TSE around the corner!?!

#81 But the whole point of TSE's material system is that if the card supports shaders, it can run the game.

So then the question is (for the consumer) - do you have a GF3 or better? Do you have a Radeon 8500 or better? Can you run the demo? :)

#82 George, you've brought up some very valid points. Shaders have been a huge stickler for game makers for a while, especially indies. Did you ever play Halo for the PC? The game had all these configuration options for specifying whether or not to use PS2.0, PS1.4, PS1.3, and so on. The game would run without any shaders at all, but it looked like, well, ass. I mean seriously, it looked like a Voodoo-1 era game, WORSE than what the critics claim about Torque. Almost it's entire surfacing/lighting model was done with a programmable pipeline.

My friend recently bought Deus Ex 2. He was outaged to learn that the game required pixel shaders to run, and refused to start otherwise. I tried to explain to him that the developers probably chose to support only shader hardware to simplify their development cycle (especially since they made it for the XBox), so they wouldn't have to have a half-dozen code paths to support all the latest ATI/Nvidia cards. But in his eyes, it was the game developer's fault for relying upon some technology his video couldn't handle. I just couldn't convince him of this otherwise, and he vehemently claimed that Warren Spector had sold out to the console crowd.

Shaders are lovely. They are wonderful. I've only played with them a little bit but you can do all kinds of cool things with them. TSE shows off some of these effects, too. Those of us who do support the hardware, we wish the entire world had Geforce FX's or ATI 9600's. But unfortunately, a lot of folks don't. As George pointed out, it's worse because ATI/Nvidia try to package older hardware that might not support the latest shaders into budget cards but use the higher-end names. So, as developers, we have to tell angry users, "Well, it SAYS it's a Geforce 4, but...."

Shaders are like a pandora's box. And it's largely why I've been avoiding them. I'm going to give TSE a workout as a part of the EA program, but I won't be using this in a game anytime soon. So, I think those who are shrieking about the death of TGE need to realize this. People right now are like, "OMG SHADERZ!!111" but once they calm down, they'll realize that by using shaders they potentially cut off a huge portion of their market.

It sucks. I want to use shaders too. Unlimited properly-attuned point lights with per-pixel bumping/normal mapping and lovely gloss maps! Mmmm!

I like the "supported hardware" app. This shouldn't be all that hard to write, in fact.

I don't want to be a party-pooper here. I think GG has done a massively wonderful job with TSE. I am very gratefully eating every word I said in the past about Torque not supporting modern graphics hardware. GG has proved me wrong.

#83

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But the whole point of TSE's material system is that if the card supports shaders, it can run the game.

True, and the system seems well designed, but a lot of the initial confusion is just whether or not the card supports shaders at all.

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So then the question is (for the consumer) - do you have a GF3 or better? Do you have a Radeon 8500 or better?

The problem with that question is that for a large percentage of consumers, the answer will either be "I have no idea. The guy at Best Buy says it has extreme 3d graphics. Sounds pretty good, huh?", or worse "sure, I've got a GeForce 4, that's better than a GF3" (not realizing it is an MX).

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Can you run the demo? :)

That is a much better question, but considering that demos of TSE games would likely be fairly content-heavy, it may be asking a lot for a consumer to download a demo that may or may not run on his/her system at all; that is where the compatibility app I mentioned would help.

Don't get me wrong, like David I think you guys did an incredible job. The unease I have about PC gaming in the era of shaders isn't something that can be solved with technology, and I don't mean to suggest that GG or Torque shouldn't evolve simply because these issues exist.. they'll exist either way and we just have to move on. But I still worry that this greater potential for confusion will push even more PC gamers to the console-only world.

#84 A large part of this is the naughtiness that is video card manufacturers. Like its predecessor, Nvidia has grown fat and happy and is willing to do crap like repackage older chipsets with flashy names. And they're in a virtual pissing match with ATI. ATI hasn't impressed me with its behavior, too, like forcing lower quality options in driver to outperform on 3D benchmarks.

I have to hand it to Microsoft. People don't like them much, but they are trying to get the video card manufacturers to play nice with shaders via Direct X 9 and HLSL. Of course, since they picked Nvidia technology as their basis, I'm sure that's got ATI's goat...

This is a huge lure for console games. And not just for the users but the developers, too. One set of hardware, that always works.

But, eh, people have been arguing about this for a while. Unfortunately us indie developers are stuck in the crossfire. "What, your game doesn't support per-pixel bump mapping! How 1999! Humph!" versus, "Why doesn't your game run on my Dell PC? What kinda video card? Got no clue what that is..."

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled thread!