The advisability of multi-monitor support. (Split from an unrelated thread.)

[pandaman]

@AlamoVampire

I do fully understand your point that diverting resources away to develop multi-monitor support would probably not be a wise option. And to be fair, as I have said before, I can't disagree with that.  There are certainly more important things to focus on.

However, that does not alter the fact that (according to your numbers) nearly 45% of users could use it if available.  So, presumably, would find it useful and would be pleased to see it included.

Yes it is 100% an option, and rightly so, but so is multiplayer - which, by your logic, they are diverting resources from non-optional features to develop.

Yes, again as I have said before, personally, I would like it as an option, but not if as a result more crucial features suffer.

Edited July 14, 2020 by pandaman

[Brofessional]

On 7/12/2020 at 1:27 AM, The Aziz said:

Any sort of browser windows/external app would require the game to have constant Internet connection

Not true, it can work just fine on your local machine or network. You just connect to localhost or your own local IP in the browser. In fact that's probably the only way it would work because doing it through the internet is largely pointless and would only introduce latency.

[pandaman]

@AlamoVampire

I don't think we are really that much in disagreement overall.

We both want KSP2 to be the best it can be, as soon as is reasonably possible, and therefore don't want time and resources wasted that can unduly affect that.

My 'argument' isn't about prioritising this feature at the expense of others, rather about just being in favour of including something I would like, if it is possible and practical to do so.  I also believe it would be of interest to a large enough proportion of other players too.

If the devs are working on it and able to include it on release, then that's great.  If not, and it comes later, or maybe never, then so be it.

[Draco T stand-up guy]

1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

Right now, right now, the fact remains that multiple monitor support just is NOT a mandatory feature, it is an optional feature, and as such it should needs must be considered down the road and not right now.

 

So are better graphics.

So are the colonisation features.

So is multi-player.

You go on as if its incredibly hard to do but it isn't. They won't have to build an entire game just to produce windows of data that's going to be displayed anyway. Just have to look for ways so that that data can be displayed on a second monitor.

2 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

I really am tired of feeling like I am being forced to repeat myself.

Nobody's forcing you to do so. You've made all the arguments that you can make and they still fail to be winning arguments against what many (and ~45% is many) would find useful.

[ModZero]

On 7/12/2020 at 2:40 AM, linuxgurugamer said:

I wouldn't.  How many games support multiple game windows, independent of each other?  I am not aware of any, which doesn't mean that they aren't there. This is a significant effort for very few users of it

I know exactly one, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. It's kinda neat, but I'd prefer a way for a separate app to read the game's state (which can be an issue in competitive multiplayer, yes), and I kinda expect that Telemachus-equivalent would be possible in KSP.

[linuxgurugamer]

8 hours ago, Draco T stand-up guy said:

You go on as if its incredibly hard to do but it isn't. They won't have to build an entire game just to produce windows of data that's going to be displayed anyway. Just have to look for ways so that that data can be displayed on a second monitor.

Actually, there is a lot more work involved than you might imagine.  Besides the coding work, there is UI development, QA of the UI, QA of the window, QA of the data being displayed in the window, etc.

Even something as "simple" as Telemachus is not;  I did a fairly deep dive into it last night on my coding stream, and there is a LOT more than you might expect.

You also have to consider the issue of performance.  Even though there are known ways to avoid performance issues, and threads, etc., it takes time to implement and time to test.

Time which, especially before the first release, is probably more profitable to invest in the main part of the game itself.  At most I would expect them to put in hooks so this can be added later

[swjr-swis]

39 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

You also have to consider the issue of performance.  Even though there are known ways to avoid performance issues, and threads, etc., it takes time to implement and time to test.

I politely question whether performance is really that much of an issue in this matter. I base this solely on the fact that I can, and regularly do, run up to three (3) separate, full instances of KSP right beside each other, where I let them use different monitors. In some cases I've done this on a single monitor, on the laptop, alt-tabbing from one to the next and back. With the exception of moments where even a single instance starts displaying frame-drop or stuttering in the display, it runs perfectly fluid (like when loading craft with exceptionally high number of parts, or large number of undocked ports, etc... the known performance killers.

