GeekArmada - You pretty much misinterpreted everything I posted. That's fine, though, as lordkosc's initial post didn't reflect what I thought he meant either, which pretty much tanks my reply, which you based your reply off of.

In other words, it's a meaningless wash.

Indeed . I was replying to yours as a reply on everything else that was being said at the same time to make some general comments. But thanks for the clarification on your stance and the quick point!

Multianna, thanks for your comment too, those were the ones I watched. I still want more bells and whistles! More! Heh. But yeah, I realize it was a beta 1, so I guess we'll see.

It would be nice if some Directx 10 content was added. The number of us using Vista and having Directx 10 video cards should be significant by the time the game is released.

This would also go a ways to delaying the game's graphics from becoming dated.

I try my best to mess up me own posts

There won't be any DirectX 10 content in the initial release. We may add some post-release, however as part of an update.

Comedy gold is a treasure revealed when pirates occasionally listen to the parrots whispering in their ears... arrr!

  

Cool!

and I shall bash your citing.
stalker and halflife are FPS games, running on a better system simply means sharper graphics and shinier gun fire.
its not exactly the same on a massive several thousand object RTS game.

which means your response to said response is a response to an unrelated response to yet more unrelated responses.

I'm done now.   

STALKER may be a first person shooter, but some of that more powerful processing power goes to creating the super whiz bag amazing A.I. and life like procedures performed by the characters in each zone before you enter them.


I would say it is the same, because while the image quality is sharper and shinier, they're really just creating more images on your monitor, and creating several thousand objects in an RTS game would be the equivalent of creating an explosive action packed scene in a game like FEAR.

If you've even seen the development commentary on the game FEAR, the developers actually mention that the team working on the graphics engine told the level designers that whenever there's water in the environment they couldn't have more then six enemies on the screen at once, otherwise the engine would chug. So naturally the level designers made sure to almost always have six person battles near water.


Back on topic as far as graphics. I'd be more worried that a year from now the game will be released and some people will turn their heads up at it in light of games like Crysis or Bioshock, which are of course first person shooters, but then also games like Supreme Commander, Spore, Empire Earth III, Universe at War, and a couple other RTS games that will look a little bit better. I mean heck, I already own the game so what do I care, but the average pc game buyer might take a look at the graphics and say, "That looks so 2007."

Gang, I'm honestly not sure why you all think Sins graphics are so bad or why you believe in less than a year's time everyone will think so.  Have expectations on this area gotten so absurdly unrealistic since Crysis screenshots were released?  What precisely do you guys expect?  The game already uses gigantic textures for its models - textures that are on-par or larger than what most titles use.

I think the graphics are fine. I run everything on the highest setting on my laptop and I think it looks great. The only games I buy for graphics are the FPS games since they are always the same. When you buy and FPS you know your just running around killing things so you want it to look and feel as realistic as possible.

RTS is a whole different genre. I play RTS games for the gameplay aspect not for immersion and graphics. I think SOSE is fun and it is only beta 1. I like watching ships open fire and destroy each other but that is not what makes it fun. It is fun because I am running an empire, researching and raining down on my enemies with massive capital ships. Anyway my 2 cents.

Ok, maybe some just think they are gigantic *ugly* textures then

In the end... I prefer gameplay more then graphics - but at this stage of Beta...hmmm

Lets just say I cant wait for Beta2 to start - mostly to see where the gameplay is going.(more 4x, less rts, please)

I dont think anyone has a real or I should say valid issues with the graphics. I think where some are getting concerned is in the animation area. I think they want to be able to zoom in to the ship and see the crew walking around and see all the turrets and what not firing and moving -etc...

Personally speaking I think they are high quality technically speaking. On matters of pure taste I did not like the old graphics for the TEC faction much because they did not fit my perceptions of what the faction stood for given the lore I read but that in and of itself is not a valid point. I'm however pleased with the new graphics as they are more in line with what I imagined.

I dont think anyone believes the graphics to be poor. They, including me, are just hoping for a wider margin at the top for us who can do more. More and more games are doing this and I don't think it has anything to do with Crysis. Crysis is one of those games where Schem's fears are quite valid -- you literally need to have a PC that's considerably less than a year just to get it to play at a normal level.

Expandability at the top though also ensures longevity. This is a concern for me because it directly affects how many people I am going to have to play with, in multiplayer, a year from now and so forth -- and I only buy games for their multiplayer. If I want singleplayer from a game I'll go buy an RPG, a console or just play solitaire.



