Unreal 3 Engine

[dpagan]

after reading how this engine will be used on a MMORPG, i thought damn it must not need a supercomputer to run like many in threads have been claiming, i mean if it was it would craw once online, so i looked around and downloaded an old E3 for those who haven't seen it it can be downloaded here

http:\\download2.gamespot.com/d3/gsc/pc/action/ut2004/unreal30demo_e32004_wm.zip (just copy and paste the link to the adress bar)

they explain how the engine works and while i don't understand much of the tech stuff, it seem most of the engine is streamlined to work in an very efficient way providing some great visual at great speeds, i know there will be the self proclaimed video tech guy saying you'll need nasa's pc to run it, but i don't really think so IMOA

[Intel17]

The majority of the processing power utilized in a game is not due to the engine, rather, the actual content in the engine.

[dpagan]

So let's say a FPS, which the majority don't need much content on screen would run pretty well, lets say something alone the lines of Aliens vs predator3 (if it's ever done) would run at a decent speed

[oldsk00l]

well, in the Unreal Engine 3 demo, I heard Sweeney describe ONE CHARACTER, as having more texture and geometry information than an entire level in Unreal1.

So, let's say a typical onscreen character is in a scene on "Unreal 3" (I know Epic said they aren't making another Unreal game) and all there is is just you, the character, and in a flat-white box.

You would need a system capable of handling the lighting effect on the character, the bumps, the polygons, and enough memory for the skin - like looking at an entire level from U1 all at once. Let's compound that by putting 6 of them onscreen in a highly detailed level with high-resolution textures.

I'm thinking to get started, a 128MB video card that is second-generation Directx9 (think X800/GeForce 6600GT/6800) that might make the MINIMUM requirement for such a game. Oh and don't forget, an athlon64 3500 CPU may be considered "lower end performance" at this point.

Oh, and less than 512 MB of system RAM? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH that's funny.

Again, as stated above, the engine itself really isn't anywhere close to being as important as the amount of content in models/textures. The engine will impact things with the shader instructions, but that goes hand-in-hand to the content.

[dpagan]

if thats the case whom ever licences this engine better balance it out if not they won't make enough of sales to pay epic for using there engine

[jAkUp]

The game was running on a single 6800 Ultra at E3. I saw it in person. The game was smooth for the most part. But lagged on some more complex screens. Lagging on a 6800 Ultra! With no AA/AF 1024x768 res I believe

[jolle]

Obviously the initial games using this engine (atleast on PC) wont use as highres content as the "engine demo" content is.
That content (models, maps, textures etc) was made to show the capabilities of the engine, not any acctual game as such..

Gamedevelopers generally want as many as possible to buy their games, thats why they put efforts on making the engines and content scalable enough to look good on highend and still run on as lowend hardware as possible.

The content of games based on UE3.0 on lets say Xbox2 might be highres like that, as they dont have to worry about running on older hardware and all that.

[Knot3D]

Originally Posted by jAkUp

The game was running on a single 6800 Ultra at E3. I saw it in person. The game was smooth for the most part. But lagged on some more complex screens. Lagging on a 6800 Ultra! With no AA/AF 1024x768 res I believe

...maybe.... Nvidia needs a refresh....

[dpagan]

well they did mention on the video that one of the creatures had 2 million poly's on high res so if that same scene was ran on E3 on a ultra i say it did pretty well, considering it had to handle 2 million poly's just for one creature, by the way how many poly's are there in a typical scene like lets say HL2?

[Edge]

Originally Posted by dpagan

well they did mention on the video that one of the creatures had 2 million poly's on high res so if that same scene was ran on E3 on a ultra i say it did pretty well, considering it had to handle 2 million poly's just for one creature, by the way how many poly's are there in a typical scene like lets say HL2?

The characters themselves were only around 10,000 polygons. 2 million is how many polygons the art assets used to create the models were, not how much was actually being drawn. I believe the peak number of polygons shown in a single scene in the UE3 demo was around 1,000,000.

[dpagan]

Originally Posted by Edge

The characters themselves were only around 10,000 polygons. 2 million is how many polygons the art assets used to create the models were, not how much was actually being drawn. I believe the peak number of polygons shown in a single scene in the UE3 demo was around 1,000,000.

thanks for info i guess i misunderstood, so how of many polygons does a scene usually consist of? examples D3 or HL2

[f|LtH fR@g]

The more I go back and look at this engine, the less it seems to impress me. Morrowinds Oblivion engine takes the cake right now for me. I'm not saying Unreal 3.0 Engine is un-impressive, it does look great, but the more I go back and watch the video or look at pics, the less "real" it looks and I seem to always find more gfx flaws/low textures. I think the game will run on a nv40 card, but @ 800x600, gonna need the next pci-e card coming down the line to play it in all its glory.