Lazy Game Programmers.

[DosFreak 2]

David, Go buy a console. That system will fit you perfectly. Unless you can figure out a way to program a simple OS that runs on all X86 hardware and supports all X86 hardware. Then figure out a way to reagularly update the support because you sure aren't going to be able to keep the OS update nor is it going to be perfect upon release. Also your sure as heck not going to get the specs for all hardware so your going to have to get the Manufacturers to shift their priorities from the current OS that their market runs to your OS. Now your going to have to support compression formats and most likely a browser and such because the Internet and MM Online Gaming is the current fave of PC Gaming. So people will have to install this compression program (unless you want it to install seamlessly as soon as your OS connets to the net). Oh, wait they will still have to input their configuration settings to even connect to the net..... etc...etc....

 

Why did I mention making a new OS? Because the only way your going to squeeze every single ounce out of your computer is to program in assembly. Now you could probably make a game with an integrated OS but you wouldn't want each and every game coming with it's own OS (would increase game making time to an ungodly amount....refer to above paragraph).

 

 

I repeat. BUY YOURSELF A CONSOLE.

[oldspice 0]

I have a

 

P2-350

128M

GeForce2mx cheap card

 

and Serious Sam is the fastest running game I have seen. The engine is beyond Excellent in my point of view if you compare it to everything else that has come out. I would say the developers have created a masterpiece and I would have to agree that your K6 is probably your problem because this game ROCKS! I must get a100fps, thats how smooth it is on my old crappy processor.

[DeadCats 0]

I think it's important to remember that historically, game development has always driven hardware development.

 

For some reason, like, um, MARKET DEMAND, computer gaming has always pressed the development of hardware faster and harder than that of any operating system or business application. It's been that way since day one, and I can't think of any reason for that to change.

 

 

 

------------------

"Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure it hears you, much less comprehends what you say." -DeadCats, 1999

"Talking to DeadCats is like talking to a dead cat." -MrsDeadCats, 2001

[Almghty 0]

I agree with that statement BUT

 

it should be rephrased to game developers introduce new technology to players. Not make you have to buy it in order to play it.

 

In this example take Sierra and their police quest/kings quest series. Everbody was doing the Roland / Adlib sound card support when they introduced support for a more costly card the Soundblaster.

 

Players didn't have to buy it but the sounds were better. The same thing for Halflife ..we didn't have to get a graphic accelerator but it looks better ..the game still played at the same speed.

 

The point is alot of game developers introduce support for new hardware in that it is nice to have to make it better but the game should run well without it.

 

The argument to go buy a console is warranted but given that the Xbox will run windows CE, have a nvidia card and an intel chip ..makes it ludicrious given thats what a PC is. So if a developer cant make it go quick on a normal PC what hope does he/she have?

 

A PC is like a console, you just need to learn the tricks ..and not many people take time to learn the tricks ..which is understandable given that there are alot of directx calls, win32 api calls plus the undocumented ones.

 

[ 19 April 2001: Message edited by: Almghty ]

[Brian Frank 0]

Yes, halflife better support lower end machines and run really good, because its based on Quake and just heavily modified!

Of course its gonna run well! 1GHz wasnt a thought when Quake came out.

With todays games coming in at around 450MB a piece, there is only so much that can be supported if the company hopes to get it out in a reasonable time and not pull the Daikatana crap.

 

Look, nobody says you have to play the thing...geez.

 

You guys are mad because game programmers wont support every last bit of hardware. ;( Therefore, logically, they are lazy, because they wont spend six months programming for a 486.

 

DosFreak is right--go buy a console, as you obviously will have hardworking game programmers on that end of the spectrum. ;(

[Donald2B 0]

I have to agree with Brian Frank!!

 

Everyone keeps referring to Half-Life....I don't mind if everyone starts making comparisons, but at least keep it apples to apples. Instead what is happening is that people are complaining that a game engine equivilant to the Quake III engine doesn't run as fast as the Quake engine on the same machine. Well no kidding the Quake based game is going to run better.

 

There is no way that we can make a game that will work on the million different hardware configurations and multiple OSs that are being used. We would never get the game out.

 

Consoles are a whole entire different entity. There is a set specification to work for. You optimize everything to work on a set group of hardware and nothing else. Thats it. It gets so frustrating as a developer because we can't please everyone, and the ones that we don't please whine louder than the ones we do please.

