What if KSP runs on the CryEngine?

[Arran]

This isn't a Unity issue it really is something Squad has to do. It is absolutely possible to make a multi-threaded, 64-bit game run in Unity quite beautifully they just haven't spent time on making it happen. This is a real shame as I see it because the game could be so much smoother while able to accomplish so much more if they implemented both of these.

For reference, FortressCraft: Evolved is a Unity game which uses both multi-threading and runs in 64-bit and the things it does are incredible. It can load up 12 GB of RAM and still run smoothly as though it weren't doing anything crazy yet it does so with view distances that put any other game I've seen to shame. It really all comes down to the skills of the programmers. I'm not sure whether Squad just doesn't have the same kind of experience on their team or if they just haven't devoted the time to it to make it happen. Either way I think they are overlooking what would be the most significant improvement they could make to the game.

From the Developer of FortressCraft :

Unity is great at what it does well. But as a developer, I cuss at Unity regularly. One of my favourite sayings has become '...because unity.'

If you want some tech talk:

We're using unity only for the bits we have to: Rendering the world, processing user input, playing sounds, limited phyics engine interaction. But we realised pretty early on that Unity just could not cope with everything we needed for FC.

From my understanding, they use partionally Unity, IE, Redenering, Sound, input and LIMITED physics, all other stuff is run outside Unity on other cores, including the rest of the Physics..

Now my understanding from chats i had bout tech stuff in KSP, is that LIMITED part is actually in KSP allmost near the whole game, without the means to load-off the physics outside Unity..

Exactly the same issues have the Devs at Pathea with Planet Explorers, also struggling to get the 64bit Unity engine to work..

You could ask, why do Pathea and Squad not do the same, and load the Physics outside unity, thats answer i have to keep in the middle. But at least i know for certain, that FortressCraft isnt running Unity 64bits, but partionally like KSP/PE 32bits with outside programming to complement the stuff Unity wasnt able to handle, thus they ran prolly into the same problems, but solved it by thinking outside-the-engine (pun intented)

[MartGonzo]

It slightly worries me that Unity hasn't managed to get a decent multithreaded/64 bit engine working, there are many other engines being created now, all 64 bit

If Unity doesn't get this sorted it will be dead within a year.

[Aghanim]

What does Unity uses for its physics engine? PhysX. That is sad, considering PhysX GPU acceleration only works on Nvidia card. If Bullet is used, its OpenCL code will make GPU acceleration works on every card

With memory tweaks, 300 part ship could work smoothly in theory.

[Guest]

I still think the average user pc isn't powerful enough to run the game smoothly as it is. Adding a game engine that supports a much much higher level of detail and physics will just hurt current users more than help. I hope in the future people will realize consoles are terrible and invest their hard earned money into a machine that can do more than just run a disk. (sadly more people just want to buy something 'out of the box' than build it themselves) I like your thought process here but it will never happen for KSP.

I can think of one big factor that make consoles attractive, and that is the fact that all xbox 360's are the same or all ps4's are the same. One of the big problems in troubleshooting a pc gamers problems is the fact that pc's have a wide range of spec's. Quite often support has problems nailing down bugs because they can't figure out if it's a game bug or a compatibility problem with the users pc setup. Or even worse, if it's a issue with windows xp, vista, 7, 8, or linux, or osx. etc.

And continuing Sethnizzle's thought about Unity constraints. Many of us have been complaining about this since .21. The game ran better on my computer in .19 and .20 than it does now. The main things that seem to be slowing down my laptop are the terrain changes. I would much rather see Squad take .20 and hammer out what few bugs there were, then release a finished product, instead of continuing to add new features, introducing new bugs, and pushing Unity beyond it's limits. Save all the expansion projects for KSP 2 and a new engine. Give me the finished, properly optimized product I thought I was investing in already.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Otis

[I_Killed_Jeb]

It slightly worries me that Unity hasn't managed to get a decent multithreaded/64 bit engine working, there are many other engines being created now, all 64 bit

If Unity doesn't get this sorted it will be dead within a year.

Dubious, Unity's heavily used for mobile development, where 64bit is very new

What does Unity uses for its physics engine? PhysX. That is sad, considering PhysX GPU acceleration only works on Nvidia card. If Bullet is used, its OpenCL code will make GPU acceleration works on every card

With memory tweaks, 300 part ship could work smoothly in theory.

