3 ms·

1) Porting costs are not per game but per engine, which can be shared between multiple games. 2) The majority of costs is ongoing support, not writing to a dif

by tpush 5y ago

1) Porting costs are not per game but per engine, which can be shared between multiple games. 2) The majority of costs is ongoing support, not writing to a different API.

lucideer 5y ago
> 1) Porting costs are not per game but per engine, which can be shared between multiple games. True but they're still big enough that that cost is significant. Even when diluted across game budgets. > 2) The majority of costs is ongoing support, not writing to a different API. Ongoing support is still required for writing to a different API. Ongoing support involves (a) updating in line with API version changes and (b) updating API-integration abstractions in line with game engine API updates. Supporting multiple APIs adds at least some amount of friction to every code-change. There's also the increase in cost of testing every engine code change across multiple graphics APIs.
unionpivo 5y ago
Disclaimer: I have done some amateur game development, nothing professional. > 1) Porting costs are not per game but per engine, which can be shared between multiple games. That's not true. Majority of the costs maybe, but every platform needs its own tweaks, if for nothing else input often very different in a way engine abstractions are usualy not good enough. And then there is DRM, and anti cheats etc, that are quite platform dependent. In pretty much any engine there are games that work beautifully and games using same engine that are like trash on fire[1]. There is a reason nvidia and amd often have to release new driver with fixes/optimizations for new games. [1]: I meant cross platform support (where they work decently on one platform but are trash on others), not that game as a whole itself being trash and or buggy.
CountSessine 5y ago
I’ve never worked on a game where we didn’t have at least one rendering programmer who would be assigned to a particular platform, even with Unreal or Frostbite or whatever. Major titles will still write their own platform-specific shaders, they’ll still tweak and modify the game middleware, and they still incur a per-platform, per-api costs.

by tpush 5y ago

1) Porting costs are not per game but per engine, which can be shared between multiple games. 2) The majority of costs is ongoing support, not writing to a different API.

lucideer 5y ago

> 1) Porting costs are not per game but per engine, which can be shared between multiple games. True but they're still big enough that that cost is significant. Even when diluted across game budgets. > 2) The majority of costs is ongoing support, not writing to a different API. Ongoing support is still required for writing to a different API. Ongoing support involves (a) updating in line with API version changes and (b) updating API-integration abstractions in line with game engine API updates. Supporting multiple APIs adds at least some amount of friction to every code-change. There's also the increase in cost of testing every engine code change across multiple graphics APIs.

unionpivo 5y ago

Disclaimer: I have done some amateur game development, nothing professional. > 1) Porting costs are not per game but per engine, which can be shared between multiple games. That's not true. Majority of the costs maybe, but every platform needs its own tweaks, if for nothing else input often very different in a way engine abstractions are usualy not good enough. And then there is DRM, and anti cheats etc, that are quite platform dependent. In pretty much any engine there are games that work beautifully and games using same engine that are like trash on fire[1]. There is a reason nvidia and amd often have to release new driver with fixes/optimizations for new games. [1]: I meant cross platform support (where they work decently on one platform but are trash on others), not that game as a whole itself being trash and or buggy.

CountSessine 5y ago

I’ve never worked on a game where we didn’t have at least one rendering programmer who would be assigned to a particular platform, even with Unreal or Frostbite or whatever. Major titles will still write their own platform-specific shaders, they’ll still tweak and modify the game middleware, and they still incur a per-platform, per-api costs.