#game optimization

[askagamedev]

Regarding your latest answer about optimizing games. Can you elaborate more on how the optimization gets to happen? Like ofcourse they do want to make their npcs look as good as they planned to so how do they optimize without reducing quality in general?

Optimization tends to be tailored to the specific tasks at hand. Programmers on large projects often build or use out-of-the-box tools called profilers that measure performance in specific areas of the code. Based on the profiler reports, the engineers can see where the majority of processing time is being spent and then consider looking into optimizing the heaviest offenders.

If we're optimizing the visuals specifically, then it's a question of what saves the most processing time. The best optimization is often not to render anything at all. If the hardware doesn't have to render and animate a thing, it saves a lot of processing time. We do this by not rendering models that the player can't see (e.g. stuff off-camera, stuff behind walls, stuff too far off in the distance, etc.), and also by not rendering the parts of the model that the player can't see (e.g. if you're looking at the front of a building, you can't see the back of the building at the same time without a mirror or something behind it).

That's only one example of optimizations we make. We load cheaper models and/or textures for things that are far away (LODs), we can reduce the frequency of animation updates for characters in the background or on the peripheral edges of the camera that players aren't focusing on, and so on. There are as many ways to save processing time as there are ways to spend it. If you have the time and interest, I suggest looking at the #game optimization tag on this blog, since I've written at length about various means of optimization in past posts.

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[devsgames]

Spent an hour today joining all my incredibly dense world chunk geometry and exporting it as individual objects. It was really boring.

Nothing functionally has changed and all the geo still looks the same BUT because of the sheer number of individual models I was using now rendering the entire scene only takes ~4ms instead of 16ms as it was previously. Everything is super smooth now!

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[simlicious]

Just curious: Your Downloads and Mods folders are huge! How long does the game load for you?

hi @cas-sims!

I have not played Sims 3 in a regular world for years, mainly because I also had trouble with heavy lag and it ruined the fun 😥 If I actually want to play, I need to do a lot of optimization beforehand! My test save that I use for testing and making screenshots for my CC is on a CAS world which has only 4 lots on it and loads pretty quickly. The drawback is that there is no scenery at all for outdoor pics and it does look very bland. It's just a flat green grass area with a road on it, that's it. It takes just under 5 minutes to load the game and the save (I actually timed it). My game runs on a PCIE4 M.2 SSD, I bet this definitely helps with the loading times! I also have a good chunk of CC as merged packages. I also use the HQ mod for my screenshots, and because of it, my game is lagging very badly, especially when applying CASt patterns to objects (which makes actually decorating/making the previews for my patterns a game of patience). I do have the smooth patch, but I think my game has a lot of optimization potential still.

stead of having 3x the amount of CC installed in one game.

I know from some gameplay simmers that they often get rid of store stuff they do not use and disable some EP's and SP's they rarely use (like ITF and Island Paradise, which are known to be especially laggy). I'm sure you know this, but in case people read this who are new to TS3, the AnyGameStarter tool at MTS has this functionality and can create profiles so you can have several "separate" games with different mods and CC. Gameplay simmers tend to pay attention to how CC performs in-game/they look at polycounts beforehand, and also reduce their amount of mods. They also tend to play in worlds that have optimized routing. Also, merging CC is a must. It might also be a good idea to make 2 or 3 different profiles with AnyGameStarter and play with different CC in all of them and if you get bored, you can switch over to another profile and play a different save with different CC. My game is definitely overdue for a refresh, and I plan on using the Sims 3 Performance Guide on Steam to get it into a more playable state. It is one of the best performance guides I have come across, so maybe it will help your game too?

[techdriveplay]

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[techymaugamestudios]

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[theshitpostcalligrapher]

WENT INTO A STARDEW FUGUE STATE LADS ITS FOUR THIRTY AM MY SLEEP SCHEDULE IS FUCKED GOOD NIGHT

[baejax-the-great]

Zagreus

not as a boss fight ❌

not as a boon giver ❌

not as a companion summon ❌

but as Mel's incredibly proud narrator exaggerating all his little sister's accomplishments as she fails over and over again ✔

[artgletic]

case study of the self-identified god

[deoidesign]

when your main characters start dating after years of writing so they finally get to be like this

[skyberia]

joker & the animal parade (or: my main p5r party)

[nicollekidman]

realizing that people who equate cynicism with intellectual rigor are often just being lazy and pathetic has been so helpful tbh

[incogcheetah]

Athena, you beautiful optimist. Your family tried to beat it out of you, and at first you flew away so you didn't get hurt again. But meeting these two loyal and honorable to a fault mortals makes you persist, you ask for Odysseus's freedom anyway just so he can make it home to his son and wife, just so he can spend his remaining years with them.

[cloudprincesslady]

ok I'm literally in love with nick marini like. keeping track of all his own shit (FOUR CLASSES), tracking the uses of his buffs on other characters to keep them honest, helping noshir keep track of all HIS shit, defense rules lawyering for the whole table, getting it all RIGHT. LIKE. MARRY ME.

[marlin-blue]

i hope they rerun childe every single patch in snezhnaya, in both halves. second character banner permanently becomes farewell of snezhnaya. they revamp his kit everytime the banner refreshes. you get delusion childe, abyss creature childe, primordial sea thing version childe, foul legacy childe. there's childe in a knight outfit weilding a longsword, childe in official fatui regalia using a polearm, childe in an agent uniform with a catalyst and a set of daggers. little ajax with a wooden sword and no vision, with barely any dmg but he is literally incapable of dying. 1 hp forever. use him for three months and the next time he dies, the party automatically replaces him with foul legacy version. at the end of the third patch you have to pull at least one of his official weapons or you're locked out of progressing the story. you can't talk to npcs or open chests if you don't do it as childe.

[nyanbinary-perineum]

Using you as a stress relief hole while I'm gaming except you see me boot up Terraria before setting you up under my desk.

[silentgrim]

some simmers can be so insufferable can’t believe y’all made a guru deactivate their twitter over the lack of seasons in the new world 😭