Steel Beasts Pro Discussion Thread

[RyanE]

btw, I am getting 30-40 fps in medium-sized battles, even with a lot of smoke around.  I have an older i7 and nVidia 950 on a laptop.

[Asid]

Performance test

If anyone wishes to do a FREE performance test for SBV4.0 . Then let me know. This is the best way to find if you will have issues.

The test will involve you running the full V4.0 on your system.

Regards

[RyanE]

One of the best "behind the scenes" parts of SB compared to CM is DirectX vs OpenGL.  I can run SB on almost any PC graphics chipset maker.  CM doesn't like Intel HD chipsets.  That opens SB up to a whole world of mid-range laptops if they have the horsepower.  To me, BFC can't move away from OpenGL fast enough, or at least their implementation of it.

[RyanE]

Did some performance benchmarking on two different laptops.  Ran the Byto 2.sce battle because it looked like a medium-sized battle with a variety of units and routings.

Laptop 1) MSI Win10 i7 4270 quad-core running around 3.4GHz under max output.  Also has an nVidia 950M.  16Gb is the RAM and running SB off an SSD.

Results - 35 - 45 fps during the action and moving a lot from one unit to another.  All settings are maxed, except terrain drawing distance (about 1/2) and shadows are at 3.

Laptop 2) Dell Latitude Win7 with i7 5600 running around 3.2GHz at max output.  This machine has the Intel HD 550 graphics chipset.  It also has 8Gb of RAM and is all SSD.

Results - 31 - 38 fps moving around the same way.  But I have all shadows off and AA way down low.  As soon as I increase shadows even a little, it dogs out.

In both set ups.  I have terrain drawing distance slides set at about 1/2 of the slide.

So the killers of fps in order of dragitude are...

1) shadows...and it gets progressively worse as you increase the setting.  (just turning them on at all seemed to cost between 8 and 10 fps on the Intel chipset)
2) AA...didn't see a huge performance hit, but it was noticeable on the Intel chipset.
3) HDR bloom costs 2-3 fps on either rig

Again, just the performance on my setups.  But the shadow slow down seems to be driven by the quality of the graphics card.

I have a surface pro 3 with an i5.  For craps and giggles, I am going to try it there also.

edit:

Just ran a test on my Surface Pro 3 Win10.  It has an i5 4500 running about 2.5GHz.  It only has 4Gb of RAM and graphics are some kind of low end Intel chipset.  I had low expectations.  The display is a high rez display and crashed every time I tried to run a battle.  I switched to windowed mode and no issues from then on.  All of the graphics settings were at their low settings.

Results - Ran about 20 -30 fps, with drops into the high teens in the woods.  But it was completely playable.  I wouldn't want to run a huge multi-player as a host or anything, but it was much more serviceable than I expected.

[Ssnake]

Thank you for those tests. It seems to be very much in line with what we found out as well. At the moment SB Pro is CPU limited, not GPU, unless it's a low-end GPU like the Intel chipsets. But even then it can be made to work reasonably.
That said, SB Pro PE 3.0 clearly is less demanding than 4.0.

[RyanE]

Couple things I'd like to see...simple in concept, but maybe not in execution.

1) When I click on a unit/vehicle on the map, can I get a unit type on the description.  Right now, the only way to do it is go to the map or options menu and dig down through that menu list.  This is the editor.

2) Maybe I am missing it somewhere...a range tool vs. judging distance from the map.

3) How about showing the range of the shot in the AAR reply

4) A button when an AAR event is shown that immediately takes the player to the firing unit

5) A more granular option for reply.  Instead of just events or every 4 sec., how about letting a player choose granularity with the understanding of the file size risk?

These aren't necessarily in demand from an individual AFV simulation standpoint, but when playing from a wargame perspective, they help.

[Ssnake]

1) Not sure what you mean, actually. Maybe you can send me an annotated screenshot by email?

