How many people still play WITHOUT shaders?

by eihrul on 04/09/2015 18:23, 49 messages, last message: 10/07/2022 14:09, 31211 views, last view: 04/19/2024 12:39

Poll: Do you still play with shaders disabled? If shaders were required to play, would you still be able to play?

Reason I ask:

So, one of the things I was thinking about for the next release is getting rid of all the other rendering modes in the engine EXCEPT for the GLSL shader path.

This would mean we could possibly use a bit more spectacular shader effects as well since we wouldn't need to make sure it was supported on old GPUs.

The disadvantage is that people who are playing on older chipsets that do not support OpenGL 3.0 or at least OpenGL 2.1 would no longer be able to play.

It would also make the codebase a lot cleaner and easier to understand.

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#1: ..

by Papriko on 04/09/2015 21:18

Well, I personally play with shaders on high. Messing with stuff like /vshaderparam is just too much fun and gives interesting results.

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#2: ..

by suicizer03 on 04/09/2015 22:21

I play with all shaders; even those not officially included.
So please don't remove that feature.

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#3: Re: ..

by eihrul on 04/10/2015 03:42, refers to #2

I didn't say I am removing shaders, I said the opposite: I am proposing that your GPU *must* support them to play at all.

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#4: ..

by ImQ009 on 04/10/2015 10:40

Shaders on, even on a low end laptop of mine (Intel HD 3000)

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#5: Re: ..

by suicizer03 on 04/10/2015 15:16, refers to #3

If the result is that OpenGL/Assembly would get wiped out of Cube Engine 2; I would be unsatisfied.

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#6: Re: ..

by ImQ009 on 04/10/2015 15:44, refers to #5

OpenGL is what the game's using to draw stuff. Throwing it away would mean we'd need to switch over to graphics rendering thing like Direct3D.

There are 2 rendering pipelines in the game currently:
* Fixed-function - uses standard hardware functionality for basic graphic effects, aka. Transform And Lighting

* Shaders - Where you can create your own graphic effects by programming them in the languages such as GLSL or ARB Assembly.

What I'm trying to say that throwing away fixed-function would NOT mean throwing away OpenGL.

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#7: ..

by acerspyro on 04/10/2015 16:13

If your computer doesn't support shaders, it probably isn't fast enough to run the engine on the CPU anyways. Even my old laptop with a 945GM graphics chip supports shaders.

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#8: Re: ..

by suicizer03 on 04/11/2015 13:26, refers to #6

Impressive situation then actually (especially if you consider other games like Open Arena are desperately sticking to stay compatible with hardware like a Pentium III).
If shaders are preserved being versatile in adaptation, modification, implementation, etc then screw fixed-function mode.
But beware; you can expect certain new questionsst the bug report of the forum.

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#9: Re: ..

by Papriko on 04/11/2015 14:50, refers to #8

Yeah, that's true. Some people might be wondering why the game no longer works... On the other hand, it is not that hard to get some okay hardware nowdays. It still won't be over the top, but a PC able to run sauer in decent settings isn't THAT expensive.

"I used to play sauerbraten on my school calculator! Since the new version is out I suddenly can't start it anymore!" :P

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#10: ..

by Frostyy on 04/12/2015 06:30

i play with shaders disabled cause my game crashes otherwise :(

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#11: Re: ..

by eihrul on 04/12/2015 14:36, refers to #10

What do the Renderer:/Driver: lines say on startup? (i.e. what GPU/driver are you using?)

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#12: Re: ..

by Frostyy on 04/12/2015 17:35, refers to #11

Renderer: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (Intel)
Driver: 4.0.0 - Build 10.18.10.4061

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#13: ..

by Honzik1 on 04/14/2015 14:30

I have just checked that I have shaders switched on low details. With the high details ON I have about 900fps on the Reissen 2560x1080 and Nvidia GTX 770 which is still enought, so I will probably use high now, because it looks better.

For competive playing I prefer high FPS instead of high detail/effects, since mouse movement is noticeably worse with the descending FPS. But Pisto solved this mouse thing in his modified client, so playing is much smoother even on 60FPS and no more screentearing, stuttering and no mouselag!

So only what I wanted to say by this is:

1) Since level of details/effects will affect my FPS ingame and since this FPS will affect smooth playing (by screentearing, stuttering and mainly mouselag), there is no reason for me to change these settings from low/off to high and make game nicer.

2) In my opinion the new Sauerbraten releases should not even bring new features (these which are popular in the community) but it should bring also the engine improvements. If you stop support machines older than 5 years but you will make step forward in Sauerbraten development, thats welcomed. Without these steps forward, the game would die and become obsolete soon. You cannot never support all machines around the world. Look at the video game industry now......if you wanna play this nice new version of the game, then you must buy better hardware.

It is 2015 now and last Sauer release was in 2013......so the next release deserve new features and better looking game to keep comunity alive and mainly to bring new players the this game!

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#14: ..

by Honzik1 on 04/14/2015 14:42

And I also forgot that obsolete things like packet delays:
if(totalmillis - lastupdate < 33 && !force) return; // don't update faster than 30fps

...should be changed too. Since we are in 2015 and we are not using dial-up internet anymore.

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#15: I agree

by Speculant on 04/21/2015 00:40

As a long-standing Sauerbraten player (since 2007), I understand that many players play Sauerbraten on lower-end hardware, but I feel that one of the restrictions to the game moving forward is clinging to old hardware support. I feel that requiring shader support is a good idea and should be implemented. The pros are many and the cons are few. Unified shader support was added in the GeForce 8 series and the ATI HD 2000 series GPUs, and anyone still playing Sauerbraten on sub-2006 hardware is probably considering an upgrade by this point anyways. A Geforce 8 or 9 series GPU or a ATI HD 2000 or 3000 series GPU can be purchased on eBay for around $20.

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#16: ..

by hypernova^ on 04/23/2015 20:46, refers to #14

Actually, I don't think Sauerbraten will ever need a large gfx boost. The game plays like QW and is certainly good looking enough for this style of gameplay, imho. Instead what I would recommend for the next release: an integration of many of the excellent client-mods. The Sauer community has lots of good coders, and most of the features the community wants (I think) can be found in mods such as: SauerEnhanced, FanEd, ComEd, and so on. Integration of all these mods into vanilla Sauerbraten would probably do the trick. Sauer should wrap up with a strong ending, then all focus could be shifted to Tesseract.

What do you guys think?

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#17: Re: ..

by suicizer03 on 04/24/2015 00:57, refers to #16

Implementing cheating devices into the vanilla Sauerbraten?
No please.

However, some things which rather focus on a better looks (like the lightshaft mod for example) would be nice if implemented.

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#18: ..

by Zamwa on 04/24/2015 04:00

I don't do any gaming on My old hardware since windows 7 install was lost and now it's linux pc! I've made the move to an apu media rig and plan on making a DDR4 gaming variant someday!
It makes the developers lives easier I support shaders only!

Netbook + shaders = smallest map ever!
What was I thinking!

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#19: Re: ..

by Frostyy on 04/25/2015 20:18, refers to #17

the lightshaft illuminates the players better, your a cheater

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#20: Re: ..

by suicizer03 on 04/26/2015 12:25, refers to #19

Yea right; wasn't aware I own cheaters. I'll contact them as soon as possible.
Nevertheless; that mod isn't having the intention to "change" the gameplay (not even slightly like a script), but rather the appearance and experience of play.

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