As it so happens currently KSP can't use graphics cards for PhysX regardless of brand, according to folks like NovaSilisko.

[MartGonzo]

Dubious, Unity's heavily used for mobile development, where 64bit is very new

Yes true, I hadn't considered that.

[Arran]

Yes true, I hadn't considered that.

Most games that are 64bits developed, arent multiplatform like Unity is, its often the Big 2 (Windows,MAC) and a smaller amount of Linux developments.

In Unity, its also Andriod, iOS, PS3, WII, i think they advertise with 10 different platforms where unity runs on.

And not all are 64Bits capable. And i can assume they open with this much supported platforms a whole new can of problems to solve.

[Guest]

Most games that are 64bits developed, arent multiplatform like Unity is, its often the Big 2 (Windows,MAC) and a smaller amount of Linux developments.

In Unity, its also Andriod, iOS, PS3, WII, i think they advertise with 10 different platforms where unity runs on.

And not all are 64Bits capable. And i can assume they open with this much supported platforms a whole new can of problems to solve.

The fact that Unity can compile projects for so many different platforms could be one of it's problems. Just how does this work? It seems very complicated to me. I find that easy, direct solutions to everyday problems last the longest. You wouldn't take your Ford pickup to the local Chevy dealer for repairs in most cases.

[MR4Y]

You're probably ignoring the mais problem of CryEngine. The problem that ignores all the conversion issues and software/hardware issues.

That problem is licensing.

If you happen to take a look at CryEngine's forums, you'll see lots of indie developers complaining about Crytek's "smoke and mirrors" licensing policy, unclear license costs, absent tech support, long waiting list and so on.

Also, good luck trying to find documentation on how to use CryEngine. Crytek themselves assume you're one of the people that developed the engine with them. Little to no documentation on how to use it is provided, as opposed to Unity and CryEngine's biggest rival, UDK.

To cut a long story short, CryEngine is only suitable for huge AAA Title gaming developer teams.

[jalapen0]

Sure. Great idea, write an entire game and then switch engines so you can rewrite the entire thing again.

[I_Killed_Jeb]

Sure. Great idea, write an entire game and then switch engines so you can rewrite the entire thing again.

I think realistically this discussion is really geared towards KSP2

[steveman0]

From my understanding, they use partionally Unity, IE, Redenering, Sound, input and LIMITED physics, all other stuff is run outside Unity on other cores, including the rest of the Physics..

Now my understanding from chats i had bout tech stuff in KSP, is that LIMITED part is actually in KSP allmost near the whole game, without the means to load-off the physics outside Unity..

Exactly the same issues have the Devs at Pathea with Planet Explorers, also struggling to get the 64bit Unity engine to work..

You could ask, why do Pathea and Squad not do the same, and load the Physics outside unity, thats answer i have to keep in the middle. But at least i know for certain, that FortressCraft isnt running Unity 64bits, but partionally like KSP/PE 32bits with outside programming to complement the stuff Unity wasnt able to handle, thus they ran prolly into the same problems, but solved it by thinking outside-the-engine (pun intented)

I read that as the Unity engine is good at a lot of core needs for game programming but it isn't quite that great in other respects. However it appears as though the engine isn't stopping a developer from pursuing those areas on their own. This is going to be true of whatever engine you choose. There is no perfect engine and the design needs to take that into account. Some work might have to be done outside of the engine to optimize the game.

Clearly it is possible to take advantage of much of the streamlining that Unity offers while still being able to multi-thread other aspects of the game and utilize 64-bit. Maybe it requires working around Unity in some respects but the results seem to be a much better product than it could have been otherwise. Perhaps its more work doing so and the team couldn't justify the gains for the amount of time they'd have to invest. I'd expect the gains to be huge but maybe they would be completely out of their element. I don't know the technical background of the team to know how big of a leap it would be for them to pursue such an approach.

Also I'm not sure what you mean by FortressCraft not running Unity as 64-bit because there is clearly a 64-bit build and it runs as you would expect. I upgraded my RAM just to take advantage of the massive increase in draw distance you get from it.

