Game engines are basically like a set of tools, they don't fit every single case.
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Just remember how plasticky and stiff the characters in Dragon Age Inquisition looked because of the mandate to use the Frostbite 3 engine for ~everything, no matter how unsuited it was to a high fantasy world.
Exactly, engines can be as good as they get and still be the wrong fit for a game.
Creation gets a lot of criticism but it's the whole reason why Bethesda games have that unique feel to them and are as moddable as they are.
Lamborghini Huracan: fast and exciting
Fiat Panda: outstanding fuel efficiency
Trucks: lots of hauling space
Why not build trucks with the chassis of a Lamborghini and the motor of a Panda. It would solve all of our problems...
Optimization is extremely complex and the game engine, while factoring into the equation, doesn't determine if something is optimized or not inherently.
Yes, this is all a horrible post, game engines can't really be compared directly. There is no one size fits all.
EA thought that and tried to apply Frostbite to their entire catalogue. What worked amazingly for Battlefield/Battlefront was a disaster for Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, and let's not forget Anthem. Engine was optimized for small maps and quick gameplay, but was horrible for large open worlds and RPG elements.
The reason Unreal requires such heavy hardware is because they're trying to be a one tool fits all, but that requires making sacrifices.
OP's entire post here is incredibly naive. It's apples to oranges.
the games/engines you cite as being “extremely well optimized” are both a lot older than UE5 and do a lot less than some of the “less optimized” games discussed (i.e. simpler lighting, no geometry virtualization, simplistic simulation, very static environments, etc.)
these are very apples and oranges comparisons
Who would have thought that having your own team/colleagues writing/updating their own engine would rely better results (not always) than using something made from someone else…
The problem is bigger than that. Disclaimer: generalization incoming!
Most game developers are just programmers and nothing else. They know how to write high level languages like C# well enough to write the required functions and that’s it.
Long are the days that devs would need to write their own tools and even engines to put the game running. Some (like Naughty Dog) would even hack the hardware in order to bypass limitations of it.
Yes, there were shitty games made back then , but at least the devs had my admiration. Now, not so much. But this not limited to games, Apps are the same shit. Let’s just use some Chromium framework wrapped as an app and that’s it.
The problem is that hardware has come a long way and is now much harder to understand.
Back in the old days you had consoles with custom MIPS processors, usually augmented with special vector ops and that was it. No out-of-order memory access, no DMA management, no GPU offloading etc.
These days, you have all of that on x86 plus branch predictors, complex cache architecture with various on-chip interconnects, etc... It's gotten so bad that most CS undergrad degrees only teach a simplified subset of actual computer architecture. How many people actually write optimized inline assembly these days? You need to be a crazy hacker to pull off what game devs in the 80-90s used to do. And crazy hackers aren't in the game industry anymore, they get paid way better working on high performance simulation software/networking/embedded programming.
Are there still old fashioned hackers that make games? Yes, but you'll want to look into the modding scene. People have been modifying the Java bytecode /MS cli for ages for compiled functions. A lot of which is extremely technically impressive (i.e. splicing a function in realtime). It's just that none of these devs who can do this wants to do this for a living with AAA titles. Instead, they're doing it as a hobby with modding instead.
Long are the days that devs would need to write their own tools and even engines to put the game running. Some (like Naughty Dog) would even hack the hardware in order to bypass limitations of it.
Re-using engines has been around for basically as long as game development has existed. This idea of some mythical age when game development was more "pure" is a fantasy. What has changed is that expectations on AAA titles has grown to the point where it's extremely difficult to roll your own engine if you are committed to many, many years of work.
Not to mention, it certainly doesn't guarantee that the engine performs well. Look at Starfield or Baldur's Gate 3. Both have noticeable issues with performance, and both are built on in-house engines by their respective studios.
Yeah, this guy is basically harping on the concept of re-usable code. That's why we praise RollerCoaster Tycoon's dev, he wrote the entire thing in assembly. Beyond that, everything since 2d has used an engine. Hell, to not use an engine would be wasteful and delay games. What, every game should rewrite an engine?
Even Halo CE, 2002, used an engine. The Blam! engine. Dude's delusional if he thinks people were drawing individual pixels on the monitor.
That’s why we praise RollerCoaster Tycoon’s dev, he wrote the entire thing in assembly.
It's ironic that we always seem to praise RollerCoaster Tycoon specifically, as that's one's based on the Transport Tycoon engine, which was also by Josh Sawyer and also in x86 assembly.
Nah this isn't true. If you gave the devs a free month I'm sure they could optimize the hell out of things. The issue is there are deadlines and higher priority items. You can technically play cities 2 unoptimized at a lower fps and graphics setting, you'll have a much worse time playing it if features are incomplete and full of bugs.
They simply didn't have the time to get to optimization
That's quite true. A friend told me that the red engine from cdpr is one of the most efficient and we'll made engine today. It didn't surprised me because cdpr has been working on it for 2 years after cyberpunk failed to meet the technical requirements they sold it for.
That's what it takes now for an optimized engine: 2 years on a decade old engine.
The beauty of the RE engine is that it looks fucking spectacular while running like a dream too
MT framework (which powered several RE’s, DMC, and other Capcom games was also a damn good engine). And Criterion’s Renderware was also an exception back in PS2 days.
Yep! I remember being genuinely surprised by the amazing graphics of RE5 and DMC4 back in the day!
Major Problems with game industry right now... Cost to make a game, and from that the repercussions if it fails.
Making an engine doesn't happen overnight, and then you need new Devs to learn that engine throughout its lifetime. Fine for a big player, but even a large company like CDPR had issues, hence moving.
It's a shame, but you can't write off engines like UE. Epic and the Coalition do incredible work with it. UE5 is still VERY new. Look at Fortnite and wait for the next Gears game. Even if the game is dull I'm sure it will be a showcase for UE5.
The opposite is also true. You created an engine already, why do you want a new one? Just add to the existing one. Starfield is not the only industry game working on legacy engines
I always wondered on what engine the first Xenoblade Chronicles is running. Absolutely massive beautiful landscapes and it runs absolutely smooth even on the 3Ds! No pop ins either!
they made a totally new and optimized engine for those games
The most difficult part of the development was getting the game's scale to work within the new hardware. This entailed the creation of a new graphics engine with a custom visibility culling and complex level of detail systems. All of the environments were rebuilt and optimized for the new system while keeping the original aesthetic intact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoblade_Chronicles_(video_game)
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I've built this table with a saw and it's level
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I've built this table with an axe and it's not level
Does that mean that saw is superior to making tables? No, I just suck with an axe and it was far easier to chop the wood than saw it.
I would say 99.9999% of the times it's superior to make a table with a saw instead of an axe
Yes. But what if most people in your team suck at using saw?
If they can't use a saw to chop something straight I'm sure as shit not trusting them to do it with an axe. I think it was a bad analogy.
See. It's easier to use but of an axe to hammer the nails rather than to use the handle of saw to hammer the nails. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
All Unreal engine and Unity games run like ass. Any decent engine can create the same visuals and run at least 5x better.
I just do not bother with Unity or Unreal-based games. Absolute trash.