The one and only NoLimits 2 Topic

NL's engine is still quite ancient by today's standards (ignoring the water and high poly trains/objects, which are fairly modern features but are very sparingly used), therefore it is designed to run on old graphics. Anyone can spit out a simple scene in NL and make it run at 60fps on the ancient Geforce 4 MX, but once you start adding supports, more trains, and trees, it starts dropping down. The average medium-heavy custom objects ride will sink down to 10fps on such a system.

The main benefit of having a modern graphics card on NL is antialiasing, water reflections, and ability to handle all that at high framerates even for rides with many custom objects. Despite the fact that numerous optimizations are done for shaders and other features that NL hardly uses, they are still able to push far more geometry than older cards, especially considering how simple almost all of the geometry is. (i.e. They're all single-textured and have nothing else; a handful of polys in a scene may have a very simple environment map if the modeler was creative enough to do that, but even those are very simple to render.)

I thought the whole 6900 series (or at least the 6950 and up) were basically dual core versions of lower end cards, but it looks like nVidia has very well caught up to ATI.

let me explain:
6950 : one gpu chip
6970 : one gpu chip (little faster then 6950 (just bios edit of it))
6990 : two gpu chips (holly mother nation fast and expensive)

gtx 570 : one gpu chip
gtx 580 : one gpu chip (faster chip: 570 isn't bios upgradeable to 580)
gtx 590 : two gpu chips (fastest gpu card on the moment and most expensive BUT the power chips can melt very quickly: little unstable)

conclusion:
-6990 ftw (buy xfx they give proper warranty for uber mode [;)] )
or
- 2* gtx 580 sli: fast and stable.

I have a HD 6950 and overclocked it to the standarts of a HD 6970

Haha, my bad. I read something on the 5900 earlier and forgot the specifics to it. What I looking for was a 4-way Crossfire setup with the 6990, though ATI's drivers seem to need some work for that to be of any benefit to many games, and NL won't even be able to utilize it.

Perhaps with a liquid nitrogen cooling system, one can SLI two OC'd 590's, haha, which may enable one to run Crysis on the highest possible settings with Surround 3D over 3 monitors and cranked up SRAA (Subpixel Reconstruction AA) to the max (if they even released SRAA yet) and get 60 frames each eye. Then again, the engine and/or drivers probably lack the optimizations needed to run like that, who knows.

Now in an attempt to steer slightly back on topic, anyone know what features the .lwo file format (NL2 is supporting .lwo and .3ds) supports? Heck, is it even possible to utilize such features in the .3ds format? In particular, I'm concerned about new maps and material settings that the NL2 engine will support, but may not be able to be utilized if any of the file formats lack support for it and if NL2 will not let you edit them. Animation may be another issue, but hopefully NL2 will handle that without too much trouble.

Heck, while we're at it, I'd like to see a particle system; very useful for fog/smoke areas (such as over water or in tunnels), water effects/fountains (i.e. splash effects on Manta or SheiKra) dynamic laser lights, fireworks, etc. This kind of stuff will shift NL from being exclusively a secluded coaster experience to a full, realistic park experience and is all sorts of fun when coupled with the walk mode.

You have to remember that Ole is pretty much working alone on NL2. it's not going to be anywhere near Crysis in terms of graphics sophistication. I can guarantee you of that. It will still be very good, but don't get your hopes up too high lol.

Originally posted by coasteragent99

Animation may be another issue, but hopefully NL2 will handle that without too much trouble.

Heck, while we're at it, I'd like to see a particle system; very useful for fog/smoke areas (such as over water or in tunnels), water effects/fountains (i.e. splash effects on Manta or SheiKra) dynamic laser lights, fireworks, etc. This kind of stuff will shift NL from being exclusively a secluded coaster experience to a full, realistic park experience and is all sorts of fun when coupled with the walk mode.

If that happens, I'm sure many would be kissing RCT goodbye. Not only would it create opportunities for rides at the same scenic level, but if a few devoted members model out amusement rides (like you said), RCT could end up being phased out. It'd still be played by many (as it's easier), but NoLimits would really be reaping in popularity...and money.

