Eli5: How can a game such as Horizon Forbidden West look and run as beautiful and smooth as it does, when comparatively uglier games such as Star Citizen run terribly?

Question

I’d like to be able to understand how the aforementioned example looks like so ahead of the curve graphically while also running really well. It has very taxing visuals that I can identify, such as dense foliage, detailed physics and animations, and incredible lighting. It doesn’t seem to compromise in ways that other games such as Star Citizen do, and yet I get way better performance out of it too.

In: Technology

Answer 1

“Performance” is the end product of *numerous* techniques, rendering decisions, and chances for optimization all coming together. There is of course a ceiling for what performance can benefit from good choices in these areas of course–detail, textures, lighting, physics, and so on will never be free, nor cheap resource-wise for modern games, no matter how well you optimize. But, some people/teams make better use of what they have to work with, or find ways to cut corners in unnoticable (or less noticable) areas to improve performance. Or, maybe they don’t have time during production and prioritize getting everything to work and all the content in, and end up with some bugs or poorer performance in some areas as a consequence. 

Additionally, maybe some features or techniques that you might not consider are actually really intensive, while others aren’t, game to game. Reflective surfaces and dynamic lighting for example can be awful, while distant object rendering can sometimes be short-cut in ways that look much more resource heavy than they are.