C Graphics Engine

[Cyndi Barca]

A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor.[1] The "engine" terminology is akin to the term "software engine" used more widely in the software industry.

Developers can use game engines to construct games for video game consoles and other types of computers. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine may include a rendering engine ("renderer") for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, scene graph, and video support for cinematics. Game engine implementers often economize on the process of game development by reusing/adapting, in large part, the same game engine to produce different games[4] or to aid in porting games to multiple platforms.

As technology ages, the components of an engine may become outdated or insufficient for the requirements of a given project. Since the complexity of programming an entirely new engine may result in unwanted delays (or necessitate that a project restart from the beginning), an engine-development team may elect to update their existing engine with newer functionality or components.

A notable example of an in-house game engine on home consoles in the mid-1980s was the smooth side-scrolling engine developed by Shigeru Miyamoto's team at Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The engine they had developed for the side-scrolling racing game Excitebike (1984) was later employed for the scrolling platformer Super Mario Bros. (1985). This had the effect of allowing Mario to smoothly accelerate from a walk to a run, rather than move at a constant speed like in earlier platformers.[7]

The term "game engine" arose in the mid-1990s, especially in connection with 3D games such as first-person shooters with a first-person shooter engine. Epic games, founded by developer Tim Sweeney, debuted Unreal Engine in the year 1998.[11]

Later games, such as id Software's Quake III Arena and Epic Games's 1998 Unreal were designed with this approach in mind, with the engine and content developed separately. The practice of licensing such technology has proved to be a useful auxiliary revenue stream for some game developers, as one license for a high-end commercial game engine can range from US$10,000 to millions of dollars, and the number of licensees can reach several dozen companies, as seen with the Unreal Engine. At the very least, reusable engines make developing game sequels faster and easier, which is a valuable advantage in the competitive video game industry. While there was a strong rivalry between Epic and id around 2000, since then Epic's Unreal Engine has been far more popular than id Tech 4 and its successor id Tech 5.[12]

Modern game engines are some of the most complex applications written, often featuring dozens of finely tuned systems interacting to ensure a precisely controlled user experience. The continued evolution of game engines has created a strong separation between rendering, scripting, artwork, and level design. It is now common, for example, for a typical game development team to have several times as many artists as actual programmers.[13]

First-person shooter games remain the predominant users of third-party game engines, but they are now also being used in other genres. For example, the role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and the MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot are based on the Gamebryo engine, and the MMORPG Lineage II is based on the Unreal Engine. Game engines are used for games originally developed for home consoles as well; for example, the RenderWare engine is used in the Grand Theft Auto and Burnout franchises.

Although the term was first used in the 1990s, there are a few earlier systems in the 1980s that are also considered to be game engines, such as Sierra's Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) and SCI systems, LucasArts' SCUMM system and Incentive Software's Freescape engine (in 1986[14]). Unlike most modern game engines, these game engines were never used in any third-party products (except for the SCUMM system which was licensed to and used by Humongous Entertainment).

As game engine technology matures and becomes more user-friendly, the application of game engines has broadened in scope. They are now being used for serious games: visualization, training, medical, and military simulation applications, with the CryEngine being one example.[15] To facilitate this accessibility, new hardware platforms are now being targeted by game engines, including mobile phones (e.g. Android phones, iPhone) and web browsers (e.g. WebGL, Shockwave, Flash, Trinigy's WebVision, Silverlight, Unity Web Player, O3D and pure DHTML).[16]

Additionally, more game engines are being built upon higher level languages such as Java and C#/.NET (e.g. TorqueX, and Visual3D.NET), Python (Panda3D), or Lua Script (Leadwerks). As most 3D rich games are now mostly GPU-limited (i.e. limited by the power of the graphics card), the potential slowdown due to translation overheads of higher level languages becomes negligible, while the productivity gains offered by these languages work to the game engine developers' benefit.[17] These recent trends are being propelled by companies such as Microsoft to support indie game development. Microsoft developed XNA as the SDK of choice for all video games released on Xbox and related products. This includes the Xbox Live Indie Games[18] channel designed specifically for smaller developers who do not have the extensive resources necessary to box games for sale on retail shelves. It is becoming easier and cheaper than ever to develop game engines for platforms that support managed frameworks.[19]

Producers of game engines decide how they allow users to utilize their products. Just as gaming is an industry, so are the engines they are built off. The major game engines come at varying prices, whether it be in the form of subscription fees or license payments.[20] Unity and the Unreal Engine are currently the two most popular choices for game developers.[21] Although the differences among the different game engines blur as they build their own tools on top of them, different game developers may be too used to a system to change, or attracted by the huge benefits of such engines regardless of pay-walls.

In the broader sense of the term, game engines themselves can be described as middleware. In the context of video games, however, the term "middleware" is often used to refer to subsystems of functionality within a game engine. Some game middleware does only one thing but does it more convincingly or more efficiently than general purpose middleware.

The four most widely used middleware packages[22] that provide subsystems of functionality include RAD Game Tools' Bink, Firelight FMOD, Havok, and Scaleform GFx. RAD Game Tools develops Bink for basic video rendering, along with Miles audio, and Granny 3D rendering. Firelight FMOD is a low cost robust audio library and toolset. Havok provides a robust physics simulation system, along with a suite of animation and behavior applications. Scaleform provides GFx for high performance Flash UI and high-quality video playback, and an Input Method Editor (IME) add-on for in-game Asian chat support.

Some middleware contains full source code, others just provide an API reference for a compiled binary library. Some middleware programs can be licensed either way, usually for a higher fee for full source code.

I was keen on using the new graphics engine. When opening a larger model, SketchUp 2024 crashed already.
I figured out which component it was. Pls see attached sauna (downloaded once from 3D Warehouse).
It contains some almost 0 length geometry.
And this lets SketchUp crash when using the new graphics engine.

Beside the Sauna, the model contains a lot of trees and bushes and some of them also cause SketchUp 2024 to crash when using the new graphics engine.
I guess I have to go through each component now and check which component causes issues.

We test with a lot of models, many of which are somewhat demanding. The only differences between the classic graphics engine and the new one is that the new one gives a higher frame rate. In the past there were graphical differences sometimes, but by now those are fixed.

When I open a medium size model created in 2023, orbits and pans are not available and cannot be manipulated.
In some cases, the screen goes black and a force close is required.
It seems to depend on the model type, but I have a feeling that it is a graphics problem as well.
I am using M3 Max with Mac Sonoma 14.4.1.

Hi,
I am using RStudio server and from yesterday I am getting this warning message " R graphics engine version 14 is not supported by this version of RStudio. The Plots tab will be disabled until a newer version of RStudio is installed" and does not plot anything.

Okay, I have R 4.1.0 which CRAN tells me is the most recent.
However I have RStudio 1.4.174 and when I go to Help -> Check for Updates, it tells me that ver 1.4.1717 seems to be available. Well it did but it seems to have stopped telling me that and now it is telling me that i have the most recent! It lies!

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Someone else (Warning message:R graphics engine version 14 is not supported by this version of RStudio. The Plots tab will be disabled until a newer version of RStudio is installed. - #8 by jrkrideau) appears to have had to uninstall and then reinstall RStudio to fix this issue. I will do this if necessary, but is there any other workaround for this issue that the community is aware of?

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