OXIDE has launched!

Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

OXIDE has launched!

I love Stardock. I really do. But I’ve been seeing someone else for the past year or so…

I don’t know exactly how it started. But I was talking to friends of mine in the industry and we’ve all been frustrated with the direction of 3D game engines. The hardware has been there for awhile that would allow us to have some amazing looking visuals and performance for strategy and role playing games but the software just wasn’t there. They’ve been focusing on first person shooters to the point where even RPGs now have to be made as first person shooters in order to have decent visuals (which if you think about it, is ridiculous).

Remember the huge battles in Two Towers and Return of the King? We should be able to have those kinds of visuals in our games. Today. Your modern video card is capable of it. You take 64-bit, DirectX 11 (or Mantle) and a modern video card and you can do amazing things in theory. Unfortunately, the software has tended to focus on first person shooters. In those games, the player only sees a handful of units at the same time. Ask someone at Nvidia, AMD or Intel and they will tell you how frustrating it’s been to create this amazing hardware only to have it sit there idle most of the time.

So what could we do about that? That’s where I started talking more and more to Dan Baker, Tim Kipp, Brian Wade, Marc Meyer and later Nathan Heazlett. What would it take to develop a new type of 3D engine that we could use and others could use to power strategy games and role playing games where you could have thousands and thousands of high fidelity objects on screen at the same time.

That’s where the idea of Oxide was born. If we could bring together some of the industry’s top talent, put them in a room and provide them with enough resources, we could create something amazing. We’re calling the engine Nitrous and it’s spectacular. If you look at the the Oxide press release you will see quotes from AMD, Intel and Nvidia in there. They’ve seen it. And soon, so will you.

Today, we are finally ready to tell the world about Oxide. Mainly, we have to because some of the things we’re working are are about to get shown by our partners and people would wonder who and what Oxide was and where it came from.

Most game developers, especially ones involved in graphical game development, know, or can imagine, exactly the kinds of things Oxide is working on. But for everyone else who is reasonably technical, imagine a brand new, built from scratch, 3D engine designed with multicore processors and 64-bit from the ground up. No legacy code. No baggage. Just pure awesome.

To learn more about Oxide, visit www.oxidegames.com

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Lavo_2

Join Date 05/2010

+112

This engine looks like it will turn the strategy genre on it's head. I'm looking forwards to see this in action, eventually.

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 15

Sins 1 uses the Iron engine.

Sins 1 eh? Does that mean there's plans for a Sins 2?

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Chibiabos

Join Date 02/2006

+59

Quoting Lavo_2,

reply 26

This engine looks like it will turn the strategy genre on it's head. I'm looking forwards to see this in action, eventually.

Quoting Frogboy, reply 15Sins 1 uses the Iron engine.

Sins 1 eh? Does that mean there's plans for a Sins 2?

Poke a frog hard enough, things leak out

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

Quoting Chibiabos,

reply 23

I'm cautiously optimistic. There were a lot of disappointments with Civilization V ... I think the biggest buzzkill of the game for me, though, is it doesn't efficiently multi-thread. In late game on large maps, end turn processing can take over a minute (!) to process, taxing out one core at 100% while my other cores sit idle. Taking a minute to complete a turn is atrocious ... I was hoping Firaxis would have noticed GalCiv2's notion of processing AI rivals while the human player is taking his/her turn which is why (as Brad has earned the right to boast about) GalCiv2 doesn't have end turn waits (aside from waiting for unit automoves to complete).

Yea, that's a different thing entirely. The main problem with most 3D engines is that they still rely on a "main thread". But Nitrous implements SWARM which is blind to how many cores. It just uses whatever the most free core available. The more cores, the faster.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

Quoting Zydor,

reply 24

Well ...... if the reality lives up to the Theoretical Outline .... this will be an Industry Game Changer on the same scale of change as when the world moved from 32bit to 64 bit. Its not just an enhancement, its a Big Generational Level Change. Lets hope all the current Partners retain enthusiasm, turn theory into practice, and marketing preamble into reality.

Nice one

Exactly. The difference isn't subtle. It's not like when you see a demo of something and you go "I...think that looks better." It's a much bigger leap.

Let me give you an example:

The Kumquat engine, which is a DirectX 9 engine, can handle something like 3 point lights. A current, state of the art 3D game can handle say a hundred or so. The Nitrous engine can handle thousands. The same is true on 3D objects. You get above a couple hundred and even a modern rig will start to crawl. But Nitrous can handle tens of thousands.

The reason it can do that is because it inherently uses all the cores on both the CPU and the GPU. It's the result of an engine that's been designed and programmed by people who've been making this stuff for decades being able to begin, from scratch with multicore and 64-bit configs as the starting point. That's the main reason why Intel, AMD, and Nvidia are backing it so publicly. They've seen it in action.

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When I see my highly detailed minions dieing by the thousands I will laugh.

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Kantok

Join Date 10/2007

+67

Will Oxide consistently develop games or is the studio going to mostly develop and license Nitrous (with maybe a few games to demonstrate what the engine is capable of)?

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Quoting Lavo_2,

reply 26

Sins 1 eh? Does that mean there's plans for a Sins 2?

I noticed that too. Another frog teaser...

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 29

Well shit, when you put it like that, YESSS!!!!!!!!!

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 29

[clipped]

The difference isn't subtle.

The Kumquat engine, which is a DirectX 9 engine, can handle something like 3 point lights. A current, state of the art 3D game can handle say a hundred or so. But Nitrous can handle tens of thousands.

^ I'm trying to get my mind around this.

Brad, with this kind of fully harnessed multi-core power available, isn't it about time someone did a top-down RTS on a huge map with thousands upon thousands of various units duking it out at once?

