WHY THE HOLY HELL IS EVERYBODY SAYING ARCANUMS GRAPHICS ARE

Yeah I was wondering about it when I had to wait for 5mins for the game to save/load in F2 though F1 was 'flying' on my system.

The difference between F2 and Arcanum is that in the case of F2 a patch was issued which fixed the problem. Anyone heard of such a patch for Arcanum? Perhaps they forgot to place a link on their site?

 

'ello

Question...has anyone considered the possiblity that the slowdown in arcanum is due to the AI _SCRIPTING_ method...(IE the little code buggers who tell the NPC to do their thing). Why do I think this? Well, the slowdown shows up primarily in those places with a high "script population" such as taverns or dragie's dungeons (the torches are objects and may even count [in the engine's eyes] as NPCs as that would be the easiest way to make them killable & even if not you got all the beasties for ya comp to "think" about.) But now for the question...WHY THE HELL DOES THIS LAG THE GAME?!? Is it because some bastard stored the scripts using a unusual labor-saving protocol or do the NPCs run constant AI checks to find out what they do next?

 

That makes alot of sense, Dark_Fan. If what you suggested is right, that constant AI checks are the reason for the slowdown, then it's just sad that the price for a lame NPC AI is such a significant speed hit.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Milo on 2001-10-20 08:16 ]</font>

 

Of the three people who had failures, two were changes from win 98, at least one of which was from FAT32 (don't ask me why, it came preformatted), and the other was a clean install on a brand new machine.

 

:smile:

 

Errr, what did you answer with it?

 

[ramble mode on]
It's not the Fallout engine. Troika doesn't have the rights for that. Troika is a wholly new gaming company. They've been developing Arcanum for more than 2 years. They didn't have the money to lease another engine. 15 people (or less, I'm not sure) worked on this game.
I, for one, am impressed with what Troika did with this game. Granted, I'm running Arcanum on an Athlon 1,2 GHz machine with 256MB of RAM, which means that I hardly see any slowdowns at all. There's only one place. The entrance to the Vendigroth ruins. I can't quite figure out why the game decides to slow down there, but the problem is tied to that map only, so I'm not to complain.

I think the slowdowns are primarily due to the lighting effects (torches and electrical ligths), and maybe insufficient testing. Remember, only 15 people worked on this. They didn't have throngs of playtesters having a go at it all the time.

Could it be better? Yes. Do I love it all the same? Heck yes! I've completed the game 5 times now with different characters, and I'm not about to stop playing. :smile: I love this puppy... :wink:

Agh. [ramble mode off]
Sorry guys. :smile:

 

I'd also enjoy it if it didn't slow down.

As for not enough money to lease some engine - give me a brake. Troika was working for Sierra and it ain't a poor company, right. I bet they would lease some engine for Troika if Troika said that unless they do so it's gonna be a great RPG with screwed performance and lots of other bugs.

 

The reason for the slow down is likely because instead of using cruddo 8bit sprites(what most other games use, that is why 2d has gotten a VERY bad rep) Arcanum (seems to) use an actualy 16bit/32bit pallete (don't know which, nor do I care, I cannot really tell the difference).

Sprites are what you can see all of the old SNES games using, and almost any previous RPG.

One advantage of them, besides being 8bit, is that alot of the graphics hardware out there was uber optimized for them ages ago, and therefore you can have TONS of them on screen at once without a slowdown at all.

On the other hand when you have what is basicaly 16bit mini movies running around on your screen, things tend to get a wee bit, shall we say, slow? :wink:

The situation is not helped any because Troika, in what is a both a good move and a bad move, have made ALOT of things into 'objects' that (seem to have0 status checks performed on them constantly, or are at least redrawn again and again and again instead of just becoming part of the landscape.

Notice how if you have a dozens of dead bodies on the screen things tend to slow down a bit.

Err, not that _I_ would ever kill almost a hundred dudes just to see the effects.

Well, ok, I would.

But anyways. You get the same slowdown that you would have if you have a few dozen LIVING creatures on the screen.

Now compare this to a game like Starcraft or Warcraft II, where as soon as a body dies that creatures performance hit on the system drops to almost nil, with only an occasional check done to see if the body should have degenerated to the next stage of decay yet (darnit Blizzard always remembers the little things for the sadisticaly minded of their fans out there!).

In Arcanum on the other hand, all of those dead bodies still create, err, problems.

Of course SC and WCII are both 256bit games too so that has to be taken into account, but still, the way that dead bodies and other still objects are dealt with is very different in the two games.

I myself am running on a system that has KICK ASS 2d performance Matrox G400 MAX Dual Head BAABBIEEEE!!.

This is about the ONLY time where this video cards kick ass 2d performance comes into play.

Had this game been made in 3D I would have been shit out of luck.

Also, Arcanum seems to have a few, err, resource drain bugs if you are multitasking for long enough for other applictions to be allowed by Windows some of what was Arcanum's resource space. (Including CPU cycles and all of that it seems.)