[Brian Frank 0]

Yeah, programming takes a long time. Im in this class where we're just doing a little QBasic. We're working on a program that takes 5 seconds to complete and weve worked on it for over four hours and its not yet done. Even with this stuff, I can see why they just cant whip out a game every day and sell it.

[bottleneck 0]

Well this is off topic,but wasn't half life driven by the QII engine? not that it realy matters

[Almghty 0]

Fair enough. I will help to compare apples with apples because clearly there are either no programmers in here or people believe programming is so hard that they must have done a good job already and should be applauded.

 

In comparing new age games, we have Tomb RAider 3 (last revelation?) and Indiana Jones 3d which came out at the same time. Both same type of play with equivalent graphics. Yet when playing both on the same system Indiana Jones plays like a dog. If you then play Tomb Raider 4 (lost chronicles?) you will find that now plays like a dog, so what happened? As I said development teams come and go and talent comes and goes. Programmers are like doctors ..for every great doctor there are lots of average doctors.

 

Again we take something like Black & White with its outdoor arena and track it against Tribes 2. Same hardware and settings and you will find Tribes 2 is slower. Why? It cannot be the arena because the graphic engine only has to contend with what you see. So even if Tribes is some 20km x 20km map ..you are always limited in what you see on the screen. Both games are set outdoors, Black & White is probably more CPU intensive with its obviously more complex AI in the background.

 

I am not angry at anything, i can pretty much play any game on my system. I work in the industry so i'd like to see some classy work. To have people say to other people "geez tribes 2 ownz your system sucks upgrade" is just the blind following the blind like when microsoft gives you a new bloated OS and says "XP ownz, your dual amd 1.3ghz is too slow upgrade"

[Donald2B 0]

Almghty...you make some valid points...but come on!! Tribes 2 and Black & White!! Um...those are totally not the same. Tribes 2 deals with all of the players in the world, not just AI. Get into a game with 30+ players in tribes 2 and tell me that the two games are the same. I don't think so.

 

Then there is the Tomb Raider 3 vs. Indiana Jones 3D. Hmm...lets take a look. Tomb Raider 3 is a rehash of 1 and 2 with minor upgrades. Indiana Jones was a totally new engine. Just because both of these games are situated outdoors, doesn't mean anything. The gameplay is different, there many major differences between the two.

 

Black & White has some incredible graphics and so does Tribes 2. But in the same aspect both of these games took an average of 2+ years in development.

 

Regardless of what is better and what people consider shotty work by programers...you are all still missing one basic thing.

 

Games need to make money! 3rd Party resalers of hardware need to make money (ie. nVidia, ATI, Asus, etc.) If the games stayed the same and kept the same system requirements, we as gamers would get extremely bored. Once it has been done we want bigger, badder, and faster. But to say that you don't want to upgrade your hardware to get that is rediculous. I work in the industry as well, and yes I too would like to see some games that are totally optimized and run awesome right out of the box with absolutly ZERO patches. But by the time they would be released something bigger and better has come out and the game will be overlooked.

 

I think we could go on about this for the next century and we would still be having this conversation. I do think that the programmers deserve some praise for what they go through. Between totally revamping a 3D engine in the middle of the project and still make the deadline is pretty impressive. I would also have to agree that there are different levels of talent in development teams, but regardless there are tons of great games that we play everyday as well as the games that we look forward to playing in the future.

 

The worst part of this entire topic is that most of the time it doesn't matter how good the programmers really are. Deadlines will always be more powerful. Not every company can afford to spend 2+ years in development. You miss a deadline and you are out x amount of dollars. Then you find yourself unemployed and looking for another job.

[Brian Frank 0]

Bottleneck, actually, I think that HL was built on a combo of Quake and Quake 2, and then they used their skinning thing so it looked really good. ;(

[Brian Frank 0]

Back to the topic:

Hmm...put out the game w/o optimizations for every last piece of hardware or get my *** fired? Hmm...I guess the 486 optimizations will go along with the TNT and Voodoo2's...on second though the voodoo's will stay--too popular to dump...YET.

 

Also, this little programming Ive done shows me how easy it is to make a mistake. One character missing or improperly put in can screw up the program...and this is probably only a few k. Imagine the time to look through the entire 400+ megs a game usually contains even with multiple people, theres still room for human error.

