Disunity about game engines

[Paul]

The problem with the Unity engine is that it isn't heavily threaded and bottlenecks on slow CPU's. On a decent PC it runs fine, but compare that with the PS3 version which has a very choppy frame rate, maybe PS4 was better but I haven't checked.

I think Unity will limit what they can do from a technical standpoint, actually we already know this since the cut scenes had to be pre-rendered otherwise they'd take forever to load on consoles.

[FrustratedAssassin]

NnT ran really well on my end. Pretty much flawlessly.

I mean it ran on my PC perfectly too but people are saying it's bad so idk

[Varrok]

There’s a lot of people who didn’t have any performance issues with NnT. Just because you in particular did (and the vocal minority on the Steam forums thread you’ll no doubt link), doesn’t mean the problem is widespread, or that it’s even the engine’s fault.

Find me a "vocal minority" (you can dodge any argument claiming that's a "vocal minority". How do you even measure that?) that has perfomance issues with games like MGSV Ground Zeroes.

Coincidentally, every Unity game you’ve played was developed by a small team, can’t be a coincidence right?

Gimme a bigger one, I dare ya. I gave you the biggest ones I could think of. I even google searched Unity games to give the best examples of big games I could.

Strangely enough there’s been a distinct lack of outcry over those games and their performance – checking up on Metacritic reviews and nobody seems to have mentioned it at all!

Why would there be any outcry? The developers usually post the system requirements, which are usually too high compared to what the game looks like, but the clients KNOW what they're buying, and can't complain if the game runs slowly on the PC that doesn't meet the reqs.

If they meet the specs however, they do have a right to complain, and they do (These are just random examples of "the vocal minority" [by the way, you do know that user reviewers are a minority of gamers no matter what? even if they all say the game runs poorly, it'll still be "a vocal minority"])

Oh, I see you actually blanked the previous discussion about Unity from your brain. Let me reiterate: because almost all bigger developers are now at a point where they’re heavily invested in their own proprietary engines, or they’ve already purchased licenses for other commercial engines. There’s a widening gap in the industry between indie and triple-A, and engine use is one of the telltale differences between the two.

And even then, small teams within larger studios are using Unity.

Name a few, besides Grow Home. Grow Home was a side, hobbistic project that the developers didn't actually think was gonna be released commercially.

Except that PC is an absolute quagmire of a platform in general, and pretty much any game ever made can throw up bugs, performance issues, and have varying levels of performance. A lot of that can be fixed by QA testing on as large a scale as possible, on as wide a variety of hardware as possible, and then optimizing as much as possible.

Guess who has the least amount of resources available to do all of that? The same people who are most likely to take advantage of Unity’s low cost: indies!

You're trying to persuade me into believing Unity is well-optimized engine, and you can't even give me an example of a big game using it that's well optimized. And you expect me to believe you.

That’s a bullshit non-answer. Give me a real one.

It's as a bullshit non-answer as "No it isn't?", Sherlock

[Havoc]

In my experience it's generally the people who have shitty PC's who complain about poor performance. Either they are trying to run it on a potato, run on AMD architecture (see point 1) or their system is filled with too much crap, viruses and malware.

The last time I had any serious issues with any game at all was GTA 5, and that was a hugely widespread driver issue. And I don't think sheer luck of coincidence is the reason I'm never affected by this stuff. It's because I make sure I run a stable, clean system. And the majority of PC's out there, especially pre-built ones, are neither stable nor clean (physically and digitally).

[Varrok]

I do keep my system clean, by the way, before anyone calls me on that with no evidence.

[Manco]

Find me a "vocal minority" (you can dodge any argument claiming that's a "vocal minority". How do you even measure that?) that has perfomance issues with games like MGSV Ground Zeroes.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/311340/discussions/

Gimme a bigger one, I dare ya. I gave you the biggest ones I could think of. I even google searched Unity games to give the best examples of big games I could.

I’m telling you that most are made by small developers, and your response is to dare me to name a game made by a bigger studio? Why?

