What 'Optimization' Really Means In Games

[Teenyman45]

That's the entire POINT of consoles; better performance at the expense of portability. Consoles should CERTAINLY perform better and look better on lower end hardware then a PC; that's the entire POINT.

That would be part of the point of consoles if I said the complainer's machine's specs were "EQUAL" to the console's specs, because the game's programmers can tailor code for the exact layout of the machine without the additional bloatware of the OS, and especially other software, that tends to reside on computers, particularly lower end machines. However, and this is the important part, where the comparison machine's specs "GREATLY EXCEEDS" that of the console and yet the console is still delivering a superior gaming experience at a give resolution then it is likely suspect that there have been competent code optimizations in porting the game from console to PC.

 

[M76]

The entire argument of the article is based on the flawed definition of "good optimization" given on the first page. Optimization is an extremely difficult task, more so than simple bug squashing in code but similar in discipline. The author is trying to pass the buck onto the consumers with such stark condescension, "I'm going to use 3 pages to tell you to lower your graphics settings." The arrogance displayed in believing all gamers are mouth breathers is staggering. This oversimplified explanation doesn't at all describe the process developers use to optimize their game against the engine they're using. It's a complete waste of an article and doesn't even delve deep enough into the points he is trying to make to pull any value from it.


I feel like I should send a bill to Peter Thoman for the time it took me to read this article.

I agree, he completely misrepresents the issue of optimization in games. It is exactly the same as in any other type of programming. Only in games it's readily apparent and makes it unplayable. While for example in a database query it only matters in a sense of will x hardware serve only 100 clients, or 1000 clients easily. He not only creates a completely invalid premise, but builds his entire argument on it. Optimization is only slightly different in games, because you don't have to produce exactly the same results, but results that are visually very close or indistinguishable to the uninitiated, but runs multiple times faster. It has nothing to do with graphics settings.

What he actually ends up talking about is compatibility or compliance, that the game will run on low end hardware while still being able to push the high-end to the limit, with changing graphics settings.

I agre that many people falsely scream "bad optimization" but that doesn't mean optimization is not an issue. If there is a game of a certain comlpexity with a certain level of graphics fidility, you expect it to run in a certain way on a certain hardware. And if it runs worse than expected, then it's probably bad optimization.