simple game with poor performance...

[biff]

Could someone explain why, for this graphically simple game, does it have such problems running on our modern computers? Poor frame-rates, glitchy sound, and poor network performance.

It really astounds me that a game which visually looks like it could run on a computer ten (maybe even 20) years old has trouble on an up to date machine. There are no polygons to draw or lighting to work out or physics to model, and yet a computer running at billions of operations a second, supported by a powerful dedicated graphics chip has problems running it! Even the sounds drain the performance... why? It just plays a song and the occasional sound effects, it isn't exactly state of the art, is it? My Master System can handle more complex audio! And compared to other games, defcon isn't dealing with masses of information, so why are so many people complaining about lag and lost connections?

Modern programming is woeful.

I'm off to play Wonderboy III.

[shinygerbil]

Yeah, I'm gonna watch and laugh. Ready to be flamed, biff?

[Montyphy]

Could someone explain why, for a graphically simple book, do dictionaries have so many problems being understood by my highly evolved, modern brain? Large words, obsure meanings and references, and a difficult to decipher phonic system.

It really astounds me that a book which visually looks like it could prop up a table which is ten (maybe even 20) years old has trouble being understood by my brain. There are no images or colours, and yet my brain running at billions of operations a second, supported by a powerful dedicated visual recognition centre and cognitive abilities has troubles understanding it! Even the phonic definitions drain the performance... why? It just defines how a word is pronounced, it isn't exactly state of the art, is it? My comics and manga can manange to phonically sound things better! And compared to other books, dictionaries aren't dealing with masses of images and colours, so why are so many people misusing or misspelling words, or complaining they don't know what a word means?

Modern English is woeful.

I'm off to "read" Playboy.

[xander]

There are tons of polygons. The coastlines are made up of polygons. There are thousands of polygons in the game. Why do you think it scales so well when you zoom in and out? That's right, vector graphics which are, get this, polygons. Defcon may look simple, but it uses modern technology to get that look.

xander

[NeoThermic]

I'm not going to flame you, I'm just going to point out that you have no idea what goes on in a single frame of Defcon. Even ignoring the Sound, AI, Networking and just looking at the graphics, there's 42,371 calls alone before any nukes start flying without any network traffic and human communication. A 6 player game, as a spectator, can make well over 150,000 calls without breaking a sweat. As noted, this is just for the graphics. I currently can't benchmark anything else in terms of calls.

Show me a 10 or 20 year old computer which has a graphics card that can handle over 150,000 calls per frame for more than 30 frames per second (i.e. 4,500,000 calls per second for 30fps) and then cope with how ever many calls the rest of the game requires.

NeoThermic

[shipwreck]

Biff Slamkovich, I presume?

And that's quite a nice write up, Neo. Informative and stimulating.

[Superdan]

well, the next obvious point to make would be why did they seemingly over complicate the game?
I understand there is a lot of behind the scenes working but why so many calls to the graphics card?

[xander]

* xander cues NeoThermic.

xander

[bert_the_turtle]

I'll fill in for now

Superdan: You're probably not aware how many calls need to be made even for simple actions and how much there is to do. Drawing a unit is around 6 calls, give or take two (begin drawing, set color, set texture, set the four corners, end drawing, where some of those actions can be eliminated for drawing multiple units in a row). There are at least 50 units (without airplanes) per player and 6 players, making a minimum of 6*50*6=1800 calls. Many units also have a nuke/airplane count rendered to them, that's an extra factor of 5 on average. That's 9000 calls without rendering text (5 calls per character minimum), the UI, the movement trails (6 calls per segment), map (Ok, that's only a single call basically as I know now ), cities (not part of the map, again 6 calls), airplanes, radar coverage (very call intensive no matter how you do it, probably around 50 calls per radar enabled unit), orders, and population, all in the same order of magnitude for calls. That's all assuming you're a spectator and can see every unit, of course. Things could be passed to the graphics card more efficiently (there's vertex buffers and stuff), but the fact that there is a lot of geometry to be displayed stays, and the fact that surprisingly, you have to make the code more complicated to reduce the number of calls.

Oh, reading NeoThermic's link (recommended!), I notice I forgot about texture coordinates, double my numbers above

Note that geometry wise, state-of-the-art 3d games are at many million polygons per frame now, so 150.000 calls is hardly a lot.

[KingAl]

Furthermore, with respect to the sound it is mixed on-the-fly, based on the current state in-game, and as such requires more resources than simply playing from file.

[shinygerbil]

I meant to point this out earlier...

Even the sounds drain the performance... why?

Did you honestly expect playing sounds to increase performance, now?

[Jcbturbo]

I think the game is brilliant and the programmers are clever muthers I could never get past 10 print philip 20 goto 10
yes the game needs a few tweaks and as the patches roll out it shows there still working on it,
I have seen games that work on 50%of pcs abandonded by other makers,
ofcourse if it had been a mod for another game the performace problems may have been sorted sooner,it would also mean purchaseing the original game, at what price?
Defcon is value for money when it comes to enjoyment,
be paitent and hope the next patch will allow us all to play the game the way the designers want us to,
submit the bug issues in the best format possible and remember your only upset thats its running poorly because you love playing it.
so say thankyou for the entertainment,

p.s a choice of backdrop sounds would be nice that costant wailing is doing my nut right in

[tangostorm]

lol it seems that patches decrease performance...

[bert_the_turtle]

1.4 has known problems. Have you tried 1.41_beta2?

[Hank Scorpio]

I agree with the OP. A texture is all that is required for the background, high resolution texture that is. That'd scale fine. Whilst yes, the reason for the slowness is because of the vectoring etc, different ways are possible to achieve the same thing at a much less overhead.