Why would there be any outcry? The developers usually post the system requirements, which are usually too high compared to what the game looks like, but the clients KNOW what they're buying, and can't complain if the game runs slowly on the PC that doesn't meet the reqs.

Because if games launch in a buggy or poorly optimized state there is usually an outcry. Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Batman Arkham Knight, and Mortal Kombat X are a few examples.

If they meet the specs however, they do have a right to complain, and they do (These are just random examples of "the vocal minority" [by the way, you do know that user reviewers are a minority of gamers no matter what? even if they all say the game runs poorly, it'll still be "a vocal minority"])

I also expect the most pissed-off fans to be the most vocal, so if your negative reviews don’t show people complaining then there’s unlikely to be a major problem. I also expect critical reviews to highlight these issues as well.

Name a few, besides Grow Home. Grow Home was a side, hobbistic project that the developers didn't actually think was gonna be released commercially.

We literally did this last time. Some more that I didn’t mention last time: Assasin’s Creed Identity (Ubisoft), Yooka-Laylee (Rare), Pillars of Eternity (Obsidian), Rollercoaster Tycoon World, Shadowrun: Hong Kong, Spongebob Heropants, Might & Magic X.

You're trying to persuade me into believing Unity is well-optimized engine, and you can't even give me an example of a big game using it that's well optimized. And you expect me to believe you.

Well apparently any game I could care to name (Gone Home, New n Tasty, Grow Home) are bad and poorly optimized according to you.

It's as a bullshit non-answer as "No it isn't?", Sherlock

The initial claim was that Unity is outdated. You have yet to prove that, the burden of proof still rests with you.

[Mr. Bungle]

Not totally sure what y'all are arguing about here, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt a tad disappointed with NnT.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fine game, just felt fairly far removed from the Oddworld I love. Aesthetically, it was closer to Munch than the original classics. Still a notch above that game, though.

Soulstom looks like a step in the right direction, and I couldn't be happier.

[DarkHoodness]

(yeah I still lurk here and visit every few days or so)

Yay, SoulStorm, /hype and all that. Looks good on paper but maybe I'll be more excited once we find out more - And yeah a darker game is a step in the right direction, but so long as they keep a balance.

...Either they are trying to run it on a potato, run on AMD architecture (see point 1)...

My rig is an ancient (parts were released in '09), has an AMD graphics card (Radeon HD 6870 1GB) and CPU (Phenom II x6) and still runs most modern games if they aren't too demanding. Am I the exception?

I'm another one of the club who had/has almost no technical or performance problems with NNT.

[Varrok]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/311340/discussions/

Which ones are about perfomance issues, exactly? None of these seem like it.

I’m telling you that most are made by small developers, and your response is to dare me to name a game made by a bigger studio? Why?

Then your question

Coincidentally, every Unity game you’ve played was developed by a small team, can’t be a coincidence right?

makes little to no sense. What am I supposed to answer to that? inXile is not a small studio, nor it is a triple-A studio. Bigger studios don't use Unity, because of its low perfomance and limitations, otherwise it'd be a much better variant for them in every way.

Because if games launch in a buggy or poorly optimized state there is usually an outcry. Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Batman Arkham Knight, and Mortal Kombat X are a few examples.

Those games ran poorly even on hardware meeting the requirements. NnT usually doesn't run poorly on hardware meeting the requirements. The requirements are still too damn high comparing to what the game offers graphically. That's still a perfomance issue.

I also expect the most pissed-off fans to be the most vocal, so if your negative reviews don’t show people complaining then there’s unlikely to be a major problem. I also expect critical reviews to highlight these issues as well.

I do expect them too. The problem is more often that not they don't. Most don't even bother finishing the game. There's a major disparity between scores made by professional game critics and plain gamers. That's an issue for another debate.

We literally did this last time. Some more that I didn’t mention last time: Assasin’s Creed Identity (Ubisoft), Yooka-Laylee (Rare), Pillars of Eternity (Obsidian), Rollercoaster Tycoon World, Shadowrun: Hong Kong, Spongebob Heropants, Might & Magic X.

