Game & Engine Performance

[FlawleZ]

One of the first things I'm always interested in is how well a game will scale on my PC's hardware. Now given, I have multiple well setup PC's so I'm quite confident I won't have any issues running the game on high settings especially since we know its built on the TQ engine. However, Is there anymore information or details concerning the performance of Grim Dawn vs Titan Quest? Should we expect Titan Quest performance +/- 5 to 10%?

[Chameleon]

That reminds me, I was going to ask what the pc specs are likely to be for GD.

Oh and are we going to have the rubber banding fun that we have in TQ? ;)

[heron]

that rubberbanding ruined Immortal throne for me, I hope GD steer away from such bug.

[Renevent]

I always hear people talking about this rubber banding thing...what was the issue? The worst thing I ever experienced in TQ was the occasional stutter.

[heron]

I always hear people talking about this rubber banding thing...what was the issue? The worst thing I ever experienced in TQ was the occasional stutter.

the speed slows down then a few seconds later it catches up with super speed.

[Mines51]

to my knowledge, rubberbanding is when certain NPC's would stretch across terrain if they fell the wrong way after they are killed, their whole bodies usually become warped

[Renevent]

the speed slows down then a few seconds later it catches up with super speed.

Ok...I think I have seen some of that...not that bad though and certainly not enough to actually ruin the game :p

I was thinking something else though, in MMO's rubber banding means something else.

[medierra]

If you could run TQ, you should be able to run GD better. We've made a few technical improvements but mainly we are development and using game assets much more wisely. There are parts of TQ:IT especially, where there are just too many different performance-taxing things going on at once.

Once thing we have completely eliminated is bloom, which was a major performance drain. We felt like it just wasn't worth it and instead we've been able to add in a few features that aren't nearly as intensive but give you a lot more bang for the buck.

Some of the changes we've made to the way enemies work has also increased performance significantly. I test the game on a fairly mediocre 4-year old machine and often see over 90fps on high settings. I think this might drop a bit in some areas of the game as we add more content but we're being very cautious and making a significant effort to maintain good frame-rate throughout.

I think we may have fixed rubber-banding but I'm not 100% sure. Rubber-banding is really just a symptom of bad performance. Specifically, it tends to happen when there are frequent, sudden spikes in performance. So, the problem is not necessarily that the memory manager can cause the game to rubber-band, its that there are terrible performance spikes. The alternative would be a game that just hitches horribly and I don't think that is much better of a solution. We think we fixed the underlying problem that was causing the giant performance spikes and haven't seen any rubber-banding since. As long as we take measures to ensure good performance, there shouldn't be anymore.

That said, if people experience this type of problem again after release, or any problem for that matter, we will be here working tirelessly to fix it. We're not building this game on contract for a publisher, we're building it as our own product at our own expense. In order to ensure it's success after release, we will be dedicated to improving and expanding upon it.

[Scryer]

One problem I had in TQ is that sometimes items would drop off an edge, please make this impossible.

[heron]

The original titan quest ran flawless on the highest settings except immortal throne for some odd reason (rubberbanding).

[yerkyerk]

One problem I had in TQ is that sometimes items would drop off an edge, please make this impossible.

You could still pick items up according where they first hit the floor. So, unless they fell down straight away (which hardly ever happens) it was still possible to pick them up.

[ASYLUM101]

Yeah, I've always been able to pick up items after they've fallen off a cliff. The only exception was when I threw the Argos Spear off the tower of judgement....

[FlawleZ]

If you could run TQ, you should be able to run GD better. We've made a few technical improvements but mainly we are development and using game assets much more wisely. There are parts of TQ:IT especially, where there are just too many different performance-taxing things going on at once.

Once thing we have completely eliminated is bloom, which was a major performance drain. We felt like it just wasn't worth it and instead we've been able to add in a few features that aren't nearly as intensive but give you a lot more bang for the buck.

Some of the changes we've made to the way enemies work has also increased performance significantly. I test the game on a fairly mediocre 4-year old machine and often see over 90fps on high settings. I think this might drop a bit in some areas of the game as we add more content but we're being very cautious and making a significant effort to maintain good frame-rate throughout.

I think we may have fixed rubber-banding but I'm not 100% sure. Rubber-banding is really just a symptom of bad performance. Specifically, it tends to happen when there are frequent, sudden spikes in performance. So, the problem is not necessarily that the memory manager can cause the game to rubber-band, its that there are terrible performance spikes. The alternative would be a game that just hitches horribly and I don't think that is much better of a solution. We think we fixed the underlying problem that was causing the giant performance spikes and haven't seen any rubber-banding since. As long as we take measures to ensure good performance, there shouldn't be anymore.

That said, if people experience this type of problem again after release, or any problem for that matter, we will be here working tirelessly to fix it. We're not building this game on contract for a publisher, we're building it as our own product at our own expense. In order to ensure it's success after release, we will be dedicated to improving and expanding upon it.


