how do game developers create games with graphics so intense that not even the latest tech can achieve those graphics? (Like even the rtx 3090 struggling with CP2077)
In: Technology
Pretend I am the game, and pretend you are the GPU*. My job as the game is to describe to you how I want you to draw a picture.
When the game’s graphics settings are “low”, I show you a map of a 3D world, and I tell you where the camera is and where it’s pointing, and I tell you there are 40 trees and rocks in the world, and where they are, and I tell you each tree has 10 branches and 50 leaves on it, and I tell you where those are, and I give you three photos of tree trunks and 20 photos of leaves to help you draw them. You draw all of this in 1/30th of a second. Since you can draw that quickly, you can do it 30 times in 1 second, so your game can run at 30 frames per second (fps).
When the game’s graphics settings are “high”, I do all that, but I tell you about a lot of little indentations and flaws on every tree and rock you have to draw, and I tell you each tree has 500 more branches and where to draw each one of them, and 1000 more leaves, and I give you 300 more photos of leaves and tell you where to draw them. I also tell you I want you to do math to figure out how much the sun is lighting up every part of every tree and rock, and then to figure out how much the light reflected from those parts lights up other parts, and draw all the light correctly; and I tell you there are 50,000 dust motes in the air, but instead of telling you where they are, I tell you where they were a long time ago and I give you math formulas to figure out where they are now. And I tell you that you have to do math to figure out where all the shadows are from the sun, but also the shadows from reflected light from other trees and rocks, and I make you draw it all. This takes a lot longer to figure out and draw. If it takes you 1/4th of a second to draw all that, you can draw at 4 fps, and you say “screw this” and switch to low graphics like an FPS gamer does.
However great graphics cards become, it will always be possible for games to bring them to their knees by demanding more and more detail and visual effects in every frame.
*Actually you are a combination of DirectX, your card’s graphics drivers, and the GPU, but I wanted to be simpler.
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