Rant read, poster forgiven 😀

Totally agree with you, eL_PuSHeR!

The whole damn industry just cares more about making big bucks fast than providing actual software that's properly built, tested and optimized to take full advantage of the existing hardware instead of creating stupid performance bottlenecks due to hardware specific features (like shader model 3.0 and so on). 😠

As some may say it's an exageration, I'll just through out the finest example of how a perfectly balanced game can perform like a champ in pretty much any piece of hardware be it middle or high end (low end cards are not even considered here, as we all know they're only good for Office applications).

Unreal Tournament 2004

I played the damn game on a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro w/ 128 MB RAM and it ran beautifully well at full details & eye candy.

If I try to play todays latest & greatest (say Bioshock or similar) I won't even come close to pulling a stunt like that...!

Granted, with software and hardware evolution, our cards do tend to get old, but nowadays it happens way too fast and today's top end GPU is next year's low end, at the pace it's going.

It's just insane... money is corrupting the games industry and there's only a few exceptions in that area (companies that release quality games that don't require top notch GPU's to "play the way it's meant to be played").

Well Bioshock and UT 2004 use the same Unreal engine (although Bioshock's is of course a far newer ver).

BioShock runs pretty good on low-end video cards with SM3 support and from all accounts runs good on SM2 hardware as well (If you load the SM2 patch of course).

I think in Bioshock's case it was either oversight, laziness, or just deciding not to bother with development for SM2 hardware because mabye they considered the amount of computer with graphics cards out there capable of playing the game was low enough for them not to care.

What has me confused is that shouldn't SM2/SM3 support come in the engine itself??!! and unless the game devs decide to radically change the Unreal featureset (Which for some reason alot of devs decide to do...3DREALMS I'm looking at you) then the work should mostly be done already?

DosFreak wrote:

What has me confused is that shouldn't SM2/SM3 support come in the engine itself??!!

Indeed! It should be the game developers' decision (and responsability wether (or not) to implement the technology (SM2/SM3) and properly provide native support for it and respective optimizations, so that end users (we, the gamers) don't end up with "performance hogs" in our machines as a lousy benchmarketing campaign that actually forces you to upgrade wether you like it or not.

Regarding Bioshock vs UT2k4, I'll bet my (aging) PC that my X800 Pro w/ 256 MB RAM won't run Bioshock as fluidly at 1024x768 with medium to high details as my 9800 Pro did in UT2k4.

Farcry was another good example I forgot to mention. Huge areas, great graphics, and very good performance all around (without needing high end stuff).

This may end up in companies having dwindled PC sales. It's not surprising that consoles have taken over. It seems PC marketing guys are blind with money. They don't care about quality anymore, just fast big sales. Pity.

That's sad but true!

Ultimately that's the reason I'm into DOSBox in my (very little) spare time...

I get to play my favorite "oldies but goldies" MUCH better than my old 486DX4 100Mhz with 36 MB RAM with a Cirrus Logic integrated video card w/ 512 KB RAM (no way on earth I could upgraded my Compaq Presario tank at the time)! I'll top anyone's experience when it comes to playing games at a really slow speed and with graphical artifacts 😵

That PC lasted me 7 years... I ended up selling it and it was still working fine.

Today, I hardly feel the urge to play/buy very recent games... Reminds me I have to spend tons of money just to get my PC up-to-date with today's standards, and knowing in advance that level of confort will last a year, at most. 😒

"Modern PC gaming" jumped the shark around late-2001. I think it was around AVP2/Halo's release that we started to see "it's crap but it'll sell big so that's okay" games.

Am I the only one who think about game publishers colluding with hardware vendors to force the obsolescence of older hardware? Planned obsolescence, anyone?

Right on the spot, KAN! 😉

We can say it's like that, generally speaking.

What pisses me off the most is that nowadays, it's not so much the developers who have control over their software creation process, but the publishers... That's why we see so many "unfinished" titles being released on the market! The development team gets pushed around so much and has to put up to so much pressure to finish the product in any designated ETA that's almost always impossible to achieve, hence resulting in a (sometimes very) flawed product.