This is good news! However, if anything you guys have more breathing room for performance as its 3-4 years later down the road from development of TQ, and the average PC is going to be faster. You mentioned many things going on at once that were taxing, does this mean we will notice a significant difference in detail level between Titan Quest and Grim Dawn? I always thought TQ looked beautiful so as long as its on par (or better) I would be happy. Also, with the exlusion of bloom, will there be any elements of HDR used instead?

[Nephlyte]

If you could run TQ, you should be able to run GD better. We've made a few technical improvements but mainly we are development and using game assets much more wisely. There are parts of TQ:IT especially, where there are just too many different performance-taxing things going on at once.

Once thing we have completely eliminated is bloom, which was a major performance drain. We felt like it just wasn't worth it and instead we've been able to add in a few features that aren't nearly as intensive but give you a lot more bang for the buck.

Some of the changes we've made to the way enemies work has also increased performance significantly. I test the game on a fairly mediocre 4-year old machine and often see over 90fps on high settings. I think this might drop a bit in some areas of the game as we add more content but we're being very cautious and making a significant effort to maintain good frame-rate throughout.

I think we may have fixed rubber-banding but I'm not 100% sure. Rubber-banding is really just a symptom of bad performance. Specifically, it tends to happen when there are frequent, sudden spikes in performance. So, the problem is not necessarily that the memory manager can cause the game to rubber-band, its that there are terrible performance spikes. The alternative would be a game that just hitches horribly and I don't think that is much better of a solution. We think we fixed the underlying problem that was causing the giant performance spikes and haven't seen any rubber-banding since. As long as we take measures to ensure good performance, there shouldn't be anymore.

That said, if people experience this type of problem again after release, or any problem for that matter, we will be here working tirelessly to fix it. We're not building this game on contract for a publisher, we're building it as our own product at our own expense. In order to ensure it's success after release, we will be dedicated to improving and expanding upon it.

AMEN Brother!!! As much as i loved this game those lag spikes shit me to tears

[Llama8]

Is there going to be any form of support for multi-core cpus?

[CaptainDingo]

One problem I had in TQ is that sometimes items would drop off an edge, please make this impossible.

Personally I thought that was hilarious.

Like, hilarious in a sense that "Wow, I just lost that ultra rare item I needed off a cliff, I'm going to laugh myself into a coma", but hilarious nonetheless.

[Mines51]

That is a bit discouraging to see an epic item just fly off the side off the cliff. Makes you die a little inside, hopefully this won't be a problem in GD.

[Rhis]

I think the solution here is really to just not kill things next to cliffs if you expect to keep the loot 100% of the time instead of 99%.

It's not like items are making an extra effort to throw themselves over the nearest cliff from 50 feet away. :D

[Mines51]

True that, will there be a lot of cliffs in GD, as there was in TQ?

[FlawleZ]

Is there going to be any form of support for multi-core cpus?

Good question. While TQ isn't extremely CPU intensive, it would be nice to see it take advantage of 2+ cores to distribute workload and maintain a smooth experience as data fed from the VGA is consistent and without a hiccup.

[k4llu5]

One problem I had in TQ is that sometimes items would drop off an edge, please make this impossible.

I thought that was pretty cool. Many times I would see something fly out of a chest and see it bounce down the road (yeah sometimes over a cliff too), but this added immersion for me. You can just picture your toon saying "Oh s***" and chasing after it.

[Llama8]

Good question. While TQ isn't extremely CPU intensive, it would be nice to see it take advantage of 2+ cores to distribute workload and maintain a smooth experience as data fed from the VGA is consistent and without a hiccup.

Probably not, but it would (presumably) allow them to spend more cpu cycles on useful stuff like AI.

[Sebbu]

Once thing we have completely eliminated is bloom

Good news !!! ... mmmh i think .... because i recently bought the 3d vision glasses and TQ look awsome with it but the bloom in many games looks flat and appears to be to the front of the screen (not in the good 3d position)

so that's a good news for 3d vision owners

and about flying objects ... that's the best of the game !!! why are we killing so many monsters (without the fact that we want to follow the story) ?

because we love seeing object bouncing of dying monsters particularly (<-- is this word correct ?) Epic ones

[heron]

You can turn off "bloom" in TQ by unchecking the advance graphics in the option window.

I would leave bloom in GD and have the option to turn it off.
Why take something away when it's already built into the engine?

[CaptainDingo]

You can turn off "bloom" in TQ by unchecking the advance graphics in the option window.

I would leave bloom in GD and have the option to turn it off.
Why take something away when it's already built into the engine?

Well, because that would add in a sense of "If we can, we should" and might interfere with the game design.

As a general rule, your ultimate vision for the game should be displayed as the "max" visual settings. If their artistic rendition of Grim Dark doesn't suit bloom, adding it would muddle with the look of the game.

