upgrading?

#1 1.5.x upgrades were free, but I highly doubt there will be any more of those. TGEA & T3D were both paid upgrades. That seems to be the pattern. Minor-version patches are free, but major-version upgrades aren't.

#2 I guess the logic here is that TGEA and T3D are entirely separate products, not new 'versions' or 'upgrades' of TGE. Though, that said, 1.4-1.5 was a paid upgrade. But yeah, I don't think we need to worry about TGE receiving any more upgrades.

#3 The "entirely separate products" was just nonsense being pushed by IA's marketing dept. TGEA & T3D are nothing of the sort.

The rendering pipeline was given a major overhaul in TGEA (2.0), with the world-editor and UI code getting a similar amount of work in T3D (3.0). As I understand it, a lot of the core code that isn't related to either one of those revisions - networking, TGE-style physics, stuff like that - has seen very few changes. And the changes that were made were within the framework of the existing class hierarchy, not even approaching a complete ground-up rewrite.

1.5 was an odd bird. There weren't any new features added to the core engine, but the list of bug fixes and other minor changes was *huge*. And, both the lighting kit and a license for ShowTool Pro were included in the price.

#4 Kenn, I'd recommend upgrading to T3D while the price is so low.
We've been sticking for TGE 1.3 for Age of Decadence development as long as we could (2004-2010), since we never cared much about shiny graphics. But T3D has now far more superior tools and support, so... 99$ for what costed 1000$ a month ago. If you're planning to do something more or less serious with Torque and count on future engine updates, the choice is easy.

#5 Mostly the reason I was curious, is that I currently have a limited budget. My loans are maxed now at college, and I still have a few classes left for the degree. I have seen TGE 1.8 something being talked about on some threads. Not sure if I have access to that or not. Though being able to afford anything else is limited until this degree helps me in getting a good job.

I suppose I have enough skill to upgrade parts of the engine myself, but to upgrade it and then find out that part was already worked on by someone else, makes me feel like I wasted my time there. Also not to sure I could compile the code completely, having MS visual C++ 2008.

#6 IA/GG or whoever never stated that Torque3D was a ground up rewrite of the engine in fact in many threads they referred to it as basically TGEA 2.0

The differences between TGE and Torque3D are huge though, they are light years apart in terms of capabilities and functionality. The 1.8 you have heard probably is TGEA 1.8.2 and no as TGE owner you don't have access to that.

It's more than worth the $99 you'd spend years upgrading TGE to the same levels as Torque3D

#7 Ok, my mom found room on her credit card, so purchased and downloading.
Wondering if it is similar to tge or a whole new engine to learn.

#8

Quote:The differences between TGE and Torque3D are huge though

In some ways, definitely, though I'll agree with Sherman in saying it's mostly rendering. There are definitely usability upgrades like live content updating, but the insides of the gameplay code and script interface hasn't changed a huge deal.

The new project paradigm is interesting, but again, something added on top of the core engine as opposed to a fundamental change, and you could definitely emulate this structure in TGE if you really wanted to.

#9 It's a lot more than rendering though new terrain, physics integration, new sfx layer, mesh roads, collada support, Forrest replicator and editor, collision detection, there is a lot of usuability stuff.

A lot of the core, networking and script are the same but for m that's good as it makes porting easier