WoWs engine

[Draknalor186]

Hey
I thought that the reason for the number squish was because the wow system coulden't handle bigger numbers
But now my friend call that total bullahit and "its just Numbers"
So i'm just wondering if hes is right or not

[Radeghost]

For example max lvl in wow is 255 and it cant be more

[Edds]

there was a limit. i guess numbers were getting too high for next expansion

[Zetsumei]

The max 32-bit number is 2147483647. Which is also the maximum amount of cash in GTAV. That's all I know about "engine" vs "max number". I don't know if this applies to numbers in WoW.

I think the number squish is to simplify everything. I think it's good.

[Deleted]

The engine sucks anywho, it can only use one core. Which is quite bad considering most ppl nowadays have atleast 4core CPUs. But arent CPUs all about the "just numbers" so these 25man raids with superinflated healing/DPS numbers should be a everincreasing strain?

[Draknalor186]

Well i know that but he just keep saying "mate its just numbers they can make it as high as they want, they screwed up so they just use the whole the game cant handle such bog numbers as a excuse for the squish"



Writing ln phone so sry for all the weird spelling errors

[Deleted]

The engine sucks anywho, it can only use one core. Which is quite bad considering most ppl nowadays have atleast 4core CPUs. But arent CPUs all about the "just numbers" so these 25man raids with superinflated healing/DPS numbers should be a everincreasing strain?

It uses 4 cores here.

[Kuniku]

The engine can probably handle the bigger numbers, but if it carried on as it was the lower end gamers computers would start to struggle with the kinda numbers being computed in 25 man raids etc (I think, it could be such calculations are done server end though...)

[Deleted]

Your freind simply has no clue of IT. And because of guys like your friend the internet guys seem so stupid.

As mentioned before, 32-Bit game. 2147483648 highest number that a 32-system can handle and do math with it. 2 Billion and a bit. Now guess why garrosh heals himself two times. His Health Pool in 25 man heroic would have been too big.

The engine sucks anywho, it can only use one core. Which is quite bad considering most ppl nowadays have atleast 4core CPUs. But arent CPUs all about the "just numbers" so these 25man raids with superinflated healing/DPS numbers should be a everincreasing strain?

Still a better engine than in some newer games, especially on the MMO market.

And you know what? Multithreading and multiple core usage is rare. And when it is viable it makes problems lot of time.

[Draknalor186]

One of his arguments also were "if its a 32 bit engine how can it have a 64 bit client?"

[Jackdemenzes]

I suspect the engine could handle the numbers, but the larger calculations get the increasingly less optimal the situation is. We're talking milliseconds but multiplied over all the calculations being performed you could see how things would start to chug.

Having said that, I think it's a bit of an excuse too, I'm pretty sure it's just because the numbers are getting increasingly comical. I told my non-WoW playing colleague how hard my Chaos Bolt hits for and he just shook his head. Numbers get increasingly meaningless to people the higher they go.

Ideally these things should work in the same way rating does for hit rating etc., in that the amount of health 10 stamina gives would diminish based on your level. That would pretty much future proof the system, but then you have a weird situation where your health actually shrinks each time you level, which would be...not great. In that scenario you're collecting gear just to break even to where you were before, which is exactly what we do with hit, crit, haste etc. but I suppose that's more forgivable.

[Deleted]

Hey
I thought that the reason for the number squish was because the wow system coulden't handle bigger numbers
But now my friend call that total bullahit and "its just Numbers"
So i'm just wondering if hes is right or not

Your friend is an idiot. Get smarter friends!

[Viradiance]

There is a limit. Heroic 25-man Sha of Fear, pre nerf, had nearly the maximum amount of health that the game engine could handle without reaching an interger overflow (numbers being 'too big' for the memory allocated and corrupting nearby data or straight out breaking)

You know how Garrosh heals to full health? That's because, otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to have a difficult amount of health on 25-man. They couldn't double his health pool and make him transition at 50%, so he heals to full at 10.

[Hyve]

One of his arguments also were "if its a 32 bit engine how can it have a 64 bit client?"

Your friend clearly has no knowledge of how computing works, so ignore him. The fact that you even slightly doubt Blizzard, and their vast experience of technology because your friend simply thinks otherwise is silly.

The Engine is a 32 bit piece of software, and as with all 32 bit software there is a maximum capacity that it can operate at, before it suffers serious issues. A 64 bit engine would most likely not ever run into those issues, but re-writing the engine from 32 to 64 isn't as simple as; int setEngineSpec == 64.

To give you can example of the scale, you can read this article http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/c...confusion/3124, but the general point it stresses is the capacity that the two different versions would have.

32 bit = 4,294,967,296 bytes 4,294,967,296 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 4,096 MB = 4GB "capacity"

64 bit = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 16EB "capabity"

To let you know how much 16EB is, that is 17,179,869,184 gigabytes.

[TyrantWave]

Your freind simply has no clue of IT. And because of guys like your friend the internet guys seem so stupid.

