The RAGE Engine & The Future R* Games

[TheSantader25]

So it's been more than a decade since R* have been using this engine. Do you think they need to develop a new one. Or fully upgrade the current one?Or just stick with the current state of the engine? Is it time to head for something new? I felt some signs of aging for this engine in RDR2 based on some control schemes and rendering qualities. 

Edited December 10, 2018 by TheSantader25

[(Ambient)]

I would stick to RAGE, as it's quite iconic to both Rockstar Games and video games engines. Just upgrade it as much as possible in order to not feel outdated and stuff.

[Emmi]

Stick with it and upgrade in every single aspect!

[RedDagger]

The problem with discussing game engines is that the only people who really know the engine are those that use it - this is fine for things like UE and Unity, but unless you're a modder it's kinda hard to tell what's going on behind the scenes with the engine. What do you think a new engine would bring that simply doing what they always do with RAGE couldn't?

[Spider-Vice]

^ this.

Also, from the point an engine is made by a developer and not a middle-man, they can do anything they want with it, without restrictions. They won't really need to change the engine as long as they're not limited by any other software developer. RAGE being based on Angel Studios' engine doesn't mean much as that was proprietary too. Developers like Bethesda are a different story, they are using heavily modded versions of engines created by other software developers that have limitations that might not be fixable, this also applies even to developers like Ubisoft (Dunia/Anvil/Disrupt = CryEngine), even though this is a bigger software house and they've likely done enough to CryEngine that it's almost fully proprietary.

[TheSantader25]

8 hours ago, RedDagger said:

The problem with discussing game engines is that the only people who really know the engine are those that use it - this is fine for things like UE and Unity, but unless you're a modder it's kinda hard to tell what's going on behind the scenes with the engine. What do you think a new engine would bring that simply doing what they always do with RAGE couldn't?

The only complaint I have with the RAGE Engine is how controls sometimes seem to lack the response you desire. I'm not sure it's even Engine related BUT since this is has been happening since IV(I felt V was really close to solving this though) I thought maybe it has something to do with RAGE.

[Emmi]

5 hours ago, TheSantader25 said:

The only complaint I have with the RAGE Engine is how controls sometimes seem to lack the response you desire. I'm not sure it's even Engine related BUT since this is has been happening since IV(I felt V was really close to solving this though) I thought maybe it has something to do with RAGE.

This is by game design!

[TheSantader25]

1 minute ago, Emmi said:

This is by game design!

Some of it yes. I'm not talking about animations. We all know how realistic the animations are. It takes a little bit of time for the character to start running,... Which is actually realistic and I like it. BUT there's a certain delay after pressing a button and the "animation" to start. That is not game design. That's input lag. Just look at the stealth button for an example(L3) 

[6fangedcutthroatTV]

One reason that it changed from III era to IV/V era between III/VC/SA's "push the stick a little, walk. Push it far, trot. Hold X, run. Tap X, Sprint" (using PS controller buttons), into "Move stick as much as you want, you are only going to walk. Hold to trot, tap to run, tap faster to sprint" was because of multiplayer. These binary on/off values are good for MP, but the old "true analog" movement had to go because it's not network play/packet friendly, or so I've been told at least. I argued you just send a value but I was given a bunch of explanations I didn't really understand so I took the word I was given at face value about it and went on with my life lol.

 

But the simulated nature of the characters and what slows them down in terms of responsiveness, I will liken to the cars. The cars went back to being "too" gamey in V, after being enjoyable but a bit too sluggish like niko and the V characters are. If they did that to the cars, honestly, the characters should have been "dumbed back down" a little, too. If the sim was too much for IV with cars, why did they make it so I can break my face against a wall if I don't jump at it perfectly?

 

There should be a middle-ground in VI between IV and V. If I am mashing sprint, break into a sprint immediately, don't blend through those animations until you finally let me run like in IV and V. At the end of the day, I'd be happy with another game that plays exactly like IV with V features where the cars just don't look like they have sponges for shocks when turning. But if online is going to be a major focus, it needs to change how they are handling these characters. It does have a feeling that can be described as "cumbersome" to control these characters.

