Supreme Commander Graphics Study (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Supreme Commander Graphics Study (2015)

adriancourreges.com

133 pointsUglyToad62 comments

An underrated aspect of the SupCom engine was that it natively supported multiple monitors, with independently controllable cameras on each one so you could keep an eye on any two parts of the map, or just zoom the second one all the way out to get a giant minimap. That's something you never see today even though it would be easier to pull off with modern graphics APIs (IIRC SupCom actually runs two copies of the game simultaneously, driving one monitor each, to get around DirectX limitations of the time).

Slightly less impressive was the minimap, which was also an entire second(third) copy of the game's graphics process. (Although really you weren't 'supposed' to use the minimap, since strategic zoom took its place.)

I find these kinds of bend-over-backward-things amazing. It is probably not a good ROI to get it that correct, but it admirable and makes the game lots of fun.

In a similar vein, I think fallout4 lets you use an ipad as a pip-boy to do maps and other management things.

if it makes the game lots fun then there's a good case for the feature!

And our LAN games became soo slooow over time..

It's trivial to render to a texture (framebuffer) using a separate camera matrix and shader pipeline to make a minimap. It was in 2015 as well. Rendering to two separate windows is also trivial if you're rendering to textures first instead of directly to the backbuffer. Making use of those two windows is not trivial.

All in all, SupCom had issues with the number of units on screen (or in general) and would slow down considerably under heavy troop battles. Still, it was awesome.

Ever since 2006 or so it's been standard practice to break up the rendering pipeline and render to textures that you would combine in various ways in post (deferred shading came about around this time). So it's not an entire graphics engine process. It's just simply a render target.

I loved this feature but the game crashes if you use it with >2 monitors :(

As someone who had two monitors at the time (that was more a geeky thing by then than now), it was my favorite feature of the game. Also in-game shields.

I played it on two big CRTs. You needed a strong desk to run multiple monitors back then.

Yup, strategic zoom on monitor 2, micro control on monitor 1.

If you never played SupCom, you would imagine that being terrible since most RTSes of the day were so fast paced, but SupCom followed much more of the SiNS/Stellaris/etc flow of gameplay. High level strategy with microcontrol.

Watching your waves of tanks (in strategic view) slowly push back their line of artillery because you simply strategized better as your air force slowly picked off economic resources was so satisfying.

Are you listening, Factorio devs?!

It was also one of the first games to make use of multicore CPUs, although it was far from ideal and ultimately you ran into a cap on one core's CPU usage regardless since one thread still had to do more than anything that could be deferred to others.

If you also happen to think SupCom was the most ultimate superior RTS ever made, because it's truly strategy scale with a thousand units PER PLAYER including on 8v8 maps, and the simulated ballistics of almost all weapons means you can defend your base from an incoming nuke by scrambling your jet fighters so that they run into the incoming warhead and airburst it "safely" above your base, and love that artillery shells can also hit those same planes, or that a plane shot out of the sky can fall on a tank and destroy it, or that you think a giant walking mech with a backpack nuke launcher is the metalist fucking thing,

Check out Forged Alliance Forever. It's a community made, open source, "launcher" for the Supreme Commander game, that patches it, mods it, allows you to interact with other players and find games and get ranked against them, and also is a replay viewer, so you can watch how the pros actually do the insane micro and economy play that earns them the 2000+ ELO score, and also a mod manager, and also a friends list.

If you are like me, and love all that but actually suck at playing strategy games in general, check out Gyle on youtube https://www.youtube.com/@GyleCast who has been casting SupCom games for at least a decade now, and really shows off some of the best that the game has to offer, including multi-hour "EPICs" that can involve ten thousand units controlled by several semi-pro players.

Shoutout to FAF. Best RTS I’ve ever played.

Been meaning to check out Beyond All Reason, supposedly it’s a FOSS spiritual successor to FAF

Total Annihilation (1997) was the predecessor to Supreme Commander (2007), both by Cavedog. Beyond All Reason is pretty much a remake of the former.

I was completing my PhD at the time. I called it 'Thesis Annihilation'.

I love Beyond All Reason, it really has the early 2000's gaming vibe I miss where people use text chat in game instead of voice chat. The community likes their 8v8's, the community is moderated well, and the engine is solid even though there is practically no unit cap.

