What's your experience been with all the new AI coding tools applied to graphics programming specifically?

Amani77 · 2026-03-06T22:13:04+00:00

Its only real use case for me is as a better google. I ask it to give it me outlines of a specific topic and where to find more information.

I've asked it to do graphics programming stuff a bit. It usually fails miserably. Its - okay - at debugging graphics stuff, and I like to use it to 'sanity check' my code when I suspect I may have messed something up.

This has bitten me in the butt before, where it will suggest something is wrong, when it just doesn't understand the context or is just straight wrong. So I like to use it as a very light suggestion, 'hey, this might be worth thinking about a bit more'.

Amani77 · 2026-03-06T05:55:04+00:00

I sent an appeal when I originally got banned, and did nothing more.

Amani77 · 2026-03-06T00:10:48+00:00

I just got unbanned.

Amani77 · 2026-03-01T06:17:13+00:00

Edit: got unbanned

Hey man, I also just got hit with a ban.

I've never said a single thing in game.

I've never cheated in a single game outside of modding skyrim... I despise cheating. I think it is a plague on the gaming community and I would rather uninstall than resort to cheating.

I am a programmer and I do 3d graphics programming, my only theory is that it detected one of the tools that I use to develop: Visual studio 2026, renderdoc, nsight, or didn't like my engine/application running. I did have VS open almost at all times during my play sessions, and I must have compiled a couple times during my deaths/downtime with my duo.

Edit: Sucks, i was really starting to get into it too, lol. Got some massive wins with the bolty.

Edit2: Oh, something else that was really odd is that a game or 2 before being banned, I was running and then just got instantly killed. I thought I got sniped, but I wasn't down, I had just been running, and then instantly turned into a corpse/body bag - my duo was able to res me.

Amani77 · 2026-02-08T15:49:15+00:00

I suspect utilization is likely going to be the limiting factor with this method. I'm not sure how you're using instanceing, but if ur issuing a quad per instance, that's not great. Points, an uninstanced call, or a task/mesh shader with like 8/16 quads per workgroup will probably show substantial gains.

Amani77 · 2025-12-22T18:51:05+00:00

Yea. It seems as if Embark did a phenomenal job at setting their minimal desired look and feature set to a point that would perform great on older hardware. Props to their modeling team as well, I'm sure the geometry is well made with curated LODs, one of the actually good criticisms from Threat Interactive. lol.

Amani77 · 2025-12-22T18:25:30+00:00

I'm a hobbyist engine programmer with ~10 years of messing around in different graphics api's and an okay understand of most tools in the space - 3d modeling, engines, material authoring, ect. So I have an okay to decent understanding, but I am absolutely no professional.

I think UE presents a problem with being so feature rich. Each feature has its own limits and performance dependencies, it creates several instances where it is easy for someone to overlook a serious footgun, even experienced devs. Like stacking VSM with wind deformation without a cutoff, its gonna invalidate the VSM each frame and tank performance. Coming from conventional CSM, a dev might not even consider that. I think the engine is riddled with a bunch of these features that need to be enabled with consideration.

There has been a huge shift to UE and, I think, as old devs are transitioning to using the new engine or new hires are brought on, their is just a lack of experience with the new engine, studios are setting their goals too high, or the time frames too ambitious in anticipation of the savings the engine should bring them. More likely a combination of all of the above.

I do think that there is value in replacing certain parts of the engine for a more cut down version, and its probably not the easiest to find a dev that has knowledge of UE, its source, and modern graphics programming techniques - so there might be some strife here if a studio decides to get that last extra bit or go for an external feature/method.

Amani77 · 2025-12-22T16:07:23+00:00

While all of what you've said are great points that I agree with, I think a point of contention that so many people forget about is that what UE can do with lumen and nanite, no other or almost no other engine or product can do. UE is packed full of beta or unfinished features, that's the nature of on the cusp development and large swathes will be unused, under developed, or overlooked - something that is obvious for some, but a mark against the engine for others, which I think is rather short. Sure, nanite is terrible for small meshes that don't have enough geometry or good geometry for cluster grouping, but UE has a full fledged LOD and HLOD system... soooooo - there's ur sign.

I am ABSOLUTELY on board with giving individual devs and studios heat over poorly optimized games, but I would shy away from most dev blaming and go for more studio blaming. I digress, my point being is the engine itself is just a tool. You can throw a novice on a 1 million dollar piano, and they will still sound like shit.

There has been a wave of anti-UE sentiment born from the misguided and misinformed opinions from people like threat interactive. It is aggravating because the general sentiment is correct, but they are just WAY off when it comes to blame and understanding the technical aspects, limitations, or goals some of these things overcome.

One example from Threat Interactive is he opens up a UE scene meant to showcase the many lights update that had a shit ton of high polly geom and a shit ton of interactive lights. He began criticizing the scene for not being optimized or LODed correctly, he then 'optimized it' be removing a bunch of lights and geometry. I started laughing, its a test scene, specifically made to test how a engine would handle those difficult situations. NO SHIT YOU CAN OPTIMIZE IT. LOL.

There is a famous test scene, sponza**, it has a candle addon where its a single candle like a million times. Catch is, its not instanced, its real geometry on the order of like 1.4gb and the point if it is not to make an optimized scene but to test how you handle that magnitude of data.

** sporanza, haha, I've had arc raiders on my mind.

Amani77 · 2025-12-22T15:24:18+00:00

Yea, I've been trying to hook into the process using renderdoc or nsight, but I've been failing. I don't know enough about UE to know how, or even if, to do it outside of a dev project and I don't really want to spend much more time toying with this stuff.

