Are we ever gonna see a true engine overhaul?[Merged]

[vinterberg.2783]

It seems to me all you did with the DX11 update was to ducttape a storebought DX9->DX11 extension to your engine.

I run a 10900K + RTX 3070 and areas with many people (like Tequatl) still drops down to sub-20 fps - a leyline event actually dropped below 1 fps for several seconds, when everybody started attacking.
I have a suspicion your engine does skeleton animations, cloth simulation, particle systems and alot of other stuff on the CPU, and not the GPU as it really should be - because it's put together from pieces of the ancient GW1 engine AFAIK. It's the only thing that can explain why frames drop so heavily as soon as you're in a heavily-populated area. A few CPU threads are maxed out, the rest are idle, while the graphics card is downclocking to 900 MHz and yawning because of lack of work. That's not a proper multithreaded engine!
It's better than nothing that you went for the easy road with a readymade extension so you didn't have to restructure your engine much, if at all - but will you ever get around to it? Bring it into 2022?

No DX9->DX11 extension can ever fix whatever it is you do before you send the graphics data to the extension.
Would really like an answer as to why the engine struggles so much rendering players in high numbers  - and don't come and say it's "the drawcalls", modern PCs can handle many many thousand drawcalls without issues. It can only be your animation/cloth/skin etc systems that relies waaaay to much on the CPU. It has been many years since those things was done on the CPU.

[Valisha.8650]

Probably all depends on EoD. If it's a success, they might re-work the graphics. If it's a fail... prepare for +999 condition damage infusions, 800 gems each.

On the optimistic side, once they upgrade to DX11, the DX12 addon will become much more efficient, as it will only have to "translate" from one generation of DirectX (11->12).

[vinterberg.2783]

My hopes for a true engine upgrade is very low, it seems like they're content with the "solution" they are doing now 😐

ESO went for a true DX11 multithreaded upgrade/overhaul, and it run 144+ fps no matter what I do in that game, even in cities with many people and such.

If the code isn't easily upgraded, the engine wasn't properly structured to begin with. Which I'm sure it isn't, probably hardcoded alot of stuff everywhere, instead of making functions that structure it all and keep it in few places for easier edits.

[Tai Kratos.3247]

I got a new PC not too long ago that finally wasn't an outdated piece of junk. I was super bummed when I booted up GW2 and experienced similar graphical stuttering to what I had before on far inferior hardware. I don't know about all the technical ins and outs of the rendering pipeline, but I know that was both confusing and disappointing. So +1 here.

[Nightcore.5621]

Pp

46 minutes ago, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

I got a new PC not too long ago that finally wasn't an outdated piece of junk. I was super bummed when I booted up GW2 and experienced similar graphical stuttering to what I had before on far inferior hardware. I don't know about all the technical ins and outs of the rendering pipeline, but I know that was both confusing and disappointing. So +1 here.

Yes graphical this game looks really outdated sadly. Lets Hope 1 Day they update All the low textures this game surffer from

[Scavarius.6059]

you want anet to rewrite a 20ish old custom engine. just so you can have more fps with your fancy hardware. its odd actually, i never drop that low, and my trashcan of a pc is almost 6 years old.

so no, i'd rater have them spend their time on something else.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

As nice as it would be to have an engine upgrade, I want to see how they finish out the DX11 update they started.  As it stands the Beta DX11 implementation was massive increase in FPS for the 3 PC's I run here, but it still has some graphical issues, like shaders and textures breaking.

Once DX11 for GW2 gets out of Beta, we may see the path for future graphics updates.

[Dawdler.8521]

Still pretty certain that it is effects that cause it to chug, not so much physics.

I havent done a big PvE boss in ages but I am curious if the "bug" remains where you can be chugging along at a "normal" 20fps mauling a boss with 50+ other peeps and suddenly it goes 60+ buttery smooth fps for a couple of seconds before it start chugging again, with no apparent change to what's happening on screen. Or maybe that was just my machine (and no I'm not talking about vsync or anything like that).

Edited February 8, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[MaliceTFT.3691]

5 hours ago, Scavarius.6059 said:

and my trashcan of a pc is almost 6 years old

 

Well, that's exactly why you don't notice as much if any problem. Your hardware is old enough that it still recognizes their old engine as nice and shiny. Newer hardware doesn't run old engines well.

