"Development is swimming along nicely. Seriously nicely."

[Servo]

Well....if it really is "...swimming along nicely. Seriously nicely." would it be too much to ask of the 3DR staff to tell us, their loyal and long-suffering fans, whether or not we should invest in system upgrades in anticipation of the release? Even if it's in the vaguest possible terms, it seems to me to be the very least they can do, especially when one considers the price of, say, a fast new video card, adding RAM or a processor upgrade.
Love,
Servo

[Jinroh]

Yeah, it would be nice to know, but I don't really wanna know because I can't afford a rig good enough to play Duke4Ever yet. How do I know this, because my rig can't even touch Bioshock or an equivalent current gen PC game. The best I can muster is Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 stuff. So I'm fine with:

[peoplessi]

Originally Posted by Servo

...3DR staff to tell us, their loyal and long-suffering fans, whether or not we should invest in system upgrades in anticipation of the release?...

Buy hardware when it's out, there is no reason to buy hardware for unreleased game. This has been said numerous time here also, no reason to predict things and make people buy stuff that might or might not run the game in the end.

[Angilion]

Originally Posted by Servo

Well....if it really is "...swimming along nicely. Seriously nicely." would it be too much to ask of the 3DR staff to tell us, their loyal and long-suffering fans, whether or not we should invest in system upgrades in anticipation of the release? Even if it's in the vaguest possible terms, it seems to me to be the very least they can do, especially when one considers the price of, say, a fast new video card, adding RAM or a processor upgrade.
Love,
Servo

No. Absolutely not. They'd be fools to do so.

Let's say, for example, someone from 3DR was foolish enough to say yes, get a new graphics card, a HD 4850 would be a good one to get. Three months from now, still no DNF and nVidia surprise everyone with some new product that beats it in performance terms at a comparable price. Six months from now, still no DNF, AMD release their HD 5000 series and nVidia release their GT300 series. Oh, and AMD come up with a surprise new CPU that's on a par with Core 2. But you spent money on an upgrade you didn't need 6 months earlier, hard luck on you.

Yeah, lots of people would love 3DR for that one.

If you're bothered, open another account and save money into it - that's your DNF upgrade fund. Just leave it there, gaining interest.

The only time 3DR should be talking about hardware requirements for DNF is when it's done.

[Automuse]

That said, every indication is that DNF tech is mostly locked in to about an Unreal 3 engine equivalent - 3DRealms may add cool new effects and such but if your system can handle Unreal 3 it shouldn't have any problems with DNF.

Barring an engine change, which I highly doubt is going to happen

[Jinroh]

Yeah, but don't forget this is a heavily modified Unreal 3 Engine we already know IIRC that only the most barebones of the U3 engine is still left in there. So we could have had a lightspeed jump in performance crushingness for our current gen systems. Maybe 3DR is waiting for Technology to Catch up with DNF. Yeah, I bet that's why it's taking so long. DNF is just such a great far ahead in the future game Tech-wise.

[Kristian Joensen]

DNF isn't using Unreal Engine 3 at all.

[Jinroh]

Sorry Unreal 2.0 According to Wikipedia. But heavily modded none the less.

[xeroxt4]

Judging from the small amount of footage, it seems as good as the Source Engine.
I would be surprised if DNF would have minimum system requirements higher than Crysis.
I hope, though, that there will be dual core and 64-bit instruction set support for rendering the high-end particles, effects, bumps, and physics.

[Kristian Joensen]

Dual core support has already been confirmed.

[Shadow Master]

What? And why should it be "supported" by the *game*? It is the operating system's task to support a particular CPU model/scheme...

[LeadBullet]

Originally Posted by Kristian Joensen

Dual core support has already been confirmed.

I'd say so, considering George I believe said it's pretty much required.

[Kristian Joensen]

In this case support means "take advantage of".

Edit:

Leadbullet is indeed correct, here is the quote:

Multi-core support is in and quite nice. We all run Core Duo 6600's and 7950/8800, ati 1900 level cards.

Multi-core is the future and the game is pretty much going to require it. You really have to, to make a game competitive with modern consoles, or beyond. One cpu isn't enough anymore.

64 bit will come, but is lower priorty. Vista/64 bit isn't a priority for us at the moment.

- George Broussard, April 19th, 2007.

[xeroxt4]

... higher then Crysis system requirements then is a possibility? Damn...

