What would it take?
It would have to be re-coded in all the parts that utilize CPU extensions among other things. That alone could take more than 3 months. Then, you have to playtest, that would take about 2 months as well, then you have to re-code if any bugs occurred. Would take the same amount of time as the initial recode usually.
Regardless, it would take a year or more to do alone. After they optimize it and whatnot, they should really think about enhancing the textures to be more vectorized. Why? You think that would take more power? No. It’d take less. Because vectoring would be completely up to the CPU and GPU (Wait, what?) But think about it. There would be no texture files with insane file sizes. This would take up far less RAM (just a few megs), and allow the computer to load in more players / etc. (Oh, I see.)
That said, Vectors are just text files anyway that are fancy. Take XHTML and how it can make SVGs.
Oh, the HUD/GUI is one of the most demanding pieces in Guild Wars 2 by the way. They should take a lesson from valve on how to dynamically generate a HUD/GUI. Since the HUD/GUI is mostly 2D, vectors would be the easiest to use there. Vectors also scale, so even if you have let’s say, 5000×5000 4:3 screen, there would be no noticeable aliasing due to how vectors work. But wait, doesn’t that mean we wouldn’t have to have anti-aliasing on? Sort of, and sort of not. You could have it on say, 2x, and it would work well. it all depends on how your monitor works.
Furthermore, porting the game to 64-bit would ease a ton of issues with the game. However, people with 32-bit OSes would suffer from that. (Even though you can tell the 64-bit code to interface with a 32-bit bypass of sorts. Since 64-bit is backwards compatible with 32-bit, unless it’s IA64.)
(edited by Iyeru.5240)
Thank’s for the reply!
I see what you’re saying with vectors (No offence at all), But..If you..Someone who has nothing to do with this games code and may no understand it can give a detailed reason as to why vectors will positively affect the game, Why have A-net not done this yet?
No hate towards A-net but they must have their reasons as to why.
Also, why would the outcome be if they did use vectors, Would everyone see a small FPS boost, Smoother camera turning, Smaller files?
Thank’s again for the reply, and 5 month’s for an optimised GW2? Eh..Honestly if it was my call..I’d call it off, 5 Month’s is a long time to take away a game that they’ve just put out just to make a few people happier.
Thank’s for the reply!
I see what you’re saying with vectors (No offence at all), But..If you..Someone who has nothing to do with this games code and may no understand it can give a detailed reason as to why vectors will positively affect the game, Why have A-net not done this yet?
No hate towards A-net but they must have their reasons as to why.Also, why would the outcome be if they did use vectors, Would everyone see a small FPS boost, Smoother camera turning, Smaller files?
Thank’s again for the reply, and 5 month’s for an optimised GW2? Eh..Honestly if it was my call..I’d call it off, 5 Month’s is a long time to take away a game that they’ve just put out just to make a few people happier.
That’s the beauty of MMOs though. What a game producer / developer / publisher does, is set up a separate test server, with the same database system, same engine, same everything pretty much on a localized network, not attached to the Internet. Then, they use this test server specifically for these reasons while the main game is left untouched until the test server is ready to send the diff/patch files to the main server for it to be updated. This allows for minor service interruption, and it is how most MMORPGs and MMOs work.
Ah I see, Hopefully, They’re already testing out the optimisation and will be out shortly as who’s not going to like better FPS?