Loading vs streaming

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lgromanowski
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Loading vs streaming

Post by lgromanowski »

Azagthoth_M.A. wrote: Hi all

First, I'm newcomer to this forums. First time I write here. I have been reading ocasionally and I'm very interested on this project like a gamer, not developer.


My question... sorry if already was asked, but I dont find such topic:

---- The openMW engine will use loading zones?? Or It will use streaming system??? I hate loading zones and loading screens.... for me is one of the most important aspects of a game.... i really stop playing TESIV:oblivion because of that.

I think streaming, with current hardware... x86-64 processors... 64 bits OSs and 6-8GB of memory not so expensive allows to a proper use of streaming with no bad performance and bugs (like games like Gothic 3 f.e.)

Another related question... what amount of memory could use (make proper use) openMW engine??


Well, anyway, sorry with this very promising project. Good luck.
Zini wrote: OpenMW will be more or less identical with Morrowind. At least for OpenMW 1.0. We don't have yet any concrete plans past 1.0.

btw. I think this thread might be related to your question: http://openmw.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=219
Azagthoth_M.A. wrote: Thanks for the answer Zini.

And yeah, the link you posted sumarizes the whole thing. The problem for many gamers are the loading screens. With decent hardware the loading times are so fast that they don't wast time. But the da*n loading screen breakes gameplay.


I didn't think about the incoherence between interiors and exteriors. So this is hardly fixable?

Using a portal (door in this case) for remove the loading screen would be easy to implement? With this and streaming the process would completely natural. No times and most important no screen!

Anyway, good luck!

PS Sorry for the bad english.
Zini wrote: On the engine-side nothing easy about it, at least not if we want good performance. But doable.

On the content-side it requires extensive modifications, i.e. you can't just use the vanilla Morrowind.esm. Placing all the portals would be a huge task for the modding-community.

To sum it up: It probably will happen, but don't hold your breath.
Azagthoth_M.A. wrote: OK. If the engine could do it I think the big problem is the content side.

About performance... with current (and future) hardware I think no problem at all. When you achieve 1.0 (two/three years?)maybe this limiting factor is not a limiting factor anymore. And this implementation would come after 1.0. I really would take outside the ecuation the hardware/performance factor.

This improvement would make HUGE difference.

Read you on the forums.Gretings :)
ap0 wrote: iirc, you could preload cells in morrowind, to reduce the loading time.
On my computer, the loading time are about 0.5s : it's not very annoying.
Zini wrote:
About performance... with current (and future) hardware I think no problem at all. When you achieve 1.0 (two/three years?)maybe this limiting factor is not a limiting factor anymore. And this implementation would come after 1.0. I really would take outside the ecuation the hardware/performance factor.
This isn't so much a hardware problem. This is more a question of naive implementation (not so much work and not much brain involved) and clever implementation (lots of work and rather complicated). There are many different problems to consider, like LOD, batching, a smart prefetch-strategy. This can easily make a difference of more than an order of magnitude. A paltry x2 you might get from updated hardware doesn't matter that much anymore compared to that.
When you achieve 1.0 (two/three years?)
Definitely not! Unless we have another catastrophic drop-out like with Nico.
I usually don't make release predictions, but I would be very surprised, if we don't have something playable by 2012.
gus wrote: I had an idea while dealing with the exterior scene render: we could simply put the loading code of exterior cell in a thread (not for the first cell loaded of course).
Greendogo wrote: You could start loading the models/textures of an interior/exterior when you come within a certain distance of a door. For instance, you walk within 1 meter of the door to the Census and Excise Office in Seyda Neen after getting off the boat and the interior models (statics, NPC models, etc.) start to load. By the time you actually click on the door the interior will either be partly or fully loaded.

I don't suggest doing something similar for transport NPCs, because they go to multiple places and the act of transportation should take some time anyways.

This would not be "portals", but it would be a form of pre-caching the nearby cells that are potential destinations. The main point, though, is that the doors leading to the potential cells should be close enough to the player to prevent the loading of too many cells and far enough away to give the engine enough time to load the whole cell and skip the loading screen.
raevol wrote: Just make sure to unload stuff if the player walks away from the door. ;)
Greendogo wrote: Yeah, obviously. But I think it would work.
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