Shards - The Shattered World (RPG)

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  • Sorry, is this game designed for mobiles or PC? If PC, I doubt you need to be concern with using physics, even with many more objects.

    Athlon X2 is ancient. The average PC these days is i3 or i5, which with turbo boost and better IPC, would be ~5 times faster single threaded.

  • PC. From what my research found looking at performance tests, actually the top of the line CPUs like an i7 4770 3.2ghz (single thread rating is listed at 2254) are only about 3.3x faster on a single thread (my 4400+ has a 678 single thread rating). I'm not an expert on the matter, but as far as I know desktop CPUs have had only small single threaded performance improvements for a while, which is part of why they've gone multi core. I'd be happy if I was misunderstanding and they were actually faster, though.

    Regardless, this is the computer I have and I don't have the money for another, so I would prefer to have it working smoothly on my PC as well, not to mention that would make sure older computers can play it too.

  • Steam is a good representation of gamers: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

    67% have DX11 class graphics (modern GPU as well as more recent Intel Haswell CPUs), 29% have DX10. Combined, its nearly 97% of PCs on steam that has a DX10 or above. CPU wise, to be paired with these graphics card (due to dx10 entry after these CPU), would be Phenom II or Q9400 etc. For me, these would be the low end I would aim for. Anything lower is beyond hope, generally drivers would be outdated or blacklisted and would cause all kinds of issues. NV have recently stop supporting GTX 8800 (DX10) series and below. AMD stop support for Radeon 4800(DX10)/5800(1st gen DX11) series as well.

    You will have to make that call as to what specs you want to target with your game, and whether you are sacrificing too much in visuals, gameplay and design to meet that target.

  • The gpu isn't relevant, as my computer has a 9800gt which is easily capable enough for this game and I wouldn't need anything above dx9 anyway. The drivers are also plenty stable enough even though nvidia has decided to stop updating them. My system was only blacklisted because it's vista, but I can get around that anyway by ignoring the blacklist.

    I'm a bit surprised you're arguing against it. You often mention in threads about what can be done on mobiles with optimization - why do you think my CPU shouldn't even be bothered with when it's still far more powerful than most mobile devices as well as having the benefit of JavaScript compilation via v8 which iOS doesn't have? Shouldn't the same philosophy be applied here, if the hardware is capable of it? Why shouldn't I target my CPU if I can? I'm pretty close to managing it, and really, even on an i3-i7 I would still probably need to implement the dynamic loading anyway.

    I know all games need a minimum spec. I decided my computer is that spec. I respect that you wouldn't want to target my computer for a PC game, but that's not what I want to do.

  • I know all games need a minimum spec. I decided my computer is that spec. I respect that you wouldn't want to target my computer for a PC game, but that's not what I want to do.

    I was just responding because in the other post, you said you are getting very high CPU usage with the current implementation with physics, which is working very nice.

    If you want to target low end specs then as I've said, there will be sacrifices in assets, and implementation/code. Since you have decided to go for that target, then I wish you the best of luck.

  • Ah, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. When I spoke about the high CPU use, I meant I'm still getting 55-60 fps, but just barely. I think I can keep it there with optimization.

    I also don't think I made it clear that I aside from this one problem, I'm pretty sure my computer is capable of running the game as I imagine it, so there's not much reason to target a higher spec anyway.

  • Arima Love your Illustrations!

    any Demo o test??

  • luisgmolina thanks, no demo yet, got a ways to go before it's ready. Most of the character and enemy abilities are done, most of the remaining tasks are animations, the level editor, putting the level together, dynamic level loading and the interactive level pieces themselves (doors, etc). This is a pretty complex part of it so I don't know how long it will take.

  • Steam is a good representation of gamers: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

    17% of the gaming community speak Russian?

    Guess you need to learn a new language then.

    Arima: If you can have your game operating smoothly on your computer that'll be good. However if it's a choice between having a game not up to your expectations but which runs smooth on your old system, vs a game which does much of what you seek but needs a computer made in the last 5 years, then you will have to think carefully about which is most important.

    Of course, this is something only you can decide. Hopefully you wont need to make such a choice <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

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  • Aurora Australis

    Yeah, as mentioned above I'm pretty sure I can get it as I imagine it on my computer. I was saving it for the next monthly update, but I might as well mention now that I've got a dynamic system set up that enables and disables physics based upon units' proximity to each other, and that plus other optimizations has saved a bunch of CPU time, so I think I might be able to leave physics in.

    Either way, I decided that it wasn't important for the proof of concept demo, so have moved on to getting the other parts of the game done instead.

  • Shards update

    So I wanted the player to have the ability to run from an incoming attack, and hide behind an enemy to have that enemy get hit instead. It seemed like a good idea at first, until I realized that when enemies are bunched up they can be significantly more dangerous to each other than the player is, especially when they're using area affect attacks. So dangerous that it's too significant of an advantage for the player as they blow themselves up.

    To negate this, I'd have to at least implement line of sight for the enemies, which isn't a problem, but it would still be a pretty 'stupid' check because I'm not good enough of a coder to write an ai that'll check what units will be in the way by the time the attack gets there (especially since units change their minds about what they're doing frequently), so I'm thinking that's one feature the game is going to have to go without.

    The combo mode is implemented!

    You can now string attacks together, unpause the game and watch them play out. Alternately you can leave combo mode off and input them one at a time for one click command input and resuming of action (I've been trying to reduce the number of clicks needed to as few as possible to streamline the ui).

    In a lot of RPGs, there are abilities you can select from a list which are essentially a string of attacks that play out exactly the same each time. That doesn't give the player any interesting choices other than the initial choice of using that combo rather than another.

    There are games out there that let you make your own combos, but in the ones I've seen there isn't much difference between which attacks the player uses. A punch will do damage, and so will a kick.

    In Shards, you get to make your own combos, and each move has its own advantages and disadvantages. Normal attacks are quick but weak. Spin slashing hits in 360 degrees, but uses more sp and has a higher recovery time, which isn't good if an opponent blocks it. Hitting harder causes more damage and knocks the enemy back, but isn't as quick to hit with, uses more sp and has a higher recovery time.

    Advantages and disadvantages to each, and no one move is always superior. Interesting choices!

    Next step

    I think I'm getting close to the point where the game is ready for a first video, I just need to fix a few bugs and make some animations so the characters aren't performing all their actions in the same pose.

  • Good luck with the project and looks good.

  • Heroes ready for battle

  • Oooo, Arima's on a new roll

    What happened to the Gold Chase?

  • Whiteclaws - Funny you should mention that, I just got inspired to work on loot pursuit again yesterday and today. So yeah, it's still in development. I just needed a break from it for a while.

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