> you can defend your base from an incoming nuke by scrambling your jet fighters so that they run into the incoming warhead and airburst it "safely" above your base, and love that artillery shells can also hit those same planes

Or how you could blip your shields on and off in sequence with artillery bombardments to free up energy for your forward artillery, giving you just that slight leg up on your opponent.

I am a devoted FAF fan. I've been watching games online for about 10 years now. I've probably seen close to 1,000 at this point, but I've never once played it. I suck at RTS games and I don't have a Windows machine.

I probably know more about the game than some of the players but I have never even owned it ;-)

I played it for the first time in 2017 and I was somewhat sad to have played only WoW between 2005-2013.

Supreme Commander is still pretty active, via the FAForever community. The original single player maps were converted to co-op. Lots of game modes, a new race, unit tweaks, new maps - very much a game that still gets love.

When the next steam sale hits, you only need the Supreme Commander: Forged Alliances game (Under $3) and https://www.faforever.com installer and it all updates lovely. Works on Linux, multi monitors, and a dozen or so players connecting.

For me, I found this was the open source project I used to keep my SpringBoot skills current. Nothing but positive things to say.

If you find graphics studies interesting, you can find a few more at http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2020/12/29/graphics-stud...

I liked the voice acting. Especially the cranky military guy. Ordered to attack a base on some planet: "Are we gonna hold it this time? Or are we gonna abandon it to the cybrans in a month?" Ordered to help PC on another mission: "Arrgh how much longer do I have to hold this guy's hand?"

"Get it done, commanderrrrr" lives rent-free in my head for as long as it wants

One of the best video games ever made

Enjoy that style ? Go play Beyond All Reason, its free and open-source spiritual heir - https://www.beyondallreason.info

Thank you for this, had no idea it existed

And, for completion, with the same engine that beyond all reason is done, but with a different game play feeling: https://zero-k.info/

I personally prefer Zero-K (flatter tech tree, territory can be more important), but both are great games.

Also prefer Zero-K. The economy system design results in better team games imo. Though obviously it's a lot less pretty.

I've never played much Zero-K, but from I understand the eco in BAR is truely exponential, after you get to the top of the tech tree and have a metal maker economy. It's an interesting design, since late game human becomes the bottleneck in expanding the eco, since exponential growth also means you have to increase your attention in managing it.

Zero-K from what I know has overdrive fusions, which isn't really exponential in the same sense.

In the end, both are great games.

It's limited by builds pace though

Exponential is great; it ensures a reasonable end to the game. (A problem TA suffered.)

Also, when the games do last a while, it is truly amazing to watch. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIC_JMZKBkQ

I played Total Annihilation as a kid. Finding Beyond All Reason was amazing.

And spectating 8v8+ with tens of thousands of units is something else.

It's unfortunate that large scale RTS isn't a more popular genre.

Instead it's all Fortnite/CoD/WoW

if you haven't seen already, check YouTube where the mods enable larger lobbies.

There are some really good casts of 40 vs 40 players or more!

Here's a recent 25 vs 25: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btnU_IPWPmY

Oh I have. Those are wild.

I still play the CNC games every once in a while.

I still play Total Annihilation. I am not a "gamer" and don't play any computer games anymore, but boy do I still love Total Annihilation.

My cousin was a tester for Cavedog in the late 90s and gave us a copy before it was big. I still have some CDs!

Love to see Beyond All Reason continuing the spirit.

It feels like Starcraft 2 was the last traditional RTS; I suspect part of that is because other developers think their game wouldn't have a chance without competitive multiplayer as tight as SC2's.

That said, there's still some RTS games in the indie space / on Steam, like Homeworld: Deserts of something. But that one was ultimately disappointing overall.

The popularity of Starcraft confused me until I realized it was a really a "user interface game" rather than a strategy game. I mean, Starcraft 2 is still a strategy game, but if you were to propose changing the UI to enable more strategy, they wouldn't do that. The UI is the game, and once I understood that I understood Starcraft players better and was able to appreciate the game better.

