Singularity FPS beta 2 now available

#21 Ok well i have to say KUDOS~! while I was compiling some Atlas maps when playing I held a fairly decent FPS on my comp: I ran it again without TGEA running Atlas crap (wonderfull errors) and I got great FPS (it was smooth no hickups)

AMD64 3800+ Overclocked slightly
2 Gig's of ram (cant remember clock speed off the top of my head)
and a nVidia 7800

First is this TGE? or TGEA? (I see its TGE right?)

if its TGE then i think you might be pushing it a bit too hard. (I think TGEA is better suited to handle high poly stuff) (but that would take a whole suite of re-coding and re-scripting, basically you would have to start over)
I too like high poly stuff but its all about moderation, even the high end games and game makers (id)
use ways to "cheat the system" and make things "look" high poly. Also not everything needs to be high poly, *cough*the bowl on the counter in the bathroom*cough* ;) but really I was impressed, I mean for one person you sure have been busy.

OK so onto the bugs a few have already been mentioned, so I wont re-mention them. besides getting stuck in said bowl (see last paragraph), and the driving mechanics (there was a post on the forums about this making cars really hard to flip over, and I got the demo bugy to go really fast and "always" land on its wheels), I really didnt see too many bugs, I think there was the jetpack one where once you get it its "activated" (playing sound & light) but not actually doing anything. And if you have the backpack equiped and shoot the clear "plastic" racks (like the one holding up the towels) it shows the jetpack "fire" going down through it for a few seconds (maybe 5 to 8 seconds) then stops, if you shoot again it returns. I also think your explosions need some work, Its nice that you have them but they look the worst out of the whole level.
I understand its an early beta, And I think you are doing a WONDERFUL job.

Just maybe a little more pizzaz? maybe some weapons? more powerups maybe? I dont know what you have in store for this. But thats my $0.02. again good job and keep up the work, (but work harder you slave!) (j/k)

edit: P.S. I like the music. it fits and isnt really annoying at all.

#22 @David: Thanks for the kind words! I'll try to answer your questions:

What was the worst framerate you saw, if I may ask?

It's TGE. I've ported back and forth between TGE and TGEA a couple times now--I can do it in my sleep. Basically, this time I went back to TGE because I got double the framerate, which I had decided was crucial. That's not an exageration, either. I presume this is something that is fixable in TGEA, but it's not fixable by me.

Believe me, this version has moderation in polys all over it, by my standards. My business plan is to use stock models, which tend to be high poly, and rely on fast processors to handle it. I can't even imagine how I could have done this while doing the art manually!

If you experiment with the editor, though, you'll find that the sheer size of the room is actually a bigger draw on resources. That, and just the number of objects. There is a reason we haven't seen "big room" games like this before.

Bowl in the bathroom: my theory was that you can get out of the bowl by shooting an airplane so that it will spawn next to you. I'm still not sure if I like it or not. But yeah, it's pretty high poly :-) Sure is nice and round, though.

You'll find the smaller cars are easier to flip, except of course when you are trying to. I'm thinking an aggressive auto-leveling code, like we have in the FlyingVehicle class, is the way to go. I wouldn't mine the occasional flip, but this is really too much.

Jetpack sound bug: ARGH I thought I had this fixed, maybe. I don't suppose you can duplicate it at will? If so, please tell me 'cause it's been a thorn in my side. I've definitely seen it, but I can't make it happen at will, and so can't fix it.

There are other issues with the particles from the backpack disappearing from your point of view, but not from others. I think this is a Torque bug, that I will have to address in the future. But the thing with the sound being on when you don't have it is not, I don't think.

Can you tell me a little more about the explosions? I agree, and have an opinion, but I'd like to hear yours.

weapons and powerups: yep, it's coming. I kinda feel like I need to get some real play testing done, first, though, to understand better what will help best. I've been saving that for last.

Glad you like the music! I like it too, but it's annoying as hell when you're trying to work on the game, as opposed to playing it. :-)

I've got basic teamplay implemented now, thanks as usual to all the great GG community resources. I think that'll help get a good game going. The game is really designed for it, and begs for it IMHO. I think spawn/control points placed in bizarre places at different elevations should make for some interesting strategic and tactical decisions.

#23 I was going to join this eve as your website states you are on at 8 central (that be 6 my time) but after half an hour, I gave up. (I'll try again tho)

My impressions are:

1: Critiques:
a. Main Menu--> Uptions should be "Options".
b. Game play--> already been discussed above.
c. Couldn't get the jetpack working.

2. Thoughts:
Still trying to figure out just what this game is about, aside from killing ai to steal their cars/planes. I did have fun playing tho, so you get a big thumbs up there.
The building itself and it's contents were great. Some things are quite realistic. Another big thumbs up there.
The game ran quite smooth of my computer and it has much lower specs then some of the others in this thread.
I have an amd athlon 3700 with 1 gig ram and an nVidia 6800 video card.

#24 @Mike Rowley: Thanks a bunch for the feedback! I really need to get a good game going with a bunch of players to do some proper testing, and I dropped the ball on that as far as you're concerned tonight--sorry. I was playing soccer instead of sitting in front of my computer like I'm supposed to! hehe.

1a. What resolution were you running? I believe the text bmp must have been cut off by the button extent or something. Torque gui coding is still kicking my butt--I've added that to my list--thanks. Gah. I think I'm going to have to give up on the gui editor.

1c. Did you try hitting F? Seriously, y'all, if there is a standard key for jetpacks, let me know what is and I'll change it. I do have it listed in the HUD help.

