Next Generation Of The Game Engine And DX12 Support

[flight50]

Ahhhhh I can't wait to see the next step on what SCS has planned after the engine update. Should provide a different feel and experience just like going to DX11 and the 1.40 lighting update. Hard to imagine things won't improve.

[parasaurolophus67]

I'm actually excited for this too (Thanks flight and JoeAlex lol). Once they move to DX12, So much more opportunities to do on it.

[flight50]

I hope the biggest improvement that comes from the benefits of updating the engine is the AI. Makes no sense to really try under the current engine. But now that they have gone forth with the engine upgrade, the AI overhauled could have a great chance to be completely revamped with several upgrades. Smarter but unpredictable, more fluid responses, law breaking, minor infractions and able to solve on their own and improved detours with timed system. With that, new random events and new situational events like malfunctioning traffic lights due to accidents/weather, perhaps real time AI accidents with interactive First Responders and hopefully a "Rush Hour" feature.

[Tomsun]

My expectations for multicore are that several parts are shifted to seperate threads like Navigation, AI, Autosave, ...
I hope this will prevent the Sim from occasional dips.

[Sanguinem Luna]

I don't understand the fixation that some people seem to have with hyper-realistic graphics. Does it look pretty? Sure. Is it necessary for a game? Hell no. ATS and ETS2 do not need hyper-realistic graphics. The "focus" on graphics that SCS has had the last couple of years was very much needed, but just because they "focused" on it the last couple of years doesn't mean it should be all they should ever do now. That's a foolish way of thinking. The games look significantly better than they had previously after the recent graphics update. Do the graphics still need work? Yes. As more reasonable and realistic-thinking people have mentioned, anti-aliasing absolutely needs more improvement. As do SOME shadows, such as light/shadow casting. Personally, I hate that my entire cab becomes the surface of the sun when night driving with a vehicle behind me and my big ole box trailer, or that when driving through a beautifully shadowed forest area, my mirrors act as though there are no shadows at all, but does that mean SCS should make the graphics hyper-realistic? Absolutely not. It just means there are still some much-needed improvements to be done that SCS is surely aware of and working on.

If you want hyper-realistic graphics, go buy one of the paid graphics mods or download one of the ridiculous "Raytraced RTX ReShade Omega Realistic!" presets.

I still have some issues with the way the base game graphics look kind of washed out and a little blurry/muddy at times, so what did I do? I sure as hell didn't come to the forum screeching about needing to switch to an entirely new game engine and add hyper-realistic graphics. Instead, I downloaded ReShade and tweaked some effects until I got the game looking much better for my tastes.
New lighting system, vanilla graphics (during the graphics update beta):
[ external image ]
New lighting system, ReShade-tweaked graphics (during the graphics update beta):
[ external image ]
A significant improvement (for my tastes) over the already significant improvement that had been done by the graphics update. And with little to no performance impact to boot. And, to this day, I am still tweaking my ReShade preset as I go to try and get it looking a little better. It's not so saturated anymore, for example, but also still not washed out looking.
Sidenote: Yes, I do realize the FPS between the two images went from 80 down to 58, but I don't consider that a performance impact. ATS/ETS2 aren't twitchy reflex shooter games like CoD or CSGO. You really don't need more than 60 FPS for ATS/ETS2. Just as long as it runs smoothly. I have Nvidia Control Panel by default for all programs to set V-Sync to "Fast". Renders unconstrained FPS similar to V-Sync off, but prevents screen tearing similar to V-Sync on. I've long since changed that for ATS/ETS2 and capped the games at 60 max.

As far as the whole game engine thing goes: I would personally love to see Vulkan and multi-core support come at some point. I know this is probably an apples-to-oranges comparison, but playing Fallout New Vegas (also a CPU/single-core bound game) on DX9 versus using a utility (DXVK) to translate it to Vulkan? Hoo boy, the difference was night and day! I can only imagine what Vulakn and multi-core might do for ATS/ETS2! I also believe, and especially so after the recent 25 Year Celebration video they put out, that SCS should absolutely continue with their own game engine and just keep improving it as they go. As they have been. For TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. They know it inside and out, they can shape it to be whatever they want and to do whatever they want. That 25 Year Celebration video really opened my eyes to what SCS has done and will be capable of doing with their own engine and it genuinely has me excited for the future of the games. It was a much-needed insight into the development of the games. I hope SCS puts out an in-depth "Under The Hood" blogpost soon about their engine to give further insight on how it works and how they work with and improve it. I'd like to think it would help some certain people in this thread to better understand that a different game engine will never be the answer to any of the problems the games may face.

Whew, that was a lot to type and refine. I know there are some language barriers here on the forum, so apologies if the tone of this post comes across as overly aggressive or incomprehensible. That is not my intent. My intent was to explain that the games don't need massive graphics overhauls or new game engines. That a simple graphics mod or ReShade preset would solve that need for the most part. And that SCS is always updating, improving, and evolving the game engine to be better and offer more features, functions, etc. None of which will be visible right away, but will come in due time, and to have patience for that. Have a great day, afternoon, or evening y'all! Much love and peace to ya! <3

[nodin747]

Still looks like a s..t

[xXCARL1992Xx]

it looks better then anything you will ever make, even if im not a fan of overblown colors in games

[wcwood92]

Did SCS officially mention a planned engine upgrade? Or support for multi core?

[aquila99]

yes and they also said they want to bring the game to consoles

[flight50]

Yeah the engine upgrade has been in the works for quite some time. It was mentioned on the DAF truck release stream last Summer (2021). As far a multi core, technically they have not mentioned multi core but in order to go console, its said that multi core is a must have. I'm no programmer so I can't speak on it. But a lot of people are really hoping multi core comes with this next engine update.