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Star Citizen’s Gen 12 Renderer & Vulkan Q&A

We’ve had an update on Star Citizen’s Graphics, Gen 12 renderer and Vulkan Optimization and plans for it’s improvements and implementation over the next few quarters… I have a full breakdown of that and a quickly summary of the week’s news briefly first for the week ending the 6th Feb 2022.

Red Festival & XenoThreat!

The Red Festival is on, you can find red envelopes around landing zones and sell them at kiosk, also a range of red ships and skins are on sale.

XenoThreat 3.0 is on the live servers, get involved in that server wide mission and fleet combat. It’s not going to be around forever but expect at least a week… maybe 2.

It’s got good payouts and you can make some good space friends.

There is also a range of Combat Ships on Sale while XenoThreat is on.

The Sneak Peek this week appears to be one of the Pyro Space Stations and it’s market area.

Inside Star Citizen looked at Ship to Ship Refueling that’s coming with Alpha 3.17.

The Starfarer will be able to carry fuel to ships that are caught short, have them dock with the fuel arm and charge them for fueling services. I have a deeper breakdown which I’ll link down below. 

There was some drama at the Star Citizen Roadmap this week as CI made a statement that they were going to focus on the less targeted, broader Progress Tracker than a standard Roadmap… after Q2 and alpha 3.18 they are only going to be showing the next quarter out in regards to what is in the next major patch. This is because features move around very often and people are getting annoyed when a feature moves off or changes where it is on the Roadmap… They can’t guarantee features will be in a particular patch even if it’s the plan or target… especially in patches that are several months or quarters away.

Some backers felt that CI were blaming them… because of what I assume was some poorly chosen words on CIs behalf, it’s all very fixable and CI could actually potentially make the Progress tracker a great resource if they expand it’s info and context. This actually eclipsed the fact that various features like persistent hangars were delayed from 3.17 however…

Refueling & Expanded selling are very much still in Alpha 3.17 and Salvage & the Cargo Refactor are still currently in 3.18… so that’s currently a win.

Anyway if you want a breakdown of CI’s statement and the Roadmap changes please checkout my video on that.

We had a Star Citizen Live: Graphics Engineering Q&A with Director of Graphics Engineering Ali Brown talking about Gen12 Renderer Updates, Vulkan and the road to an amazing looking game. Let’s go thru each of these questions Starting with:

2:07 [Give us a general status update on Vulkan]

Vulkan is the backend of the new Gen12 Renderer. The rest of the Gen12 renderer needs to be completed before Vulkan integration is complete as well. In terms of features for the Vulkan Renderer they are about 60-75% complete, tho they will then want to iterate on it to make it more performant once done. The Gen12 side is  almost complete and once it is, they can throw more resources at completing the Vulkan portions which will be released soon after.

You’ll see more Gen12 updates in Alpha 3.17 and more will come online with each major patch, so a stream of them rather than a single and now we are Gen12, infact there are a lot of Gen12 elements already in the game. Eventually they will switch over the Vulkan entirely.

7:14 [When Will CPU Thread/Core Use be Optimised?]

CPU scalability should improve with more CPU cores and threads being used more appropriately with each Gen12 update.

8:43 [Will the game always be so CPU intensive, or will it move more to being GPU bound?]

Gen12 & Vulkan integration should help move a lot of the resources to the GPU and other improvements will also help the game be less CPU Intensive. Tho the game and graphics options should make this scalable based on player hardware. The game is likely to be somewhat CPU intensive tho even when optimised.

12:37 [When Vulkan support does get implemented, are you expected to look further into mesh shader pipeline and the benefits within?]

They will look at mesh shaders and may adopt it if sensible in the future. They want benefits for as many users as possible.

14:37 [Has there been any internal testing of Linux using Vulkan?]

Vulkan will improve Linux compatibility, but they didn’t confirm that there would be a native linux client or not. There are easy anti-cheat issues with linux atm that they are hoping will be solved in the near future.

17:03 [How do you keep up with Tech, will Star Citizen graphics get outdated or surpassed by other engines?]

They phase older tech out over time while continuing to develop and improve new and current tech. There are always going to be big no shiny engines and demos shown… a lot of these can be many years away from actually being fully utilised. They do look at things with UE5 and learn from it BUT they are happy with the having their Engine being great when it’s released as they keep updating it. Ray-Tracing, Nanite, UE5 are not always the solution to all the problems.

24:31 [Does the engine have a limit?]

They don’t really have a hard limit, the engine is a set of many systems that continue to evolve… in fact they say it’s accelerating in it’s iteration and improvements.

26:26 [Are we doing DX12 or are we not doing DX12?]

They aren’t planning to do DX12, they are focused on Vulkan… tho they could implement DX12 if they needed to.

28:05 [Will we have more refined graphics settings soon?]