Edited December 12, 2018 by JuliusCaesar

[TheSantader25]

I played SA after like 6 months yesterday and I was amazed how quick the same button we use for crouching in RDR2 (L3) works. It was so responsive and well designed. No lag at all. 

Edited December 12, 2018 by TheSantader25

[Sprunkadelic]

I mean its not like bethesda's engine and the games end up looking pretty nice still. i personally think we can still milk two more beautiful R* games out of the engine (probably Bully 2 and GTA VI)

[Lioshenka]

It's time for a new engine. I hated GTA 4 (it was OK to play once, but has absolutely no replayability value), GTA 5 was OK, and they fixed a lot of problems that came with 4, and some areas were almost perfect, but they just weren't SA perfect.

 

I used to blame story, map, colours, but I realised in the end that it's the engine. It just wasn't as good fun enjoyable game as SA was. If we had to keep Rage a lot of small things would need to be changed for me to like the new game as much as I loved the older ones: I'm not even talking about non-engine specific things like map and characters, but things like lighting, controls and physics for instance.

Edited December 12, 2018 by Lioshenka

[Algonquin Assassin]

I would just rather they upgrade the current one. It would be much more cost effective than building a new one from scratch. It's still a great engine IMO.

[Journey_95]

On 12/10/2018 at 10:27 AM, TheSantader25 said:

So it's been more than a decade since R* have been using this engine. Do you think they need to develop a new one. Or fully upgrade the current one?Or just stick with the current state of the engine? Is it time to head for something new? I felt some signs of aging for this engine in RDR2 based on some control schemes and rendering qualities. 

Definitely stick to it, the sometimes clunky controls have nothing to do with it. See Max Payne 3 which has more responsive controls compared to RDR2 and GTA V even. I think Rockstar just likes the more "realistic" feeling for their IP's. They could easily change it if they wanted to

[TheSantader25]

5 hours ago, Journey_95 said:

Definitely stick to it, the sometimes clunky controls have nothing to do with it. See Max Payne 3 which has more responsive controls compared to RDR2 and GTA V even. I think Rockstar just likes the more "realistic" feeling for their IP's. They could easily change it if they wanted to

They have to optimize it for the next game. One can only wish the combat and controls were like MP3... 

[Journey_95]

12 hours ago, TheSantader25 said:

They have to optimize it for the next game. One can only wish the combat and controls were like MP3... 

After the complaints that RDR2 got in this area, I'm sure they will.

[Bloodytears1666]

Funny, voted for an upgrade, but honestly want to see a new one. Mostly because nor 4 or 5 was really perfect in my taste.

 

Rage is good in anyway and I play on console, so I couldn't care more about how people who making mods are familiar with it.

[MVP]

I want to see a change in how San Andreas compared to GTA IV.

Edited March 17, 2019 by MostWantedMVP

[solitaired]

RDR 2 has best graphics out of any game according to me. And content, animations, living world, it's all on point. Why would anyone think it's not good enough? The detail in everything is amazing. I was blown away with GTA IV, I was blown away with GTA V, I was blown away with RDR 2. 

 

My guess is they keep improving the engine like they do. Seems crazy that they would suddenly have a new engine. But if they had a new engine with GTA IV I guess it could happen again.

 

(Online though is always problematic, the graphics and moving parts gets downgraded, but I guess it's because of slow internet speed. Same problem for all developers. )

Edited January 14, 2019 by sebban93557

[RDR2Fan101]

Nah, the Rage engine is just fine. 

 

The graphics for Red Dead 2 are some of the best this generation. Physics and controls are more design choices than anything else. Plus it’s tough to say, because Red Dead 2 is only on console, so seeing how it’d be on PC is unknown.

 

Also building a new engine would take lots of time and money, and it’d be tough for rockstar to put in features and polish the game if they used a new engine. It takes years for Game Studios to adapt to a new engine, so making a new engine would simply complicate matters.

 

Besides most companies use engines that are old. EA’s Frostbite engine has been in use for the last decade and their recent games look and perform great.(If only the micro transactions didn’t ruin things.)

