Call of Duty: Ghosts to be "powered by next-gen engine"

Think its about time, how long can you go on a modified quake 3 engine?

But in all honesty it really just sounds like marketing, "The UK outlet and online shop listed the game on its website, with a description saying that the game will be “powered by a next-generation Call of Duty engine”." Doesn't sound all that official to me.
 
Gir said:
Think its about time, how long can you go on a modified quake 3 engine?

But in all honesty it really just sounds like marketing, "The UK outlet and online shop listed the game on its website, with a description saying that the game will be “powered by a next-generation Call of Duty engine”." Doesn't sound all that official to me.
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maybe a new engine for them is doom 3's id tech 4 :p /// runs
 
Dohc-WP said:
maybe a new engine for them is doom 3's id tech 4 :p /// runs
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LOL.... maybe this time they will jump the gun and release a game on the Doom 4 engine before doom 4 is released. (Doubt they using the id tech engine since its purely in-house now)
 
Their idea of "next generation engine" is to field the old engine with a few tweaks if the past is anything to go by.

I also don't think you can build a brand new engine if you're running on a 1 year release cycle. Engines take long to develop:

Unreal engine 1 - 1998
Unreal engine 2 - 2002
Unreal engine 3 - 2005

So 3-4 years interval - and thats if you run development teams in parallel on current & next gen and are a studio in the business of making engines (Epic). Unreal engine 4 has been in development since 2003. Thats 10 years - not all of them working flat out but still.

So yeah, if it really is an entirely new in-house engine then I'll be very surprised. I reckon they'll buy rights to an existing engine, make some small tweaks and slap a big "Call of Duty Engine" label on it. I hope they use Frostbite, but its unlikely given that DICE is their competition.
 
HavocXphere said:
Their idea of "next generation engine" is to field the old engine with a few tweaks if the past is anything to go by.

I also don't think you can build a brand new engine if you're running on a 1 year release cycle. Engines take long to develop:

Unreal engine 1 - 1998
Unreal engine 2 - 2002
Unreal engine 3 - 2005

So 3-4 years interval - and thats if you run development teams in parallel on current & next gen and are a studio in the business of making engines (Epic). Unreal engine 4 has been in development since 2003. Thats 10 years - not all of them working flat out but still.

So yeah, if it really is an entirely new in-house engine then I'll be very surprised. I reckon they'll buy rights to an existing engine, make some small tweaks and slap a big "Call of Duty Engine" label on it. I hope they use Frostbite, but its unlikely given that DICE is their competition.
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Seems like you're right. I also don't expect them to have a brand new engine. But hey if they've been working on the new engine the past few years then its probably possible. But hey I don't really care for Good graphics in COD games.
 
they could just licence cryengine3 since that and frosty2 are the 2 most realistic looking rendering engines atm
 
JP'S said:
But hey if they've been working on the new engine the past few years then its probably possible.
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Yeah definitely, but a mighty tall order - tall to the point that I don't buy it. They've money to throw at the problem, but you hit a wall with that really fast. i.e. sharply diminishing returns.

JP'S said:
But hey I don't really care for Good graphics in COD games.
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A good engine goes well beyond graphics. You can run the GFX code and the netcode in separate threads & out of sync, but somewhere down the line you need to line up all of these versions of "reality". Else people will rightly bitch about hit reg, rubber knives, rubberbanding etc.

I get what you're saying though - eye candy doesn't always add much value to a competitive MP FPS. Hell I mostly turn everything way down below what my rig specs would suggest. e.g. Even in CoD4 if you turn of r_detail you still see a noticeable improvement in smoothness, despite a rig that is light-years beyond CoD4 requirements.

Dohc-WP said:
they could just licence cryengine3
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Yeah that could fly.
 
It's about time they change engines. That V6 just isn't sufficient anymore.:)

But, on a serious note: I'm glad they're going to be using a new engine. Will it live up to expectations though?

Will it be better than, or as good as current high-powered engine like: CryEngine 3 or Frostbite 2?
 
Juvenile said:
It's about time they change engines. That V6 just isn't sufficient anymore.:)

But, on a serious note: I'm glad they're going to be using a new engine. Will it live up to expectations though?

Will it be better than, or as good as current high-powered engine like: CryEngine 3 or Frostbite 2?
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it was never a v6, it was more like a 1.3L riced up 4 cylinder with a turbo, where cryengine 3 and frosty 2 are 12 cylinder monsters
 
HavocXphere said:
Their idea of "next generation engine" is to field the old engine with a few tweaks if the past is anything to go by.

I also don't think you can build a brand new engine if you're running on a 1 year release cycle. Engines take long to develop:

Unreal engine 1 - 1998
Unreal engine 2 - 2002
Unreal engine 3 - 2005

So 3-4 years interval - and thats if you run development teams in parallel on current & next gen and are a studio in the business of making engines (Epic). Unreal engine 4 has been in development since 2003. Thats 10 years - not all of them working flat out but still.

So yeah, if it really is an entirely new in-house engine then I'll be very surprised. I reckon they'll buy rights to an existing engine, make some small tweaks and slap a big "Call of Duty Engine" label on it. I hope they use Frostbite, but its unlikely given that DICE is their competition.
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Just because the games release annually doesn't mean they've only spent a year on the engine. They might have been working on it for years now.