Once Gen12 is complete we should see a radical change in the graphics options are exposed with basic and advanced ones that all give you meaningful change. Options will be motivated in quality – performance improvements.

29:56 [Would it be possible to add a windowed borderless mode to the graphics setting?]

Yes and it’s a high priority to get res scaling working.

32:16 [Are there any plans to let us turn off temporal Anti-Aliasing and get rid of the ghosting it brings?]

Temporal AA is a cheap resource way to do a lot of graphics and blending and deal with noise. So no, not currently it would make terrain look bad and it gives really good performance.

They could potentially expose the option in the future IF it makes sense. The benefits massively outweigh it’s issues.

35:48 [Can we expect native HDR in the future?]

They support it internally, it needs some work and will support it fully natively in game in the future..

37:50 [Will you add an option to turn camera based motion blur off but keep object based motion blur on]

Yes they will in the future.

39:21 [As players consider GPU purchases, should they expect VRAM usage to increase as the game develops?]

They don’t want to rule out players with lower amount of VRam… but if you have lots of VRam you’ll be able to turn on a lot more graphics settings to max and run at higher resolutions.

42:55 [How are you planning on handling the graphical toll when entering a system with numerous assets?]

A lot of current issues are due to CPU issues, this should improve significantly over some time with the Gen12 renderer and general CPU / game code optimizations.

46:07 [Will there ever be practical night vision that players can use?]

There is some interest in it, they can’t confirm it will be in game. If they did, it would probably be a more realistic version of it rather than just a green effect.

52:02 [Does RTX get the team any closer to figuring out a solution to the lack of reflective surfaces or mirrors in game?] RTX would be the best for “true” mirrors but it’s too resource expensive, they are likely going to use a low cost method on small mirrors or reflections.

54:51  [Will the game get realistic snow weather that is not identical to dust storms?]

They will have full on weather at some point with much better effects for rain / snow etc…

56:26 [DLSS and FSR update?]

They will look at the benefits of the techs in the future, there various UIs don’t work well with either at the moment. They tend to prefer tech that helps the most players… Potentially both could be implemented in the future.

1:01:56 [Will we see HUD visibility improvements?]

They are looking at adding drop shadows under text and various other techniques to remove extra brightness behind the UI.

1:04:23 [What graphical improvements coming are you personally most excited about?]

Framerate is king… they want to get everything to a solid 60. They want to also push global illumination as it will help the visuals a lot. After Gen12 is completed they want to optimise the game further to help everyone get the best performance at the highest settings possible.

They also want to improve debug stats so users can work out how to improve their frame rate or why their frames are what they are.
Boom, that’s it for your Star Citizen Weekly Update and that SCLive Graphics Q&A.

The Red Festival is on, you can find red envelopes around landing zones and sell them at kiosk, also a range of red ships and skins are on sale.

XenoThreat 3.0 is on the live servers, get involved in that server wide mission and fleet combat. It’s not going to be around forever but expect at least a week… maybe 2.

It’s got good payouts and you can make some good space friends.

There is also a range of Combat Ships on Sale while XenoThreat is on.

The Sneak Peek this week appears to be one of the Pyro Space Stations and it’s market area.

Inside Star Citizen looked at Ship to Ship Refueling that’s coming with Alpha 3.17.

The Starfarer will be able to carry fuel to ships that are caught short, have them dock with the fuel arm and charge them for fueling services. I have a deeper breakdown which I’ll link down below. 

There was some drama at the Star Citizen Roadmap this week as CI made a statement that they were going to focus on the less targeted, broader Progress Tracker than a standard Roadmap… after Q2 and alpha 3.18 they are only going to be showing the next quarter out in regards to what is in the next major patch. This is because features move around very often and people are getting annoyed when a feature moves off or changes where it is on the Roadmap… They can’t guarantee features will be in a particular patch even if it’s the plan or target… especially in patches that are several months or quarters away.

Some backers felt that CI were blaming them… because of what I assume was some poorly chosen words on CIs behalf, it’s all very fixable and CI could actually potentially make the Progress tracker a great resource if they expand it’s info and context. This actually eclipsed the fact that various features like persistent hangars were delayed from 3.17 however…

Refueling & Expanded selling are very much still in Alpha 3.17 and Salvage & the Cargo Refactor are still currently in 3.18… so that’s currently a win.

Anyway if you want a breakdown of CI’s statement and the Roadmap changes please checkout my video on that. Links below. 

We had a Star Citizen Live: Graphics Engineering Q&A with Director of Graphics Engineering Ali Brown talking about Gen12 Renderer Updates, Vulkan and the road to an amazing looking game. Let’s go thru each of these questions Starting with:

2:07 [Give us a general status update on Vulkan]

Vulkan is the backend of the new Gen12 Renderer. The rest of the Gen12 renderer needs to be completed before Vulkan integration is complete as well. In terms of features for the Vulkan Renderer they are about 60-75% complete, tho they will then want to iterate on it to make it more performant once done. The Gen12 side is  almost complete and once it is, they can throw more resources at completing the Vulkan portions which will be released soon after.

