planets and lag

this game is going to have many planets. if you have for example 5 planets(late in the game) a small number if we thing that the total planets are going to be milions and the planets are very developed(many buildings,huge military ....... wont this cause lag(in a medium pc) after some point

bill2505 wrote:

this game is going to have many planets. if you have for example 5 planets(late in the game) a small number if we thing that the total planets are going to be milions and the planets are very developed(many buildings,huge military ....... wont this cause lag(in a medium pc) after some point

I'm no programmer, but most information will be stored in a text file or something similar while not being used (aka, looked at or interacted with). There might be a bit of lag when you are moving to new areas or interacting with something that has been dormant for a while.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

bill2505 wrote:

this game is going to have many planets. if you have for example 5 planets(late in the game) a small number if we thing that the total planets are going to be milions and the planets are very developed(many buildings,huge military ....... wont this cause lag(in a medium pc) after some point

I'm no programmer, but most information will be stored in a text file or something similar while not being used (aka, looked at or interacted with). There might be a bit of lag when you are moving to new areas or interacting with something that has been dormant for a while.

yea but your city in the distant star will keep being active(give resources .... and this will require cpu and ram resource
also what will happens if you have more that 20 planets .what i am trying to say unless you have a high very high system playing a game with a milion planets will be a pain in the one. so in sandbox will we be able to set number of planets

My understanding was that you'd probably send the supplies but they wouldn't 'get there' until you started playing the destination again. OFC, I could be wrong.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

My understanding was that you'd probably send the supplies but they wouldn't 'get there' until you started playing the destination again. OFC, I could be wrong.

if i understand well this is nt realistic too much .maybe resources are send to your capital with trade ships but this i thing will make the game very heavy

There is a game called Sins of a Solar empire that's basically a combat/colonial Space RTS. They can manage up to dozens of planets and bases nicely. Although you don't see your planet's surface, there's a lot of space stations/technology/units to manage and its all done very nicely and without lag. The key to this was, you could see and manage every aspect of your hud. Basically, as long as we run the necessities of any planet/system in the background and allow the player to chose to manage it from there immediate field of view, there should be no problem.

bill2505 wrote:

this game is going to have many planets. if you have for example 5 planets(late in the game) a small number if we thing that the total planets are going to be milions and the planets are very developed(many buildings,huge military ....... wont this cause lag(in a medium pc) after some point

You're confusing memory with RAM. many planets will take up lots of memory, but if their files are not being read and changed, they won't be using ram, and the usage of RAM is what causes lag, not usage of hard drive memory.

~sciocont wrote:

bill2505 wrote:

this game is going to have many planets. if you have for example 5 planets(late in the game) a small number if we thing that the total planets are going to be milions and the planets are very developed(many buildings,huge military ....... wont this cause lag(in a medium pc) after some point

You're confusing memory with RAM. many planets will take up lots of memory, but if their files are not being read and changed, they won't be using ram, and the usage of RAM is what causes lag, not usage of hard drive memory.

yea but your city in the next planet wont be active ?wont give resources.wont grow in population,wont have needs, how this will be handled

bill2505 wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

bill2505 wrote:

this game is going to have many planets. if you have for example 5 planets(late in the game) a small number if we thing that the total planets are going to be milions and the planets are very developed(many buildings,huge military ....... wont this cause lag(in a medium pc) after some point

You're confusing memory with RAM. many planets will take up lots of memory, but if their files are not being read and changed, they won't be using ram, and the usage of RAM is what causes lag, not usage of hard drive memory.

yea but your city in the next planet wont be active ?wont give resources.wont grow in population,wont have needs, how this will be handled

When you are not actually at the planet, it will just stay as a file on your drive. When you want to check the current population or wealth, or another aspect of the planet, the time between when its data was last updated and now is taken, and the development between then and now is quickly simulated to bring it up to date. This should work very well for most planets and cause very little lag, (but more depending on how much detail you are seeing, of course) and the only noticeable lag will be when a planet hasn't been updated in a long time.

The Uteen wrote:

bill2505 wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

bill2505 wrote:

this game is going to have many planets. if you have for example 5 planets(late in the game) a small number if we thing that the total planets are going to be milions and the planets are very developed(many buildings,huge military ....... wont this cause lag(in a medium pc) after some point

You're confusing memory with RAM. many planets will take up lots of memory, but if their files are not being read and changed, they won't be using ram, and the usage of RAM is what causes lag, not usage of hard drive memory.

yea but your city in the next planet wont be active ?wont give resources.wont grow in population,wont have needs, how this will be handled

When you are not actually at the planet, it will just stay as a file on your drive. When you want to check the current population or wealth, or another aspect of the planet, the time between when its data was last updated and now is taken, and the development between then and now is quickly simulated to bring it up to date. This should work very well for most planets and cause very little lag, (but more depending on how much detail you are seeing, of course) and the only noticeable lag will be when a planet hasn't been updated in a long time.

yea but how the resource trade will happen .you will have to update every planet to give you resources or money.so if you dont update your planets no resources are going to be given no attacks will happen to them right?what will happen if someone attacks your planet

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. If you have continuous trade from one planet to another, then you'll just receive resources from that planet on a regular basis. that planet doesn't have to be simulated by the game to do that. An attack can happen on a planet, but if you don't want to go see the attack, the computer will use a very simple procedure to figure out the outcome.

