[MUD-Dev] Locations vs Social Spaces (was: I Want to Forge Swords)

[Matt Chatterley]

Richard wrote:

> I assume a lot depends on the hardware, but given a reasonable
> system for today, say something in the P500 range with an 8-meg
> video card, how bad would a game have to look in order to
> accommodate large numbers of players onscreen at one time?

Hmm. Not sure if I misunderstand here (uh, by the way, hi again, all
you old Mud-Devvers. I'm back. Yay), but, if you are talking about the
Graphical MMORPG concept, if something like OpenGL is used, the
rendering and graphics are all handled by the client system, and
todays hardware is pretty damned good.

My K6/300 system will run Quake3Arena with every single option turned
down (it executes, and can be played, but looks Uuuuuuugly). My
housemates K6-2/450 (which has AGP and a TNT2 card) will play it on
about half-power (looks pretty durned nice). My other housemates
Athlon/Geforce system will play it near enough at full blast (looks
lovely).

This example says little, but illustrates how each of us is prepared
to make compromises with how good a game looks, based on the equipment
that we own (or have access to). As long as your game doesn't have
ridiculous specs, it should be fine.

Uh. Anyway, digress over. To answer your *actual* question. Say, a
P2/450 system with a TNT2 card (which is fairly mid to lower range
nowadays, IMHO - plus, I've access to one, and know roughly what it
can do). At a rough guestimate, you could get rather a lot of moving
objects on screen at once, depending on the *complexity* of those
objects. If your player models are as detailed as Q3As, then you'll
have trouble after half a dozen or so start moving (biig trouble). If
you make them smaller and a little less lovely, you could probably get
double figures going. Maybe more if your code is smart, efficient, and
you minimise resource wastage.

I'm gonna shut up now, because I'm babbling. ;)

-Matt


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev