Profile: Terrapin54
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• • Age of Conan...This is one BADASS game!

  • Originally posted by miagisan
    

    so its ok to be a fan after 13 levels...but its not ok to criticize after 13

     

    you fanbois need to get your story straight

    A mistake I see over and over again, each time a game is released, is people think there is some emperical truth.     There is no "right" or "wrong" opinion, just opinions.      At this moment, a number of people are experiencing technical issues running the game.    So I can understand having an opinion about the technical issues, but if one can't run the game to experience it, one isn't really in a position to judge the game, just the technical frustrations they are causing the person.

    This situation was so predictable.    Take WoW, the most popular game of the genre at this time.  The PC requirements to run that game are so light, you can do it with a 6 year old computer.     That same computer won't work with AoC.   Heck, one that is two years old, will have a few issues with AoC, because it really requires 3 gigs of Ram for XP, and 4 for Vista 64.

    Now if you can play the game fine, and don't like it, then it's not the game for you.  Not a problem, but most of the complaints are not about the game; but about the frustration of not being able to actually experience it.

    -Terrapin

  • Posted: 5/02/08 9:27 PM
    Age of Conan
• • My Beta Impressions

  • Originally posted by Shadus
    

     

    ---

    Originally posted by Oriphus
    An interesting post.....with some drawbacks for me, what are you judging this against, what is it that you would quantify as a good all round MMo with at least a 9/10 grade. Are you comparing this against target renagade on specky 48k? are you just a fps junky with no real interest in mmo's...have you been involved with and played MMo' for to long and just an old craby git? I just can't really get this from your post, perhaps you could elaborate a little more on these issues so if i can see if i have a similar veiwpoint on games as yourself...otherwise i just get the feeling this post is worthless 'to me'.
    My point being....how can i have any idea that i may love it even if you dislike it?
    A good post and would like to see more like it..just think you could improve it using some of the observastions in this thread....then it could be a great post :)
    

    ---

     

    Largely I get the notion you didn't bother to read the post and just cherry picked points to troll (but its hard to tell since this is the intarweb and its easy to be mistaken on intent), but the points you picked are fair enough I suppose and in that spirit...

    I'm judging against the variety of MMO's I've played and beta'd in general. I can't say there's a single MMO out presently that I'd give a 9/10 to presently in the current state its in. Lately the industry has become stagnant (since the success of wow and everyone trying to mimic it) and lacks innovation... even prior to that innovation was slowing because people were trying to mimic everquest. Even wow, as well as it did, really didn't innovate -- they just added more polish in a setting a lot of people liked. The only place they innovated was in the interface department... and even now as much as they've reduced it, it wows me completely (the interface modability, not the game.)

    I think you can safely assume that I'm not running on a 48k... being that the game is a 12g download.

    The last fps games I seriously played were UT (the original) and Tribes 2. I almost exclusively play MMOs. If you consider planetside a fps, then thats the one I most recently played, but I consider it an MMO (just not an mmorpg.)

    You really never know if *any* review written by someone is going to be accurate to your viewpoint. You face the exact same problems everytime you read a review of something on any site.

    Edit: Examples--

    Interface, the defacto standard for me now is wow. Amazingly good interface because of the modability, the base interface was simple and uncluttered but effective. The mods let you change the interface into anything you want it to be. Creative, innovative, and amazingly engaging from a technical standpoint. Runner up: EQ2, It's not as good as wow, but its still very skinable, and they've done some pretty amazing things along the way with the limited tools they have.

    Variety of Play, anarchy online and asheron's call. Previously I would have listed star wars galaxies in there, but it's not really applicable anymore. They truly let you customize your characters far further than most games. You're not pigeon holed into a few specific builds or being stuck with things being gimped if you're not exactly like everyone else.

    Character Creation and Customization, City of Heroes/Villains. I'd say the runner up goes to Starwars Galaxies even as it stands now. The character creator in CoX is a game in and of itself, it's absolutely amazing. The level of variety *wouldn't* be appropriate to all games, but its nice to see 200 people and not see 200 people that look exactly the same... nice to be able to pick your friends out of the crowd without having to have names on. Quite an amazing character creator.

