Terragen 2 Release Announcement Discussion

Started by Oshyan, December 12, 2007, 07:10:04 PM

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Oshyan

Just to be clear, we have not yet moved to a 64bit rendering engine, we are only taking advantage of large address support, so in 64 bit Windows we can use up to 4GB (I think) of memory, even though it's a 32bit app still.

And no I don't think a larger cache will make a significant difference in itself (i.e. given two versions of the same CPU, one with a larger cache, they will perform fairly similarly). But that assumption is not based on much actual testing, it's more a general sense from looking at historical benchmark results for TG and other apps. There are a fairly narrow range of applications that actually do significantly benefit from larger caches.

- Oshyan

Jeremy Ray

4 gigs seems low for 64 bit addressing.

How many cpu cores can terragen use?

Oshyan

4 gigs is the limit of 32 bit applications when no other limit is imposed by the operating system. In 32 bit Windows a 2GB limit is imposed per application to reserve space for the OS/kernel, but the maximum theoretical addressable space in a 32 bit system is 4GB (total). I'll quote from a handy article Here:
QuoteBy definition, a 32-bit processor uses 32 bits to refer to the location of each byte of memory. 2^32 = 4.2 billion, which means a memory address that's 32 bits long can only refer to 4.2 billion unique locations (i.e. 4 GB).
With a 32 bit app running in a 64 bit OS, the app is still 32 bit so it can only ever address up to 4GB. The OS no longer limits to 2GB, but the app itself is now limited.

- Oshyan

nikita

Quote from: Jeremy Ray on May 10, 2008, 09:42:33 PM
How many cpu cores can terragen use?
16.. but if I had to guess, I'd say this is an arbitrary limitation and that it can be scaled up to any number.

JimB

Quote from: Oshyan on May 10, 2008, 05:13:07 PM
Just to be clear, we have not yet moved to a 64bit rendering engine, we are only taking advantage of large address support, so in 64 bit Windows we can use up to 4GB (I think) of memory, even though it's a 32bit app still.

If you had a 64-bit OS with 8Gb of RAM, anyone know if that means two instances of TG would both use that full 8Gb of RAM nicely?
Some bits and bobs
The Galileo Fallacy, 'Argumentum ad Galileus':
"They laughed at Galileo. They're laughing at me. Therefore I am the next Galileo."

Nope. Galileo was right for the simpler reason that he was right.

Cyber-Angel

I do be leave that there is a memory address limit for 64bit systems of 128 Gigabytes of RAM which is a significant amount, I am not sure but I think there are some workstations that have that amount of RAM.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel     

neuspadrin

Quote from: Cyber-Angel on May 11, 2008, 08:01:13 AM
I do be leave that there is a memory address limit for 64bit systems of 128 Gigabytes of RAM which is a significant amount, I am not sure but I think there are some workstations that have that amount of RAM.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel     

The current limit on windows for physical memory is 128 gigs, but allows for up to 16 terabyes of total memory.  However, 64bit technically allows up to 16 exabytes of ram (mm I'd love a machine with that).

PG

Quote from: neuspadrin on May 11, 2008, 01:07:54 PM
The current limit on windows for physical memory is 128 gigs, but allows for up to 16 terabyes of total memory.  However, 64bit technically allows up to 16 exabytes of ram (mm I'd love a machine with that).

Only windows server at the minute
Figured out how to do clicky signatures

Oshyan

Quote from: JimB on May 11, 2008, 06:18:52 AM
Quote from: Oshyan on May 10, 2008, 05:13:07 PM
Just to be clear, we have not yet moved to a 64bit rendering engine, we are only taking advantage of large address support, so in 64 bit Windows we can use up to 4GB (I think) of memory, even though it's a 32bit app still.

If you had a 64-bit OS with 8Gb of RAM, anyone know if that means two instances of TG would both use that full 8Gb of RAM nicely?

Yes, that should work fine. :)

- Oshyan

Freak

Just wondering I have not purchased TG2 as yet, I was a little underwhelmed with the TG2TP.
I see that there has likely been a lot of changes since that first public preview.
Including the big one of Multithreading...  At the moment i tend to use WM, TG0.9x and GeoControl...

Is there likely to be another TG2TP anytime soon? At this stage I'm leaning towards Geocontrol2,
over TG2. (based on the techpreview) But perhaps there have been enough changes in the last 12months to
change my mind.

Don't get me wrong i love TG, it just seems the previous techpreview was a very early example,
how much of a comparison can be made to the latest private previews compared to the original techpreview?

Thanks for any thoughts on the matter.

Oshyan

Geocontrol 2 and TG2 aren't really comparable products. Geocontrol is a dedicated terrain modeler for *heightfields only* and includes a rather rudimentary renderer. TG2 has only limited heightfield capability but *extremely powerful* procedural terrain modeling capabilities, as well as one of the best terrain-specific rendering engines around. GC2 and TG2 are really complementary products.

As for whether there will be another public tech preview, the only public (free) release we are certain of at this point will be the free version of the final release following the beta for registered users.

- Oshyan

nikita


rcallicotte

Nikita, I didn't know you made image of the week.  This honor is well deserved for your work on this image.  Good job!!

Quote from: nikita on May 16, 2008, 07:32:33 AM
If you're underwhelmed, take a look at the gallery http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/f/tg2/
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

neuspadrin

#733
Is terragen 2 going to feature a heightfield modifier anytime perhaps in a later update? nothing as complex as geocontrol, but something kinda like .9 where you could paint a little on generated terrains to make it a bit more like you want it after generating random ones?

*edit*
ahh, once I finished post I could've sworn I had read somewhere about future plans with height field painting, and then answered my own question ;)

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3468.msg35713#msg35713

SilverCity

Quote from: Oshyan on May 16, 2008, 01:29:04 AM
As for whether there will be another public tech preview, the only public (free) release we are certain of at this point will be the free version of the final release following the beta for registered users.

- Oshyan
Sorry if this has been addressed earlier in this thread, but does the latest build include all the features that we will see in the final release, or are you continuing to add new features and controls? In other words, at this point, are you mainly working on bug fixes and optimizing the code prior to a final release?

Thanks.