Gaming no longer needs to consolidate power in titan spaceships, dragons, or a few dozen wizards. It needs a thousand foot-soldiers... to lead the charge.

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

Quoting jim_viebke,

reply 4

Cool announcement, Brad! I don't know much about game engines, but I can tell one thing...

0Is GCIII being developed on Nitrous? Is that how you're going to support larger maps?

Have U been on my forum for Galactic civilizations ideas I'm trying to post these so the game developers have an idea on what they need to make their jobs a little easier.

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

Quoting Alstein,

reply 8

Windows Vista/7 isn't latest and greatest
Does this mean Stardock is using Nitrous instead of Kumquat for GalCiv3? What are you planning to do with Kumquat?

I hope U R checking out my post for Galactic civilization 3 ideas

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

Quoting The_Biz,

reply 18

looks neat.

it's a bit puzzling that something being presented as a fit for strategy or RPG games only solves a problem which would make the games less about strategy or role-playing...

It sounds like it would be a good idea to check out my post on ideas for Galactic civilization 3. Sounds like U have ideas to add about the knew stradegy game

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

Quoting TheJaker,

reply 20

Quoting The_Biz, reply 18
looks neat.
I sure wish Total War games didn't look like crap though. Strategy Games are so far behind first person shooters in graphics quality.

Personally graphics never killed a game for me. Its always been about playability. That's what spore forgot. Nice looking game, but the problem was I thought it was going to be a stradegy games. I could never people obsession with graphics. Tekken 1 for instance compared to streetfighter did not do much, but because if graphics everyone thought it was the bomb. I would like to see better graphics as long the memory couldn't be better served making it a better game. As long they remember that Galactic civilizations 3 is a turn based tech research space stradegy game. This would be fine. I would like to better utilise graphics otherwise,

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

Quoting Chibiabos,

reply 25

would both benefit greatly from 64 bit CPUing. I guess it was too much to hope this new engine could apply to GC3 ... but hopefully it could be a place to test some things out, and maybe a future GC3 expansion could make use of it .... though that would probably not be realistic either, since expansions tend to just use relatively minor enhancements to the original engine. Maybe the next Elemental expansion/game/iteration/title/buh-wut-do-you-wanna-call-eet?

The've just started have u seen my thread on Galactic civilization 3 u should probably check it out for ideas u might want to post

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

Even though I just quoted everyone that I thought could contribute to my post. I have a couple ideas that I think could help for games to have this on. I was thinking of something like spore, but it would be a stradegy game; instead, In the creature stage instead of making animals or making it really hard to make descent Aliens. Take advantage of the fact that stardock has a whole lot of Aliens. U could take some lessons from virtual village for the tribal stage. Make something like empire earth for the civilization stage and for the space stage sins of a solar empire 2. I would like to see this added to civilization 3 as long as it doesn't mess with the turn based space stradegy gaming.

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Quoting Chibiabos,

reply 23

I have just started playing a game of galciv2 after playing civ5 and trying to get into Rome 2 total war. And i cant say just how wonderful it is to not have to wait forever( or even at all) for the ai turns to end. Especially since i like playing on larger maps with slower research and build speeds.

Though waiting ages for AI turns in a turn based strategy, is so ingrained in me that i find myself hitting the end turn button in galciv2 and still staring out the window for a minute waiting for my turn.

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Exciting day! Congrats!

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What is going to happen with the old engines- are they going to be mothballed, or would you consider licensing them out should someone wish to use them/making them some sort of freeware?

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

I like the Freeware idea give them over to Linux

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Quoting Alstein,

reply 43

What is going to happen with the old engines- are they going to be mothballed, or would you consider licensing them out should someone wish to use them/making them some sort of freeware?

They are most likely going to sell them on the cheap to the poor - like old Ford Taurus' from the 1990's...

-wmf

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Sinperium

Join Date 02/2010

+219

I almost missed this.

I am wondering if we will see *cough* Sins II on it?

Muwahahaahahaha.

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Werewindlefr

Join Date 03/2007

+28

Considering Valve's Linux orientation for future project, is Oxide a cross platform project? If it's windows only, won't it run against Valve's current?

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

Quoting jim_viebke,

reply 34

Brad, with this kind of fully harnessed multi-core power available, isn't it about time someone did a top-down RTS on a huge map with thousands upon thousands of various units duking it out at once?

Gaming no longer needs to consolidate power in titan spaceships, dragons, or a few dozen wizards. It needs a thousand foot-soldiers... to lead the charge.

Stay tuned.

Check out http://www.oxidegames.com

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Chibiabos

Join Date 02/2006

+59

Maybr Brian Reynolds will rehab from making facebook games and come back to making real games with this. Would be neat to have a real Rise of Nations re-imagining with hordes of units. I loved that RON didn't have uber-units, yeah it had nukes but you still needed foot soldiers ... it was certainly limited by the tech of its era.

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admiralWillyWilber

Join Date 05/2009

+99

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 48

Quoting jim_viebke, reply 34

Brad, with this kind of fully harnessed multi-core power available, isn't it about time someone did a top-down RTS on a huge map with thousands upon thousands of various units duking it out at once?

Gaming no longer needs to consolidate power in titan spaceships, dragons, or a few dozen wizards. It needs a thousand foot-soldiers... to lead the charge.

Stay tuned.

Quoting Chibiabos,

reply 49

Check out http://www.oxidegames.com

rise

I would really b a fan of combining rise of nations with sins of a solar empire with spore for the ultimate Rts ever. Remember that Stardock and Ironclad has a whole lot of Aliens with the mods. This would give them the ability to come up with a lot of Aliens for the creature and tribal stage. Galactic civilizations has the best spaceship builder I've ever seen. The problem with spore was not the concept but the implimintation. The game was to simple for a 2008 game.

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