Specifics on the updated engine?

[pitcard]

I know from the description that the updated HPL 2.0 engine boasts improved visuals, audio and A.I.

I'm wondering if anyone knows anything about the updated in-game settings that relate to the new engine design. For instance, HPL 2.0 introduced SSAO in TDD (although that was a significant change).

Additionally, have there been any optimizations? For example, certain levels of SSAO were particularly demanding in TDD; has it been fine-tuned or does it still offer a huge sampling range?

Lastly, texture compression was quite apparent in some areas of TDD, resulting in banding. With improved visuals (and reduced compression) I would guess that it would be less obvious, although it's frequently used by developers to optimize gameplay. Which does the engine offer, or is it a balance between the two?

A bit wordy, I know, although I'm interested in engine design, optimization etc

Cheers

[Rapture]

I read somewhere that their was no inventory, so that is a bit game changing. And also since their are no CS support, the interest I had plummeted like the announcement of Doom 3 BFG edition (Which has no support for custom levels).


I'll play it nonetheless, but no direct CS support is sad. Does anyone know FC's stance on using AMFP's game assets in Vanilla Amnesia?

[samueljustice00]

Inventory has nothing to do with engine, that's gameplay specific.

There hasn't been any major rewrites to the rendering system, instead we've concentrated how much detail can we fit in a space with it being optimised. There have been numerous small fixes and changes here and there. A lot of the 2.5ness comes down to developer workflow and stability as well, making it easier and quicker for us to iterate on our work so the overall polish of the game will be that much better.

The increased minimum specs tells a lot in terms of what you can expect, more detail, nicer textures, more objects, better lighting etc. Small tweaks that add up, also there is now colour grading which creates a great consistent and polished feel across the game.

[RaideX]

this may be a bit off topic but is the game with the updated engine really that demanding? I mean yeh, i don't have the best graphics card to play the game (AMD HD 6450) but i've played TDD really well with my PC.
Because i got told that i am just able to play AMFP on low settings with the specs i have.

Is the game really that different from the Source Engine Games? I mean i can play almost every new Source Game on High Settings with around 30-50 FPS (Portal 2, Counterstrike: Global Offensive).

You have to know that i really love the Amnesia Franchise and i'm super exited to play Pigs but it would really s**k if i would be forced to play it on low settings because i'm afraid that that would change the game experience quite heavily. :<

[Kullin]

this may be a bit off topic but is the game with the updated engine really that demanding? I mean yeh, i don't have the best graphics card to play the game (AMD HD 6450) but i've played TDD really well with my PC.
Because i got told that i am just able to play AMFP on low settings with the specs i have.

Is the game really that different from the Source Engine Games? I mean i can play almost every new Source Game on High Settings with around 30-50 FPS (Portal 2, Counterstrike: Global Offensive).

You have to know that i really love the Amnesia Franchise and i'm super exited to play Pigs but it would really s**k if i would be forced to play it on low settings because i'm afraid that that would change the game experience quite heavily. :<

The specs are somewhere on the forum! Go search! ;D

[RaideX]

yeh i already saw them.

i was just wondering what the difference between the two engines (games) is...

[Sakonosolo]

The engine doesn't affect performance as much as a game made on it does. Every engine has limitations but you can choose to push those limitations or go well below them. For instance most engines will have support for very large textures but textures that max out the limitations of the engine are almost never used because they would take up so much vram that you wouldn't be able to have very many in memory at a time.

samueljustice00 (who seems to be a dev?) replied with a few things that the game does better than its predecessor. More physics affected objects (and more objects in general) in a given scene, larger maps, better lighting/shadowing, among other things. For all we know, the low in AMfP could be the equivalent of medium in TDD considering the seemingly higher overall quality of the assets in the game.

[pitcard]

Inventory has nothing to do with engine, that's gameplay specific.

There hasn't been any major rewrites to the rendering system, instead we've concentrated how much detail can we fit in a space with it being optimised. There have been numerous small fixes and changes here and there. A lot of the 2.5ness comes down to developer workflow and stability as well, making it easier and quicker for us to iterate on our work so the overall polish of the game will be that much better.

The increased minimum specs tells a lot in terms of what you can expect, more detail, nicer textures, more objects, better lighting etc. Small tweaks that add up, also there is now colour grading which creates a great consistent and polished feel across the game.

Well that sounds promising, thanks for the information.

yeh i already saw them.

i was just wondering what the difference between the two engines (games) is...

The main differences between the two engines are listed above. The requirements for the new engine will definitely challenge the GPU considerably more.

The reason you'll be able to play TDD better is because your GPU exceeds the recommended requirements. You'll have to tweak texture settings and probably turn off demanding (SSAO, parallax etc) effects to run at a stable framerate.

---

The engine doesn't affect performance as much as a game made on it does. Every engine has limitations but you can choose to push those limitations or go well below them. For instance most engines will have support for very large textures but textures that max out the limitations of the engine are almost never used because they would take up so much vram that you wouldn't be able to have very many in memory at a time.

samueljustice00 (who seems to be a dev?) replied with a few things that the game does better than its predecessor. More physics affected objects (and more objects in general) in a given scene, larger maps, better lighting/shadowing, among other things. For all we know, the low in AMfP could be the equivalent of medium in TDD considering the seemingly higher overall quality of the assets in the game.

Yeah that's a good point about VRAM. Afaik, most engines these days aren't very demanding with modern 2GB cards at high resolutions, with the exception of BF3 I've heard.

Relating to engine mechanics, does anyone know what attributes the enemies have that make them less predictable than enemies in TDD?