superchunk said:
1) These both focus on building ARM into x86, but they give the images and overview of building your game in the differing architectures. This is the entire point of using middleware, to remove the biggest pains when porting between difference systems. Its not zero-sum work, but it isn't as hard as some of you think. https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/managed/e4/d9/porting-guide-for-unity-game-on-intel-architecture-for-china-market.pdf 2) All of those games are still using the same level of textures, AA and other visual settings but at lower resolution so that XO and PS4 are as similar as possible. What do you think is required once you drop textures or AA down? NS will be able to keep either high settings and lower resolution OR lower settings and higher resolution (likely XBO level). 3) Completely disagree with you on pretty much everything. |
1) If you think this is how AAA games get ported across architectures, you must be terribly misinformed. Especially in lower powered machines, the code needs to be written specifically to make the most out of the hardware you have. For example, when coding the game for PS4, the developer has access to 218 Gb/s (on PS4Pro mode), while on the Switch we're hearing about 25Gb/s. This limitation alone means a ton of compromises will have to be made.
If you would be porting from a lower specced machine to a higher specced one, then yeah, porting through middleware solutions (who add inneficiencies to the code) wouldn't be as much of a problem.
2) It's not just textures we need to be worried about, it's the actual game logic. For example in open world games (like the witcher, etc) in areas with plenty of NPCs the game goes from being GPU to CPU bound. No amount of low res textures will help the game play better on a shitty CPU machine. So the developers will necessarily need to adjust the game itself (as in, lowering the amount of NPCs in any given area for example) so the game will not come to a standstill. Another example would be in a game like Battlefield where you have 64 player servers in which a ton of physics and calculations need to be done every single frame. The impact 1 player dropping a bomb which causes a building to collapse and how said building not only makes permanent changes to the map as well as the impact on every player. I don't think these are very controversial examples, so you should be able to think about it for a moment and realize I might just be right on this one.
3) I think you should read my previous 2 points and re'evaluate this 3rd one.