It's hard for anyone to do a better Starcraft because it's a UI game based in technology of the time. We aren't going to get better at traditional computer screens with a fixed aspect ratio and a mouse. That is Stracraft.

Also, you mentioned Homeworld, and Homeworld 3 will be out in a few months.

That reminds me, somewhat tangentially, of working with a personal trainer in a gym and made some comment about a particular type of movement being done in a more "efficient" way and the dude was just like "that's not the point", and playing starcraft more efficiently is likewise not the point.

I thought technically BAR is the OSS heir of Total Annihilation (which then Supreme Commander later developed).

Only 2 sides, no unique Experimental units, etc.

That being said, it's a great FOSS game and really captures the genre feel of epic scale.

Yes, Supreme Commander, Beyond All Reason are cousins (and Planetary/Industrial Annihilation) -- all successors to TA.

And there are the direct TA mods...Balanced Annihilation and TA: Escalation

Part of that family is also the spring engine (zero-k and others)

Each side has unique experimental units, not sure what you mean by that. But, as you say, there are 2 factions to play instead of the 4 you'd find in SupCom. A 3rd faction is being worked on though and can be used in multiplayer, but it's beta quality.

I want to like BAR because it is so obviously made with passion and attention to detail but I can't get over how wonky the units look. I don't mean the quality, but the design. They don't look at all cool and I can't get the power fantasy of leading an army of killer robots. I feel like leading some random hodgepodge of guns mounted on trash cans.

You need distinct silhouettes more than cool powerfantasies while gaming

If you are a sweaty tryhard I agree. But I personally want cool powerfantasies and big explosions while gaming, otherwise I could just as well play chess or go.

To be clear, I'm not arguing against clear silhouettes, but the general unit design. The robots often just look wacky. Like the sumo thing is this lumbering trashcan that could as well be accompanied by a tuba soundtrack.

To this day, still one of the best RTS games of all time.

Let's say you're not too familiar with the genre, but you've been curious for a while and want to explore more. Maybe you played some Starcraft at a friend's house in high school, and that's pretty much it for genre exposure. And by you I mean me.

What games would you recommend for a newcomer in 2024? What are the genre-defining classics, and which ones still hold up? What's the recent hotness? The modern classics?

Supreme Commander is a great start

Personally, I'd also recommend Homeworld and the Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War series

On the free-and-open-source front there is Zero-K (which I don't care for) and Beyond All Reason, both of these are Spring Engine games, and Spring Engine started out as a 'modernization' of Total Annihilation. Most games built with it don't fall too far from the original

Homeworld 3 comes out in May, I can't wait :D :D :D

ps- I'd be remiss to omit Command & Conquer... Red Alert 2 and Generals are my favorites. I don't care for Starcraft but that series is worth mentioning too.

It actually started out as a ta3dviewer of total annihilation replays

Indeed. I think I discovered it while wish searching for a TA where I could get up close with the models.

If you specifically want more Total Annihilation style RTS games, Ashes of the Singularity scratches a similar itch. And of course Planetary Annihilation does TA IN SPACE with the ability to sling asteroids at your opponents. Personally switching to a 3D sphere world broke my brain.

I didn't like Ashes of the Singularity, I really don't like the capture point game mode that it seemed to revolve around (though Dawn of War did the same thing and that didn't bother me...)

Planetary Annihilation is cool too but I really didn't like the spherical maps

SupCom really is the sweet spot

Personally the only entertaining ones to watch are Starcraft Brood War or Starcraft 2 right now.

Depends on which branch of RTS design you want to explore.

Age of Empires 2 still has a significant player base, for example, so it's both a genre-defining classic and modern ranked multi-player.

Other RTS design traditions include Total Annilation, etc. Plus there's adjacent stuff, such as They Are Billions which just does the base building part and drops some of the other mechanics.

There's still nothing that comes close to Warcraft 3 (the original, not the remastered abomination, don't fucking touch it). Dawn of War 40k had some neat ideas as well.

So probably WC3 -> DoW 40k -> Starcraft 1/2 -> weep because the genre is dead

Not for lack of trying, though. Stormgate and Tempest Rising are boty trying to take on the mantle of Starcraft 2 with probable releases this/next year.

