Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Indie developer blames game journalists for widespread Unity Engine hate

RatTower

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Apr 24, 2017
Messages
468
[...]You'll get games made entirely in blueprints by people with no programming knowledge whatsoever, [...]

Blueprint is by no means a substitute for lacking programming skills. Or even a bad option for making a game.
It's just a visual wrapper for a language that is pretty much on par with Java 1.4 (basically everything before generics were introduced) or a stripped down version of C#.

The only performance hit you take with Blueprints happens, if you try to build a fully object oriented architecture, not relying on function librarys and just instantiating all your logic as objects in the world.
But even then that only really makes a difference if you access the tick-event of those objects each frame and execute some elaborate function with it. The overhead from the instantiation itself isn't all that much.

My go-to solution so far was instantiating controller classes (though in newer code I've just been switching to function categories to keep BPs well organized), keeping actor-specific data in structs on the respective blueprint class and pushing everything that has to be persistent into the game instance.

Another thing people tend to do a lot is type casting. Despite the fact that Unreal fully supports message based interface calls due to it's Entity-Component nature.
That probably takes its toll on the performance of many games as well.
I believe I even saw that in an Update/Tick event on one of official Unreal tutorials once. Now either Unreal does some kind of casting magic to make it into a super fast operation or the guy just didn't take the time to save a casted reference. Think it was one of the animation blueprint tutorials. So no idea if he even was a programmer.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,506
Every unity game heats my cpu up like an oven, even if it's just some stupid idle game so I dunno I came to the conclusion that unity is p shit all by myself :D
:nocountryforshitposters: If a software is capable of overheating your CPU/GPU, that is problem with your ventilation, not with the software.

I know and I bought a new cpu fan 2 years ago, I just am too lazy to build it in so I rather blame Unity:dance:

But to be fair it really only happens with Unity so yeah.
It's called CPU heatsink piglet girl.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
Holy shit, the guy isn't even a game developer:
adrianforest-1hejqv.png


Some of his "projects": https://adrianforest.itch.io/
adrianforest-28fkzf.png


He's the exact reason why the prevailing impression of the guy he screenshotted exists in the first place and just extremely :butthurt: about it.
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
Patron
Edgy
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
Messages
27,819
Long loading times were always a thing in gaming, regardless of the engine.
The problem lies in bloat. It's everywhere. Because the technological limitations that plagued computers for decades are all but eliminated, one would think that now we would see all those resources put to good use.

The exact same problem can also be seen with web development, so it's not just vidya nerds that can't/refuse to write proper code anymore.
 

Tacgnol

Shitlord
Patron
Joined
Oct 12, 2010
Messages
1,871,734
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
Long loading times were always a thing in gaming, regardless of the engine.
The problem lies in bloat. It's everywhere. Because the technological limitations that plagued computers for decades are all but eliminated, one would think that now we would see all those resources put to good use.

The exact same problem can also be seen with web development, so it's not just vidya nerds that can't/refuse to write proper code anymore.

People just don't bother anymore.

It's really frustrating and common with all software industries. They don't feel the need to optimise things.
 

Burning Bridges

Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
27,562
Location
Tampon Bay
It remains a first choice for most indie devs, and they remain pretty defensive about it. So, from the POV of average developer, it obviously isn't at all bad.

For the same reasons some use Java and Basic. It'S the only way they can put in some meaningless crap push a button and get a working program.
If there were marketable I bet there would be games written in VBA, running on MS Excel or html.
 

Love

Cipher
Joined
Dec 31, 2013
Messages
371
Protip: when it works well, you don't notice it's Unity.
Always blame developers, not the engine.

t.developer

There is a reason why engines have always been of the favorite excuses by developers next to blaming the publisher. Just think about all those bugged games where some guy is quick to point out the "technical difficulties" in "fairness".
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,656
What, even PoE? Don't think it had any problems other than load times.

Load times and performance issues (given what it's displaying) are the primary issue. From Pillars of Eternity to Wasteland 2 to Shadowrun to Tyranny to Blackguards to Might and Magic X to Expeditions.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Long loading times were always a thing in gaming, regardless of the engine.
Not true. Until consoles moved to CDs, they seldom had loading times at all. And when computer games moved from floppy to hard drive, load times were quite rare as well, and generally quite short. The assumption that games have to be made up of small areas with significant load times between them is either too old (relating to the floppy/low system memory era) or relatively new (relating to the 3D engine era). Even some games with pretty 3D graphics, like Soul Reaver, had no loading delays because they found ways to finesse it (in Soul Reaver's case, by having curving hallways that acted as "airlocks" between areas, in which the game could unload the old area and load the new area).

[EDIT: Unkillable Cat got there before me, I see. The only thing I can add is that I'm not sure that it's purely a "bloat" problem so much as a priorities problem. When gamers make load times an issue, it gets better; when they don't, it gets worse. While I'm mostly out of the FPS genre these days, I remember there was a period post HL2 when levels were made up of tiny segments with noticeable load times between them. People moaned, and the design improved.]
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,656
inXile's games thus far have actually had decent load times.

Torment might have, but I recall people saying that Wasteland 2's load times encouraged them to not bother with save scumming loot. For me, they're around 10 seconds long, which isn't too bad when it happens infrequently, but can be a pain when it's more-than-infrequently.