It almost looks like a secret partnership, like "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" kind of thing...

Hardware developers release their PC components with all the latest technology, which in turn has to be put to good use. So it's up to the software developers to program applications (or games) that take advantage (or try to...) of that latest wonder tech. The publishers here want fast results without even caring if the final product is good or not, as long as there's big money on their way.

The bad part is that most of the time, the "adaptation" process isn't very user friendly (read: too fast and aggressive) and there's constant renewal of market (fast hardware/software cycling) that doesn't even get mature (read: get rid of all the bugs and squeeze the max juice from both hard/software by proper optimization).

It's a vicious cycle and any user that is interested in this kind of market is caught in the middle!

Publishers know the market today is being dominated by fast & furious (young) players that want to play the game out of the box with nice performance and graphics. Period!

[sarcasm]
Manual? What's that for...? Story background? Waste of time... Is it pretty? Has to be! The controls/gameplay suck bigtime? Who cares, as long as it's loud, fast and with breathtaking graphics, it's an instant classic!
Oh, wait... Make sure it has plenty of online stuff, even if there's no single player whatsoever. Single player 😜 Who cares about that nowadays, right?!
[/sarcasm]

I think we're both guily of thread hijacking, but I just can't help it 😉 , so.......

njaydg wrote:

What pisses me off the most is that nowadays, it's not so much the developers who have control over their software creation process, but the publishers... That's why we see so many "unfinished" titles being released on the market! The development team gets pushed around so much and has to put up to so much pressure to finish the product in any designated ETA that's almost always impossible to achieve, hence resulting in a (sometimes very) flawed product.

I still remember how EA ruined the once-great Ultima and Wing Commander that way, and then decided to close down both franchises as well as the entire Origin Systems. Way to go, EA! 😠

njaydg wrote:

It almost looks like a secret partnership, like "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" kind of thing...

I just wonder.... Maybe it also works the other way around? Hardware vendors gradually remove support for "legacy" features, effectively forcing gamers to abandon old games and buy newer ones? Games with 8-bit palleted textures just don't work on newer video cards, while Quake 3 and System Shock 2 look shitty on GeForce 8800.

By the way (and addressing the OP), it seems backward and forward compatibility problems are more severe in Direct3D than OpenGL, is that true?

njaydg wrote:

Publishers know the market today is being dominated by fast & furious (young) players that want to play the game out of the box with nice performance and graphics. Period!

Agree. As computer games become more and more 'mainstream', more gamers are getting less and less care about quality gameplay --beautiful graphics and easy learning curve is the only thing they care. It's not surprising that games are getting more and more watered down lately.

It sounds like what happened in music; even until 90s we still had real talents like Mariah Carey and Tony Braxton, but all we have now is generic, easy-to-dispose "MTV artists of the week".

Well at least I can still listen to Cafe del Mar or Euphoria albums, but how about games? What alternative do we have, besides resorting to old games and fan remakes?

njaydg wrote:

[sarcasm] Manual? What's that for...? Story background? Waste of time... Is it pretty? Has to be! The controls/gameplay suck big […]
Show full quote

[sarcasm]
Manual? What's that for...? Story background? Waste of time... Is it pretty? Has to be! The controls/gameplay suck bigtime? Who cares, as long as it's loud, fast and with breathtaking graphics, it's an instant classic!
Oh, wait... Make sure it has plenty of online stuff, even if there's no single player whatsoever. Single player 😜 Who cares about that nowadays, right?!
[/sarcasm]

"....and remember to force the gamers to stay connected to the internet even when they're only playing single player games. We need to keep them watching those in-game ads all the time!"

Well KAN, once more I'll have to agree with you... 😀

I've given a few days of thought about this thread and the fact is we don't get many OpenGL games nowadays on the market... Why?

Because DirectX is from Micro$oft, that's why! With such a powerful "force" backing up a continuously developing API, it's only natural that most developers are "persuaded" (Synd Wars reference 😁 ) to use Direct3D instead of the usually FASTER OpenGL API (at least with games).

