Next-Gen Tech Allows for Massive Scale RTS Combat

[Crimsonmonkeywar]

The focus on Mantle here is perhaps a bit misleading..

Worth noting that Nitrous while yes, Mantle pushes the potential a further, Nitrous being a big step forward is not dependent upon Mantle. It was in fact originally developed for DirectX and than ported to Mantle, and is still looking pretty impressive even if you don't have an AMD card.

Here's the only reference to current performance data I could find: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/98295-amd-tech-day-kaveri-mantle-slides/

In any case, supposedly we'll be seeing Steam Benchmarks at some point this month, looking forward to some solid data.

From what was said, with Mantle they expect to not only get higher framrate, but accomplish nearly 10x the amount of computations then they're currently getting do to the code being so poorly optimized and rushed. So I'd say you're under selling it, if there data is correct that is.

 

[Elijin]

Does this mean we'll actually get a triple a RTS that isnt a total war game? Because the last one I remember is SC2, and then I blank for...years.

 

[alj]

This will be cool. I'm imagining large scale battles, where where hills and entrenchment are being lost and taken in real time. A strategy games that have lines for troops to fall back and regroup is my dream game.

I love RTS games, but it always bothered me that most encounters ended when one side completely annihilated the other. Finally getting battles that breathe will be great.

You can do that in company of heroes as the British you can retreat to your commander, not exactly what your looking for but better than baby's first RTS (starcraft). In fact if you do let units keep getting totally annihilated then you are going to lose pretty fast.

 

[Chessrook44]

For those of you wondering just how you're going to be able to control 5000 or 10,000 units all at once and thinking it'll be impossible, I have a question for you...

...how do you think generals do this in REAL LIFE?

That's what I predict out of this. You may still select squads or groups like in the Total War series... a single lieutenant designating a squad or something of the like... but the battles themselves, the simulations of unit vs. unit, THAT is what will change. THAT is what we will see different. From afar it will be similar to how it was before, but from ground view, it'll look quite different.

 

[Kahani]

Now we just need someone to make an actual strategy game so we can use this. Rome 2 sucked. Starcraft is OK, but hardly designed for such large amounts of units. Other than the Dawn of War series, which was owned by THQ, who else is even making RTS games these days? Shame about THQ in particular, since a Warhammer 40K game with full-scale battles of tens of thousands would be fucking epic.

 

[Jadak]

Spoiler

The focus on Mantle here is perhaps a bit misleading..

Worth noting that Nitrous while yes, Mantle pushes the potential a further, Nitrous being a big step forward is not dependent upon Mantle. It was in fact originally developed for DirectX and than ported to Mantle, and is still looking pretty impressive even if you don't have an AMD card.

Here's the only reference to current performance data I could find: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/98295-amd-tech-day-kaveri-mantle-slides/

In any case, supposedly we'll be seeing Steam Benchmarks at some point this month, looking forward to some solid data.

From what was said, with Mantle they expect to not only get higher framrate, but accomplish nearly 10x the amount of computations then they're currently getting do to the code being so poorly optimized and rushed. So I'd say you're under selling it, if there data is correct that is.

Yes, I am under-selling it, primarily as I am just trying to switch focus from Mantle to Nitrous itself. This article would have one think that Mantle is the defining point of Nitrous, and does not give nearly enough credit to the guys at Oxide who had made a very impressive engine regardless, one that will serve more than just those using recent AMD cards.

More, even the performance of Nitrous is speculative at this point barring any benchmarking of real world applications, I have no desire to further compound the speculative nature by throwing around figures like 'Nitrous x 10!' that are even further from being real world applicable at this point.

 

[Xenedus]

That article on StarSwarm was terrible.

First off: StarSwarm is a BENCHMARK DEMO not a game. They may be working on a spaceship RTS game but the footage you are seeing is for benchmark purposes not to show off gameplay.

Next: The article claims you need a robust CPU to run the demo but the apparently didn't watch the presentation that Oxide gave on this demo because Oxide specifically stated that they UNDERCLOCKED their CPU and that the demo was GPU bound not CPU bound. In their presentation they talked about how the engine scaled REALLY well with CPU cores so you don't need a super expensive CPU to run the demo you just need a CPU with a lot of cores (So AMD's 8core CPU's would be a good pick) but even then the CPU is not as important as the GPU in this case because the whole benefit of Mantle was it allowed them to fully utilize the GPU without taxing the CPU with hidden extra operations.

 

[dochmbi]

I just wish we could finally stop developing graphics further and further and just focus on creating new gameplay concepts.

 

[Therumancer]

I'm not all that impressed because it's all about quality, balance, and yes... writing, when it comes to a good RTS experience, not just being able to throw out crazy numbers of units. While I guess some people really liked it, I could never get my mind around the concepts and why the factions were fighting (and the whole idea of one suit building an army and that resolving an entire war, when you'd think each side would have thousands upon thousands of nanite-constucting battle suits, but well... yeah, best not ponder that) in say "Supreme Commander" which as it's selling point was pushing the number of units you could crank out and how it had carefully balanced sea, air, and land components with one faction being able to morph it's units to more than one element as a special ability if I remember.

The point I'm making is that while I suppose the technological achievement is impressive, I think things have remained on a smaller scale largely because it's both easier to control, and to ensure the quality of the experience. Blizzard could have say moved to a larger scale, say Supreme-Commander-like but I don't think it would have had the same quality, and I'd imagine they do also, because they didn't do it at the moment.

At any rate if you want to impress me, come up with a system where you can crank out that many units and provide me with an interface where I feel like I can actually control that many and remain more or less in command of my entire battle. Simply churning out unprecedented numbers of AI bots that might at best wind up following a patrol pattern in of itself doesn't sell me.