I hope Ole reads these threads; between all the repeated and/or broken feature requests, there are some really golden ones. That is a good idea right there.

I can do without animation. How many of you know how to animate objects? And with what editor?


Animation is just something I think everyone thinks they want till they realize they have to do it ALL themselves.

So youd have to do all the modeling. (LOD as well) texturing. Then keyframe the whole thing. Export and sync it up...

yes it would add a whole nother cool level of realism HOWEVER at what cost? Another year of development?


I also dont want coasters with crappy, unoptimized models and animations that look terrible or worse yet, run terribly. Its not gonna be like RCT in terms of porting things into it. Its far more advanced than that.

to me it sounds nice but once you get to the heart of it, too much involved.

Eventually, I'll learn animation myself (for a project I'm working with and learning in the Unreal Development Kit), and I'd love to put it to use for NL projects. I'd also be willing, given time, to create and release a park pack to the public domain, an idea I've had earlier but simply never got to doing. (I have a ferris wheel for NL1 done if that counts, haha, heck, I may just make this my next project, given that I'm not so great at trackwork.)

RCT3 has its share of unoptimized objects; I'm sure there's plenty of low quality stuff out there, but the better stuff ends up getting pushed up and used by the community. Essentially, we could operate the same way and this has actually been done several times. (i.e. the building constructor if anyone remembers that, random catwalk objects that someone distributed earlier, or heck, the CS park pack) We're already dealing with plenty of badly modeled and optimized objects (I've seen someone try to model a log flume using one straight trackpiece with support, then copying those around), and I'd say that it can't get all that much worse than it currently is.

NL2's animation system is getting more robust, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wouldn't take all that much time to develop fog/fire/fireworks and other effects. There's a weather system for precipitation, which means the engine is at least somewhat prepared for handling other types of particle effects.

Of course, if adding in animation capability would really take a year, I'd say, go for it in an update. In an NL2.1 or what have you. I would personally take such capability over the addition of 3 or 4 train types, but that's just a preference. We're slowly reaching a point where NL simulated rides are so intricately accurate (from good designers at least), and so much work is put into one little space that will never be built upon again after being uploaded to the track exchange. At which point do we pause the work on the coasters and tracks to breathe life to the surrounding environment outside of one little ride?

Of course, that's just my take on it. I think one of the many great aspects of the roller coaster is how much life is in its surroundings, and the multiple tracks per scene to NL2 is a great start for that. Not all of this is for the surroundings though; dynamic objects and scenery has been put to great use for so many rides; Manta would not be what it is without the simulated water splash. TTD would not be what it is without the countdown lights and the fake engine sound. MF would not be what it is at night without the dynamic lighting and the fireworks show that occasionally happens, nor the strobes in the tunnels. All of these elements we set aside and only care about when making casual RCT parks are just as intimate to the coaster design and experience as are the accurate supports and the carefully laid out multi-force zones.

Don't know where Crysis was brought up; probably from all the discussion earlier. Bringing the graphics of NL2 to that level is impractical for many more reasons than the fact that the fact that NL2 is being developed by one programmer and a few artists/modelers. The main immediate benefit I see of doing so is that it may draw more professionals in the amusement industry to using NL for visualization and/or advertising, but suffice to say, is probably not worth it.

Wow, that was way too long. Oh well.

^Hmmm, good idea about the update thing. He's right Real, it doesn't have to come out in this coming version, but I think Ole should sort of "make room" in the coding for it right now just in case.

You could basically say the same thing about NL1; importing 3ds's was not introduced until after 1.2something. I forgot where it was because he seems to have deleted or archived the old news, but I got NL when it was 1.262 and I remember reading about it. (i.e. Something like "Tired of theming your track with supports?") Animation support need not be immediately introduced in NL2 if it would take too many resources to develop, but here's another way to think of it:

