Unigine Is Still Tapping The Well For OilRush

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Unigine Is Still Tapping The Well For OilRush

Unigine Corp has released an update to their premiere game, OilRush. In time for any pre-order customers wishing to try out this latest development release over the weekend, OilRush v0.66 is now available...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTU3Ng

[allquixotic]

The campaign still has a long way to go, but I wouldn't object at all to them putting another 6 months into it.

As far as the graphics engine goes, all they have to do now is fix any bugs and improve performance -- they don't have to make it look any prettier. It's already plenty beautiful.

They just have to work on making gameplay more tactical and interesting, with more advancement options as far as technology etc, and maybe some kind of persistent advancement system between matches (especially for the campaign), so that each individual battlefield situation carries over something into the next.

Once they do that, and if they can make the campaign longer and more interesting, it'll be a good game. I don't care if they take several more months to work on it. I hope they do, because I realize it's costing them a lot of money to do it, but it would pay off in the end because the game would be more compelling and bring in more sales. They need to get some more operating capital (somehow) and turn this into a game that is, at least, as compelling as an AAA title (it can be done, even without the budget of an AAA developer, you just have to have imagination and a unique idea).

[AnonymousCoward]

I don't care if they take several more months to work on it. I hope they do, because I realize it's costing them a lot of money to do it, but it would pay off in the end because the game would be more compelling and bring in more sales.

The question is, will those extra sales be enough to recoup the development costs? I have my doubts. I don't want to sound negative but I don't think this is going to be a profitable game, and at some point they'll have to cut their losses and shift development away from that game.

[Kano]

Well you have to see it from another perspective. There is no AAA title out there that uses the Unigine engine. So if not even the developers of the engine manage to create a good game who else should do? For cross-plattform things seem to get better, but missing xbox360 support is most likely a no go. It was logical that Primal Carnage switched over to the Unreal engine. Not nice from a Linux user perspective as the Unreal engine currently does not support Linux as frontend, but they definitely would lose money when the xbox users can not play the game in the end. Also everybody can try the Unreal Engine for free, that might be also important. When you compare specs then the Unigine engine could use tesselation which Unreal engine can not do. That's fine for DX11 cards, but is OilRush a game that would look so much better with tesselation? Tesselation was not even mentioned in the game description. The Heaven benchmark was a nice example but it was no real game, so with the exception of Linux support, what makes OilRush better than any other game with Unreal engine?

[grotgrot]

It also doesn't currently play nice with the Linux desktop. For example it prevents the volume keys on your keyboard from having an effect so you can't change or mute the volume on your system. You also can't alt-tab out of it if you quickly need to check another app.

[MisterIO]

Well you have to see it from another perspective. There is no AAA title out there that uses the Unigine engine. So if not even the developers of the engine manage to create a good game who else should do?

I think that's irrelevant. They're the programmers of the engine, but that doesn't mean that they should be great game developers too. Game engine development is highly centered in math, physics and optimization. Game development instead is(or should be) mostly about 1)Vision(i.e. good ideas), 2)Story, 3)Artificial Intelligence, 4)Art, and possibly 5)Lots of moneys to spend!
I think they should concentrate on the engine development and then try to find someone who's interested in creating a good game with it(a known group possibly).

[darkbasic]

Does it work with latest R600g and something like an HD4890?

[Kano]

fglrx is usually 4-5x faster with the unigine engine compared to r600g. tested without tesselation and 5670.

[Qaridarium]

fglrx is usually 4-5x faster with the unigine engine compared to r600g. tested without tesselation and 5670.

i think he only ask this question because catalyst has no relevance...

right now i use the r600g and not the catalyst...

should i call a Doctor because this?

[Detructor]

It also doesn't currently play nice with the Linux desktop. For example it prevents the volume keys on your keyboard from having an effect so you can't change or mute the volume on your system. You also can't alt-tab out of it if you quickly need to check another app.

most games do not support that feature (alt-tab) on linux. At least, so far I only know one game that supports it: UrbanTerror.

All other games (that I play) (Heroes of Newerth, Vendetta Online, ET:QW, Regnum Online and many more) do not support it in fullscreen window and Heroes of Newerth is even trying to prevent unfocusing the windowed game during a match (you've to switch workspaces several times to get away from it)