Players expect to be able to play new titles on a number of platforms. A developer explains that there is a lot of work behind it. In a post he gives insight and reveals how complex the work behind it is.
If you buy a game and start it on your favorite platform, you can usually either assume that the game will run reasonably smoothly or that it will provide dozens of options for settings.
Martin Griffiths, programmer of the No Man’s Sky engine at Hello Games, used an example to show how difficult it is to develop a game and why this freedom of options actually means a lot of work. Gamesradar.com reports on this.
The problem in game development is not the game itself, but the variety of dozens of combinations of hardware that can now be found on the market. And if you want to use every single platform, then there is a lot of work involved. He himself writes:
It’s a long list that hopefully reflects the complexity involved in releasing a large cross-platform game like ours
On the X platform he names the following platforms and combinations that No Man’s wanted to use:
You can quickly see that individual platforms alone, such as the PS5 or the Xbox, require a number of different versions and options. This makes the development even more extensive.
Steam: No Man’s Sky is a prime example of great further development – shows new update in the trailer
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The magic word for many players today is “optimization”
A topic that currently appeals to PC and console gamers is game optimization. In many cases, games come onto the market either with bugs or in a technically problematic condition. Even with fast hardware, you won’t get stable frame rates if the game is poorly optimized.
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Players have long been criticizing what has long been described as a “miracle technology” because many now believe that features like DLSS mean that developers spend less time optimizing their games. In the end, the games no longer work without the miracle technology: All major games are failing catastrophically on Steam – players believe that a great feature of graphics cards is to blame