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How are games “optimized”?
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Prefacing with, I am a Python developer so I am familiar with programming concepts and have made some small games on unity.
I hear this concept of “game is poorly optimized” and there are examples of amazing “optimization” that allowed the last of us to run on the ps3 and look beautiful.
On the technical level, what does optimized mean? Does optimization happen during development or QA?
Top Comment: Both. To optimize a game you run a profiler. The profiler will tell you things like how much of each frame is being taken up by various tasks, what is taking up your memory, what is being loaded into your I/o pipeline, etc. You collect your worst offenders and look for ways to make them better. Lower texture sizes, improve algorithms, chunk things across multiple frames, etc. Then you rinse and repeat. Generally though, when people on the internet say "poorly optimized," what is really happening is that the developers determined that the performance was good enough and that their time, effort, and money was better spent improving other parts of the game. E.g. an additional two or three hours of content instead of going from 30-60fps, or twice as many enemies on screen, or adding a crafting system, or anything else that makes people more likely to buy the game.
Average gamers are disconnected from how games are made.
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This isn't an attempt to defend any specific game or company or individual. But every day here you see some gamer spitting his opinions on the specifics of how games should be made because he thinks playing games makes him an expert on making games.
Thinking you know how to make AAA games because you have played games is like assuming you could have designed, engineered, mass produced, marketed, and distributed the 2024 Porsche Taycan because you have a driver's license.
Top Comment: I agree. I don’t need to be a chef to know when a meal tastes like shit.
Is gaming really a bad thing?
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So I am a gamer and I am trying to improve myself but from what I hear gaming will hinder that. In the self improvement videos I watched I hear people saying that video games will ruin your dopamine system and one saying that if you arent a professional esports gamer making money from it then what is it getting you and why are you doing it? I play a lot of video games but its not all i do. I go to school, have a job and go outside for walks quite often when the weather is nice. Now when I do have downtime gaming is my favorite thing to do at the moment and on weekdays I might play 2 hours a night after school or work depending on what day it is and on weekends I may play 6 hours on saturday then again on sunday (only if everything I have to do is done). I have also heard one dude say "why invest so much time into a virtual world when you could put that time to working on something in the real world? I disagree to an extent. I do put lots of time into achieving my real life goals but I also have racked up thousands of hours into games and I continue to play them on my free time because I enjoy it. I know of many successful people who play video games a ton and who have thriving social lives and good careers and money. And ive heard another dude that said that you could play a little bit of games occasionally but never alone so that it is a social thing but most of the time I like to sit in silence and play a singleplayer game while listening to something like a YT video or podcast. Should I quit gaming to truly improve myself? Does gaming really negatively affect you?
Top Comment: It's a better hobby than a lot of other things out there. I think it really depends on what you're playing. If you play candy crush 6 hrs a day it's basically brain rot but if you're play something that forces you to critically think and tests your eyesight and reflexes I'd agrue that it's actually beneficial when done in moderation. Keep on gaming bro.