2) In the map view, there are several ways.
     a) Hold the Alt key, then click and drag the mouse for point to point LOS checks. I'm not sure if it also displays the range (I hope not).
     b) When adjusting the "LOS bubble" of the "main attention arc" in front of battle positions, it will also show the range
     c) When plotting a route from one waypoint to the other, and clicking on the route, the route length will be shown on the right

3) Maybe. We don't want to flood the window with statistics, but this one may be a useful exception

4) Maybe. For most of our training-oriented customers the map view is often enough, unless they do gunnery tzraining (in which case additional events are captured that aren't available in the Personal Edition

5) That's definitely on the agenda

[RyanE]

1)  I mean what kind of game unit...M60A3, T-55AM2, Missile Team (maybe what missile).  Just some quick reference to what it is...minding FOW challenges.  It would not work on enemy units unless FOW was off.
2) 2a works...thanks
3) There is a lot of room in that window from what I can see
4)  And that is where the training tools separates from a game...it is just to give some perspective or quick situational awareness
5)  I thought so.

[Grim.Reaper]

Dumb question....I own version 3 of the game and probably haven't played it to the fullest and usually very small scenarios, such as platoon level....haven't messed around with editor either.  If you play larger scenarios with tons of units, can you put them all under "AI" control except maybe a small amount you want to play?  I would love to experience an involved battlefield environment, but I don't want to micro manage all the units either...

[Asid]

Hi Grim

You can have a mission that includes AI as well as human players. In this situation the AI would have already been scripted and do its own thing. You would just control your own units.

The other way is to give the units waypoints and basic controls. The AI does quite well and will do what you have told it to as best it can,within the limitations of the engine. For example. You could select a platoon and give it the following orders:

Route orders
•   Engage
•   Assault
•   March
•   Retreat
•   Scout
•   Breach

Tactics orders
•   Hold
•   Defend
•   Guard
•   Suppress
•   Stay
•   None

Formation orders
•   Wedge
•   Line
•   Column
•   V
•   Ech left
•   Ech right
•   Coil
•   Herringbone

Spacing orders
•   Close
•   Normal
•   Wide

Fire Control orders
•   Hold fire
•   Max fire 50 - 4000m
•   Return fire only
•   Fire at will

Giving the orders is quick and simple. If you see something you do not like, then you can jump to that unit/platoon and take over control if you wish. You can add waypoints for better route management. SB is playable from the map also.

I hope this was helpful

Regards

So yes you can let the AI do it's own thing and you can use whatever vehicle(s) you want to.

[RyanE]

There are also a number of scenarios where you are in control of a platoon or company as part of a larger operation.  The benchmarking scenario I mentioned above is one such.

[Grim.Reaper]

Thanks for the information guys..

[Ssnake]

1)  I mean what kind of game unit...M60A3, T-55AM2, Missile Team (maybe what missile).  Just some quick reference to what it is...minding FOW challenges.  It would not work on enemy units unless FOW was off.

Still not sure what you mean. You want to click - in the Mission Editor, per your original post - on a unit and be informed what it is. Which is already the case, in the status bar at the bottom of the map. For the units on your side. So, you want info about enemy units too?

That's problematic because under the current abstraction "spotted" == "identified". For a real wargame you want, however, a layer of uncertainty. At range "It's a blob in the thermals! I can see it!", then maybe "it's a vehicle ... I think. Or an Elephant." - "Yeah, it's definitely a tracked vehicle with some thingamabob mounted", etc., so what's presented to the user should take this gradual identification process into account.
Ideally this would tie in with AI behavior as well, but that's a major redesign issue. It's "of elevated interest" to me, as far as game design is concerned, which I guess is somewhat good news for you. That it's a "major redesign issue" however indicates that you won't get to see it anytime soon.
:(


In the light of this, that you can see the tactical icon is the best balance between "total information" and "fog of war". It's an MBT. What kind of an MBT? May I refer you to the S2's intelligence estimate in the Mission Briefing.

[RyanE]

I am talking about friendly units.  I didn't notice the bottom status bar listing the type of unit.  That might be what I missed.  Its more of a scenario design help than during runtime.  Let me look and see if that is what I was talking about.

[RyanE]

Sorry, you are right.  On my main laptop, that bottom is partially cutoff.  On my work laptop, I can see it and it lists the units.  Not sure why its cut off on my main laptop.  That said, it would be good if it was a little more readable...but not a big deal.