# My dislike for modern PC gaming



## kitekrazy (Dec 22, 2017)

Games now are averaging over 60+GBs. A 500gb SSD is a minimum. With W10 upgrading and leaving backups takes up additional space. Fallout 4 takes up 90GBs.

System requirements are getting out of hand. It's not the CPU you have to worry about but the graphics requirements. These have increased in price. One of the reasons why GTA and CoD are top sellers is because they don't require boutique hardware.

Developers are out of touch when it comes to serial games. As a big Command and Conquer fan I have yet to play C&C 4. Gibson and EA has something in common. Great games die. Just Cause 3 isn't half the game of JC2. Hitman series got better. How long will it be before the Far Cry and AC series regress? Deus Ex is now dead.

If these type of developers decided to work in the DAW industry they wouldn't last long. Efficient use of resources is the game here.

I would never go to a console but I think I'll stick with playing older games produced during the XP, early W7 era.


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## MatFluor (Dec 22, 2017)

To a certain degree I agree here. As professional programmer myself (working with Natural Language Processing, Machine learning and Neural Networks on my still-dayjob), I know what resource optimization means, and how much work is involved. Yes, DAWs need another level of Hardware control (or rather - different hardware control). But there are also reasons DAWs update regularly and almost always you see "optimization" in the changelog somewhere. Optimization is a hell of a lot of work to get right, especially in such complex systems as games or DAWs, both areas where Low Latency is king. One is input latency (Keyboard/Mouse) and the other considering MIDI and Audio.

The size of contemporary games are not only the Programming though - but also resources - Full HD/4K Textures, uncompressed SFX and uncompressed Audio even sometimes. All that drives the needed drive space up in the clouds. Efficiency comes in in a good use of CPU/GPU. GPUs especially are highly optimized Hardware devices on their own, and game engines take a lot of the heavy workload away from the developer - meaning they can't optimize beyind the point where the engine company (such as Unreal or Unity) already did. Optimization there is mostly felt in Framerates, Framerate dropping and loading times, but not much the actual Harddisk space used.

Highly optimized games (sometimes with custom engines) are a big market, yes - and Drive space is dirt cheap nowadays - placing games on an SSD is more of a "nice to have choice" for most anyway. I for example have most games on a standard HDD, and onl the 2-3 games where I really want to have low loading times reside on my main-OS SSD - so boutique Hardware is only needed when you are a graphics whore - the big textures loaded into RAM, the area loading times and all that.

Considering gameplay and story itself - some big publishers are indeed responsible for "half-baked" releases, either because of time pressure (compare when a movie just barely gets locked picture 3 weeks before Sundance or it's announced Theatrical release - you feel like the poor gamedev company under the publisher) or because of questionable monetizing policy (EA's Crystals anyone?). Quick money from a simple multiplayer title (simple as in story) is sometimes preferred - again you can compare it to Hollywood's industry. As C&C fan myself - I guess you remember Westwood's desaster concerning faked promotional images and videos? That's like Theatrical trailer with footage missing in the final cut 

It's not the fault of the developers (it's not the fault of the composers that green screen filming is everywhere) but more of the publishers who loose touch with the playerbase, or rather, keep in touch with the money-spending part of the playerbase. The possibility to deliver DLCs and updates means that you can churn out a game much faster, since when you get an error report, you can just make an update. Games in my Steam library pretty much update everyday, for whatever reason (added content or more often bugfixes). Earlier, in our youth (man I sound old) you had one chance to sell the game, in a shop - if it had too many bugs or was incomplete, your sales dropped and unhappy players everywhere, wiithout much chance to solve that. Now oyu can, and can react accordingly, and pretty fast as well. If I use the composer metaphor again, I could say, that years before you would've delivered Orchestral recordings to the director/producer and you had just one chance to get it right at the recording session, afterwards you would've had to rerecord. Now with MIDI-scores, you COULD (not saying that you should by any means) deliver a "faulty" score, and just revise - you don't need to record, you just need to tweak some MIDI (I know I make it sound easy, but you get the metaphor).