These rigs were not gaming beasts even when they were newly bought- I've never liked wasting money on overpriced 'top of the line' stuff, when less can do 90% as good. One is even a laptop (!), and both of them are over 3 years old. Which leads me to conclude that whatever the overhead may be of running just one extra window separate of the main view can hardly have any performance impact at all, if I can run three entire instances side by side.

Granted, I run without mods. Still, three instances, compared to a single instance with one extra window showing the map view. What are we really talking about.

[Bej Kerman]

20 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

45% is still a significant number. That would be like removing docking mechanics because most players don't know how and KSP lasted for a year and a half without it with no problems.

Docking is an integral part of the game. Support for silly double monitor setups are not.

[AlamoVampire]

4 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Actually, there is a lot more work involved than you might imagine.  Besides the coding work, there is UI development, QA of the UI, QA of the window, QA of the data being displayed in the window, etc.

Even something as "simple" as Telemachus is not;  I did a fairly deep dive into it last night on my coding stream, and there is a LOT more than you might expect.

You also have to consider the issue of performance.  Even though there are known ways to avoid performance issues, and threads, etc., it takes time to implement and time to test.

Time which, especially before the first release, is probably more profitable to invest in the main part of the game itself.  At most I would expect them to put in hooks so this can be added later

This right here. Said with so much finesse. This is what I was driving at. This is why I keep saying an OPTIONAL feature fails the priority time test at this stage of KSP2’s life. Thank you @linuxgurugamer for putting clearly what I keep trying to drive home. Thank you so much for this. 

@Gargamel I hope that the devs are well and hope they will someday soon share more details with us.

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[Gargamel]

35 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

@Gargamel I hope that the devs are well and hope they will someday soon share more details with us.

Why are you including me in this statement?

We rarely have any interaction with KSP Staff outside of the community managers.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Gargamel

[linuxgurugamer]

5 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Docking is an integral part of the game. Support for silly double monitor setups are not.

I wouldn't call it silly, multiple windows can be useful even on a single monitor.  It just isn't necessary to be part of an initial release 

[AlamoVampire]

@Gargamel my apologies, i incorrectly assumed a reply direct was warranted.

 

174707142020

[catloaf]

I think we should get rid of the sun because people only get to use it 50% of the time. Also, NASA is only allowed to send missions to Saturn because 54% of people prefer it to Jupiter. Thus Saturn more popular than Jupiter so Jupiter should get removed. Also, because we discover more hot-Jupiter than rocky planet's hot-Jupiters are superior and all other planets should be removed because they are needless clutter in the universe. In addition locusts are a majority to humans so humans should be

Edited July 14, 2020 by catloaf

[catloaf]

7 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

I politely question whether performance is really that much of an issue in this matter. I base this solely on the fact that I can, and regularly do, run up to three (3) separate, full instances of KSP right beside each other, where I let them use different monitors. In some cases I've done this on a single monitor, on the laptop, alt-tabbing from one to the next and back. With the exception of moments where even a single instance starts displaying frame-drop or stuttering in the display, it runs perfectly fluid (like when loading craft with exceptionally high number of parts, or large number of undocked ports, etc... the known performance killers.

These rigs were not gaming beasts even when they were newly bought- I've never liked wasting money on overpriced 'top of the line' stuff, when less can do 90% as good. One is even a laptop (!), and both of them are over 3 years old. Which leads me to conclude that whatever the overhead may be of running just one extra window separate of the main view can hardly have any performance impact at all, if I can run three entire instances side by side.

Granted, I run without mods. Still, three instances, compared to a single instance with one extra window showing the map view. What are we really talking about.