If I start up Arcanum and load a game and then play around for a bit, and then alt-tab out and surf the internet for a few hours, Windows 2000's Kick Ass multitasking capibilities will have (gradualy) reduced the amount of resources that are allocated to Arcanum. The main problem is that when I hop back into Arcanum, Arcanum does not demand for its resources back. Or mabye Windows just does not give it back, either way Arcanum ends up only playing with half of the normal amount of CPU cycles that it likes to play with. Not to mention the RAM usage, oh man, disk thrashing time!.

I can play Arcanum straight though normaly for 3-6 hours, in other words, until a Bad Bug hits me :grin:

 

nothing wrong with graphics, game still not good enough...

 

Uh

So BESIDES the immense complexity the oodles of endings and the fact that you can go through the game 3 time and choose compleatly different paths each time.

The fact that there are STILL new things to be discovered in this game not to mention how easy it is to hack and how left open and exposed much of the games internal works are

uh dude

This is like the Quake of RPGs, m'kay?

No, wait, scratch that.

Any of you old schoolers out there might remember a little gem called Unlimited Adventures. Quite frankly it sucked out of the box, but once some SERIOUS modifications where done to it (such as increasing the charecter portariat gallery up to what it was in the Gold Box series of games) it was one kick ass and almost infinitly expandable game.

Except for that in Arcanum you can make your own spells.

Kick ass.

You could also do that in The Bards Tale Construction set, which I also own.

w00t.

Yes, I have dedicated almost my whole life (since I was 5 or 6. . . . ^_^ ) to RPGs and video games.

I don't even eat candy. I just save up for more RPGs

0

Suffice to say a game has to be DAMN good to entertain me for even the shortest period of time.

Arcanum has managed that wonderfuly. How many weeks has it been now? At least three I think.

Damnit this game ROCKS.

And this is coming from a person that had to buy a 500CD carrier just to make room for his ever expanding RPG collection.

I had not boughten an RPG newer then Fallout 2 until Arcanum arrived. Arcanum truly restores the True RPG Tradition to CRPGs.

w00t

 

Your expression of satisfatction is actually more convincing than the game itself. Neither is enough for me to continure past my current level of ennui; I'm off to try Mechcommander 2 in the hopes it'll fill the gap until Civ 3.

Some of your points:

• It may well be the Quake of RPG's - I'm a UT fan.
• I can't afford a kick-ass system, so I prefer games that are well deisgned, written and tested.
• The immense complexity and oodles of endings are starting to seem somewhat homogenous to me. There isn't enough difference between them
• Whatever the strengths of the magic system, magic is ubiquitous in RPG's and it was the tech that appealed to me from Arcanum. The tech, although having novelty value for time, hasn't been done as well as I'd have liked.
• I also have played many RPG's and variant genres over the years, and am at the point where I'm damn happy to see DVD casing being used more often, just for the space savings. Almost every RPG I have ever played has interested me for a short time, but the number having lasting appeal for me is very small indeed, and unfortunately does not include Arcanum.

Okay, sorry to be a wet blanket but like I said, I am at the moving on stage. A ceratin amount of downerisation is to be expected.

 

com... take it easy ok? This game is good, but I can't really say that it was better playing it for the first time then it was replaying Fallout2...for countless amount of times. You could say it's a 3rd place in RPGs...

Creating spells...bah who ever needs magick.

 

I'm running it on a 32MB Matrox G400 and the slowdown is killing me.

Slowdown is not related to just number of dead bodies or any kind of living creatures but NPCs. I got no slowdown with dead bodies lying around or lots of creatures running and jumping around me - check out the animal farm in Caladon. Slowdown only uccurs near inns or other heavily inhabitated areas.

Couldn't have said it better myself

Yeah, UNFORTUNATELY. Damn I'd really like to be able to enjoy this game.

 

Regarding the slow-downs. Someone here mentioned NPC AI check-ups as a possible cause for that. I think that is partially correct. Why only partially? I'll try to explain my point of view.

Imagine a situation: I am standing in the middle of Panarii Temple in Shrouded Hills (by the way, it's one of the "fastest" locations in the game), and I am surrounded by 6 followers, not including the Worthless Mutt, which doesn't count as an "official" follower. So I have 7 NPC's around all with their own AI scripts. I am expecting significant slowdown when moving around and scrolling the screen. Then I tell all my 7 NPC's to "wait". And voilla! I can fly around like superman. That means that there is no matter of 3D objects or light effects, right? This must be a pure case of bad programming.

BUT. Let us consider another example. I am standing ALL ALONE in the middle of Ancient Maze -- a rather small location somewhere North-West of Dernholm. There are no NPC's or torches there, just monsters. Not much space for AI scripting, eh? But the fact is, that my character is moving like he has some extra-heavy dumbells fixed to his feet.

Maybe the monsters also have some kind of AI scripts? But a strange thing -- when they are all dead, it all still remains slow. Can a DEAD monster have an AI script?

