Games not being optimized or...

Cybertox · Apr 13, 2013

Hello guys.

I have completely switched to PC gaming only and I must say that my transitioning experience was awful and still kind of is. I dont even understand whether the problems are on my end or developers dont optimize games at all, meaning that some games cant be run at expected performance due to lack of optimization on any type of hardware.

First I would like to say that pretty much all the new games are not optimized and run like crap even on good hardware. Multicore processors are out for about 4 years already but still most games ( 95% ) of the games run at one core or on two. Lets make an example with SC2 HOTS. This games was released in 2013 and uses only 2 cores which is something pathetic. Games have to finally run on those 4 or more cores because otherwise performance will still suck and graphics processing will till be slow and ugly.

Secound. I am tired of playing 32 bit games on my 64 bit operating system. I dont care about the other people majority who still uses 32 bit systems and run games on their integrated gpus and with 2gbs of ram. Most of the games run like shit because they dont offer 64 bit. Developers dont realize how much 64 bit users suffer from such games. Its 2013 damn, its time to transition or at least offer 64 bit versions. I have 16 Gbs of ram and i can tell you that 60 % of my whole amount of ram isnt even being used. Games use barely 4 - rarely 6 gbs of ram while the other remaining amount just sits there empty. Whats the point of even having o much ram if you dont even benefit from it, looks like i got it only because i was able to afford it.

Third point of my complaints. GPU usage increases graphics look the same. No really if you compare 2008 games graphics to 2011-12 there is absolutely not difference, the only thing that changed is that games require more powerful gpus but the graphics look the same. There is a big exception which is Crysis 3, that game really shows next gen graphics and advances to a whole new level of graphics but look at games like StarCraft 2 and Arma 3. They look like a game from 2007 and run like pure crap. I know arma is in alpha but i am 100% sure there will be no performance improvements made.

I am sorry maybe I complain too much but believe me I have my reasons. I would be glad to discuss this topic with you and learn more about the process of optimization.

I also have a question concerning resolutions. From my experience high resolutions require extremely powerful gpus or even multiple gpus to run games decently enough. I have a resolution of 2560x1440 and damn does it requires a lot of power. Looks like high resolutions are only for those with extremely powerful gpus.
So my questions is, do high resolutions require an immense amount of gpu power or is it just in my case?

bruniss · Apr 13, 2013

High resolutions require both powerful GPUs AND CPUs. It also depends on what you are running at those resolutions.

USAFRet · Apr 13, 2013

I dont care about the other people majority who still uses 32 bit systems and run games on their integrated gpus and with 2gbs of ram.

The people that are trying to sell a title and make a profit do care about that. If they only sold 100 copies to outliers with cutting edge systems, they wouldn't be in business for very long.

Most people do not upgrade every 6 months.

Traciatim · Apr 13, 2013

Cybertox :

About half of the machines out there only have 2 cores, at least according to the steam hardware survey. In order to make a game scale with cores you'd have to design it in such a way that it wouldn't also limit the players with 2 cores. Also, try using a program like Core Tuner to make a game run on 1, 2, 3, and 4 cores and benchmark it. You will notice improvements each time in most cases.

Cybertox :

If the game is designed to do 32-bit and runs on a 64-bit OS it can access a full 4GiB of RAM for each process. Games are designed from the ground up to fit within those limits. If they made them bigger or more detailed just so that they would use more RAM it would just be even slower.

Cybertox :

So you came from consoles that are 720p and are the ultra-lowest settings that a PC has available, or even lower sometimes and call PC graphics not advancing? Alright Mr. delusional.

Cybertox :

Yes, high resolutions require immense amounts of power. Take a console for example, they are generally rendering at 30fps at 1280x720. That's 27,640,000 pixels every second. Now look at a PC and you are running 2560x1440 and most PC gamers want 60FPS, so you are trying to push 221,184,000 pixels every second. That's just drawing the screen, and not even counting the higher polygon meshes, the higher res textures, the huge amount of effects going on . . . all at insanely higher quality than consoles.