    Innovation, this one I'm going to go with "at launch time" and I'll be lambested for it anyways :) Ultima Online, Everquest, EVE, AO, and Asheron's Call... each of those games was extremely innovative in its own right. They took a chance and did their own thing and the entire genre benefited or will benefit from the lessons they learned and future they created. Everything since those games has been mimicking it to a large degree with incremental increases in game play rather than true innovation. First everyone copied, EQ, then everyone copied WOW, etc. While that works well in other areas of the gaming industry (FPS, RTS) because of the short shelf life of the game, it works poorly for MMO games because people play the same game for years on end and to pull them away from that game you really need a significant benefit over what they're already playing. I'm excited to see what CCP & White Wolf do with WoD... which means it'll probably suck. :)

    Polish, WoW and LOTRO, while they didn't innovate much they added a level of polish to mmo's that hadn't been see previously and hasn't been seen since. WoWs launch wasn't perfect but the game was in better shape than the vast majority of games before it... and there was no way possible blizzard could have predicted the level of interest their game would generate, if I remember correctly they figured at best double eq... heh. LOTROs launch was simply stellar, I was in early beta and even from that point the game was far more playable than many of the games that came prior to it were at launch. They set the standard for how games should launch.

    Gameplay, I'm going to do in reverse. SWG NGE, AC2, SB, Horizons, and MxO are all the runners up on the "wow this sucks" list of game play, but I reserve my bile and hatred towards vanguard, at no other time in mmo history has a game stepped backwards in some many ways as far as game play goes from a publisher with experience. In a lot of cases with MMOs game play issues you can blame it on attempted innovation by an inexperienced publisher, but not in vanguards case. It still boggles my mind that they actually believed that a significant number of people would want to play that crap and when it became apparent that a significant number probably wouldn't... they sold out and finished the destruction of the game by pushing it out the door before even a fraction of the promised features were implemented. They increased the tedium levels, they increased the frustration, they increased the suck to previously untold levels... maybe its better now, but I've not been able to muster the umph to even try it again recently and I try to revisit games when they have significant feature updates.

    I'm going to shut up now because I'm rambling pointlessly :)

    
    We agree on more than I thought.

    Nice post. -Terrapin

  • Posted: 5/02/08 9:21 PM
    Age of Conan
• • Age of Conan...This is one BADASS game!

  • Originally posted by Realm-Reaper
    

     

    Originally posted by Arkane_A
    

    Originally posted by Realm-Reaper
    

    Holy shit!!!!

    I really couldn't ask for more in a game...I haven't felt this way about a game since the winter of 2003 when I got into SWG. This is really a cool game. I really see this as a potential WOW KILLA! I find myself counting the hours until I get off work. Again, I haven't done that since I stepped off the shuttle pad on Tatooine!

    Great work FUNCOM!...I'm finally having a good time again! You guys have brought MMO's back to where they should have been all along. Thank you for making such a BADASS game.

     

     

    You are basing this off the 1-13 experience?

     best 13 levels I have ever played...Not only that...

     

    *The combat system is one of the best I have ever played

    *The environment in game is the most immersive I have ever seen

    *I love the animations...cool as hell!

    *I love the mature nature of the content...true and gritty!

    *The MOB AI is just unlike anything I have ever seen before.

    *Character customization is a highlight!..had fun really creating an original character.

    *Great community!...players helping players and having a blast.

    *Top notch customer support!...my login issues were address and solved super fast!

    *Great story driven game!

    *This is a game that is as complex as you want it to be.

    *It's a game that is easy to get into...but hard to master.

    *Can't wait till it goes LIVE!!!!

    *GAME OF THE YEAR!!!!

    
    Most of those unhappy, are having problems playing the game.    Like you, I run the game fine, and feel exactly as you do.    Of course, for those having issues, this type of post makes no sense to them; how could it?

    -Terrapin

  • Posted: 5/02/08 9:13 PM
    Age of Conan
• • Detailed Info: Stuttering, Ram, Hard-drive, Vid Card, TIPS

  • Special thanks to Hugh.

    Stuttering:

    Q:What is it ? Well if you enter the thirsty dog first time and you're screen is shaking as hell and you get 1 frame per X seconds instead of X fps (AKA the slideshow effect) that's the stuttering effect we're talking about =P
    
    Q:Why does it happen and why does it still happen even though I have teh strongest bleeding edge new computer in the world ?
    
