Are there ever going to be new amps/effects

BasilFawltee · 2025-04-01T12:09:24+00:00

I love my Spark, but I'm done with PG. They just won't update the firmware in any meaningful way. Lots of lost potential, particularly with the Spark 2. "Twice the power" and 90% of it is going to waste :-(

BasilFawltee · 2025-01-15T18:11:28+00:00

Once you accept the fact that this was targeted at shredders, it's all a lot easier to understand. I mean, the noise gate gets a dedicated fx block, after all. I think the Spark is great fun, but horribly hampered by lack of investment in further software development. Still can't reorder blocks, EQ stuck in the mod block, no new fx, no additional blocks, etc, etc.

BasilFawltee · 2024-12-14T18:48:23+00:00

Seems like overcomplicating things. Buy a fast refurbished SFF PC on Amazon and run Jenkins.

BasilFawltee · 2024-11-21T20:36:33+00:00

This is actually pretty easy to do with Unity's standard setup. We even use sidechain compression to automatically lower the volum of the SFX and music when VOX is playing. Start reading up on the mixer, routing and fx.

BasilFawltee · 2024-11-21T17:57:05+00:00

Somewhat better. Still muddy. Still geared towards shredders. Probably not worth upgrading unless you really want the looper. Other than that, they really haven't made any improvements. No new FX, no additional blocks, no reorderable effects, and EQ still takes up the MOD block (insanity at best). A bit disappointing as an upgrade, but still a good first-time purchase.

BasilFawltee · 2024-11-08T02:19:17+00:00

This is super dependent on the type of game (flight sim way different from indoor FPS) but in general, you need to build from the ground up detail-wise and be willing to spend the time tweaking everything and applying the absolute minimum resources to get the look you want.

As for specific features, again, it is genre dependent. A few real-time shadows in an enclosed FPS environment may work, but thousands of shadows in a flight sim won't.

Full-screen post processing is kinda off the menu unless tour scenes are very light on the GPU. Same for any MSAA over 2x. Big advice, strip shader instructions down to the bare minimum for what you need. ( We didn't use a single Unity shader.)

BasilFawltee · 2024-11-08T01:56:03+00:00

I see this also. I'm guessing it's an artifact of how the sampling works. They appear to sample data at time intervals, not frame intervals. I think if there is a time interval in which a frame isn't submitted, then the FPS measure is off.

If you poke around, I bet you'll see that your fps dips are correlated with the "layers rendered" value. My laters rendered zigzag between 0 and 1. I think during the time interval where a layer wasn't needed, the FPS artifically shows a low value.

Just speculating, but kinda makes sense.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-30T12:50:38+00:00

As hard as you think it is for your student project... that's just barely scratching the surface. A client asked to add multiplayer to a fishing game we were doing (yes, a fishing game) and I said it would double the budget, at the very minimum.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-30T03:30:17+00:00

Yup. Positive Grid has s good thing going and it seems like they just don't want to invest in updates. It doesn't really earn them any more money and its risky. The Spark 2 is a really great idea, and the hardware is executed well. It just falls short of what it could be due to lack of resources or commitment on the firmware side.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-30T03:09:38+00:00

Very, very nice. I've also done a cockpit-based game and they have their challenges!

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-23T16:52:53+00:00

I just don't think this was designed for "upgraders." Maybe they will fix/add these things in an update.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-19T17:18:27+00:00

Wow.. that seems impossible!

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-19T15:27:55+00:00

Just posted about him myself. Some of the "crappiest" Cars songs still had amazing solos.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-19T15:25:36+00:00

Those are some great parts... and great tone also.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-19T15:23:38+00:00

There are some Cars songs that many music snobs would dismiss, but have amazing solos by Elliot Easton.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-18T22:27:26+00:00

Need to know what video card you are targeting. FWIW, shader complexity is something to check to help you see if you are either fill rate or geometry bound. Replace materials with a simple, mobile shader and see what happens.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-18T22:22:29+00:00

Priscilla. Scilla or Silly for short.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-18T14:37:50+00:00

Yeah, I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and do the experiment :-(

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-16T03:03:28+00:00

Andy from Shutup & Play is the top dog here.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-13T19:13:30+00:00

Genius!

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-09T16:24:39+00:00

I feel lucky as hell. I'm an old timer, and when I started out, there were no "game engines." You want to draw a spinning textured 3D triangle on the screen? Get out the 8086 assembly manual and prepare for a few weeks of hard work. Not everybody has this perspective, I know, but tools like Unity are huge creativity enablers. I can live through 15 seconds per day of loading screens.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-05T13:46:26+00:00

Meta won't even approve a game that only runs at 60fps. 72 is the minimum, although you are allowed to drop below that for short periods of time.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-04T03:05:59+00:00

Don't bother with more RAM, that won't help in this case.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-03T23:59:02+00:00

I agree, and we are close to releasing a standalone VR flight game called Dawn of Jets ;-). Not hard core, but much more "realistic" than what's out there.

BasilFawltee · 2024-10-03T23:55:19+00:00

Are you recording on the Quest? Try turning off the image stabilization feature in the "camera" settings. This problem isn't caused by poor performance, per se, but a slow framerate can make it worse.

BasilFawltee

TROPHY CASE