My multiplayer RTS

[Wizard]

I downloaded your demo and it looks good so far One thing I realized is that when you spawn over 900 ships on one or more areas the fps dropps and movement becomes jerky... mabe it's just me who would spawn 1000 ships...

[arthurprs]

i don't know how to download from uploading.com

can you upload the file to another host, mediafire.com for example ?

thanks

[User137]

The link comes in uploading.com when you look the page down.. there should be little countdown 80 seconds or something, but yeah i wasn't aware of alternatives.
On Mediafire now then:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f...4e75f6e8ebb871

This is only slightly modified version There is now 7 active players and 1 inactive which will just drop ships to ground. Chasing and flying is little fine tuned. I'd maybe like to add shadows myself...

"Wizard: One thing I realized is that when you spawn over 900 ships on one or more areas the fps dropps and movement becomes jerky..."

Yeah happens, in real game the ships should be much more scattered through the play area and in the second link demo they do scatter more unless you create them in 1 place.

Edit: maybe it's just my machine, my fps stays at 31 with 2000 units in same view but i can hear the cpu fan wakes up 3000 units and it was pushing at maximum of first processor unit (this isn't using multicore at least yet, it comes to rendering anyway i think which can't be optimized that way?) but fps still 30. Move view elsewhere and it relax...

[Wizard]

Maybe build something into the game that limits the amount of ships that can be spawned in one specific area? Anyway, as you say it probably won't be a issue in real game play.

[chronozphere]

This is looking promising.

I really like the "wrapped" map and the way you can move your camera (It's a big quick though). Could you let the camera zoom out a little bit more?

I have a couple of other questions:

> Which API's / libraries will you be using for graphics/sound/network etc?
> Where did you get, or how did you make those terrain textures?
> Is there anyway to select units and make them move in to a certain location yet (might have missed this)?
> Any chance you will release the sources in the future?

This is an awesome project. I will keep an eye on this one.

[User137]

I have a couple of other questions:

> Which API's / libraries will you be using for graphics/sound/network etc?
Graphics use Next3D which is my own wrapper made on dglOpengl. Network uses WSockets and no sounds yet. If there is musics it'd be TMediaplayer but effects propably OpenAL which i've also made a small wrapper in the past. I heard this demo currently works well in Wine under Linux so i can try keep it that way.

> Where did you get, or how did you make those terrain textures?
I can show you
http://i40.tinypic.com/10fomjl.png
I came up with making a simple editor that takes random small parts from larger texture as seen in first slot. The parts are drawn so that they wrap from 1 side to other to be seamless. I clipped and clipped to make several large source textures with light and dark grass and use those... result is very rough tough. That is 1 reason i stick with Delphi, it's so fast to make all these small editors for all occasions, they have really piled by now. BUT it would be possible to improve this editor by making it draw sharper real alpha channeled forms of grass and other parts, if needed. Or possibly soft "clone painting".

> Is there anyway to select units and make them move in to a certain
> location yet (might have missed this)?
Not for now, there is vague plans for more sophisticated UI for unit groups. But i may aswell do them after basic networking works. This game can go far with full automation Units move in so wide area and in such speeds it would not be fun to only select by hand.

> Any chance you will release the sources in the future?
It's possible but if i was to make fog of war kind of thing to game, releasing source would basically give everyone cheat in their hands. (So maybe i can forget fov altogether...)

Edit: > Could you let the camera zoom out a little bit more?
This affects 2 things: I would need to increase vertex buffer and it would mean more very careful math which affects a few places, and it would slow rendering a tiny bit. Secondly terrain becomes more "pixelized" with linear filtering. I would need to enable mipmapping but such isn't implemented in dglOpengl header so it would mean a little more work...
(hmm.. now that i think about it, mipmapping is mainly about reducing texture size in half, which might be doable manually and easily)

[arthurprs]

I have tested it, works fine on my E7200 + GMA3100

it looks really good!

[User137]

Shadows added, and i can guarantee it hardly effects performance at all Gives new life to the whole thing...and yes it looks much better live. (they cover all objects that are on ground)
http://i43.tinypic.com/205yy42.jpg

Maybe i could create a small vid to youtube...

Edit: Also made a small test with different timer and without vsync, fps was at 70 with 10000 units. But i don't like stressing cpu like that Save energy, save the planet lol

[User137]

There's a video now, enjoy .. though youtube reduced quality of it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzDrqhHbwKw

[chronozphere]

Looking awesome (wish it was my project haha. )

One thing though: I think the whole map looks a bit dark. You could do awesome things with lighting. Maybe you could make a sun shining from the north and add some fog. Using a few parameters you could easily change the entire atmosphere of the game.

Good luck. Hope to see more!