Exactly. Plus this will put much less strain on the computer because it's not doing extra physics calculations. The vast majority of lag in ksp comes from physics calculations, which my 7 year old secondary computer can handle at playable fps. The only lag from this would be rendering the map view graphics. Thus the extra strain would be on the gpu which ksp1 hardly uses at all and people with slower you'd could turn down their graphics settings or not use the feature (I'm pretty sure the map view graphics are not loaded when you are not in the map view.) Also, technical debt would probably not be an issue because they have to do 95% of the work anyway. All they have to do is tell the game to load the map view on a second screen, which is fine since they already did the work to make the map view. Also the 44% of users who have a second screen are not the only people who can use this. If it was a resizable window which would not be that much extra work anyone with a large enough screen would use it.

To be fair though, it is probably more complicated than you would expect and it's not a must have, however consider the following: deadlines are probably not an issue considering that it should have been out for a few months by now, this is a 60 dollar game and if ksp2 is not a mess of spaghetti code like ksp1 than it will probably be a lot easier than in ksp1. Also the argument that they could add it later is flawed because adding it when the original dev team is no longer in the project and the code uses a version of unity that's probably going to be out of date by then is going to cause problems.

Edited July 15, 2020 by catloaf

[StrandedonEarth]

I've been wishing for multi-screen support for years.

I've gotten into the argument where I don't care if KSP has clouds, but others seem to think it's a felony that there are none in KSP. This seems to fall into that sort of argument. So one solution (for those who don't want their game bloated by code they don't think they'll use) would be to put these sort of features as DLCs. Want clouds? Buy the Cloudy DLC. Want Multi-monitor? Buy the MMmmm DLC. More planets? There will probably be a DLC for that. Want all the things? Buy the Universal pass, and save 50% off the individual prices!! This sort of thing is right up T2s alley.

Now I don't know the numbers; but I know that evolving tech has altered what is typical household standard equipment. Yeah, I'm one of those dinosaurs with a landline.

So how many KSP players have multiple monitors? Apparently not many, and not me, not exactly (my kid has started using an old monitor I had kicking around, hooked to his laptop-on-his-desk Minecraft one one screen, Let'sPlay videos on the other). How many play on a laptop? I dunno, but I do. But here is the kicker: in this age of streaming services, how many have a separate TV? A big TV. A wall-mounted TV. For those desktop PCers, is your PC in the same room as your bigscreen TV? Cuz no, I don't have multiple monitors, but I do have a kind-of-big (small compared to the 80-inchers out there) 50" TV on the wall, which I can and do hook to my laptop on occasion (I have a pretty long HDMI cable). If your desktop PC is near the house TV, the same thing can be done, since most PCs have an HDMI-out these days.

Because KSP is a space program simulator, after all. And what would be more glorious than running your flight screen on your PC (laptop or desktop) with the map screen visible on that big TV on the wall, just like Mission Control. Because that is our role here: We, the players, ARE Mission Control. So we need it for that reason, if no other! The experts have multi-monitor support, so why shouldn't we?

Spoiler

 

[RyanRising]

I’d just like to add my two cents the pile of people hoping for this feature to be included. KSP is a game that lends itself well to having multiple ways of figuring out what’s going on, and while most people might not use it, it would be a huge boon to those who do. 
 

But this thread isn’t really just about adding extra windows or multi monitor support, is it? Sounds to me like it’s about how consistent the experience should be. Do the developers want everyone to play the exact same way and optimise for that, or do they want people to be able to customise how they play and take the hit of not being able to control the interaction as tightly? 

 

Of course the answer is a balance, but as for where that balance is we’ll have to see. I hope it leans to the broader side though.

[Draco T stand-up guy]

9 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Actually, there is a lot more work involved than you might imagine.  Besides the coding work, there is UI development, QA of the UI, QA of the window, QA of the data being displayed in the window, etc.

I do have some idea - its similar to the work I did for my degree in CompSci.

The UI that you're talking about is the same UI that will be in game for whatever windows (Map, orbit info, tracking data, CommNet, etcetera) are used. I'm not talking about anything more than what's going to be in the game. Just want those windows to be able to un-dock from the main game screen and shifted over to my other monitor.