~sciocont wrote:

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. If you have continuous trade from one planet to another, then you'll just receive resources from that planet on a regular basis. that planet doesn't have to be simulated by the game to do that. An attack can happen on a planet, but if you don't want to go see the attack, the computer will use a very simple procedure to figure out the outcome.

you say tha unless you update somehow the planet it will be unactive.i am asking this.
1 will someone have to update every planet individually.
2 you play the game and you update the planets every hour .you have forgoten to update the x planet for some hour and its gets attacked .you try to repel the attack and the planet becomes active again but if when you fight the enemies the planet as is updated finds out that happened a rebelion,electricity is not enought and defences dont work while you get attacked

.also some questions

1 wont the planets have reports when you update

bill2505 wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. If you have continuous trade from one planet to another, then you'll just receive resources from that planet on a regular basis. that planet doesn't have to be simulated by the game to do that. An attack can happen on a planet, but if you don't want to go see the attack, the computer will use a very simple procedure to figure out the outcome.

you say tha unless you update somehow the planet it will be unactive.i am asking this.
1 will someone have to update every planet individually.
2 you play the game and you update the planets every hour .you have forgoten to update the x planet for some hour and its gets attacked .you try to repel the attack and the planet becomes active again but if when you fight the enemies the planet as is updated finds out that happened a rebelion,electricity is not enought and defences dont work while you get attacked

.also some questions

1 wont the planets have reports when you update

What do you mean by "update"?

OK. Listen carefully.

You visit a new planet. It is saved to your hard drive when you leave. AKA, it's not being actively simulated AT ALL when you leave it. It's still there, the game knows it's there, but nothing is being simulated.

So say you come back after an hour. The planet hasn't changed AT ALL, so based on the time you were gone it updates everything that could have changed.

And honestly, adding two numbers in the background doesn't change anything. It's rendering and displaying all your fancy little particles on the planet that takes up so much CPU.

Also, RAM usage has nothing to do with lag until it fills up and you start using the swap. CPU usage = lag.

roadkillguy wrote:

OK. Listen carefully.

You visit a new planet. It is saved to your hard drive when you leave. AKA, it's not being actively simulated AT ALL when you leave it. It's still there, the game knows it's there, but nothing is being simulated.

So say you come back after an hour. The planet hasn't changed AT ALL, so based on the time you were gone it updates everything that could have changed.

And honestly, adding two numbers in the background doesn't change anything. It's rendering and displaying all your fancy little particles on the planet that takes up so much CPU.

Also, RAM usage has nothing to do with lag until it fills up and you start using the swap. CPU usage = lag.

Thank you for your explanations and corrections.
[/thread?]

Actually, I think this guy has a point in that post. If the computer calculates to see if any random occurrences have happened only when you visit the planet, then:

You visit a planet, the computer updates and notifies you that a random occurrence happened two hours ago, in which, to exaggerate a bit, the entire population was killed by plague.

Now, this plague was only added in by the computer when you visited, so then what if:

An enemy attacks the planet one hour before you visit it, and the battle procedures decide they were wiped out. Then, one hour later, you visit the planet, the game adds in the plague two hours ago and... Logically, the enemies one hour ago were wiped out by a dead planet.

So, yeah. This is assuming the random events are calculated only when the planet data updates, and the player does have evidence that the enemy fleet was dispatched one hour ago to that location, and lost.


So, the problem is, in case you missed it, the game is creating a time paradox without even using any apparent form of time travel. You probably didn't miss it, I just felt like concluding in a rather more conclusive manner.


Now, my thoughts on this, then: I would hope the game will update the random occurrences immediately before the battles or other interaction with the planet takes place.

Since you'l probably have some form of communication between the planets, you'll be updated about occurences on them when they happen. it's just that to actually see for yourself what happened, you must go to that planet, and when you get there is when the computer simulates the effects.

The occurrences will most likely be fairly random, so computer picks a random planet at a random interval and does something random to it.

Well, the planet will be PHYSICALLY updated when you visit it. Arbitrary things like population, resources, events and such will be tracked all the time by the game, there's no need to worry about the game not updating the important parts nor about any lag.