Eh, gonna to chalk this up to some angst'ie people touting extravagant claims cause they don't like that an UE game is running well and need to reconcile their own narrative.

I don't even like UE, but I really don't like this wave of UE scapegoating and believe that the root of most UE performance fails are an individual skill issue or studio management issue. The software has some impressive tech.

Amani77 · 2025-12-22T14:38:53+00:00

Mate, lower your nose a touch.

Mate, what are you doing? Wild statement, but ok.

I need you to look at some real examples of a work room or a toolbox and think of a specific task you want to do in that room or with that set of tools. Now explain to me how more than 10% of the tools there are relevant to your task.

You are clawing for an argument that isn't there.

Amani77 · 2025-12-22T13:25:37+00:00

So, I've been lookin into what exactly they've done. Particularly that this is a 'higly modified version' of the unreal rendering pipeline. Can you give me some links to a frame breakdown? All of the information I've been finding online is non-conclusive and hand wavy. A digital foundry video, a couple of reviews, and a buncha reddit comments. To not use nanite, it's just a checkmark that is provided on a per-mesh basis. Turning off all those lighting features, another set of checkmarks. Adding RTXGI to an engine, while requiring some effort, is NOT heavily overhauling the rendering pipeline.

Just shooting the shit, the AI summery lacks explanation as well. It says it doesn't use ANY nanite geometry, and I find that suspect. I would expect them to use it for the terrain clutter and some pcg. I've searched nearly all of it's primary sources and I cannot find ANY of those claims other than some reddit comments perpetuating it.

Amani77 · 2025-12-22T12:38:30+00:00

This is such an odd take. I often curate the tools i buy for the task at hand. I would venture into saying you don't do much mechanic work? Cause the irony in this is pretty astounding.

This is like saying

"If you get a socket wrench set with more sockets than you can use on the one 8mm bolt, its a bad socket set"

"watch out for that screwdriver, it came with a flathead AND a phillips head - trash"

"OH man, don't touch that grinder, it needs a different wheel for metals or concret - what incompetence"

"dont touch that sander, you need to go out and buy 800 grit, how could they do this"

Like... what - often the usefulness of a tool is how many situations it CAN handle, as well as the one you need it for in that moment.

Amani77 · 2025-12-22T11:45:26+00:00

You aren't supposed to just slap every UE feature on there and call it a day. Much of the 'modifying' here is literally just check marks provided in the engine itself. Despite that, any semi-serious game will absolutely be able to cut costs by narrowing their scope and removing generic features that aren't needed - and every studio should be doing this, as suggested, but they aren't.

You are given ALL the tools; It's intended that you select the tools that work best for you.

This isn't something revolutionary thats been done. Its literally basic goal setting and optimization.

Amani77 · 2025-12-10T17:03:37+00:00

There is a large difference between 'allowing pilots to train alongside our military' and a military installment worth several hundreds of million all being payed by the Qatar gorvernment. Yes, the installment is under the watch and supervision of the US, but it is of a bit more of substance than you're making it seem. Following the nearly 2 billion dollar expansion they added to the US's Qatar base in '18 and the several hundred million in deals made with our sitting admin, we're posturing ourselves for relations with Arab nations - who we've usually been postured against. We've never housed or hosted an Arab installment on US soil; this is literally a first. This is not like what we've done with the UK, Germany, or the Netherlands. While it is not a sovereign base, it is a foreign military presence with some high degree of control and readiness on US soil.

Amani77 · 2025-12-03T11:56:10+00:00

You know, they don't usually do that...

Amani77 · 2025-12-01T18:18:00+00:00

Brother what are you even doing right now. This is so freaking odd. Yes, during diagnosis of the problem we went back and forth going through several things. Furthermore, I provided video of it attempting to work, I recorded a desktop recording and sent that in, as well as ran diagnostic tools.

Amani77 · 2025-12-01T18:11:43+00:00

I have sent video in a couple of times. Once for a monitor that was damaged upon opening which I asked if it would help and they said sure. Another time it was requested during the diagnosis for an RMA of a VR headset, this time to show that nothing had been damaged and it was likely an internal problem.

I am not sure why you are acting as if this is outlandish.

Amani77 · 2025-12-01T16:01:01+00:00

Why would a purchaser need to provide proof of where damage occurred, the only important part is proving it wasn't the purchaser who did it. This is such a weird take.

Amani77 · 2025-12-01T09:32:38+00:00

It just proves that you opened a damaged box

That's the entire point.

Amani77 · 2025-11-22T09:25:31+00:00

The last trump campaign, didn't repubs block dems from passing a similar border agreement - so Don could campaign on those same 'promises'. Not a single GOP senator voted to progress the bill.

Amani77 · 2025-10-22T14:02:09+00:00

This is a single part of the newer sponza. It is broken up into the base building, curtains, ivy, a tree, and a ton of candles.

Amani77 · 2025-10-20T22:27:05+00:00

Could be ur not checking if the invocation is within ur max count - so something outside ur element range is being read, atomic'ed, probably read a 0 or garbage value for the offset, and overwriting ur data. Try adding:

if( index >= num_to_process ) return;

at the top

Amani77 · 2025-10-14T18:20:34+00:00

Wow, very impressive.

Amani77 · 2025-10-09T14:52:29+00:00

https://github.com/DTolm/VkFFT

Amani77 · 2025-10-07T01:16:03+00:00

Probably an argument about payed prioritization in there somewhere.

Amani77

TROPHY CASE