 

[catloaf]

On 7/13/2020 at 4:34 PM, AlamoVampire said:

@DunaManiac

I cant see it justifying diverting developmental time and resources away from critical features to support an optional feature. Especially during runup to release. Im sorry but thats just how it is. Yes some want it but given that less than 45% of respondents use it according to that poll, it just does not seem reasonable right now.
 

Docking as in your example is a bad example. It is a critical game function. At some point a player will need to dock. That is unavaiodable. Dumping a map view to a second monitor does NOT a critical feature make. It is, realistically speaking a 100% OPTIONAL function that would be best added post launch after the game stabilizes. With that said, I have nothing, 100% nothing left I feel I can contribute to this discussion.

183407132020

185007132020

I'll say what I have said before, adding it after launch is a. a bad idea for reasons I have already stated. b. Intercept Games will probably be drastically reduced and have it's budget cuts after launch. c. Many people seem to think that ksp2 will not be stable at launch (EA has reported this post.) Considering that the game has had multiple delays, costs 60 dollars and will launch as a finished product (ksp1 still has that early access feel although I would say it will be done when the revamps are done, probably in 1.12 or 1.13.) So unless T2 wants to ruin any good will left in the community (and any chance of selling the game, much less any dlcs) they will release the game in a finished state with all non dlc content. If they run into a big problem or have deadline crunch then they should forget about it but if not they should include it.

Edited July 15, 2020 by catloaf

[AlamoVampire]

@catloaf it is an OPTIONAL feature that is wanted by less than 45% of people according to that poll. If TTi wishes as you suggest to not burn goodwill they will not divert resources from CRITICAL NON OPTIONAL features and instead keep polishing things that are required for gameplay. I never have and never will say it should never come. I am saying, have said, still say: not now during run up to launch.
 

1. All things equal multimonitor support is a 100% factually optional non critical feature.

2. Please reread the post by linuxgurugamer where he explains eloquently why right now is a bad time for it.

3. Critical non optional features > optional features. Period. 
 

I am tired of going in circles. Im walking away.

 

035207152020

035207152020

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Edited July 15, 2020 by AlamoVampire

[DunaManiac]

12 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

45%

Which again, is still a sizable number.

What if it were slightly higher, like 50% or 55%?

12 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

I am saying, have said, still say: not now during run up to launch.

Who says that this subforum is only what it's going to be at launch? If it's going to happen later, it'll happen later. If it happens at launch, it happens at launch.

I think that if it ever happens, it should be at launch, but I'm not a programmer, so I can't be a good judge of that, but my opinion is that it should be.

[Redneck]

On 7/10/2020 at 10:31 PM, AlamoVampire said:

I dont see this adding anything to the game beyond more room for technical debt. Its just more complexity and more code to maintain. Not only that, for users like me who dont use multiple monitors youd be forcing bloated code on us. How much idk. My opinion ofc.

 

223107102020

forcing bloated code on you in what way? If you dont want a undocked map view then dont use the damm thing. :shrug: If you worried about a couple more lines of code to undock a window your computer prolly wont run the game anyways. Oh Hey Mr Dev guys. Yeah ummmm AlamoVampire cant run the game on his 10 year old computer. Would you guys mind dumbing down the game and leaving out some features because some of us, for whatever reason, choose to run your new state-of-the-art game on a dinosaur computer? Thanks

bottom line is this. It will have multiplayer. If you dont want it then dont use it. If it has multimonitor support if you dont want it then dont use it. Why would you sit here and type out, in front of god and everybody, reasons to not add features to the game? Features mind you that you dont have to use BTW. Why would you advocate for that? If you cant use it then nobody should be able to use it? If its all about efficiency well then lets just get the devs to make atari's "pong". I have since 2011 never understood your way or others that advocate for same thing, reasons to dumb down the game. They did that with KSP1 multiplayer and here you guys are trying to do it with KSP2. I got news for you guys. Nate Simpson comes off (to me anyways) as a guy that will push the coding envelope. I have a feeling he will cram as much believable, realistic stuff into KSP2 as he can possibly do so i guess you guys will be the first ones crying in the support threads "KSP2 keeps crashing!" Right? Or on steam giving the bad reviews. Get with the times man!

