Doug Binks - 09 Nov 2001 - edited 30 Oct 2013
[This is an archive post about the first version of Avoyd which we now call Avoyd 1999. The full game is now free to download.]
My current development schedule points one way, and a body of evidence points the other. Both directions have benefits and drawbacks, and it's really a matter of biting the bullet and making the call. Perhaps a coin toss would work?
We've now received graphics cards and development support from nearly everyone in the market, and have identified that the cards fit into two groups as far as performance vs theoretical performance is concerned. Either the cards perform as we'd expect from their theoretical performance, or they perform abysmally poorly. We could leave this issue alone and hope that driver support improves, and indeed we are working with these vendors to help improve the situation - their support so far has been wonderful. Alternatively, I could re-code a substantial portion of our graphics engine. Since this would involve an algorithm change it would be a fairly involved process, and would take up a great deal of time. However, it may be required if I am to get decent performance on all graphics cards.
Re-coding the graphics engine would thus take me away from adding features and improving the network code, thus pushing back the time when Avoyd is playable over the internet. If this was a problem which affected all graphics cards the decision would be easy. Yet we have great performance on the most widely installed base of modern graphics cards, so it's tricky to make the final judgement.
To let things settle in my mind, I'm currently doing something different. Once that's finished, I'll come back to this issue.
As always, any and all comments are welcome in the forums.