3 ms·

Well done, for finding the problem with analysis tools and especially lots of experience and even fixing it without source code. It's puzzling why the studio c

by mrich 5y ago

Well done, for finding the problem with analysis tools and especially lots of experience and even fixing it without source code. It's puzzling why the studio couldn't do this. The problem itself is easy to spot by a performance engineer, and avoided in the first place by an experienced developer. Did all the leads leave after implementing the prototype? Did management fire the whole team after the release? Were sales good enough that nobody really cared?

jareklupinski 5y ago
i don't think we will know whether it was one or all of those unless we were on the specific team or managing it from my experience, toy-makers don't use military-spec parts
- firebones 5y ago
  From my experience, performance issues like this would only arise during integration, and if integration is late, there's no time to optimize. By the time all the requisite pieces came together to make a playable game, there was no time to optimize, since any devs who might be able to fix this were pulled into other stability issues uncovered in integration.
richardfey 5y ago
Most likely they were already working on something else by the time this game hit shelves and not really motivated to work on a tainted failure rather than something new due to the constant burnout
- kingcharles 5y ago
  This too. Once you get to the end of the game you're so fucking relieved to be rid of the damned thing you never, ever, ever want to crack the source open again. A weeks after it goes gold you might not even have a machine with a working build stack on it to even patch the code.
RobLach 5y ago
The game was handed off to a porting shop who’s job was to get it running on PC for the lowest bid. The issue was the original studio didn’t stipulate good enough performance targets or were already over-committed to this contractor for the timeframe.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  This. Their only requirement was "It plays through." Getting 3D working optimally so that it uses the hardware maximally is actually hard. There are lots of places where you can use the wrong call and something ends up being shunted to the CPU instead of the GPU and all your performance is gone. As a dev you probably have a really fucking fancy machine on your desktop which hides all the sins you are coding into the game. Studios sometimes just want bodies and hire way too many inexperienced devs who haven't been through all the gotchas. Also, you need a good profiler, you need to know how to understand your profiler and you need to profile often on a game to make sure you don't get to the end and find some horrible bug that requires you to go back and ask the artists to change all their assets.

by mrich 5y ago

jareklupinski 5y ago

i don't think we will know whether it was one or all of those unless we were on the specific team or managing it from my experience, toy-makers don't use military-spec parts

firebones 5y ago
From my experience, performance issues like this would only arise during integration, and if integration is late, there's no time to optimize. By the time all the requisite pieces came together to make a playable game, there was no time to optimize, since any devs who might be able to fix this were pulled into other stability issues uncovered in integration.

richardfey 5y ago

Most likely they were already working on something else by the time this game hit shelves and not really motivated to work on a tainted failure rather than something new due to the constant burnout

kingcharles 5y ago
This too. Once you get to the end of the game you're so fucking relieved to be rid of the damned thing you never, ever, ever want to crack the source open again. A weeks after it goes gold you might not even have a machine with a working build stack on it to even patch the code.

RobLach 5y ago

The game was handed off to a porting shop who’s job was to get it running on PC for the lowest bid. The issue was the original studio didn’t stipulate good enough performance targets or were already over-committed to this contractor for the timeframe.

kingcharles 5y ago
This. Their only requirement was "It plays through." Getting 3D working optimally so that it uses the hardware maximally is actually hard. There are lots of places where you can use the wrong call and something ends up being shunted to the CPU instead of the GPU and all your performance is gone. As a dev you probably have a really fucking fancy machine on your desktop which hides all the sins you are coding into the game. Studios sometimes just want bodies and hire way too many inexperienced devs who haven't been through all the gotchas. Also, you need a good profiler, you need to know how to understand your profiler and you need to profile often on a game to make sure you don't get to the end and find some horrible bug that requires you to go back and ask the artists to change all their assets.