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noratto
Peru1 Post
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NihiLStarcraft
Denmark1413 Posts
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Tchado
Jordan1831 Posts
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Garrl
Scotland1982 Posts
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[PkF] Wire
France24239 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On November 19 2013 20:29 NihiLStarcraft wrote: So they're saying the engine loads every Zealot (etc.) variation into memory - and not just the selected skin version of the unit? Really? Why? Is there a good reason I'm not seeing or are Blizzard programmers/software engineers that bad these days? Because that is how every game works unless it is designed specificlly not to work that way (dota 2 and lol). FPS games load up every character model, even if the model isn't being used in the match. This is nothing new and only since the rise of LoL has the discussion about engines that only load up the nessary models come up. People forget that SC2 was developed in 2008-2010 and free to play wasn't a thing at the time. | ||
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NihiLStarcraft
Denmark1413 Posts
On November 19 2013 21:04 Plansix wrote: Because that is how every game works unless it is designed specificlly not to work that way (dota 2 and lol). FPS games load up every character model, even if the model isn't being used in the match. This is nothing new and only since the rise of LoL has the discussion about engines that only load up the nessary models come up. People forget that SC2 was developed in 2008-2010 and free to play wasn't a thing at the time. Sorry, but memory management and only loading the resources and assets you need for the game into memory has been a thing ever since the very first video games have been programmed. This has nothing to do with Dota 2, Leage of Legends or Free to Play whatsoever. If they load all skin variations instead of only the selected one, that's equally as stupid as loading all zerg unit/structure/spell/etc. assets for a 1v1 TvP ladder match. It is now and it certainly was in 2005 through 2010 or whatever. Not only did they make a colossal mistake when writing the engine then, they also half-assed a skin system together and put it into the game which wasn't properly supported. This all wreaks of terrible programming and software engineering. What were they thinking? | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On November 19 2013 21:20 NihiLStarcraft wrote: Sorry, but memory management and only loading the resources and assets you need for the game into memory has been a thing ever since the very first video games have been programmed. This has nothing to do with Dota 2, Leage of Legends or Free to Play whatsoever. If they load all skin variations instead of only the selected one, that's equally as stupid as loading all zerg unit/structure/spell/etc. assets for a 1v1 TvP ladder match. It is now and it certainly was in 2005 through 2010 or whatever. Not only did they make a colossal mistake when writing the engine then, they also half-assed a skin system together and put it into the game which wasn't properly supported. This all wreaks of terrible programming and software engineering. What were they thinking? Everyone is an expert on video game development and programming on the Internet. I am willing to take Blizzards word on it, rather that pass judgment as a complete novice in the field. | ||
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TaishiCi
Korea (South)211 Posts
It maybe too little too late, but at least they are trying their hardest to compete with the big names like LoL. Can we see the rise of RTS to the top of eSports again? Will this save starcraft? | ||
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FFW_Rude
France10201 Posts
On November 19 2013 21:23 Plansix wrote: Everyone is an expert on video game development and programming on the Internet. I am willing to take Blizzards word on it, rather that pass judgment as a complete novice in the field. Yeah... People don't really understand (or don't want to) how hard can a simple thing can be a HUGE amount of work. I love of "Terrible programing" is sentenced every time. I can't imagine building a program that took 4 or 5 years to make. Hell when i'm doing a program that takes a year to build there is so much things that become rigid because of this or that. There is so much thing that you look at as easy and when you look over the code of the other programer you're like : "Oh man this is going to be impossible to implement that with what we have right now". The game was realeased in 2010. So ("it's not 2005...." Yes it is because they started this in 2005 or something like that). I'll make an exemple : My ex-boss made a program a few years back and for customer you could do : "Madam" or "Mister" => Boolean. 1 or 0. And then he told us : "Shit guys we now need to include MISS... so not boolean anymore and everytime this thing appear we have to rewrite the code". Yeah. Adding Miss took a week of work (big program). On topic : This is a REALLY great patch ! Mod support, clan logo. There's nothing wrong in this patch. | ||
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NihiLStarcraft
Denmark1413 Posts
