The Best Looking Open-Source Game?

[Michael]

No, it would not. There is no vstr feature, nor is there a nextdemo feature.

If you did this:

timedemo 1
map demo088-test1.dm2

Then the game would run a timedemo and output some statistics when it's done. However, in order to make the game quit, Phoronix would have to wait for the demo to finish and then pipe a "quit" command into the game's stdin, or I could add a demoquit cvar or something.

I'm working on a scripting system which would make all of this much easier to deal with. Gameplay scripting isn't done yet but scripts can already emit console commands to automate stuff like this, which will be useful for server admins. None of this is in SVN yet though, because I haven't yet ported it to Windows.

For the 0AD developer, if you don't understand what Michael is asking for: the timedemo feature found in many quake-based engines allows you to play back a demo, but it does it differently. Instead of playing it back in "realtime," it simply draws a new frame for each "snapshot" in the demo. In Quake II (and Alien Arena,) 10 snapshots are generated per second. I think in Quake III it's 20. So if you can render at 100 FPS, in Quake II playing a demo in timedemo mode makes the playback 10x as fast. So to get an average framerate, you just need to time the timedemo. This feature was added specifically for performance testing and it is invaluable to developers looking to optimize their code. If your game engine doesn't have this feature, it's definitely worth adding (or fixing, LOL.)

demoquit or something would work much better than keep monitoring the stdout for the fps and to then send it quit. Most other game engines allow this 'demo quit' functionality

[Qaridarium]

I don't appreciate you taking my words out of context; I said "I want to see TA-Spring and 0A.D. merge somehow", and that is exactly what I meant.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing phoronix take advantage of some of the Spring Engine games. (they really need to pick a name and stick with it...)

i dit nothing wrong --->(...) this means its not the full version

this means he can read your version!

[MaxToTheMax]

I have programmed the demoquit cvar, however I can't commit it until I get home (SVN is blocked on this wifi.) Should be in SVN within three hours or so.

You can build the game from SVN using these directions:
http://corent.proboards.com/index.cg...1&page=1#56922

Demos (.dm2 files) go in ~/.codered/arena/demos.

You can play back a demo in benchmark mode with these commands:

timedemo 1
demoquit 1
map demo_name.dm2 //you MUST include the .dm2

Or from the command line:

crx +timedemo 1 +demoquit 1 +map demo_name.dm2

A word of advice on what kind of demo to record for benchmarking purposes: Our biggest bottleneck is mesh and player model rendering, so if you really want to stress the system, pick a small, crowded map with lots of meshes in it (dm-goregrinder is a good one,) and add lots and lots of bots. You can do this like so:

set maxclients 16
startmap dm-goregrinder

Wait for the map to load.

sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot

This will add a bunch of bots to the game, in addition to the ones already programmed into the map's bot file.

Then start recording a demo:

record demo_name //you must NOT include the .dm2

Play for a few minutes, then quit the game and your demo will appear in ~/.codered/arena/demos.

[Qaridarium]

Because as far as I know there still is no proper automated support for handling it within the Spring engine compared to other open-source engines. And I don't see enough donations coming in for it to be worthwhile to add support to the Spring engine myself.

I don't see it bringing in any significant number of new readers... You're the only one that's ever even requested it.

how much will it cost to pay you to make a test profile with a Spring-engine based 0pensource game ?

its easy to blame the people "And I don't see enough donations coming in for it to be worthwhile to add support to the Spring engine myself." but you never say how much exactly do you need.

then maybe the Spring-engine fans stand up for there reputation!

[Michael]

I have programmed the demoquit cvar, however I can't commit it until I get home (SVN is blocked on this wifi.) Should be in SVN within three hours or so.

You can build the game from SVN using these directions:
http://corent.proboards.com/index.cg...1&page=1#56922

Demos (.dm2 files) go in ~/.codered/arena/demos.

You can play back a demo in benchmark mode with these commands:

timedemo 1
demoquit 1
map demo_name.dm2 //you MUST include the .dm2

Or from the command line:

crx +timedemo 1 +demoquit 1 +map demo_name.dm2

A word of advice on what kind of demo to record for benchmarking purposes: Our biggest bottleneck is mesh and player model rendering, so if you really want to stress the system, pick a small, crowded map with lots of meshes in it (dm-goregrinder is a good one,) and add lots and lots of bots. You can do this like so:

set maxclients 16
startmap dm-goregrinder

Wait for the map to load.

sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot; sv addbot

This will add a bunch of bots to the game, in addition to the ones already programmed into the map's bot file.

Then start recording a demo:

record demo_name //you must NOT include the .dm2

Play for a few minutes, then quit the game and your demo will appear in ~/.codered/arena/demos.

Thanks!!! Will check it out tomorrow to see how suitable it is... Hopefully it will all be working smooth and can then incorporate it into PTS right away tomorrow/this-weekend so that the test profile is included when testing out the graphics of some alien chip that arrived this week after suffering poison ivy

[MaxToTheMax]

What is your usual policy for benchmarking games with different graphics settings? The performance is radically different at each graphics level. It's like five different benchmarks. At lowest/low settings, the engine doesn't behave too differently from ioQuake3 (although with much more model detail.) I usually play at medium settings, because my 2010 Thinkpad T510 with nVidia graphics cannot get a solid 60 FPS at high or highest settings. Interestingly, low settings perform worse on my laptop than medium settings, because with low settings GLSL is not used. I would expect that to be reversed with Intel graphics.

And by the way, this is awesome news.

[Michael]

how much will it cost to pay you to make a test profile with a Spring-engine based 0pensource game ?

its easy to blame the people "And I don't see enough donations coming in for it to be worthwhile to add support to the Spring engine myself." but you never say how much exactly do you need.

then maybe the Spring-engine fans stand up for there reputation!

I don't know for sure since as far as I know there's no support for what I need within the Spring Engine itself and I've never worked on the Spring Engine previously so I don't know how difficult it would be to make the necessary engine changes. The commercial cost for creating a test profile is usually about 200$ USD, but if needing to do all of the engine work that would be much more ($1k+).

[MaxToTheMax]

Hell, I'd pitch in 20 bucks for that. 0AD needs more love.

[Michael]

What is your usual policy for benchmarking games with different graphics settings? The performance is radically different at each graphics level. It's like five different benchmarks. At lowest/low settings, the engine doesn't behave too differently from ioQuake3 (although with much more model detail.) I usually play at medium settings, because my 2010 Thinkpad T510 with nVidia graphics cannot get a solid 60 FPS at high or highest settings.

And by the way, this is awesome news.

Depends on the game... For the games that can actually bang the GPU well there's usually PTS test profile options prompt to the user of like low/med/high/ultimate. Or for the quake3-era games it's using a standardized configuration that would match to the high/ultimate area.

[Qaridarium]

I don't know for sure since as far as I know there's no support for what I need within the Spring Engine itself and I've never worked on the Spring Engine previously so I don't know how difficult it would be to make the necessary engine changes. The commercial cost for creating a test profile is usually about 200$ USD, but if needing to do all of the engine work that would be much more ($1k+).

why not start a kickstarter project for that? 200dollar is very cheap and 1000 dollar will be filled in a day or two!

i will help out with 13,37 euro! i'm sure we get the money instantly!