The real nuke in Crysis. Do we need a PPU? (Not an Ageia thread)

[Tute]

Crysis uses a stupidly low amount of cpu power , what we need is faster graphic cards.

Actually what we need is for Crysis to be coded properly, it needs a stupid amount of graphics power for what is (IMO) a quite small graphical quality gain.

 

[fish99]

If you make it blow up everything or increase the radius the CPU struggles and FPS drop down to a slide show.

Clearly you are suggesting here that there is a way to make the nuke blow up everything, and increase the radius, presumably some sort of ini setting.

So my questions is have you monitored CPU utilization during the tweaked nuke? This would confirm whether the slowdown is due to physics/CPU or down to the effects being rendered. Until someone does this we've just got a thread of guesswork.

 

[ebilcake]

Have the devs turned round and said 'don't worry, it's fixed in the full version'?

No

Since when does a demo represent exactly how the full version will look and perform?? You don't have the full version, all you know is it's broken in the demo.

 

[Pottsey]

go into the folders-
Scripts>Entities>Items>XML>Ammo>Vehicles> Open TACProjectile

<explosion>
<param name="pressure" value="9000" /> ** TWEAK THIS**
<param name="max_radius" value="140" />
<param name="min_phys_radius" value="200" /> *ADD AND TWEAK THIS*
<param name="max_phys_radius" value="200" /> *ADD AND TWEAK THIS*
<param name="hole_size" value="0" />
<param name="terrain_hole_size" value="0" />
<param name="decal" value="" />
<param name="effect" value="" />
<param name="effect_scale" value="1.2" />
<param name="radialblurdist" value="130" />
<param name="type" value="tac" />
</explosion>

 

[Final8y]

So you're basically going by the old idiotic approach that badly coded software just needs more hardware thrown at it?

Your on a roll man more insults...Nice
Edit: ok ill give you a break..you made at least to comments with out an insult that i have come across today.

 

[mmj_uk]

General purpose CPU's (quad core or not) are not designed for complex physics, you only have to compare PS3/Cell performance in Folding@Home with PC's to see how poor they are at that sort of thing.

If we all went out and bought a Physx card developers could do a lot more in terms of game physics, but at the moment it's still a very niche market so why should they bother?

 

[J.D]

So you're basically going by the old idiotic approach that badly coded software just needs more hardware thrown at it?

“idiotic approach that badly coded software just needs more hardware thrown at it?“
No I am going by every single example of software does the same thing. Proving CPU’s are too weak for physics. People are going on how PPU’s are not needed because of game xxx and every time game XXX comes out everyone goes well its just badly coded software its not the CPU’s fault.

How do you know its badly coded software? Have you looked at CPU usage while the nuke effect goes off? Have you seen the source code?

A perfect example of a great forum member. ^^

Doesn't reply to an insult with an insult (I'd prob be on a holiday with my heated response to that ) and states facts or educated reasoning/questioning about anything that's included with the derogative remark.

I've never seen Pottsey react to anything in an offensive tone and I admire that as I couldn't with a lot of the stuff that has been thrown his way from really rude and disrespectful people. Good show man, keep up the good clean fight .

 

[Talrinys]

Your on a roll man more insults...Nice
Edit: ok ill give you a break..you made at least to comments with out an insult that i have come across today.

No one should take it personally, we're all discussing stuff here that's perfectly obejctive, hence why i take offense to useless fanboyism and conclusions based on no concrete evidence.

 

[ergonomics]

maybe physics processors are the way forward, but the effects ive seen in games like ut3, with the 'destroyable buildings', just goes to show that they cant get a grasp on REALISM.

im sure if the game utilized 100% quad core, plus if you add a healthy overclock to it, the drop in fps would be minimal, if not negligable.

 

[J.D]

No one should take it personally, we're all discussing stuff here that's perfectly obejctive, hence why i take offense to useless fanboyism and conclusions based on no concrete evidence.

I apologise if it wasn't meant that way. I've seen a lot of negativity get thrown at Pottsey from a few people at the same time before and even though I'm not really bothered about a PPU I still think the way he handles situations is superb. On that regard, that's why I posted.

 

[Talrinys]

“idiotic approach that badly coded software just needs more hardware thrown at it?“
No I am going by every single example of software does the same thing. Proving CPU’s are too weak for physics. People are going on how PPU’s are not needed because of game xxx and every time game XXX comes out everyone goes well its just badly coded software its not the CPU’s fault.