But yeah overall high production values pickings are pretty slim - last year saw Company of Heroes 3, 2022 had a Dune game, 2021 had Age of Empires 4. 2020 might be a high point with Warcraft 3, C&C, and AoE 3 remasters.

Mostly, I tend to put the RTS' into ideas about "real-time strategy."

Dune II: One of the first, one of the best. 3 factions, all very different, story mode with scope. Interesting units when "harvesters" was a new idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II

Command & Conquer / Red Alert: Excellent unit select, very orthogonal unit choices, live-action cutscenes (which while of questionable quality, were still pretty amusing) Red Alert also has an excellent soundtrack (although extremely facist march themed with "Hell March", yet quite listenable). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Red_Alert

Age of Empires: Artificial Intelligent opponents that didn't "cheat" with extra resources or out-of-game knowledge, they were simply competent opponents. Age of Kings is probably the showcase. Rotational rock-paper-scissors unit effectiveness. Several "victory" types. Gameplay that tended to support longer games, rather than 3-minute rush (Commander vs Legacy in an MtG context). Only complaint is unique units were often not enough for long enough to really be special. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II

Warcraft II: Not sure how relevant today, yet one of the first to feature an online matchmaking service that was not utter misery (and actually had players at lot of the time!) Also, neat cartoony style that became the basis of WoW, DOTA, and many others. Possibly the best though, first game where you could spend half an hour just cycling through all the quotes ("I can see my house!") for units (and their annoyances at your clicking "Are you still touching me?"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_II:_Tides_of_Darkness

Homeworld: There is Still not a significant other 3D RTS franchise (EVE Online is very close for an MMO). Basically, about the only game that does actually 3D strategic space combat in an actual spherical playing field over vast distances, with multiple-ship scales, and per unit positionable cameras ("camera can be set to follow any ship and view them from any angle, as well as display the ship's point of view"). The story's also quite well written, and at least provides a plausible reason for each of the missions. I watched Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and thought "You people should have played Homeworld, you would have written such better space battles. Somebody over at Battlestar Galactica must have played Homeworld." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld

Sins of a Solar Empire: Neat game design based on solar system "zones", where you can only really fight around solar systems, and then transit is mostly hands off (often with surprises when you exit jump space into fog of war). Planetary and solar system upgrades that are inherent to the idea of "planet" rather than just tower defense. Multiple ship styles and races with fairly different play styles depending on the build choice. Been a while, yet from what I remember, also not quite as punishing as Starcraft about choosing the "correct" choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire

Warhammer 40K Dawn of War: Gameplay that's not built on mining anything, rather more like capture the flag, holding locations for time frames to accumulate "something". And then pretty much all the pre-existing craziness of Warhammer that is far too long for a single game recommendation. LOTS of units and armies though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000:_Dawn_of_War

Total War Franchise: (Medieval II, Rome, Shogun, and Warhammer are notable entries) Scope. Massive scope. Battles with 10's of 1000's of soldiers on the field. Became a bit much to deal with in some of the games, yet neat to be able to create your own LotR "Ride of the Rohan" scenes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War_(video_game_series)

Achron (have not played, would like to try) Time travel RTS with three time-frames units fight in, and propagating time waves that erase the future. You can "chronofrag" yourself, by having future self meet past self. A Grandfather Paradox resolution system, where units are removed if they fall out of the "possible futures."

Supreme Commander: (and prior Total Annihilation) are the subject of this article. Also massive scope. Huge, smoothly scalable maps. Tons of unit choices. Enormous numbers of on map units simultaneously.

Starcraft II still has a big player base. (Pre-release Stormgate is the closest successor.)

Age of Empires and Total Annihilation still have fan bases.

Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer do as well.

AFAIK, Beyond All Reason is the most popular "large-scale" RTS.

Since the article opens with discussion of RTSs in the (late) 90s, I feel it would be a crime to not include Dune 2[0], largely considered to be the first "modern" RTS.

Edit: Dune2 came out in 1992, so it's understandable that it's not mentioned, I meant more in the broader discussion of RTSs.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II

There's also LOUD, the mod version of the game which adds even more dynamics and higher tier skill trees.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/loud-ai-supreme-commander-forged-...

I've actually playing this the last few days :)

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