Game needs to be optimized. Badly.

[Unloved Grudge]

The title says it all. 0 A.D. doesn't run nearly as well as it should.

My rig is capable of playing BF3 and Crysis 2 with an average of 45-50 FPS on the absolute maximum settings. I'm not implying that 0 A.D. is an ugly game (I was actually amazed by the detail, considering that it's open-source) but it's a bit of a turn-off to find out that you can't even run a game with more than two AI opponents without things getting ridiculously laggy.

I love 0 A.D. and the amount of effort that has undoubtedly gone into it over the last few years, but optimization is pretty important if you're looking to raise funds for the game. Even though it's in alpha, at this stage the game should run a bit smoother if it's going to hold people's attention. Playing against a sole opponent consistently gets stale quickly.

I know the reasons for the lag - pathfinding, AI issues, etc - and I know they aren't necessarily easy to fix, but I seriously think that these issues should be addressed by the next major update. To me, your ability to play a game rules over its potential, so please try to address these issues if you can. I'm loving this game so far, and I absolutely cannot wait for the finished release, but I really think that game performance should take priority for the moment.

Anyways, that's all I have to say. You're doing amazing work so far, Wildfire. Consider me a fan.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Unloved Grudge

[sanderd17]

The lag is exactly why we are doing a fundraiser. It requires a lot of full-time attention, and with the fundraiser, we could employ a full time programmer to work on that.

So I'd reverse the statement, and say that if you want a lag-free game, you should support the fundraiser.

[Jeru]

I want to add that:

1. We agree, and

2. We have already started tackling lag.

(And 3. thanks for your kind words at the end! You might want to put such words in the beginning next time you provide someone with feedback, even constructively as you did here.)

[Unloved Grudge]

The lag is exactly why we are doing a fundraiser. It requires a lot of full-time attention, and with the fundraiser, we could employ a full time programmer to work on that.

So I'd reverse the statement, and say that if you want a lag-free game, you should support the fundraiser.

Indeed, I will definitely be throwing some cash into the fundraiser! I'm also really glad to know that it will help the performance issues. Thanks for the response.

[Lion.Kanzen]

We bring more fan this time , wow I'm impressed the media movement around the project. But we can do better. Thanks you guys to create the RTS for the people by the people.

[historic_bruno]

My rig is capable of playing BF3 and Crysis 2 with an average of 45-50 FPS on the absolute maximum settings. I'm not implying that 0 A.D. is an ugly game (I was actually amazed by the detail, considering that it's open-source) but it's a bit of a turn-off to find out that you can't even run a game with more than two AI opponents without things getting ridiculously laggy.

Max FPS probably isn't the best measure of what's going on with 0 A.D., I can get 80-100+ fps depending on the map (a few are much lower for technical reasons, e.g. lots of transparent objects like trees) and I don't have the latest greatest hardware. But in some game situations, frames take far too long, whether it's pathfinding or AI, resulting in choppiness and lag. An uneven high framerate is more annoying than a lower smooth framerate. On the other hand, when I play multiplayer games without AIs, it does tend to run far more smoothly. We will continue working on the performance, meanwhile if you haven't tried the AI-less multiplayer experience, you might be pleasantly surprised

[RedFox]

We completely agree - optimization has been the top priority for a long time now and we're only just starting to make breakthroughs on that. Since 0AD is cross-platform we are somewhat limited in the amount of optimizations that can be applied and even worse, some optimizations break the game on other platforms while work without issues on others.

For example, OSX OpenGL drivers fail to adhere to GLSL compilation standards, meaning we need custom code for macro preprocessing.

Even worse are optimizations that speed up some machines and slow down others. Some rendering code can be adjusted to favor powerful GPU's, giving a noticeable performance boost. The downside is that weaker GPU's suffer to perform.

However, it is mostly agreed upon that AI and Pathfinding are the single biggest issues in the game and unfortunately they are both non-trivial issues. Pathfinding is still one of the hardest things to get right in the gaming industry, since naive A* or Dijkstra algorithms don't perform in this field. We are considering HPA* with Clearance based Pathfinding; the relevant article can be found here: http://aigamedev.com/open/tutorial/clearance-based-pathfinding/

The biggest issue with AI is that it's in JS and does some dangerously complex things that it shouldn't be doing. We obviously need more dedicated C++ programmers to solve the issues. That's the reason for the fundraiser.