If NL2 overall has an easier way of importing content and supporting file formats, it will probably be easier for the development team themselves to update it in the future. New coaster trains, brakes/accelerators, and all sorts of other objects have to be modeled first, and put into the program, likely via hard-coding. Avoiding so much hard-coding and opening up the engine to be more flexible makes these future updates easier and faster to manage, and can enable users to start tinkering with some of the same stuff as well. Of course, working with geometry that MUST be generated by the engine (i.e. stations, catwalks, or the track itself) is trickier, but having more flexibility there is still beneficial. (i.e. Think of a utility to customize the track; it would let you draw the rail spline in 2D, attach 3D tie models, and have rules for spacing such objects as ties, flanges, even textures and all sorts of other things. It would take some more time to develop, but would make updates faster as well as enable users to customize whatever they'd like to. [Whether a user base exists that can do a decent job or not is an entirely different issue IMO; I believe there always is; if we can get just a few excellent user-created projects amidst a pool of the mediocre, it would be worth it. Think video game mods.])

Good fundamental tools enable and empower everyone. A good track generating system with built-in tools giving Elementary and Newton 2 capability benefits users as well the development itself, allowing them to create better demo tracks to show off the simulator capabilities. NL 1.71 itself would not be where it is today if it weren't for the wealth of customization options as well as 3rd party tools that have been created over time. Flexibility and customization is king, and I can only see good results come from increasing such capabilities in NL2. Does it take more time initially than hard-coding? It most certainly does. But in the long run, the possibilities it allows and the time it can save for development is well worth it.

Originally posted by IbanezCoaster

I have a HD 6950 and overclocked it to the standarts of a HD 6970

I'm gonna get a GTX 590 Classified Hydro Copper 2 what now [:p]

nobody cares...

I hope you can have lights in NL2. That would be way cool.

Any updates??? Its been awhile....

Not since the maintenance update that was released in July, for up-to-date info, check out the official news link here:

http://www.nolimitscoaster.de/

I hope to see Iron horse tracks(Rocky Mountain Tracks) and more scenery(realistic) and custom scenery like tunnels,fall foliage etc.

IDK that we'll see Iron Horse just because now that some newer types of coaster are coming out like the Wing-Riders and Iron Horse and all that...if they keep adding the new types by the time the game is ready there will be more types to add. I think they have had to have drawn a line to what they want to include and until that becomes more common I have to think they wouldn't add that...it WOULD be sick though.

I vote for the new four across S & S launcher trains like these http://rcdb.com/9442.htm?p=35912

[A7]

Originally posted by Jcoasters
I'm gonna get a GTX 590 Classified Hydro Copper 2 what now [:p]

Do not brag about things you do not have. [xx(]
Example: I have (2) GTX 285 Classified cards in sli. I am not dreaming of them, I have them. I could step-up to better cards if I wanted to, but I don't want to. These cards will still kick ass for another 2 years. If I were in your shoes and was going to fork over the cash, I would not get a 590 anyway, the 600 series comes out in October, which is right around the corner.

Honestly, anything above a single GTX 260 would max out NL2 easily.

he isn't actually getting it, thats just in his head.

Originally posted by A7

Originally posted by Jcoasters
I'm gonna get a GTX 590 Classified Hydro Copper 2 what now [:p]

Do not brag about things you do not have. [xx(]
Example: I have (2) GTX 285 Classified cards in sli. I am not dreaming of them, I have them. I could step-up to better cards if I wanted to, but I don't want to. These cards will still kick ass for another 2 years. If I were in your shoes and was going to fork over the cash, I would not get a 590 anyway, the 600 series comes out in October, which is right around the corner.

Honestly, anything above a single GTX 260 would max out NL2 easily.

A GTX590 is actually SERIOUS OVERKILL if you don't have:
-A Intel xtreme processor
-3 HD (1080p) Monitors
Just buy a 560 or 570 or 580 or wait for the new series

Back on topic...

Would it be rediculous to ask for a continuous running station? (slow crawl at 1mph, riders load while train is in motion in sync with the station platform?)

Originally posted by Flickstah

Back on topic...

Would it be rediculous to ask for a continuous running station? (slow crawl at 1mph, riders load while train is in motion in sync with the station platform?)

That would be great for some wild mouse coasters

[TheArchitect]

I NEED MORE NEWS BEFORE I LOSE MY MIND

^Thank you for saying it for me. IT'S BEEN 5 MONTHS SINCE NL2 NEWS.