Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Quartz on January 23, 2020, 07:28:55 am
-
As mentioned in my hello post (http://"https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=96223.0"), I've been bingeing on space battles on Youtube and remembered Freespace 2. So here I am.
Is there something like a Gratuitous Space Battles mod for Freespace 2? Or do I need to relearn FRED? It's been a decade since I did any sort of coding, I vaguely remember having done a bit of FRED after FS2 first came out, but that was nearly 20 years ago, and I last coded in earnest over 25 years ago!
For more techie stuff, is FS2 now fully 64 bit? Does it make use of multiple cores? (No, I don't have a 32 core Threadripper. Yet.) Are there still unit / object caps? Can I spam a thousand fighters and bombers at once or is it still only 4 at a time?
-
For more techie stuff, is FS2 now fully 64 bit?
Yes, FSO is an x64 app these days.
Does it make use of multiple cores? (No, I don't have a 32 core Threadripper. Yet.)
Not really. At its core, FSO is still single-threaded; it does not scale with the number of cores in the system.
Are there still unit / object caps?
Yes, and there always will be. Here's a mostly ocmplete list (https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Engine_limitations), but the important bits are that there's a maximum of 400 ships and 2000 weapons (read: laser blasts, missiles, beams) at any given time.
Can I spam a thousand fighters and bombers at once or is it still only 4 at a time?
As per the above, no, you can't spawn a thousand fighters. That said, you can definitely spawn more than just 4 ships in a wing, and definitely more than 4 through sexps.
-
Does it make use of multiple cores? (No, I don't have a 32 core Threadripper. Yet.)
Not really. At its core, FSO is still single-threaded; it does not scale with the number of cores in the system.
Oh well. I imagine converting it to multi-threaded is a huge task.
Are there still unit / object caps?
Yes, and there always will be. Here's a mostly ocmplete list (https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Engine_limitations), but the important bits are that there's a maximum of 400 ships and 2000 weapons (read: laser blasts, missiles, beams) at any given time.
Thanks. 400 ships should be enough. :)
Can I spam a thousand fighters and bombers at once or is it still only 4 at a time?
As per the above, no, you can't spawn a thousand fighters. That said, you can definitely spawn more than just 4 ships in a wing, and definitely more than 4 through sexps.
Sexps? Another thing to learn. :)
-
SEXP - the Symbolic EXPression, this is the basic language of FRED.
Converting FSO to proper multi-threaded function would be basically a matter of rebuilding the whole engine with multithreading in mind from the ground up; very troublesome indeed.
But to be fair FSO can work really nice on very low end CPUs, I myself play it comfortably on a 3,4GHz Core 2 Quad and I'm pretty sure it would be just as fine on a similarily clocked Core 2 Duo, given proper amount of RAM available. This also makes any FSO-oriented build much cheaper in general as you can just go with some low end i3 from years ago, or any cheapest Ryzen part nowadays that is actually Zen inside, and you'll have more budget to pump into the GPU or accessories or something - or just get a cheaper build. That's at least what I think to be pretty logical.
-
Here's a basic firework mission: https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=95586.0
-
Quartz, don't feel bad about having to learn about all this. I'm in the same boat; I just got back to HLP about a week ago and I have to (re)learn everything also. Hell, I haven't used FRED almost ever, and the very few times I tried was all the way back in 2002. Yeah, eighteen years. I hadn't played FS1 or 2 in all that time either, but now I'm glad I'm back. Being able to repurchase FS1 and 2 from GOG.com was a godsend and finding a cheap Logitech joystick with 12 programmable buttons at Best Buy was icing on the cake. :D :cool: :nod:
But yeah, it seems I can't delegate the technical aspects of my still-a-gleam-in-my-eye Devil and the Deep Blue campaign to anyone else, so I have to learn everything I can about FRED and mediavps and sexps (that's pronounced "sex-peas," right?) and everything else. Before I can write the story, I need to know what sort of mission scripts can be made with FRED, and to do that, I need to learn how to use FRED, which means I need to know what the Freespace engine can and cannot do as well as what it can do now that it couldn't do before HLP and the rest of the Freespace modding community made their modifications.
I have so much to learn.... (https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/6a2493e1-8b15-4fb6-96e3-47dd924c4b20)