Steam - Restarting when switching environments?

[TMarc]

If you don't like this total forced switching with the games inside of Steam, you can still use the regular ManiaPlanet client, but even there you start one "subgame" like Canyon, play a bit, exit it, and start e.g. Stadium or Storm.

Please think of ManiaPlanet as a mini-Steam, so in fact you have two concurrent and partially even colliding systems there.
A solution is not easy.

Since each game is now relatively heavy (~1GB data), it is not very likely to have fast or seamless environment switching.
This question was raised already a while ago, but up to now there was no other environment or title like Nadeo now uses to say.
With increasing performance of machines, multi-title servers might appear then and when, but there is still no official statement about it.
And since you can have a choice of titles, the question remains what to do when others don't have the title the server is now switching to.
You see, it is not as easy anymore as with a "complete" game like TMUF.

[maniaracer]

easy as maniaplanet.exe

[Romain42]

If you don't like this total forced switching with the games inside of Steam, you can still use the regular ManiaPlanet client, but even there you start one "subgame" like Canyon, play a bit, exit it, and start e.g. Stadium or Storm.

Please think of ManiaPlanet as a mini-Steam, so in fact you have two concurrent and partially even colliding systems there.
A solution is not easy.

I see Maniaplanet as a sort of alternative to steam too. But in such a framework, i don't really see the point to make Maniaplanet accessible through steam. Of course it can advertise the game a bit more, but it tends to make the whole maniaplanet redundant, besides the risks of conflicts. Also, the technical "constraints" it brings might be harmful for the future multi-environments servers feature. A solution is not easy, but i hope they'll find one because the risk is high.

Since each game is now relatively heavy (~1GB data), it is not very likely to have fast or seamless environment switching.

It's not the first time i hear this argument. But i never reach the original source. Is it something Nadeo officially stayed somewhere, or has it been invented/guessed by a player? Knowing the source is rather important to estimate the reliability of an information.

The usual answer Nadeo gives is rather this one, which is rather a specifications problem (how the feature should look like?) than a technical one (is it feasible?):

How could it be possible with United and not with TM²?

The problematic isn't the same with TM².

On United, when you purchased the game, you have access to 7 environments at the same time, so you're sure that the players have them in any case.
On TM² that's different because a player can have an environment but not another (for example you have bought Canyon but you don't want Valley), how it's the best way to make a multi-environment server without annoying too much (or not at all) the players who don't have Valley (or another Title)?

That's the tricky question

Note: i don't talk about the size of the data, i speak about its consequence over the environment switching.

This quote was rather promising, though.

Multiple environment servers is another topic. I already said that the mid term goal was to have title that could be multiple environments, and I just can't say when it will be. Priorities are being adapted all the time. I would bet for the release of Valley, but then you would not know better ^_^

[TMarc]

Since each game is now relatively heavy (~1GB data), it is not very likely to have fast or seamless environment switching.

It's not the first time i hear this argument. But i never reach the original source. Is it something Nadeo officially stayed somewhere, or has it been invented/guessed by a player? Knowing the source is rather important to estimate the reliability of an information.

What kind of source do you need here?
Just look at the installation files, and you instantaneously see what I mean. And 1GB is rather heavily underestimated

[TGYoshi]

I severely recommend trying it yourself. Just load a server url thing in the manialink bar and check how quick it is to go from one to another server and load the title (do not load the 2nd title first to experience the "maximum loading time").
I've tried it: it is very fast. (and quite seamless!)

Of course it depends on the computer but you're severely exaggerating here.



Sadly maniaplanet was not designed to keep things like these in mind so I don't think we'll have official multi-environment things anytime soon. You can, however "fake" multi-envi servers or so if you want.

[Romain42]

TMarc, I didn't ask a source for the figure, it can be checked. But its consequence isn't evident for me.

I didn't pay attention to the fact you are working in IT (if i understand your profile). I didn't want to offend you, apologies if i did.

