn't about 'teh purdy'. It's about having more complex environmental interactions and better physics. Personally I think it would be cool and more real if my rockets that just missed the target still did some damage because of all the debris that exploded off the concrete wall. Currently this is just simulated with splash damage. To date I don't think there is a game out there that does ricochets and that's understandable with today’s technology. But add some more processing on a dedicated chip to handle that kind of stuff and it could be very well possible to get hit by a bullet, shrapnel, debris or whatever bouncing off stuff. Now of course what I'm talking about now is a little extreme. I don't want games filled with even more crap that could kill you. Having another tool to make games better is what I'm all for. Analogy time: My truck has 4X4 I don't use it much but it's nice to know it's there just in case.
Example:
Half Life 2 has some of the best physics I've seen in a game to date but they are still off. The weight of things doesn't feel right. It's a little too easy to toss around 55 gal. drums and they bounce unnaturally. Throwing a one gal. paint can against the wall and seeing the paint splash is cool but the can never runs out of paint, never gets damaged and only leaves like 5 different splash marks. HL2 gets so close and yet there is plenty of room to improve.
Some UT specifics:
Gravity arc…rockets/flak flying straight on to infinity or until they hit something isn’t right.
More destructible environments.
Deemer Blast…c’mon it’s a nuclear weapon yet nothing moves in and near its blast radius. It would be nice to see vehicles get pushed around and a dust cloud/fallout linger for awhile.
Better vehicle physics…they bounce and move too much now.
Better more accurate splash damage and it should include debris from near by objects if the situation would call for it.
Better damage reporting, more localized. Three rockets at your feet may not have killed you but now your feet are messed up and movement rate is cut in half. Same could be done with fall damage. Take damage and movement rate decrease until healed or killed.
Let us be thankful for the fools; but for them the rest of us could not succeed. - Mark Twain
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#35 2006-03-21 1:16 pm
- The Cynic
- Member

- Registered: 2004-01-25
- Posts: 1934
Re: New 2007 picts
LLEVIATHANN wrote:
lots of interesting ideas
Oh, the possibilities.
Unfortunately for now, all we really can do is think up more and more impressive ways to implement physics-related effects (read: not really what nV has done here), but things like the shrapnel splash damage that levi mentioned.
LLEVIATHANN wrote:
Better vehicle physics…they bounce and move too much now.
I think that Halo (1/2) really hit the mark with their vehicles' behavior, and should be what most other games strive for*.
On a totally unrelated note, if there is ever a game that has a drivable high-speed, very heavy (feeling) tank like the one seen at the beginning of Appleseed, I would be complete. That thing was vicious. Standard treads (a bit wide for traction), a bit thickish hull/body, and a painfully fast chain gun on top. However, the amazing thing about it was the speed. There were slightly accentuated exhaust pipes (because the thing was obviously a fuel monger), and the damn tank would go from stationary to a solid 30MPH in ~2 seconds.
Also, a video of a large jenga-ish structure collapsing in the Novodex demo app (from my computer.)
Also also, I found a trailer for the movie that has two brief moments showing the radtastic tank.
*The 'hogs were pretty slippery, but it worked out well for them.
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#36 2006-03-21 1:51 pm
- LLEVIATHANN
- Itch you can't scratch

- From: 22 Acacia Avenue
- Registered: 2001-03-14
- Posts: 7158
Re: New 2007 picts
The Cynic wrote:
I think that Halo (1/2) really hit the mark with their vehicles' behavior, and should be what most other games strive for.
I like the way the vehicles in UT2K4 drive. That isn't the problem. It’s what happens when they get hit with stuff that is the problem. Watching a Manta bounce and dance around for 30 seconds after it was blown out of the sky is nuts. Three rockets can totally flip around a Hellbender is nuts. Seeing a Goliath hung up at a 90 degree angle on a bridge is a sight to see. Taking a 100 pnts of damage for hitting a curb but take none for jumping off a cliff always make me go WTF!?!
The little stuff doesn’t bother me. Only the huge obnoxious physic bugs or lack of physics that is really annoying/entertaining. Again this is a weight issue in games. The Goliath tank looks heavy, drives like its heavy and it does feel heavy. That is until you drive one off a cliff/bridge. There the illusion of it’s great weight is gone.
Let us be thankful for the fools; but for them the rest of us could not succeed. - Mark Twain
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#37 2006-03-21 2:21 pm
- LLEVIATHANN
- Itch you can't scratch

