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You guys should remember that a lot of crap we write nowadays is a consequence of bloated languages and "move fast break things" attitude. Doom and Half life w

by NTDF9 9y ago

You guys should remember that a lot of crap we write nowadays is a consequence of bloated languages and "move fast break things" attitude. Doom and Half life were at their core exceptionally optimized C.

lostmsu 9y ago
Behind the trees you don't see a forest: Half-Life used 32MB of memory on 1024x768 display. By 4 or even 2 byte color it is 2MB just to store picture output. Modern apps work with 4k2k*4byte color, which on itself is 8 times more memory.
- prewett 9y ago
  So, 2 MB for the display. And then there are the textures for the walls, plants, people, monsters, etc. And the vertex data for each of the models on the level. And the level itself. And then there are the light maps for static lighting. That's at a minimum. After that there is the memory required for the AI. Much of the models and textures won't be used in any given scene, but might get used in the next frame, or the next half second, and to avoid long pauses when a new model is loaded they all have to be in memory. If Half Life could have been done in less memory, I'm pretty sure they would have done it. It probably started off using a lot more memory and they probably spent a lot of time getting the memory down so that your mid-class machine could play it.
- flukus 9y ago
  So that accounts for 16MB of the 1500 used, where is the other 1484 going?
- zeta0134 9y ago
  I think I understand the point you're trying to make (modern apps draw to larger screens, and therefore must use more memory) but this is a poor comparison for a number of reasons. The most obvious of these reasons is that graphics cards are leagues ahead of where they were back in the days of Half Life. Sure the framebuffer takes a bit more memory, but a 4k frame is only about 32MB of memory at 32bits per pixel. Anyway, you're root argument is still somewhat valid: Half Life was working with some really tiny constraints compared to modern machines, and did amazing things within those limits. Modern apps, were they coded to the same level of optimization as Half Life, should be much, much smaller and more efficient than they are. But as it turns out, the human cost of developing video game software is high, and the one area where Electron truly succeeds is in its ease of use. By driving development costs down for non-game apps, it balances out its high resource usage, and to a company producing software, that's enticing. I think that's awful (and would prefer to run optimized software personally) but the industry seems to disagree with me.

by NTDF9 9y ago

lostmsu 9y ago

Behind the trees you don't see a forest: Half-Life used 32MB of memory on 1024x768 display. By 4 or even 2 byte color it is 2MB just to store picture output. Modern apps work with 4k2k*4byte color, which on itself is 8 times more memory.

prewett 9y ago
So, 2 MB for the display. And then there are the textures for the walls, plants, people, monsters, etc. And the vertex data for each of the models on the level. And the level itself. And then there are the light maps for static lighting. That's at a minimum. After that there is the memory required for the AI. Much of the models and textures won't be used in any given scene, but might get used in the next frame, or the next half second, and to avoid long pauses when a new model is loaded they all have to be in memory. If Half Life could have been done in less memory, I'm pretty sure they would have done it. It probably started off using a lot more memory and they probably spent a lot of time getting the memory down so that your mid-class machine could play it.
flukus 9y ago
So that accounts for 16MB of the 1500 used, where is the other 1484 going?
zeta0134 9y ago
I think I understand the point you're trying to make (modern apps draw to larger screens, and therefore must use more memory) but this is a poor comparison for a number of reasons. The most obvious of these reasons is that graphics cards are leagues ahead of where they were back in the days of Half Life. Sure the framebuffer takes a bit more memory, but a 4k frame is only about 32MB of memory at 32bits per pixel. Anyway, you're root argument is still somewhat valid: Half Life was working with some really tiny constraints compared to modern machines, and did amazing things within those limits. Modern apps, were they coded to the same level of optimization as Half Life, should be much, much smaller and more efficient than they are. But as it turns out, the human cost of developing video game software is high, and the one area where Electron truly succeeds is in its ease of use. By driving development costs down for non-game apps, it balances out its high resource usage, and to a company producing software, that's enticing. I think that's awful (and would prefer to run optimized software personally) but the industry seems to disagree with me.