Since OpenGL is also being continually developed and frequently use on the professional market (version 3.0 anyone?), there should be no reason as to why gamers can't have a simple option of choosing wether playing on D3D or OpenGL, as many PC's today (especially old ones) would benefit deeply from the performance boost of OpenGL.

If this is not happening, then we all know why... Money interests tends to talk louder than the end-customer needs.

Why use the faster (with pretty much no graphic quality difference - or very slight one) OpenGL when you can use the *cough* heavy *cough* optimized Direct3D, while being forced to buy/upgrade our hardware to meed those steep requirements in order to experience games "the way they want us to play them"?

Why use OpenGL in Windows when you'll be using DirectX anyway (Sound, Input, Networking)? The only reason to provide an OpenGL option is if the dev wants to leave the option open to release the game for a non Windows OS....and why would they want to do that when the market leader is Windows?

Any option added to a game requires extra testing (although with games nowadays there seems to be no testing at all), even a "simple" OGL renderer can add development time to a project that could most certainly be used elsewhere.

Why add OpenGL when all Windows 3D cards support Direct3D?

Anyone complaining about having to upgrade their hardware is just a cheap bastard. Computer hardware has never been cheaper. Get a job and stop complaining.

EDIT
Sigh, Dosfreak here. I hit Edit instead of quote. Somebody shoot me please.

#1 - Micro$oft is dominant with DirectX.

Is this a bad thing? They created it. Tons of developers use it. It works. How is this a bad thing?
The "$" isn't necessary.

#2 - OpenGL is faster than D3D because it's dedicated only to graphics, unlike DirectX (sound, input, networking).

Do you have any proof that OGL is faster than D3D? Are you basing this on an experience with 1 graphics card?

#3 - Microsoft has no interest in OpenGL (duh!)

Why would they be interested in OpenGL? They developed Direct3D, it works and is what they use. Why bother with OpenGL? OpenGL can be use in their OS but understandably they would rather use Direct3D for their own games. I don't blame them.

Why add OpenGL when all Windows 3D cards support Direct3D?

Would be useful to those with less powerfull hardware (and less economic power) to have an alternative choice, I believe...

I doubt it would be more usefull to those with less powerful hardware. D3D works on "less powerfull hardware" as well.

First of all, remember that not everyone lives in the same country you do and has the same lifestyle...

I work for a living and support my family, and therefore I can't afford to upgrade every 6 months (or every year) just to stay on top of things. In real life, especially when you're not alone, you can't just get a job to pay for your computer/software upgrades... I used to do that when I was single, but nowadays there's a house loan to pay, plenty of bills, mouths to feed and so on, so try no to place everyone in the same bag next time. See where I'm getting at?

I am well aware that not everyone has the money to upgrade their computers constantly. Guess what? I'm a computer enthusiast, and I use my computer every day. Up until this year I had the same Athlon XP 2800+ that I built back in late 2002. The only major upgrade I did for it was to buy a $300 graphics card (ATI X800 replaced ATI 9700) back in 2004 for it.

So probably $3000 spent in 2002 (and most of that was spent on a TON of external hard drives and enclosures), Computer lasted until 2004 for all of the latest games until I needed to buy a new video card for $300. Computer lasted until 2007 when I built a new computer. (Old computer couldn't really keep up with the latest games.

So $3000 / 5 years = $600 per year and then tack $300 on that for the video card. $3,300 dollars over 5 years. Even if your a working dad with mouths to feed $600 is not that much yearly. Especially considering all of the other thing we waste money on, fast food, cell phones, cable tv, etc. A computer is far more usefull than these things.

DosFreak wrote:

Anyone complaining about having to upgrade their hardware is just a cheap bastard. Computer hardware has never been cheaper. Get a job and stop complaining.

Well I actually don't mind to upgrade to the latest hardware, but I think a better API won't hurt --and that's not mentioning forward/backward hardware compatibilty. Frankly I haven't tested too many games, but it seems OpenGL still allows games to be played on older hardware, while giving a real eyecandy with newer hardware. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but my impression so far is that OpenGL seems to have better hardware scalability.

