The one and only NoLimits 2 Topic

Originally posted by boneplaya

I'm not sure how sophisticated the walk mode will be - whether it will only apply to NL-generated things like the track, catwalks, and terrain, or everything. Like you mentioned, the users would need a way to specify those surfaces that are walk-through-able, which would both be difficult to account for as a developer and as a user.

Early on there was a video demo of the walk mode, and according to Ole it was done with imported objects. Thus it looks like NL will generate a collision model automatically, and my guess is that you can specify whether or not an object will have collision. Collision meshes are simply the "skeletons" used by the program for the sake of physics; for collision detection, and the collision mesh typically needs to be much more simple than the actual object or the engine will waste more than necessary. (More complex collision meshes use more memory and probably cost more to compute on, not sure.)

Building collision meshes is a pain, but most programs that need one can generate one for you. My guess is that for NL, you will simply be able to specify whether or not an object needs a collision mesh which a monkey could do. Not sure if NL will let you get more detailed and specify surfaces to omit collision from, or even let you specify the detail level of a generated collision mesh or import your own. Chances are that they'll keep things as simple as possible without compromising too many options.

I can't wait for people to recreate parks!

EDIT: Another cool thing would be to upload a park with a single ride, and add another ride and upload again. And then keep adding on to your very own parks!

EDIT 2: 100 posts yay!!!!

A question for you computer people...

Right now I have 2GB of RAM (512MB per 4 slots) on my computer. I was thinking about upgrading it for this game, but how much will it help? Will it help render 3D objects better and make the game run more smoothly?

My computer can upgrade up to 8GB of RAM (2GB per 4 slots), however each 2GB stick is $50, and I don't even know if I'll be using this desktop computer in college soon anyway.

How much more RAM would you recommend I get? As for graphics cards I'm probably just going to have to get some decently good one.

If you have at least 2GB of DDR2 RAM and aren't running other tasks while running NL, I would say that anything better would NOT directly benefit NL or even NL2. RAM only helps you run more and larger tasks at a time. In effect, if you are working with numerous tasks at a time (say, for NL1, the editor, 3D modeler, Newton 2, and tons of other tasks, as well as numerous internet browser tabs, music, chat programs, and other items opened at once), RAM will benefit you a ton. If you don't multitask much at a time, you probably don't need more than 4GB DDR3 RAM unless you're running certain specialized tasks. Supplementary to RAM is a fast hard drive; having the operating system installed on a solid state drive (SSD, hard drives that use flash memory and are uber-fast and uber-expensive) allows the page file (file containing virtual RAM, where data goes when you run out of RAM) to be accessed more quickly.

Graphics is by far the most important factor for NoLimits simulator performance. Obviously, your memory and processor must be up to par, but the graphics card will determine how far you can go with it.

For current NL 1.71, new cards usually come loaded with features that don't benefit NL much; mostly improvements to new shaders and what not. What you need is geometry crunching; faster fill rates and what not to handle NL's high-polygon scenes, somewhat poor custom 3D object optimization (there are no LOD's for 3ds's and from what I know, NL treats entire 3ds objects as a single chunk when deciding whether to draw it or not. (i.e. It will not undraw parts of objects that are not facing the camera), which is a horribly unoptimized way of handling it; of course, I'm not sure if this is the case, but seems to be.)

For NL2, the shading power of modern graphics cards will help more, allowing you to crank up all the high settings. Pile up multiple coasters per scene, more animations, weather, n00b modeled 3DS's, etc. and it could get quite intensive sooner than one may think.

[Metazoanhaddock]

^with the optimization bit, even if the sim doesn't optimize for itself, creators can still optimize their own objects, so the amount an object brings down framerates really can vary depending on the skill of the creator.

^^So what you're saying is that I should probably focus on a new graphics card instead?

Yes. Or, if you're going to college soon, I'd just wait for that and get a new computer, if that's in the cards. Besides, NL2 probably won't be out for at least another year. Do what you want, but that's my suggestion.

