CCP to stop with Classic Client, and introduce a "Premium Lite"

[Mangala]

The way things are

One of EVE's unique features (along with being an awesome game on a single server) is that it can run on pretty much any computer built after 1998. The minimum spec for graphics card and CPU has always been very reasonable to say the least, so the barrier for entry into EVE has been relatively low compared to other games. Developing the client in this manner hasn't always been a given. It requires us to downtune our graphics engine quite a bit, for one, as well as maintain the "Classic" client version of EVE along with the Premium one. That means creating two versions of each art asset we want to put into the game. It complicates build and patching processes considerably and, for the most part, it simply doesn't allow us to make EVE look as beautiful as we want. The core issues we deal with are:

• Spending too much time and resources maintaining 2 clients

• Due to a dual pipeline we have less time implementing performance enhancements

Where do we go from here?

Currently, EVE can be played on GeForce 2 or ATi Radeon 7000 series cards. The support of these cards was discontinued in 2002 by their manufacturers, a full year before EVE was first published. The development in graphics and graphics cards since then has been, to put it mildly, phenomenal. What we want to do is simplifying our development as well as exploit these new technologies to their full extent. The benefits of doing so are many, including:

• Simplification of pipeline

• Less development overhead

• Greater output from software developers and artists

• Less redundant testing for different engines and art assets

• Faster turnaround on fixes

• Ability to focus on performance improvements in one graphics engine

• Simpler troubleshooting for bugs

• Overall better quality of the client and better quality of service to players



Out with Classic, in with Premium Lite

Currently we have two content packs, Classic and Premium. Classic has the low barrier of entry, and Premium requires modern ShaderModel 3.0 hardware. To accommodate older PCs and those who prefer to run twenty clients of EVE while they run SETI@Home and ray trace while compressing HD movies, we will deliver what we refer to as "Premium Lite." Premium Lite will only require ShaderModel 2.0 hardware, and far less texture memory than the current Premium, ensuring good framerates on older hardware. We won't stop there - we are providing two flavors of ShaderModel 2.0 compatible shaders, currently named "lo" and "hi". What does this mean? It means that framerate enthusiasts can get even more performance when running under ShaderModel 2.0. We will also allow people to select any ShaderModel below what their hardware supports - thus allowing players to trade quality for performance and vice versa. Due to instruction limits within each ShaderModel we will have to use different techniques to render the ships but the goal is the same in every scenario: beautiful. Now, this does sound like extra work for us and in a way it is - however, what we gain is:

1. We can use the same assets as Premium. Admittedly people will most likely choose to run with textures that have lower resolution as well, but these will simply be downsampled (lower resolution mipmaps) from the existing Premium textures. Some textures will also be skipped entirely like, for instance, normal maps. This means less content for us to maintain as we get rid of all the classic content.

2. We can use the same rendering pipeline - the only fork in the road is the different ShaderModels. This means less code for us to maintain once we sunset the classic rendering path.



To summarize: older hardware will use the same assets as Premium - they just won't look as detailed and shiny.



The Plan

What we'd like to do is a two step approach to ensure that EVE continues to be jaw-dropping gorgeous:

Step 1: In Apocrypha, March 10th, we discontinue support for ShaderModel 1, making ShaderModel 2 (GeForce FX (5 series) or ATi R300 series cards or compatible) the minimum requirement and discontinue the "Classic client" version of EVE, replacing it with "Premium Lite"

Step 2: In the Winter Expansion 2009 we are considering discontinuing support for ShaderModel 2 and make the minimum specification ShaderModel 3(GeForce 6 class cards or ATi x1300 or compatible)

We know this will affect some players out there. What we don't know is exactly how many. We estimate that about 95% of all subscribers currently have hardware that is SM2 compatible. We further predict that in q4 this year over 97% of subscribers will have SM3 capable hardware. This means that an estimate of anywhere from 3%-5% of current subscribers would have to update their computers or graphics cards to be able to continue playing.

TO THE FORUMS!

What we want to accomplish by blogging about this and presenting you with our plan is for you to be able to voice any concerns you have. We're especially interested in hearing from those that have graphics cards that would become unsupported with this new proposal. You can get a fair indication of what ShaderModel(PixelShader) version your graphics card supports by looking at this chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_shader). The safest way of knowing is looking up your cards specification sheet at the manufacturers website however.

[Jarkko]

This means I won't be able to change skill learning with my steam-powered lap-top anymore... Here is one hoping that skills could be queued...

[peo]

This means I won't be able to change skill learning with my steam-powered lap-top anymore... Here is one hoping that skills could be queued...

Hopefully it doesn't exclude the gma950 laptops (not that I have one) since it is a very large portion of the available systems.

[Mangala]

This means I won't be able to change skill learning with my steam-powered lap-top anymore... Here is one hoping that skills could be queued...

Same - I can just about run Classic on my laptop.

Time for an upgrade I suppose.

[Mangala]

The Results Are in: EVE and Shadermodel Support
reported by CCP Zulupark | 2009.01.19 17:30:24 | NEW | Comments

On March 10th, after the Apocrypha expansion, having a graphics card that supports ShaderModel 2 will be the minimum to run EVE. This means GeForce FX (5 series) or ATI R300 (9500, x300) or compatible. EVE Classic will be replaced with EVE Premium Lite. There are no plans to change the specifications further this year.

