 Sigil Developer Tracker
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The dev tracker is no longer actively scanning, however you may continue to browse the archives collected over the past several years here.
Please remember that these developer posts
are taken out of context, so beware of any silky venom being spewed forth.
Color Key:
Green - Sigil Games Online Employee
Pink - Sony Online Entertainment
Gray - Microsoft Game Studios Employee
Orange - Community Member
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kiste
I've yet to see any evidence that Vanguard will have HDR. All I've seen so far on screenshots looks like mere "bloom" effects. I'm not saying Vanguard won't have HDR (Brad claims HDR will be supported) but I still wonder of he doesn't confuse HDR with some cheap-ass bloom effects that try to emulate something that kinda sorta looks like what HDR might look like if you were visually impaired. Because that's all I've seen so far on the screenshots.
Vanguard uses true HDR and that is what you are seeing in the more recent screenshots -- they are not 'bloom hacks'. This same system also uses true tonemapping, world lighting, per pixel lighting, and a bunch of other stuff Ryan could list off better than me.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TormDK
Of course not, thats why we're seeing cards with 512mb now. If it was entirely pointless then there wouldn't be money to be made 
Yes and no. Honestly, I don't know of any game that requires 256 megs right now. Pretty sure most/all will run on 128. I imagine you could turn a bunch of advanced options on and push into the 128-256 range -- I doubt there's an app that would push past 256 though. Software is always palying catch up.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kiste
IIRC you mentioned that there is no anti-aliasing support yet. 4x AA quadrupples the size of the frame buffers, AFAIK. So if you're running the game at 1920x1600, tripple buffered and with 4x AA enabled you need about ~140MB of video RAM just for the frame buffer, i.e. before any textures are taken into consideration.
512mb video RAM may not be so useless after all.
Interesting point -- something more for Ryan to address, tripple buffered 4x AA is a pretty crazy setting and usually not noticible anyway. But yes, I imagine if we provide enough options and you try really really hard to use every byte of GPU memory on your card, you could surpass 256 megs.
Should be disable super-advanced options that hardly anyone would be able to use anyway (or perhaps even want to) so we could guarantee the game wouldn't go over 256 megs and then turn those options back on a year after launch when those cards were more mainstream?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kiste
I agree but one thing to keep in mind is that the installed hardware based usually lags far behind the current high-end. Even today only a minority of gamers have X800/6800 level video card. Most are still at 9800 level or the current middle-ground (nvidia 6600). Ditto with CPUs - most people are in the 2.4 - 3.0 GHz range.
A year from now the average will prolly move up a notch, so the "average" gamer hardware will prolly look something like 1GB RAM, a video card with X800/6800-like performance and a CPU around 3.0 GHz.
I don't know what data you are using, but it seems a little conservative (maybe your 'average' doesn't match our 'core' -- these studies can be done so many ways.). Our data shows that in 6-9 months he will have the 1gb ram, a cpu around 3.0, but a video card that smokes an x800/6800 (the latter being because the rate of tech in GPUs is much faster than cpus, ram, etc. right now). Like I said, a card that smokes an x1800 will likely be in the $100-$150 range by mid-2006.
In any case, even if he did have something more like an x800, he's be perfectly ready to enjoy Vanguard. A 3.0ghz machine with 1 gig of ram and an x800 runs the beta (read: unoptimized and unfinished) client right now just fine, and so would be that much more effective at running the release client.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spirit
Brad, Square-Enix released a benchmark utility for FFXI. Many people used and referenced it, even people who didn't play FFXI, much less mmo's.
It was very clever of Square. Not only could you gauge how effectively your rig would run FFXI, it was also used as straight benchmarking tool, and although it wasn't as popular as 3dmark or Quake and Unreal time demo's etc it appeared in many website benchmark reviews. Of course, this was great free advertising for Square.