 

If a game company keeps putting a game off until all is perfect, no one is gonna be impressed, because there will still be a problem along the line. Duh!

Look at Daikatana, 4 freakin' years after it was promised! Look at how many people think it sucks ***! Its the most despised game on earth!

Not saying it runs poorly, but it offers nothing new, except a headache.

 

You want to wait four years for the newest game to come out?

 

Like I said, your just pissed because the game programmers dont support everything all the way back to the stone age!

If you dont like the fact that games dont run on your system--get a console and quit *****in'!

[DavidNewbould 0]

I'm not moaning about my hardware not being up-to-date.

 

I'm saying, for the last time, that people who code games can find alterior ways to enhance a players experience of a game, and these ways are inherently faster than the techniques currently used.

<lets breath out>

 

There is [size:18]NO[/color] need to flame me for this, I'm not trying to insult your integrity, nor am I challenging you, I'm just making a point about the necessity of certain things in a game.

 

Ok.

Ok, I'm done.

Peace.

[ThC 129 0]

i think everyone has a good point. Yes game programmers can improve the poly counts on the engines some (someone mentioned the need not to draw the WHOLE truck 10 miles away) and yes it is a ***** to program (i dont program games but ive worked on Total Conversion mods for many in the coding end, but that is much different because i didnt do any API programming). So you see it is important to support older hardware but sometimes this older hardware just doesnt have the memory bandwith to support the high-res textures and the high poly counts. The problem really doesnt lie with the games much more the limits of the video cards the game is played on. This gets into the theory of overdrawing surfaces which is what you see when you get into complex engines such as Tribes 2, look at all the space on those external levels then think about how much the objects you dont see are drawn this will effect memory bandwith, and brings me into the Kyro II chipset. Im not going into detail but in theory and on paper this looks to be the best value gamers card because of the fact that its cheap and produces the same framerates as a GF2 GTS or Pro for a lot less money, and it does this by removing the surfaces you dont see saving the memory bandwith. So in the end you can only tweak a game engine so much but it all comes down to rendering and memory bandwith in the card.

[Brian Frank 0]

Sorry, I tend to get overzealous sometimes.

I just dont think you really had a clue about game programming, and then went and made generalizations.

Definitely not trying to start a flame war here if at all possible.

[ThC 129 0]

if you want to start talking about games that have taken forever to come out i can name one right now. Duke Nukem Forever. This game went from being on the Quake 2 engine to being on the Unreal engine and has been in development for how long now sheesh ever since Quake 2 came out. Of course though sometimes people get too overinvolved with FPS and ping times too even enjoy the game. That is one of the reasons i don't play CS much anymore is because most of the people playing are so concerned about FPS and ping times that they have GF 2 GTS+ (plus as in gf2 ultra,ect) and have to have the low pings just so they can get the 20 kills a level or whatever and arent concerned about having a good time playing with their friends.

 

Also i know nobody means to insult anyone here so I dont take offense to what people say, i just remember that people like to defend their cause one way or another so their replies might come across as harsh (this isnt directed toward anyone so please dont take it that way) but just take what people say and listen to em and keep the topic going.

[Bursar 0]

THC - I think you have a valid point to a degree when you say that some people just want to get the best of their system in playing games rather than enjoy the experience of playing the game. But these people would probably be better off running 3DMark or something similar rather than actually playing games.

 

At the end of the day people are going to want more for their money. More bad guys on screen, more high resolution textures, more intelligent AI and so-on.

 

These things come at a price though, and that price is a hardware upgrade for the consumer.

 

The game companies aren't stupid (reagrdless of what you might think of them) and they don't intentionaly release a game that is targetted at the hardcore gamers with top end systems. Doing so will limit the income that that title will generate.

 

However, the ability of Serious Sam (the game this thread started about) to draw massive environments and fill them with dozens of bad guys naturally requires a fair amount of computing power. Both in terms of CPU and graphics.

 

If the engine was cut back and the distances and number of bad guys on screen at once was limited, there would be little to distinguish this game from the many FPS games released to date. That would be a financial disaster for the publisher. Croteam spent 5 years developing this game (and the engine behind it) so it's only fair you do it justice by running it on a compentent PC.