So, I agree that games sometimes are not what they used to be, and disagree that poor programming is the problem (and therefore the Hardware specs), since components are cheaper than earlier, easier to get and your Hardware generally manages to last longer. I remember the times where you almost had to buy a new setup for every bigger game that got released - Wing Commander -> new Graphics Card, Sound Card and even CPU needed. 5 Months later, new game, the game would run veeery bad on your setup, upgrade needed. Meanwhile, My "gaming" rig still has an i3 and just a few months ago upgraded from a 750TI to a 1060. and since I'm not a graphics whore - no problems for at least 2-3 years.

Sorry for the wall here


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## R. Soul (Dec 22, 2017)

Just wait til all games run in 4k as standard. Then 100 GB might be a normal size. 

I just use a normal HDD. They are cheap as chips anyway. 
I have around 60 games in my Steam catalogue but only maybe 8 installed.
Once I complete a game, it usually gets uninstalled. Not really an issue for me.


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## TheNorseman (Dec 22, 2017)

What is the status on cloud gaming? I read an article a while back talking about how that's going to be the future. Huge games, won't require insane systems, great graphics.


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## Zhao Shen (Dec 22, 2017)

kitekrazy said:


> If these type of developers decided to work in the DAW industry they wouldn't last long



Perfect example of the phrase "comparing apples to oranges".



TheNorseman said:


> What is he status on cloud gaming? I read an article a while back talking about how that's going to be the future. Huge games, won't require insane systems, great graphics.



I've played with NVIDIA GeForce Cloud. It's honestly pretty insane. The load on your rig is about as much as streaming video, and you can request access to the beta for free currently if you're on a Mac. If you've been gaming for a while (especially with games where latency is critical), you'll notice a delay of maybe 150+ ms on good connections, but most of my friends can't notice a difference.

If you can get over the latency issue, you'll be able to run everything smoothly on max graphics settings. I find that the service is especially nice for games like Civilization VI, where the latency is not as noticeable and has no impact on gameplay.

Personally, the latency is a big enough issue that I prefer to play games on my laptop running a GTX 965M, even if I have to go down to medium-low settings. The tradeoff in responsiveness is simply not worth it in my experience, even in games like Portal 2 where it theoretically doesn't seem like a big deal. Controls simply feel clunkier with cloud gaming. I mean, imagine an artificial 150 ms delay inserted between every keypress and action. You will get used to it eventually, but go back to playing games on your own rig and you will feel immense satisfaction at how instant and responsive everything feels.


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## J-M (Dec 22, 2017)

Been playing BF1 one recently, I just hope they'd fix the damn servers, I have a great connection, yet yesterday I wasn't able to finish even one match before I lost my connection to the EA servers...I was very happy to see the backlash they received from that atrocity also known as Battlefront II. In CD Projekt RED we trust...


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## kitekrazy (Dec 22, 2017)

TheNorseman said:


> What is the status on cloud gaming? I read an article a while back talking about how that's going to be the future. Huge games, won't require insane systems, great graphics.



I despise anything that has the word "cloud" in it. Unfortunately there is the other issue with ISPs not liking you to use too much bandwidth. Most game saves are in the cloud. Something else about the gaming industry I forgot to mention that it is an addiction and quality demands is not a major issue. If only I had that addiction to learning DAWs or softsynths. I don't care to play games online either.


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## TheNorseman (Dec 22, 2017)

I play on Xbox and right now, Playerunknown Battlegrounds is an absolute nightmare to run


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## Desire Inspires (Dec 22, 2017)

kitekrazy said:


> If these type of developers decided to work in the DAW industry they wouldn't last long. Efficient use of resources is the game here.



The DAW industry is not something I would suggest anyone to enter into. Video games are far more entertaining and valuable than some string or piano or synth library.


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## TheNorseman (Dec 22, 2017)

Desire Inspires said:


> The DAW industry is not something I would suggest anyone to enter into. Video games are far more entertaining and valuable than some string or piano or synth library.



I had a buddy who grew up doing nothing but playing games. His whole thing was he wanted to get into the industry. He got in to some of the best schools, got a job working for a big developer, I can't remember who. Anyways, he said it was such a thankless grind that he decided to leave. He helped develop the Windows phone, was much happier and made a much better living.