Edited February 17, 2014 by steveman0

[Nemrav]

With the exception of the (current) lack of multi-threading in the unity engine, its probably the best one for the following reasons :

active community on unity answers

very tiny builds, this enables it to easily do 3d for smartphones and keep the memory of KSP down.

Heavily documented scripting

most time saving features of any game engine, if you think squad is slow with their updates with unity, then it would be twice as long without it.

Indie version for free, this is probably the biggest thing that got squad which is indie to use unity, it also means we have much better mods out there.

-----

You would be surprised what games have been made with unity, anyways SQUAD INDICATED THAT THEY WILL NOT SWITCH ENGINES NO SIR, and I personally think they never will, imagine the rage from everyone who has their save broken, every mod on Kerbal space port and the forums dies, unless you pay $500 for one of these other engines you can't make another from scratch, infact squad would have to build the game, models aside from scratch... I'm sure everybody wants to go back to pre v7.6 ....

[MartGonzo]

If we're talking about KSP2 it would be great if they were to use SpaceEngine, it's so beautiful!!

but it's procedural and the KSP devs don't seem to like the whole procedural thing and of course it doesn't have physics implemented yet.

[MR4Y]

If we're talking about KSP2 it would be great if they were to use SpaceEngine, it's so beautiful!!

but it's procedural and the KSP devs don't seem to like the whole procedural thing and of course it doesn't have physics implemented yet.

SpaceEngine is not a game engine. It's just the name of the game. Plus, SE's engine is written by it's own creator, making it not something commercially avaliable.

[MartGonzo]

SpaceEngine is not a game engine. It's just the name of the game. Plus, SE's engine is written by it's own creator, making it not something commercially avaliable.

SpaceEngine has almost everything required to make it a space game and the developer is currently in the process of turning it into a game engine.

[Kerba Fett]

Sure. Great idea, write an entire game and then switch engines so you can rewrite the entire thing again.

If it worked for Duke Nukem Forever it would work for KSP.

Sure it took them 12 years to finish the game, but look how good it looked compared to other games that were started 12 years earlier.

[eurybaric]

I think the best bet for an engine for KSP (2?) would have to be one that's written in-house at the core. I mean.. just look at Orbiter and its physics .. maan that's some elegance right there (n-body simulation, non-spherical gravites, radiation pressure, and on and on!).

Yes, cryengine is all nice and shiny. But what use would be an engine that could render dew forming on your long forgotten Laythe lander at night (must admit that'd be pretty slick however ) if it cannot get the orbital mechanics right in the first place!?

Thing is, I think the whole "Physx" hype and thing has caused quite the confusion. When it comes down to the physics, that thing is just too... imprecise. It's just too.. small scale! It could never be used for proper gravity simulation, and not even (maybe most importantly) aerodynamics.

That's why I think that if SQUAD were to go for a different engine, it best would be written in-house.

Cheers!

Cheers!

[RuBisCO]

Everyone get your paddles!

[Rickenbacker]

Saw another thread asking what if KSP would run on the frostbite engine. Well I wanna one up it imagine if it were to run on the crysis engine? What you think the game could look like with the most powerful graphics/physics engine available??

It would look great, and the entire solar system would be 30 feet in diameter.

[pigletx2]

If you want a new engine, wait until KSP 2: AnitMatter Boogaloo. And that engine will most likely be written by Squad.

[palker]

How about Minecraft engine imagine that such beauty and complexity mind blowing.

[Jean Deaux]

Computers everywhere release their Magic Blue Smoke after trying to handle a 200-part craft?

-- Steve

I guess it depends on your system. My smallest build is 114 parts with my largest currently at 1657 parts, operating with minimal lag. Heck, my sub-assembly for my long range lifter and pusher has 1477 parts alone. Investing in a higher end system will yield you better results in your gaming activities.

[Motokid600]

Can we just get a stable 64bt Unity-Windows for starters? Honestly that's all I want...

QUESTION.. now forgive me if this sounds ignorant im sure it will.. but why did Squad choose this.. lackluster Unity engine? I mean.. WTF kinda engine doesn't support 64bit/MultiCore by now? Why is this something the Unity devs are not on top of? Its 2014.. and this cant be done? Again im sure that sounds ignorant and asinine so please by all means.. enlighten me.

[Epthelyn]

largest currently at 1657 parts, operating with minimal lag.

Just...how?

Do you have some kind of supercomputer?