-

I would like to see them finish the DX11 upgrade and hopefully it gets better once it's all said and done but if not then maybe they'll start work on GW3 (probably not but we can hope?) and a new engine if they have no plans to upgrade the current engine. 

[vinterberg.2783]

8 hours ago, Scavarius.6059 said:

you want anet to rewrite a 20ish old custom engine. just so you can have more fps with your fancy hardware. its odd actually, i never drop that low, and my trashcan of a pc is almost 6 years old.

so no, i'd rater have them spend their time on something else.

No, not rewrite but find the cause for why especially rendering characters and effects causes it to choke. Can't take long to fix. Funny how people often reply with "I'd rather they spend time on something else", as if working out these issues would make everything else stand still - do you think they only got one developer?? It is very much possible that the person working on the DX11 upgrade can also take a look at this at the same time, with lower priority. 

And yes, since I'm not the only one with "fancy hardware" the game really ought to perform much better. Sure, the DX11 upgrade made things better, but by no means good enough looking at how simple the graphics are. It cannot be right that I have to run with settings that makes all other players look like brown clones just to play big metas fluently. I run everything on max, because the game should be able to in 2022.

I'm sure many people would love a smoother experience. Got many friends with "trashcan pcs" as you say who are new players to the game, who has to lower settings and fiddle with them until it plays acceptably - only to find certain world events almost unplayable. GW2 is still way too CPU bound, and it makes it hard to get them keep playing when their experience isn't that great in terms of performance compared to what the game looks like. 

Edited February 9, 2022 by vinterberg.2783

[Stormcrow.7513]

Hai,

I would love a new engine or rewrite but I doubt that is in the cards. I am still flabbergasted that they have included dx11.

I can sympathize with the OP. Set you graphics to whatever you want but it is the player limit and quality(I believe) that will make any PC bog down. Set those to low/low med/med ? 

I run 2k cranked with Gshade dx11 and its great until zergtime, that's when other players need culling.

[vinterberg.2783]

Yeah will have to set those to medium when doing large zergs, I guess.. But would prefer to enjoy seeing other players in their full glory ❤️

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, vinterberg.2783 said:

do you think they only got one developer?? It is very much possible that the person working on the DX11 upgrade can also take a look at this at the same time, with lower priority. 

Only one person is listed as engine developer, so I think the answer is yes, lol.

[vinterberg.2783]

38 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Only one person is listed as engine developer, so I think the answer is yes, lol.

Yes, but people make it sound like if he works on this along with his DX11 upgrade, the entire game development comes to a halt. There's alot of other people working on all the other stuff. So we can absolutely have both. 

[kharmin.7683]

5 hours ago, vinterberg.2783 said:

No, not rewrite but find the cause for why especially rendering characters and effects causes it to choke. Can't take long to fix.

 

Because you know precisely how the code is written and the resources needed to effect this change.

[vinterberg.2783]

28 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Because you know precisely how the code is written and the resources needed to effect this change.

It cannot take years to improve.

Don't understand why so many is satisfied with the current performance in big groups, meanwhile I see people leave the game because they cannot play it properly in events such as Tequatl, Auric Basin and so on even with lower settings. 

Edited February 9, 2022 by vinterberg.2783

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, vinterberg.2783 said:

It cannot take years to improve.

 

So, you do know how the code is written then.  Or, perhaps, you have insider knowledge of the resources available needed and why Anet has thus far refused to make this change. 

[Dawdler.8521]

26 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

So, you do know how the code is written then.  Or, perhaps, you have insider knowledge of the resources available needed and why Anet has thus far refused to make this change. 

Well tbh it is probably the same reason there has been an invisible 2x2x4 meter wall section on DBL T2/3 garri that Anet has been completely unable to fix in the past 5+ years.

I can just imagine 30+ Anet programmers and graphics artists sitting around a huge table covered in years of rejected blueprints, whiteboards all around with crude drawings of squares surrounded by question marks and someone laying unconcious on a sofa after having spent the last 48 hours straight with a VR headset trying to figure out how 3 points in space can create something that blocks your vision. 

From another room you hear someone yell yo boss I modeled, animated and uv mapped this new raptor in 10 minutes and its on the gemstore now, can I help with that wall? and someone at the table just smash their hands down and yell NO WE CANT AFFORD TO LOOSE YOU TOO, KEEP DOING GEMSTORE ITEMS!

