471–480 of 593 posts
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Well, because when you’re modeling a pile of logs, each additional log you add doubles the number of vertices. This is a well known property of log scaling.
I’m too dumb to know if you’re making a math joke or if this is a real 3D modeling thing. Or both?
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I thought it was DRM that killed SimCity (?)
And the name of the DRM was Origin. It was all about some EA executive deciding to force Origin down everyone's throat, and using SimCity as the Astroglide.
You have to remember, Unity usually sets the bar very low for themselves, comparing their ancient Mono implementation (they still use the Boehm GC, written in the 1980s!), and when a shiny new performance 'fix' like Burst/DOTS drops, they proudly proclaim how much faster they managed to make things, never mind a modern .NET implementation, like Microsoft's CoreCLR would achieve the same performance without any proprietary tech, without any code modification.
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Sorry, my initial comment probably come off quite differently. It's not that "using web UI" is the reason why this game has awful performance, that's more like a bellwether for the studio's priorities. It's absolutely not the most important, or even in the top 10 most important problems here, but it shows really illustratively how much they care about making a game which performs in an acceptable way. (which is: not…
> It's not that "using web UI" is the reason why this game has awful performance, that's more like a bellwether for the studio's priorities. All it shows is that optimizing something that was already fast enough was not a priority. But why would you want it to be?
I remember back when Apple removed the SD card slot from their phone. It wasn't a deal-breaking change, because their phones had lots of memory built in... but at the time, it seemed to me that the decision makers that did that, would continue to make similar decisions, each one making me unhappier and unhappier. So I bought accordingly. And I feel justified in retrospect.
Way back in the design stages of this game, somebody though that using web tech for their UI was a good idea, and it didn't get vetoed. That indicates bad judgement somewhere in the chain. Who knows whether it's developers, managers, or what... but the best predictor of bad decisions is previous bad decisions. It's at least a dysfunction smell.
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Despite the original post talking about DOTS rough edges, I didn't see anything in that article that actually suggested DOTS was the cause: that would cause CPU overhead, but it seems like they simply have a bunch of massively over-detailed geometry, and never implemented any LOD system. Maybe they could have gotten away with this with UE5's Nanite, but that much excessive geometry would have brought everything else…
> Maybe they could have gotten away with this with UE5's Nanite Exactly. If unity actually delivered a workable graphics pipeline (for the DOTS/ECS stack, or at all keeping up with what UE seems to be doing) these things probably wouldn't be an issue.
>Unity has a package called Entities Graphics
Well that's news to me. Which means that package probably isn't much older than a year. Definitely way too late for game that far in production to use.
oh, so they rebranded the hybrid renderer. That makes a lot more sense: https://forum.unity.com/threads/hybrid-rendering-package-bec...
I'm fairly certain the hybrid renderer was not ready for production.
Unity is a clown engine. I remember some guy benchmarked DOTS, against plain old C++ code with OpenGL, just like your dad used to write, and it was no contest, DOTS couldn't keep up. You have to remember, Unity usually sets the bar very low for themselves, comparing their ancient Mono implementation (they still use the Boehm GC, written in the 1980s!), and when a shiny new performance 'fix' like Burst/DOTS drops, the…
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It just uses natural resources to outfit and power data center stuff to create heat and noise somewhere further away. Netflix... is fairly efficient, though being on-demand, perhaps much less so than broadcast TV.
Yes, but better that, in a shared environment with center-wide cooling and such, then each individual household needing to do that on their own. Also way fewer cards needed this way, with users being able to share cards through the day instead of each needing their own. Basically mainframes all over again :)
I don't think this actually tracks, unless the heat is actually being put to use. You don't need HVACs when you have the machines distributed.
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And the name of the DRM was Origin. It was all about some EA executive deciding to force Origin down everyone's throat, and using SimCity as the Astroglide.
It wasn't origin. It's because SimCity 2013 required you to always be actively online in order to play it. Origin doesn't enforce that.
Multi Player SimCity for X11 is now available from DUX Software!
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/simcity-announcement...
SimCityNet: a Cooperative Multi User City Simulation at InterCHI '93:
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/simcitynet.html
SimCityNet on Sun Workstation:
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/SimCity-Sun.gif
SimCityNet on SGI Workstation:
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/SimCity-Indigo.gif
SimCityNet on NCD X Terminal:
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/simcity/SimCity-NCD.gif
Multi Player SimCityNet for X11 on Linux:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fVl4dGwUrA
Open Sourcing SimCity, by Chaim Gingold:
https://donhopkins.medium.com/open-sourcing-simcity-58470a27...
Micropolis Online (SimCity) Web Demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8snnqQSI0GE
It was all about EA wanting to roll out Origin as their online distribution channel like Steam, and Origin wanting SimCity to be the showcase product that they used to force people to install the Origin downloader in order to play SimCity, and the stubborn insistence that SimCity be "online only" as DRM, and refusal to admit it was a mistake and fix it in response to user demands, all came 100% from Origin, and was forced on Maxis against their will and better judgement.
Then Maxis senior VP Lucy Bradshaw had to take the public flack for that, fall on Origin's sword, and make the false announcement that SimCity wouldn't work offline, even though she opposed it and knew it was bullshit.
And the server meltdowns were all Origin's fault, because they simply didn't have their shit together.
Lucy's a good person who was put in a shitty position by EA management, and she and Maxis and Emeryville Studios and SimCity players and the franchise itself all got screwed and suffered because Origin fucked up, and insisted Lucy and Maxis publically take the responsibility and consequences for Origin's idiotic and stubborn mistakes.
So I wouldn't be shocked and surprised if Cities: Skylines 2 problems with production and shipping before it was ready had more to do with Paradox than Colossal Order.
SimCity Reboot (2012–2014):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity#Reboot_(2012%E2%80%932...
>It has been suggested that the poor performance of SimCity was responsible for the 2015 closure of Maxis' Emeryville studios, and the end of the franchise.[44][45]
Lucy Bradshaw:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Bradshaw_(game_developer)
>Bradshaw became senior vice president of Maxis in 2013, after serving as the studio's general manager.[5] Bradshaw oversaw development of SimCity, The Sims, and Spore.[6][7] She encountered controversy due to technical issues with the 2013 reboot of SimCity.[8][9]
Maxis explains what went wrong with SimCity and what the developer is doing to fix it:
https://www.polygon.com/2013/3/9/4081464/simcity-interview-e...
SimCity general manager Lucy Bradshaw on why the game 'is not an offline experience':
https://www.polygon.com/2013/3/15/4109480/simcity-general-ma...
Gridlock Plagues the New Online-Only SimCity:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/arts/video-games/simcity-...
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> 100,000 vertices for pile of logs isn't really a bad bet on tech, though. That is just piling vastly more onto any tech stack than it can handle, with nobody having the time or the political okay to do a perf pass through the code and put all these ideas on a diet. I can easily see this happening though. Artist starts making assets, asks "What's my budget for each model" and engineering/managers reply with "Do what…
Anyone in management or engineering who tells an artist they have no texture or mesh budget at all gets exactly what's coming to them.
Also, does that mean that easy fixes are available or is this so core that solutions would require going back to the drawing board?
