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S2HD Render Engine Test

Discussion in 'Sonic 2 HD (Archive)' started by LOst, Apr 5, 2009.

Which render would you like the S2HD engine to be primary developed with?

  1. R1

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. R2

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  3. R3

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  4. R4

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  5. R5

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
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  1. LOst

    LOst

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    Download:
    http://www.logotypes.se/sonic/HD/TechDemoS...leaseRender.rar

    Sonic 2 HD is a graphics/music project in first hand, meaning that all art produced here will be displayed ingame. My job is to ensure that the art produced here will be displayed correctly ingame. My choice in Direct3D development was right at the time, but it restricted the project to the Microsoft Windows platform.
    The technical demonstration second release (can be downloaded in a sticky thread at this forum) uses an engine that is directly connected to Direct3D and requires 10 MB of DLL files.
    This poll release is the same game as the 4X version only that it no longer requires Direct3D! Thus no more DLL files. Also this version has no pixel shader (no water ripple in the background)!

    When you start the game, you will be prompted to choose a render from a list R1 to R5. They all use different techniques to draw the game. It is up to you to find the one that is best for you!
    Why the R(number) names?
    It is so that you can't be bias when you choose an answer based on the technique names. I don't want people to choose (example) Pepsi over Coke or Coke over Pepsi without giving both a try, even subconsciously.

    So how do you test RAM usage? in Windows XP/Vista you press Ctrl+Alt+Del and choose "Task Manager". In the first tab "Applications", right click on the game name and choose "Go to process". You will now be in the second tab "Processes", and it will show (high lighted) the current RAM usage for the game's process. The best way to check the RAM usage is during the 16 players on bridge demo. Wait at the title screen for the demo to play. It is important to check the RAM usage for all the renders since they all use different ways to allocate texture data.

    Now don't rule out a render because of its heavy RAM usage! The render might just be the fastest of them all!

    So how do you check the CPU usage? Well you don't! It is the GPU (the CPU on your graphics card) that does all the hard work. If the game goes slow, it is your graphics card that can't keep up with the quality of the game's graphics. There are different ways to see how good your GPU is depending on what graphics card you have. The easiest way is to keep an eye on the "frames per second" counter.

    So does it look good? How do you know if it looks good? Well, first the game's window needs to be scaled up to its max size (1280x960 pixels for the client area of the window). Your desktop needs to be bigger than the max window size to allow just that. Then take a print screen of one render and compare it against a print screen of another render.

    But to help me further and prove your case, you can choose to post screen shots of renders in this thread, please! I suggest posting in the PNG format, and Alt+Prt Sc the window when it shows the DISCLAIMER scene (it is the best screen to show and compare basic pixels). Don't forget to name it after the render number and post your graphics card specs! It is a good way for me to see for myself how good the game will look on your hardware.



    So you don't want to do all this?
    Then post a NULL vote. We beg you not to mislead us!

    This poll will end on 1st June. I'm predicting we will see a clear choice in a month or so. It will be perfect for the development of the brand new Sonic 2 HD 1080p HD engine.

    Other than that, the development of Sonic 2 HD is progressing nicely.

    /LOst
     
  2. Chimpo

    Chimpo

    Why is Tekken 6 afraid of Tekken 7? Member
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    Nice 404 buddy.
     
  3. Doesn't run under WINE. Just logs me out (lolwut)

    Edit: The log out was caused because the demo killed Xorg. (Window manager)
     
  4. LOst

    LOst

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    It might not run under Wine because of other issues.
    I have had it tested under Wine though, and it gave nice results when it came to rendering graphics with the correct render (which I am not allowed to tell)

    EDIT: Shall work in Wine now.
     
  5. Chimpo

    Chimpo

    Why is Tekken 6 afraid of Tekken 7? Member
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    Only one I got 60fps was R5.

    All other versions were shit and below 30fps.
     
  6. Vincent

    Vincent

    Sonic 2HD - Project Leader & Chara Member
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    Thanks for your testing & voting everyone! ^^

    This step has a very great meaning for S2HD dev.
    As LOst already outlined it perfectly, I will invite you all to elaborate your numbers by presenting your preference, as much detailed as you can (preferably with your PC specs and performances):

    Example:

    PC OS:(WinXP)
    DualCore 6300 @ 1,86 /,87
    RAM 2GB
    VIDEO CARD: Ati Radeon X1550 512MB


    R1: 58/60fps CPU 24 RAM 203.952
    R2: 59/60fps CPU 16 RAM 108.436
    R3: 58/60fps CPU 11 RAM 108.328
    R4: 58/60fps CPU 14 RAM 108.360
    R5: 59/60fps CPU 50 RAM 175.676


    The best looking one is R5, the fastest is R3.

    From R1 to R2 I get a slight blurred pixel edges
    [​IMG]

    R5 is pixel perfect
    [​IMG]


    Thanks again everyone! ^^
     
  7. 1.6GHz 1GB RAM laptop, Ubuntu running the game under WINE.

    R1 and R3 killed Xorg and logged me out.

    R2 and R4 had a flickering screen, then completely killed my laptop. Had to hard reboot it.

