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Game Project
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| Marshal | Date: Monday, 09/September/2013, 2:00 AM | Message # 11 |
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| Ok, don't worry about PCs. No, really, I just got a Win7 64bit system and then I loaded virtual XP on it and it runs fine. In fact better than a PC that plays XP in full. The reason is that it isn't a full version, just a virtual OS which means that it uses even less computer resources allowing it to use more of its maximum 3.5~4 gigs ram and the CPU power that is available. This Linux thing isn't a concern for me. What's nice is that you can run Oracle VM VirtualBox from Win Vista-8.1 Blue and run any legacy OS from it. You can even allocate a pretty decent amount of video ram to play games.
Here are some helpful links.
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
For XP
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8002
ISO Recorder
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
What I did is this, first get your virtual machine loaded. Then download the OS and the ISO recorder. Once the OS is loaded, insert an empty CD that you are going to download your OS from onto for the new PC. Then open the ISO recorder and browse where you have your copy of Windows XP. Then just click load making sure that it records onto the CD. Once loaded you just pop the CD into the new comp and then wait for the comp to recognize it but be careful not to autorun or anything otherwise you might end up with a dual boot system! Once the CD is in the new comp and you have VM open then just click run on the VirtualBox window and from there you install like it were a real download onto a new PC. One thing though, before you load the OS onto VM, make sure you name and go through with making every thing set for the OS on VM. You could find out how on youtube and other helpful sites. Look them up first so you know what I'm talking about. Also, you'll have to find a product key on the internet otherwise it'll only last you a month. So you'll have to find a product key somewhere out there but you can find one that is meant to be used in case you lose yours from Microsoft, at least that's what I've been told by several people.
Here is another helpful post, this one from the Hawks site.
http://mastersofthefield.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3218
If you want me to build you a PC let me know, I built my new system and am looking to get into the custom PC market here. Plenty of it here where businesses need good systems with plenty or hard drive space. Or if you want some advice on a good system to build yourself then just pm me. I learned how to build comp in college so that's why I built mine.
Hope this calms you fears.
Me
1st Prince de Wagram, 1st Duc de Valangin, 1st Sovereign Prince de Neuchatel, Marshal of France, Marshal Louis Alexandre Berthier
Message edited by Marshal - Monday, 09/September/2013, 2:06 AM |
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| Ftoomsh | Date: Tuesday, 10/September/2013, 7:57 AM | Message # 12 |
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| Fair enough. The concern is not modern operating systems but the engine itself. We need the best engine for the project. Of course, as I said we are just tossing ideas around at this stage and March 2014 is the earliest I would even start looking at a project this big. I just wanted to get some idea of people's initial thoughts.
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| Marshal | Date: Tuesday, 10/September/2013, 7:15 PM | Message # 13 |
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| Quote (Ftoomsh) I just wanted to get some idea of people's initial thoughts.
If you don't mind, could you explain why March would be the earliest?
As for game engine, I think CI is out of the question by now.
Me
PS
I forgot to mention about dual boot. Dual boot allows you to have two OSs on the same computer in full and on the same hard drive. You can have your Win7/8 or whatever and still have a full version of XP or any other OS you may want.
1st Prince de Wagram, 1st Duc de Valangin, 1st Sovereign Prince de Neuchatel, Marshal of France, Marshal Louis Alexandre Berthier
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| Ftoomsh | Date: Wednesday, 11/September/2013, 7:21 AM | Message # 14 |
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| I am looking for constructive ideas for sure. I am particularly interested in how many units you think these engines can drive and what size maps they can handle. I would not even bother starting the project if we didn't think we could support at least 16,000 units per player for a 2 person multiplayer on a map at least equal to a C1 2 times sized and perhaps even equal to a 4 times sized C1 map. Note, 16,000 units is about a Corps size from the era. So people would be battling with at least 1 full army corps.
I will be very busy on other projects until about March next year. So I can't contemplate a start before then.
