The recent The Last of Us for PC made me realize I had no idea what’s meant by “optimizing” a game.
Same with optifine in Minecraft improving performance. How do these things work to just make games use fewer resources?
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“Optimisation” is a blanket term that encompasses a wide array of techniques and practises whose aim is to make code as efficient as possible, or in other words, requiring the least amount of resources from a system (processing power, memory etc) while producing the same result. The main reason this is desirable is because it enables developers to either make the most out of a given system (i.e. a gaming console with fixed specs) or because it enables a PC game to reach a wider audience if it has low system requirements.
There’s many methods this is achieved through. The basic form of optimising code is much like simplification in math. Lines of code can be simplified and made shorter which in turn reduces the amount of data. Code can also be made more efficient in the way it utilises the system resources. Data can be compressed, clever ways of loading and unloading can be utilised, unecessary processes can be deleted etc.
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