As mentioned before, 32-Bit game. 2147483648 highest number that a 32-system can handle and do math with it. 2 Billion and a bit. Now guess why garrosh heals himself two times. His Health Pool in 25 man heroic would have been too big.
.

I like how you call someone out and then prove you have no clue either.

In [1]: 2147483647 + 12345
Out[1]: 2147495992L

32 bit python shell, oh look I can break a 32 bit signed int.

However, the WoW engine has issues with the cap for its own reasons. This signed int is currently the type used (Realistically, it's more likely they use a float due to calculations, but treat it as a signed int, however that's not related here). It's not due to a 32 bit system, it's due to how the WoW engine handles data types.

Now, they could update the engine to either work with floats if they don't already (A cap of 3.402823466 E + 38), or they could change the Signed Int to a Long Long type (9,223,372,036,854,775,807 cap).
This would be a large amount of work, to say the least - changing a data type in an old engine could quite easily cause issues in other parts of it.
So instead of doing that, Blizz right now is doing a stat squish. I'd prefer an engine update, but I'm not Blizzard.

Also, WoW's servers are most likely 64-bit, just to throw that in there.

[Raiju]

I like how you call someone out and then prove you have no clue either.

In [1]: 2147483647 + 12345
Out[1]: 2147495992L

32 bit python shell, oh look I can break a 32 bit signed int.

However, the WoW engine has issues with the cap for its own reasons. This signed int is currently the type used (Realistically, it's more likely they use a float due to calculations, but treat it as a signed int, however that's not related here). It's not due to a 32 bit system, it's due to how the WoW engine handles data types.

Now, they could update the engine to either work with floats if they don't already (A cap of 3.402823466 E + 38), or they could change the Signed Int to a Long Long type (9,223,372,036,854,775,807 cap).
This would be a large amount of work, to say the least - changing a data type in an old engine could quite easily cause issues in other parts of it.
So instead of doing that, Blizz right now is doing a stat squish. I'd prefer an engine update, but I'm not Blizzard.

Also, WoW's servers are most likely 64-bit, just to throw that in there.

This would be a performance hit for 32-bit player computers though.

[TyrantWave]

This would be a performance hit for 32-bit player computers though.

No it wouldn't, as player computers don't do any calculations, those are all done server side.

[Kisho]

Even without an in-depth knowledge of programming, you can still follow the logic of why the item squish is needed.

Yes, it's all just numbers, and Blizzard can probably figure out a way to keep increasing the numbers without breaking the game... But as numbers get higher, the more processing power is necessary to handle it. You know all that lag that happens during heavy AoE and raids? 'Just numbers' (and spell effects too, but the numbers play a part as well).

Squish the numbers, make everything smaller, and suddenly the game is optimised better. It'll run faster, lag less, all the good stuff.

We as humans will also be able to comprehend the numbers easier. A power increase from 100 - 200 feels huge, while a power increase from 10,000 - 10,500 seems insignificant, even though you're gaining more power. A good example here is in Magic: The Gathering; if you manage to put down a monster with 12 power and 12 toughness, then bump it up to 20 power/20 toughness, that monster feels god damn terrifying. It's a significant threat and a game ender.

But in WoW terms, 20 power is tiny. It's all relative.

[Raiju]

No it wouldn't, as player computers don't do any calculations, those are all done server side.

It's increasing amount of messages sent between due to splitting singles into multiple messages. We are ALREADY lagging because of this.

[TyrantWave]

Even without an in-depth knowledge of programming, you can still follow the logic of why the item squish is needed.

Yes, it's all just numbers, and Blizzard can probably figure out a way to keep increasing the numbers without breaking the game... But as numbers get higher, the more processing power is necessary to handle it. You know all that lag that happens during heavy AoE and raids? 'Just numbers' (and spell effects too, but the numbers play a part as well).

Squish the numbers, make everything smaller, and suddenly the game is optimised better. It'll run faster, lag less, all the good stuff.

We as humans will also be able to comprehend the numbers easier. A power increase from 100 - 200 feels huge, while a power increase from 10,000 - 10,500 seems insignificant, even though you're gaining more power. A good example here is in Magic: The Gathering; if you manage to put down a monster with 12 power and 12 toughness, then bump it up to 20 power/20 toughness, that monster feels god damn terrifying. It's a significant threat and a game ender.

But in WoW terms, 20 power is tiny. It's all relative.

That's not how computers work. At all. Please stop even thinking that's how they work, because you just make yourself look like an idiot.

567,893 + 1 + 1,999,111,222 - 23 takes exactly the same time for a computer to process as 50 + 1 + 300 - 2.

It's increasing amount of messages sent between due to splitting singles into multiple messages. We are ALREADY lagging because of this.

Last I checked, messages aren't being split. I could have a look on wireshark tonight when I'm home, but I doubt this is the case, because it wouldn't make any sense to do so.

What IS lagging though is the number of events being sent. Reducing those numbers will not change the amount of messages being sent.