Yes, I agree, the C1 engine is too limited now as we do need morale, fatigue and ammuntion supply factors.
So what we would need first are scoping tests and bench tests.
( 1 ) How big a map can be declared in C2 or AC/FB engines (with modded capacity if necessary)?
( 2 ) What unit limits can be declared and what are processing lags, frame rates etc. like at high unit counts (at least 16,000 per player) with many formations on the march?
Note 1: It is clear that an engine with 3d landscape and and 2d animated sprites like the C1 engine, if its declared arrays were big enough, could drive 16,000 units per player with ease on the latest PCs. If units are drawn as polygons this changes everythingand makes it much harder to drive large unit limits. At least, that's how it seems to me.
Note 2: As a side note, I expect soon we will hear more and more about unlimited detail engines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ATtrImCx4
Message edited by Ftoomsh - Wednesday, 11/September/2013, 8:28 AM |
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| Marshal | Date: Wednesday, 11/September/2013, 10:15 PM | Message # 15 |
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| Here is where acfb shines! It is graphically weak enough to allow 4x4 maps with thousands upon thousands of units moving and firing simultaneously and not overburden the system and cause it to lag! I had 512MB of ram, a Pentium 4 3.00 GHz system with 128 MB VRAM and had virtually no lag unless I was zoomed out and had all seven nations attacking me at the same time. Believe me, I have done this before and it's fun if not very challenging. I know that 3x3 maps are possible, it was done for some time when HEW was being developed but some people didn't like it and no one at that time had a computer with much resources, so it was dropped. But that in itself states that maps sizes can be changed as necessary. But if I were to add more Ram and maybe a stronger GPU then I wouldn't have any lag at all.
I believe you can change between 2d and 2d landscape in editor in CII, I know that's an option in acfb. ACFB I understand will need a lot of modding as it's not as advanced as CII in its default state, but it has the ability to be made very advanced, at least I believe so.
Quote (Ftoomsh) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ATtrImCx4
One last thing. I know I've been asking this a lot but is there a target era in mind? If not then that's ok, but shouldn't that be the first priority, to decide on the era?
Me
1st Prince de Wagram, 1st Duc de Valangin, 1st Sovereign Prince de Neuchatel, Marshal of France, Marshal Louis Alexandre Berthier
Message edited by Marshal - Wednesday, 11/September/2013, 10:18 PM |
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| Ftoomsh | Date: Sunday, 15/September/2013, 11:21 AM | Message # 16 |
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| Quote (Marshal) is there a target era in mind?
I think the best target era for the initial cut would be the Napoleonic era. One reason I say this is that it is the era (taken broadly from 1793 to 1815) where a balance to some extent still existed between cold steel and musket fire power. Thus both cold steel column assaults and musket line tactics (just to refer to infantry) should both be workable at various time and points in the game if balance is right and the strategic and tactical situations are suitable. Also, there is no unit faster than cavalry and no air units (obviously). This simplifies the difficulties that could be caused by large differences in unit speeds.
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| Marshal | Date: Monday, 16/September/2013, 4:08 AM | Message # 17 |
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| Napoleonic era is good. Lots of information readily available.
I finally got my system running in dual boot with 200 gb space, so now begins some work, at least when I get time from classes.
Here is a link which I believe is the best demonstration on how to conduct a dual boot system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWRewE5GIcE
What I want is the AI source code to ACFB, that's where I will begin experimenting. If it's decided to use CII, then I'll fiddle with it as well. Can map sizes be modified in CII?
1st Prince de Wagram, 1st Duc de Valangin, 1st Sovereign Prince de Neuchatel, Marshal of France, Marshal Louis Alexandre Berthier
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| ab_99 | Date: Monday, 16/September/2013, 8:48 AM | Message # 18 |
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| Marshal
You must warn viewers that requires the introduction of Windows xp drivers for the new hardware, such as hard disk drives.