Commander Keen wrote:

Well, the planet will be PHYSICALLY updated when you visit it. Arbitrary things like population, resources, events and such will be tracked all the time by the game, there's no need to worry about the game not updating the important parts nor about any lag.

thank the god/i meant the thrive team

Commander Keen wrote:

Well, the planet will be PHYSICALLY updated when you visit it. Arbitrary things like population, resources, events and such will be tracked all the time by the game, there's no need to worry about the game not updating the important parts nor about any lag.

So this issue is solved but this game will be heavy So I am afraid This will make alot of lag

ido66667 wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Well, the planet will be PHYSICALLY updated when you visit it. Arbitrary things like population, resources, events and such will be tracked all the time by the game, there's no need to worry about the game not updating the important parts nor about any lag.

So this issue is solved but this game will be heavy So I am afraid This will make alot of lag

The updating of things like population, resources, and stuff in the background shouldn't cause much lag. Most, if not all of these will just be simple calculations, which won't really cause lag on a calculator, never mind a computer. The physical updating and loading of the planets, which is done when you visit it, is probably going to be the thing that will cause most lag, although not too much due to the fact the quad-tree program we're using only loads a low poly model initially, then adds detail as you get progressively closer anyway (ie. It will be loaded bit by bit, as you approach, and unloaded as you go further away). Did I get my programming lingo right there?

To conclude, as has become my way for some reason: no lag when the simple calculations are being done; only when you go to a planet will there be some; if you haven't been to it in a while then more, while the game updates it; and if you unplug your computer then there will be a lot.

The Uteen wrote:

ido66667 wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Well, the planet will be PHYSICALLY updated when you visit it. Arbitrary things like population, resources, events and such will be tracked all the time by the game, there's no need to worry about the game not updating the important parts nor about any lag.

So this issue is solved but this game will be heavy So I am afraid This will make alot of lag

The updating of things like population, resources, and stuff in the background shouldn't cause much lag. Most, if not all of these will just be simple calculations, which won't really cause lag on a calculator, never mind a computer. The physical updating and loading of the planets, which is done when you visit it, is probably going to be the thing that will cause most lag, although not too much due to the fact the quad-tree program we're using only loads a low poly model initially, then adds detail as you get progressively closer anyway (ie. It will be loaded bit by bit, as you approach, and unloaded as you go further away). Did I get my programming lingo right there?

To conclude, as has become my way for some reason: no lag when the simple calculations are being done; only when you go to a planet will there be some; if you haven't been to it in a while then more, while the game updates it; and if you unplug your computer then there will be a lot.

I got it's like chunks from chunks from minecraft

~sciocont wrote:

Since you'l probably have some form of communication between the planets, you'll be updated about occurences on them when they happen. it's just that to actually see for yourself what happened, you must go to that planet, and when you get there is when the computer simulates the effects.

The occurrences will most likely be fairly random, so computer picks a random planet at a random interval and does something random to it.

I agree that random events (or semi-random events, like attacks) should be calculated the moment they happen, and will themselves cause the planet to update, as if the player had visited it. Our planets sound like quantum particles; you don't know what state they are in, until either you observe it, or you get something else to interact with it. Hopefully that makes sense for a planetary scale in a game?

Also, I'd like to suggest that all planets are not just the mindless, constant producing, cells which Spore draws them to be. There should be automatic growth, and where the rate of food/money/materials production can easily be calculated from a rate, I'd think that the change in that rate (constant as well, unless events cause an immediate change in value) aka the acceleration, would also be easy to calculate upon update.

Say you have a planet which is steadily producing building materials. The quantity of these resources becomes high enough for construction of another material refinery, and so an increase in the same building materials is caused. If the program keeps doing this at some (high) resource threshold, then it can be considered as a uniform acceleration, and there are simple equations for calculating that at any time which you happen to observe it. Although I'd have it rely on other amounts of resources, say workforce and time (it takes time to build each material refinery) so it might be a little tricky when first programing. But I think the results will be pleasing to players; they won't be the only thing making changes in the game.

Quote :

Our planets sound like quantum particles; you don't know what state they are in, until either you observe it, or you get something else to interact with it. Hopefully that makes sense for a planetary scale in a game?

This is the exact metaphor I used for loading one biome at a time, and it's exactly how the game should work. I'm liking your ideas.

~sciocont wrote:

Quote :

Our planets sound like quantum particles; you don't know what state they are in, until either you observe it, or you get something else to interact with it. Hopefully that makes sense for a planetary scale in a game?

This is the exact metaphor I used for loading one biome at a time, and it's exactly how the game should work. I'm liking your ideas.

Belgium, this guy is good.