Also keep in mind that a lot of games like the Crysis series come out with so many features used that existing hardware can't possibly run it on it's max settings. Almost like a tech demo of what their engine can do. Then in a couple of years when the hardware catches up it looks darn amazing still even though the game is a few years old . . . hence the games that come out in a few years that don't o this look like games that came out pushing the limits of a few years ago. Then people come along and go "This game sux, I can't run it on ultra on my 7770". . . yeah.

bystander · Apr 13, 2013

Traciatim covered most stuff. Another you have to get used to on PC games is that developers give the job of optimizing to you, to some extent. Because everyone has different hardware with different limits, and have different desires in FPS and attractiveness, it is up to you to pick and choose what settings to use. When you first start playing a game, you need to figure out what settings are best for you. Maxed out is rarely the best setting, and not what the developers intended for you. They give you a collection of settings, and let you decide what is best.

Cybertox · Apr 13, 2013

USAFRet :

Yes but those who have more powerful and up to date systems are so to say more engaged gamers which will support the product more than just those who buy the game play it and then forget about it not contributing to the game.

Btw I always played pc games as well as consoles, i never focused on consoles. Now that I am focusing on PC only I realized how many downsides it has.

Looks like high resolutions indeed require a lot of power, thanks for confirming. I have a resolution of 2560x1440 and run an HD7950 3 GBs and an I7 3770 3.4ghz. The results are decent but not great nor good.

Also if half of the machines have only 2 cores doesnt mean that games shouldnt support those who have 4+. Its the same if lamborghinies would put an 230 hp engine on their lambo just because an average car has 230 hp. Thats just stupid and lame.

I also have to say that I dont see much of a difference between the resolutions, of course if using 1920x1080p res on an 2560x1440 monitor it will look ugly but if looking at a 1920x1080 monitor native running that exact res there wont be any big differences between the two, at least for me.

If most games use a small amount of cores why do Intel and AMD increase the cores amount and not the clockspeed? I mean from 2008 till 2013 the clockspeed has remained the same (of course not considering overclocking).

What kind of hardware would you recommend for an 2560x1440?

Thanks for your replies btw

Traciatim · Apr 13, 2013

Cybertox :

and yet the lambo still goes 75mph down the highway just like everyone else. Because the infrastructure is designed to the lowest common denominator. Yet if you take it to the track to see what it can really do you realize that it's far more powerful.

Same as in gaming you get more settings available, higher resolutions, more stable frame rates . . . and in benchmarks you can make big numbers.

Cybertox :

That's because your eyes can only see so much when it's flying by your screen that fast anyway. There is a pretty big difference if you take screen shots. Going from 1280x720 to 1920x1080 increases the number of pixels by about 125%. Going from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 is 77% more. However it's also relational to screen size and distance, which is why 1080p on a 50" TV from 15' away looks pretty good, but if you look at it on the same screen at 1' away you can literally count the pixels. At some point more is not always better and just costs performance.

If you are comparing a 30" 1440p monitor to a 22" 1080p monitor then the reason you probably can't see much of a difference, because although the screen has 77% more pixels, it's also 85% more surface area to cover, so the pixels are essentially the same size so the images will look similar enough that while playing you don't really notice the extra details in the 1440p image.

Cybertox :

Because cores sell CPU's to the general public. Gamers are only a subset of PC users and the companies have gaming geared CPU's (like the 3570k for Intel) which are designed to overclock well and have core setups geared toward games. The vast majority of people who buy computers have no idea how to figure out what kind of data they are working on and if it threads well... the companies push more cores as an advertising feature so the more must be better.

Cybertox :

Personally I probably would go for a beastly overclocked 3570k and 2xGTX670's at this point. Fairly cost effective without getting too crazy, and SLI seems to have fewer problems than crossfire.

Cybertox · Apr 13, 2013

Well, then developers are building roads and not racing tracks.

If I will get 2 gtx 670 as you recommend it, it wont do much as most games dont support dual gpus

I am looking for a single card, hate having multiple ones (double power usage and not efficient).

I dont know much about CPUs so is the I7 3770 3.4 ghz a decent cpu? It will run with any high end gpu without bottlenecking them?

USAFRet · Apr 13, 2013

If you talked to the vast majority of computer users, and started throwing around terms like overclock, frame rate, benchmarks...their eyes would glaze over in about 8 seconds. You're speaking Greek.

