About the big technology update launch

[Adrian]

Hello everyone,

As you may already know, tomorrow Wednesday 16th we will finally launch the Regnum Online Engine Update.

As we said before, a new download of the client will be mandatory. To help you with the download process we have designed a new installation scheme with an auto downloader featuring pausing and resuming, we have also installed more download servers to be able to handle the load.

This is a very important milestone for NGD Studios, for Regnum and for Regnum’s future, but considering some of the constraints that we have as a development studio it is going to be a tumultuous transition.

The main objectives of this update were:

1 - To increase performance on high-end hardware, allowing us to add more graphical effects and in the future, high definition player characters.

2 - To increase the performance on mid-end hardware with similar graphics to our previous version (shader model 2).

3 - To fix the client side stalls and hiccups that generated client side LAG when entering populated areas making the game unplayable.

4 - To increase performance on low end hardware regardless of the graphics quality.

5 - To have a more stable/reliable version of the engine in order to continue improving, fixing and adding features to the game.

While we think that we have achieved good results on 1, 2, 3 and 5, we believe that point 4 will need more work after the launch.

These are the main problems you may encounter and some possible solutions:

1 - Compatibility problems:

Update your OS and the drivers for your GPU and hardware in general.

2 - Performance problems:

Update your OS and the drivers for your GPU and hardware in general.

Try lowering your settings / shader model, the new Regnum is trying to do much more things in this version so it may run slower if you push it to the max and do not have the appropriate hardware.

3 - Stability problems (crashes):

Update your OS and the drivers for your GPU and hardware in general.
Send us your crash information and please have some patience.

We really need your support during this transition so we can fix everything.

If the game doesn’t run properly on your system please don’t panic, just give us as much information as possible so we can fix your problems.

Problems with Intel graphics card users

As you know, the only hardware that we support officially is nVidia and ATI. In the last year, Intel users have been able to play so far as the previous engine matured. Now, according to our stats, there is a big percentage of Intel graphic card users that play Regnum and we want them to continue playing and to enhance their experience.

We bought low end Intel cards and we are doing some last minute changes to increase performance but we are still slower in some cases (specially Intel cards on Linux).

Please understand that this is not our fault completely, Intel hardware has not been designed for high end games and Regnum made a step in that direction.

Specially, Intel’s support for OpenGL is really bad and that’s why our problems are even worse in Linux.

If you have an Intel card, please try running the game in fixed mode and disable particle effects, and hang in there until we take the best performance out of your hardware.

Problems with other unsupported graphics cards users (S3, SIS and VIA):

We made our best efforts to support your hardware, as you may know already this graphics cards are not designed with gaming in mind and have an even worse record on having appropriate features and drivers than Intel’s.

We won’t (as we didn’t before) officially support your hardware as it is not cost effective for our company. Please try playing in safe mode and send your reports anyway as we will try to fix your problems too.

Conclusion

Once again, we really need your support during this transition so we can fix everything.

I hope you can appreciate the 10 months of work that where invested into this new engine and that when we fix most issues this upgrade will imply a much greater potential for our game. Now, we will continue fixing gameplay issues, balance and adding all the features we can as we have always planned.

Best regards,
The Regnum Development Team

[Darcyeti]

I'm looking forward to the new client but I have one question about it. Will it be possible to change the keys again? It wasn't possible to change them at the test client. If you've forgotten to imply it to the new client it would be a problem for many of my friends because of them using the arrow keys to stear their chars.

[Adrian]

Originally Posted by Darcyeti

I'm looking forward to the new client but I have one question about it. Will it be possible to change the keys again? It wasn't possible to change them at the test client. If you've forgotten to imply it to the new client it would be a problem for many of my friends because of them using the arrow keys to stear their chars.

Yes, if you couldn't do it as in the old version, it's obviously a bug!

[Darcyeti]

thx for your quick answer, thats a very good news. So my wife will be able to play the game furthermore. If it wouldn't been possible to chance the keys, she wouldn't play the game any more. She's not able to use wsad, don't ask me why The arrow keys are her only possible choice.

[NotScias]

Well, here we go, but in my opinion it is still too early...

Yes the NT client is close to be mature but I think there is still some polishing, debugging and optimizations to do before releasing the final version.

Why releasing it so early ?

You know, even if we are really excited of the new features of this new client, I think that most of people would prefer a well-finalized, more stable, and more polished client even if it takes more time, it doesn't matter, the old one is still good and better than the new for some people, we can wait more if it's for getting a better client...

Anyways, really thanks for the awesome work you did. The new technology is really nice-looking and I hope will bring a better RO experience, and attract more people.

[Frolan]

what about the new character models?
when you will add them to the game, developers?

[Adrian]

Originally Posted by Shining-Scias

Why releasing it so early ?

We were already one month late. We wish we could have more time, but we need to move forward. The experimental version works way better than the old one and we are sure that the glitches and problems will be solved.

Originally Posted by Frolan

what about the new character models?
when you will add them to the game, developers?

Late Q1 2010, meaning February or March.

[Frolan]

ok
thank you for info, kailer.

and btw.........nice job

[WhateverUSMC]

I have to admit to some trepidation (as is probably usual for an update of this magnitude), but an advanced thank you all for the many months of work this update took...



Sorry, couldn't resist...

[Kittypretty]

I wish they didnt have the mandatory use of the new client, as some people do have computers than wont run the new client. I am not one of them but there are quite a few, what i don't get is how come both cannot be used, since its already possible now? (some people playing on new, and some playing on old side by side.

thats a big draw for alot of people, a frp mmo that runs on modest hardware, so i really don't know how that may effect alot of people.

just what was on my mind anyways.

As for the client, it ran horribly for me a few days ago when i tried it, and i cringed over being forced into using it, or abandoning RO alltogether.
luckily, some update or another seems to have fixed the issues for me, though there is some graphic bugs I haven't seen in the old version. so so far, so good, though i can reproduce A few "always crash" scenerios on my machine..but i can avoid them i think til they are solved.