Edit: That being a system requirement is not bad actually, lots of people - like me - have dual cores. I would prefer a game that would utilize dual core or dual core 64-bit (for those with C2D CPUs) instead of the GPU as that does lag more behind especially because of the Intel's GPUs on the market.

[Angilion]

No way is DNF going to work with any Intel GPU. Not a chance. Intel only make ultra-budget GPUs for integrated graphics solutions for business machines. They're not even close to being suitable for gaming.

As for dual-core 64-bit being specifically for C2D CPUs, try AMD Phenom or even the older Althon64 X2. C2D is a better buy, but Phenom and X2 are 64-bit and have 2, 3 or 4 cores.

[Angilion]

Originally Posted by Shadow Master

What? And why should it be "supported" by the *game*? It is the operating system's task to support a particular CPU model/scheme...

Perhaps "optimised" would be a better word than "supported". A game can be written to more efficiently use multiple cores.

[Kristian Joensen]

Originally Posted by Angilion

No way is DNF going to work with any Intel GPU. Not a chance. Intel only make ultra-budget GPUs for integrated graphics solutions for business machines. They're not even close to being suitable for gaming.

As for dual-core 64-bit being specifically for C2D CPUs, try AMD Phenom or even the older Althon64 X2. C2D is a better buy, but Phenom and X2 are 64-bit and have 2, 3 or 4 cores.

C2D and C2Q are 64 bit as well.

[Angilion]

Originally Posted by Kristian Joensen

C2D and C2Q are 64 bit as well.

Did anyone say they weren't? I replied to a statement implying C2D was the only 64-bit PC CPU.

[Automuse]

Originally Posted by Automuse

DNF tech is mostly locked in to about an Unreal 3 engine equivalent

From what I understand the very core of the engine is Unreal 2, but with the renderer rewritten it now sounds on par with Unreal 3 - perhaps even slightly better. I seriously doubt there will be a big performance gap between Unreal3 and DNF...

[Kristian Joensen]

I didn't post what I did to correct you. You are correct as far as that goes. In that DNF's engine is a next gen engine with the same kind of features that engines like UE3 have.

[Parkar]

Originally Posted by Automuse

From what I understand the very core of the engine is Unreal 2, but with the renderer rewritten it now sounds on par with Unreal 3 - perhaps even slightly better. I seriously doubt there will be a big performance gap between Unreal3 and DNF...

It's not quiet right to use UE3 as an indication of what DNF will require since based on what we know they handle lighting differently. UE3 relies heavily on precomputed static lighting while DNF as far as we know is all dynamic.

This is more or less a guess but I belive DNF is using defered rending to a bigger extent then UE3 which fits with the dynamic lighting rather then static lighting. This will give you a higher initial cost but it scales better as scenes get more complex then the traditional method of rendering asuming you don't cheat with the lights like UE3 does.

[Dark Agent]

Aslong as we don't have to wait another 10 years, I won't hold a grudge.

[Shadow Master]

Originally Posted by Angilion

Perhaps "optimised" would be a better word than "supported". A game can be written to more efficiently use multiple cores.

Right.

I've become accustomed to the word "support" being used when "the game can run only in such conditions, not otherwise" at my "work".

[Angilion]

Originally Posted by Shadow Master

Right.

I've become accustomed to the word "support" being used when "the game can run only in such conditions, not otherwise" at my "work".

It might mean that as well, on the basis that no single-core PC CPU is adequate to run the game.

[MrBlackCat]

I have been out of programming for many years, but when I assisted with coding certain modules (for Novell NetWare ,NLM's) support for multiple processors (2 to 6 per motherboard, in Pentium 1 class servers) had mostly to do with options in the compiler but could be also affected by coding method.
I am guessing that coding for multiple cores works the same. Novell NetWare has supported multiple processors since the 80's. I do remember that some modules for NetWare were compiled for single or multiple and were usually different... some were not. This was function dependent and the OS handled most of this for most modules.

My point: The OS has to support multiple cores (I assume the same as multiple processors) but the software that runs on the OS can be compiled and or coded to utilize this. I think that is why George B said it like he did... the loader code will most likely be written to detect cores and direct accordingly just as Novell NetWare looks for multiple processors and loads different code for the number detected. Just as other programs detect 486 or Pentium class machines and load accordingly.

That is the way I understand it...
(now is when someone comes along and summarizes what I just typed in one simple sentence... so thanks in advance

I am glad the developers stop to swim nicely sometimes... recreation is probably important to making games.
I'll be right here, when it's done...

MrBlackCat

Originally Posted by Angilion

It might mean that as well, on the basis that no single-core PC CPU is adequate to run the game.