Another thing to consider is that something like New Vegas loads in seconds on my SSD and it tracks a lot more stuff in the world than Wasteland 2, so I'm wondering what's going with Wasteland 2 Unity.
 
Last edited:

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,662
The Unity Engine seems nice. It's cheap, can primp itself up to look attractive. Friendly to almost anyone. And then one day you come home to see it boiling your CPU in a pot.
 

barker_s

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Mar 1, 2007
Messages
806
Location
Poland
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
Not true. Until consoles moved to CDs, they seldom had loading times at all.
[EDIT: Unkillable Cat got there before me, I see.

Okay, I must really suck at english, because both of you guys didn't get what I meant and seem to only debate this single sentence.

Sorry, I'll try to clarify. What I really wanted to say is that cases of "long loading times", however you wish to define them, did occur for a long time now in gaming and were usually quickly bashed by gamers and reviewers alike. "Long loading times" didn't magically appear along with Unity and are not Unity-specific "feature". But I gotta agree with Unkillable Cat on one thing - that it's difficult to discuss which loading times are "long" without the knowledge of what happens under the hood.

The problem lies in bloat. It's everywhere.

Gotta agree here. Software doesn't exist in void, there's usually a chain of frameworks, plugins and other dependencies that affect it. But what alternative do we have? Like you said, we could go Cleve's way and spend 20+ years developing games. But if you want to create a game in a realistic timefreame, you really need to rely on preexisting tools.

Because the technological limitations that plagued computers for decades are all but eliminated...

Let me use your own reaction gif:

lYWIL4.gif


Dude, no. Not even close. I mean sure, the technology has moved forward, but so did games and their requirements. Read up on some postmortems, dev diaries and so on and you'll see the amount of hacks, workarounds and clever ideas the devs have to employ to have their games running decently. Game development (and programming in general) is a constant struggle to find compromise between processing power, memory usage, gpu, texture memory and so on (this isn't true for ALL games obviously, a tetris clone will not suffer from this).

No. Developers code bloated code, because they're lazy.

So, are you a programmer yourself by any chance? Are you speaking from experience? Because in my few years as a programmer I noticed that the leading causes of shitty code are either time constraints (your manager needs the fix now, or the higher ups will have his ass handed to him) or programmer's incompetence (either because the programmer is just inexperienced or he just sucks and should become a gardener or something). Writing shit code out of laziness will, ironically, result in more work when you eventually have to rewrite or work around the pile of crap you created.

What I'm trying to say here is - you're trying to provide a simplistic explanation for a complex, multifaceted problem that is the software development. Saying that "programmers are lazy so the software is slow" is just... well... lazy ;) .

And now if you'll excuse me, I'll get the latest version of Unity and go back to developing my game. I promise I'll do my best to ensure it doesn't melt your cpu :P .
 

ciox

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 9, 2016
Messages
1,279
The typical preachy rant from a barely-professional that you see nowadays.

Sure there's some players who have kneejerk reactions to a game's engine before buying, it's their right as consumer, and the vast majority don't have kneejerk reactions, they have specifically noted engine-based flaws from PLAYING, whether it's Unity's load times and just general slapped-together feel, or the almost universal lack of key rebinding in games made with UDK, players notice this stuff. "professionals", enough already with your half-baked mic drop rants over the slightest criticism from your customers, or what would be your customers if you were actual game developers and not a twitter account and a hello world tutorial.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
The only thing i can say about this subject is that i'm actually extremely happy c and c++ are getting more and more marginalized. Its a pity it's with C# but that's somewhat predictable. If some faux-macho programmer wants to do 'real programming' and 'show how it's done to the C# fans' my peace of mind as a consumer is much better if he uses rust over c++. Fucking segfaults.
 
Joined
Mar 30, 2012
Messages
7,045
Location
Elevator Of Love
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I remember trying Wasteland 2 after release. Suddenly the graphic card started to work like I was trying to play Crysis on Ultra settings. The room was filling with hot air, and it was the most immersive post apocalyptic experience I've ever had while moving through the desert.
 
Last edited:

Scroo

Female Quota Staff
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2010
Messages
1,865,340
Location
Too far away from the sea
Codex 2014 Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Every unity game heats my cpu up like an oven, even if it's just some stupid idle game so I dunno I came to the conclusion that unity is p shit all by myself :D
Weren't you the one praising Ori and the Blind Forest? ;)

Yeah but I couldnt finish it due to cpu heating up like in every unity game ever made
 

bylam

Funcom
Developer
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
707
Ark: Survival Evolved, Squad, Hatred, Daylight are all well known for horrible performance, bad netcode, and awful loadtimes.
Ark is flagship game for UE, Squad is a midrange title, Hatred is indie and Daylight is, speaking charitably, a launch title. A broad range of games, all with the same problems - and they're all built on the Unreal Engine.
Guess it must be the engine's fault.

Unreal has its own set of problems.
But Unity doesn't give you source without a big payout, AFAIK.
With a decent set of coders you can fix Unreal's idiosyncrasies, but without source access you are probably stuck with the problems built into Unity.

That is the biggest problem that Unity has IMO.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom