A big new update has been released for BlastZone 2 (v1.31.0.0), adding a new OpenGL 4.6 renderer! Much of the engine was overhauled to make this possible, and it was done without breaking compatibility with the existing OpenGL 1.5 and 3.0 renderers. In fact, these engine upgrades improve performance by around 5-10% across all renderers. This new renderer doesn’t require OpenGL 4.6 hardware and drivers to work either, it is backward compatible down to OpenGL 3.1. Hardware older than that will fall back to the GL 3.0 renderer.
The GL 4.6 renderer currently doesn’t look any different from OpenGL 3.0, but it uses the latest standards and approaches for running everything under the hood. This opens the possibility of implementing new effects in the future made possible by GL 4.X without being held back by compatibility with older hardware.
The GL 4.6 renderer is the new default as well. Everyone upgrading from a previous version of the game that was set to GL 2.0/3.0 will automatically be switched to the new renderer if the hardware and drivers support it. The only drawback of the GL 4.6 renderer is the simple model set is not compatible with it. Switching back to the GL 3.0 renderer will allow them to work again if needed.
A few bug fixes have been included as well. Here are the full release notes for v1.31.0.0:
- A new OpenGL 4.6 renderer has been added to the game -Uses the OpenGL 4.6 Core profile rendering context to ensure compliance with the latest OpenGL standard -Upgraded large portions of the rendering engine to use the latest OpenGL standards -Maintains backward compatibility with hardware and drivers going back to OpenGL 3.1 -Going below this will switch to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer
- This new renderer does not support the "Simple" model set, or "Display List" code path -These use older technologies that can no longer be used in modern OpenGL -These options are still available when using the OpenGL 1.5 or 3.0 renderer -The "Simple" model set would require a complete rebuild from scratch to work with GL 4.6
- The OpenGL 3.0 renderer now uses an explicit OpenGL 3.0 Core rendering context -This gives the graphics driver specific information on the intention of this renderer -This has the potential of improving compatibility, performance, or memory characteristics
- Upgraded the VBO draw call code path so all objects in the game use VBOs -This was done to establish compliance with the OpenGL 4.6 Core context -This improves performance by up to 10% for all 3 renderers, OpenGL 1.5, 3.0, and 4.6 -Many areas of static geometry are now loaded into graphics memory instead of streamed every frame -The text system in particular has been greatly optimized for this code path
- Slightly optimized the DisplayList draw call code path -More areas using static geometry are now compiled into graphics memory -This improves general performance by about 2-3%
- Renamed the "OpenGL 2.0/3.0" renderer to just "OpenGL 3.0" to maintain naming consistency with the other renderers -Now, the name of each renderer represents the maximum feature level it takes advantage of, but maintains backward compatibility with lower versions
- Updated the external configuration program to add the new OpenGL 4.6 renderer option
- Improved the Leaderboard score uploading progress bar design
- Fixed an object distance culling bug when starting the game with low view distance, then changing it to high
- Fixed a blank loading screen bug when using the OpenGL 1.5 renderer with Antialiasing turned Off
- Fixed changing the number of AA samples in game not taking effect for some NVidia graphics cards
People may have noticed the last few updates to BlastZone 2 have focused on technical improvements and bug fixes, not content additions. There is a very good reason for this, and a related announcement is coming soon. Stay tuned!