2. "fun" is definitely what I want to hear, thanks! I have noticed that "fun" seems to go up with the framerate. The point of the game is multiplayer deathmatch/ctf, which is not yet implemented. The bots are there just to give you an idea of how it will look, sorta, and also for non gamers to play against. I was a big bf1942 fan, and bought several copies for friends, and the ones who weren't gamers loved the single player, which was execrable to a gamer. They liked it because it was easy, and I haven't forgotten that. I do plan to make the ai a _little_ tougher though.

Anybody have any ideas on how to communicate the non-default type controls? Every single person I have watched play the game has ignored the HUD help, and I know perfectly well that I would, too. Still, I can't think of a better way to do this, and I am an interface fanatic, believe it or not.

#25 I'm running in windowed 800 X 600.
Yes, I pressed the "F" key. I even read the help there, and eventually, after getting the hang of the controls, deleted it. (ctrl + some key)((sorry, can't recall which key at the moment. Must be a senior moment)

As for the controls, F should work as it isn't bound to anything else.

GUI--> Forget the editor. I manually move things in the mainMenu.gui becouse it's generally easier.

Thanks for giving me an idea of what the game will be like. Mabe this weekend we can find a time to get together. (I live in California, so the time difference isn't that much)

One more little detail I forgot about. If I click on the link in my programs file, I get an error stating it can't find main.cs. I don't understand why tho, as it is pointing to the right folder. The shortcut on my desktop works fine tho.

#26 Hehe sorry, didn't mean to give you a hard time. Anyway, that's really weird about the jetpack. I'll keep my eyes open. Hmmm.

As to the Start menu link not working...now that's just embarrassing. I should have caught that, bigtime. I spent several years doing QA work. I am red-faced. Thanks for bringing it to my attention though.

Lemme know whenever you're ready to play! My email is in my profile.

#27 Well I played through the bathroom level again and it started at about 150+ FPS going down to about 50ish when i was looking at the whole level, after about 10 mins though I started losing FPS, i think the lowest i got was around 5 (absolute lowest) but that was only for a second, near the end of the game i was getting about 18 FPS average. Dont know what could be causing the slowdown.

After the mission was over it loaded the room 1 level, and for some reason I couldnt get my char to quit spinning to the right. (NO Idea what caused that)

As to your other questions, yes the jetpack thing happens every time I pick one up, Also you can boost in the cars even if your not on the ground (I had fun with that but its not really usable) you can jump if your flipped over and jumping on walls only pushes you up the wall not away from it. Also on the explosions, I think the alpha channel might be messed up, And I did manage to get a screenshot of a very minor problem, its on the lighter next to the ash tray. I can send it to you if you want.

Also about the button mapping, have you thought about putting the "packs" on the right mouse trigger? I just think having the use pack button right next to the drop pack button only leads to people like me throwing my finger over to G on accident when im "panicked".

Also if you would like to play send me a time to Trojke3 at Yahoo dot com. I have plenty of free time. just be sure to tell me the time in CST (I live in houston).


Edit: Also about the bowl, there seems to be a problem with moving "inside" the bowl, if you're around the edge you can move fine but once i go into the middle my char wont move.

Oh and Edit again: MY machine is a AMD64 X2 3800+ (sorry it is a dual core but im running x86)

#28 Hmmm. Hmmm. You're seeing some stuff I haven't seen elsewhere. Hmmm. I wonder what it could be.

That's en excellent point about the jetpack use button being next to the drop button. Hmmm. Hmm. I was kinda hoping to use the RMB for a secondary fire, though. But of course I could just map it to another key. You've given me some stuff to think about. I cannot imagine why the jetpack isn't working for you. Is anyone else seeing this?

I don't suppose you could send me a screenshot of the explosions your seeing? :-) I have a feeling it might be different from what I'm seeing.

I plan to be on at 8pm tonight. I'm in Houston, too!

#29 Just so you know the jetpacks work for me, they work fine, I hit F and I go up, but its the sounds, particle effects, and lights that dont work as expected.

And ill be on @ 8 (mostly because my Xbox360 is now a brick) Red ring of death to all who oppose us!


Edit: I got a pic of the explosions, and I think mostly i was getting some wierd stuff because I was using TGEA at the same time, mostly all explosions look OK exept when AI spawns, and I dont think the vehicles are bieng deleted when you kill them (if you run into the space where a wehicle was right after you killed it and before it spawns you hit it)

#30 Thanks for the clarification. I'll be keeping my eyes open.

As to that edit about the vehicles being deleted, what you are hitting is one of 6 invisible DTS boxes that I spawn around an explosion, whose function is to stop the vehicle dead when it is killed. Otherwise, the vehicle may continue on beyond the explosion (this is most apparent with flying vehicles), which is not good.

I've been thinking of shortening their lifetime, anyway. I left them like that 'cause I figured "well, it's like the explosion is forcing you back", but the more I see it and the more I see people hit those inivisible boxes, the less I like it. In fact, you've just made up my mind!

#31 Heh, I Feel like an idiot, you asked what MSPF was? I thought about it when i was playing with some particles and I was wondering why that number goes up as your FPS goes down. I think i got it (someone correct me if im wrong) But I think its MilliSeconds Per Frame.

#32 Ahhhhh. Thanks for sorting that.

BTW I found out why my server was "swapping"...remember how we were talking about Fraps? Well, I accidentlly set the video capture going. So I had about a three gig movie of our game. Doh!

BTW also I wanted to mention that I was aware of the boost/angle issues. Originally I was going to save those for a source code solution, but now I'm thinking I'll go ahead and clean it up in script.

But I did decide the leave the car nitrous available while in the air. You can really go flying with it if you plan it right :-)

#33 If anyone's interested, a new version is available with teamplay implemented. Spawnpoints are capturable by touching them.

www.singularityfps.com/demo.php