| Deneidez said: Reasonable said: I prefer that, actually. I know its expensive, but as an end consumer I'm of the opinion, based on what I've observed, that games running on an engine completely tuned to the concept tend to be superior to more generic games based on middleware engine. I agree, but even in near future this can't happen anymore really. Unless you have something ready already and you have platform that you have used before. Every gen tends to make things differently and in every gen price of engine goes up. Eventually there have to be similar platforms(backwards) or nobody would make engines for those.
There are so many average FPS on U3 engine, for example, or games that built on the engine but end up buggy as a result - probably because at the end of the day the developer using a sourced engine is unlikely to really understand its guts as well as the engine's developers. I know Ted Price from Insomniac has quoted on this a few times too (he's in the build your own engine camp). Epic are in the source it camp, but given they make a lot of money from sourcing the engine they develop themselves I'm not sure they can be seen as totally unbiased. Sounds like really bad documentation problem... or some people just can't do it. Do you mean buggy as bugs or something like bad performance? Bugs happen all the time in the software and you have to have good metrics system to get rid of them in larger projects. So in other words that would be developers failing. And performance is always crappier on engine that is not in-house engine. I am quite sure that it isn't because developers don't understand how to use it. Its more like developers hands are tied to use it only in one way and that way might give bad performance in some cases. (Btw, I am in that camp too. ^^)
@OT I think Sony is betting way too much on PS3 and on its software. Even if PS3 would be 10 years on the market, it won't beat next gen consoles that go for graphics & stuff that has been the main selling points of PS3. If MS brings such new console in next few years, it would be like mortal blow for PS3. I am quite sure that it could handle 1080p with much better graphics. Very few *'hc player' would be able to resist it. (*IMO console games are way more casual than real hard core games.) |
What I meant by buggy is that often, when developers take something like U3, and want to add code for extended features specific to their game (say I want it to underpin an RPG, for example) the end result always seems to be a game that shows the following traits vs pure FPS titles developed on U3, or titles developed by Epic
a) general performance of the engine is not on par with what it should be, due to the changes not sitting well with the underlying code of the engine
b) a more unstable product - i.e. a somewhat higher percentage of quirks and sometimes outright bugs
If you think about it Epic know every line of code in U3 in detail, but a developer who uses it tends to either bolt on code to the core or use the middleware tools without really knowing the underlying code inside out. Mostly this is okay but it is an environment much more likely to produce issues than someone developing on an engine they know inside out.
At the end of the day I think middleware is here to stay, and it can produce great results also - after all Half Life was built on ID tech - but I think it does work better where the developer is producing something 'in genre' rather than extending the base too much.
If you really want to push out something new I think you have to built an engine unless there is a really good fit. For example look at Mirrors Edge, with its level orientated structure dictated by the middleware engine vs the realy open air, run anywhere feel of the engine under Assassin's Creed.
I do like U3, and I am excited to see what ID tech 5 looks like, etc. but I think there is always a balance to be struck between knowing when to built from scratch to get the best results and when using middleware will create good enough results and cut costs without harming the game.
Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...