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## kitekrazy (Dec 22, 2017)

TheNorseman said:


> I play on Xbox and right now, Playerunknown Battlegrounds is an absolute nightmare to run



They can't even get consoles "right" these days. Some of the same issues an a PC version extend to a console. But then again other than cartridge based games there were flaws. I had the 1st generation Playstation that would overheat.


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## mcalis (Dec 22, 2017)

I was going to reply to the points raised, but then I realized that I am not actually sure what your problem with modern gaming is. I mean, I understand what you're saying, but it seems to me you threw a whole bunch of issues onto a heap. Let me try to unpack it.


Size - the game code itself is usually far, far, _far_ less than even 1% of the total game size. Typically the biggest consumption of space comes from the art assets (models, textures, animations, etc). The second biggest space waster, almost without exception, is Audio. Sometimes it even surpasses the size of the art assets. I can't make any sweeping statements about _all_ games, but I can assure you that most AA and AAA games go to great lengths to compress and minimize the size of their assets, and I mean _great_ lengths. Now, theoretically, you could go for a procedural modelling approach where the game code generates the geometry in realtime. This allows for a much smaller size, but demands far greater processing resources. It _always_ comes down to speed vs size. I think it's worthwhile to point out that this isn't a games specific issue though, there are many, many software applications that are insanely bloated.

Take the EW Installation Center for example. The download is ~199MB, the installation is ~273MB. Considering what this application does (download & unpack libs, do some decrpytion & licensing stuff, have a user interface), that kind of size is _utterly_ insane. It has no right to go anywhere above 10MB for what it does _if it was built from the ground up_. And that's where the caveat is. Speedy development takes precedent over size because hard disk space is cheap. And so EW (and many, many, many other software developers) pack other libraries, runtimes, etc into their own products. 99% of the stuff that's being packed along will never be used. From this perspective, games are extremely lean because the % rate of content actually being used (displayed in game) is far, far higher. I get your frustration, but honestly, games are not the big offenders here.

System requirements - I am kind of with you, and kind of not. Could games be more optimized? Yes, they could, but it's a matter of cost again. @MatFluor whether a game company uses Unity or Unreal doesn't have to make a huge impact as with Unreal, people can modify the source if need be and Unity allows licensing of their source code too. Most people won't do this however, so you're right to some degree that projects using Unity/Unreal will be limited to whatever the performance metric of either game engine is. However, the option exists for people to dig into the source and push Unity and Unreal beyond their vanilla performance (which is already pretty great).

Alternatively a game developer can make their own tech. The _cost_ of this however cannot be overstated. Unless you're making an engine tailored for one specific game, this is _insanely_ expensive, leagues and leagues beyond the cost of any sample library developer here. And that's why few people do it, or it they do it, their engine is hyperfocused on whatever particular game they're making and has very limited reusability.
Game developers are out of touch - Maybe, maybe not. I am not a big fan of most recent AAA games, but I haven't been for quite some time. I do come across the ocassional indie gem though and I think the market has never been more richer when it comes to the variety of games that can be picked from. So yeah, I do miss the great AAA games as much as you do, but I do find many wortwhile AA games, such as Hellblade (which happens to have great sound!).

If these developers worked in the DAW... - It's kind of an apples vs oranges thing but both DAWs and games have very high performance standards. In my humble opinion the games industry employs some of the most skilled programmers in existence. Getting 60 buttery smooth frames on your screen every second (which translates to 16.66ms of computation time per frame) is _hard_. There are so many calculations, so many simulations that all have to happen in that measly 16ms that it's somewhat of a miracle we succeed at all. 

Don't forget that part of programming a game can be Audio programming, unless developers are working with a pre-existing engine. And it's not simple audio playback either. You have to manage the voice count, you have to be clever about which audio assets you're preloading on the fly, you have to run realtime audio FX on select assets and oh, by the way, please do all this in <1ms because the input processing is waiting, and the AI needs to be simulated, and we need to draw all them pixels still! 