I have a 256MB graphics card (not much, especially by today's standard), but I have a 3.06 GHz dual-core processor, and I run almost any ride at 80-100 FPS (the only ride I've had major problems with was Aytrane's MF recreation, and that ran at 1 FPS the first time I ran it, but the second (and following) times, it ran at 30ish FPS pretty consistently). My previous computer ran a 512MB graphics card, but had a 533 MHz single-core processor, and everything varied from 1-40 FPS. So I would say that the combination of a good processor and a decent graphics card is necessary for NL. Granted, I do have double the RAM on my new machine as well, but I'm not sure what, if any, impact that had on my NL performance. Also note that my current computer runs a Windows 7 virtual machine almost constantly, and only if the screensaver is on will my NL framerates slow down.

Originally posted by Metazoanhaddock

^with the optimization bit, even if the sim doesn't optimize for itself, creators can still optimize their own objects, so the amount an object brings down framerates really can vary depending on the skill of the creator.

True; 3ds builders *should* break up their objects and instead of copying meshes in the modeler, copy them in the editor instead. However, there are practical limitations, and lots of good pre-planning is required. NL's object editing is not very user-friendly; objects must be sized and oriented accordingly before importing, etc.

However, those are small optimizations that are often very tedious. There are easier optimizations, particularly the deletion of faces that will never be seen. Forgetting to delete a few caps here and there is forgivable as the performance impact is negligible, but there are many instances where people just slap something together easily in OC or Sketchup, double-side things that don't need to be, and leave a lot of polys hanging around. I always call those out, as it is a matter of ride presentation. (Though I don't rate for it.)

My own 3ds's aren't clean; I lazily copied and pasted low polygon rocks for asteroids in the sky once, when I could've used flat, 2-triangle meshes with an RGBA texture imposed on it. My upcoming track features most of the 3D modeling into one .3ds file; it would be much more tedious to have done it in the editor especially without good planning, and it'll be even more tedious to redo it.

That said, I don't think I've hit more than 10k triangles on anything I've done (it was never demanded of my rides). For reference, medium detail terrain uses 64,512 triangles, though I'm not sure how its optimized. (i.e. triangles that aren't visible probably aren't drawn.)

I'll actually need to do a comprehensive test on 3ds optimization and whether or not packing everything into one 3ds file makes a difference. As for copying and pasting within a 3ds file versus copying and pasting in the editor, that's probably just a matter of memory and a miniscule iota of loading time. (Though it can build up for the careless modeler.)

Anyway, I'd like to see how NL2 handles object importing, particularly if you're able to edit materials after importing in order to utilize the new features of the engine; specular, bump, cube reflection/realtime reflection, and all sorts of other maps and features. I'm pretty sure the 3ds format is very limited in its support of such features. I think .ase format support would be ideal, particularly for animation support, but I haven't worked much with that format nor with animation.

Now i'm asking myself, for nolimits: is a quadro or tesla nvidea card better then a geforce card because nolimits isn't really a game...

Workstation cards are almost the same as consumer cards with specialized drivers and a much, much higher price tag. nVidia's (and now even ATI's) consumer cards and drivers are already quite stable so there's no point to getting a workstation card. I wouldn't get one at all under any circumstances even for 3D Studio Max or AutoCAD either; the money isn't worth it to me as consumer cards can run them just fine. These types of applications do have slightly different demands than games, but NL2's demands fall far more heavily towards games than most workstation software. In particular, NL2 and modern games demand good shading power as well as geometrical processing, while workstation applications tend to be less demanding on such shading power but need good geometrical and wireframe processing.