    To generate the possibly insane goodlooking graphics the game uses objects called "shaders". Shaders are small programs that alter pixels or vertices. Consequently, there are two major types of shader - pixel shaders and vertex shaders. These tiny programs add effects to basic geometry - so a water-styled shader can be added to a flat blue texture to make it look reflective, or a glass-styled shader can be added to a polygon to make it appear transparent. These shaders are the key to what makes the graphics in games today look so much better than the graphics in games from let's say 5-8 years ago. These shaders are programmable, so games developers can make their own, allowing them to create a unique look and feel for their game and that is what Funcom has done. Now the problem is that some of these shaders in many area's in the game are not known yet known to your betaclient so when that happens the game uses the graphic card's onboard processing unit (the GPU) to compile (sort of calculate) the shader results and then displays them. The time of compilation is what gives the feeling of insane stuttering which is super annoying.
    
    Q now we know the problem, how does Funcom handle it ?
    
    Funcom thought of this when developing AOC. Their solution was and still is to simply have your computer hold the results of every compilation in memory -so that this stuttering would be a one-time thing as long- as you are standing in that 1 small space or area (let's say the area of thirsty dog inn). When you log off and exit AOC, the AOC client is supposed to write down those results from memory into a file on your harddisk so that all compilation results don't have to be done all over again next time. Upon a clean client exit (which never happens because AOC crashes all the time currently and therefore loses it's compiled shaders) it saves all these changes into a file in the general beta folder and that file is called "shader.cache.local"
    As the result is calculated it's kept into memory as long as it's needed which means that if you leave the area to go and find new "previously unknown shaders" your current ones will be lost from memory and replaced by new ones which means you'll have the stuttering again. Also, after every crash you lost your compilations before your computer had the chance to write them down so you'll have the same stuttering upon next logon...
    
    Q:So what's the magic trick then to get rid of the stuttering ?
    
    Basically whenever your computer has compiled new shaders you want to immediately save those results to disk so your computer gets them from there next time instead of having to do it all over. That way you'll have no or almost no stuttering since it's much faster reading out the results than recompiling them. There's a button in the game that you can press to instantly save the current results of a shader compilation into the shader.cache.local file (you will actually see it grow in size when you do) and you want to do this RIGHT AFTER YOU FORCED/EXPERIENCED SOME STUTTERING because of new shaders being compiled.
    
    Q:so where's that magic button ?
    
    When you are in game, first open the debugging menu:
    
    ctrl + ù for french keyboards
    ctrl + \ for UK keyboards.
    strg + ö for german keyboards.
    
    Then press "dump shaders" because that is the magic button to save the results.
    
    Q:What's the best way to test or use it ? You do it like this:
    
    1. Upon feeling horrible graphics stuttering, stop running and start looking around 360°, move a bit back and forth and explore the very smalll area around your feet a bit until all stuttering stops and everything is fluent (this is when the computer has finished compiling the shaders of that area and has the results freshly in memory)
    2. open the debug menu and press "dump shaders" to save the results to the file on your harddrive. You're safe now for next time you come across this small area
    3. keep on repeating this everytime you experience stuttering in new area's
    4. Check the size of your cache file before and after pressing the dump shaders button. If there's compilation data generated, it will grow. It can't hurt pressing it often.
    
    
    Q:hey I tried it and it's indeed 5-10 times faster but when I restart AOC, it's not immediately ultrafluent. There still is some kind of mini-stuttering for like 1 sec or less everytime I first visit a previously saved area after starting the game. Is this normal ?
    
    Yes this is normal, in fact this is as good as it gets. The client no longer needs to do all calculations but gets them from the precompiled results in your shader.cache.local file instead which is waaaay faster. Still it has to get them so it's normal to generate a small load, but nothing like what you experienced before so be happy and enjoy
    
    
    Q:why doesn't Funcom provide us with a shader.cache.local file that contains ALL the shaders in-game so everything's smooth from the start ?
    
    That is in fact their plan but it's not that easy: different cards and chipsets compile to different results so it's hard to make 1 file that has everything compiled for ALL videocards in the world. However, Funcom does plan to include shader.cache.local files with precompiled shaders for most known cards at around releasetime probably. In the meantime help yourself and make your own so you can play without stuttering !
    
