No. The thing is AAA games are now being released in an unoptimized state way too often. Even if you still get good FPS microstuttering and short lag spikes still occur frequently.
Of course this can make you wonder if this is a you problem and you just got too sensitive.
Nope, this is an industry problem. Why would you optimize a game? No, legitimately asking. It doesn’t affect sales numbers, it often doesn’t significantly tank your steam review score (that most publishers don’t care about), there are practically no downsides to not optimize your game.
But if you do value optimization, it lowers dev velocity, requires more training/awareness for devs and artists, and you won’t be able to ship as fast anymore. And on top of that you get… nothing. A few more sales maybe?
I used to agree it was “optimization” problems. And there are definitely some games/engines with those (I love Team Ninja but… god damn).
But it is also that mindsets have changed. Most people know of the “can it run Crysis?” meme… if only from Jensen. But it was a question for a reason because Crysis (and other games) genuinely pushed the envelope of what desktop computers could handle. It was an era where you really would put a LOT of effort into figuring out what settings would get you what framerate and “ultra” was something that only the super rich or the people who JUST built a new computer could expect to run.
But around the launch of the PS4/XBONE, that all changed. Consoles were just PCs for all intents and purposes and basically all games “worth playing” were cross platform. So rather than taking advantage of the latest nVidia card or going sicko mode for the people who got the crazy powerful single thread performance i7, they just targeted what the consoles could run. So when people did their mid-gen upgrades of PCs… suddenly “ultra” and “epic” were what we began defaulting to. Just crank that shit up, turn off whatever you don’t like, and see your framerate and go from there.
The refresh SKU consoles bumped up the baseline but… not all that much since those games still had to run on a base XBONE. And then we got the PS5/XSEX which… you know how it is never a good time to build a new PC? It was REALLY not a good time to build a new console as ray tracing and upscaling/framegen rapidly became the path forward in the hardware/graphics space. But also? Those launched during COVID so the market share of the previous gen remained very large and all those third parties continued to target the previous gen anyway.
Which gets back to PC gaming. Could more effort be put in to improve performance? Yeah, definitely. But we are also getting reminded of what things were actually like until the mid 10s where you might only play a game on Medium or High and wanting that new game to be gorgeous is what motivates you to drive down to Best Buy and get a new GPU.
But instead it is the devs fault that we can’t play every game on maxed out Epic settings at 4k/240Hz… because this generation never knew any different.
I get what you’re trying to say but I’ve definitely experienced performance problems even on lowest settings.
The issue isn’t that everyone tries to run the game maxed out. The issue is that fundamental problems are often left in the games that you can’t just fix by lowering quality settings.
And there is a reason the +/- (?) buttons literally changed the render window for DOOM and the like. Like… those iconic HUDs were specifically so that those playing on a 640480 monitor might actually only have to worry about a 640360 game and so forth.
Same with those of us who played games like Unreal Tournament at 18-24 FPS on an 800*600.
Like I said, there are definitely some problem children (again: Team Ninja). But it is also worth remembering that most games are still targeting a previous gen console SKU at 1080p. And, ironically, the optimizations are going to be geared more towards that.
Which… is why upscaling is such a big deal. Yeah “AI Upscaling” is a great buzzword. But it really is no different than when we used to run OFP at a lower resolution on the helicopter missions. It is just that now we can get “shockingly good” visuals while doing that rather than thinking Viktor Troska looks extra blocky.
Like, I’ll always crap on Team Ninja’s PC ports because they are REALLY bad… even if that is my preferred platform. But it took maybe 2 minutes of futzing about (once I got to Yokohama proper and had my game slow to sub 20 FPS…) to get the game to look good and play at a steady 60 FPS. No, it wasn’t at Epic (or whatever they use) but most of the stuff was actually on High. Is it the same as just hitting auto-detect and defaulting to everything maxed out? Of course not. But that gets back to “Can it run Crysis?”
Much of this specifically is devs implementing MSAA, which once upon a time was cheap, efficient, and looked fine. Nowadays with RT added into the mix MSAA just simply can’t function well on modern hardware, to the point where even city builders like Cities Skylines 2 will crawl to 14-15fps on low settings if you haven’t overridden the graphics pipeline to remove msaa and replace it with one that actually functions.
If you folks want to have a really hard time find a way to play the NES version of Mike Tyson’s Punch Out on original hardware with a CRT monitor and then play it on any emulator on a modern monitor. You will feel like you’ve aged 80 years.
I was playing punch out on the switch the other day and 100% this. That game was all about proper timing and reaction speed. All the little latencies add up to it being nearly impossible. I never beat the game as a kid, but I could get to the last fighter, Tyson in my version, Mr Dream? In the non Tyson version? Anyway, can’t even beat the Russian dude that laugh taunts me on the switch. I know what to hit, and when to hit it, but HDMI lag, upscaling lag, blue tooth controller lag, all add up to it being nearly impossible to react.
I’ve been into nsfw games for a while, but I do genuinely enjoy a lot of them. Corruption of Champions 2 is a great game, with a lot of customization and great characters, though it is apparent that the game isn’t finished yet.
Tales of Androgyny has some of the highest quality scenes I’ve encountered in an nsfw game. It’s also pretty funny. More games should have a femboy protagonist, is all I’m saying.
It’s not out just yet, but it sounded like they’re close based on the discussion board. Demo took me an hour or two to run through, worth the time if you like the subject matter. Quinn is adorbs.
