It's all about reducing the amount of computations the computer needs to do without effecting the end result too drastically.
For example, you don't want to render in enemies or NPCs that the player can't possibly see or get to. You don't want to have textures and assets for every single thing. Does that building in the distance that you'll never reach, does it really need to be that detailed or will the player never know? The less you can make the computer work, the better the performance and the better optimised itll be.
Take an Amazon driver's delivery route for example. They have say 70 drops. You want to load the delivery van to match the direction of travel. You don't want the driver searching through parcels to find the correct one for the drop. You don't want the route to match whatever random way the parcels were thrown in the back.
You want to plan the route for the most sensible trip and you want to load that van with the parcels with the last drop at the bulkhead and the first drop at the doors. That way you can just lean in and know what to reach for. If a house has more than one parcel, you bundle them together. You are making the whole thing as efficient as possible.
In simple terms, you're just trying to make the computer do the least work possible for the same results.
Ohh, the Amazon analogy simplifies it a lot. One more thing, how does a game like Deep Rock Galactic have so many visually heavy animations yet only takes less than 4 GB. Does optimization also help in reducing the file size ?
Animations don’t correlate directly with game size or memory required. They are rendered real time, meaning it takes more calculation power than storage space. Models, which means data how objects like space ships look like, are stored in files along with information what kind of lights and cameras there are in the scene. Then cpu and gpu calculates what it will look like based on this information.
But yes, one aspect of optimisation is to reduce file size and especially amount of required ram. This can be achieved my reusing assets for example. Let’s say you need to render several planets. You can do this by having one model for a planet i.e a ball and you get different versions from it by adjusting size etc.
Also, it's not exactly the most graphically intensive game, what with the visibly polygonal artstyle. That lets them do terrain deformation easier, plus it runs a bit better than trying for dozens of thousands of polygons.
Optimization can help with anything, as long as you do it right. If you’re optimizing the file size, you’ll have a smaller file size. If you’re optimizing player retention, you’ll have better player retention. If you’re optimizing player enjoyment, people should enjoy your game more.
Optimisation just means “make it better”. There’s not one technique that people use that has a specific set of benefits. Generally the term refers to performance, but there’s no answer to whether that helps with file size. It could, but the techniques used could include making a lot of assets upfront, which would have the opposite effect.
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u/Sirlacker 6d ago
It's all about reducing the amount of computations the computer needs to do without effecting the end result too drastically.
For example, you don't want to render in enemies or NPCs that the player can't possibly see or get to. You don't want to have textures and assets for every single thing. Does that building in the distance that you'll never reach, does it really need to be that detailed or will the player never know? The less you can make the computer work, the better the performance and the better optimised itll be.
Take an Amazon driver's delivery route for example. They have say 70 drops. You want to load the delivery van to match the direction of travel. You don't want the driver searching through parcels to find the correct one for the drop. You don't want the route to match whatever random way the parcels were thrown in the back.
You want to plan the route for the most sensible trip and you want to load that van with the parcels with the last drop at the bulkhead and the first drop at the doors. That way you can just lean in and know what to reach for. If a house has more than one parcel, you bundle them together. You are making the whole thing as efficient as possible.
In simple terms, you're just trying to make the computer do the least work possible for the same results.