Now that the TL;DR crowd is out of the way, here's a little more info on how and why we reached this conclusion.

By now you've probably all read my previous blog about proposed changes to EVE's ShaderModel support as well as the changes to client versions. To quickly sum up we proposed a two step plan:

Step 1: In Apocrypha, March 10th, we discontinue support for ShaderModel 1, making ShaderModel 2 (GeForce FX (5 series) or ATi R300 series cards or compatible) the minimum requirement and discontinue the "Classic client" version of EVE, replacing it with "Premium Lite"
Step 2: In the Winter Expansion 2009 we are considering discontinuing support for ShaderModel 2  and make the minimum specification ShaderModel 3(GeForce 6 class cards or ATi x1300 or compatible)

We then requested that you post any concerns or comments about the plan as that would heavily influence our final decision. You did not disappoint! We had far more feedback than we even hoped for, which has helped us a great deal in reaching our conclusion.

Based on your feedback we are going to commit to making ShaderModel 2 the minimum requirement (graphics wise) in the Apocrypha release, as well as replacing the Classic client with Premium Lite which will contain the same graphics and models as the regular Premium client but downmix the textures to increase performance on lower end computers.

We will however not pursue going to ShaderModel 3 as a minimum, at least for now. It's quite apparent that while an overwhelming majority has no problems with moving to ShaderModel 2, there are still quite a few (mostly laptop) users out there that cannot support ShaderModel 3 yet. We're going to continue monitoring hardware trends closely and will revise our plan on a regular basis.

We've opened a forum thread for commenting and we urge you to post any concerns or comments you have there.

[Rubino]

Is there a tool you can download that shows you what shadermodel your card supports?

[Mangala]

Is there a tool you can download that shows you what shadermodel your card supports?

CCP had one, but I cant find the damn link/thread with mention of it anymore :S

[Warcold]

You can get a fair indication of what ShaderModel(PixelShader) version your graphics card supports by looking at this chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_shader). The safest way of knowing is looking up your cards specification sheet at the manufacturers website however.

you dont have this link in mind do you?

[Rubino]

This one, while it's for another game - shows you under the graphics section the level of shader your card supports: http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/bonus/t/sysinfo_intro.tmpl?registration_option_id=1939

I had a problem with getting it to work with FF - but IE was ok

Here's one that's a stand alone app that somebody on the eve forums suggested: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1304/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.3.1.html
The shader version supported by your card is in the box labelled DirectX support on the right about half way down.

[Jarkko]

Does anybody know if the Linux version will be also upgraded, or if the Linux version will run with older gfx-cards?

I'm considering changing my old lap-top to Linux to make it usable for a couple more years. Yeah, I am really that cheap... I don't see any point in spending a few hundred on something I use just a couple times a month. Except when I am on vacation, when I could play something (like Dominions 3 which runs on Linux, or maybe even EVE?!?).

[Rubino]

alas: http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=625

As some of you may know, I am the producer in charge of the project bringing EVE Online to the Mac and Linux operating systems. In order to achieve this aim, we are working in partnership with Transgaming Technologies, utilizing their Cider engine to allow EVE Online to run on the Mac OS and their Cedega engine to enable operation under Linux. This project went live in late 2007, and in that time we have seen the same slow, steady growth in the numbers of users of the Mac client that has characterized the growth of EVE Online throughout its history. However we have not seen any similar growth in the numbers using our Linux client.

It is for this reason that I am sorry to have to announce that from the 10th of March onwards CCP will no longer be officially supporting the Linux operating system. The low amount of users of the Linux client did not justify the degree of additional complexity that maintaining three operating systems imposed on our development and release schedules. There is the matter of maintaining the hardware infrastructure to facilitate the development work, spending man-hours on testing and diagnosing faults in the client as well as regression testing. While we did embark on this project with the aim of being one of the few MMOG’s on the market offering a game client for all of the major operating system architectures, we feel that the time and resources that were being spent on the Linux client would be better utilized in areas where more players would benefit from them.

I would like to thank those users who supported our efforts to bring EVE to the Linux OS. The feedback and commitment we obtained from many of you helped both CCP and Transgaming with our attempts to improve on the quality and stability of the client. I am sure this announcement will cause a rather emotional response, and all I can offer as a counter is that this was not an easy decision to make. Many of us in CCP use Linux and are convinced of its merits as an operating system. We did our best to identify all of our current subscribers who were using the Linux client and contacted each of them prior to this blog to make them aware of the change and to offer them some options on how to continue playing EVE through other emulators. We apologize if there were some who did not receive that notice and invite them to read this knowledgebase article.

[Jarkko]

Too bad. Then again, Dom3 is a good game, so that will give me more time with on vacations

[Rubino]

Handy info about Eve & Linux - might be a way to go with the M10 release: http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Install_EVE_on_linux_with_wine

[Jarkko]

Handy info about Eve & Linux - might be a way to go with the M10 release: http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Install_EVE_on_linux_with_wine

Good to know For me it sadly is of no use, as the steam-powered lap-top doesn't support even Pixel Shader 2.0...

[Rubino]

ah :S