zorloff on 7/11/2007 at 13:34
Quote Posted by Muzman
This is the bit I don't get. We saw those old shots of Lower Seattle and the Cairo Medina and they looked to be big complex places; lots of streets and buildings (like everyone expected from something called Deus Ex), big vistas, lots of people.
I want to see them too, please :)
Quote Posted by Muzman
I don't know which version of the engine they made those maps in (and I don't know how faked up they were for publicity purposes) but surely they would have seen a slideshow, or at least genuinely worrying framrates, the moment they even loaded them up, bare bones, into Flesh.
Did they see said slideshow and say "Well it'll be alright come release. Add it to the action item list for monday's meeting", then all manner of other shit happened and it never worked out? I appreciate to some degree the delicate nature of developing content and engine/platform/keep-up-with-the-joneses machine simultaneously; plus the publishers, costs, human error etc. It kind of boggles my mind how many of them must have gone awry for this game to become as...compressed as it did.
Don't forget about the console stuff. The game had a simultaneous Xbox release. Don't blame Flesh for everything, I think that was really a combination of console version + flesh + timing + some other stuff only original devs know in details.
heywood on 7/11/2007 at 17:26
Quote Posted by Muzman
I don't know which version of the engine they made those maps in (and I don't know how faked up they were for publicity purposes) but surely they would have seen a slideshow, or at least genuinely worrying framrates, the moment they even loaded them up, bare bones, into Flesh.
Did they see said slideshow and say "Well it'll be alright come release. Add it to the action item list for monday's meeting", then all manner of other shit happened and it never worked out? I appreciate to some degree the delicate nature of developing content and engine/platform/keep-up-with-the-joneses machine simultaneously; plus the publishers, costs, human error etc. It kind of boggles my mind how many of them must have gone awry for this game to become as...compressed as it did.
I don't think the limited level sizes were related to the framerate issues. From what I recall, the level sizes were supposedly limited by X-Box memory and loading time constraints, and the framerate was limited by the advanced lighting model (real time shadows, bloom, etc.)
For example, one of the slowest in-game framerates I saw was in Alex's apartment in Tarsus, which was a small closed area. The framerate was poor in that spot because of the real time shadows from the rotating ceiling fan.
Muzman on 7/11/2007 at 18:45
Quote Posted by zorloff
I want to see them too, please :)
There's a few over here at (
http://www.planetdeusex.com/dx2/files/screenshots/) Planet Deus Ex, but I remember others that aren't there showing a rooftop vista of the medina for instance, some of the much larger Lower Seattle streets (I suspect I'm wrong about there being lots of people though).
I found a few more over at Gamespot. These are some not found at Planet Deus Ex. Hopefully the links work.
Some sort of Templar base
(
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/gs/news/010719/deusex2_screen008.jpg)
Medina balcony
(
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/02/14/de_screen003.jpg)
The old open plan Greasel Pit
(
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/02/19/deusex/deusex_screen008.jpg)
Tarsus Cairo
(
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/02/14/de_screen001.jpg)
Giant Spiderbot
(
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/02/19/deusex/deusex_screen006.jpg)
Cairo Arcology (I guess)
(
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2002/e32002/pc/dx2/dx2_screen003.jpg)
Cairo ApostleCorp boardroom
(
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/pc/deusex/d_screen003.jpg)
Antarctica
(
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/02/14/de_screen002.jpg)
Anyway, without spamming too much, if you look in old archives like that you can see that before a certain point they were working with generally larger and more complex spaces, sometimes even enormous spaces, with what appears to be real time shadowing and normal mapping evident. I can't get firm dates on those older shot but 18months to 2yrs from release seems about right. So just to reiterate, I don't know how they couldn't notice the horrid frame rates when making those maps and find it not fit for even PC.
Deus Ex was a fairly crappy performer in its day so I guess that could be a studio thing.
The other question is at what point it became an X-Box game; given the drastic changes one would have to think it was after these old shots, even though I'm not sure it was.
Quote Posted by heywood
I don't think the limited level sizes were related to the framerate issues. From what I recall, the level sizes were supposedly limited by X-Box memory and loading time constraints, and the framerate was limited by the advanced lighting model (real time shadows, bloom, etc.)
