POLL: Which Graphics engine is the best?

[BFG10K]

You know the original HL was built on the original Quake engine, right? It benefited from a couple of extra years in progress, but it is built around the Quake engine(GLQuake for the OGL renderer).

That was my point. You made the comment about the original GLQuake being scalable but in reality the initial version is very poor in that respect.

If you benchmark the original GLQuake's demo1 at 1920x1440 with 8xAA you'll get a comparable framerate to Quake 3 running its most demanding map (Dredwerkz) with seven players fighting it out.

Obviously Quake 3 delivers vastly more visuals and this means the stock version of GLQuake is actually extremely poor at scaling.

 

[BenSkywalker]

That was my point. You made the comment about the original GLQuake being scalable but in reality the initial version is very poor in that respect.

It scales almost perfectly linear.....

If you benchmark the original GLQuake's demo1 at 1920x1440 with 8xAA you'll get a comparable framerate to Quake 3 running its most demanding map (Dredwerkz) with seven players fighting it out.

It scaled into the thousand plus frames per second at settings it ever officialy supported running on the latest hardware- how is that not scaling well? Perhaps you are running into a hardware limitation? Try doing the same with HL, it doesn't scale as perfectly as GLQuake does.

Obviously Quake 3 delivers vastly more visuals and this means the stock version of GLQuake is actually extremely poor at scaling.

Run them both @16x12 w/4xAA and see what kind of numbers you produce. Or conversely, run any source game @4096x3072 with 8x AA and let me know how it performs

 

[BFG10K]

It scales almost perfectly linear.....

No it doesn't, not even close. The stock version of GLQuake from ID scales very poorly when you start increasing the detail levels. There are other builds of GLQuake with much better visuals that run faster as well.

It scaled into the thousand plus frames per second at settings it ever officialy supported running on the latest hardware- how is that not scaling well?

Try 90 FPS at 1920x1440 with 8xAA in the basic demo1.

In contrast at the same setting Quake 3 gets 88 FPS in its most demanding map with multiple players. Quake3 has vastly superior visuals and vastly more workload yet it basically runs the same speed as the visually inferior GLQuake.

The visuals of the two games aren't even comparable.

Run them both @16x12 w/4xAA and see what kind of numbers you produce

267.2 FPS for Quake 3 and 377 FPS for GLQuake.

Like i said before, very poor scaling for GLQuake. With the basic 3D engine it has I'd expect 500 FPS or more at that setting.

 

[TechBoyJK]

there is a site out there by doom 3 developers that basically outlines how to do everything that was done in HL2 using their engine and they even made some levels that looked almost exactly the same as HL2 levels...

dont get me wrong, I love HL2, and am almost done with the new episode, but I think that the D3 engine has yet to really be exploited....

 

[BenSkywalker]

No it doesn't, not even close. The stock version of GLQuake from ID scales very poorly when you start increasing the detail levels.

Do you have benches of anything built on Source running 4096x3072 yet? That isn't quite fair, we should up the resolution by quite a bit more to make it even when looking at scaling.

Try 90 FPS at 1920x1440 with 8xAA in the basic demo1.

How about I try this a different way- find me anything running OGL at that setting that will run at a faster framerate.

267.2 FPS for Quake 3 and 377 FPS for GLQuake

As I was saying, try finding anything OGL that will run faster then 90FPS @19x14 w/8xAA. I think you are running into hardware issues, not game code.

 

[BFG10K]

Do you have benches of anything built on Source running 4096x3072 yet? That isn't quite fair, we should up the resolution by quite a bit more to make it even when looking at scaling.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. What does running Source at a fictional resolution have to do with Quake's poor scaling at high resolutions?

There are many games out there that look better and run faster than GLQuake does. The same can't be said about Source because it has a very high performance/IQ ratio and it scales extremely well. That is the mark of a good engine.

GLQuake looks poor and scales poorly compared to other games, it's that simple. Even its own derivatives offering higher IQ also run faster.

How about I try this a different way- find me anything running OGL at that setting that will run at a faster framerate.

Not that it makes any difference but I'll indulge your rather useless questioning tangent:

• Any of the GLQuake derivatives such as FuhQuake or GLQuake unofficial 1.13b. And again, these derivatives also look better than GLQuake while running faster.
  
• Quake 2, 107.9 FPS in Crusher, a demo vastly more demanding than Quake's leisurely demo1. Also Quake 2 has more graphic effects such as coloured lighting, more particle effects and vastly smoother animation sub-divisions
  
• Unreal which offers vastly superior image quality than Quake 2 above including detail textures, large draw distances, liquid textures, coronas, reflections and similar.
  