If I had a game that didn't benefit from bump mapping (or looked weird or wrong with it), I wouldn't add them anyways as an option just so people can test their hardware, you know? :p

[chris01]

Warning I dont want to ,,show off,, my pc im just asking

will a pc with 4 gpus at 2.66 a sapphire 5770 4 gigs of ram,run Grim Dawn??

please reply:)

[heron]

If the developer decides bloom is not part of the design, they can leave it off as default.
The user can simply turn it on through the settings.dat or in game option window.

What I'm trying to say is why take something away when it's already coded in?
Example, in Torchlight/TQ the camera was set to isometric view but someone managed to unlock it.

[yerkyerk]

Well, bloom isn't used, why would you want to turn it on/off? It's confusing and rather pointless to give users options that have no effect.

[heron]

Trust me, we like bloom. We like glowy things :)

[k4llu5]

TL had no bloom and it had glowy things.

[medierra]

Warning I dont want to ,,show off,, my pc im just asking

will a pc with 4 gpus at 2.66 a sapphire 5770 4 gigs of ram,run Grim Dawn??

please reply:)

Show off!

What do you think? :p

[medierra]

You can turn off "bloom" in TQ by unchecking the advance graphics in the option window.

I would leave bloom in GD and have the option to turn it off.
Why take something away when it's already built into the engine?

Bloom isn't currently in GD. The engine is capable of it but we would have to manually add it to all the levels. This isn't a lot of work but we don't think bloom does anything to visually enhance the environments given the art direction we are shooting for in GD. Beyond that, it is extremely taxing on performance for a very subtle effect.

Finally, as someone mentioned, some people are very poor at moderating their own settings. I can't tell you how many times I heard people complaining that they couldn't run TQ at max settings even though they had this amazing computer with a brand new, top of the line graphics card. Then I'd talk to them to try to get specifics and discover that though their graphics card was a brand new, high-end model, it was the 128mb version or something like that. The reality is that it is almost always better to have an older card with higher memory than a newer card with less. Newer card models can sometimes enable new graphically intense features that they don't have the memory to effectively run. I don't know why card manufacturers even bother making those models other than to scam people with little hardware knowledge into paying too much for a budget product. Many of you are probably well aware of this but some aren't and it can cause a giant headache for developers.

[Malpheas]

Yeah, one of the reasons Sacred staff always asked for a DxDIAG text post on forums.

[heron]

TL had no bloom and it had glowy things.

I think bloom is like a filter that makes everything look ghostly-glow.
Something like a bleeding glow?

[medierra]

This is good news! However, if anything you guys have more breathing room for performance as its 3-4 years later down the road from development of TQ, and the average PC is going to be faster. You mentioned many things going on at once that were taxing, does this mean we will notice a significant difference in detail level between Titan Quest and Grim Dawn? I always thought TQ looked beautiful so as long as its on par (or better) I would be happy. Also, with the exlusion of bloom, will there be any elements of HDR used instead?

The level of detail should be equal or better. Advances in technology and methods for creating art allow us to achieve a better look in some cases with without any effect on performance. We've also added a couple minor graphics features that should have a major impact on the appearance of the world without much effect on performance.

When I talk about too many things going on at once I basically just mean that if we have a scene with tons of enemies wearing tons of items, where you can also look over a cliff and see a forest of trees below with a lake and a giant waterfall spewing tons of huge particle effects, we shouldn't also be using the crystal shader, a giant distortion effect, bloom, and 20 shadow-casting torch lights.

We won't have HDR lighting because in a top down ARPG where you can't look at the sky, it wouldn't really have much effect. You also probably won't notice the lack of bloom since TQ didn't originally include bloom and even after Immortal Throne most of the levels still don't use it. The only place I am sure that bloom was used is the Elysian Fields in TQ:IT.

[medierra]

I think bloom is like a filter that makes everything look ghostly-glow.
Something like a bleeding glow?

That pretty much sums it up. It basically causes a subtle glow around objects where bright light is hitting them and the color values are being pushed close to white. Since the environments in GD are darker, you wouldn't see it as much anyway.

[shawnmck]

I never really had any problems with TQ.
Granted, my graphics card wasn't the best and I occasionally had stuttering frame-rates (mostly during night cycles), but for the most part I thought TQ ran extremely well. Better than any other game I've ever played. I am really glad that the same engine is being used. If it ain't broke, why fix it ? :p

[yerkyerk]

But is it possible to leave the bloom on/off option somewhere in notepad settings?
If it is still in the editor, it can be used for mods :)

[medierra]

But is it possible to leave the bloom on/off option somewhere in notepad settings?
If it is still in the editor, it can be used for mods :)

Bloom will work as it always has and will still be enabled when you choose advanced settings. We just aren't painting it into all the levels. Who knows, maybe we'll use it in a specific area of the game where we feel it would have a positive visual impact without taxing performance too much.

[Llama8]

Bloom will work as it always has and will still be enabled when you choose advanced settings. We just aren't painting it into all the levels.

So you could turn the option on but there wouldn't be any data for the gfx card to process, hence no bleedin glow. ;)