TGE connects to TSE
by Jemand den es nicht gibt · in Torque Game Engine · 08/29/2006 (12:54 pm) · 4 replies
Hiya!
Just a very short question... I consider buying TSE but beforehand I'd like to know if a TGE client could connect and work correctly with a TSE dedicated server. Does this work without much efford?
This is interesting for me because of two aspects: My notebook doesnt support shaders and if this wasn't possible I would have to stop developing the Torque game on it. ;)
Then some people still don't have computers that are fast enough for TSE.
Or will TSE support fallback to a render mode that doesn't make use of shaders at all? Right now I can't even _start_ the demos on my notebook...
Thanks in advance! :)
Just a very short question... I consider buying TSE but beforehand I'd like to know if a TGE client could connect and work correctly with a TSE dedicated server. Does this work without much efford?
This is interesting for me because of two aspects: My notebook doesnt support shaders and if this wasn't possible I would have to stop developing the Torque game on it. ;)
Then some people still don't have computers that are fast enough for TSE.
Or will TSE support fallback to a render mode that doesn't make use of shaders at all? Right now I can't even _start_ the demos on my notebook...
Thanks in advance! :)
#2
Of course, most of the shaders CAN be downgraded to the 1.1 standard, and thus playable on many laptops. You'll of course miss out on some fancy effects, but you can always show something. One of my older TSE projects runs just fine on my laptop, and its not anything special.
08/29/2006 (1:19 pm)
I agree, having worked extensively with both engines. As is, they probably wouldn't interface properly, but I really doubt it would take more than a few hours coding to have them on speaking terms.Of course, most of the shaders CAN be downgraded to the 1.1 standard, and thus playable on many laptops. You'll of course miss out on some fancy effects, but you can always show something. One of my older TSE projects runs just fine on my laptop, and its not anything special.
#3
@Badguy, after thinking about it a second time... most people that play games should have a card that can at least do 1.1 shaders.
@Erik, sadly, my ThinkPad won't even bother starting up TSE... it closes down immediately saying it can't do any shaders at all. I guess I will try it out but if it takes too much afford I will just quit developing on the notebook and stick with T2D on it. :)
08/29/2006 (1:24 pm)
Aye, thanks for the quick answers!@Badguy, after thinking about it a second time... most people that play games should have a card that can at least do 1.1 shaders.
@Erik, sadly, my ThinkPad won't even bother starting up TSE... it closes down immediately saying it can't do any shaders at all. I guess I will try it out but if it takes too much afford I will just quit developing on the notebook and stick with T2D on it. :)
#4
There is a limit to the performance gain you'll have by disabling shaders, using lower LOD and downscaling textures. If your game looks "next gen" with everything turned on, it'll probably still require at least some hardware to run with everything off, due to the number of objects/characters on screen, or the complexity of your scenes. Those cannot be lod'ed most of the time without actually changing your game.
Also odds are that your game's lower settings might make it both look AND perform worse than a game that was tailored for older hardware from the ground up. Just look at Oblivion's ultra low settings and you get the idea.
So, you can't stand in two boats at the same time: if you're gonna support non-shader hardware, be aware that it's also slow hardware and design your game around that, and keep the optional eye candy... optional. If you're going all out, realize that even without shaders your game might be too much for non-shader hardware.
08/30/2006 (7:37 am)
Really, if you want your game to be compatible with both high-end shader hardware and legacy no-shader hardware, either your game will look bad on the highest settings, or it'll still run slow even on the lowest settings.There is a limit to the performance gain you'll have by disabling shaders, using lower LOD and downscaling textures. If your game looks "next gen" with everything turned on, it'll probably still require at least some hardware to run with everything off, due to the number of objects/characters on screen, or the complexity of your scenes. Those cannot be lod'ed most of the time without actually changing your game.
Also odds are that your game's lower settings might make it both look AND perform worse than a game that was tailored for older hardware from the ground up. Just look at Oblivion's ultra low settings and you get the idea.
So, you can't stand in two boats at the same time: if you're gonna support non-shader hardware, be aware that it's also slow hardware and design your game around that, and keep the optional eye candy... optional. If you're going all out, realize that even without shaders your game might be too much for non-shader hardware.
Torque Owner Badguy
if you want to target low end hardware you should stick with TGE completely.
as for networking between the two, as long as your game interfaces the data correctly I dont see any major roadblocks.
as far as I know tse has made no major if any changes to the networking.
and even if they did, you could case for it.