48 réponses à ce sujet

[Fidite Nemini]

Interesting article I just read.

 

 

Nearly every game ships broken. We’re talking major AAA titles from vendors who are everyday names in the industry. In some cases, we’re talking about blatant violations of API rules – one D3D9 game never even called BeginFrame/EndFrame. Some are mistakes or oversights – one shipped bad shaders that heavily impacted performance on NV drivers. These things were day-to-day occurrences that went into a bug tracker. Then somebody would go in, find out what the game screwed up, and patch the driver to deal with it. There are lots of optional patches already in the driver that are simply toggled on or off as per-game settings, and then hacks that are more specific to games – up to and including total replacement of the shipping shaders with custom versions by the driver team. Ever wondered why nearly every major game release is accompanied by a matching driver release from AMD and/or NVIDIA? There you go.

 

The article however closes with a comparatively optimistic outlook, stating that the upcoming DX12 API will alleviate a good number of issues.

 

 

Disgruntled ex-employee venting/ranting, or valuable insider knowledge, what say you?

[Kantr]

Hard to say without a developer perspective on the issue. Although it does explain a few things if true.

[mybudgee]

Of course they do

[SlottsMachine]

Of course. Although I think "broken" might be too harsh a word. Every game ships flawed but the extent of the flaws/bugs/whatever is what needs to be looked at. Will they impact enjoyment of the game to noticeable degree on the gamer side? If not, then I think it's something we can deal with. If so, then of course that's unacceptable.

 

Yeah, the term "broken" needs to be better defined. Is it just games that don't run? Or games like AP (that I would say is broken), it runs perfectly fine but gameplay/AI is a complete failure. 

[SlottsMachine]

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it. But some of the things enemies would do just makes you laugh and shake your head. 

[bmwcrazy]

The lesson here is to never pre-order a game, especially for the PC. Unless you know exactly what you're getting into, it's usually smarter to buy later and save money.

 

Still better than Microsoft shipping broken operating systems like Windows ME and Vista. 

[wolfhowwl]

The horror stories I've heard for that game kept me away from it when I had a chance to play it. Obsidian's QA is terribad.

 

Alpha Protocol's problem was less that it was buggy (although it was) and more that a lot of stuff was just rotten at the core.

[Dominus]

Buyer Beware?

[Fidite Nemini]

I'm not knowledgable with software, so what I took from the article is that developers code games that are seriously flawed when it comes to API(s), which would supposedly explain why some games suffer from freezes, crashes or generally graphics related issues (overall subpar performance, stuttering, texture flickering, etc. pp.).

 

Anyone in here experienced with this stuff that could tell me if I'm on the right track?

[Dutch]

Dragon Age: Inquisition - a perfect example

[Dio Demon]

What was wrong with it?

They fixed the exploits 

[Bison]

Does this mean Unity was just a few textures and animations?

[NeonFlux117]

Naw, just EA games using Frostbite. And some Ubishaft games.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

I remember a Creative Assembly dev (when I still posted on TWC) saying something that's stuck with me for ages. It was during Napoleon: Total War development I believe and he casually stated that Medieval 2: Total War still had approximately 10,000 bugs remaining. He then went on to elaborate a little, saying that the overwhelming majority of bugs were things that the 99% of end users would never notice. That they worked hard to eliminate every major bug without causing new problems, which was easier said than done. Something along those lines.

 

Now the Total War games have been notoriously buggy with broken AI ever since they made the switch to full 3D, but I've always imagined that other games would be in similar positions. So I can definitely believe the claims being made here.

 

I think it's why I have a relatively high tolerance to buggy games as long as they aren't game-breaking. That and being an RPG fan, which has some of the buggiest games in existence. Much as I love Black Isle, they and their run-off studios Troika and Obsidian have rarely made a non-buggy game.

 

Fallout 1/2, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale I/II, Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil, V:TM-B, KotOR 2, NWN 2, Alpha Protocol, F:NV.

 

Each and every one of these games is very buggy, several of them require Unofficial Patches just to run as intended (Arcanum and VTMB). Yet in the RPG genre, that's the norm, not the exception. I think it has something to do with the fact that RPGs try to give you many ways to play because of roleplaying.

 

It's also why I have an appreciation for games that offer variety of approach and cater to different playstyles. It takes some really strong design to allow you to play how you want without breaking the game. So many games push you into playing a certain way and doing certain things, giving the illusion of freedom because once you go off the rails, it all falls apart. So games that actually give you freedom without damaging suspension of disbelief or internal consistency are impressive.

 

None of this is necessarily related to the topic, which deals with graphics, APIs and Multi-GPU functionality more than anything, but the 10k bugs comment was a statement that stuck with me and really informed how I look at games.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

The AMD Graphic card I want to buy doesn't have DirectX 12. WTH should I do now?!

[wolfhowwl]

You should get a 970 instead.

 

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

280x was enough for my 900p monitor goddammit.

 

 

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

You should get a 970 instead.