• Quake 3 and other early Quake 3 engined games like Star Trek Elite Force and Jedi Knight 2 when non-crusher demos are used.
  
• Serious Sam 1st & 2nd encounters when non-crusher demos are used.

But again your line of questioning is nonsensical since raw performance is irrelevant without a visuals metric to back it, otherwise I could draw a green cube on the screen and claim it was the best engine ever made because no other engine runs as fast as it does.

think you are running into hardware issues, not game code.

What hardware issues am I running into on a 7900 GTX Ben?

And if it's not game code then why are there many other games with vastly superior visuals that run faster than the original GLQuake including its own derivatives?

 

[BenSkywalker]

What I was trying to question you about was why GLQuake stopped scaling all of a sudden. It has been the best scaling engine for a decade now- I was wondering if there were some issues with the particular setting you were using capping out @90FPS- not a hardware issue in terms of it can't do more- but one of a driver issue somewhere. Last I was aware 8x AA was not natively supported under OpenGL for a single graphics card from either of the IHVs.

What does running Source at a fictional resolution have to do with Quake's poor scaling at high resolutions?

The resolution limit when GLQuake came out was 640x480 for all hardware that ran it. I am asking very little of Source in comparison. In effect you are running GLQuake at settings seventy two times higher then anything could run when it came out. I am asking very, very little of Source in comparison. To be comparable Source would have to run 7.5Kx6K with 64x AA and see properly scaling performance- that is what you are asking of GLQuake. That is scaling.

BTW- You included Unreal in your list- the poorest scaling game that I have ever seen- was that serious?

raw performance is irrelevant without a visuals metric to back it

That is why I think Source and GLQuake are quite comparable. Source is a couple of generations old in terms of visuals, GLQuake a couple more. Check out Mafia which is four years old- does pretty much everything Source does(doesn't support HDR and its' water isn't up to Source)- except it does it faster and in MUCH larger environments. Source can not do what the D3 engine is doing- it is not capable without a rewrite. D3 can do everything Source is doing- already. This is why I keep brining up GLQuake- I know the game looks like crap- as does the technology behind Source. They have some talented artists- their programmers don't seem to be all that hot.

 

[BFG10K]

Here are two framerate comparisons of both games running at 1920x1440 with 16xAA and you can clearly see Quake 3 generating vastly superior visuals while running faster at the same time (the framerate counter is in the top right-hand corner).

Quake 3's regular demo also benches faster at that setting than Quake's demo1 does.

To even suggest the two engines are comparable is laughable. Clearly the initial version of GLQuake stinks at scaling even with its extremely prehistoric visuals.

Quake.

Quake 3.

 

[BFG10K]

What I was trying to question you about was why GLQuake stopped scaling all of a sudden. It has been the best scaling engine for a decade now-

Not in my experience. The rewrites scale decently but the initial version doesn't. Also the initial version has very poor animation sub-divisions compared to the rewrites.

Last I was aware 8x AA was not natively supported under OpenGL for a single graphics card from either of the IHVs.

That doesn't really matter - AF and AA was being forced into games at the driver level long before the APIs could handle them properly.

The resolution limit when GLQuake came out was 640x480 for all hardware that ran it.

Likewise 800x600 or 1024x768 for Unreal and Quake 2, yet they both run well at 1920x1440 with 8xAA.

BTW- You included Unreal in your list- the poorest scaling game that I have ever seen- was that serious?

It runs a hell of a lot better than GLQuake does and generates better visuals at the same time.

That is why I think Source and GLQuake are quite comparable.

I disagree; Source - especially the newer Lost Coast build - generates some very nice visuals and it does it very fast.

 

[BenSkywalker]

That doesn't really matter - AF and AA was being forced into games at the driver level long before the APIs could handle them properly.

I'm talking about possible issues with the driver itself- totally contained. Nothing at all to do with any singular application. Last I was aware 8x AA modes did not function under OpenGL with any singular graphics card- I do not know the state of how they work is what I was talking about. If it is an unsupported mode you could be hanging up on a driver issue and not on the game engine. As soon as you drop the res to 16x12x4 GLQuake performance starts to significantly excced Q3's, something isn't right with that. Running that resolution you are still hitting the limitations of your vid card, obviously in a CPU intensive bench you are in the four digit neighbourhood, something is off. In no way am I saying your benches are not completely accurate- but ask yourself what would make a game fall down like that after you are alreadying running it some twenty times higher then it ever was supposed to support and it was doing so without issue?

It runs a hell of a lot better than GLQuake does and generates better visuals at the same time.

I can barely break 100FPS in Unreal to date. I'm close to 1000FPS in GLQuake.