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| Nowy | Date: Monday, 16/September/2013, 10:18 AM | Message # 19 |
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| Napoleonic era is good choice.
Timeline 1793-1815 was very interesting, however it included two different eras during French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
These were tremendous and very tempestuous periods. There were large variety of changes, several reforms in military tactics, organization and uniforms.
All these could rise some problems in game development. These could mean that shorter, but more homogenous period you could take into account e.g. 1795-1800 or 1805-1815.
Then new project would contain less different details and could concentrate on improvements in factions/nations balance, armies organization and proper warfare.
Numerous military forces, logistics and realistic actions on big maps still are hard doable.
Characteristic persons, correct units, regular formations, tactics, order of battle, organized warfare, diplomatioc aspects, realistic territorial and terrain conditions also needs some work.
These mean that you need properly plan what you want to do in this project. Then you have to find skilled moders and organize professional team.
In other case that could be next unsuccessful project.
Message edited by Nowy - Monday, 16/September/2013, 10:21 AM |
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| Marshal | Date: Monday, 16/September/2013, 10:57 PM | Message # 20 |
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| Quote (ab_99) Marshal You must warn viewers that requires the introduction of Windows xp drivers for the new hardware, such as hard disk drives.
Are you talking about compatible drivers for the different OSs? Yes, I have experienced that already as I have been making sure and testing the different configurations to ensure that ACFB and other games can still work under these different environments. I tried dual boot and messed up my entire system causing me to reload every thing from scratch, thanks to the video card drivers not being compatible with XP from CD. I had to download different drivers from EVGA's site to get mine going without any issues, but at least it's not a big deal at all. It runs perfectly now. One problem I see is that the new DirectX drivers aren't compatible with the sounds files in the old games, already had to take out the music file out of ACFB because it caused the game to crash upon start up. Yea, make sure you always in dual boot install drivers meant for XP or what ever other OS you're installing, given you're doing dual boot. In virtual, I haven't found a need for it as VirtualBox takes care of such things.
Quote (Nowy) Numerous military forces, logistics and realistic actions on big maps still are hard doable. Characteristic persons, correct units, regular formations, tactics, order of battle, organized warfare, diplomatioc aspects, realistic territorial and terrain conditions also needs some work.
These mean that you need properly plan what you want to do in this project. Then you have to find skilled moders and organize professional team
If you are going to do the Napoleonic era, then keep in mind how many different unit types there were. For instance, the Irish, you know how many thousands deserted the English lines to fight for Napoleon because they thought he would invade the UK? It was not a few. They wore bright uniforms and were fearless when fighting the Brits. Napoleon's Grand Armee was heavily equipped with mercenaries from all over Europe, some of which felt forced like the Portuguese during the Russian campaign. He lost many men during that terrible disaster and about 1/4~1/6 his army defected. These different moral systems and ideologies must be presented if this game is to have such realistic tone, at least to the level of realism you seam to be looking for, unless I am mistaken of course.
To be honest, not to many will be willing to commit themselves to such a difficult undertaking. I would be more than willing to help, as I have interests in learning all I could to help myself in my future as an IT person or what ever comes of me. But with so much that has to be done in order to get the game to function as realistically as possible on such and old engine as ACFB or CII, I think realistically a simpler idea must be brought about or a different era could be covered. Not that I am suggesting it but you might even try the Roman Empire era, at least there isn't so much info so you could make up a lot of things that would fit the context of the era.
While I am not saying this isn't a good era to cover, I think like Nowy said,Quote (Nowy) All these could rise some problems in game development. These could mean that shorter, but more homogenous period you could take into account e.g. 1795-1800 or 1805-1815. Quote (Nowy) Then new project would contain less different details and could concentrate on improvements in factions/nations balance, armies organization and proper warfare.
Me
1st Prince de Wagram, 1st Duc de Valangin, 1st Sovereign Prince de Neuchatel, Marshal of France, Marshal Louis Alexandre Berthier
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