Yes, it's more than a few pegs down from building a complete DAW, but in terms of playback performance, games have to be at parity perfomance (or better) to DAWs. I mean... a DAW "only" has to concern itself with Audio, games have a million other things to do in the meantime. All of it, again, in only 16ms.
I'm not saying we can't do better, because I think we can. However, my biggest problem with modern games is much more with the design and marketing decisions that are being made. We're pretty OK in terms of speed & size, imo.

EDIT: For the record, I am in total agreement when it comes to shitty ports. Developers really ought to spend much more time doing decent ports instead of just checking the "Xbox One" checkmark and hitting export.

Again, it comes down to cost though. True per platform optimization is costly and so most developers will settle for "good enough" because the next project is already just around the corner.

EDIT2:


> How long will it be before the Far Cry and AC series regress? Deus Ex is now dead.


. IMO, AC died after AC3, so it has been dead to me quite some time.


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## mcalis (Dec 22, 2017)

One more quick remark about size. Most game projects I've been on are absolutely massive while they're in development. Just to give you some real figures:


Dev-version of a recent VR game I helped work on: 33.6GB

Shipped version: 2GB.
Another game I worked on a little longer ago was in the 100GB ballpark but boiled down to ~3GB when made into the shipping version.

So yeah... we're doing pretty good in the compression department. Just so you know


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## TheNorseman (Dec 22, 2017)

kitekrazy said:


> I despise anything that has the word "cloud" in it. Unfortunately there is the other issue with ISPs not liking you to use too much bandwidth. Most game saves are in the cloud. Something else about the gaming industry I forgot to mention that it is an addiction and quality demands is not a major issue. If only I had that addiction to learning DAWs or softsynths. I don't care to play games online either.



So what do you dislike about the idea of cloud other than the bandwidth? And what is the hurdle or holdup for this to become possible? To me it only makes sense for developers to go that direction.


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## SterlingArcher (Dec 22, 2017)

Since we're talking about gaming, I would just like to say that Alan Wake is to me one of the all-time greatest games EVER made.


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## TheNorseman (Dec 22, 2017)

SterlingArcher said:


> Since we're talking about gaming, I would just like to say that Alan Wake is to me one of the all-time greatest games EVER made.



Wow that's a bold statement. From all the games published from the SNES (my beginnings) to now, I think I would probably have to nominate 50 games for number 1.


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## J-M (Dec 22, 2017)

SterlingArcher said:


> Since we're talking about gaming, I would just like to say that Alan Wake is to me one of the all-time greatest games EVER made.



You...I like you. Alan Wake has such atmosphere...


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## R. Soul (Dec 22, 2017)

SterlingArcher said:


> Since we're talking about gaming, I would just like to say that Alan Wake is to me one of the all-time greatest games EVER made.


Really....thought that flashlight mechanic got a bit stale after a couple of hours, and they never really got beyond that. I liked the overall story and vibe, but best game ever ....woah.


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## SterlingArcher (Dec 22, 2017)

R. Soul said:


> Really....thought that flashlight mechanic got a bit stale after a couple of hours, and they never really got beyond that. I liked the overall story and vibe, but best game ever ....woah.



Yeah. For me everything about Alan Wake simply gelled into a game that I absolutely love and have replayed from beginning to end more times than any other game I've played. I know other people had their problems with the game and a few things that seem to turn up frequently are the flashlight and dodge mechanics. But Remedy Entertainment nailed that game, atmosphere and narrative, and for me that's why It will always be listed as one of my top games ever.

It also made me buy a crap load of flashlights.


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## AdamAlake (Dec 22, 2017)

AC died with Brotherhood.


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## oks2024 (Dec 22, 2017)

About the size requirements of modern games, it's also related to the size of a Blu-Ray, and if the next generation of console has a different support, the games will be larger.
For a AAA game, you always have tons and tons of data, textures, models, lighting information, sound, video, etc, but it has to fit on a blu ray. So that's 50Gb.
And then for the PC version you have to offer something more, like Hi-Res textures for example, and you easily reach the 60+ Gb.


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## J-M (Dec 22, 2017)

AdamAlake said:


> AC died with Brotherhood.



