Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions Divinity 2 question, no forum to ask it in

I ran it fine when I had a Voodoo 3 2000 but as soon as I put a Hercules GeForce 2 GTS, it didn't run as well. And as I remember, I couldn't patch it.

Was the intire screen yellow and blue and a bit red. I had that problem installes drivers and use 8 bit textures(or what ever that option was in the installation)and it worked fine

Thank you Marian for helping out. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
If that was the point, then where is the pointer? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
I do accept the fact that Humility is a virtue and pride is a vice.
However, it is not like when your virtue depends on a roll of dice.
It is not new for me to face such attempts with a heart bathed in ice.
Sell me your hearts at the highest bid, here goes once, twice and thrice.
Now give us the damn game so that we may click at it with our mice. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />


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DAD you really really should be the jester(if theire is one) in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" />. And i'll be your student Morbos (Morbo is trademarked) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" />

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We really should go back on topic afterall the look of <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />2 may depend on it
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It's a deal. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

I never call him Swen, I always call him Lar.

( I know this is off topic, but I don't care. )

back to marian's request on our opinions: 3D or pseudo 3D for RPG & why?

one thing for sure, he didn't ask whether it's isometric or FP-mode or just plain MUD. he did mentioned that it is another issue altogether which can be a topic in itself. no doubt DAD's expert 3D nitpicking ability will be showcased there as well.

personally if it doesn't tax my system 2 much, sure i'll vote for true 3D. the possibility is a hell lot more than pseudo 3D. u can pan & zoom so your view of the battle is better & hence better tactics can be applied. plus, views will no longer be obstructed by limited camera angles presented by pseudo 3D. we no longer have 2 miss anything just because the 2D sprites aren't transparent enough 2 show us that the item is there. this happened 2 me in fallout tactics when i have 2 find a mission critical item. u have 2 slowly move your cursors all over the graphics like phantasmagoria to find the stuff.

thing about pseudo 3D is that it's the first in graphical RPG. that's why most of us RPGamers may opt for it. it's been there for so long that it becomes traditional. 3D is very much resisted. heck even people doubt at one time RTS shouldn't be in 3D. but now there's so many of them 3D RTSes. deathatthedoor pointed out that deus ex is in FPS & 3D which are quite a no-no for certain groups of sprite lovers but the game works effectively.

marian, u're the graphics guy for larian. do u think sudden move 2 pure 3D environment & objects can be made effectively for DD2? now with gradual move towards 3D starting with objects & characters, maybe u can gauge the ability of larian 2 do true 3D or continue in slow graduation towards that. westwood & red storm(i think) had tried 2D engine 2 work like 3D but it ended up slowing everything down. not optimised well? don't know but i hope the decisions larian make will be a right one which makes better games for us 2 enjoy.

note: dungeon siege is nice except for its washed out colours.

Dear Janggut,
Allow me to try to make a very important point clear.
It is not true that a “real 3d runtime engine” rendered picture is better than a pseudo 3d displayed picture.
Let me go verbose here to make it even clearer.
Given any system with a maximum computation power and instruction execution in X MIPS, we need a certain time to calculate a screen.
In real 3D we are forced to finish rendering within the time frame of a single frame, which is typically more than 15 frames per second, optimally 24 frames per second and superbly at 100 frames per second.
With this in mind, it should be obvious that we have a limited resolution that can be handled to form a 3d screen using polygons, the three corners of each, which have each three coordinates in the (x,y,z) Cartesian space. This means that the minimal surface is a triangle, where each corner must be defined in space by three integers. To increase the resolution by a factor of two from 800 to 1600 and from 600 to 1200 means that we have four times the first area not just twice. Therefore we call it a geometrical rather than an arithmetic multiple.
In a three dimensional world this climbs to cubic measures rather than just being the square of the first.
That is why Zooming out in real 3D must be a resolution catastrophe. That is why resolution must be sacrificed because we have a fixed time frame in which the data of a screen’s frame must be ready to display.

When pseudo 3D isometric screens are used, this is not a problem at all, because the entire world’s map is previously rendered at its leisure and slow pace for the highest resolution. Once a perfectly rendered world is ready to save it is saved to disk and later on a specific crop of that whole world is addressed for being displayed.
When the player chooses the highest resolution and zooms in, the map is displayed at 1:1 scale. Zooming out from there simply requires one of three famous techniques to recalculate the map, but it takes time and must be performed during a game pause. An alternative would be to save zoom presets (which demands more disk memory) such that the player may choose one of three or four zoom levels; with one map for each level per screen resolution. The same applies to sprites, which are much better looking than 3D real time rendered polygonal objects and characters. A sprite could be the product of infinite curvature and textured surfaces rendered to perfection, but a real 3D character does not have enough time to be produced in such a high quality.
The consequences are obvious.
Pseudo 3D have superior in graphics quality but they consume disk memory like hell, and are very limited to manipulate in real time.
Real 3D is inferior in graphics quality but they hardly consume disk memory and they can be superbly manipulated in real time during game play.