    R5 just said pixel error and didn't do anything.

    Therefore: null vote from me.

    I can watch HD movies fine, but nothing here.
     
  8. muteKi

    muteKi

    Fuck it Member
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    #5 actually seems to hold at 60 fps but there seems to be an issue:
    [​IMG]
    :)
     
  9. evilhamwizard

    evilhamwizard

    Researcher
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    I get 60fps constantly using R5, no decrease in performance from what I saw. And this is coming from a PC that's running MSN, OpenOffice, Newsleecher, Winamp, and Firefox all at the same time on a two year old rig:

    C2D 2.13GHz @ 2.90 GHz
    2gb DDR RAM
    1400x900 LCD
    GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB (Overclocked to something)
    Windows XP Pro x64

    I could go with R5, but I chose R1 because that ran smoothly no matter what I did in the background.
     
  10. LOst

    LOst

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  11. Guess Who

    Guess Who

    It's a miracle! Oldbie
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    System specs:
    Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
    Core 2 Duo T8400 @ 2.26Ghz
    4GB DDR2 RAM
    256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 overclocked to 700mhz

    Tested by running around/jumping/spindashing in the main demo level as Sonic.

    R1: 60/60 FPS, 49% CPU, 490,224K mem (what the fuck)
    R2: 60/60 FPS, from 15-50% CPU, 201,348K mem
    R3: 60/60 FPS, 50% CPU, 201,088K mem
    R4: 60/60 FPS, 30-50% CPU, 203,652K mem
    R5: 60/60 FPS, 50% CPU, 198,584K mem

    The RAM usage is pretty damn ridiculous on all of them, but R1 is particularly bad.

    R5 doesn't seem to scale down to smaller resolutions like the other four.

    Performance isn't an issue on my machine, and I can't really see a marked difference between them, so I don't have a preference. I would avoid R5 so that people with lower resolutions can play the game, though. (case in point: I only run at 1440x900 due to lol laptop)
     
  12. GerbilSoft

    GerbilSoft

    RickRotate'd. Administrator
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    CPU: Intel Core Duo T2500 (2.00 GHz)

    Memory usage:

    R1 with 64 MB VRAM:
    - Open Stage: 2917 MB virtual; 230 MB allocated; 18 MB shared
    - Multi Bridge: 2924 MB virtual; 219 MB allocated; 17 MB shared

    R2 with 64 MB VRAM:
    - Open Stage: 2916 MB virtual; 185 MB allocated; 19 MB shared [swinging bridge is missing]
    - Multi Bridge: 2911 MB virtual; 179 MB allocated; 18 MB shared [waterfall is missing]

    R2 with 256 MB VRAM:
    - Open Stage: 2917 MB virtual; 230 MB allocated; 18 MB shared
    - Multi Bridge: 2924 MB virtual; 220 MB allocated; 17 MB shared

    R3 with 256 MB VRAM:
    - Open Stage: 2917 MB virtual; 230 MB allocated; 18 MB shared
    - Multi Bridge: 2924 MB virtual; 218 MB allocated; 16 MB shared

    R4 with 256 MB VRAM:
    - Open Stage: 2917 MB virtual; 230 MB allocated; 18 MB shared
    - Multi Bridge: 2926 MB virtual; 220 MB allocated; 16 MB shared

    R5: Doesn't start: "No compatible pixel format descriptor!"

    Other notes:

    With R2 and R3, wine needed more than 64 MB video memory. (OpenGL doesn't have any way to tell the program how much VRAM is present, so the user has to set a registry key in WINE to tell it how much VRAM it should report to D3D apps.)

    With 64 MB VRAM, the following artifacts were noticed: (I increased wine's VRAM setting to 256 MB after testing R3/open.)
    - R2: no swinging bridge in open demo; no waterfall in multi-bridge demo.
    - R3: swinging bridge only had the blue sphere in the open demo.

    EDIT: Incidentally, I attempted to run it in Valgrind to look for memory leaks, but the program wouldn't start. It shows an error message: "Failed to initialize object heap." I'm guessing this is a bug in the way Valgrind interacts with Wine, but it could be a memory allocation bug in S2HD.
     
  13. LOst

    LOst

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    Thanks, that is very useful info! Noted :)
     
  14. Lostgame

    Lostgame

    producer/turnablist. homebrew dev. cosplayer. Oldbie
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    R5 performs and looks best on my machine.
     
  15. T.Q.

    T.Q.

