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DOOM III to be capped at 60 fps
StupidKatz writes "The Inquirer reports that DOOM III will be capped at 60fps, primarily to prevent certain exploitations of the game engine (reminiscent of Quakers that could jump higher, etc.). Although the game's graphics challenges most cards to keep up with the 60fps figure, what might this do to ATi and Nvidia sales figures, considering that the next DOOM incarnation is set to be the next heavyweight graphics upgrade reason? More importantly, might this possibly keep the anticipated price drop for the previous vid card generation at bay? The horror... On a more positive note, it is good to see designers anticipating problem exploits - no one likes a mutiplayer cheater." H : Sorry; it's a dupe. My fault.
Seems like a design problem being fixed with a limiter. The objects in the game should be moving at whatever pace the designer wants and the graphics should be showing you where they are at. It should not matter if you have 10fps or 600fps, just that you would have less difference between the pictures.
Might it be that the pictures are more important to these games than the "Physics" behind them? This might also explain why the multi player cheats have been so easy.Seems like a design problem being fixed with a limiter. The objects in the game should be moving at whatever pace the designer wants and the graphics should be showing you where they are at. It should not matter if you have 10fps or 600fps, just that you would have less difference between the pictures.
Might it be that the pictures are more important to these games than the "Physics" behind them? This might also explain why the multi player cheats have been so easy.
about the only way you're going to get 100fps in most modern games is to shut off all graphical detail and play in about 800X600. if you're playing with that level of detail, there's no real reason to play any of the new games. quake II, halflife and all the mods for them will give you everything you need.
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I see what you're saying. If you enable FSAA at 31FPS, you'll end up having 30fps one moment, then 15fps with FSAA enabled the next.
;) Seriously, though, the difference between the two is reason enough not to implement something along those lines, although I could see the appeal to having FSAA shut off when framerates get too low.
:-)
;)
Furthermore, let's for arguement's sake forget 30FPS, and instead use N as the fps value above which we can no longer discern a smoother picture.
You would actually need 2 values:
N being the point at which FSAA is enabled
M being the point at which FSAA is disabled
and these values would have to be user-configurable. So, if the framerate goes over N while you have FSAA disabled, it enabled 2X FSAA, if it hits N again, it enables 4X FSAA, and so on. If it drops to M at any point, and your FSAA is set to 8x, it drops to 4X, and then 2X, and finally disables FSAA. This makes sense to me, but again, it all must be user-configurable both for the minimum and maximum framerates and for the feature in the first place (users must be able to disable this, both for benchmarking and personal dislike of FSAA).
My point, however, remains. Consider the following two points:
A. There _is_ redering power wasted.
B. There _are_ more useful things to do with it than render frames I cannot discern.
A is a debatable point, as most new GPUs add more features along with the increased power, and games that take advantage of those features will increase the load on older GPUs that don't have those feautures (unless they disable the features altogether), or pass the load to the CPU.
B is a mis-statement, as anyone can discern more frames than any graphics card is capable of putting out. If you're happy with 30 fps (and believe me, I'm a big proponent of limiting framerates, especially when it's a value clients can change), that's fine, but everyone can discern much higher rates (excepting the blind and those of extremely limited vision).
As long as you're happy with it, of course there's room to start doing other things, but the point remains that most graphics cards can't even render current games at 1600x1200 resolution at 30 fps with high quality settings (excepting FSAA).
What you said does not adress the why/why-nots of dynamic FSAA, it's simply a well-made point that definitely should affect the FSAA-enabling threshold.
and the ability to enable the dynamic FSAA feature, as well, should anyone implement it.
If I need no more than N fps, And FSAA will drop my rendering rate by 200%, I can set the dynamic FSAA-enabling threshold at 2N. Given a good implementation, I won't even discern the switch.
If you won't discern the switch, then you really don't need it, because if you can't tell the difference between FSAA on and off, why do it at all?
>> Other than that, FSAA isn't a feature that is universally liked
probbably the most ingenious invention of all time is the ON/OFF switch. Let the user decide
Exactly
>> The things that are most likely to be worked on are extending the viewing distance and model complexity while maintaining a decent (60fps or so) framerate
Model complexity is definitely a very good use for them extra GPU cycles. I fully agree with you there.
As for viewing distance - my opinion here is based on a combination of ignorance and some common sense, but doesn't the following sound a bit silly?
You're looking through the scope of your sniper rifle, the business end of which is pointed at your mark 500 meters away.
A car drives up near him (complicating the rendering process), your field of view decreases, whoops? I can only see 400 meters! where did the fog of war come from? where's my mark?!
Of course, but then the field of view is decreased in the majority of games that allow zooming, and this severely decreases the co
-PainKilleR-[CE]