One example I still remember (although not exactly illustrates my thoughts above) is IL-2 Sturmovik. I tried to play it on my old notebook with shitty Radeon 7000 IGP. When using Direct3D mode, far objects (near the horizon) do not have textures --only plain polys. However, when using OpenGL mode, all textures are displayed no matter how far the object is. And the frame rate is generally the same between two modes.

PS: awright, who's your avatar now?

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

DosFreak wrote:

Anyone complaining about having to upgrade their hardware is just a cheap bastard. Computer hardware has never been cheaper. Get a job and stop complaining.

Well I actually don't mind to upgrade to the latest hardware, but I think a better API won't hurt --and that's not mentioning forward/backward hardware compatibilty. Frankly I haven't tested too many games, but it seems OpenGL still allows games to be played on older hardware, while giving a real eyecandy with newer hardware. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but my impression so far is that OpenGL seems to have better hardware scalability.

Well I don't have any hard numbers but you know about my PC Game Compatibility List. I have done almost all of my Vista testing on Dell D510 (915 chipset) and Dell D520 (945 chipsets). A hell of a lot of games work and are playable on these chipsets. Do the Doom 3 engine and newer games runs well? Of couse not but the older games run very well....and almost all of them are Direct3D games. So AFAICT D3D is very compatible. Now with that said there are some older games on the list where D3D doesn't work and coincidentally enough these games also have Glide/OGL options. It seems pretty strange that the games that don't work well with D3D also have OGL/Glide options while almost all of the other games which work fine only have D3D options. heh. So I'd say for those games which don't work in D3D but do in OGL/Glide are simply due to the poor skills of the coder rather than a fault in Direct3D.

One example I still remember (although not exactly illustrates my thoughts above) is IL-2 Sturmovik. I tried to play it on my old notebook with shitty Radeon 7000 IGP. When using Direct3D mode, far objects (near the horizon) do not have textures --only plain polys. However, when using OpenGL mode, all textures are displayed no matter how far the object is. And the frame rate is generally the same between two modes.

Well, is this:

A driver issue? (Remember ATI Radeon card here...)
Game issue?

And look the game offers OGL as well as D3D! heh. Again, is it the poor skills of the coder of the game or a fault of Direct3D or a fault of the driver? I know which ones I'd pick as the culprits.....

PS: awright, who's your avatar now?

It's Holly from Red Dwarf, ya SmegHead!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_(Red_Dwarf)

DosFreak wrote:

Well I don't have any hard numbers but you know about my PC Game Compatibility List. I have done almost all of my Vista testing on Dell D510 (915 chipset) and Dell D520 (945 chipsets). A hell of a lot of games work and are playable on these chipsets. Do the Doom 3 engine and newer games runs well?

But wait, isn't Doom 3 an OpenGL game?

PS: it's interesting to know that Doom 3 actually runs on Voodoo2. 😉 Those crazy people at 3dfxZone....

Well at least in theory, OpenGL should be better to run new games on old hardware, because it is designed as a rendering system that may be hardware accelerated (eg going back to software rendering when the old hardware does not support a particular feature). Direct3D, on the other hand, is designed as a 3D hardware interface --its feature set is derived from the feature set of the 3D hardware. Thus, it may explains the problem of not being able to play SM3 games on (even slightly) older video cards.

However, that's just theory, so I'll take a look at your Game Compatibility List again.

DosFreak wrote:

Of couse not but the older games run very well....and almost all of them are Direct3D games. So AFAICT D3D is very compatible. Now with that said there are some older games on the list where D3D doesn't work and coincidentally enough these games also have Glide/OGL options.......

.......poor skills of the coder rather than a fault in Direct3D.

Wait, THIS is what interests me most, actually --running older 3D games on newer video cards (not the other way around --I'm never the one interested to run Doom 3 on Voodoo2, for example).