Yoka Yole isn't even a complete game yet.

Might & Magic X is easily comparable to LoG, because of graphical similarities. LoG is not on Unity and has lower requirements.

Rollercoaster Tycoon World looks like The Movies made a child with Sims 3. The requirements of RTW are just plain ridiculous to its graphics.

I have no info on the rest of them, I haven't played or know anything about them.

But even on some of your examples (the ones I know) I can find dirt. How many of those have you actually played?

Also, Deus Ex The Fall is on Unity too, apparently. Yeah, it got perfomance issues according to web.

Well apparently any game I could care to name (Gone Home, New n Tasty, Grow Home) are bad and poorly optimized according to you.

It's not my fault now, is it? I don't *want* them to be poorly optimized. They just are.

The initial claim was that Unity is outdated. You have yet to prove that, the burden of proof still rests with you.

I was responding more to the "Unity is bad" claim but ok.

It's weird to say an engine is outdated if it still has regular updates to it.

[Vlam]

I'm missing Slog Bait and Scrabaniac. Less Manco please.

[Jordan]

I'm gonna have to sort of side with Varrok here. Yes, it's up to the person in control of their tools to make something awesome, but Unity is a pain in the ass to do that. It just has backwards ways of doing shit that other engines can do easily. And this isn't just fancy technical stuff, it's very basic functions that need a tonne of work to implement.

[Scrabaniac]

Miss you too Vlam buddy.

[V_O_T]

MOD EDIT: This post got caught up in the thread split. The other half is here.

But I don't want to derail the thread with this. on the topic of unity, it seems that amazing things can be made with the tools. The tools can be annoying as sin at times, but there are some decent examples of what they can do with it. Look at pixel art made in ms paint. I fucking love ms paint. Anyway, "so far" this announcement is a step in the right direction to me. While NnT used unity and had its faults, I believe it wasn't the program's fault. much like the shadows/steam vents argument. I'm sure there are better programmers out there and designers too. As it was mentioned in the press release, there are more people working on it than just JAW. So with more numbers, minds and different view points, I think we may get a better quality product. Who knows, maybe they've learned a lot of new things from new people and they might surprise us.

Just gotta wait n see, far too early to make big calls.

[Varrok]

I make the coolest thread titles I do not make

[Jordan]

At least this time around they should have a better grasp of Unity so hopefully we can expect more from it.

[Varrok]

Why do you think a new studio would have a better grasp on Unity? It's not JAW anymore

[abe619]

I also didn't have any issues with NnT although my system is fairly decent (GTX 750, i3 4130, 6 gbs of RAM) and I've been running Unity for years, back when I had a single core pentium 4 3.0 Ghz, so while the engine isn't "Advanced" I don't think it's to blame for pretty much anything wrong with NnT.

[Havoc]

Why do you think a new studio would have a better grasp on Unity? It's not JAW anymore

Assuming they use the same engine, everything is already documented and working. Meaning that, instead of having to build the engine from scratch, more time can be invested by programmers to optimize the existing engine further.

[Scrabaniac]

At least they would have more time to make it more atmospherically correct? Thats what i hope anyway. Unity ran well on my PS4.. But it is definitely not worth attempting for Wii U.

[Fischkopf]

MOD EDIT: This thread was split off after the quoted post.



That fact isn't that fun when you consider how the game turned out to look much worse than on this pre-alpha video because they switched to unity.

They were using Unigine before, not a custom self built engine. Unigine and Unity have similar names but they are very different engines.

[Varrok]

I remember them talking about making NnT on Bitsquid (now Autodesk Stingray) engine.

I don't know which one the pre-alpha video was on.

EDIT: Proof

[Jordan]

Why do you think a new studio would have a better grasp on Unity? It's not JAW anymore

Sorry, I meant something more along the lines of what Havoc said. There's a framework in place for them to work from.