[KingAJ032304]

On 12/11/2018 at 6:26 AM, TheSantader25 said:

Some of it yes. I'm not talking about animations. We all know how realistic the animations are. It takes a little bit of time for the character to start running,... Which is actually realistic and I like it. BUT there's a certain delay after pressing a button and the "animation" to start. That is not game design. That's input lag. Just look at the stealth button for an example(L3) 

I am 99.99% sure that game design. Also never really happened to me.

Also I just want to say the RAGE ENGINE is still going hard to this date and I don't see how it limitate games as of right now. Heck it probably hasn't been used to its full potential. Every since PS4 and XBOX 1 limitations were never a problem with Rockstar unlike back in the PS2 era where you were praying for the games to feature swimming and stuff. This is also why people feel the HD era didn't add much because everything was already added which I respectfully disagree with.

[ChengizVlad09]

Having input lag that great seriously damages gameplay and the main fault lies with the game engine. Every freaking game from 2008 and onwards suffers due to this, more or less. Take a look at RDR2 for example. Nobody of those bought and sold gaming jurnalists whores isn't mentioning that in order not to damage Rockstar's reputation while giving them 10's.

 

Everything in regards to controls design and general resposiveness is catastrophically lame and feels sluggish. Then again, it could be that they decided to do it intentionally, I wouldn't be surprised following the recent trends, in which case it's not only game engine's fault.

Edited January 4, 2020 by ChengizVlad09

[MrQuiche]

I really like the weighty movements,i mean in other games when you go left and then instantly right,you can see the character do a spin to the direction and when you spam this,it look awful. But in RAGE's games you can feel and see the transfer of energy needed to switch direction,it's not instant. Even in GTA4 when you stop running,you can see Niko lean back and do 3-4 steps before stopping completly,i mean it's called kinectic energy in real life,in other games they don't have that and that makes it weird and unpleaseant when you look back at it and how Rockstar does this very well.

 

About the engine now, Rockstar is the best company to talk about this. When they released GTA4 with RAGE,you could see the improvements over SA but at the same time you could feel that this was a engine that they didn't really master especially when you look at GTA 4 PC Version but now this is a completly different story, GTAV launch on the same hardware as 4 but with many graphical overhauls,audio etc... and still it run better than 4 ever did,then there's the PC version which is a beast of optimization,i mean you can run the game on Intel HD Graphics. And when i look at RDR2,i'm still wondering how they manage to have that draw distance,those volumetric effects(they're also present on GTA V but they're dumbed down),that living world on a console. Their engine is made to create Open World monsters, RDR2 is the best example like GTA V,RDR and GTA 4 were back in the day. They say it themselves,they don't just wanna improve the next release,they want it to push the boundaries and it definetly was the case for RDR2,they pushed the boundaries of what you can do for an open-world. Just stick with the engine...

Edited March 5, 2019 by MrQuiche
I wrote beet and not best

[Jason]

RDR2's input lag is by design. If it wasn't every single input would have input lag and that's not the case here.

[B Dawg]

On 12/12/2018 at 9:37 PM, HelloMyNameIsHuman said:

One reason that it changed from III era to IV/V era between III/VC/SA's "push the stick a little, walk. Push it far, trot. Hold X, run. Tap X, Sprint" (using PS controller buttons), into "Move stick as much as you want, you are only going to walk. Hold to trot, tap to run, tap faster to sprint" was because of multiplayer. These binary on/off values are good for MP, but the old "true analog" movement had to go because it's not network play/packet friendly, or so I've been told at least. I argued you just send a value but I was given a bunch of explanations I didn't really understand so I took the word I was given at face value about it and went on with my life lol.

I know this is about 3 months late, but what you wrote doesn't make any sense.

 

In IV's Multiplayer, the movement is "push the stick a little = walk, push it far = run, hold X to sprint", aka exactly like the 3D era games. It was only changed to "Move stick as much as you want, you are only going to walk, hold X to run, tap X to sprint" for Singleplayer for whatever reason. I don't know about Multiplayer movement in other R* games released after IV.

 

SA had super sprint for tapping on top, not sure about previous games, but IV and onwards do not have that mechanic afaik.

Edited March 17, 2019 by B Dawg

[Eternal Moonshine]

I don't feel like RAGE is holding R* back. Just compare GTA V and RDR2. The progress was amazing