I wonder what you may say on this thread. I think it's general belief that old games with 8-bit palleted textures don't run on non-supporting cards (GF6 and above). However, leileilol said that almost every game made before the year 2000 actually have 8-bit palleted textures, while the non-working game people are complaining about is only Final Fantasy VII. Furthermore, Davros said that video cards that do not support 8-bit palleted textures actually still support them in software.

I just wonder: is that really the fault of 8-bit palleted textures (and non-supporting vidcards), or just bad game coding?

DosFreak wrote:

It's Holly from Red Dwarf, ya SmegHead!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_(Red_Dwarf)

But technically, he ain't no villain!

But wait, isn't Doom 3 an OpenGL game?

Yeah, I was just using that game sort of as an example of when games started to lean more on the video card.

Thus, it may explains the problem of not being able to play SM3 games on (even slightly) older video cards.

Except of course for the fact that have program like 3Danalyze that can emulate these functions. I don't think there is anything similar for SM3 though (except for that swiftshader program mabye but I think it only does SM2). I do have to use 3danalyze on the 915/945 chipset alot to emulate T&L.

OGL is not immune to these issues. I tried to load Enemy Territory Quake Wars on my Dell Latitude D520 (with the 945gm chipset) and it wouldn't load! Looks like the Intel OGL drivers are missing some extension that the game wants. I don't remember offhand what it was.

I wonder what you may say on this thread. I think it's general belief that old games with 8-bit palleted textures don't run on non-supporting cards (GF6 and above). However, leileilol said that almost every game made before the year 2000 actually have 8-bit palleted textures, while the non-working game people are complaining about is only Final Fantasy VII.

Well I only have 3,000 games and out of those I think something like 1500 are Windows games. Almost all of them were tested in 2000/XP on an ATI 9700, or an ATI X800.....and I think the only game requiring palletized textures for D3D. was the FF7 demo....so I have to use software instead. I don't care anyway since I have the PS1 version. That's the only game I have that I'm aware of that requires 8bit palletized textures

Furthermore, Davros said that video cards that do not support 8-bit palleted textures actually still support them in software.

Well software mode in FF7 works. That's the only thing I can say.

I just wonder: is that really the fault of 8-bit palleted textures (and non-supporting vidcards), or just bad game coding?

Well if there are other games requiring that you'd think the devs would be smart enough to have another implementation or have a software mode to fallback on.

But technically, he ain't no villain!

heh. He may as well be. Queeg was horrible and he is so inept.

DosFreak wrote:

Except of course for the fact that have program like 3Danalyze that can emulate these functions. I don't think there is anything similar for SM3 though (except for that swiftshader program mabye but I think it only does SM2). I do have to use 3danalyze on the 915/945 chipset alot to emulate T&L.

OGL is not immune to these issues. I tried to load Enemy Territory Quake Wars on my Dell Latitude D520 (with the 945gm chipset) and it wouldn't load! Looks like the Intel OGL drivers are missing some extension that the game wants. I don't remember offhand what it was.

I see. So even OGL does not fall back to software mode when using SM3.

DosFreak wrote:

Well I only have 3,000 games and out of those I think something like 1500 are Windows games.

When you want to part with some of those, just let me know, would ya? 😁

DosFreak wrote:

Almost all of them were tested in 2000/XP on an ATI 9700, or an ATI X800.....and I think the only game requiring palletized textures for D3D. was the FF7 demo....so I have to use software instead. I don't care anyway since I have the PS1 version. That's the only game I have that I'm aware of that requires 8bit palletized textures

Great to hear that! Then I guess GeForce 6 is quite a safe choice for Win98 (early Direct3D) legacy system. 😀

DosFreak wrote:

heh. He may as well be. Queeg was horrible and he is so inept.

Hmmm.... at least SHODAN's crimes did not involve German sausages.

That's probably a good choice.

I think when I get my Abit VP6 (Dual p3 1ghz) rebuilt I'll probably stick my ol' ATI 9700 card in there and put Windows 98/2000 on it, and I'll have my Dual P3 500mhz with a Voodoo 3 with NT4/9x to go with it.

That way I'll have the Voodoo 3 for DOS/Windows games and Glide games and the P3 1ghz for 9x Windows games that require a GPU.