

There might be individual effects that are not very well optimized while the majority of the engine is. Game are rarely a single monolithic entity that is either optimized or unoptimized. Again, the game might have been seen as far more 'optimized' had it not included that option, and again this is obviously not the case. As the game uses deferred shading (opens in new tab)-a common rendering technique that makes a straightforward hardware-accelerated implementation of MSAA much less viable-this setting came with the extreme performance impact one would expect in such a renderer. Dying Light is a great example of just how difficult it can be to judge optimization, and also of the concerns developers might be limited by when implementing game options.Ī similar issue occurred very recently with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which prominently featured an MSAA setting (up to 8x). Would it actually have been ‘better optimized’? No, absolutely not. Would the game have been perceived as much more 'optimized' if this trivial step would have been taken before release? I definitely think so. People were so agitated, in fact, that the developer felt like they had to reduce the range of the slider to 55% of its former maximum in an early patch. As it turned out, the draw distance slider in the initial version of the game was already above console settings at its lowest position, and went incomparably higher.
ACTIONALLY MEANING PC
There was an outcry about the 'terrible unoptimized PC port' when Dying Light would not perform up to (arbitrary) standards at maximum settings. It shipped with a huge range of settings for draw distance in particular, which in this type of experience greatly affects both CPU and GPU load.ĭying Light's impressive draw distance. Dying Light is an open world game with lots of moving actors and parts as well as a dynamic day/night cycle, all ingredients that make up a technically demanding game.

One relatively recent subject of this debate was Dying Light, and in my opinion it is one of the most damning cases-not due to the developer, but due to the misguided reception it received.
ACTIONALLY MEANING 1080P
'Recommended', on the other hand, means that the game can be played as intended ("Not medium: high", as Dean told me) at 1080p resolution.Īrmed with more knowledge of what goes into optimization and some of the most expensive effects, we can now try to reconsider some hotly debated examples of 'unoptimized' games.


ACTIONALLY MEANING FULL
While every developer has their own standards, for Croteam 'minimum' specifications mean that the game will run well at low settings, and if those requirements aren’t met full technical support will not be provided. How presets and hardware requirements relate is often a bit of an unknown to gamers. Both presets and requirements are continuously evaluated throughout the optimization process, starting as soon as the renderer and other core features are tested and working. Scalability options are then provided to whatever extent is feasible. (opens in new tab)įor QLOC, who mostly deal with porting existing console games to PC, the standard console settings usually translate to the 'medium' preset of the PC version, though some aspects might be tweaked to accommodate essential platform differences. Categorized performance settings from The Talos Principle.