So finally I conclude that the slowdowns have a number of different causes -- AI scripts, graphics caching... whatever. But it's very bad when you think of such problems while playing, INSTEAD of simply enjoing a game. That is why, to my opinion, this EXCELLENT game will NEVER be on the top of the charts. Pity, though. I think, Troika has a lot to think about.

 

DVD casings? Man you MUST be on crack.

Big Fat Thick manuals own. So do Cloth Maps and Black Glasses.

Cookies for those who get the last two references there.

If it comes down to magic VS tech I gotta go with magic. The main draw of technology in real life to many of the Uber Nerds such as myself is that it is about as close to magic as a person can get in this world.

Heck just look at all of the termonology.

Somebody who is really good at computers is a Wizard.

(ripped from Jargon file from here on out)

incantation n. Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that one must mutter at a system to attain a desired result. Not used of passwords or other explicit security features. Especially used of tricks that are so poorly documented that they must be learned from a wizard. "This compiler normally locates initialized data in the data segment, but if you mutter the right incantation they will be forced into text space."

guru n. [Unix] An expert. Implies not only wizard skill but also a history of being a knowledge resource for others. Less often, used (with a qualifier) for other experts on other systems, as in `VMS guru'. See source of all good bits.

wave a dead chicken v. To perform a ritual in the direction of crashed software or hardware that one believes to be futile but is nevertheless necessary so that others are satisfied that an appropriate degree of effort has been expended. "I'll wave a dead chicken over the source code, but I really think we've run into an OS bug." Compare voodoo programming, rain dance; see also casting the runes.


rain dance n. 1. Any ceremonial action taken to correct a hardware problem, with the expectation that nothing will be accomplished. This especially applies to reseating printed circuit boards, reconnecting cables, etc. "I can't boot up the machine. We'll have to wait for Greg to do his rain dance." 2. Any arcane sequence of actions performed with computers or software in order to achieve some goal; the term is usually restricted to rituals that include both an incantation or two and physical activity or motion. Compare magic, voodoo programming, black art, cargo cult programming, wave a dead chicken; see also casting the runes.

^^^^^^ been there, done that, rituals are quite commonly used when fixing computers.

I could go on and on and on but this post would get WAY to long :smile:

My system WAS dirt cheap.

700mhz Duron @1ghz. . . . $42, w00t.

ASUS MoBo, whatever

RAM: going for what, $6 a chip now? LOL

Case: I had to get a full tower, so sue me, I paid all of $60 for it.

HD: See RAM.

Ok so granted it took me ~5yrs to save up to get this system, yes indeed being poor sucks, but. . . . .

I am also running Windows 2000, performance rocks, get it then judge :smile:

 

I'm running Win2000 too, and performance can still be derailed by a badly written app.

If it took you 5 years to save for your system, it wasn't cheap; value is relative.

You really don't need to explain nerdiness or jargonese to me (or many other regulars here, I would guess). I'm not going to harp on about my own pedigree - that would be crasse - but if you think about where you're posting for a few minutes, and the type of people likely to be here, you'll probably get it.

As I said: tech appealed to me because magic is ubiquitous. Does this mean that the idea of magic is not one I find appealing, do you think? Just the opposite - since the time I read my first "voluntary" book as a child, "Albert the Dragon," I have been hooked on all things fantasy.

To me, fantastic technology offers much the same appeal as magic but in a less done-to-death format.

I'm not on crack, and I still prefer DVD casings. Most manuals are a waste of paper, since they never contain anything that can't be put in electronic form, and I've played so many comp games that I find the manual increasingly unnecssary to get myself up and running. Quick Key cards are generally more useful to me.

The Arcanum manual has proved to be even less useful than most. Whose bright idea was it, I wonder, to try to write the WHOLE THING in a quasi-Victorian dialect and as unrelenting prose, rather than nicely laid out lists and tables? Someone who doesn't play many CRPG's, I'm guessing.

I would very much prefer a decent online manual, probably in the form of a well made web site, than a book that is essentially a waste of space and dead trees after a very short time.

OT: has anyone noticed the sharp increase in the number of people putting "uber" before every adjective in an attempt to squeeze the last drop of pointless over-emphasis out of their comments? The word is becoming quite uber-utilised.

 

Ecxuse me, but how do you manage to play GAMES under Win 2000? Obviously, you don't mean game performance, 'cause I worked with Win 2000 for more than a year, before I installed Win XP, and mostly I had to switch to the second operating system (Win ME in my case) when I wanted to play games. Maybe you have some kind of a SPECIAL build? Please drop some light on this dark matter. :smile: Thank you!

 

Dark_fan: "…or do the NPCs run constant AI checks to find out what they do next?"
Ohh yes. That's it for sure! Perhaps their "reaction modifiers" are checking every "X "cycles. That would explain why even fast machines suffer slowdowns.
There seems to be some sort of memory drain as well. After visiting 2 towns I have to restart…and not just the game - Windows! I had the torch trouble after a game restart without a Windows restart.

 

Cloth map - BG2
Black glasses - I have no idea. Deus Ex perhaps?

And you didn't write the prices for the most expensive parts of your comp (ie. Motherboard, HDD).