    Note: remember to backup that cache file regularly. If you reinstall the game or if a patch destroys it, you will want to copy your backed up version back to your gamedir to avoid going through all stuttering again
    
    RAM

     

    The amount of memory installed in your computer is absolutely critical to running this game smooth. The game itself has been developped as a 32-bit executable with LA (large address awareness) enabled. What does this mean? 32-bit executables are by design restricted to 2GB per running process on a 32bit OS. (ageofconan32.exe = 1 process = the whole game) As you zone to the inn or other zones, the executable size in memory will try to cache all this information (= keep it loaded in memory in the form of ageofconan32.exe growing in memory usage size) to give you a smoother gaming experience. I have noticed that the "working set" of the executable grows to as large as 2.6GB (since latest checkup), this is how much of your physically present RAM is being used by the game. If you don't have that amount of free ram BEFORE starting up the game, your game will slow down after zoning enough times and slow down even further over time until you restart it to make the game use less memory again. For this reason you need under XP at least 2.5GB in your computer to run this game smooth and under Vista at least 3GB. Aside from the physical usage there's also the virtual size (the actual size of the process) which I have seen to grow as large as about 2.9GB after zoning alot. It used to be up to 3.5GB in beta clients before 14april but that is gone.
    
    note: on a default 32-bit windows XP or Vista for that matter, no processes are allowed to grow over 2GB even though the maximum limit of a 32-bit process is 4GB per process. The game will simply crash when it reaches that size unless you make modifications. (you may be experiencing this right now). If and let me stress that only IF you have 3GB or more (4GB preferably) you can configure your Vista or windows XP installation to allow processes to grow over 2GB (at the cost of decreasing your OS's reserved kernel mem however...) so they no longer crash but instead run smoother. This change may be better OR worse for you. On page 4 (post 73) I explain how and why. Do this at your own risk and NEVER if you don't have 4GB of memory in your computer installed. Windows XP 64-bit and Vista 64-bit are by default enabled to allow up to 4GB for any 32-bit process do this so they do not require changes and your executable will not crash when it reaches 2GB on such an OS. Just make sure you have 3GB or more in your computer
    
    note: 4GB is the ideal amount needed to run this smooth along with whatever other stuff you run on your OS (services, background apps, the OS memory itself) Vista will even use the extra memory to help cache other stuff. I have 8 and beyond 4GB you do not notice much more improvement in speed and smoothness so 8GB is NOT necessary for running ONLY this game while having all other apps closed. However having 8GB will help cache other stuff under Vista as well as allow you to simultaneously run a bunch of other windows programs. This is luxury however, not a must have. 3GB is must have minimum for smooth AOC gaming and 2GB means running the game at decreased performance. This is inevitable
    
    note: the speed of the memory is completely trivial when compared to the actual amount of memory.Having e.g 1066 Mhz mem instead of 667Mhz will only yield a 1-3% memory read speed increase which you don't even feel or notice at all ingame
    
    note: although increasing your RAM from 2GB to 3GB is in essence not a direct increase in fps but instead makes the game play and loading/zoning feel alot smoother, it should be noted however that if you lack alot of RAM your FPS will be affected through stuttering etc. Running the game with 1GB e.g will give such problematic play (enough to feel 'unplayable' Having 2GB is therefore a bare minimum for running at all while 3GB is the minimum for running smooth. 4GB is a good standard. More memory with Vista 64 gives you better HD access caching
    
    note: Any 32-bit executable is by design limited to a max of 4GB physical memory usage and a non-modified 32-bit OS further limits it down to 2GB. If the 32-bit executable is marked for "largeaddressaware" (= allowed to grow to 4GB instead of 2G and the 32-bit operating system is set to allow largeaddressaware-processes to grow to 3GB instead of 2GB in mem size, then the executable can grow a bit bigger up to 3GB at a cost. (this is the reason in the first place while all 32-bit OS's further limit down all 32-bit processes to use a maximum of 2GB: because the OS itself can only address 4GB in total and wants to reserve 2GB for it's own (=kernel) operations and play it thus safe) For this reason the ideal situation is to have 6GB or more mem in your computer and have Vista 64-bit as OS. It safely has 2GB for itself and still 4GB free to let the 32-bit executable grow to it's maximum so the game feels like one big smooth train

     

    Hard Drive

     