Edited July 15, 2020 by Redneck

[DunaManiac]

49 minutes ago, Redneck said:

If you dont want it then dont use it. If it has multimonitor support if you dont want it then dont use it.

The main problem could be performance, but KSP2 will have a new physics engine, so I find it hard to see why it would be a huge performance hit. The other problem is that it might take a while to develop, but in my opinion it won't take long. I do agree with AlamoVampire though that major gameplay should come first, but if possible it would be best to have it at the start than bolting it on later, which could cause bugs, assuming it's added.

Edited July 15, 2020 by DunaManiac

[Redneck]

7 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

but if possible it would be best to have it at the start than bolting it on later, which could cause bugs, assuming it's added.

exactly right. This is why back in 2012/2013/2014 when squad said they would add multiplayer later in KSP1 i called BS as soon as i read it. 

[Gargamel]

5 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

Who says that this subforum is only what it's going to be at launch? If it's going to happen later, it'll happen later. If it happens at launch, it happens at launch.

Look at KSP1.  How many years of continued development have we had?  It might not be out of the box, but they could leave the infrastructure in place for it to be implemented later.   The majority of software (including games) that I use have tons of features that I don't touch, and I have no problems with that.  

 

[catloaf]

21 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

@catloaf it is an OPTIONAL feature that is wanted by less than 45% of people according to that poll. If TTi wishes as you suggest to not burn goodwill they will not divert resources from CRITICAL NON OPTIONAL features and instead keep polishing things that are required for gameplay. I never have and never will say it should never come. I am saying, have said, still say: not now during run up to launch.
 

1. All things equal multimonitor support is a 100% factually optional non critical feature.

2. Please reread the post by linuxgurugamer where he explains eloquently why right now is a bad time for it.

3. Critical non optional features > optional features. Period. 
 

I am tired of going in circles. Im walking away.

 

035207152020

035207152020

035407152020

Maybe you should pay more attention to my post. You know, the part at the end where I said if it takes too much time and will detract from other more important features they should not add it. Keep in mind that the game has superior graphics to ksp1. Thus it is logical to assume (along with the fact that it's a 2021 AA game) that it will have spec requirements far higher than the potatoes that some people run ksp1 on. I'm surprised by how many people are requesting that ksp2 be able to run well on 4gb ram, integrated graphics, I2 duo, ect. I mean seriously people, this is not a little indie game with graphics that make Minecraft look like an unreal engine demo. It's ask not a mess of spaghetti code that's still scarred by early access. Also, no offense but it seems like the other side of the argument, except for @linuxgurugamer keep recirculating the same argument over and over again, and then saying they are done which is true since they can't say anything more. It's pretty obvious that without word from the devs there is no reason to assume it's not possible, except of course people who complain about a feature and act like it will ruin the game just because the "two monitor master race" gets to use it and they don't.

3 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Look at KSP1.  How many years of continued development have we had?  It might not be out of the box, but they could leave the infrastructure in place for it to be implemented later.   The majority of software (including games) that I use have tons of features that I don't touch, and I have no problems with that.  

 

Exactly, I never use Dres, but OMG loading its assets TRIPLES my load times and makes my cpu thermal throttle so a lose a WHOPPING 1% of a % fps OMG they need to remove it NOW!!!!!!! Imagine how much better the game would be without the technical debt gained from adding Dres!!! (Not only that but Dres has a 49% approval rating. Didn't hit that magical 50% so the 49% is basically ZERO.)

And then people are gonna get super angry on steam saying "This melted my 2000$* computer!!! Do not buy, it works for YouTubers but this are FAKED renders, also the graphics look terrible, glitchy and run at 4 fps. Would rare zero stars of I could!!!!" *in 2004, rates adjusted for inflation, worth 3$ now. 

I just don't understand people.

Edited July 16, 2020 by catloaf