I kind of like it in both. I like feeling immersed in RTS games also. There is a strong 'roleplaying' element to 4x and empire-building games. It's one of the reasons MOO2 was so successful and to some degree Starcraft, because those campaigns, with the excellent quality cutscenes, sucked you in. Eitherway, I am just a fan of being able to get sucked into epic RTS's and graphics are important for this.

I agree with you on the animation. I don't know if I want to see crew walking around but I would like to maybe see turrets moving or at a minimum recoil from a large battery firing. It adds just that little extra something.

The graphics ARE quite good, on part or better than most RTS's out there, especially the new battleship skins for the carrier and dreadnought!

The main purpose of this thread was the animation capabilities of the ships, and the possible need of higher requirements to run them.

Well here is the thing. I don't think we're talking about a High-End exclusive game, and up until this point I don't think any game is really.


I have 2 gaming machines.
+ A 4 years old machine: AMD 2500+ 1GB RAM Readon 9600Pro.
+ A new machine I built a few months ago: Core 2 Duo 6300 2GB RAM Geforce 7600GT.

And up until 3 months ago (when I acquired the new machine) I played all the high end game on that old machine of mine and they all ran perfectly fine and I was happy even I can not get the most out of those games, they're perfectly playable. Want some example? Oblivion, I played it for about years, beat the main story, explored every corners ...etc... I got a few FPS drop here and there, and certainly the detail was on mid low. But was I able to play and enjoy the game? Yes. Or X3: The Reunion. Beat the story line, built myself a huge big trading empire just like a person with a high end machine. The cons? The old machine can not handle the level of engagement if I jump into a Xenon or Khaak sectors.


Now, with this new machine. The first time I played Oblivion on it, I said: damn this looks good boys!!. And the FPS hiccup also disappeared. And now, playing X3 I can finally engage Xenon sector by myself instead of doing OOS like on the old machine.


So, the thing here is that we're talking about how a game can be played on a wide range of system. The people who has limited resource can still play the game, but also, the game should be able to ultulize the extra resource that may be given to it to enhance itself. I didn't say, neither prefer a game to be high-end exclusive, like you said, it's bad for sale. But neither I find agreement the agressive low end defense (i.e from Scheme) that a game should be made cartering for low end machine and it should not demand any more then that. Low end can play the game, high end can play the game as well, but it's quite reasonable that a high end machine should be able to provide a better experience. On the other hand, demanding a game should be play at the same level on a low end and a high machine, IMO, is much less reasonable.

Plus, it's not like Sin is released today or tomorrow, it's scheduled well into next year isn't it.

Okay, thanks for the comments gang.    There's actually quite a bit more stuff planned than you'll get to see anytime soon (and we may hold off on some until release) in terms of special particle fx. Plus, if we do end up making a DX10 patch after release, that should help as well. Typically though, faster machines make it possible to run games faster, more smoothly and at higher resolutions. That should remain the case with Sins in the years ahead as well.

stupid forums, lol

my post above in red said this :

The main purpose of this thread was the animation capabilities of the ships, and the possible need of higher requirements to run them.

Whilst I agree that better or more impressive would be cool, but would it improve game sales enough to justify the expense?

This already is a niche market game, I don’t think better graphics will convince anyone to buy it if they don’t like the core gameplay or the complex empire management options.

In the end it’s just a matter of simple economics, every hour a graphics designer has to work to jazz up the effects is going to take a bite of the budget. The budget is finite, so that leaves less money for the other aspects. That just leaves the question which aspect will sell the most games, graphics or game play?
Normally I would say graphics, but this being a 4x game I’m going with game play.

(On a side note I would love to see some more lighting/shader effects.)

On the contrary... And I haven't seen so much "I want better graphics" on a strategy game forum for a long time.

This isn't your plain 2d map/3d object side-scrolling strategy game, with units running about a simple map... graphics will be an issue and a significant pull factor.

There's a very important point to consider: laptops. Laptop sales are poised to pass desktop sales, and the vast majority of these are sold with integrated graphics. In the past, with GC2 in particular, Stardock has been great with releasing products that look pretty *and* perform well, so I'm looking forward to SINS following in that tradition.

This is (said to be) a strategy game. It doesn't matter whether it's 2D, 3D, underwater, terran, space or a mix of all these - a strategy gamer wants CONTENT. A way to utilize strategy and tactics. Graphics can always make a game more appealing, but it can't satisfy a strategy gamer. Total War series didn't succeed because of the ugly sprites Shogun had.

I daresay that if your system only has Intel integrated graphics that you shouldn't expect to be able to run any real-time 3D game very well (and you'd better have vast quantities of RAM).