I’ve always knew that consoles game ran better due to optimisation, but I don’t exactly understand what that entails. When a game is too difficult for my pc to run, I would just remove stuff, even stuff the devs don’t let me normally remove. But Devs can get a hardware do way more without sacrificing graphical fidelity.
God of war comes to mind. The ps4 has a gpu equivalent to a 750ti. Yet it looks far better than my 1050ti, especially since the 1050ti system can only stay 30fps after applying fsr. So, how do they do that? How come the codes that is used to optimised for PlayStation, doesn’t get carried over for my 1050ti, even though console uses x86 SoCs now.
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There are so, SO many reasons to why, I will try to explain some of which I know.
1) OS: computer OS’s (Windows in particular) have to run many stuff in the background. Just a fraction of it is used to run the actual game. The rest is to keep other backgroud programs running, hidden updates, controlling peripherals… Consoles have none of these, 95% of their architecture is dedicated to run the game while it’s open. It’s like carrying one large box, or one large box and several smaller ones, everything in one go.
2) dedicated architecture: although Windows have DirectX and other stuff to run games, these are made to “transform” something not originally made to run games into something more competent at that. You can move boxes from one side to another, and using a wheelbarrow will surely help, but you will never beat the efficiency of someone that works in a warehouse.
3) uniformity: every single PS5 is exactly the same. Same specs, performance, capacity, power consumption, even the same peripherals. If I’m developing a game, I just need a PS5 development kit, and that’s it. If I test the game in my unit, the result will be exactly the same in your PS5.
PC, on the other hand, that’s not the case: my PC has 16GB RAM while yours may have 8 and your friend 32, I have to make a game that can take the best of your friend’s PC but still run in yours. My CPU is a Ryzen 5 while yours is an i3 4th generation and your friend’s an i9 11th generation, wildly different architecture. I can have an SSD but you don’t. I can use a controller and you don’t (even that, which controller? How many buttons it has, and how does it connects? Does it have rumble? Or analog buttons?). And don’t even let me start talking about graphics cards.
If I, as a developer, don’t take into consideration even one of these aspects, it means a considerable margin of my customers won’t run my game in a satisfactory level (or even at all).
I can get into the specifics of this point and explain the work arounds the developers do to launch something in the PC ecosystem, if you want.
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