 

Otherwise, go and get a console. Then your copy of game X will run at the same speed as your friends copy of the game and all these problems go away.

[Brian Frank 0]

Oh, yeah Duke Forever. I dont remember them promising a date, but of course I could be wrong on that one.

 

Remeber Duke3D? That was awesome!

 

I still have a voodoo 3 3000, and that runs UT and HL just fine on the old test sytem. It certainly is nowhere near as fast as my GF2MX card(insanely overclocked), but it does the job with those two games. Im pretty sure that it wouldnt be as good for Serious Sam. I havent played too many games, but SS was the first jaw dropper since Duke3D.

 

I havent had so much fun with a game.

 

So far, since I first upgraded from a Cyrix 300 to a Pentium II 400, I havent had a problem running games.

Games are the biggest pushers on technology, not the OS, although we may think that. XP needs at least a 300MHz cpu and 64 (or is it 128)MB of ram to run. Many games, besides Serious Sam have requiered that to run. If all games except 1 can run fine, I wouldnt be too worried. I'll star worriying when the requirements for games start doubling evey month.

[ThC 129 0]

yeah they posted a date for DNF 'When its done' is what they are saying and havent changed it yet.

[Brian Frank 0]

That should give em some leeway.

[ThC 129 0]

yeah that way they dont have to miss a deadline because there isnt one LOL

[Brian Frank 0]

Good thinkin on their part, hehe. LOL

[Almghty 0]

Its been a very interesting thread and I hope it continues a little more on peoples feelings towards game programmers and what they do.

 

Essentially most are harking about the closed development cycle of a console versus the neverending number of configurations for a PC. Which explains the smoothness of many console games that can never be duplicated 100% on a PC. In console land everything is the same whereas a PC not all the mobos are born equal, not all memory is the same, not all VGA cards handle T&L.

 

But you guys have to admit, there are games out there which you play from similar genres that you sit back and think

 

"damn why does this game play like a dog"

 

I'm not talking always about the graphics, i'm talking about controls, movement, physics ..overall feel.

 

For a game like that which only gets better when you shove in your geforce 9 and athlon 9 ghz..thats when you should be thinking "they must have hired idiots to program it" not "damn so this is how the game was meant to be played".

 

Optimization isn't just sitting back and letting some software do it all. Its painstaking to go through the code, profile certain sections and even then still miss obvious speedups.

 

Take for a example a program with these two lines scattered everywhere.

 

for(counter = 0; counter < 3;counter++)

cout << " Hello" << endl;

 

Overall it would be quicker to just roll out the loop than have it all neat. In the end it could probably speedup your entire app/game by a factor of 2.

 

Did the developers of Quake123 need to use the BSP algorithm for their game? No they could have used something else but that algorithm is speedy which is why alot of people still use it.

[Brian Frank 0]

Of course if its gonna be supporting this technology or having the game late or getting paid less, that other technology is just not gonna get the support. No hard feelings, but money is a major factor, along with keeping a job.

It is a good thing to have games that can actually utilize the 1GHz+cpus and the GF2Ultras. Yes, that does suck for people with older cards like a voodoo 2, but then again, if money is the drive, somethings will get dropped, wether the end user likes it or not.

Life is not fair--therefore it can, and will suck sometimes.

Unfortunately, 600MHz is considered lowend right now, but that is a perfectly acceptable speed as long as your video card is decent. The cheaper hardware is not necessarily bad, but in the past the cheap stuff just didnt hold up without overclocking, and even then, that didnt mean that it would be as good as the real thing. The K6 cpus were sort of a competitor to the Pentium II, and it did not perform nearly as well at the P2, and cost nearly the same. We all know what happened there.

Nvidia seems to target their chips at a wide range of consumers, and you have the whole slew of TNT and GeForce lines(including the 2s of both series). Unfortunately, the TNT is no match for the GeForce 2 MX, and the MX is no comparison to the GeForce 3. IMO the MX is a very capable card for the money, and if you stick it with a decent cpu, even the Celeron, you can have a sweet gaming rig that should run dandy.

 

End of lecture....

[Brian Frank 0]

Oh yeah, remember Serious Sam is a totally new gaming engine, so there are likely a few kinks to work out yet, that may be hope for older technology, but again I think the programmers are more worried about getting paid than supporting every last bit of hardware, so older technology gets left in the dust.