3D FAQ

What does “3D graphics engine update” mean?

A “graphics engine” is the part of a game that is responsible for displaying all the important moving objects in a game – simply speaking it’s the “client”.

Until now we were using a client that was making use mainly of the computer’s main processor and thus had a lot of data to send to the processor like the position of any given object on the screen, the way these objects interacted, the data from the server needed managing, information had to be sent to the browser (which then sent it to the operating system), and so much more.

At the same time, the game, the browser and the operating system needed to draw each object on the screen and thus a lot of processing power was wasted on what is called “overhead”.

The new engine makes use of functionalities that are part of each modern graphics chip – either in Laptops or desktop PCs – and offloads all the work displaying the objects on the screen, immensely increasing the “breathing room” for the main processor.

Does that mean I can now move in the third dimension as well?

Actually, no. While we can use the “depth”-axis for cool visual effects (check it out!), DarkOrbit will still remain the same game!

How can I tell if my computer can run the game?

First of all, you could simply start the game and try it out. If your computer is able to run it, it will. (You can use the “Settings” to switch back to 2D.)

We made sure that computers that cannot run the 3D version at all will not show the “Switch to 2D/3D” option.

If your computer’s “system specifications” is equal or better than the following, your PC should be fine!

Min. requirements for 3D version (this is the first version, it may change a bit for final release):

Processor Intel Pentium 4 3GHz / AMD Athlon 64 3400+
Graphics card ATI Radeon HD 3650 or equivalent
RAM 2GB
Flash player 11.8, newest recommended (18.0)
OS Windows XP+, MacOS
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It still does not run smoothly enough. Can I improve that?

How to improve client performance (FPS)

1. Update your Flash Player. Use official release version from https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
2. Check if Hardware acceleration is enabled (right click on flash -> settings -> first tab (Display) -> check "Enable hardware acceleration").
3. Update your graphics card drivers (this can give a huge performance boost).
4. Close other pages that contain heavy elements (games, ads, etc.). In all browsers. Music player shouldn't be a problem (if it has no fancy visualizer or sth).
5. Close any unnecessary applications running in the background, especially those using GPU.
6. Update your browser. Side note for Google Chrome (with Pepper Flash) users: if you’re experiencing poor performance (or 3D doesn’t work for you) despite having a good PC, try different browsers (Firefox, IE). Pepper Flash in Chrome is known for performance issues, and developers can hardly do anything about it.
7. Clear browser's cache.
8. Scan your system with antivirus.
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Client-server communication lags

1. Disable all applications downloading in the background: p2p, movies, software updates, etc.
2. Check firewall settings.
3. Router/switch restart helps sometimes.
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Are you using Unity or HTML5?

We have been discussing using different technologies when the work was started more than a year ago and we found that Flash3D would offer us the best compromise between compatibility, performance and customization ability. A move to a different technology would have taken even much more time but did not offer more advantages.

Also we know that despite the HTML5 hype, it is not mature enough for an online game like DarkOrbit. So Flash3D is not going to be replaced anytime soon.

We can talk about the actual decision making process elsewhere.