Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (
More info?)
On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 01:27:45 -0400, "Magnulus"
<magnulus@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>"John Lewis" <john.dsl@verizon.net> wrote in message
>news:42ddc0af.1412458@news.verizon.net...
>> AI is far more important to the single-player experience than physics
>> perfection. And obviously you have not played with the bots in Unreal
>> Tournament 2004 after a little tweaking on the custom settings.
>
> But hardly anybody talks about the AI in Unreal Tournament, because it's
>an online game.
>
> DICE and good AI don't go together. I daresay the AI in Starwars
>Battlefront was better than in any DICE game.
Have you played BF2 ? SP mode ? Or are you still stuck on Joint
Operations ?
>And it didn't cause much
>slowdown. But again, people don't rave about the AI in what is basicly a
>multiplayer game. Multiplayer game= no AI needed.
>
>> The dual-core can equally handle Havok's multi-thread physics
>> computations and the AI computations,
>
> In my cynical mind, I see the upcomming games having no better AI than in
>the past. Really, how much AI do you need in a singleplayer game that is
>heavily based around scripting and trigger points, which seems to be what
>most FPS games are doing?
Far Cry. I'm sure that Crytek is drooling right now over the AI
possibilities with a second full CPU at their disposal. The
autonomous-AI implementation in Far Cry was constrained by
processor load. And Far Cry's physics ( and BF2's physics also) are
just fine forme and probably 99% of other action-gamers. Sorry,
I want bots that behave more like real-live opponents BEFORE
I kill them ( or they kill me...) Exactly how they fly apart after I
blast them I care little - rag-doll is just fine.
> OTOH, a single core 2 GHz CPU can only handle a
>few hundred rigid body physics calculations. A dual core CPU will at most
>handle a thousand or so. It will not be able to handle fluids or thousands
>of particles.
>
Who cares........really....unless you are a submarine or aircraft
designer.
>>
>> PhysX is dead-duck in today's computer-gaming market. And the
>> consoles certainly won't be embeeding a PhysX chip any time
>> soon. So the multi-platform developers would have to specially
>> accommodate the few purchasers of the PhysX card....
>> that won't happen..
>
> I for one would like to see fewer multiplatform games. Consoles can do
>what they want, I want to see what PC developers can do.
The exclusive-PC developer is unfortunately a rapidly dying breed.
Sorry...
>
> Your arguement is also foolish. Rockstar added EAX support to Grand Theft
>Auto, even though they didn't have to, as there was nothing similar on the
>PS2 or XBox.
So what --- they added it to their previous game-ports to the PC. The
tooling is simple, and probably 90% of action-gamers have Creative
audio in their machines.
> Assuming consoles developers won't add similar physics support
>to at least some PC ports is absurd, especially considering Ageia has
>licensed their middleware engine to several console developers, including
>Epic Megagames (Unreal).
Use Ageia software and port over to multicore PC, sure - as a
potential alternate to Havok.
Support Ageia hardware ( i.e PhysX ) -- few or no takers.
So, please let us know when:-
(a) you buy your PhysX board
( b) you buy a dual-core CPU
If I was a betting person, I would take odds on (b) happening
long before (a)......... Of course, I am making the rash assumption
that you need to budget your PC-related expenditures; that you are
not rolling in so much dough that you can buy anything to which
you take a fancy, with ot without game-developer support.
John Lewis