By the way, Maniaplanet and Canyon are faster by far today than at the release. Obviously Nadeo made a great optimization job and despite they added content, the game became faster. Proportionality between the size of the whole game and the loading times seems doubtful to me.

[TMarc]

No offense taken, please do not worry, Romain42
I'm not working in games development although I'm very interested in this area

Now with Maniaplanet 2, the loading of a title is not just the selection of the title in the menu, which is very fast indeed, as nearly no new data is loaded except a few textures of the menu itself.

The larger delay was now shifted to the loading of the contents, e.g. when you run a map or start the editors.
And then it depends a lot where the files are located (on hard disk or SSD), how fast your video card is, if you're using HD or SD texture sets etc.
There is also a noticeable delay when ManiaPlanet hands over the data to DirectX (e.g. loading the textures to the video card, performing shader calculations, shadow calculations etc.).
Just by feeling (no really measured) I have the impression that the loading screen of a map is as long as it was with TMUF, but I am certainly wrong.

I don't say multi title servers are impossible, I only fear (and warn) that the actual perfomance is still not enough to handle it properly, so the players will be bored by dozens of seconds waiting between each map.

Perhaps it could be interesting to measure the loading times and the memory consumption with the same maps in TMUF/TMNF Stadium and TM² Stadium.
1. fresh start of the game and loading of a first map
2. ingame loading of a next map
3. environment / title switch (of course more difficult to achieve because there are no comparable maps for Canyon in TMUF Desert or Island)

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if it was intended, if you load first Canyon then switch to Stadium or Storm, the memory footprint of ManiaPlanet increases by each title. So the data of a previously loaded is not discarded.
If this allows a faster title switching, then keep this "feature".
But this means we need lot of RAM in the PC, I would say 6 or 8GB at least.

Ok, this goes far beyond the original intension of this thread, sorry

As long as the Nadeo games are handeled as separate games (and separate installations) in Steam,
the switching will be much more incomfortable than with a pure ManiaPlanet setup.
I presonally don't need Steam for ManiaPlanet, but I'm not against this.
I observed that many players incorporated ManiaPlanet games into Steam just to benefit from this plattform, e.g. for buddy handling.

We have to see what Nadeo will improve on this.

[Romain42]

Just by feeling (no really measured) I have the impression that the loading screen of a map is as long as it was with TMUF, but I am certainly wrong.

My PC (laptop with 4GB RAM + 4GB graphiccard) needs:

- about 12 seconds to launch the whole Maniaplanet (from the first click on desktop),
- between 2 and 3 seconds to load a title from the Maniaplanet main menu (tried Canyon and Stadium),
- about 30 seconds to launch the first map (took the Nadeo D01 of Canyon for the test),
- 3 to 6 seconds to launch another map (took D01 again, D02 and D03 for the test).

I don't say multi title servers are impossible, I only fear (and warn) that the actual perfomance is still not enough to handle it properly, so the players will be bored by dozens of seconds waiting between each map.

From the figure i quoted above, i guess the 30 seconds time mostly represents the time you need to load the main content of the title/environment, the loading time for the map itself being far shorter (please correct me if i'm wrong). Then i expect about 30 seconds to load a new environment in a cross-environment server. It might be different when implemented due to lots of reasons, but hard to say if it would increase or decrease it at the moment (at least for me). 30 seconds to load a map seems correct to me. I doubt TMU was faster (maybe i do further testing in the afternoon).

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if it was intended, if you load first Canyon then switch to Stadium or Storm, the memory footprint of ManiaPlanet increases by each title. So the data of a previously loaded is not discarded.
If this allows a faster title switching, then keep this "feature".

After the first tests i mentionned earlier, i left Canyon and i switched to Stadium, i tested several stadium maps (15 seconds for the first, about 5 for the others), and i came back to Canyon, D01. Waiting time: about 8 seconds then!

So yes it seems it allows a faster loading.

Ok, this goes far beyond the original intension of this thread, sorry

It's still relevant i think, and it deserves to be discussed. Whether or not it should be moved to the "cross environments server" thread is your affair. Anyway both matters are linked.