Ask Questions About The Unigine Engine

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ask Questions About The Unigine Engine

We were very impressed last year when first watching the Unigine Tropics demo that was integrated in the Phoronix Test Suite as its OpenGL graphics were stunning and the game engine behind it, Unigine, is fully compatible with Linux. While not yet released, the latest work going into this powerful game engine bring multiplayer and physics support along with a horde of other features...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzIzNw

[Gimzo]

Ok, here's one:
Will the game/engine be usable on systems with xorg ati drivers?

[L33F3R]

i have a good 1

where is my phoronix discount? :D

[r0ck]

I got a bunch of questions:

1. What kind of API for developers do you guys use/Can you load assets created with Blender into the engine?

2. What scripting language do you use for Unigine?

3. Are there interesting/promising commercial projects currently in development or negotiations for Unigine use?

4. What do you guys think about the lack of interest in Linux gaming (with regards to how well games like World of Goo sell their Linux versions)?

5. Is DirectX a necessity or just a lazy-mans platform? How did Unigine overcome specialized effects programming like that?

6. How many people are working on Unigine at any time?

7. Will you be providing developer guides for people that want to create games or applications with the Unigine engine?

8. How much different (as an engine developer) is coding for Mac/Windows from coding for Linux? That's one of the most overused excuses from the dev community for NOT supplying Linux versions.

9. Unigine 2.0 - Can I haz it now?

10. Will the editor tools that are depicted on your website be shipped with the final engine and will they be cross-platform too?

11. Full engine access and six months support is almost 25K$ (40K$ for source code access + 12 months support) doesn't that limit your market potential?

12. Your "Indie" prices are virtually the same as the regular prices only that a larger part of the sum can be paid after an investor has stepped in. Do you plan on lowering the prices once Unigine is established a little more? I can hardly think of an Indie-dev that would sign up for a 40,000 Dollar engine. Also, doesn't that limit the potential of Unigine to be featured in "experimental" games?


EDIT I took a look at their web page again and there they have some pricing info, rephrased the questions 11+12 accordingly. Old ones were:
11. How much does fully licensed support for Unigine engine cost?

12. Will there be an open version that costs nothing?

[Svartalf]

13 Since it's unlikely there'll be an open version of Unigine Engine anytime soon, back to 11, will there be an inexpensive indie price point on the engine licensing?

[birdie]

I'd like to point Unigine developers to this thread (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=126040).

There's something very strange with your engine - it's sometimes CPU bound, sometimes GPU bound and correlation is really difficult to establish. Is there a bug in rendering? ;)

[MartjeB]

14 When will the first (commercial) game based on this engine be released?

[Setlec]

15 will you release this engine as open source as ID software does? after a couple of years of course...

cheers

[L33F3R]

15 will you release this engine as open source as ID software does? after a couple of years of course...

cheers

its questions like this that stop leadwerks engine from ever going to linux. The dev's over there think that everyone in the linux community wants everything for free.

I have a question about the engine construction itself. Why is there d3d9 support when no d3d 9 card can run it? I have a 7950 and thats about the best dx9 card that was made. although thats relative to preference, it was certainly the last series nvidia made before DX10. After turning absolutely everything off i get ~30fps. Will you make optimizations on the future to support D3D9 speed mprovements or was it part of an evolutionary process?

[Setlec]

its questions like this that stop leadwerks engine from ever going to linux. The dev's over there think that everyone in the linux community wants everything for free.


@L33F3R: hmmm, tbh i really think that is great that they have support for linux, and probably i'll buy an unigine engine based game for sure if the game has a linux version.

16 Does the engine have capabilities for MMOGs?

[superppl]

I have a question about the engine construction itself. Why is there d3d9 support when no d3d 9 card can run it? I have a 7950 and thats about the best dx9 card that was made. although thats relative to preference, it was certainly the last series nvidia made before DX10. After turning absolutely everything off i get ~30fps. Will you make optimizations on the future to support D3D9 speed mprovements or was it part of an evolutionary process?
Maybe a guy is running XP with a fairly powerful card. I see no real reason to run Vista until there are some serious titles with proper DX10 support.

I have a few questions, but they've already been asked.

[L33F3R]

Maybe a guy is running XP with a fairly powerful card. I see no real reason to run Vista until there are some serious titles with proper DX10 support.

I have a few questions, but they've already been asked.

ahhh yes true say. But it looks like XP is going by the wayside with Win7 :(. I suppose the dx9 is also good for xbox360.

[MartjeB]

its questions like this that stop leadwerks engine from ever going to linux. The dev's over there think that everyone in the linux community wants everything for free.
"After a few years". The engine will be out-of-date then, anyway.

[niniendowarrior]

17. What do you intend and/or expect to achieve in the Linux space with this engine?

18. Does the engine support external and third party libraries? (if I want to use different API for sound, or physics, etc.)

[nanonyme]

12. Your "Indie" prices are virtually the same as the regular prices only that a larger part of the sum can be paid after an investor has stepped in. Do you plan on lowering the prices once Unigine is established a little more? I can hardly think of an Indie-dev that would sign up for a 40,000 Dollar engine.Not to sound like a prick but if the engine is as good as the pictures and videos would make it seem like, it would probably be well worth it. The investor likely gives you more than enough money to pay the bill if you play your cards right. (Also seems to me the page says you don't have to pay the second part at all if the project goes bust before release. Then again, another way to read it is: do not release before you get an investor)

[Michael]

Last call for questions... Get them in today if you want them answered.

[dashcloud]

After looking at the feature list, it's very impressive.
I'm curious to know if there's going to be a Blender import or export plugin?
Your page says Unigine 1.0 supports R300 & up- if there are any more updates to it planned, would you support the open-source Radeon driver? (I understand the performance isn't the same).

[MartjeB]

When will we get the answers to these questions?

[Michael]

Early next week, hopefully.

[MartjeB]

That would be awesome, thanks!

[BlackStar]

Last call for questions... Get them in today if you want them answered.

19. What is your experience with OpenGL drivers? Do you routinely encounter bugs on either vendor that force you to implement workarounds? Do you use multiple code paths, not only per hardware level (SM2, SM3, SM4), but also per-vendor?

20. This may a little too technical, but do you use a forward or a deferred renderer? If it is the latter, how did you implement FSAA? Is it done as a custom post-process edge-detect filter, or have you implemented some novel algorithm for this?

21. What approach do you take for GI (Global Illumination)? SSAO or something newer/better?

22. What are your thoughts on OpenCL? Are there any plans to use it for e.g. physics in the future?

Edit: 23. What is the triangle budget for a typical scene?

[Aradreth]

Epic Fail
05-05-2009 02:23 PM -> 05-13-2009 06:32 PM
Slightly more then a day, right?