I disagree; Source - especially the newer Lost Coast build - generates some very nice visuals and it does it very fast.

I'm missing the nice visuals- it looks decidedly last gen with some HDR tacked on(akin to Burnout Revenge on the 360). Its' character models are poor by today's standards, shader utilization is weak, lighting engine is nigh non existant, 90s era shadowing- what is it that looks good on a technical level? I'm not seeing anything. Honestly Gamebryo wipes the floor with Source. When they are put in comparable situations(indoor environments) they both perform close to the same with Gamebryo being far beyond what Source is capable of in terms of end visuals.

 

[apoppin]

i dropped outta this discussion awhile ago .. . . still believeing that the Source Engine is really [really] outdated - held together by "artists" . . .
. . . otoh, Oblivion's Engine - although CPU limited - Eats it ALIVE . . . i just can't "compare" the visuals . . . Source is SO 'last gen' [try "ugly" - imo].

BUT i gotta say, i [always] LOVE the discussion between you guys . . . 10kvsBen . . .

verrry entertaining, quite informative, opinions from opposite ends of the spectrum . . . and quite civil . . .

you go guys!

:thumbsup:

sorry for the 'interruption'

 

[hooflung]

Ben... you got served... BFG's argument is pretty solid and has believable proof to back it up. I think the best engine is Doom 3's because its openGL, very agile and retro at the same time. It is also cross platform ala Linux and when ET:QW drops you bet your arse I will be in it.

 

[xtknight]

Source without a question for performance/image quality. I don't even know how you can argue that. Otherwise, Quake/Doom (OpenGL) for cross-platform abilities. Unreal is decent too.

 

[SonicIce]

Hey BFG, whats the best way to play Quake on a modern graphics card like a 6600 GT? FuhQuake or is there something else? FuhQuake had alot of custom high res textures, is there one that uses the originals but with more advanced effects? Or whats the best one in general?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Source without a question for performance/image quality. I don't even know how you can argue that.

because - compared [i prefer "contrasted with"] to Oblivion's [inefficient] engine - HL2 just looks dated. . . . even with Source's HDR the Oblivion engine's gfx looks [much] better with NO HDR - with only bloom+AA [period].

. . . or do you not bother with the "pretty visuals" . . . or shadows?



if you wanna compare "performance/image quality" of older engines, Q3's is even more efficient - but Fugly by today's standards.

 

[BFG10K]

Check out Mafia which is four years old- does pretty much everything Source does(doesn't support HDR and its' water isn't up to Source)- except it does it faster and in MUCH larger environments.

By that same reasoning check out Tenebrae that came out 2-3 years before Doom 3 and it does everything Doom 3 does (stencil volume shadows, per pixel lighting, normal mapping) but it also has full support for liquids including shaders, particles and transparency.

And I'm sorry, I've just a checked a bunch of Mafia screenshots and they look absolutely primitive and cartoonish compared to what even the initial build of Source could do, especially the outdoor areas. Soldier of Fortune is also a 2002 game and even its outdoor scenes are vastly superior to Mafia's.

Now when you add Lost Coast to the mix there is simply no comparison. Vampire Bloodlines runs an ancient build of Source and even its visuals are still amazing, especially the facial animation system that is capable of rendering recognizable emotions on characters and other things like moving eyeballs and blinking eyelids.

Last I was aware 8x AA modes did not function under OpenGL with any singular graphics card- I do not know the state of how they work is what I was talking about.

It's quite simple - the driver forces it just like it's been forcing other AA and AF modes for years. And 8xAA/16xAA most certainly work in OpenGL games unless I'm somehow imagining the IQ gain and performance drop over 4xAA.

If it is an unsupported mode you could be hanging up on a driver issue and not on the game engine.

nVidia has offered 8xAA right from their driver control panel for years. There's nothing unsupported about it.

but ask yourself what would make a game fall down like that after you are alreadying running it some twenty times higher then it ever was supposed to support and it was doing so without issue?

It's a bottleneck in the game code. This is trivially verified by benchmarking the GLQuake derivatives that run faster and offer better image quality at the same time, especially with respect to the animation system.

I can barely break 100FPS in Unreal to date

Unreal is definitely more CPU limited than GLQuake, no doubts there. However scaling goes both ways and at high detail levels even Unreal scales better than GLQuake does.

D3 can do everything Source is doing- already

Really? So tell me, where exactly is Doom 3 rendering liquids and HDR? Additionally I haven't seen any of Doom 3's characters render the same kinds of facial expressions that Vampire Bloodlines can do despite running on an ancient build of Source.

