GGG, It's Time To Move On To The 21st Century, Or, Why DirectX 9 is a Bad Idea

this thread kind of sums up how i'm feeling about my return to PoE this season. I was super stoked and upgraded my gpu to gtx 970 expecting a smooth experience (thinking this is what was causing all of my grief with game performance) and sadly this wasn't the case.
16 gb system ram, 3.2 ghz quad core cpu, 30 gb down 5 up internet speed (along with the gtx 970 4 gb gpu) and apparently this is not enough to have smooth gameplay.
i am pretty much done trying to upgrade/ tweak settings on my pc though in hopes that it will somehow fix the game for me.

its frustrating because i love what this game could be.

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Runeword wrote:

this thread kind of sums up how i'm feeling about my return to PoE this season. I was super stoked and upgraded my gpu to gtx 970 expecting a smooth experience (thinking this is what was causing all of my grief with game performance) and sadly this wasn't the case.
16 gb system ram, 3.2 ghz quad core cpu, 30 gb down 5 up internet speed (along with the gtx 970 4 gb gpu) and apparently this is not enough to have smooth gameplay.
i am pretty much done trying to upgrade/ tweak settings on my pc though in hopes that it will somehow fix the game for me.

its frustrating because i love what this game could be.

With 16GB RAM you might try setting up a RAM-Drive and load PoE from that. Should be better than even loading it from an SSD.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Are you seriously calling new colourful MTXes 'content'?

LOL OKAY!

Hey its addition to the game isn’t it? On top of that, the kind of content that makes GGG money.
Not saying Id rather see more color swapped skill effects than new acts etc.

What im trying to say that Id rather see them tone down on actual content if necessary to work on a new engine; rather than pumping out “CONTENT” content, without working on the engine.

DirectX support is not a random addon you can plug into your project and call it a day, in some cases it warrants a full rewrite of the whole engine to get the benefits instead of just having the pleasure to say "Works with DX11!".

Please do keep in mind that the avarage gaming computer is not fast, but even on older hardware I have yet to encounter "single-digit" FPS anywhere in the game, even when cycloning through a +15% pack size fracture map with HoA. As much as the engine matters, so does your software configuration and all the random garbage you have running in the background.

You know they can add directx 11 or 12 while working on new content on the game.

It's not like it's exclusive.

A lot of people get the misconception that working on the programming core and creating content are mutually-exclusive operations, that they draw away from the same resources...

As it happens, a video game design team is NOT all made up of being with otherwise-identical skillsets: they have programmers, designers, writers, artists... Almost will any of them be comparably good at another's job: they've specialized.

It's clear that PoE's core engine is in DIRE need of reworking; making it more modern would be a big thing. Besides, if they're going to tell everyone to have 4-8GB+ of RAM, then keeping DirectX 9 support for "backwards compatibility" reasons is a sheer joke.

Also, if I wanna get technical, Direct 9's reign WAS in the 21st Century: it was the order of the day from 2002-2006; and its actual widespread adoption lagged, as those were ALSO the years the first cards to support each (the Radeon 9700 series and Geforce 8800 series, respectively) became available.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

I usually argue that indeed, the lady designing the bosses' look does a different job to the guy programming the skills -- but in this case, the overhaul would be systemic and all-encompassing. It WOULD take away from developing actual additional content.

I say that as someone who has some small understanding of the inner workings of GGG as a pseudo-cohesive multi-headed beast, rather than someone who knows development studios typically have departments for each facet of the process. GGG is a homegrown, fiercely indie company. The cost of that people usually have to wear multiple hats.

In that aspect,would you think a PoE2,would be a better choice?

I mean,they have more staff now and the tools provided by new programms can make their lifes easier.
Ofcourse money is a thing...Also the delay of that trasition would be quite high.But it is a question to try and figure something on this thread.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

The cost of that people usually have to wear multiple hats.

Multi-hatting IS more common in younger, less-evolved companies, but there's still some strong degree of specialization that increases as the team size grows.

Do remember that while still "indie," GGG has grown to at least 57 members at their main office: far more than what most think of when they imagine "indie;" they're about halfway between tiny 2-4-man startups, and the "big studios," like Infinity Ward, Bethesda, Treyarch, etc, which tend to run around 200-500. I don't think any individual game has actually had 1,000+ developers on it: some titles like Assassin's Creed: Unity and GTA V have CLAIMED 4-digit numbers, but they're listing EVERYONE in their credits, including voice actors and third-party support providers and even beta testers, which clearly are not company devs. (if you included all those for PoE suddenly "GGG" numbers in the hundreds of people)

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ACGIFT wrote:

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

The cost of that people usually have to wear multiple hats.

Multi-hatting IS more common in younger, less-evolved companies, but there's still some strong degree of specialization that increases as the team size grows.

Do remember that while still "indie," GGG has grown to at least 57 members at their main office: far more than what most think of when they imagine "indie;" they're about halfway between tiny 2-4-man startups, and the "big studios," like Infinity Ward, Bethesda, Treyarch, etc, which tend to run around 200-500. I don't think any individual game has actually had 1,000+ developers on it: some titles like Assassin's Creed: Unity and GTA V have CLAIMED 4-digit numbers, but they're listing EVERYONE in their credits, including voice actors and third-party support providers and even beta testers, which clearly are not company devs. (if you included all those for PoE suddenly "GGG" numbers in the hundreds of people)

Idunno people still have this hard-on for GGG being "indie small developing struggling to make the best gamae ever."

They evolved past that and is a respectable small company so far with ability to expand into more games and continued constant support(ability to also add or rework massive parks of their current games like adding in lockstep which is modern) of their previous games with a fanbase (which also will gadly give them loads of money).

The only thing stunting their growth is most likely their location and ability to recruit and expand their company. Another possibility is the desire to only work on one singular outdated game that was made during their indie times with quite outdated tech and personal skill level. Simply just making PoE 2 (or any other game really) would allow them to fully use the fruits of their labors in being able to afford the latest and greatest and learn from their past mistakes.

Flash games from Newgrounds has a particle slider. I think it's pretty reasonable for a 2015 game. The "b-but we're a small indie dev team" card doesn't work anymore.

Main problem with Path of Exile is that there's no competition, so GGG can be lazy about performance/technical issues.