Will Guns of Icarus Unity 5?

[Typhi]

Will Muse games make the switch to Unity 5 for Guns of Icarus? I think 64 bit would come in handy for the Adventure Mode

[Keyvias]

We'll definitely keep upgrading as we can for the game.
We're moving into unity 4.3 with the next patch (I believe) as it is now stable and does not cause any issues in game.

[Queso]

All the engineers want a 64 bit editor, so it's fairly likely. Nobody wants the editor crashing every time they want to test something. I have been through that experience. It is not fun.

[Typhi]

All the engineers want a 64 bit editor, so it's fairly likely. Nobody wants the editor crashing every time they want to test something. I have been through that experience. It is not fun.

Exactly! Also it allows you to make even bigger maps, which might come in handy for the Adventure Mode. So why not make the switch now by the way? You see the people developing Rust (By Garry Newman, also known from Garry's Mod) already on Unity 5. You have a beautiful game (one of the better looking on Unity) I am sure you will get the privilege from Unity to make the switch early!

[Watchmaker]

Unity 5 has not even been released yet, it's unlikely we'll switch before that.

But, yes, do want 64 bit.

EDIT: Though I should point out that the memory constraints of Unity have basically nothing to do with changing the size of our maps, that isn't what limits them.

EDIT 2: Also, Keyvias is a patch or two behind.  Guns 1.3.7 was released on Unity 4.3.3, Guns 1.3.8 will use Unity 4.5.4

[Typhi]

Unity 5 has not even been released yet, it's unlikely we'll switch before that.

But, yes, do want 64 bit.

EDIT: Though I should point out that the memory constraints of Unity have basically nothing to do with changing the size of our maps, that isn't what limits them.

EDIT 2: Also, Keyvias is a patch or two behind.  Guns 1.3.7 was released on Unity 4.3.3, Guns 1.3.8 will use Unity 4.5.4

Thanks for replying Watchmaker! Very good information you got there. Unity 5 has indeed not been released yet. Though games like Rust already use it, think of it like some sort of beta program. Anyways thanks for replying and I hope you guys will make the transfer to Unity 5!

Also good to know that you map size is not limited by the 32 bit editor. So can you maybe explain what is actually the big improvement (and why you want it so bad) about 64 bit?

[Queso]

The issue with the 32 bit editor is that the editor is basically both the tools to run the game, and the tools to modify and view all the assets and scripts that run the game behind the scenes. Tracking and logging all of this stuff takes a large chunk of memory in addition to all the memory it takes just to run the game. The issue with a 32 bit editor is it can only use around 2 GB of memory before crashing (citation needed). Because of the larger address space of 64 bit programs, they can handle up to around 8 TB of memory (citation needed) before running out of unique memory addresses. This became an issue when we'd try and do larger scale play-test stuff on large maps in the editor.

[Watchmaker]

Queso basically covered it: more available memory space for the editor makes life easier for us - currently we have some editor-specific memory issues that lead to uncomfortably frequent crashes during our work days.  A 64-bit editor would greatly improve that; a 64-bit client would also allow the game itself to make use of more system memory, though this isn't really an issue most of the time.

GoIO typically uses 1.7-2GB of memory while running a match, which is well within the available address space of a 32-bit OS.  32-bit Windows allows a max of I think 2GB for all user programs by default, but can be configured to allow up to 3 GB; 64-bit Windows, for practical purposes right now, has no upper limit (the actual limit is 7-8 *tera*bytes of RAM.)

[Queso]

Woooo! Got it right! Does this mean I pass my internship?

[Watchmaker]

Unlike with certain professors, the entire grade isn't based on the final exam...

(You "passed" your internship somewhere around when we finally fixed tool autofire...)

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Would going to 64 bit change anything as far as map size or complexity goes?

[Watchmaker]

Not really.  System memory isn't the primary limit on map size or complexity.

Map size is limited ultimately by floating point precision, and in practice by simple travel time.

Map complexity and performance is mostly limited by *video* RAM and other GPU constraints.  System RAM does play a role here, but it's fairly minor.

Making use of the increased upper limit on memory would also mean either dropping support for lower-end machines without said extra memory, or authoring extra low-detail versions of the same map(s), so it's something we'd have to be very careful about.

[Typhi]

Unity 5 has not even been released yet, it's unlikely we'll switch before that.

But, yes, do want 64 bit.

EDIT: Though I should point out that the memory constraints of Unity have basically nothing to do with changing the size of our maps, that isn't what limits them.

EDIT 2: Also, Keyvias is a patch or two behind.  Guns 1.3.7 was released on Unity 4.3.3, Guns 1.3.8 will use Unity 4.5.4

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/10/27/unity-5-0-pre-order-beta-now-available/ Unity 5 beta is available as of today!

[Typhi]

By the way, will Guns of Icarus also make use of new API's like DX11/DX12? I think the extra draw calls will come in handy for Adventure Mode.

[Watchmaker]

What on earth do you mean by "extra draw calls"?

Switching over to the DX11 renderer has been a side project of mine for a long time, since it should theoretically improve performance in addition to giving us some new options.  There are relatively few and minor issues with it at this point, so that may just happen in a future patch (nothing will magically look better when this is released, mind you.)