Doom 3 is a great engine for what it can do, no doubts there. But for overall scaling and flexibility I firmly believe Source is better. It has a better IQ/performance ratio, very fast and good-looking HDR (probably the best implementation out there in terms of performance/IQ ratio), a great mix of indoor and outdoor technologies, an outstanding facial animation system and even old hardware can get excellent visuals.

 

[BFG10K]

Hey BFG, whats the best way to play Quake on a modern graphics card like a 6600 GT?

If you just a modern update to the original then just install FuhQuake with no modifications. You'll still get enhancements like better performance, better animations and decals but it'll still look and feel like Quake.

If you want to go all the way then get Tenebrae which basically makes Quake into Doom 3 plus it has some stunning water effects as well. There are a few bugs in the single player missions though so keep this in mind if you plan on playing through SP.

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Hey BFG, whats the best way to play Quake on a modern graphics card like a 6600 GT?

If you just a modern update to the original then just install FuhQuake with no modifications. You'll still get enhancements like better performance, better animations and decals but it'll still look and feel like Quake.

If you want to go all the way then get Tenebrae which basically makes Quake into Doom 3 plus it has some stunning water effects as well. There are a few bugs in the single player missions though so keep this in mind if you plan on playing through SP.

Thanks. What is the ideal way to play multiplayer these days over LAN/internet?

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: xtknight
Source without a question for performance/image quality. I don't even know how you can argue that.

because - compared [i prefer "contrasted with"] to Oblivion's [inefficient] engine - HL2 just looks dated. . . . even with Source's HDR the Oblivion engine's gfx looks [much] better with NO HDR - with only bloom+AA [period].

. . . or do you not bother with the "pretty visuals" . . . or shadows?



if you wanna compare "performance/image quality" of older engines, Q3's is even more efficient - but Fugly by today's standards.

At the high end there's no doubt Oblivion looks better - and it had better, as it's newer and part of the hype was about the graphics. But on mid-low range systems like my own, half-life 2's (and episode one's especially) graphics blow Oblivion's out of the water.

 

[BFG10K]

What is the ideal way to play multiplayer these days over LAN/internet?

I'm not sure about that one but I'd probably try FuhQuake as I believe it has new anti-cheating code that is required for QuakeWorld.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: NYHoustonman

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: xtknight
Source without a question for performance/image quality. I don't even know how you can argue that.

because - compared [i prefer "contrasted with"] to Oblivion's [inefficient] engine - HL2 just looks dated. . . . even with Source's HDR the Oblivion engine's gfx looks [much] better with NO HDR - with only bloom+AA [period].

. . . or do you not bother with the "pretty visuals" . . . or shadows?



if you wanna compare "performance/image quality" of older engines, Q3's is even more efficient - but Fugly by today's standards.

At the high end there's no doubt Oblivion looks better - and it had better, as it's newer and part of the hype was about the graphics. But on mid-low range systems like my own, half-life 2's (and episode one's especially) graphics blow Oblivion's out of the water.

i thought my system was just 'midrange'
:Q

yours' was last year.

and yes . . . for a 9800p, Oblivion must suck.
[i get it . . . now . . . ]

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: NYHoustonman

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: xtknight
Source without a question for performance/image quality. I don't even know how you can argue that.

because - compared [i prefer "contrasted with"] to Oblivion's [inefficient] engine - HL2 just looks dated. . . . even with Source's HDR the Oblivion engine's gfx looks [much] better with NO HDR - with only bloom+AA [period].

. . . or do you not bother with the "pretty visuals" . . . or shadows?



if you wanna compare "performance/image quality" of older engines, Q3's is even more efficient - but Fugly by today's standards.

At the high end there's no doubt Oblivion looks better - and it had better, as it's newer and part of the hype was about the graphics. But on mid-low range systems like my own, half-life 2's (and episode one's especially) graphics blow Oblivion's out of the water.

i thought my system was just 'midrange'
:Q

yours' was last year.

and yes . . . for a 9800p, Oblivion must suck.
[i get it . . . now . . . ]

Aye, I haven't upgraded in close to 3 years :x... Being in college sucks. I hope to very soon though.

 

[JDrake]

None of the above:
Torque Game Engine

 

[Sureshot324]

I don't think engines should be compaired entirely on eye candy to performance ratio. Glquake may be scale very well and be very efficiently programmed, but it's a lot easier to program an efficient 3d engine when all you're doing is basic 3d geometry like in Quake 1. And 1000fps on todays hardware is really a useless amount of perfomance.