On November 19 2013 21:33 FFW_Rude wrote: Yeah... People don't really understand (or don't want to) how hard can a simple thing can be a HUGE amount of work. I love of "Terrible programing" is sentenced every time. I can't imagine building a program that took 4 or 5 years to make. Hell when i'm doing a program that takes a year to build there is so much things that become rigid because of this or that. There is so much thing that you look at as easy and when you look over the code of the other programer you're like : "Oh man this is going to be impossible to implement that with what we have right now". The game was realeased in 2010. So ("it's not 2005...." Yes it is because they started this in 2005 or something like that). I'll make an exemple : My ex-boss made a program a few years back and for customer you could do : "Madam" or "Mister" => Boolean. 1 or 0. And then he told us : "Shit guys we now need to include MISS... so not boolean anymore and everytime this thing appear we have to rewrite the code". Yeah. Adding Miss took a week of work (big program). I understand how complex software projects can become - but that is no excuse for obvious blatant mistakes like loading way too many assets into memory than necessary. Not for a company like Blizzard. I guess I'm just surprised at the kind of super rookie mistakes the coders and engineers there appear to make, I kinda imagined them to be better at what they do. | ||
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VArsovskiSC
Macedonia563 Posts
On November 19 2013 21:41 NihiLStarcraft wrote: I understand how complex software projects can become - but that is no excuse for obvious blatant mistakes like loading way too many assets into memory than necessary. Not for a company like Blizzard. I guess I'm just surprised at the kind of super rookie mistakes the coders and engineers there appear to make, I kinda imagined them to be better at what they do. Hmmm, IDK, I might be wrong, but depends on the map-making or sth..?? I think/imagine that's how it's done Indeed seems silly to load all the units/buildings/spells/effects before the game starts (which I really doubt it does, cause the game works faster after the Unit Preloader map is started first), but it also might depend on the map itself - for example: What if the map has Zerg structures on it ??, or even doodads or sth.. And it's a TvP matchup played ? Hell - what if the map itself is all covered in Zerg doodads & stuff ?? We even don't know how it was planned and/or done.. Still - think that the real truth is that they haven't focused on that issue at all and just giving a "blunt" answer instead of saying that they didn't even look at the issue..  Perhaps even re-assogned the Artists (you need artist work for making new skins, right ??) to other games that are in the stage of development rather than add skins to an existing one.. ======================================================================================== The patch seems to solve quite a bit important issues that exist ATM, though IMO it wasn't quite the Blizzcon material.. :/ Still happy to see it though..  | ||
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MstrJinbo
United States1251 Posts
On November 19 2013 18:35 Paradice wrote: I don't think it's that, at all. It's about where your engine tech lives. e.g. Riot put a boatload of their engine tech into skins (after all, it's their business model on the line). So skinning is extremely flexible and well supported by the engine. Their resource managers will be a seriously sophisticated beast. On the other hand, SC2's engine tech went into scripting. They have a whole SP campaign to support, and arcade has virtually every genre represented. Their scripting engine is a seriously sophisticated beast. However, you can only have so many sophisticated beasts living inside your game before they start actively interfering with each other. If models and skins had 'lifetime management', delay loading, LRU-unloading, and other "skin supporting" trickyness, how much harder is it to build a stable mod/arcade map where you throw random waves of things around? A simple trigger today could become a little nest of conditional evaluation based on what resources are currently in memory. It'll still be possible, but trickier. Glitchier. Harder to get into. I doubt they want to do anything to jeopardize map makers since they've had so much success with it historically. I wouldnt necessarily blame the engine. In lol the skin with Garen in a chicken suit most likely takes the same amount of memory that the vanilla skin because in game they load the custom skin and not the vanilla. In sc2 if you have a 4v4 game and each of the Terran players use a different skin for the marine. Then the marine now takes 4 times the memory as it used to. Now imagine this for every unit being used in the game. I understand how complex software projects can become - but that is no excuse for obvious blatant mistakes like loading way too many assets into memory than necessary. Not for a company like Blizzard. I guess I'm just surprised at the kind of super rookie mistakes the coders and engineers there appear to make, I kinda imagined them to be better at what they do. That's because they probably don't load uncecessary assets in memory. The limitation is in cases where they can't avoid loading the extra assets. | ||
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KeksX
Germany3634 Posts
