I feel you need to communicate more about New Vegas Engine Issues

[Prosper]

I don't think the interview was perfectly honest. No one is perfect however. So let us rewalk the issues, and before I get to it I will admit I know you had not the budget or time or the friends at Bethesda.

 

First and foremost, as far as game engines go there should not be a unique problem with New Vegas. In fact From Oblivion to New Vegas it is apparent there was no chance of an honest look into the save game problem. Oh right make that Skyrim as well. So much for inhouse engine!

 

But back to what you could of personally said or done differently to help out New Vegas. In theory if you had time of course.

 

I will break it down piece by piece.

http://nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60345

 

"

That can easily be a big problem, especially if you're on the PS3. The longer you play a character, the more bit differences on objects (characters, pencils on tables, containers, etc.) get saved off and carried around in memory. I think we've seen save games that are pushing 19 megs, which can be really crippling in some areas. "

 

This is some what meaningless although not all to surprising of a concern considering the many other unbelivable flaws of gamebryo or is it the incomplete design of the plugin system Bethesda uses so that the modders can correct the game.

 

"It's an engine-level issue with how the save game data is stored off as bit flag differences compared to the placed instances in the main .esm + DLC .esms. As the game modifies any placed instance of an object, those changes are stored off into what is essentially another .esm. When you load the save game, you're loading all of those differences into resident memory. "

 

Saved off as essentially another .esm is misleading. I don't have the source or the ability to test your claim from where I am at. But for the moment I think it is fair to say that serialization of two full sized worlds is oh so wasteful. It should never come to that. There are and should always be countless more statics(nonmoving) objects and meshes in the game. Although technically an animated static has a moving mesh but typically has no real object translation-wise change.

 

The terrain is not dynamically generated. Most of the npcs in the game die off. You don't summon monsters but to replace them, and know as designers you keep a check as to not overflood the areas. So those that are gone are not saved any more those that are created or modified are still that which hardly begs an entire world recreation.

 

For the record all objects statics or not have a vector3d essentially. If you are in fact needing a ESM and then to load a recreated version of it, then the techn design of the game or engine is not meant to be. It can be changed to give what modders still expect from the CS and inded the game for the casual user. But you have to face the fact, the issue was not about a fair trade off of advantages or disadvantages. Hell you could with enough time add in networking which according to Todd and others would be too much for the super quality of their single player games to bare.

 

Lies, deceit, and downright taking advantage of the helpless. Thats Bethesda. But who cares about that. THey might just be doing even worse things behind the scene.

 

To this point I have disclosed much of the technical insight I have that you could want offered and also my attitude generally towards the tech and the use of it . Obsidian did an alright job, so I won't attack you. But I do feel the interview I linked is misleading.

 

Compacting changes or states into bits has nothing whatsoever to do with loadtime times or RT slowdowns. By that I mean its a standard practice, but awfully misunderstood by someone for the Devs to have hte perception they do of what limits are reasonable for a game of New Vegas' magnitude. (i know the fans raised the question, but you should of known better and answered betteR)

 

I hope this opens up some talk. Don't come after me trying to point out inconsistencies in my own thinking. It is much more probably you are forgettting I have to address what we have been told is their view. Look carefully at the history of what devs said from oblivion to new vegas. All those games gives us an idea that the developers do not include programmers, but artists. But oh ! I didn't see that much quality there even. Or physics. Luck for them that comes back to the engine not so much the game. But that is only a problem for stingy management or is it those businessmen that each and eveyrone one of us knows holds back developers of all kinds and makes them stupid.

 

And again, Obsidian is not stupid. I feel honored they took the initative to prove themselves by accepting the woes of that craptech.

 

 

I feel this an appropriate addendum. IT comes from IRC.

<DeadGuy> I haven't read anything in this chat so far

<tonbarswss> i think one problem is we need to restrict ourselves from showing how smart we are. but so often is it that the first few posts try to bring our sanity or logic into question and look for ways to nitpick us like how we see done in so many other courageous critics. sadly, being only a tiny bit courageous earned me martyr status and then they have the audacity to say i tried to make myself one so i could cry

<tonbarswss> it totally paints the wrong picture

<tonbarswss> i am a guy who submits his ideas and can back them up

<ToofLagoof> You know who I am Farmerk. Look into your mind.

<tonbarswss> i do have a history of losing interest and if they any brains they would know its at the piont they stop caring about the truth

<ToofLagoof> Looook intooo your miiinnnnd.

<farmark> That sonds like pissy general mofo speakage

<tonbarswss> what does

Edited December 7, 2011 by Prosper

[Humodour]

Sheer elegance in its simplicity.