Devnote Tuesday: New Format!

[Frank_G]

Very good news and i love the new parts by Porkjet. I am really looking forward to the next update in hopes of improved stability. Cant wait to start playing again with a bit more stability (currently wandered off for a nice exploration tour in Elite: Dangerous - but i'll be back soon ).

One word on your new Dev-Note format - i really like the old format more. A summary like this is nice, but the individual information was much nicer.

[r4pt0r]

I also liked the old format better, but I guess we dont need to hear about the clouds dan is making for the animation instead of the actual game

It really is nice getting official feedback on that multicore/thread jazz.

Hopefully Kasper or Badie can keep a finger on the pulse of the community here and ask the devs for real answers to any other trending questions like that

[selfish_meme]

Has Badie even posted here, I've seen her on Reddit. I sort of expected a ramping up of community stuff or am I in the wrong community?

[Alewx]

I prefer the old format, gave a more personal touch to the news, reading what each one has achieved.

[Dart980]

I prefer reading the old format, it was easier to know who was programming this or modeling that.

[KasperVld]

Why dont they put the new format to a vote

Because it would only produce skewed results

[eddiew]

Do we have any hints as to whether U5 will allow PhysX calculations to run on the GPU? Most (maybe all) modern graphics cards will do PhysX using only a small % of their power, and with KSP being generally CPU limited, offloading it is almost certainly the way to go whenever possible

[Red Iron Crown]

Do we have any hints as to whether U5 will allow PhysX calculations to run on the GPU? Most (maybe all) modern graphics cards will do PhysX using only a small % of their power, and with KSP being generally CPU limited, offloading it is almost certainly the way to go whenever possible

Signs are pointing to no. Besides, that would only work on nVidia cards, which is a minority of the playerbase. (Edit: Or not.)

(Leaving aside entirely the issue of threadability of KSP vessels.)

Edited August 26, 2015 by Red Iron Crown

[KasperVld]

Do we have any hints as to whether U5 will allow PhysX calculations to run on the GPU? Most (maybe all) modern graphics cards will do PhysX using only a small % of their power, and with KSP being generally CPU limited, offloading it is almost certainly the way to go whenever possible

The Unity3D devs wrote a nice article about the update PhysX: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/07/08/high-performance-physics-in-unity-5/

[Alewx]

Because it would only produce skewed results

[cantab]

Besides, that would only work on nVidia cards

[Wallygator]

I support the "less words more information approach"

Just keep a preference on the more information side. Also needs more bullets.

[AfailingHORSE]

Wait, their was an xbox announcement? I hate my work and its ability to block Reddit.

[Monger]

Well, trying new things is always good, but i have to agree: reading the devnotes is not just about information, it is partially personal. And I don't want to be told by proxy.

If you have trouble to gain all the info from all developers all the time, then, well, only pick those that wish to say something. If you are unsure what kind of devnotes we would like, then ask us (e.g. by polling).

[eddiew]

The Unity3D devs wrote a nice article about the update PhysX: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/07/08/high-performance-physics-in-unity-5/

Ah, so "Definitely not now, maybe later."

Slightly disappointing, but thanks for the response Now I'll just tap my feet and wait for Intel and AMD to start putting PhysX hardware into their GPUs/CPUs...

[lincourtl]

Too wordy. Can we just get the commit messages?

[KasperVld]

Too wordy. Can we just get the commit messages?

Hmmmm...... no.

[Albert VDS]

So the new format is not an experiment, it is already decided.

It's Squad's choice to give you info on their game how ever they want. Loads of developers take months to even post something or at all.

Personally I like the old format better, it was a more personal way of giving information by each team member.

This new format is formal, maybe a bit too formal.

[TMS]

Because it would only produce skewed results

Skewed by people saying they prefer the old version?

[Alshain]

So the new format is not an experiment, it is already decided.

He didn't say that. Votes on the forum are skewed. Votes anywhere would be skewed because any medium you added votes to doesn't account for the whole population and even those who don't use the forums come here to read the dev notes. So you would have to add a poll in places that don't really support adding polls.

On top of that, it's not a democracy. We can offer our input and Squad listens more than most game companies, but in the end it is their choice.

[PDCWolf]

I prefer the old format, you can pick what you want to read and you get to see who is really working and who's slacking (an entire week to say you can't talk about X? To rig bones to a mesh?). This new format seems perfect to hide that kind of stuff behind a single big wall of text, and I wasn't interested in even reading beyond the first paragraph. If I have to quote someone that does it right, it would be the guys over at Rust. Just look at that huge amount of content with pictures and videos and explanations and stuff, and it comes out weekly too.

Squad listens more than most game companies

AHAHAHA yeah sure.

[problemecium]

Wow. Almost all the sentences in your reply are run-on sentences. You may want to take a gander at you grammar book again before offering your services.

Ha! I knew someone would say something like this.

If nobody got the obvious joke, "You shouldn't use run on sentences they are hard to read" was a humorous example of what not to do.

Regarding the rest, yes, I do tend to use long sentences. That, and my grammar does get casual in forum posts (e.g. "umm..."). However, unlike many here, I don't assume that throwing in a comma makes two independent clauses play well together in the same sentence. If I do end up working for SQUAD, I can try to keep things shorter for readability reasons, but I assure you I'm not being anything close to hypocritical in this context.

;P

[Greenfire32]

Yeah, I'm going to throw my name in the "old format is better" hat. The old format made it super easy to read the parts I cared about, and skip the parts I didn't. Like if Felipe was working on a super cool feature that I wanted to keep track of for example and someone else....did marketing paperwork all week....

But this new format means I have to sludge through stuff I'm not interested in just to get to the "good bits."

Old format did it better.

[Shtirliz72]

As I said on twitter, not really keen on this new layout. I liked seeing what each individual dev had to say about their own work over the previous week, really. It was easier to digest that way rather than picking apart a single block covering it all.

Think so too.

[TheBrisbyMouse]

Don't care about the format.

As long as it comes down to, "We're working on the next update and here are some details on what we're doing now and how much progress we made last week" I'm fine with it.