A mixture of both is obviously the best answer because still scenes suck when they are real 3D rendered. OTOH all moving objects do not need to be rendered at high resolution as the eye never really catches any details due to the motion blurring effects. The art of displaying a still hero’s sprite that is real 3D rendered on motion is something I did not see until today on the game market. It is simply based on a first and last sprite encompassing a set of real time 3D rendered mini-frames. This technology should ensure superior graphics quality with the minimal impact on memory demands. World rotation is yet another horrifying issue. There is no way an isometric map could be rotated simply because there is no data for defining any other viewing angles.
That is why the concept of rotating a world demands that that world must be defined as real 3D polygons and then the graphics quality deteriorates when limited time frames dominate the rendering possibilities of each frame in a scene with rotations, panning, zooming, tilting and yawing.
Add to all those problems (as if they were not enough) the problem of casting true shadows and ray tracing, then you have come to a single frame rendering time that varies from seconds to minutes.
In my old golden days, I remember to have rendered a single picture in three days on Amiga 1000. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
Blizzard in WCIII took the decision to make a real 3D G. E. and all its characters are very low resolution polygon-based objects but they added a fantastic touch that made that bad resolution become tolerable.
they added a factor of life to those objects, and you would see the characters breath air constantly, flags flutter under the wind as does some of the leaves of trees. This effect gave a new dimension to the animated scene that made low resolution “forgivable”.

DAD, u must've misunderstood me. i never said that true 3D is graphically better than pseudo 3D. but then again maybe i did. & thanks for the verbose explanation though it's not any more verbose than your previous post which sends me very clear signal already.

what i meant was that if true 3D actually translates to something meaningful in gameplay & experience in which the level of immersion is delved a lot deeper, then go for it. if it's just eye candy & not anything else, then stick 2 pseudo 3D. so far right now DD is proven 2 be a solid marriage of true 3D & pseudo 3D. however marian wonders if going totally for one or the other, i presented my case which is level of immersion & gameplay. ok so 2 cases. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

this issue has been brought up by the id dude, john carmack. he mentioned that if 3D is only eye candy & gameplay isn't innovated by it, then 3D isn't that all groundbreaking. i agree with him. & that's my point in the first place. how beautiful or breathtaking 3D, true or otherwise isn't of utmost importance for me. does 3D makes the game better, is the level of immersion deeper, does it present me with more tactical choice, does it make the game more innovative? those are the questions i ask.

sorry if i didn't make myself clear in my previous post.

OK, let us summarize what was said and make it easier for the average reader first.
T3D = A method in which graphical objects are defined as polygons.
P3D = Previously rendered three dimensional objects but stored as a 2D array of pixels.
Pixel = A single point defined in terms of colour values of RBG.
Textured 3D = 2D maps being overlaid on 3D polygons.


Conditional binaries for decision making:


........If zooming was a declared feature that must be implemented then:-
1- T3D consumes less memory while achieving this objective but if we end up zooming on an X number of flat coloured polygons then no thanks I do not need that.
The criterion here is visual information and visual delight.
Zooming on a score of polygons fails on both criterions.
2- Zooming in steps must be a better choice here because the maximal zoom in must contain information and delight, which is not an option in T3D while it can be superbly achieved in P3D.

........Rotating a world demands T3D definition, therefore:-
1- If the game shall sacrifice quality and /or speed then no thanks we do not want to rotate the map.
2- If this feature is critically important within battle fields then ONLY full screen battle fields may be T3D.

N.B. If memory demands are not going to explode, then a single 180° of arc is very sufficient as a binary rotational option.

With two opposite eye positions about the world’s cube and 3 zoom steps we have a total of six world maps.
This could be augmented by as many battle fields to visit through portals as needed.
In this way we do not lose the fabulous representation of P3D and gain the benefits of T3D as well.

........Other objects that need zooming and rotational manipulation could be implemented inside a dedicated popup window. This makes it possible to display perfectly textured T3D objects without losing information or delight.

........The Party Characters and the Dolls. This is my very personal suggestion here.
It would be fantastic and ground braking if Larian Studios could implement my proposed technology of creating runtime animation strips based on P3D first and last frames interleaved by T3D frames displayed as motion frames. This means that high details are preserved during stillness and only during motion we sacrifice resolution. Or in better words, a T3D character must be textured when it comes to stand still and can lose texture during motion but it must preserve an average colour representing each polygon.

Conclusion:
P3D World Rotational Options:-
North view / South view.
P3D World Zooming Options:-
Max/ Normal / Min

T3D Objects’ manipulation:-
T3D zooming and rotation in a special window interface during game pause.
Object representation on map is via P3D sprites.

T3D Characters’ display:-
Textured on standing and Not Textured during Walk and Run.

Good Luck. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

u're right, DAD. if larian implements real-time scalability in their graphics rendering for the game, it'll be ground-breaking. or not.

i've seen or heard of games that have scalability in their game graphics engine. for example, total annihilation: kingdoms. but then it's all true 3D. & no zoom. so with zoom available with your suggested method, yeah DD2 can really be a groundbreaking game.

game on!