How do you know its badly coded software? Have you looked at CPU usage while the nuke effect goes off? Have you seen the source code?

It's badly coded in the way that no one has seen 100% utilization spread on all four cores yet. That simple fact shows that you cannot judge CPU usage yet, wait until there are confirmed numbers on it. I didn't see a problem in the video that was posted in a previous post here, seemed completely fine to me?
Also when i have played around with the island, and when i let my brother wreak havoc on the map for a couple of hours, i saw no drastic problems with the FPS. A PPU would be a better solution, no doubt about that. So would a dedictated processor core with only physics logic in it, seeing as that would also be able to run at a much higher clock. None of these are good solutions right now though, what Ageia needs to do is to get the PPU support into both DX and OpenGL, then it'll be an undeniable standard. The same reason why buying a "gaming" soundcard today makes no sense, it does not give tangible benefits anywhere and is horribly badly supported.

Ageia should work WITH Intel & Amd, Nvidia & Amd(in the ATI form), not against them. They have made a great physics system as witnessed by the games, why not start rolling out physics chips that could be integrated into all current solutions? Suppose Nvidia & AMD would be against this, but it's the only real solution.

 

[Talrinys]

I apologise if it wasn't meant that way. I've seen a lot of negativity get thrown at Pottsey from a few people at the same time before and even though I'm not really bothered about a PPU I still think the way he handles situations is superb. On that regard, that's why I posted.

Absolutely, i get too harsh sometimes, it's not meant to be taken personally, and i believe Pottsey is 50% of what makes this whole section interesting. I just don't believe in PPUs at all, and i would like to see some concrete numbers and statements from programmers backing up a PPU. Besides Crysis is stupid now, i believe Pottsey was much more right in using UT3 and the other UE games as an example, i really hate people only focusing on Crysis when it now is evident that there are quite a few design issues in the engine.

 

[J.D]

maybe physics processors are the way forward, but the effects ive seen in games like ut3, with the 'destroyable buildings', just goes to show that they cant get a grasp on REALISM.

im sure if the game utilized 100% quad core, plus if you add a healthy overclock to it, the drop in fps would be minimal, if not negligable.

Maybe one day they will even meet half way as in half of the quad taking on the task as well as an incorporated but smaller PPU on future motherboards?. I think maybe that cores aren't the best thing for to do this kind of work but the whole PPU add in card isn't needed either and something linking the two could maybe work?. I've not got an absolute clue what I'm talking about though and my answer may seem silly to some people. I am not well educated in game physics or have even had the urge to have them in my gaming.

 

[Kezmo]

“With dual and quad core CPU's the whole idea of physics cards surely becomes obsolete anyway.”
Hasn’t Crysis just proved otherwise? Quad cores are way too weak. Unless there is a major bug thats yet to be fixed then going by the results even 8 to 12core wouldn’t be enough.

Crysis hardly uses any of the power available on a quad, cpu is always around 30% load or lower ingame iirc.

Just taken these screenshots in the editor, placed 3 twisters all close to each other and jumped ingame, cpu usage top right.







Was'nt Twisters a big selling point of that physic card for UT ? i recall seeing a video showing off a single twister in UT demonstrating the power of the physics cards.

 

[Darg]

I've tested this in the editor and it barely added 2% onto the CPU usage. I used the TAC tank with the above modified script.

 

[Pottsey]

“I didn't see a problem in the video that was posted in a previous post here, seemed completely fine to me?”
It wasn’t the best video. The problem is the nuke blast is very tiny, doesn’t affect building or trees. When you make it effect tress and buildings and/or change its size then it turns to a slide show.
So the big question is can the CPU problem be fixed and can 100% utilization spread on all four cores do the effects at decent speeds?

 

[silversurfer]

Set graphics to minimum and physics to maximum and it should max the cores out

 

[helmutcheese]

It doesnt, Crysis is not using enough CPU usage/time for most Dual and esp Quad owners (some claim they do max theirs).

I have seen plenty on posts here and on Crysis official forums with Duals and Quads with upto 40% on 1 Core and next to nothing on the other Core(s)

The Game is supposed to be CPU Dependant and at least now sites are quoting Cevat Yeril saying this in his interviews (CPU, then GPU, then Memory in order of importance).

 

[silversurfer]

Ive posted it elsewhere but it will max two cores in the cpu test if you set it to minimum graphics.

One of the cvar will let you set game speed to more then 1 if you did that you might get a similar effect

 

[helmutcheese]

The End User should not need mess with any Config files, the game is supposed to work.