The article says it’s a 2002 laptop and says it would have been “significantly out of date” when Half-Life 2 launched. Half-Life 2 launched in 2004. So that’s 2 years. He’s also reduced the resolution to 512x512 - less than half the original resolution - and hasn’t recreated several of the lighting effects.
I don’t know what unoptimised games this is supposed to be a middle finger to specifically, but it strikes me that it wouldn’t be considered particularly out of the ordinary to find a modern game that could run on a 2023 machine at less than half resolution and with significantly reduced lighting effects.
TBF, at the time, 800x600 was a pretty standard resolution. For gaming on a low-end PC, you might go down to 640x480 to get a better framerate, which wouldn’t look too bad on a CRT.
Sure, I’m just arguing against the framing of this as “he got this super-graphics-intense programme to run on a PC which would have been considered a relic at the time”, when actually he ran significantly downgraded graphics on a PC which would have been 2 years old at the time.
Very cool, but hopefully nobody actually thinks this proves anything on the game optimization debate, right? It’s not like Half Life 2 is the graphical standard most gamers expect nowadays. But if you are content with this graphics, I assure you even recent releases that look like that will perform great, so…
The framerate was probably unlimited. It’ll use all the power possible to render more frames than it needs if you let it. It needs v-sync or a framerate limit I’d guess. If you let it render 1000+ frames per second it will, despite almost none of them being displayed.
I limit the frame rate every chance I get. VRR reduces the need to worry about low framerate. Gaming more efficiently and without tearing! It’s a win win!
Well, there are some ‘poorly optimised’ games out there. Am able to run eg. Cyberpunk 2077 near maximum (non-raytraced) settings and it happily trundles along at 80+ fps. Would really like to play Mind Over Magic, just my kind of game and which looks like it was done on the Quake3 engine, and I’m struggling since it runs like absolute ass regardless of what the settings are. Think that’s the joy of Unity, though.
I think a lot of the problem is that we’re long past the point where diminishing returns kick in. Doubling the amount of processing required for a few percent more lighting fidelity, that kind of thing. Half Life 2 was expensive for its day, mostly due to its extended development - about $40m then, equivalent of ~$70m now - but it still looks great, mostly due to its strong art style. (I realise Valve keep sneakily updating the engine, so things like the water effects are much better now than they were on release.) There’s games that cost ten times as much and which don’t really look a lot better, but which will get tagged as ‘badly optimised’ since they’re chasing the very latest graphical shinies.
I think the sheer price of producing all of those HD assets is a significant risk to any studio, and means that we end up with a lot of cookie-cutter AAA games where the industry is very cautious about taking chances of any kind. Maybe I’m not the main target for the shiniest of graphics, but my Steam games with the most hours - Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, the Dark Souls series, Crusader Kings - run the gamut from ‘charmingly simple’ to ‘functionally realistic’, but I’d not describe any of them as great because of their graphics.
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The article says it’s a 2002 laptop and says it would have been “significantly out of date” when Half-Life 2 launched. Half-Life 2 launched in 2004. So that’s 2 years. He’s also reduced the resolution to 512x512 - less than half the original resolution - and hasn’t recreated several of the lighting effects.
I don’t know what unoptimised games this is supposed to be a middle finger to specifically, but it strikes me that it wouldn’t be considered particularly out of the ordinary to find a modern game that could run on a 2023 machine at less than half resolution and with significantly reduced lighting effects.
TBF, at the time, 800x600 was a pretty standard resolution. For gaming on a low-end PC, you might go down to 640x480 to get a better framerate, which wouldn’t look too bad on a CRT.
Sure, I’m just arguing against the framing of this as “he got this super-graphics-intense programme to run on a PC which would have been considered a relic at the time”, when actually he ran significantly downgraded graphics on a PC which would have been 2 years old at the time.
Very cool, but hopefully nobody actually thinks this proves anything on the game optimization debate, right? It’s not like Half Life 2 is the graphical standard most gamers expect nowadays. But if you are content with this graphics, I assure you even recent releases that look like that will perform great, so…
I built my wife a gaming PC a year ago with a Radeon RX 7800 XT, and fucking Disney Dreamlight Valley will have the fans going at 50%.
Dream light looks great though. Just because it’s casual doesn’t mean it’s not GPU intensive.
Does it? Models are meh, lighting is baked in, view distance is limited in scope.
The framerate was probably unlimited. It’ll use all the power possible to render more frames than it needs if you let it. It needs v-sync or a framerate limit I’d guess. If you let it render 1000+ frames per second it will, despite almost none of them being displayed.
I limit the frame rate every chance I get. VRR reduces the need to worry about low framerate. Gaming more efficiently and without tearing! It’s a win win!
Your average/typical Gamer doesn’t know what to expect.
So, Black Mesa?
I understood that at first too, but instead of HL1 in HL2 it’s the opposite. It’s showing (something like) HL2 in HL1.
I recall the physics being the big deal with HL2. Graphics were also great for the time.
Well, there are some ‘poorly optimised’ games out there. Am able to run eg. Cyberpunk 2077 near maximum (non-raytraced) settings and it happily trundles along at 80+ fps. Would really like to play Mind Over Magic, just my kind of game and which looks like it was done on the Quake3 engine, and I’m struggling since it runs like absolute ass regardless of what the settings are. Think that’s the joy of Unity, though.
I think a lot of the problem is that we’re long past the point where diminishing returns kick in. Doubling the amount of processing required for a few percent more lighting fidelity, that kind of thing. Half Life 2 was expensive for its day, mostly due to its extended development - about $40m then, equivalent of ~$70m now - but it still looks great, mostly due to its strong art style. (I realise Valve keep sneakily updating the engine, so things like the water effects are much better now than they were on release.) There’s games that cost ten times as much and which don’t really look a lot better, but which will get tagged as ‘badly optimised’ since they’re chasing the very latest graphical shinies.
I think the sheer price of producing all of those HD assets is a significant risk to any studio, and means that we end up with a lot of cookie-cutter AAA games where the industry is very cautious about taking chances of any kind. Maybe I’m not the main target for the shiniest of graphics, but my Steam games with the most hours - Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, the Dark Souls series, Crusader Kings - run the gamut from ‘charmingly simple’ to ‘functionally realistic’, but I’d not describe any of them as great because of their graphics.
Btw, that the isometric game Above Snakes runs worse than any hobby Unity game from itch, is this a wine (linux) thing or is the game just shit?
Rose tinted glasses.