For example, one of the slowest in-game framerates I saw was in Alex's apartment in Tarsus, which was a small closed area. The framerate was poor in that spot because of the real time shadows from the rotating ceiling fan.
This doesn't fit for me; Other X-box games have much larger levels than DX:IW and don't hit the same trouble. Did they screw their compiling at the same time?
And there's lots of ceiling fans in other places in the game that don't have the same effect. I'd always assumed it was because the fake ceiling was there in that room the whole time and the room was much larger than it appeared.
Anyway, I'm not saying you're wrong, but if true that's even worse.
Ziemanskye on 7/11/2007 at 18:46
And both TDS and DX:IW were being worked on at the same time: one came out later, but it's not like they had an entire game's worth of experience before going into TDS
DX-455 on 7/11/2007 at 20:28
Quote Posted by heywood
For example, one of the slowest in-game framerates I saw was in Alex's apartment in Tarsus
I have both PC and XBox versions of IW and Deadly Shadows. That very part is the worst performing moment in both games on either system. On the XBOX it is literally a slide show and hard to even pick up bread.
demagogue on 7/11/2007 at 20:53
A little ironic, isn't it, that the raison d'être of that crappy engine in the first place ends up being its biggest performance killer.
Raise your hand if you'd rather they just threw out real time shadows and had just stuck with better performance on Unreal. I would. Did the shadows ever really add that much to the game, nevermind the cost it took to get them in there? (I suppose TDS is a harder issue, and they were making the engine probably knowing it would be for both games.)
DaveW on 7/11/2007 at 23:27
Quote Posted by demagogue
A little ironic, isn't it, that the
raison d'être of that crappy engine in the first place ends up being its biggest performance killer.
Raise your hand if you'd rather they just threw out real time shadows and had just stuck with better performance on Unreal. I would. Did the shadows ever really add that much to the game, nevermind the cost it took to get them in there? (I suppose TDS is a harder issue, and they were making the engine probably knowing it would be for both games.)
My hand is firmly down. I thought the shadow system was awesome, and in some cases really drew me into the environments.
One thing about the large levels is that they actually looked horrible due to the lack of lightmapping combined with low texture memory. For example, (
http://uk.media.pc.ign.com/media/015/015304/img_1661714.html) this.
demagogue on 8/11/2007 at 00:02
Quote Posted by DaveW
My hand is firmly down. I thought the shadow system was awesome, and in some cases really drew me into the environments.
One thing about the large levels is that they actually looked horrible due to the lack of lightmapping combined with low texture memory. For example, (
http://uk.media.pc.ign.com/media/015/015304/img_1661714.html) this.
Well, to each their own. Just to be clear, though, I didn't mean the shadows by themselves, of course it's better with them than without them ... but
at the cost of the engine and its foibles it stuck them with is more what I meant, in relative terms if you had to choose. Although from your second paragraph I suppose you got that.
Not that the look would have been so much better -- although IMO I feel freer in a game with some wide open spaces; the low texture memory, etc, doesn't bother me as much -- but I think the gameplay would also have benefited from having maps more like those early screenshots, fewer loadzones, etc ... if that's really what was at stake. I'm admittedly speculating, though. A lot of irksome things about DXIW were design decisions that wouldn't change, anyway. If I actually played the two versions I might have a different opinion.
Well, the best answer is probably they should have concentrated on getting real time shadows into the Unreal Engine, which actually was done not too long afterwards, so they could have had their cake and eat it too. I predict most people would agree at least on that much.
Pyrian on 8/11/2007 at 00:55
Half-Life 2 is still using "fakey" shadows.
zorloff on 8/11/2007 at 08:36
Quote Posted by Muzman
There's a few over here at (
http://www.planetdeusex.com/dx2/files/screenshots/) Planet Deus Ex, but I remember others that aren't there showing a rooftop vista of the medina for instance, some of the much larger Lower Seattle streets (I suspect I'm wrong about there being lots of people though).
Thanks.
Quote Posted by Muzman
This doesn't fit for me; Other X-box games have much larger levels than DX:IW and don't hit the same trouble. Did they screw their compiling at the same time?
There are some PS1 games that have larger levels than DX2, but that really doesn't mean anything. Console games are usually harder to do right, especially for the first time. Look at TDS, it's levels are slightly bigger than DX2 imho.