And those buyers are the ones that spend the money. Yes, hardcore gamers do as well. But no matter how hardcore you are, you're only going to buy one copy. Just like the guy who bought a $400 PC from Walmart. And there are far more of them than there are of you.

We could write a game that will only run on the top 1% of current (custom) PC's. What is that in terms of sales? 0.002%?
They are not in the business of making cutting edge games, they are in the business of making money. And to do that, you have to be able to sell stuff. To sell stuff, the customer has to be able to actually use it.

Cybertox · Apr 13, 2013

USAFRet :

You dont seem to understand what I mean. Optimization has nothing to do with the graphics, i am not saying developers should use extremely high graphical tiers which can be run only by powerful rigs. I am saying that the games which are being developed should be optimized for every kind of hardware. Optimization for 400 dollars computers and optimization as well as full support of components of powerful 2000 dollars rigs.

USAFRet · Apr 13, 2013

Cybertox :

That costs time and money. How much do you want to pay for a game, and how long do you want to wait to get it?
Would you be willing to pay $115 for a game that was also optimized for a high end rig? I wouldn't

Cybertox · Apr 13, 2013

USAFRet :

I would pay 60$ for a game being developed for 3-7 years and fully optimized. Better optimization doesnt require a higher game price, what you said is non-sense. Optimization requires time and engaged people who will optimize the game as good as possible.

USAFRet · Apr 13, 2013

Cybertox :

Time = money. If it takes 1 year for a team to produce a current game, and 18 months for that same team to produce a game as you suggest....guess what? My production costs have gone up.

Cybertox · Apr 13, 2013

USAFRet :

That is true but the money added for production costs dont add up to actual game costs, it adds its quality probability which will result in more sales, the sales revenue will be wider. Some games were developed in a time frame of 1-2 years and have the same price as games developed in 4-6 years.

Traciatim · Apr 13, 2013

Cybertox :

What games don't support multi-GPU? SLI these days scales pretty well with 2 video cards, and is one of the best ways to push high resolutions and antialiasing at the same time.

The 3770k is a great processor. You probably want to overclock it if you want performance though. In most games it performs incredibly similarly to the 3570k since hyper-threading only works well in a few very specific scenarios.

Cybertox :

That's exactly what they do... ever see an option menu where you can play with settings to get your performance to match your gear?

Cybertox :

That's what they do. You say it requires time and people to do it... but it doesn't cost money? I think there are people saying things that are on-sense here, but it certainly isn't the person you were quoting.

You keep saying this 'optimization' thing, but you don't even describe what you want them to change. You don't think game programmers spent exorbitant amounts of time tweaking things so that they both look good and run well? You think they just sit around and say "Well, at some point someone will have hardware that runs it... who cares if it runs well!"?

Cybertox · Apr 13, 2013

When i go to hardware advanced settings it says Intel Core i7-3770 CPU. I dont think I have the k edition, not sure though.

What I mean about optimization isnt the ability to change graphic settings, those are just available options. What I mean by optimization is the engineering of the game and its engine to maximize its performance on certain hardware individually

Time being used for development costs money but that affects the budget of the developing team, not the final game price how many times do I have to say that in order to you to understand. Additional developing time affecting games retail price doesnt make sense and never was like that. An indie developer can work on a game for 18 years and that doesnt mean his game price gonna be 180 $.

Traciatim · Apr 13, 2013

Cybertox :

Yeah, of course, they all just make their game engine and say "Good, we're done, no need to tune performance ever again". I think you need to make this awesome game that scales perfectly on everyone's hardware and threads, but still plays the same on every persons hardware.

Pretty much the only thing that you can change is the graphics, because if you change how everything else functions then the game will play differently on each persons computer. Some chess engines already work the way you describe, maybe you should take that up so you can play a game that scales pretty much linearly with hardware (though, in general the 3770(k) is exactly the same as the 3570(k) even there, since HT generally doesn't work well for chess engines). '

How exactly is this indie developer going to live if he's working on the game for 18 years? If they set a time frame of 2 years then how exactly much time do you want them hand tuning assembler to run with each CPU and then each clock speed per CPU? Of course, by the time they were done a whole new set of CPU's are out.