    The Sims 2, Tim Drake [Robin] Member
    System:
    Microsoft Windows XP
    Home Edition
    Version 2002
    Service Pack 3

    Computer:
    Intel®Core(tm)2 Duo CPU
    E7200 @ 2.53GHz
    2.53 GHz, 2.00 GB of RAM
    Physical Address Extension

    Video Card/Screen Resolution:
    ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series
    1920 by 1200 pixels, Highest (32-bit)
    ---------------------------------------
    Open Stage Stage Results
    R1: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 470,816 K, Max CPU Usage 50%
    R2: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 114,940 K, Max CPU Usage 50%
    R3: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 114,812 K, Max CPU Usage 50%
    R4: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 114,846 K, Max CPU Usage 44%
    R5: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 205,768 K, Max CPU Usage 50%+ (constantly)

    Multi-Bridge Stage Results
    R1: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 448,108 K, Max CPU Usage 50%+ (occasionally)
    R2: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 109,932 K, Max CPU Usage 47%
    R3: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 101,344 K, Max CPU Usage 50%
    R4: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 109,989 K, Max CPU Usage 50%
    R5: 60/60fps, Memory Usage 185,292 K, Max CPU Usage 50%+ (constantly)
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Average testing time per R#: Between 40 to 80 seconds

    Comments:
    All picture quality from R1 to R5 look fine to me, with no noticeable deterioration. The game was played in windowed mode. Sometimes, when switching from one application to another (e.g. from the game to Notepad, then back to the game), the pictures would stop moving, but the game continued on (e.g. audio would played, sfx would occur when Sonic jumps). Only by nudging the windowed application would the pictures move again. R5 would remain at 50% CPU levels constantly, with frequent occurances of 51-52% CPU, due to other applications opened.
     
  16. Hivebrain

    Hivebrain

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    They all ran at less than 30fps on my 2GHz, 2GB RAM laptop with a mediocre graphics card.
     
  17. Conan Kudo

    Conan Kudo

    「真実はいつも一つ!」工藤新一 Member
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    All of them ran equally well on Yggdrasil (my main desktop) except for R5.


    Yggdrasil stats:
    CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz HT (32-bit only)
    RAM: 3.25GB RAM
    Graphics card: ATi Radeon X1300 256MB VRAM
    OS: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Service Pack 3 with Update Rollup 2

    R1: 27% CPU, 208MB RAM
    R2: 23% CPU, 111MB RAM
    R3: ~20% CPU, 110MB RAM
    R4: ~30% CPU, 91MB RAM
    R5: ~50% CPU, 180MB RAM

    R5 felt like it was mixing in software rendering, it was really that choppy. Incidentally, I have yet to test on Wine with Skuld or Urd (my two other laptops).

    R1 and R4 ran the best on my machine. However, all of them had slight issues with multitasking. Additionally, why is it that the engine isn't multithreaded or if it is, why isn't it taking advantage of multiple logical cores on the CPU?
     
  18. This is my first test.

    Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition 32-Bit (Version 2002) Service Pack 2
    CPU: Intel Pentium Duel CPU (so I presume it means Duel Core) E2140 - 1.6Ghz
    RAM: 2GB DDR2 (I think it's DDR2)
    Graphics Card: Intel 82945G Express Chipset Family (Onboard I reckon) 128 MB
    Screen Resolution: 1440 by 900 Desktop LCD

    Result: "Fatal Error!" "Failed to Initialise Object Heap"

    I'm not voting yet, 'cause this computer isn't the one I use most (in fact, I barely use this comp).

    As for what graphic quality you should implement, I reckon that, if it's possible, you should offer an option to configure the level of graphical quality so the player can optimise their experience for both speed and have it looking nice.
     
  19. LOst

    LOst

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    Yes, this is one thing that I can't deal with much longer. It is going to be nice to finally throw this engine into the trash.
    The new engine works differently, and once I will have a clear view on the render I can develop a system that will not freeze like that.


    About the error, that is a memory allocation error which is rare! It isn't normal allocation though so it might be something else than low memory.

    We will offer options for less quality in the next engine for sure. The second poll is however important for how we will deal with the loss of quality in form of advertising. If people start posting screenshots of a low quality game, then we are not doing a great job promoting this game as high quality, so it is important to find out what you all think about the quality and if it shall be the main thing to aim for.
     
  20. Shanesan

    Shanesan

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    Hey guys. Here's my analysis.

    A quick rundown of my system.

    Macbook Pro running OSX 10.5.6 (latest as of post)
    Using Crossover Games 7.2 (essentially WINE)

    2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo
    2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
    ATI Radeon X1600 PRO (256 MB)

    Here's my findings.

    R1
    Runs in the upper 50 FPS.
    No graphical anomalies found. Screenshot of disclaimer page below.
    CPU Usage is 50% of 1 CPU (credits use significantly more?? 75%).
    RAM usage is ~250 MB.
    Image

    R2
    Runs in the lower 50 / higher 40 FPS.
    No graphical anomalies found. Screenshot of disclaimer page below.
    CPU usage is at 35% of 1 CPU (credits use between 50 and 90%)
    RAM usage is ~240 MB.
    Image

    R3
    Runs in the low to mid 50 FPS.
    No graphical anomalies found. Screenshot of disclaimer page below.
    CPU usage is at 50% of 1 CPU (credits use 80%)
    RAM usage is ~265 MB.
    Image

    R4
    Runs in the high 50 FPS range.
    No graphical anomalies found. Screenshot of disclaimer page below.
    CPU usage is at 40% of 1 CPU (credits use 75%)
    RAM usage is ~250 MB.
    Image

    R5
    Doesn't work.
    Image


    Hope this helps.
     
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