    Important and severly underestimated. This component does not increase your fps in any way (at least not to a noticeable degree) but DOES effect exclusively ALL ZONING experiences which is pretty much from launching the game to going in and out of zones nonstop (in tortage e.g) The sky is the limit here since the game dir is over 24GB as it is today and parts of that are being loaded into memory as you zone. I have tested the game while running it off a latest generation 7200RPM harddrive (samsung 400G and later on a RAID 0 of two WD Raptor 10000RPM disks. My god the difference is day and night. With the single 7200RPM disk the loading screens take double the time and I can listen to up to an entire song while zoning into the game. On the raid system I could only hear the part of the women with the high voice and I never hear the rest of that song because I'm already ingame. This feels so good. If I had the money I would buy a 32GB HyperOS hyperdrive to run the game on because it would be blazing fast then no doubt. I can only imagine how good that must feel but I'm already very happy with the raid0 system. Adding more than 2 drives to the raid0 made a further improvement in loading times but only marginal like 10% (not worth it imho) For smooth experience ofc you have no data or anything else running off your game disk or raid system except the game and maybe the OS (peferably even only the game itself and nothingelse)

     

     

    Video Card

     

    Critical impact!! This game uses pretty advanced graphics that are at or a bit ahead of it's time. This allows for a visually stunning game under ideal circumstances with future hardware. I have been able to run at 1900*1200 at high graphic settings in a quite smooth way using the 8800GT. A retest with 2 of those in SLI showed that sli does not make any difference in the current game client. Recommended however is a latest gen of graph card for smooth play (nvidia 8800series or ati 3XXX series and up) The graphics card therefore is well worth your money for this game, more than buying the latest processor in any case. The raw clock speed is what makes or breaks fps currently. SLI does NOT work currently! Hope they will fix it soon so I can update this section. The game uses huge textures. Upon measuring videocardmemory usage I noticed that outdoors 512MB is saturated all the time on resolutions 1600*1200 and up. Get 768 or more memory on the card if you can.
    
    note: as of today the game still has some technical issues that cause extreme drops in fps. All players are subject to this regardless their vid card (I talked to many ingame) Even with 2*8800 in sli running at low settings in the lowest resolution you still have this so it's not solvable by hardware. How bad is it ? Well it's like this: you stand still in a high graphs environment and notice 25-65 fps. As soon as you start sprinting or doing a 360° mouselook you may experience insane drops to below 1fps (= extreme stuttering) for a few sec due to the fact of missing precompiled shaders in the shaders cache database. EDIT: as of the april 19 build we now have a solution for this problem!! On page 6 (post 116) I explain why it happens and how to fix the stuttering yourself.
    
    note: not all graphic cards appear to be "well compatible" with AOC. For example the latest badass 9800x2 series are known to give you trouble and low performance in many cases most probably due to bad driver support. all 8800series are rocksolid choices for this game as long as they have 512MB ram on them as an absolute minimum. Don't use a card with less memory !! All latest gen ATI cards such as 29XX and 3XXX series appear to be doing well
    
    note: since 22 april and beyond, more GPU hungry stuff has been enabled in the beta-client. Therefore, as of now the sky is the limit since there is no longer any setup that can run the game at max settings. It is however possible with the latest gen hardware to achieve a framerate of 25-50 all the time without having to disable the game's beauty. I plan to implement a software tweak guide at releasetime once the video options are final (they keep changing currently in the betaclient)

     

    Tips:

     

    1. Turn off "bloom" in advanced graphics options and set shadows to "from characters only". This may almost double your fps if it was enabled before
    2. (optionally) turn off AA (4-25 fps gain on average). AntiAliasing= a GPU hungry technique to improve the visual quality of a game even further
    3. Run the game off a seperate fast disk or raid system (where you only install the game and put no other data or programs) This noticeably helps the loading times during zoning and launching the game
    4. close all other running programs and antivirus before playing AOC and defragment at least twice a week. Use simpleconfig.exe in your gamedir to perform a compression while you sleep (takes ages!)
    5. Run the game fullscreen!
    7. Backup your gamedir before and after every patch

    8. Defrag after each update.
  • Posted: 5/02/08 12:24 PM
    Age of Conan
• • My Beta Impressions

  • Originally posted by Shadus
    

     

    ---

    Originally posted by Terrapin54
    I do not wish to have a eBetaTestingPissingMatch, but I have the same amount of experience with these games as the original poster. The original post is excellent, but based on limited information to the extreme, and bias because of the presumption that this "Stress Test" should work in X manner, etc.