I don't think AC ever "died" for me...I played them all until Black Flag...after that I just got so tired of the franchise that I've ignored all the later ones. Heck, maybe, just maybe, I'll play origins when it's dirt cheap.


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## ghobii (Dec 23, 2017)

Alan Wake!? You must work for a battery company.


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## MarcusD (Dec 29, 2017)

My biggest gripe with modern games is; tired, old, recycled, repackaged mechanics which are sprinkled with CG glitter. There's seldom amounts of innovation going on when it comes to the gameplay mechanics. It's all well and good having a great story and great graphics and tried and tested mechanics, but at least innovate. Do something no one else has done before to make something fresh and fun. 

Some of my favourite PC games:​Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Unreal Tournament 1 & 2
Elder Scrolls / Fallout Games
Alien Vs Predator 2
Age of Empires
Guild Wars
Ark Evolve
Half-Life
Portal
PUBG
X-Com


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## FriFlo (Dec 29, 2017)

Every five years or so I get the urge to play another game to get amazed by the advances that have been made there. But every time, it also leaves a shallow feeling with me after playing through the game. And I kind of wonder how you can ever really accomplish anything in your life, if you would constantly play games. Seriously: how do you guys do a very time consuming work like composing and play games at the same time? Or do you also take long breaks in between games? I find any good game to addictive as to play it only for half an hour a day ...


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## TheNorseman (Dec 29, 2017)

FriFlo said:


> Every five years or so I get the urge to play another game to get amazed by the advances that have been made there. But every time, it also leaves a shallow feeling with me after playing through the game. And I kind of wonder how you can ever really accomplish anything in your life, if you would constantly play games. Seriously: how do you guys do a very time consuming work like composing and play games at the same time? Or do you also take long breaks in between games? I find any good game to addictive as to play it only for half an hour a day ...



I'm not a professional composer, but I am a pretty busy guy. What you have to do is look at the hours that you have laid out to sleep at night, remove an hour or two of that time, and you're good to go.


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## jononotbono (Dec 29, 2017)

MrLinssi said:


> I don't think AC ever "died" for me...I played them all until Black Flag...after that I just got so tired of the franchise that I've ignored all the later ones. Heck, maybe, just maybe, I'll play origins when it's dirt cheap.



Origins is amazing. Someone bought it for me for Christmas and although I rarely have the time to play games at the moment, I have enjoyed a couple of days over the Christmas season playing it. Easily the best version of AC and no way has the franchise died. It's finally becoming what it should have always been.


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 29, 2017)

The last thing I want to do after composing and being on the computer all day, is to remain on the computer playing video games. Man needs some nature to stay balanced IMO...


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## J-M (Dec 29, 2017)

InLight-Tone said:


> The last thing I want to do after composing and being on the computer all day, is to remain on the computer playing video games. Man needs some nature to stay balanced IMO...



Yeah, I remember Mick Gordon saying the same thing when he was asked if he plays the games he made the music for. Even though I make music as a hobby and despite the fact that I love good games, I still may take a few month break from games every now and then.


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## pixel (Jan 3, 2018)

Im also don't understand what is the question in OT. SSD for games is waste of resources. HDD is absolutely enough.
GTA 5 is not optimised that great. Try to play in 4k with hi-res mods. Try the same with Witcher 3 and you'll see what I'm talking about 
Yes, difference between developer and final version is enormous in plus for final version. Games on pc have more than one size format for textures, usually it's low, mid-low and hi-res but may be even more. So it must be considered when we're looking on game size.
Game developers going to make DAW? They already do: middleware like WWise, FMod and other internal game engines for AAA companies. It's compiled into game later but audio still work in DAW-alike base but it's rather procedural than linear. Some games may have enormous amount of small audio loops talking to each other that it looks like huge web and it must be executed in real time (+ randomisation, spatialisation, reverbs, pitch mod etc in real time). What's next? Making game for few platforms? This is a cherry on the pie. I talked to QA guy for Rockstar Games. OMG! This is ridiculous how many factors they must take into consideration! It was like 4000 tests of single Stop Sign which is static to just begin with.
IMO games are optimised pretty well. It may not look like that on the surface but when you look inside then one may be surprised that they can actually make these games playable


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