Natural Selection 2 retweeted

alsteralster Join Date: 2003-08-06 Member: 19124Members
"Natural Selection 2 Retweeted
Charlie Cleveland @Flayra
An @NS2 player named Popcorn made this beautiful video of our game environments. Making me feel nostalgic:

YouTube ‎@YouTube"

Ah the good old days before healthbars and default alien vision mucking up the visuals.

Comments

  • snbsnb Join Date: 2006-11-09 Member: 58499Members
    Funny how the prettier a map is, the worse it is to play on.

    In a weird way, NS2 teaches you about life.
  • YojimboYojimbo England Join Date: 2009-03-19 Member: 66806Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Can't remember the last time I turned my settings on NS2 to high, I found in order to actually track and kill targets you need everything on low lol
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Ah good ol' @Popcorn, it's just sad Spark cannot hold a decent FPS at this level of detail :(
  • ezekelezekel Join Date: 2012-11-29 Member: 173589Members, NS2 Map Tester
    That was cool to watch
  • jrgnjrgn Join Date: 2006-11-03 Member: 58289Members
    Maybe Spark is more fit for a single player game than a fast paced multiplayer game....in my experience only really "slow" games (stealthy) benefit from interesting and beautiful graphics, games like Thief or Deus Ex. In quick games the drop of fps is just not worth it. But the graphics of ns2 is excellent, something that really stands out!
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited August 2016
    NS2 is cpu bound when it comes to performance. It needs a lot of single threaded performance. AFAIK, this comes from the gameplay logic being in Luajit.

    Using luajit, or lua, is not uncommon in games. It has advantages. Lua is very easy to work with and much quicker to develop with. It also has that cpu performance cost.

    I am not saying the spark engine is perfect, or even a great engine, but it is not main cause of games performance problems. It certainly is a factor, but not as much as using Lua does.


    In other news, check out some screenshots I took of NS2 with max settings in 4k. Unrealistic performance but it looks great.
    http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2262366/#Comment_2262366
  • SebSeb Melbourne, AU Join Date: 2013-04-01 Member: 184576Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Retired Community Developer
    edited August 2016
    If you want to see some more films that are similar (shameless self promotion sorry), I made one a couple months back showing off a bit of Caged and also the NS2WC.

    Also, a film made by someone that goes by the name muffinsAKA on youtube made this which is pretty cool too!

  • jrgnjrgn Join Date: 2006-11-03 Member: 58289Members
    edited August 2016
    Nordic wrote: »


    In other news, check out some screenshots I took of NS2 with max settings in 4k. Unrealistic performance but it looks great.
    http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2262366/#Comment_2262366

    Looks really awesome. Wonder when this will be able to run a decent framerate on "average" gamer hardware? 2 years? 5? Ready to for a re-release then! ; ) o:)
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited August 2016
    jrgn wrote: »
    Nordic wrote: »


    In other news, check out some screenshots I took of NS2 with max settings in 4k. Unrealistic performance but it looks great.
    http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2262366/#Comment_2262366

    Looks really awesome. Wonder when this will be able to run a decent framerate on "average" gamer hardware? 2 years? 5? Ready to for a re-release then! ; ) o:)

    You could do it now depending on the kind of performance you want. I know others have run 4k on 970 sli with more than playable results. I would want more FPS myself though. I don't even think the brand new Nvidia pascal titan in SLI would be enough for the performance I want.

    To get the performance I want from a single mid range card is going to be many years, but that is only because I demand so much.
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    edited August 2016
    It's similar to how GoldSrc was pushed beyond it's limits with runtime entities and tank FPS on maps with lotsa pretties. Spark is kinda doing the same, engine bottleneck has to be brute forced. And we still don't have the sheer power on rigs these days, quite similar to how Pentium 200MMX rigs or even Pentium III 500Mhz rigs could't brute force it on GoldSrc back in the day.

    And I'm guessing it is a bandwidth servertick issue for all the info streaming between server and client?


    Can't really blame the cpu/gpu development, mostly they've become smaller and more power and per clock tick efficient, not the usual raw GHZ++ powerup they tended to get a few generations ago. ie: Sandy Bridge is only ~10-20% slower than Skylake, that is not that big a step compared to the generation gap. Something about Moore's law and the resistor barrier, I forget :D
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited August 2016
    I have often hear people complain about how process shrinkage was improving efficiency but that they wanted performance to improve by keeping the cpu big (ie, improve density without changing size), but I have also heard people say that it is not that simple. Can someone confirm this?
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    coolitic wrote: »
    I have often hear people complain about how process shrinkage was improving efficiency but that they wanted performance to improve by keeping the cpu big (ie, improve density without changing size), but I have also heard people say that it is not that simple. Can someone confirm this?

    I want more performance for the same efficiency but it is not that simple. As the die shrinks it becomes exponentially more difficult to keep electrons where they are supposed to be. The walls inside a processor are being measured in atoms now. There is not much room to move things around.
    Basically, it becomes exponentially more expensive to improve performance as process nodes shrink.