    ---

     

    What I do for a living is systems and network administration with quite a bit of programming. I design and frequently run simulations most of which involve a "stress test" phase, and I analyze the results (compared to real data patterns) to determine a margin of error... and I've been doing this for about 15 years now. Distributed databases and clustered web applications oh my. I -know- they are getting information they need to have a smoother launch. I have -zero- doubt the launch will be smoother than it would have been without this data collection. This is fact.

     

    ---

    Originally posted by Terrapin54
    Funcom is Funcom, not Sigil, not SoE, or any other company.

    ---

     

    haha. Let me parody a line from fight club that applies to this situation perfectly -- "Funcom is not a beautiful and unique snowflake. They are the same decaying organic matter as everything else, and all the developers are all part of the same compost pile."

    What you say is partially true. Sony, Blizzard, Turbine, Sigil, Funcom, CCP, etc, etc, etc. all have minor differences in how they do things specifically in regards to betas, development, infrastructure, design, etc, but when it comes down to a technical level they all need to know roughly the same information about any mmo they're dealing with... and in major ways, they all operate roughly the same. To claim otherwise is fanboy fanaticism at its furthest extreme... I was also there for early AO beta and later the stress test where I'm sure they got good data also. They went on to have one of the worst launches in mmo history even though hundreds of people in the beta long before the stress test were telling them, "this isn't even close to ready." This is fact.

    Ever notice how companies tend to make the same screw ups over and over? UO2, UOX, etc. SWG, EQ2, Vanguard... IMO (and it is just an opinion) they're repeating the same mistake with AoC. It needs more time being polished up... at least a month more than they have, maybe more yet depending on how effective they are at getting things cleaned up. Which is why I canceled my pre-order. To pay for half finished software is to reinforce the behavior of shipping software half baked. I won't do that, its prevalent enough in the computer games industry.

     

    ---

    Originally posted by Terrapin54
    This is the same company that released a horrid release with AO, but turned that prodcut around to be one of the best MMO's ever created.
    

    ---

     

    That's an opinion, not a fact :) One of the best sci-fi mmo? Definitely. Course the field isn't very large either. They're going into the most heavily contested genre of mmo... they have to be top of their game or they're going to do pathetically poorly. I'm not a marketing expert, but my past experience tells me this. Launches like AO can break a game. Clients like vanguards can break a game. This is also an opinion.

     

    ---

    Originally posted by Terrapin54
    They have the experience and resources to know what they are up against, and how to meet the challenges. If they tell you, as clear as day what is quoted above, you have a choice, believe it, or don't.
    What matters, will be release, and the fixes during the 30-day free play time that comes with the game. If you decide not to move forward, based upon your experience in this stress test, that's your choice, but try and be humble enough to recognize you may not know WTF you are actually talking about. Thank you -Terrapin

    ---

     

    Unfortunately when it comes to the technical aspects of simulations on distributed applications and databases, I do know "WTF you are actually talking about." Combine that with a lot of beta experience from late alpha to late beta and pictures start to come together. Is there a way for me to be 100% sure I'm right? Nope... I've even had results from simulations I've run come up and utterly shock me occasionally. Believe me, in this case I *want* to be so wrong. However, doing what I do, knowing what I know, and applying past experience to the formula, I'm unwilling to put my money up against the odds.

    Above and beyond all of that... I discounted most of the issues as being correctable except for the game play ones. I just don't care for the game play and a lot of the instancing choices they made. So what was the point of your post again?

    
    I respect your experience and education.   I don't buy-in to your forgone conclusions.   You do not work for Funcom.  You do not work on the source code of the game.        Much of your conclusion is "opinion", yet it is backed up with information that suggests fact.      In the next half hour, I shall be posting another thread with detailed information with regard to performance, use of shaders, and insight to "why" players are having varying experiences in the game.      If you see it, I hope you find it helpful.

    The point of my post, is that while educated and articulate, folks should still read your post as an opinion, not a fact, with a good dose of salt.

    Thanks -Terrapin

  • Posted: 5/02/08 11:34 AM
    Age of Conan