Optimization in Games

Tutorial Doctor · 2014-03-05T21:02:49

One of my favorite sub-subjects of a Calculus course I took once was "Optimization." What it basically means is to "use the least amount of resources to get the largest outcome." Ever since, I have learned how to do things the hard way to gain experience, and then I optimize. In other words, I break things down to the most basic components and then I optimize from there. Here is my philosophy on drawing shapes: "A square is a circle with 4 sides. An equilateral triangle is a circle with 3 sides. An octagon is a circle with 8 sides." Some of my favorite shapes are the tetrahedron, the icosahedron and the octahedron. I love Geodesic domes. I see a lot of optimization in games. Modelers optimize their models, and programmers optimize their code. Producers optimize their resources. The financial team optimizes their spending. It is in our nature to optimize, because we live in a world where resources can be scarce. Question: What are some techniques you use to optimize, whether it be your models or your code or your game budget? I could use some tips in all areas. The reason I posted this in game design, because I am talking about the design of the game from programming to modeling. For instance, you don't make a sphere that has a million polygons, you make an octahedron, subdivide it once and adjust the smoothing groups.

For Beginners

Started by Tutorial Doctor March 04, 2014 05:31 PM

13 comments, last by Lactose 10 years, 1 month ago

Aardvajk

13,217

March 05, 2014 12:14 PM

I've noticed if you go on gamer forums (not something I normally do I hasten to add, but did recently due to some problems with a game) that the latest technical sounding term they are all using is optimised.

"This game is badly optimised - it runs slow on my system"

"Why do I need to upgrade my graphics card - can't the studio just optimise better"

And so on. Much as frob says, its become misunderstood as some kind of panacea among people without any actual technical understanding and they think it is a "thing". Suspect this is the case in this thread as well.

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Tutorial Doctor

2,574

Author

March 05, 2014 03:37 PM

Someone just made a post about how to make a character rig with only 5 bones. They also use the optimize word in it. This is the type of stuff I am thinking about, but not just in the rigging area:

http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/graphics-programming-and-theory/5-bone-fully-rigged-humanoid-character-r3583

Yes frob, those "plans to reduce..." Are all under the umbrella of optimization- getting the most something.

Those are the plans I am talking about, like in the post above. The article talks about optimizing a rig. I have seen some pretty complicated rigs, usually for main characters, but for NPCs, you don't need so many bones. They use LOD for character modeling. Low poly for things in the background.

They call me the Tutorial Doctor.

Aardvajk

13,217

March 05, 2014 06:41 PM

That article uses the word "optimise" in context. The context of how to reduce the bone count on a rig.

The question "what sort of methods do you use to reduce a rig bone count" is meaningful. It doesn't even need the word optimise.

The question "what sort of techniques do you use to optimise games" is not.

Citing articles that use the word "optimise" does not strengthen the meaningfulness of this question I am afraid. If you are interested in specific contexts then specific questions will get a far better response.

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Nightgaunt

262

March 05, 2014 07:11 PM

Funny you should mention optimization, I recently saw a talk by Doris Chen from MSDN on optimizing code. Here are the slides:

http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/27262164#

A couple of things of note:

1. This is JavaScript-specific (but it would be interesting if someone knowledgeable in many coding languages could chime in on how much might apply to others).

2. This specifically optimizes speed and processor use/battery life. File-size was not tested.

3. As mentioned, this is specifically coding optimization, and not design optimization.

4. FYI in case anyone was wondering why the heck Microsoft cares about JavaScript, apparently the code is easily portable to Windows 8 apps (almost a straight copy/paste).