    I have also heard that game developers are lazy and need to use more cores. It also is not that simple. Most tasks a game does are not able to be paralleled, or made into multi core. It is not possible most of the time.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited August 2016
    And what makes it hard to simply increase transistor count?

    (just price?)
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited August 2016
    Nordic wrote: »
    Physics

    Elaborate pl0x. (I was already suspecting it had something to do with that)
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    edited August 2016
    Something about the gates being so damn small, electrons simply pass through due to lack of resistance. And by increasing the density, they tend to interfere with each other I assume...

    Armchair physics fellow here, so take what I say with a bag of salt o/
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    coolitic wrote: »
    Nordic wrote: »
    Physics

    Elaborate pl0x. (I was already suspecting it had something to do with that)

    Read up on it then.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited September 2016
    Nordic wrote: »

    From what I gather, it has more to do with how efficiently operations are done iteratively (thus the need for multi-core) than physics really? Now I see why the VISC architecture shows some promise.

    Also, @Kouji_San , I meant increasing transistor count at same size instead of making it smaller at same transistor count.
  • barniebarnie Join Date: 2016-07-26 Member: 220695Members
    edited September 2016
    New Architectures you say?
    Why not the MILL Architecture?
    They claim to have solved Superscalar problem -> execute up to 32 instructions per clock cycle.
    And they have Ivan Godard Gandalf on the team so the thing is going to be magic!
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    edited September 2016
    @coolitic that's what I meant with the second part, perhaps they interfere with each other if you increase the density (more transistors, less space?)


    OI! I want my first quantum predictive computer, screw light speed and it's damn limitations. We need to figure out how to predict this quantum mechanics computing (and with we, I mean the insanely brilliant scientists) we need to go even further beyond!


    I love how this "beautifying of NS2" evolved into "omg we need more power", just sayin'


    barnie wrote: »
    And they have Ivan Godard Gandalf on the team so the thing is going to be magic!

    youreallwrong.gif
  • .trixX..trixX. Budapest Join Date: 2007-10-11 Member: 62605Members
    edited September 2016
    The reason why Moore's law is expected to be obsolete in a few years is because silicon based wafers (14nm node width currently) are prone to quantum tunneling: the dielectric barrier is not great enough (not quite resistance, but kind of) to keep electrons on their designated paths, so they can corrupt the voltage levels. The current physically possible node width with silicon is 5nm, but due to manufacturing costs it wont see mass production for quite a few years.
    The logical step for manufacturers at this time is to optimize their existing architecture, and that's exactly what we are seeing among "next-gen" chips.

    If you think about it, this doesn't mean that semi-conductor shrinking will stop at 5nm. We have several proof-of-concept studies using carbon, diamond, glass, etc.. as wafer material. Beside allowing denser nodes, they are also good heat-conductors so cooling is less of a factor, hence power-efficiency.
    But since it's capitalism and companies have spent fortunes on the current manufacturing lines, they won't start swapping the machines until it becomes economically beneficial. Give it 10 years and we'll have carbon wafers and Moore's law will continue, mark my words! :]

    Oh, and quantum computers may sound awesome, but there is only a small set of computing problems they are good at. I don't think we'll see home computers having QPU modules, the more likely setup is data-centers leasing QPU time over the cloud... or maybe "small" encryption devices, I think there are some of these out there on the market already.
  • moultanomoultano Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    coolitic wrote: »
    Nordic wrote: »
    I meant increasing transistor count at same size instead of making it smaller at same transistor count.

    As you make the die bigger, the chance that the die contains a defect somewhere on its surface goes up, so yield ends up being inversely related to die size. This makes larger dies much more expensive because you get fewer of them out of the same process.

  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited September 2016
    Kouji_San wrote: »
    @coolitic that's what I meant with the second part, perhaps they interfere with each other if you increase the density (more transistors, less space?

    They already increase density. I was just saying whether or not to use that density to to have more transistors in the same area, as opposed to have a smaller area with the same transistor count. However, I've gotten my answers.
    .trixX. wrote: »
    We have several proof-of-concept studies using carbon, diamond, glass, etc.. as wafer material.

    *cough* graphene *cough*
  • .trixX..trixX. Budapest Join Date: 2007-10-11 Member: 62605Members
    coolitic wrote: »
    *cough* graphene *cough*

    Graphene is made of carbon... but yeah, the lattice structure is the key, so I should've written graphene :D
  • barniebarnie Join Date: 2016-07-26 Member: 220695Members
    edited September 2016
    The next step would likely be GaAs (Gallium Arsenide) or SiGe (Silicon Germanium) much higher fT compared to silicon transistors of the same size.
    Both are well known process technologies which are currently in use for high end microwave components.
    The Cray-3 had GaAs processors in it and IBM had SiGe Processors at some point.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited September 2016
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