I think the real problem here is that you have no clue how it works and are just complaining to hear yourself talk.

Stringjam · Apr 13, 2013

The more I talk to programmers, the more I begin to realize that parallel processing is something that you probably won't ever really see as prominent in gaming as you might think it should be.

From what little I understand, too much of the data flow in a game is sequential. You can't just say "Okay, this core is going to do this while that core does that, and we'll get all the cores going at the same time!" If a process has to wait for the results of another calculation before it can continue, than obviously you can't run it at the same time as the process it depends on.

In this case, the speed of a single core is far more important than having a bunch of them sitting around.

Perhaps with the next generation of consoles, developers will be free to spend more time looking at parallel processing, since every platform is going to have 4+ cores to work with.

The costs involved with spending thousands of hours in development are pretty staggering though. Just look at how many developers are barely scraping by. Profit margins can be very small. If a game will run well enough across a range of platforms, they may have no choice but to call it good enough and get it out there, as opposed to spending another million dollars paying $80K+ a year coders to keep banging on the engine.

This stuff is rocket science. You have some of the most highly skilled professionals in their field working on these major game engines. If you look deep enough you'll see that they have put a ton of resources into trying to get these things to run as good as possible. CryEngine3 introduced a lot of techniques to get that engine to run better (deferred lighting, automatic occlusion system, and I believe even an automatic LoD system)......at the same time, they were able get some staggeringly good graphic quality out of it. I think the engine devs are making some pretty good progress.

Cybertox · Apr 14, 2013

Traciatim :

You just dont seem to comprehend or just dont want to, stop inventing bullshit. I never said nor mentioned that I wanted to change something more than just the graphic settings. What I meant is better engine/game optimization and changing graphics isnt optimization its just a downgrade which displays less details and lets low end hardware run at a decent frame rate. Optimization is when a a developed game before the optimization process ran at max settings at 20 fps and then after the optimization process ran on the same hardware at 40-60 fps. The example with the indie game developer was for the retail price of a game and its length of development it didnt apply to other things like the possibility of an indie developer to code a game for 12 years, I thought that was pretty obvious but i have to explain the obvious to people like you. I cant bear people like you how say that I have no clue while not even understand what my points are, you are here the one who has no clue and posts crap which just consumes my time to reply on.

@Stringjam

Good post right there, finally talking about the main topic and looking at its different sections.

I agree that optimization is a complex process which requires a lot of resources and consumes time however its a very important process. The new techniques are indeed very advanced however they address the graphical and the features parts of the game while not the optimization. I also have to say that I dont have many concerns with Crysis, its an amazing game which is greatly advanced in capabilities if compared to other game. As I said Crysis 3 offers great graphics and details as well as amazing new technologies which provide such graphics and features, the optimization of the game is also good which is an exception in other games. So I dont blame Crytek for not optimizing their game properly, they do a good job at optimizing their games (better optimization in this case would be preferable but its already in a good state so not much could be done with their current resources in order to improve further).

Parallel processing is very underestimated and not being used much. I know that we cant assign certain tasks to certain cores however we can distribute the amount of tasks which must be processed equally between the cores, of course it requires time and resources in order to accomplish that but its very crucial for performance. Almost all of the high skilled professionals are too focused on the graphical and features aspect of the games while ignoring the performance of the game on hardware.

Optimization as I already said requires time and money but also offers a much better experience. I think and also hope that it will change in the future, electronic arts understood their mistakes in developing unfinished games over a small amount of time and then gaining poor profits cause games work horribly and feel unfinished and now will consume more time in order to develop games properly by giving a wider time span for development and things like optimization.

bruniss · Apr 14, 2013

Traciatim :

Cybertox :

Yeah, of course, they all just make their game engine and say "Good, we're done, no need to tune performance ever again". I think you need to make this awesome game that scales perfectly on everyone's hardware and threads, but still plays the same on every persons hardware.

Amen.
Pretty much the only thing that you can change is the graphics, because if you change how everything else functions then the game will play differently on each persons computer. Some chess engines already work the way you describe, maybe you should take that up so you can play a game that scales pretty much linearly with hardware (though, in general the 3770(k) is exactly the same as the 3570(k) even there, since HT generally doesn't work well for chess engines). '

How exactly is this indie developer going to live if he's working on the game for 18 years? If they set a time frame of 2 years then how exactly much time do you want them hand tuning assembler to run with each CPU and then each clock speed per CPU? Of course, by the time they were done a whole new set of CPU's are out.

