Supreme Commander Graphics Study (2015)

[jsheard]

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).

[YurgenJurgensen]

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.)

[gwervc]

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.

[pdntspa]

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

[Cthulhu_]

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.

[jl6]

Are you listening, Factorio devs?!

[mrguyorama]

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.

[newZWhoDis]

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

[deaddodo]

> 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.

[AndyMcConachie]

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 ;-)

[frozenlettuce]

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

[heelix]

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.

[corysama]

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

[trashface]

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?"

[pdntspa]

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

[daveidol]

One of the best video games ever made

[liotier]

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

[paulddraper]

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

[Spellman]

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.

[short_sells_poo]

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.

[bloqs]

Thank you for this, had no idea it existed

[datadrivenangel]

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

[VyseofArcadia]

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?

[elromulous]

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

[metadat]

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 :)