Also, remember, part of why they stuck to the old engine for so long is because their core audience is on console and getting the game to run at a stable FPS on the old engine is a lot easier than using a new engine and trying to tweak it each year. It makes sense that the most console-centric franchise this generation would get a new game engine around the same time the next generation of consoles launch.
 
I'm just wondering how this "next-gen" engine is supposed to run on on current-gen consoles and at 60fps no less.
 
Graal said:
Just because the games release annually doesn't mean they've only spent a year on the engine. They might have been working on it for years now.

Also, remember, part of why they stuck to the old engine for so long is because their core audience is on console and getting the game to run at a stable FPS on the old engine is a lot easier than using a new engine and trying to tweak it each year. It makes sense that the most console-centric franchise this generation would get a new game engine around the same time the next generation of consoles launch.
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cryengine 3 runs perfectly on console and its a fairly new engine, activision is just a lazy company that likes to recycle old schitte, They had plenty of time to upgrade the rendering engine properly and they neglected it, i mean far cry 3 is using practically a modified version of the original cryengine 1,which ubisoft modified into the dunia engine for FC2 and 3 and look at how good those games look (why couldnt iw or treyarch do that?). or bioshock 1 which ran on a 5 year old modified ue2.5 engine and still looked amazing.
 
Dohc-WP said:
cryengine 3 runs perfectly on console and its a fairly new engine, activision is just a lazy company that likes to recycle old schitte, They had plenty of time to upgrade the rendering engine properly and they neglected it, i mean far cry 3 is using practically a modified version of the original cryengine 1,which ubisoft modified into the dunia engine for FC2 and 3 and look at how good those games look (why couldnt iw or treyarch do that?). or bioshock 1 which ran on a 5 year old modified ue2.5 engine and still looked amazing.
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TBH FC2 and 3 look and run like crap on console. That said I'm interested to see just how "next-gen" this engine is going to be, I have a feeling it's going to be held back a lot so that it can run on current gen as well.
 
Dohc-WP said:
cryengine 3 runs perfectly on console and its a fairly new engine, activision is just a lazy company that likes to recycle old schitte, They had plenty of time to upgrade the rendering engine properly and they neglected it, i mean far cry 3 is using practically a modified version of the original cryengine 1,which ubisoft modified into the dunia engine for FC2 and 3 and look at how good those games look (why couldnt iw or treyarch do that?). or bioshock 1 which ran on a 5 year old modified ue2.5 engine and still looked amazing.
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And to who does the CryEngine belong? To whom does the idTech4 engine belong? You keep harping on about what other engines are in existence, but you betray a clear lack of business sense. Do you even know what licensing a game engine costs? Licensing an engine for one game can run anything from $200 000 to $1.5 million, sometimes even more. I believe the UE3 goes for around $700k on average and then you usually have to pay royalties as well. I remember reading that CryEngine 3 costs around $1.2 million for commercial AAA game and you can bet if Activision wants to license the engine that CryTek is likely going to demand royalties too.

Does it not make a lot more business sense to simply develop your own in-house engine that you can develop for a a once-off cost and then use freely for years to come?

I'm not saying I'm happy that we've had such a shit game engine in CoD for years now, but people should at least apply a bit of logic to an argument instead of just bashing a company just for the sake of it. Licensing a game engine isn't something you do for free. Activision has, time and again, shown that they are not gamers, they are business-men. That's why pretty much everything they do makes complete sense from a business perspective. There's a pretty big difference between having a good head for business and being 'lazy.'
 
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Graal said:
And to who does the CryEngine belong? To whom does the idTech4 engine belong? You keep harping on about what other engines are in existence, but you betray a clear lack of business sense. Do you even know what licensing a game engine costs? Licensing an engine for one game can run anything from $200 000 to $1.5 million, sometimes even more. I believe the UE3 goes for around $700k on average and then you usually have to pay royalties as well. I remember reading that CryEngine 3 costs around $1.2 million for commercial AAA game and you can bet if Activision wants to license the engine that CryTek is likely going to demand royalties too.

Does it not make a lot more business sense to simply develop your own in-house engine that you can develop for a a once-off cost and then use freely for years to come?

I'm not saying I'm happy that we've had such a shit game engine in CoD for years now, but people should at least apply a bit of logic to an argument instead of just bashing a company just for the sake of it. Licensing a game engine isn't something you do for free. Activision has, time and again, shown that they are not gamers, they are business-men. That's why pretty much everything they do makes complete sense from a business perspective.
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The cod engine was never developed inhouse, since it is a modified version of ID Tech 3, it is still a licenced engine then, right ? so why is it a problem for them to licence a newer more advance engine since they are practically paying id soft royalties. and also why do alot of smaller companies with a quarter of activisions budget go and licence these mainstream engines, if its so expensive ?
 
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Graal said:
Does it not make a lot more business sense to simply develop your own in-house engine that you can develop for a a once-off cost and then use freely for years to come?
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Unfortunately no.
There is a reason they are charging so much.
Building an engine such as this is not s small task,it requires very unique skills and takes more time to develop than a AAA title.

Square-Enix is one of the few companies that like to create their own serious engines.

Blizzard creates their own engines, Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft uses the same one, look at how often they release titles.
 
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