[vinterberg.2783]

1 hour ago, kharmin.7683 said:

So, you do know how the code is written then.  Or, perhaps, you have insider knowledge of the resources available needed and why Anet has thus far refused to make this change. 

They haven't refused anything, it's probably just not something they deem important enough. If they really cannot change it, how professional are they really.. 

People defending ANet with "the code is a huge ball of twine" are a bit out there, if a studio with professional coders did a whole game this way they shouldn't make games in the first place. 

 

But you seem eager to argue and nitpick every word, instead of providing anything meaningful to the conversation. 

[kharmin.7683]

11 minutes ago, vinterberg.2783 said:

But you seem eager to argue and nitpick every word, instead of providing anything meaningful to the conversation. 

Well, you're the one making claims about how easy it is to make changes.  I just assumed that you knew.  Guess that's really not the case.

[vinterberg.2783]

I have made seversl 3D engines from scratch, and know how important it is to develop and structure them in a way that makes changes manageable, so yes - it shouldn't take ANet 10 years to make this perform better. Not by a long shot. They have advanced profilers that shows exactly where the bottlenecks are. If the engine developer can spend a year implementing a DX9->DX11 layer, he should be able to fix this also in a reasonable amount of time. 

They are not amateur indie developers. 

 

But won't discuss this any further with you, since you're not providing anything constructive to this debate but instead just want me to look like the bad guy - yet all I ask for is that they make it perform better so all players get a better experience. That shouldn't be wrong to ask for. 

[Cuks.8241]

What  baffles me with this game's development and PR are these strange excuses about spaghetti code or all the original developers left so there is noone to fix it and so on. It's basicaly stating you are incompetent and unable to develop your products.

It really doesnt matter in what industry you are working. I just can't imagine someone working in development giving such an excuse and keeping his job. And to actually give such public statements.

And like vinterberg said, this is not some amateur indie developer, they have decent revenue and this has been going on for years. 

[Doggie.3184]

12 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

What  baffles me with this game's development and PR are these strange excuses about spaghetti code or all the original developers left so there is noone to fix it and so on. It's basicaly stating you are incompetent and unable to develop your products.

It really doesnt matter in what industry you are working. I just can't imagine someone working in development giving such an excuse and keeping his job. And to actually give such public statements.

And like vinterberg said, this is not some amateur indie developer, they have decent revenue and this has been going on for years. 

Their support doesn't even know how their game works u.u I had to look up solutions other users found on forums and reddit to why their game likes to randomly kick to character selection all the time in instances for example, which is entirely the game's fault. But support was trying to blame it on potential conflicting apps like it was my fault and wanting me to install some potentially harmful abandonware to test it, which would've been a huge waste of time.

[KrHome.1920]

The DX11 update fixed only the draw call limitations of the old DX9 renderer, because these became more and more an issue as asset complexity (more objects with more polygons) increases with each expansion. I am not even sure whether they actually fixed it via multithreading or whether the engine now simply compiles shaders during loading screens instead on the fly like before - which killed CPU performance and caused stutters. 

Besides that the game performes exactly the same like before.  Just go to a low population area with a low amount of objects on the screen and the fps of DX9 and 11 are identical.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

29 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

What  baffles me with this game's development and PR are these strange excuses about spaghetti code or all the original developers left so there is noone to fix it and so on. It's basicaly stating you are incompetent and unable to develop your products.

It really doesnt matter in what industry you are working. I just can't imagine someone working in development giving such an excuse and keeping his job. And to actually give such public statements.

And like vinterberg said, this is not some amateur indie developer, they have decent revenue and this has been going on for years. 

This is far more common than you think.  Almost every software team I have worked on has, at some point, had to invest time into learning and disseminating old code that no one understood.  This usually happens when the developers and coders who broke ground on a project are making design decisions based upon the tools and knowledge they have at the time.  As those team members move on, tools change, methodology is updated,the knowhow of what was built, how it was built and why it was built is also lost.

Usually it is faster to build new code on top of the old code and over time you end up with code built upon code built upon code.  It only compounds the issue.  However you can only do that so long, like 5-10 years, before you either have to stop adding new code, or just need to wipe it out and start over.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364