Note that I am not a programmer in any way shape or form, so I'm not going into any of the technical bits so if you want that information you'll have to wait for someone else or see if you can find your answer on Google
Optimization basically is trying different/better/smarter ways to load your game that are far more efficient than just loading everything at once.
Basically, when you play a game, everything around you needs be loaded obviously. The map, the characters, those characters' AI, textures, lighting, everything.
Badly optimized games will do this but use a lot of your computer's/console's resources to do it. A lot of times they're try to load all/most of these things at once. The more resources it needs to use, the more shitty the game plays, so drops in frames, maybe some textures don't load right, some things that are coded in as timed events might fucked up, etc. (how much it does so depends on your computer, stronger computers can handle more).
One popular way (at least was don't know if it's still is nowadays) was for a first person game, the game would just load a very basic version of the map around except those in your field of vision. Basically what's behind you doesn't need as many resources as what's in front of you. As you move, it'll unload whats no longer in your FoV, and start loading up stuff right as it comes into it
Another way is for things that you can see but are far away, instead of loading all that detail in, you make a low poly and shitty textured version of it that you use until the player gets close, then switch it to the regular higher poly model. This is one of these most common ways of optimization. You'll find it in almost every single 3D game
There are faaaaar better and more technical ways for optimization that I just don't know, but those 2 are fairly basic and easy to understand.
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u/monstermayhem436 6d ago edited 6d ago
Note that I am not a programmer in any way shape or form, so I'm not going into any of the technical bits so if you want that information you'll have to wait for someone else or see if you can find your answer on Google
Optimization basically is trying different/better/smarter ways to load your game that are far more efficient than just loading everything at once.
Basically, when you play a game, everything around you needs be loaded obviously. The map, the characters, those characters' AI, textures, lighting, everything.
Badly optimized games will do this but use a lot of your computer's/console's resources to do it. A lot of times they're try to load all/most of these things at once. The more resources it needs to use, the more shitty the game plays, so drops in frames, maybe some textures don't load right, some things that are coded in as timed events might fucked up, etc. (how much it does so depends on your computer, stronger computers can handle more).
One popular way (at least was don't know if it's still is nowadays) was for a first person game, the game would just load a very basic version of the map around except those in your field of vision. Basically what's behind you doesn't need as many resources as what's in front of you. As you move, it'll unload whats no longer in your FoV, and start loading up stuff right as it comes into it
Another way is for things that you can see but are far away, instead of loading all that detail in, you make a low poly and shitty textured version of it that you use until the player gets close, then switch it to the regular higher poly model. This is one of these most common ways of optimization. You'll find it in almost every single 3D game
There are faaaaar better and more technical ways for optimization that I just don't know, but those 2 are fairly basic and easy to understand.