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> Good hardware is masking really bad software. If you did not know, the new Pokémon games on Nintendo switch run abysmal - low resolution, even lower frame ra

> Good hardware is masking really bad software. If you did not know, the new Pokémon games on Nintendo switch run abysmal - low resolution, even lower frame rate, pop-in, aliasing, etc. Some people claim the "aging hardware" of the Nintendo Switch is to blame because the games looks just fine on overclocked systems and emulators. Meanwhile older, probably better coded games like Breath of the Wild run without problem on the so called "aging hardware".

ben_w 4y ago
Mm. Was thinking similar thoughts recently about Civ 6, and how much longer it takes to load saved games than Civ 2 ever did. (What's Civ 6 even doing? Deleting and reloading all the textures and/or recompiling all the shaders each time?)
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > Was thinking similar thoughts recently about Civ 6, and how much longer it takes to load saved games than Civ 2 ever did. Original Civ opens with a dramatic intro sequence: In the beginning the earth was without form and void. But the sun shone upon the sleeping Earth and deep inside the brittle crust massive forces waited to be unleashed (It goes on for quite a while after that. The unofficial guidebook to Civilization, Rome on 640K a Day, notes that there's a text file containing the intro lines, and suggests replacing them with Douglas Adams' popular quote "In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and been widely regarded as a bad move. [...]") You can press escape to skip the intro, except that that won't work on computers contemporary to the game. I eventually realized that the intro sequence is there to mask the time the computer takes to create the world at the beginning of the game. Skipping won't work until the world has been laid out in the background. Loading is quick though.
kaba0 4y ago
I mean, we can also bring up examples for great games that make efficient use of the underlying hardware, e.g. Teardown (if I’m not mistaken that’s the one with voxels where you have fire effects, proper physics, real damage to volumetric objects for the whole world), which would have been unthinkable without today’s hardware.
wilsonnb3 4y ago
It’s funny that people choose Breath of the Wild as their example of a game that runs without problem, seeing as it had major frame pacing and frame rate issues when it came out and still struggles to hit a consistent 30FPS on occasion.

ben_w 4y ago

Mm. Was thinking similar thoughts recently about Civ 6, and how much longer it takes to load saved games than Civ 2 ever did. (What's Civ 6 even doing? Deleting and reloading all the textures and/or recompiling all the shaders each time?)

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> Was thinking similar thoughts recently about Civ 6, and how much longer it takes to load saved games than Civ 2 ever did. Original Civ opens with a dramatic intro sequence: In the beginning the earth was without form and void. But the sun shone upon the sleeping Earth and deep inside the brittle crust massive forces waited to be unleashed (It goes on for quite a while after that. The unofficial guidebook to Civilization, Rome on 640K a Day, notes that there's a text file containing the intro lines, and suggests replacing them with Douglas Adams' popular quote "In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and been widely regarded as a bad move. [...]") You can press escape to skip the intro, except that that won't work on computers contemporary to the game. I eventually realized that the intro sequence is there to mask the time the computer takes to create the world at the beginning of the game. Skipping won't work until the world has been laid out in the background. Loading is quick though.

kaba0 4y ago

I mean, we can also bring up examples for great games that make efficient use of the underlying hardware, e.g. Teardown (if I’m not mistaken that’s the one with voxels where you have fire effects, proper physics, real damage to volumetric objects for the whole world), which would have been unthinkable without today’s hardware.

wilsonnb3 4y ago

It’s funny that people choose Breath of the Wild as their example of a game that runs without problem, seeing as it had major frame pacing and frame rate issues when it came out and still struggles to hit a consistent 30FPS on occasion.