Originally posted by coasteragent99

Workstation cards are almost the same as consumer cards with specialized drivers and a much, much higher price tag. nVidia's (and now even ATI's) consumer cards and drivers are already quite stable so there's no point to getting a workstation card. I wouldn't get one at all under any circumstances even for 3D Studio Max or AutoCAD either; the money isn't worth it to me as consumer cards can run them just fine. These types of applications do have slightly different demands than games, but NL2's demands fall far more heavily towards games than most workstation software. In particular, NL2 and modern games demand good shading power as well as geometrical processing, while workstation applications tend to be less demanding on such shading power but need good geometrical and wireframe processing.

Okay so 2*gtx580 (sli) will work if i get them? [:D]

Not as well as two 6950's Crossfired lol. (That amounts to a 4-core setup, though not sure if NL2 will actually make use of it unless you're using like 3 monitors or something.)

Originally posted by coasteragent99

Not as well as two 6950's Just update there bios to 6970 [;)] Crossfired lol. (That amounts to a 4-core setup, though not sure if NL2 will actually make use of it unless you're using like 3 monitors or something.)

Haha, AMD does that with much of their stuff. They do "correct" them occasionally though.

Yea, and the stupid thing is, on the 6990 you have a uber mode switch, now, if you use that switch your warranty goes away, so they do not give warranty on there own technology, only XFX gives warranty on the uber mode. xp

NEW UPDATE

http://nolimitscoaster.de/index.php?page=news

YUM

Edit- I completely called the different wearout levels and ages of the track.

Originally posted by Kyle Sloane

NEW UPDATE

http://nolimitscoaster.de/index.php?page=news

YUM

Edit- I completely called the different wearout levels and ages of the track.

Your a bit late mate xp

lol oops

does anybody know if the NL2 will be free for people who already have the 1 full version??? or we'll have to buy it again???

[Oscar]

lol, it will definitely not be free. Expect it to cost more, especially with everyone hyping it up. More hype = Higher selling price.

Originally posted by coasteragent99

Not as well as two 6950's Crossfired lol. (That amounts to a 4-core setup, though not sure if NL2 will actually make use of it unless you're using like 3 monitors or something.)

two GTX 580's in SLI are better then two 6950's in Crosfire just to let you know...


Also AJ, can you list all your system specs?

Dell Inspiron 530S

Intel Pentium Dual CPU E2200 @ 2.20GHz
3.00GB RAM
32-bit Windows Vista

What is your graphics card?

^I don't see where on my computer it shows that. I've searched around and can't find anything.

I can post the "base scores" too if that helps.

-

Processor: 5.1
Memory (RAM): 4.8
Graphics: 3.9
Gaming graphics: 3.3
Primary hard disk: 5.9

-

Looks like the graphics are the worst, so I probably need a new graphics card over more RAM.

Originally posted by boneplaya

Yes. Or, if you're going to college soon, I'd just wait for that and get a new computer, if that's in the cards. Besides, NL2 probably won't be out for at least another year. Do what you want, but that's my suggestion.

I have a 256MB graphics card (not much, especially by today's standard), but I have a 3.06 GHz dual-core processor, and I run almost any ride at 80-100 FPS (the only ride I've had major problems with was Aytrane's MF recreation, and that ran at 1 FPS the first time I ran it, but the second (and following) times, it ran at 30ish FPS pretty consistently). My previous computer ran a 512MB graphics card, but had a 533 MHz single-core processor, and everything varied from 1-40 FPS. So I would say that the combination of a good processor and a decent graphics card is necessary for NL. Granted, I do have double the RAM on my new machine as well, but I'm not sure what, if any, impact that had on my NL performance. Also note that my current computer runs a Windows 7 virtual machine almost constantly, and only if the screensaver is on will my NL framerates slow down.

It's a miracle I can run NL at all then. FPS are usually a constant 40/60 unless its a 3ds heavy ride or free roam in sim. It works, that's what matters.

gForce 5200 - I think 128MB?
768MB RAM - 3 256MB sticks, lol.
2002 Pentium 4 Board and Processor - 2.(somethin')GHz - Whoo hoo!!!
Not sure what my HD is, over 100GB or so.

Hey...it was a free computer, so back off. [:p]