It would be cool to see something similar for VG -- a standalone benchmarking 'demo' of the game that did fly-by's through streets and villages. You are probably already aware of it, but for anyone who hasn't came across it, link is below. (Note, you do not have to have FFXI installed for it to run).
http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/mu...download/bench/
That would be cool. To be accurate at all, though, it would have to be released just before launch, maybe in the latter part of beta 4 or something.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by moralpanic
Sadly?! I JUST bought my laptop (iXPS2) less than a year ago for EQ2, and it looks like i'll need to upgrade if i want it to look as pretty as the screenshots (and i have to play at 1920x1200 too... so if Brad is using 512mb cards... ack)
Just a quick note: even unoptimized and in beta 2, and with everything set to full and at the highest rez, the game runs in 256 megs. I get no advantage at all having a 512 meg x1800xt other than, being a tech-nerd I can point at the hardware and declare it 'l33t'.
You'll need 128-256 meg cards for Vanguard. With everything turned down you may be able to run with a 64 meg card, but that's not a known at this time.
That said, by launch there may be some crazy setting that will take advantage of 512 -- I really don't know. Like I said, there is currently nothing that I can do even at the highest settings to use more than 256.
If we have time, as I've talked about before, hopefully we'll have a 64 bit client running on xp 64 or Vista 64, where I can load up, say, all of thestra into system and GPU ram at once, push the clipping plane (visibility) to 20km+ or something, and then I might need 512 to fully do this. We do have to prepare for 64 bit operating systems and the additional speed they offer, so we may as well take advantage of the greater than 3 gigs they can address as well, and prepare in advance for what Vanguard will be able to do, say, a year after launch. For us, this is simply long term planning to make sure the game still looks good years after release. For the user, however, it doesn't mean much unless you are an affluent technofile, in which case VG will probably be one of the few games that will actually use your uber-machine, giving you something to do with it other than just post your 3dmark benchmark results
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoBix
Oh... my... God...
I am laughing so hard IRL right now...
lol... you almost beat Jon06 for the "Troll Of The Year" award.
This is just brilliant... trolling at it's best. 
And while 'feeding the trolls' is generally a bad idea, in this case I've posted so much because I don't want the percption out there in general to be that Vanguard will require some crazy expensive system to run when in fact that is absolutely not the case.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Goishen
EDIT : Oh yah, I bolded the ending words to the song as a stop sign for you. You see, I never will have a high end machine. I never did have a high end machine. So, I guess you can take your niche game and go with your niche market and find some cubbyhole that you'll be comfortable with.
Because I'll tell you... High end machines + an extremely hard game = no fun for the consumer making less than the top 1% of the socio-economic consumers out there.
Please read my longer and recent post I just made, but really quick:
1. You won't need a high end machine to run Vanguard.
2. You won't even need a super high end machine to run Vanguard at crazy high resolutions and with all graphics options turned on.
3. 1 & 2 are true because of how quickly CPUs, RAM, and graphics cards both get quicker and cheaper over a short amount of time. History proves this beyond a doubt.
4. Vanguard is not an 'extremely hard game'. It is a more challenging game than, say, WoW, but it is not a hard core game, nor a raiding game, etc. It is a game that is targeted at the core gamer. It is a group focused game. But it will also have content for solo/small groups (as well as raid groups on the other end of the spectrum).
5. Challenge does not have to mean tedious -- we've done our best at removing tedium but retaining that which makes a game more challenging and therefore more rewarding for a significant segment of the MMOG gamer demographic.
6. Vanguard is not being designed, nor was it ever the plan, to be a 'niche' game. While it is unlikely (though possible, who knows?) that it (or any other MMOG for quite some time) will dethrone WoW for a variety of reasons, each of which could be taked about and debated in their own thread, and a long thread at that (and has already been debated in the past), this does not make the game niche. A conservative guess at 300-500K subscribers with a high retention (low churn) rate is a very reasonable projection for Vanguard given its design and therefore its target audience. Such numbers would place it up there with the top 2-3 MMOGs of all time (EQ, FFXI, etc.) in terms of subscribers.
