Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)
"chainbreaker" <noone@nowhere.com> looked up from reading the entrails
of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>Xocyll wrote:
>> Isn't that less "future machines" as in machines that don't exist yet,
>> than machines most players won't have yet?
>>
>
>In the case of Janes' USNF, it was machines that didn't even exist yet.
>Most of the Janes' flight sims were scalable to some extent, and some never
>ran very smoothly even when those "future machines" finally arrived, but
>that might have been for reasons other than graphics scalability, which is
>sort of what I'm talking about. In some of these sims, as in EQ2, almost
>*everything* is scalable--view distance, radar ranges and fidelity, flight
>model accuracy, etc. Much of it is graphics-related, but a lot of it isn't
>(at least in the sims, not that sure about EQ2), and some of those problems
>I've seen might have been because of that part.
I'd guess in both cases their algorithms would scale beyond anything
needed currently and instead of capping it off, they just leave them
open.
After all, there are some people who continue to play games long after
they're no longer new, a point at which the hardware might finally catch
up to actually being able to use the max possible setting.
I suppose they could have just capped off the max possible (both for
sims and EQ2) to what would stress a state-of-the-art system now and
have no future proofing, but if they can scale it more in a way that
doesn't cause a performance hit on current machines, it's a bonus.
Part of it may also be a "vision" for the game that just couldn't quite
be accomplished on current tech, and had to be toned down a bit.
Leaving the high end options for when hardware catches up, rewards
people who really liked the game and continued to play it.
In a word, Morrowind.
Another example mentioned recently - X2 The Threat.
A game that looks damn good with older hardware, and plays at acceptable
framerates at good resolution, but with newer hardware looks fantastic
at impressive framerates and resolutions.
I'm looking forward to playing it again once I finally upgrade the video
card and can actually max out the details without going into slideshow
mode in all kinds of places. I tried maxing it out before, and while
the FPS wasn't a total horrorshow, it did go down into single digit
decimals in places (ie .1), which just wasn't playable.
This is a game which will reward me again when I get better hardware, vs
a game like Freelancer which already looked as good as it was going to
get when I got it.
Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
"chainbreaker" <noone@nowhere.com> looked up from reading the entrails
of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>Xocyll wrote:
>> Isn't that less "future machines" as in machines that don't exist yet,
>> than machines most players won't have yet?
>>
>
>In the case of Janes' USNF, it was machines that didn't even exist yet.
>Most of the Janes' flight sims were scalable to some extent, and some never
>ran very smoothly even when those "future machines" finally arrived, but
>that might have been for reasons other than graphics scalability, which is
>sort of what I'm talking about. In some of these sims, as in EQ2, almost
>*everything* is scalable--view distance, radar ranges and fidelity, flight
>model accuracy, etc. Much of it is graphics-related, but a lot of it isn't
>(at least in the sims, not that sure about EQ2), and some of those problems
>I've seen might have been because of that part.
I'd guess in both cases their algorithms would scale beyond anything
needed currently and instead of capping it off, they just leave them
open.
After all, there are some people who continue to play games long after
they're no longer new, a point at which the hardware might finally catch
up to actually being able to use the max possible setting.
I suppose they could have just capped off the max possible (both for
sims and EQ2) to what would stress a state-of-the-art system now and
have no future proofing, but if they can scale it more in a way that
doesn't cause a performance hit on current machines, it's a bonus.
Part of it may also be a "vision" for the game that just couldn't quite
be accomplished on current tech, and had to be toned down a bit.
Leaving the high end options for when hardware catches up, rewards
people who really liked the game and continued to play it.
In a word, Morrowind.
Another example mentioned recently - X2 The Threat.
A game that looks damn good with older hardware, and plays at acceptable
framerates at good resolution, but with newer hardware looks fantastic
at impressive framerates and resolutions.
I'm looking forward to playing it again once I finally upgrade the video
card and can actually max out the details without going into slideshow
mode in all kinds of places. I tried maxing it out before, and while
the FPS wasn't a total horrorshow, it did go down into single digit
decimals in places (ie .1), which just wasn't playable.
This is a game which will reward me again when I get better hardware, vs
a game like Freelancer which already looked as good as it was going to
get when I got it.
Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
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