I think the real problem here is that you have no clue how it works and are just complaining to hear yourself talk.

Cybertox · Apr 14, 2013

bruniss :

Traciatim :

Cybertox :

Yeah, of course, they all just make their game engine and say "Good, we're done, no need to tune performance ever again". I think you need to make this awesome game that scales perfectly on everyone's hardware and threads, but still plays the same on every persons hardware.

Amen.
Pretty much the only thing that you can change is the graphics, because if you change how everything else functions then the game will play differently on each persons computer. Some chess engines already work the way you describe, maybe you should take that up so you can play a game that scales pretty much linearly with hardware (though, in general the 3770(k) is exactly the same as the 3570(k) even there, since HT generally doesn't work well for chess engines). '

How exactly is this indie developer going to live if he's working on the game for 18 years? If they set a time frame of 2 years then how exactly much time do you want them hand tuning assembler to run with each CPU and then each clock speed per CPU? Of course, by the time they were done a whole new set of CPU's are out.

I think the real problem here is that you have no clue how it works and are just complaining to hear yourself talk.

If you have nothing to post other than just quotes then dont even bother...

Traciatim · Apr 14, 2013

Stringjam :

Maybe you should stop posting then. What exactly do you want them to change? If they need to move 1000 widgets on the screen and then figure out if those 1000 widgets bumped in to anything you can't really figure out if they bumped in to anything before they moved now, can they? You don't think game designers and engine designers work on this problem and are just ignoring it?

Also, if they change the number of widgets to scale with your hardware than the game would be completely different for different hardware. If they change the AI so it is more complicated with more hardware . . . again, game changer (which is why chess gets harder to beat as you throw more hardware at it).

So what they can do is use level of detail meshes so that people with lower hardware each widget is displayed as a low poly mesh, people with good hardware get a high poly mesh, and people with amazing hardware get a cool tessellated spikey thing with great lighting and awesome textures.

Again, you make this awesome engine that scales perfectly with hardware and then come back and post about how easy it was.

Cybertox · Apr 14, 2013

Traciatim :

We are not even speaking about AIs we are speaking about optimization. People with good hardware look at their cpu usage which is at 15% while their games runs at a frame rate of 20, thats what people with good hardware are seeing in most games, of course there are exceptions and I dont blame those who optimize their games properly. If developers want to make better graphical details they should at least optimize the game so that every part of the hardware is running at its maximum possible efficiency. It has nothing to do with AIs and their difficulty behavior.

Cybertox · Apr 14, 2013

Chess AIs dont get harder when you run them with high end hardware, if that is what you mean. Those AIs are programmed with boundaries and in chess game those boundaries are fixed. I can play chess on a notebook and on a desktop with dual 7970 ghz edition gpus and the difficulty is going to be the same.

Traciatim · Apr 14, 2013

Cybertox :

So then you are suggesting that you want game developers to have their games run at FPD (Frames per Day) on certain hardware and FPS on other hardware like a chess engine would need to if it kept the difficulty the same? You seriously think if you run a chess engine on a 286 and want to actually play the game that it will play as well as a dual Xeon E2687. Maybe if you want to wait a year between moves, sure. The constraints you describe are called reality, you should come back to it some day.

You still haven't described what exactly you want them to change either. . . all you say is optimize it, but you don't say what because you have no freaking clue what you are talking about. There are certain things which have to happen one after the other. Certain problems (like chess) scale really well because the data breaks up in to bite sized chunks and the whole things is static until a move is generated. It's the same reason compression utilities scale almost linearly with the amount of cores you have available (minus a little over head). The problem is known in advance, the data you are working on can be broken up in to chunks, each don't really depend on the other.

Most Games aren't like that. Only certain tasks can be broken out. In most current game they are. Have you started working on your mystical game engine that always scales perfectly with hardware yet plays exactly the same no matter the machine you play it on? I can't wait to see it.

Games not being optimized or...

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