I was just wondering.....what would it be like to have a realtime,
doom-style game with a POVray based rendering engine....?  Obviously,
this wouldn't be very possible (speed-wise) on today's machines, but at
the rate technology is advancing.....
	How fast do you think computers would have to be in order to run a game
like this at reasonable speed...say 15-20 fps?  Would it even be
possible?
	Kyle

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Depends on the effects you'd use. Antialiasing? Atmosphere? Halos?
Radiosity? Recommended system: 500GHz Mercred V, 100 GB holographic memory
etc... Oh, and a fast bus, too.
But seriously, raytracing was never intended for such an application. Other
methods give results much more suitable for games. And anyway, why
speculate? Just wait and see.

Margus

Kyle wrote in message <36B754E9.5C926C7D@geocities.com>...
>I was just wondering.....what would it be like to have a realtime,
>doom-style game with a POVray based rendering engine....?  Obviously,
>this wouldn't be very possible (speed-wise) on today's machines, but at
>the rate technology is advancing.....
> How fast do you think computers would have to be in order to run a game
>like this at reasonable speed...say 15-20 fps?  Would it even be
>possible?
> Kyle

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Oh, I know raytracing wasn't intended for that, but if we had the
computing power for it to be possible, why not do it?  It'd be much more
realistic looking than anything else that I can imagine.  I was just
wondering how much computing power that would be.  
	For Effects, I'd say... Antialiasing .3 and Atmosphere,Radiosity,media
= yes
Anyone have a clue?
		Kyle

Margus Ramst wrote:
> 
> Depends on the effects you'd use. Antialiasing? Atmosphere? Halos?
> Radiosity? Recommended system: 500GHz Mercred V, 100 GB holographic memory
> etc... Oh, and a fast bus, too.
> But seriously, raytracing was never intended for such an application. Other
> methods give results much more suitable for games. And anyway, why
> speculate? Just wait and see.
> 
> Margus
> 
> Kyle wrote in message <36B754E9.5C926C7D@geocities.com>...
> >I was just wondering.....what would it be like to have a realtime,
> >doom-style game with a POVray based rendering engine....?  Obviously,
> >this wouldn't be very possible (speed-wise) on today's machines, but at
> >the rate technology is advancing.....
> > How fast do you think computers would have to be in order to run a game
> >like this at reasonable speed...say 15-20 fps?  Would it even be
> >possible?
> > Kyle

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Well, do a simple test. Render a scene with all the effects you want,
representing a typical frame of the game you have in mind.
Now do some math to figure out, how many times faster your system would have
to be to render it, say, 30fps.
Believe me, the multiplier will be quite staggering.
I figure a relatively simple scene with 640x480 AA, radiosity, atmosphere,
reflections etc. would take _at least_ 10 minutes, that's 600 seconds. To
render it 30 fps, your system would need to be... computing... 18,000 times
faster. That's a LOT.

Margus

Kyle wrote in message <36B76321.FE8B62EB@geocities.com>...
>Oh, I know raytracing wasn't intended for that, but if we had the
>computing power for it to be possible, why not do it?  It'd be much more
>realistic looking than anything else that I can imagine.  I was just
>wondering how much computing power that would be.
> For Effects, I'd say... Antialiasing .3 and Atmosphere,Radiosity,media
>= yes
>Anyone have a clue?
> Kyle
>

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WOW, that is alot.  That's much much faster than I thought it'd have to
be.  Well, we all might have to wait a few months. :-(
		Kyle


Margus Ramst wrote:
> 
> Well, do a simple test. Render a scene with all the effects you want,
> representing a typical frame of the game you have in mind.
> Now do some math to figure out, how many times faster your system would have
> to be to render it, say, 30fps.
> Believe me, the multiplier will be quite staggering.
> I figure a relatively simple scene with 640x480 AA, radiosity, atmosphere,
> reflections etc. would take _at least_ 10 minutes, that's 600 seconds. To
> render it 30 fps, your system would need to be... computing... 18,000 times
> faster. That's a LOT.
> 
> Margus
> 
> Kyle wrote in message <36B76321.FE8B62EB@geocities.com>...
> >Oh, I know raytracing wasn't intended for that, but if we had the
> >computing power for it to be possible, why not do it?  It'd be much more
> >realistic looking than anything else that I can imagine.  I was just
> >wondering how much computing power that would be.
> > For Effects, I'd say... Antialiasing .3 and Atmosphere,Radiosity,media
> >= yes
> >Anyone have a clue?
> > Kyle
> >

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Yeah, It'd be fantastic. But even now, a scanline realtime render is
possible... Quake/Quake2 to name examples. Using a VooDoo2 card... 
Admittedly, the Anti aliasing is nonexistant, everything is polygon
meshes and so on, butr still...


//Spider

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What do you mean? If I'm not using Voodoo2, QII uses a different rendering
method? I'm running it in software and the only difference I see is no tex
smoothing no 16K color.

Margus

Spider wrote in message <36B768AA.50932D56@bahnhof.se>...
>Yeah, It'd be fantastic. But even now, a scanline realtime render is
>possible... Quake/Quake2 to name examples. Using a VooDoo2 card...
>Admittedly, the Anti aliasing is nonexistant, everything is polygon
>meshes and so on, butr still...
>
>
>//Spider

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Really?  I didn't know that.  That's one thing I've never understood. 
What's the difference between a scanline and a raytracing engine?  All I
know is that 3DS has a scanline renderer and it's considerably faster
than POVray.  Not as god quality though I don't think.
	Kyle



Spider wrote:
> 
> Yeah, It'd be fantastic. But even now, a scanline realtime render is
> possible... Quake/Quake2 to name examples. Using a VooDoo2 card...
> Admittedly, the Anti aliasing is nonexistant, everything is polygon
> meshes and so on, butr still...
> 
> //Spider

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There was a post here somewhere by somebody (sorry... memory failing... need
more coffee...) that gave a good overview of the existing rendering
techniques.
Basically, scanline uses Z-buffering to sort polygons by their distance from
the viewpoint. Rendering is fast, but reflections/refractions and many other
things can't be done directly; instead they have to be "mapped" onto objects
and this is not very precise. The two methods can be used together (3DSMax,
for example).

Margus

Kyle wrote in message <36B76C24.ADD718EF@geocities.com>...
>Really?  I didn't know that.  That's one thing I've never understood.
>What's the difference between a scanline and a raytracing engine?  All I
>know is that 3DS has a scanline renderer and it's considerably faster
>than POVray.  Not as god quality though I don't think.
> Kyle

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What I meant is taht the effects he asked for can't be created without a
card capable of hardware acceleration. 
You don't get coloured light, fog/mist reflective surfaces or such in a
softeware mode, Adn the render engine is actually different.

If you study the Q2 archive, you'll find teh glide.dll/software.dll(or
something) files. in theese the actual render engiunes are. So yes, they
differ in the software/hardware modes.

//Spider

Margus Ramst wrote:
> 
> What do you mean? If I'm not using Voodoo2, QII uses a different rendering
> method? I'm running it in software and the only difference I see is no tex
> smoothing no 16K color.
> 
> Margus
> 
> Spider wrote in message <36B768AA.50932D56@bahnhof.se>...
> >Yeah, It'd be fantastic. But even now, a scanline realtime render is
> >possible... Quake/Quake2 to name examples. Using a VooDoo2 card...
> >Admittedly, the Anti aliasing is nonexistant, everything is polygon
> >meshes and so on, butr still...
> >
> >
> >//Spider

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