You’ll see more Gen12 updates in Alpha 3.17 and more will come online with each major patch, so a stream of them rather than a single and now we are Gen12, infact there are a lot of Gen12 elements already in the game. Eventually they will switch over the Vulkan entirely.

7:14 [When Will CPU Thread/Core Use be Optimised?]

CPU scalability should improve with more CPU cores and threads being used more appropriately with each Gen12 update.

8:43 [Will the game always be so CPU intensive, or will it move more to being GPU bound?]

Gen12 & Vulkan integration should help move a lot of the resources to the GPU and other improvements will also help the game be less CPU Intensive. Tho the game and graphics options should make this scalable based on player hardware. The game is likely to be somewhat CPU intensive tho even when optimised.

12:37 [When Vulkan support does get implemented, are you expected to look further into mesh shader pipeline and the benefits within?]

They will look at mesh shaders and may adopt it if sensible in the future. They want benefits for as many users as possible.

14:37 [Has there been any internal testing of Linux using Vulkan?]

Vulkan will improve Linux compatibility, but they didn’t confirm that there would be a native linux client or not. There are easy anti-cheat issues with linux atm that they are hoping will be solved in the near future.

17:03 [How do you keep up with Tech, will Star Citizen graphics get outdated or surpassed by other engines?]

They phase older tech out over time while continuing to develop and improve new and current tech. There are always going to be big no shiny engines and demos shown… a lot of these can be many years away from actually being fully utilised. They do look at things with UE5 and learn from it BUT they are happy with the having their Engine being great when it’s released as they keep updating it. Ray-Tracing, Nanite, UE5 are not always the solution to all the problems.

24:31 [Does the engine have a limit?]

They don’t really have a hard limit, the engine is a set of many systems that continue to evolve… in fact they say it’s accelerating in it’s iteration and improvements.

26:26 [Are we doing DX12 or are we not doing DX12?]

They aren’t planning to do DX12, they are focused on Vulkan… tho they could implement DX12 if they needed to.

28:05 [Will we have more refined graphics settings soon?]

Once Gen12 is complete we should see a radical change in the graphics options are exposed with basic and advanced ones that all give you meaningful change. Options will be motivated in quality – performance improvements.

29:56 [Would it be possible to add a windowed borderless mode to the graphics setting?]

Yes and it’s a high priority to get res scaling working.

32:16 [Are there any plans to let us turn off temporal Anti-Aliasing and get rid of the ghosting it brings?]

Temporal AA is a cheap resource way to do a lot of graphics and blending and deal with noise. So no, not currently it would make terrain look bad and it gives really good performance.

They could potentially expose the option in the future IF it makes sense. The benefits massively outweigh it’s issues.

35:48 [Can we expect native HDR in the future?]

They support it internally, it needs some work and will support it fully natively in game in the future..

37:50 [Will you add an option to turn camera based motion blur off but keep object based motion blur on]

Yes they will in the future.

39:21 [As players consider GPU purchases, should they expect VRAM usage to increase as the game develops?]

They don’t want to rule out players with lower amount of VRam… but if you have lots of VRam you’ll be able to turn on a lot more graphics settings to max and run at higher resolutions.

42:55 [How are you planning on handling the graphical toll when entering a system with numerous assets?]

A lot of current issues are due to CPU issues, this should improve significantly over some time with the Gen12 renderer and general CPU / game code optimizations.

46:07 [Will there ever be practical night vision that players can use?]

There is some interest in it, they can’t confirm it will be in game. If they did, it would probably be a more realistic version of it rather than just a green effect.

52:02 [Does RTX get the team any closer to figuring out a solution to the lack of reflective surfaces or mirrors in game?] RTX would be the best for “true” mirrors but it’s too resource expensive, they are likely going to use a low cost method on small mirrors or reflections.

54:51  [Will the game get realistic snow weather that is not identical to dust storms?]

They will have full on weather at some point with much better effects for rain / snow etc…

56:26 [DLSS and FSR update?]

They will look at the benefits of the techs in the future, there various UIs don’t work well with either at the moment. They tend to prefer tech that helps the most players… Potentially both could be implemented in the future.

1:01:56 [Will we see HUD visibility improvements?]

They are looking at adding drop shadows under text and various other techniques to remove extra brightness behind the UI.

1:04:23 [What graphical improvements coming are you personally most excited about?]

Framerate is king… they want to get everything to a solid 60. They want to also push global illumination as it will help the visuals a lot. After Gen12 is completed they want to optimise the game further to help everyone get the best performance at the highest settings possible.

They also want to improve debug stats so users can work out how to improve their frame rate or why their frames are what they are.
Boom, that’s it for your Star Citizen Weekly Update and that SCLive Graphics Q&A.