One of the thing’s i’d love games would start doing is the ability to get GUI elements on other screens. For example: have the main game window and relevant flight GUI elements on the main screen with the map, inventory and stats on the second screen and maybe even chat on the tablet!
Any plans for something similar to this? A map and cargo hold on the second screen would be sweet since i wouldn’t need to stop my gameplay with opening windows on top of the game world.
Some years ago Flavien said that he aimed for a customizable HUD system. So that people could create their own HUD elements.
What you request goes a little deeper (lower level) though. The HUD system needs to be able to distinguish between screens.
As I said. There was talk about it. I think even about multi-screen support and such. But that’s far in the past and mostly outdated.
the same is true for low and high spec computers. also pay to win you think? no one care that you have old computer and play with 15 fps. i think that second monitor is not big deal. you could buy old used shitty tft monitor if you so like more then one. i prefer just one big wide screen.
In both cases I think the margin of advantage is minimal.
Having stuff on an extra monitor will not make you a better shot or a better strategist.
Most games are targeted at being able to run smoothly on average mid range hardware at launch.
With low specs you will just need to turn aesthetics down (which in many games actually gives you an advantage eg being able to see more clearly with post-processing effects off).
The single hardware item that infers the greatest advantage in games where it’s relevant is head tracking, and that can be done pretty cheaply now.
I think Spreadsheets in Space (EVE) is a good measure for that.
It may take you significantly longer to tweak correctly, but it is definitely possible to be competitive in EVE with a 17 inch monitor. The modular interface makes that possible.
As long as Infinity: Battlescape scales correctly between screen sizes, or better goes with fully customizable, which I would greatly appreciate, I think there’s no problem with the influence of the interface into the fairness of the gameplay.
Remember Junaums interface thread? Those were some great concepts.
Those two criteria are totally unrelated so how can you use them for comparison? That’s like comparing apples and lychees by saying “One is a common fruit and the other has a hard shell.” - The comparison is meaningless.
Unless you’ve got some sort of cybernetic eyes with superior peripheral vision, keeping all important information clustered closely together gives you an advantage in that while you’re focusing on one thing you’ll also be able to see everything else with a high level of detail. Once you start dumping things to a different screen, you’re suddenly only seeing them with low acuity (motion-sensitive) peripheral vision, meaning that if the only change occurring is text being rewritten it might as well be invisible.
Oh yeah, and unless there’s some really fancy programming involved, all of this will be happening at a lower framerate, meaning you start reacting to new information a fraction of a second later, even if you see it.
Here, let me try to explain. Take the program for I:B. run it on any computer that can run it. Now take an extra program not needed for the game and add it for a few people. An edge is an edge don’t be Hippocrates. Life isn’t fare. but this is just cheating.
That is a false statement.
Relay? You want me to think there spending extra money to make things harder. O.o
And that changes the fairness how? Except in case that the additional programm is a cheat or hack. In that case yes, that’s cheating. But having a beefier gaming rig and/or bigger screen isn’t. That’s cappitalism.
If your computer hits a CPU or RAM bottleneck while playing Ifninity:Battlescape you have a seriously outdated processor, one that just lies under the minimal system requirements of the game. Every single computer programm out there starts to hang as soon as the processor or RAM reaches 100%. Before that every programm is treated equally. Having a programm running in the background doesn’t add excessive additional load to the processor or usually slows down the other programms if they weren’t slow before.
Only at special times where the sofware is designed to use all available resources, like at a loading screen, you may see differences of milliseconds to seconds. Before that the additional programm just take up resources that weren’t used anyway.
It’s good that there isn’t that big a difference between the competiveness of different computer gaming systems. if there were, developers of popular competitive games like Counter Strike or Leage of Legends would have heard from their respective communities years ago and would have to accept big compromises to solve this imbalance. But luckely (or rather due to the way computers and their sofware is built) they didn’t need to yet as no big group has ever brought a big discrepancy up.
But as said before and shown in the example. It is, in my oppinion, a microscopic factor when it comes to the “fairness” of a fight, if one at all. The rest is comfort and a different game experience.
I don’t see how you understood his answer that way. He’s talking about the differnece of 3D framerate and interface update rate.
There was a devlog before where Flavien said he put multi-monitor support into the engine, and even did it in a way that lets your second monitor be on a completely different card and still work fine, because all the rendering is done on one card and then split between two windows.
This is a feature I’ve been wishing for quite some time. Even in EVE Online the implementation is a bit wonky. I for example have a smaller side monitor and setting EVE up a way it actually is useful is pretty much impossible. (Mostly because seeing space backdrop on the side monitor is distracting). If I could just set up extra monitors with blank backgrounds that can hold menus and stuff that would be absolutely fantastic.
@Bentware: Your argument is skewed. If bigger monitors are an unfair advantage, then so are gaming mice with more buttons and mechanical keyboards which are better at registering keystrokes. The beauty of PC is that your hardware is highly customizable. If what you were saying was in fact true, then the game should mandate that everyone uses exactly the same hardware because “that’s how it’s fair”. Which is of course obviously complete BS. The main factor the dual monitors give is convenience, and taking it away on the basis of “some people don’t have it, so no one can have it” is just selfish.
Yes, playing on a counsel would be the fairest. Having a mouse that works with the standard programing I have no problem with. Having to alter that programing for a few is cheating.
Sorry, you’re on the wrong forum. INovae are making a PC game/engine that may or may not be available on consoles, for complete evenness in hardware visit a console-related forum instead. In the meanwhile, the rest of us will be looking forward to playing a game that actually uses modern hardware.
Edit: as for this,
No. They’re spending performance to make things prettier. As far as money is concerned, having multiple monitors can increase productivity in a lot of jobs by more than enough to warrant the cost, but yeah if you work in construction it’ll make the cheapest hobby on Earth slightly less cheap.