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Quake Wars

by Ian Omroth Hardingham · in Technical Issues · 08/14/2007 (10:09 am) · 4 replies

Just reading a terribly-written interview with the Quake Wars guys at Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=81215) and they said this:

Quote:Eurogamer: John Carmack responded to a point about Enemy Territory tick-rates in the question-and-answer session following his keynote. He said that animation was running at 30Hz and frame-rate at 60Hz. Is that something people should be concerned about?

Paul Wedgewood: There's a ton going in Quake Wars. You have to realise that there are 24 players, all of them can have deployables that can be firing, and be in vehicles, and then of course we're tracking experience points, objectives and their status, and have physics attached to almost everything. Even just overcoming the network challenges took some significant advances.

In terms of the server and the client, the problem comes when you try to process all of that data 60 or 90 times a second or have it uncapped, because the gameplay experience when a server a or client shifts constantly from 30 to 90 to 60 ends up much worse than having a locked-out 30fps. We started by reducing everything to 30Hz to see how that would work, but players felt the gameplay wasn't smooth enough.

So Timothy over at id Software worked on a solution that unhooked rendering from game sampling, and we have a much smoother experience now. We have unlocked frame-rates and people who were previously around 30fps are now getting 60fps because we've made a ton of performance improvements. That said, the animation problem can't be solved. It can't be. As the game stands right now, it's just one of the insurmountable hurdles.
Zoom in'' Screenshot 1

The game's many vehicles give it a certain feel, but their impact changes throughout a level's various phases. Not much use underground, for instance...

Eurogamer: Carmack described it as needing major architectural changes.

Paul Wedgewood: Yeah, but ultimately the most important thing is that what you shoot is what you hit, and that's more important than having really smooth animation. We're faced with the choice of giving you a smooth gameplay experience with really good hit-registration and really good player-prediction and really good networking, or something that is heavily interpolated and gives you the impression that everything's running really smoothly, except that vehicle isn't really where you think it is and that animation isn't really playing and half of the game is client-side prediction.

Eurogamer: Illusion or the truth.

So, first, Tom Bramwell is a complete idiot for that last line, which is probably the most idiotic single line I have read in video games journalism and that is saying something.

Anyway, was wondering whether anyone knew exactly what the real issue behind this decision was.
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Torque 3D Owner Stephen Zepp
#1
08/14/2007 (10:44 am)
I kind of think you may be taking his comment out of context--to me, it sounds as if he is responding to what Paul was saying regarding "you can have it look really smooth and be inaccurate (interpolated), or you can have it not look exceptionally smooth, but be accurate".

To me, "Illusion or the truth" is an accurate sound bite for what he said.

I do find it interesting however that they seem to need and/or be avoiding a few things:

--"unhooked rendering from game sampling" : Torque has always done this.
--"half of the game is client-side prediction." this one made me wonder deeply: just about by definition, "good networking" means good interpolation, and client side prediction. Why would you be worried about avoiding that if you do it well?

"heavily interpolated" isn't a bad thing--if it's done well.

Torque Owner AcidFaucet
#2
08/14/2007 (10:46 am)
The difference is going to be marginal. Grandma won't notice that anything is wrong and neither will you when you're franticly shooting. It's a technical issue more than it is a perceptual issue.

It sounds like a smart choice too, I've shot so many non-existant soldiers over the years.

I think you missed the point of the article's closing line. It doesn't appear to be that he's saying that id is speaking illusion or truth but that the issue is a choice between giving the player an illusion or the truth, if that's the case than there's no reason to consider it an idiotic line, though it could have been made more friendly by being explicit.

It's a good line if you regard it to the current media trend of sound extravagant, sound dangerous, cause panic, cause fear, create ADD, and create hate.

It's a good Fnord.

Associate Ian Omroth Hardingham
Mode 7 Games
#3
08/14/2007 (10:53 am)
Hey guys.

My problem with that line is that everything in a networked game is what he's referring to as "illusion". "The Truth" would have people jumping to their new position every time a new update came in, no interpolation, and as for the animation...

Basically it pisses me off because it makes it sound like by making this decision they are somehow morally better or something.

Torque 3D Owner Stephen Zepp
#4
08/14/2007 (11:04 am)
I have to admit that the underlying precepts of the statements in the article tend to imply that their concepts of networking are fundamentally different from how Torque works--which kind of boggles me.