In a nutshell: The developers of games MUST code the game accordingly to make the Game multicore compatible, and the OS needs to be compatible as well. There's no point on having just one of those, you need both.

[MrBlackCat]

I don't know if that is truly the case... my experience with Novell is this... the OS was multi-processor compatible (as Windows now is) but the programs (NLM's in my case) did not have to be, but could be, to utilize multiple processors. I am thinking of the game only in terms of running on Windows based PC's actually as nothing else has been indicated... and Windows obviously operates on multi-core machines.

My point: I doubt compatibility is the issue. More likely it is optimization or at least utilizing the multi-cores.

MrBlackCat

Originally Posted by timothy2

In a nutshell: The developers of games MUST code the game accordingly to make the Game multicore compatible, and the OS needs to be compatible as well. There's no point on having just one of those, you need both.

Yes that's what I meant for the game to make use of Multicores. Without any of those you get the performance of just one.

[Parkar]

What you would do for a game engine is "just" write a threaded engine. The more you can dived the work between different threads the more you get out of more cores. It's more or less transparent to the programmer that the system has one or more cores/cpu's. The concept of a multi threaded application is not awfully complex but writing a game engine where you can evenly divide the work between threads to use several cores optimally is a bit more tricky.

Windows, Linux etc has had support for multi threading far longer then multi core systems has been common since even with just one core having multiple threads allow you to write code that seems to be running simultaneously. The same idea is the reason windows or any other OS can have more then one application running at once. Only difference with a multi core system is that the OS decides which core executes which thread/application. In other words running more then one application and applications with more then one thread takes advantage of multiple cores.

Since games traditionally tended to be written with one loop that just keeps your cpu busy multi threaded engines would have just been a hassle before we started having multiple cores.

[digimonkey]

I remember reading an article awhile back about Unreal Tournament 3 and how they were using each core for something specific. If you had a quad core the threads would basically be split into I/O, Sound, Rendering, and physics, each having a separate dedicated core. So apparently they had control on what thread went to which core.

I can testify that with a Quad core UT3 runs FLAWLESSLY.

[ShadowsWake]

Originally Posted by Simon Charles

The Octabrain's howl used to scare me shitless. When you heard more than one, you knew you were ******. Damn those things hurt! And I totally forgot some of Duke's best levels were underwater. Hope they bring back some of it in DNF. An underwater base would be awesome.

'
Aw yea, I'll never forget those things. They scared the sh*t out of me too!
Especially in rooms where the light kept flickering. And I LOVED all dukes underwater levels. I'm hoping they have some of those in the game too.
I mean, in the 2001 trailer they had him riding a jsetski/watercraft thing over the water, who's to say it isn't multipurpose so he can dive under the water?

[Commando Nukem]

Originally Posted by ShadowsWake

'
who's to say it isn't multipurpose so he can dive under the water?

Me. I am.

I honestly didnt care much for the water parts. Thanks to HALF LIFE and those sharks, I have a fear of water in games. I know, thats a really odd fear, but its true. Especially when there are sharks in it. I used to have nightmares about being sucked through one of those holes that are in lakes/rivers and carried out to the ocean too, so that doesnt help either.

But I imagine that part of the game is still in, simply because it was in 1998s version and 2001s version. Seems like its integral to the design of the games story.

[Maruno]

Originally Posted by Commando Nukem

But I imagine that part of the game is still in, simply because it was in 1998s version and 2001s version. Seems like its integral to the design of the games story.

Either that or it looked flashy enough to be in the trailers. Good water in games back then was impressive.

[gamingmajik]

and i thought i was the only one spooked out by underwater baddies. like the fish in half-life.O.O

[Thriller]

And the

[Drazula]

"Development is swimming along nicely. Seriously nicely."

More like a dog paddle in from the middle of the shark infested Pacific.

[KaiserSoze]

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask what everyone wants to know...what’s up with Duke Nukem Forever?

George Broussard:

It’s going really well. There are several hours of fairly polished game to play. We’re actively testing parts of the game and getting feedback from play testers and things are coming together. It’s fun, it’s in focus, we know what bits are fun and which are not, and it’s just a matter of time now. I’ve probably never been as happy or excited about the game as I am these days.

http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/...-Interview/p1/

[Lt.Havoc]

So, the same "blabla" we get since at least 3 years now........

[jagguar20]

Originally Posted by Lt.Havoc

So, the same "blabla" we get since at least 3 years now........