Next Farm Sim DirectX 12?

[Richard Dower]

Will Giants finally use more then 4 cores and drastically overhaul the engine for the next game?

[Hoffa82]

One can only hope, not only for the graphics and performance, but a new sound engine would really be nice. FMOD and all that.

[Eische]

New sound is already confirmed according to the FarmCon presentation.

Rest is unknown. If it would be that easy, Giants would already have done it. We just need to wait and be patient.

[Miketeg]

No worries, they will announce it in their marketing push when next version will be ready to be announce.

Giants has a pretty good marketing team ! They can sell us the game with tons of bugs year after year and we continue to buy it

[this_is_gav]

I was about to write something along the lines of "the extra cores of the next-gen consoles gives hope of things like an overhauled and more sophisticated AI"... but then I remembered the current consoles already have 8 cores to play with.

As Stegei said recently FS19 was designed when 4 cores was the high-end norm. I would expect 4 cores to still cover the vast majority of players this year and maybe next too (when FS22 is expected to release).

I know programming for high core numbers is extremely difficult (hence why most don't and tend to limit to 1 thread or low thread counts), so whether GIANTS expect enough players will be using CPUs with 8+ cores for it to be worth that mammoth undertaking I don't know.

Looking at the most recent Steam Survey, only 8% of players use an 8-core CPU, and while that will increase over the next year will there be a sufficient number of players to make it worth the development time (especially as there is a global recession)?

Obviously remembering it's not just a case of coding to add theoretical performance headroom, but to justify it you also have to code the features to take advantage of that performance, which alone probably accounts for most of a game's development cycle. How to use the time for FS22 would likely have been decided around the time FS19 was released (when, again according to Steam Survey figures, just 5% of players had a 6-core CPU and 1% had an 8-core).

There is certainly a good argument that it's the time try and expand CPU-heavy features (like the aforementioned AI) with the extra year of development and the next gen consoles, but as Eische said, if it was as easy as that they would have done it for 2016 or 2018.

[FarmBoss]

Don't expect more than 5 and a half cores.

[Earnest Pea]

Its been pointed out a couple of times that most processes are GPU bound. That means that throw more CPU cores at it won't improve performance.

[this_is_gav]

Its been pointed out a couple of times that most processes are GPU bound. That means that throw more CPU cores at it won't improve performance.

There are numerous things which would be CPU bound, among them the better AI that I mentioned above, any implementation of dynamic terrain, growth stages, GPS, varied soil conditions and so on.

Like I say, there's no point in spending time developing an engine into laying the foundations for something if you don't have the time time to implement it, however if ever there was a time to introduce improved or new features it's now.

There are a couple of key areas which need improvement now, and one of them is certainly CPU limited, the other would also need CPU power if implemented to the full (which is unlikely); the first is AI (decent/learning hired helpers and road traffic). The second is dynamic terrain.

A visual 3D representation of terrain (replacing the 2D one we currently have) would be GPU limited of course, but if dynamic terrain is ever implemented then it would likely put more strain on the CPU too. Personally I doubt a true dynamic terrain is realistically possible anytime soon, but the existing terrain does need looking at - to all intents and purposes it's been the same since FS arrived... and it looks it. I struggle to believe we'll still have flat and shiny terrain come the middle of this decade (when the following FS might arrive).


What I will say is that we know some degree of soil management is coming as part of their initiative with the Precision Farming Project, and if they do their PFP "modules" any justice then it too will take some CPU (which won't be the case if it's just another fixed yield bonus, and I sincerely hope it isn't). Moreso if a decent GPS system is introduced (either in FS2x or as another module) which is pretty much guaranteed at some stage.

[Earnest Pea]

Sorry, I should have been clearer. It was Stegei who said that most processes where GPU bound:

"As for the number of thread used. FS19 was developed with dual core CPUs still making up about 40% of the PCs in use, and about 40% with 4 cores. Dependent on the workload, FS19 can use up to about 3 cores fully and about 1.5-2 cores in the average case (if not GPU bound, which is actually the most regular case). The console version (due to the more low level access to the hardware), usually fully utilizes about 3-4 cores."

This has been said before. It has also been said (can't remember where) that not all processes benefit from being broken into threads. Having spent many years as a professional programmer, I can agree with that. Some processes benefit from multi-threading and some don't.

[norfolk farmer]

I think any improvement on PC will be governed by what the next gen consoles can do given the way the game is heading.

[this_is_gav]

I think any improvement on PC will be governed by what the next gen consoles can do given the way the game is heading.

I think any improvement on PC will be governed by what the current gen consoles can do.

Sadly, I think COVID-19 has ruined any real chance of a major step forward with the next game. Hopefully the next gen consoles sell more than expected and GIANTS choose to release exclusively for PCs and next gen, but by then most of the big decisions will have been made and much of the dev time left will be bug fixing and optimising rather than any big feature choices.

[norfolk farmer]

You could well be correct, one thing is for sure I won't be pre-odering this time around until I've seen what improvements are made.