- From: 22 Acacia Avenue
- Registered: 2001-03-14
- Posts: 7158
Re: New 2007 picts
Just in:
Firing Squad Interviews Mark Rein:
FiringSquad: What is Epic’s feeling about PC game hardware and how will the Unreal engine be part of that?
Mark Rein: I wish I could report only good news but that’s not the case.
On the good side there is a lot of exciting news in the PC space. Ageia is launching their physics hardware. NVIDIA now has Quad SLI. Dell is getting serious about PC gaming with their XPS 600 Renegade system and XPS M170 laptops. Both Intel and AMD now sell dual-core processors. Apple has switched to Intel. NVIDIA’s SLI is taking hold and lots of game enthusiasts are starting to use it. These are all good things that Unreal Engine 3 is very qualified to take advantage of. We’re obviously using the PhysX library which, in addition to giving us very strong physics performance on Xbox360 and PS3, will give us the ability to take advantage of the upcoming PC PhysX hardware. Prior to their announcement at CES this year we had a chance to run Unreal Engine 3 on Dell’s new XPS 600 Renegade Quad SLI system and I can tell you that it is fantastic! Dell is lending us gear for our GDC demos this year. In addition to running our theatre on the amazing Renegade we’ll also be demo’ing on more down-to-earth SLI-equipped XPS 600 systems and the Dell M170 laptop with NVIDIA’s Geforce Go 7800 GTX. Dell is also lending us some of their amazing 30” monitors which are fantastic for Unreal Editor demos. Our new multi-threaded renderer will also be great on dual core processors from AMD and Intel. Windows Vista will also give us a nice performance boost by getting us closer to the hardware than past versions of Windows have.
Unfortunately the bad side is getting really bad. It is getting harder and harder for the average consumer to buy a computer with a decent graphics chips in it. When I go to major electronics retailers I see that most of the machines being sold are using Intel Integrated graphics - including the vast majority of laptops. Some of the desktop machines don’t even have slots for discrete graphics cards which I find personally offensive. Laptops of course are mostly not upgradable so a bad laptop is a bad laptop forever and considering how many people are replacing desktop with laptops this is especially worrisome. It is really sad when you see the moniker “media” or “entertainment” attached to something with Intel Integrated graphics in it. I question the logic of developing dual-core CPUs and saddling them with ultra-low-end graphics especially considering that one of the big benefits of Windows Vista will be a hugely improved graphical user interface that will help improve productivity. There are some seriously expensive desktops and laptops with crappy graphics chips in them – these aren’t just the low-priced machines either. Intel salespeople are probably patting themselves on the back for these design wins but the truth is the more successful they are with this strategy the faster they could be killing off the PC games market and nobody has the balls to stand up and cry foul because Intel is so powerful.
If people take those machines home and try to play recent PC games on them they’re going to have a horrible experience and possibly give up on PC gaming altogether. Users aren’t educated in this area but when their new $1,500 PC says “no” to a decent PC game they’re going to just assume the PC games market had passed them by. This is sad because the difference in cost the PC manufacturer to put in a decent graphics chip isn’t very much.
We need to find a way to encourage manufacturers to offer more balanced systems with better graphics chips and understand that every user they convert to a gamer represents a potential higher-margin sale the next time and every user they discourage from gaming represents a potential lower-margin commodity purchaser later. We need those mainstream users to be trying PC games. It is nearly impossible to justify the cost of making games that scale down to integrated graphics when the next-gen consoles have so much graphics power and represent a huge upcoming market. How many publishers would bother bringing their latest games to PC if only the hardcore players could run them? Those customers have already proven they’re willing to spend $300 for a graphics card so expecting them to own a next-gen console isn’t much of a leap.
So despite the fact that I’m a big cheerleader for PC gaming I am worried about a potential for catastrophic failure of the PC gaming market. You’d think Intel would be worried about that too especially considering that none of the next-generation consoles use Intel CPUs.
Let us be thankful for the fools; but for them the rest of us could not succeed. - Mark Twain
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#38 2006-03-21 6:10 pm
- The Cynic
- Member

- Registered: 2004-01-25
- Posts: 1934
Re: New 2007 picts
Yeah, the nV "SLI Physics" thing is silly.
The only useful aspect of it in my opinion is that it introduces people to the idea of physics being a pretty good (and pretty) thing in video games.
I see it as a primer for Ageia's Asus/BFG assisted breakout into the mainstream.
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#39 2006-03-24 6:16 pm
- LLEVIATHANN
- Itch you can't scratch

- From: 22 Acacia Avenue
- Registered: 2001-03-14
- Posts: 7158
Re: New 2007 picts
Can't buy it until May but ya can look at it.
BFG's Physx card
Last edited by LLEVIATHANN (2006-03-24 6:20 pm)
Let us be thankful for the fools; but for them the rest of us could not succeed. - Mark Twain
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#40 2006-03-25 11:22 am
- The Cynic
- Member

- Registered: 2004-01-25
- Posts: 1934
Re: New 2007 picts
Yeah, they first showed up a few days ago in high-end (read: $$$$$) pre-build computers from Dell, etc.
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#41 2006-03-25 11:51 am
- The Cynic
- Member

- Registered: 2004-01-25
- Posts: 1934
Re: New 2007 picts

@ article+screenshots+gamelist
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