On November 19 2013 21:41 NihiLStarcraft wrote: I understand how complex software projects can become - but that is no excuse for obvious blatant mistakes like loading way too many assets into memory than necessary. Not for a company like Blizzard. I guess I'm just surprised at the kind of super rookie mistakes the coders and engineers there appear to make, I kinda imagined them to be better at what they do. Did you ever design a somewhat bigger program? SC2 was never designed to have that many skins. Changing the design AFTER it is already implemented is a huge step they probably don't have the manpower for. I cannot stress how diffferent "programming at home" and programming for a big company is. You simply can't just adjust things and hope it will work. You HAVE to "overwork" things and that costs money. | ||
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Thalandros
Netherlands1151 Posts
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NihiLStarcraft
Denmark1413 Posts
On November 19 2013 22:37 MstrJinbo wrote: That's because they probably don't load uncecessary assets in memory. The limitation is in cases where they can't avoid loading the extra assets. I guess if you're playing 4vs4 with 3 Terran, 3 Protoss and 2 Zergs for example and they all chose different skins, then you'd need to load quite a bit more units into memory than usual, makes sense. That would be a reason why they claim memory limitations keeps them from expanding the super-minimal skin system currently. Although, as others have said, they could really just disable skins in 3vs3 and higher for example, if they cared. On November 19 2013 22:42 KeksX wrote: Did you ever design a somewhat bigger program? SC2 was never designed to have that many skins. Changing the design AFTER it is already implemented is a huge step they probably don't have the manpower for. But that's the point, the software engineers/lead programmers shouldn't have implemented skins if they knew they couldn't actually support them properly engine- or manpower-wise. Hacking it in anyways was a very bad decision that, to me, shines a very bad light on those responsible. | ||
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ManiacUA
Ukraine29 Posts
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Conti
Germany2516 Posts
On November 19 2013 21:20 NihiLStarcraft wrote: Sorry, but memory management and only loading the resources and assets you need for the game into memory has been a thing ever since the very first video games have been programmed. This has nothing to do with Dota 2, Leage of Legends or Free to Play whatsoever. If they load all skin variations instead of only the selected one, that's equally as stupid as loading all zerg unit/structure/spell/etc. assets for a 1v1 TvP ladder match. It is now and it certainly was in 2005 through 2010 or whatever. Not only did they make a colossal mistake when writing the engine then, they also half-assed a skin system together and put it into the game which wasn't properly supported. This all wreaks of terrible programming and software engineering. What were they thinking? So what do you do on a TvP match on a custom map that has a neutral creep tumor? What do you do when there's a TvP custom map that, at some point in the game, gives you a drone to build a hatchery to build a zerg army? What do you do on a custom map that allows to change a unit's skin mid-game? There's two things you could do: Load everything into memory in the first place. Or have the information on what needs to be loaded in every single map, and cross reference that with what races that are being played. Which would probably cause various problems somewhere else (Hackers faking the wrong race, so their race's models won't load), as well as increase the effort it takes to make a map (Hmm, do I need that Ultralisk model?), etc. It's a simple design decision, not a "colossal mistake". | ||
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thetaoptimus
Poland24 Posts
I would love to see a letterbox option Just like there: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/100897574/this one.png Skins. It is a tricky one. I suggest to create a second launcher of SC2 -> 64bit launcher. This one would bypass memory limitation. 32 bit launchers would set/force all additional skins to standard - 64 bit mode would allow to use more skins. In this way 32 bit SC2 would not crash - and will be possible to add more skins. Maybe i am wrong - but i think that tommorow would be PTR for SC2 active. | ||
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NihiLStarcraft
Denmark1413 Posts
On November 19 2013 22:59 Conti wrote: There's two things you could do: Load everything into memory in the first place. Or have the information on what needs to be loaded in every single map, and cross reference that with what races that are being played. Which would probably cause various problems somewhere else (Hackers faking the wrong race, so their race's models won't load), as well as increase the effort it takes to make a map (Hmm, do I need that Ultralisk model?), etc. It's a simple design decision, not a "colossal mistake". I see where you're coming from but if they made the design decision to dumb-load EVERYTHING all the time instead of referencing used assets in the maps, that's a pretty damn bad decision in my opinion. Whatever, obviously none of us know the exact workings of the engine, so we can only speculate. | ||
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