How can a videogame be in development for 5+ years, but have up to date graphics when it releases?
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Part of it, at least for AAA studios is that they are working with the console makers/GPU makers and also able to forecast where performance will be at that time.
If it’s just pushing more polys, then they’ll have a pretty good sense in that last year or so and scale assets accordingly. For something like ray tracing which is more of a discrete feature, they’re usually working with the GPU vendors with pre-release hardware so they have something in-studio they can work directly with that will have roughly the performance that consumers will see 1-2 years down the road.
This is how it works with the consoles. The hardware is already designed about 2 years before release, so they know the performance levels. They can then tell the studios exactly what that performance level will be. They’ll have a comparable hardware rig they’ll set studios up with – a $4K gaming PC that is comparable to the $400 console they expect to release later.
This is also done outside of gaming. The first iPhone apps were developed on something that might have [looked something like this](https://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Oriignal-iPhone-prototype-logic-board-001.jpg). This one is for testing hardware but an early test platform for the software would have looked somewhat similar, though without revealing what the iPhone would look like (the hardware and software guys were largely isolated, so even inside Apple not many people knew what the whole package might be). Outside developers would be able to come in, sign away every legal right they have, and do some development/testing on something like that.
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