I used to be good at Mario 1, but I cannot play it on emulators. It feels like there’s a delay. It feels a little like Mario is on ice, much like the ice levels of Mario 2. Mario is running, and I want to jump or stop, but there’s a noticeable delay and it makes me feel like my old ass has lost my touch. But playing any modern game, my reflexes are good enough. In a Nintendo to Nintendo comparison, I play Animal Crossing on the Switch, and sure enough, if I’m running and pull back on the stick, my villager skids at exactly the time I want them to. But on that same Switch with the same controller, I can’t control Mario in Mario 1 worth a damn. I do just fine in Super Mario Wonder, though.
(Side note, more to do with Animal Crossing than older games, but I’ve noticed a wired controller, plugged into the Switch dock via USB, with the Switch on the dock, gets more latency than the Switch in handheld mode, which I’m pretty sure uses Bluetooth to connect to its controllers, even if they’re physically connected — not 100% sure on that. But for one example, fishing — even the five-star rarity fish — is quite easy in handheld. But, with the wired connection, I mash A as soon as the fish bites, and it still slips my hook. Maybe the latency isn’t from the controller to the dock to the Switch, maybe it’s from the Switch to the dock to the TV (and speakers since I close my eyes and listen for the sound, which most animal crossers agree is the best way to fish).)
It’s mostly the TV. The input difference between wired and BT should be very small, though the switch is not optimized for wired controllers. The variability of TV response times on the other hand it massive in comparison. Specially modern TVs with heavy post processing who think they are clever trying to interpolate frames or other shit like bad HDR implementations, etc. HDMI DRM also adds latency.
All that causes most TVs to be subpar for gaming. I still game on TV, mostly cozy games. But I accept that nothing competitive will come out of gaming on a TV.
On the one hand, we’re more accustomed to better hardware latency. On the other hand… we played first-person shooters on 56K modems. The lag was legendary
I played using a cell phone connected by USB with a 14k data connection. It was slow af but I got unlimited data for $5 a month and it didn’t tie up the land line.
Wasn’t prediction baked into the netcode very early in the FPS genre? I wasn’t playing multiplayer in the Doom days, but by the late 90s, you wouldn’t have latency so much as you’d have rubberbanding. Games also use very little bandwidth, so 56K was no different than broadband, from my recollection.
First multiplayer FPS I played was Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (released in '97). In that game, you had to lead your shots to a silly degree to actually hit anyone. But I think you’re right; by then most games weren’t suffering from that problem as much.
Different games (really engines) had different models for it. Some games you would feel things grind to a halt while you waited for a packet. Others you would have rubber banding where the prediction of what your opponent would do was wrong and they teleport 2 meters to the right. And a select few would result in endless double kills as you both killed the predictions.
The big difference was that arena shooters (which DOOM effectively was) tended to have encounters where you might have 3 or 4 players all shooting each other at once with a high enough TTK that it was very easy to lose track of one enemy because you saw a more immediate threat. So it was a lot easier to just assume the rubber banding was a you problem or not notice it at all.
Then we had CoD and it all became about super short TTK and 1on1 fights. And now? Now it was incredibly obvious when someone warped because they were your only concern.
Back in the day, my games were UT (mostly the good one, sometimes 2k4), Jedi Knight 2, Tribes 2, and Operation Flashpoint. I was a cool kid… But even then, it was almost never perceptible in UT even though the Unreal Engine had “the worst netcode”. Also not OFP since your encounter ranges were so long and you were squinting through iron sights so you had no idea if you missed because of lag or what. But JK2 and Tribes 2 were VERY obvious when the network was acting up because you were generally dueling someone or taking out a lone flag carrier while skiing across a field.
There are so many things that go into whether a game feels responsive or not. Your experience could be explained by anything from access to stable Internet, to trends in game design philosophy, and vary from game to game based on implementation.
Here’s one of my favorite GDC talks that looks at just one small part of what goes into making a game feel responsive: youtu.be/h47zZrqjgLc
Sure, this is just an example of how complex “feel” can get in game development. The video includes several examples where player perception changes drastically from very minor gameplay design changes
The other way around. I grew up playing games on PCs that were quite underpowered for a long time. I played Doom like this. Hell, I had to reduce screen size even in Wolfenstein 3D. I loved fog in GTA San Andreas because it reduced draw distance and when it was raining in Las Venturas, I had to look at my feet like I was speedrunning Goldeneye. I played through Oblivion in a 640 x 480 window and thought it looked amazing. I still have to fight not to turn off AA completely first time running a game on my RTX 3080 because it was the first thing to go for so long.
All of this trained my brain so now I have bulit-in antialiasing and frame generation. I don't give a shit. Give me good art direction and gameplay loop and I can just generate smooth graphics in my head.
I had a super underpowered PC I grew up with and it influenced my imagination. For a long time stuff I’d imagine also ran at like 15-20FPS. Really weird effect.
Some of these games have incredible writing. Personally, I’d recommend trying Eternum. It’s not finished yet but there’s already a ton of content and the writing is incredible. Another game by the same person called Once in a Lifetime is also really good but shorter.
Besides those two, I’d really recommend The Princess Trap. Also unfinished but still lots of content. This one is definitely a bit more niche and might not be for everyone but the drama and mystery in it is really incredible.
All of these games are pretty slow to get to the sex stuff to be honest (especially The Princess Trap). But every moment in-between makes it so worth your time.
I just finished what exists so far for The Princess Trap last night. I have to recommend holding off on it till it’s finished so you don’t end up in as much despair as me.
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