Outcast: Second Contact - Outcast remake

[Turjan]

What a joke. (that's a 3,5GHz i7)

I thought, since Assassin's Creed Unity, we have known this makes the experience more cinematic?

 

[Astral Rag]

You're right, I guess I should be thanking them for making one of my "old " favorites more cinematic

 

[Astral Rag]

 

[Weirdstuffinspace]

 

[Turjan]

Lack of ground textures* should increase the frame rate quite a bit, right?

*or is this ground voxels? I always forget.

 

[Astral Rag]

 

[Outlander]

Needs more cowbell patching.

 

[:Flash:]

It seems they didn't increase the viewing distance, though. The one thing I was hoping for.

 

[MasPingon]

What a joke. (that's a 3,5GHz i7)

also

http://steamcommunity.com/app/336610/discussions/0/626329820737898655/

and

http://steamcommunity.com/app/336610/discussions/0/626329820738756624/

Noob, voxel. Ever heard of it?

 

[:Flash:]

Actually, Outcast doesn't have voxels, that's just a buzzword they used back in the day for marketing reasons.
Outcast has a heightmap raycaster, which can be completely parallelized on modern GPUs. I understand that they weren't able to do so for the quick and dirty 1.1 release, though.

 

[Gragt]

It’s already on GOG. There is no annoucement yet but the store page has been updated and the new version replaces the old one in the account page. The old version is still available under the extras as “product_bonus_38603.”

 

[grudgebringer]

It seems they didn't increase the viewing distance, though. The one thing I was hoping for.

I didn't try it yet, but according to screenshots the viewing distance was increased. But again, this is not Skyrim. I was just hoping they won't take away the fog entirely, since it adds something to the feeling of exploration.

 

[Turjan]

Hmm, tried it for a short moment. During the beginning cutscenes, I noticed disappearing surfaces like in the video that has been linked on the first page. Moving around, I didn't have that problem yet. Honestly, it's nice to have it in native high resolution, but the difference in texture(?) quality is quite jarring. Look how here the roof and snow surfaces in the foreground are very blurry, but the building walls and the rocks in the distance are very detailed.

 

[:Flash:]

Hmm, tried it for a short moment. During the beginning cutscenes, I noticed disappearing surfaces like in the video that has been linked on the first page. Moving around, I didn't have that problem yet. Honestly, it's nice to have it in native high resolution, but the difference in texture(?) quality is quite jarring. Look how here the roof and snow surfaces in the foreground are very blurry, but the building walls and the rocks in the distance are very detailed.

I don't think that's a difference in texture quality, the textures just have a low resolution (due to the limited graphics memory of the time. In the background, a pixel of a texture approximately maps to a screen pixel, but in the foreground one pixel maps to a lot of screen pixels (I'd imagine the black lines between the wooden boards are about 1 pixel wide in the texture), and thus have to be enlarged. We should be happy that bilinear filtering was standard by then, otherwise there would be huge jarring pixels. Bilinear filtering in a software rasterizer is also quite a performance hog.

Hmm, I thought I had Outcast on GOG, but it seems I don't. Well at least I have the Collector's Edition box.

 

[Turjan]

I don't think that's a difference in texture quality, the textures just have a low resolution (due to the limited graphics memory of the time.

None of those textures are HD, except maybe some of the character textures (not the faces). However, the roof textures are obviously lower resolution than many textures around them. You can see that if you compare the roof on the house in the back to the left with the wall of the house right next to it, which both have the same distance.

We should be happy that bilinear filtering was standard by then, otherwise there would be huge jarring pixels. Bilinear filtering in a software rasterizer is also quite a performance hog.

Heh, sometimes this takes a while to set in and you see the big pixels at the first moment you look into a certain direction. The edges of those rocks then look like big stairs. This doesn't bother me though.

 

[Outlander]

You can see that if you compare the roof on the house in the back to the left with the wall of the house right next to it, which both have the same distance.

My depth perception might be getting fucked, but the way I see it, the house with the front stone wall (the better looking one) is further back than the one with the torch. But anyway, just looking at the house with the torch, you can see a huge difference between the roof boards and the boards on the front of the house, right where the torch is.

I guess roof textures are purposely lower resolution than the rest of the structure, since that's the less visible part of the houses, unless you climb high spots.

 

[Turjan]

My depth perception might be getting fucked, but the way I see it, the house with the front stone wall (the better looking one) is further back than the one with the torch.

Technically yes, by about 2 meters. The textures that I compared are pretty much the same distance though. You can see that the rock texture isn't high resolution, either, but it has much more detail than the roof texture, which you can see on the first image (last post) directly in the front left. And you are right, the wooden beams look again higher resolution than the rock wall.

I guess roof textures are purposely lower resolution than the rest of the structure, since that's the less visible part of the houses, unless you climb high spots.

Well, maybe. However, the game wants you to climb to high spots.

Edit: Also, I don't want to see this as any kind of deal breaker. I acknowledge that this is an old game, and it's not a problem. It was just something I noticed. Also, I got the update for free, so there's no reason to complain, except for the disappearing texture problem, which hopefully will be fixed.

 

[J_C]

Actually, Outcast doesn't have voxels, that's just a buzzword they used back in the day for marketing reasons.
Outcast has a heightmap raycaster, which can be completely parallelized on modern GPUs. I understand that they weren't able to do so for the quick and dirty 1.1 release, though.

I never heared anyone denying the use of voxels, so I don't think I can believe you. You have any source?

 

[Astral Rag]

I never heared anyone denying the use of voxels, so I don't think I can believe you. You have any source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_(video_game)#Development

 

[J_C]

I never heared anyone denying the use of voxels, so I don't think I can believe you. You have any source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_(video_game)#Development

LOL, are you believeing wikipedia?

Spoiler

I believe it, thanks for the link.

 

[Gragt]

Looks like the game just got patched; it fixes a few crashes and should improve performance a bit.

 

[ghostdog]

The original game run flawlessly with the 1280x1040 fan-patch on my crappy 2,66 core2duo, so I find it hard to believe that there is any reason apart from poor optimization for these bad framerates in 1080p.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Did anyone try the newer versions of this patch? GOG has the 1.1.0.18707 version, any improvements concerning performance/glitches?

 

[Vicissitudes]

Did anyone try the newer versions of this patch? GOG has the 1.1.0.18707 version, any improvements concerning performance/glitches?

just finished it with the patch. except for few random crashes all smooth. played@1080p.

GOTY

 

[Turjan]

The game got another patch 2 days ago on GOG. Now with true borderless fullscreen, plus a few bug fixes.