Summary:
1. Please read my numerous posts of the past about what I mean by challenging, who our target audience is, what a 'core' gamer is when we use that term, etc.
2. Also note that I am very confident that the average 'core gamer's' machine that he or she will own when Vanguard is released will run Vanguard very well. These will also be machines that the average core gamer will want not just for Vanguard, but for other 2006 FPS games and the like.
3. People with machines lower end than the average gamer's machine will still be able to run Vanguard fine, just likely not at the highest resolutions and with all graphics settings on. Just like, say, a lower end machine had to be adjusted down to play Doom 3 or Half Life 2 when they came out. This is quite the norm.
4. Because the engine is also being architected to take advantage of future tech, those people with crazy high end machines will likely be able to do some really cool stuff with Vanguard at launch that isn't even possible today.
So the average 'core' gamer is covered and will be running Vanguard at high settings and high resolutions and at good framerates. The person with a lower end machine will also be running Vanguard, albeit with some options turned down or off and likely also at lower resolutions. And then then person who can afford what will be a high-end machine at the time of launch will likely also be rewarded as well because for engine/tech longevity (e.g. to make sure Vanguard still looks good 1-2-3 years after launch) we will have architected a system and set of options planning for that future that he or she may be able to take advantage of even earlier.
This, as a side note, is one of the cool things about MMOGs -- while for games with a shorter expected lifespan (say, an FPS or RTS0, it is not usually worth the effort to make the game engine take advantage of the latest tech available (because only a small segment of the target audience has that spec of machine), MMOGs on the other hand can often immedately reward the game with the hard-core machine because the engine has to be architected to take advantage of his machine because it will be the 'norm' machine 1-2 years after launch. Hardware, even as it relates to gaming, is almost always quite a bit ahead of software. For example, the cards that just recently came out (x1800 and 9800gt(x)) support shader model 3.0. How many games today even really require or take full advantage of shader model 2.0? This is often frustrating for the card manufacturers because they are from one standpoint being pressured to push the envelope when competing against each other, but then other than some demos, no software tends to really take advantage of their cards for sometimes up to 1-2 years after release of said hardware. This is why, for example, companies like ATI and Nvidia really like supporting MMOGs... whereas in the past it was often FPS games and the like that could be used as 'poster childs' for thier hardware, recently this has been shifting towards MMOGs. For example, say when an ATI rep gets a demo of Vanguard and realizes it pushes their hardware from all aspects (tech level, speed, fill rate, etc) like no other game out there by several times, they usually leave the office quite giddy
So for Vanguard it's a win(low-end)-win(core gamer)-win(high end tech-file).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tanaí
How is it that people are upset when high-end settings require high-end systems? That is what lower settings are for, yes?
to be super clear here:
I am saying that:
1. TODAY, to run the beta in its current not totally optimized beta 2 form at 1920x1200 with all graphical options turned on you need a high end machine such as I've descripted.
2. By launch, and likely before, you will be able to run in that rez with a lower end machine because:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Redloft
Im not trying to spread any rumors. But when i see screens from a mmorg that will hold many thousand of players with no zones.....that has 10x better grafic then Halflife2 and any other "normal" games that has come 2005...i start to wonder.
To take screen then "fix" it has happend to close to all mmorgs, why do you think Vanguard would be different, special?
But if you can show me any beta screens atm that hold exact same quality as Sigils i be more then glad. All beta screens i found so far is nowhere close...But the truth is often not the same in the beginning of a mmorg career as in the final release.
I have a harddrive full of beta screens that look exactly like the ones released, from actual gameplay. I promise, those aren't doctored.
The links that you are pointing out are simply older shots, without the dynamic lighting. It's not that the newer ones were doctored, its that the older ones didn't have the bells and the whistles activated. The lighting is crazy in the game. I am no artist, but it casts the proper "glow" over everything, based on the time of day and position of the sun. It is crazy.
Want to know the scary thing? They arent done yet and every patch more and more improvements are made, so get used to being surprised.
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