The Source engine is definitely very efficient, but it's a generation behind as far as technology goes. They don't use a lot of shaders, and the lighting and shadows are not up to the level of more modern engines. Still, I think it fulfills an important role in todays games market. There's no doubt it provides the best visuals for less than high end hardware (and lets face it, that's the majority of the market) and it gives a lot of freedom to the artists since they don't have to worry as much about performance, and that's why Source engine games end up looking so good.

The Doom 3 engine revolutionized lighting and shadows, so I gotta give it credit for that, but it has yet to prove it can make a game that doesn't look like doom 3. Hopefully Enemy territory: Quake Wars will change that. It doesn't run well on low end hardward, but the complex lighting/shadowing calculations it's doing gives it a good excuse, and I still think it is efficiently programmed. If Quake Wars turns out good, Doom 3 could very well get my vote for best engine.

Oblivion looks very good, but I don't think that Gamebryo is a very good engine. I think Far Cry did wide outdoor areas better and ran smoother as well. In oblivion it's painfully obvious when the level of detail changes as you get closer to something. Trees pop in, grass magicaly sprouts up in front of you as you move forward, and the geometry of hills suddenly changes as you get closer. When you have such large view distances, you pretty much have to do level of detail changes, but Far Cry did a much better job of hiding this. Oblivion is very cpu limited and in this day and age, most of the graphics work should be done on the graphics card. The character models look fantastic, but the engine performs poorly for the visuals it's providing.

I haven't played any Unreal engine games recently, but from what I've seen it's in a similar boat as Source. It's very efficient and runs great on older hardware, but is not visually up to par with with some of the newer engines, though possibly a bit more advanced than source. Most of the major games that use unreal version 2.5 (the newest version) are multiplayer (UT 2004, Red Orchestra, Americas Army, Tribes Vengence) so they're more focused on performance than visuals. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is the exception, but it being made for ps2 as well probably held it back a bit. I guess the newest Unreal engine just lacks a killer app to show it off.

Fear is the only engine that can come close to matching Doom 3 when it comes to lighting/shadows, but that engine is an enefficient mess. So for the best engine, I'll call it a three way tie between Doom 3, Source, and Unreal, with honourable mentions going to Far Cry.

 

[BenSkywalker]

By that same reasoning check out Tenebrae that came out 2-3 years before Doom 3 and it does everything Doom 3 does (stencil volume shadows, per pixel lighting, normal mapping) but it also has full support for liquids including shaders, particles and transparency.

I was playing around with it back then- it didn't work. I followed the development of it for a long time, when D3 was shipping it still wasn't close to finished(actually, it still isn't viable).

And I'm sorry, I've just a checked a bunch of Mafia screenshots

Play the game. That's really all I can say, the screenshots aren't even close to what you see in game.

It's quite simple - the driver forces it

Is it now officially supported? I know there were a lot of issues with memory mapping utilizing 8x on single boards under OGL.

nVidia has offered 8xAA right from their driver control panel for years

Last I was aware it did not function properly under OGL- that is what I have been asking.

Unreal is definitely more CPU limited than GLQuake, no doubts there. However scaling goes both ways and at high detail levels even Unreal scales better than GLQuake does.

I am not capable of slowing GLQuake down enough to make Unreal come remotely close to it.

Really? So tell me, where exactly is Doom 3 rendering liquids and HDR?

You realize the Doom3 engine and Carmack are why vid cards support HDR right? Carmack used to always call it overbright- and D3 has always supported it- the engine was built to utilize it from the ground up. It utilizes internally to handle the precission needed to accurately handle lighting models.

Apologies that liquids also humiliate Source Notice proper distortion/refraction on the water- particularly the lower left hand side of the screen.

HDR buffers being used.

Additionally I haven't seen any of Doom 3's characters render the same kinds of facial expressions that Vampire Bloodlines can do despite running on an ancient build of Source.

First off, Source IS ancient- even in its latest and greatest version. What kinds of emotion or animations are you looking for exactly? I think both of them are extremely out of date in that aspect, you watch something like FN:R3 and they are all flat our horrible when it comes to facial expressions and animation.

But for overall scaling and flexibility I firmly believe Source is better.

It scales all the way up to decidedly out dated graphics- why is that impressive? Compare Quake Wars or Prey to anything using Source and it isn't even close. For that matter, I haven't seen anything out of Source that makes me think it can compete with the most simplistic D3 powered game yet. When Source first hit the only thing it had going for it, supposedly, was that it could render outdoor/large environments better. Now we have QuakeWars dwarfing FarCry running on the D3 engine.

At the high end there's no doubt Oblivion looks better - and it had better, as it's newer and part of the hype was about the graphics.

Gamebryo's first commercial title was DAoC in 2001- it predates Source by quite a bit- and that is one of the engines make Source look outdated.