The whole "multiplayer" Idea has gone around this forum again and again. My question is: How feasible would Local split screen multiplayer be? There is already a code structure in place for multi-controller mode, so an update to the camera system to allow two or more views hardly seems unreasonable. Connecting four Xbox controllers and having Forza/Demolition Derby/Deathrace would be a lot of fun.
Okay, I’m not the most reliable source as I don’t own the game yet, but I’ve heard that split screen would be extremely taxing on most computers, as it requires rendering the map twice, as far as I know. The best option right now, and will likely be the only option for multiplayer ever, is multiseat.
O b v i o u s l y it's completely possible and not even that technically challenging, they just have to do it and those nibbas whomst can't handle it will deal with crying.
Well, sure. But many people own computers capable of rendering the game twice, perhaps with slightly reduced settings.
I was about to insult you but you obviously aren't asking for it as much as asking why its not possible. The short is that the issue isn't directly controlling the cars but as much as having more than one client sync with another client or a server. This goes to LAN too. As for split screen, that's a lot more feasible but there are still a few issues regarding rendering with different camera angles, which means a splitscreen computer would require to have quite a big more horsepower than playing multiseat in a single screen.
See, I was thinking about that, and I don't think it is that valid. There would probably be a small increase in required computing power to render the game twice, but If you are rendering in split screen, each screen is only Half/Quarter Res of the original, resulting in no net change in pixels rendered per second, thus leaving the load on the GPU relatively constant.
I dont think the resolution of rendering is the same thing as the rendering due to what your screen shows, tho. But that's getting into the specifics of game making and how T3D works.
My suggestion. Build an app for the game that displays a second camera that you can freely place like a second relative cam. Then enable multiseat and use TeamViewer or whatever.
I really think this is a good idea and have waiting for someone to post this for a while and see what the devs say about this because i have tuoblew using the multiseat camera...
The game doesn't have to render twice. It has to render 2 cameras, yes, but not the entire map. For example, if you go to the world editor (I know you can't try this out, it's just as proof) you can see that the car cameras/lights have different objects that actually spawn light in. If you have 2 cars, you have 2 cameras, but they're not used at the same time. If you've used cinema4d, you can see that you have a camera. This is similar to the way BeamNG cameras work.
When I get home I'm going to see how good I can run beamng x2 on a map like gridmap and then on utah to see what FPS I get with my specs (see signature), my pc is about 2 years old now so it' not a bad test...we will see.
Ah, good to know. I’ve played around with the level editor on the techdemo, but I couldn’t figure out what most of the stuff was
Computationally split screen "shouldn't" be too bad I wouldn't think. I mean sure, your rendering 2 separate viewing angles, but unless you're playing with Dual monitors or something, you're technically pushing only half the pixels for each render. So... in my probably wrong opinion... while you might use more VRam... I wouldn't think it would be too bad once it came time to compute it graphically. Mostly, it just needs the leg work from the devs on the coding side to get it to work no matter how difficult or easy it ends up being. I saw, somewhere, that one of them mentioned that currently in Torque 3D it would be quite a pain, but they already had the underlying framework to theoretically make it possible done due to the way that they implemented multi seat mode? I am guessing they were talking more about the multiple inputs rather than the dual cameras, but at least it's something
The problem actually is syncing since you have such a detailed model that is breaking apart and it MUST the same angle / crash / explosion, otherwise parts would fly away in wrong directions and your car will get broken and the other player will see that you keep driving. That is fixable but will result in A LOT of rubber banding. I think the devs are on the right track (look at the last medium update with player names on cars). Maybe one day it will be a mod by the community (It *should* be possible to make an app that sends car data to another client).
there is literally nothing to sync it's local same pc they just have to implement a second rendering camera which is entirely possible and not that difficult to do, they just have to do it, as stated before
Sorry, I was talking about multiplayer on different computers (LAN / Internet). On the same PC it is possible.
lol this is like the 100th time split screen has been suggested. It wont happen, at least for a few years.