Edit: Really enjoy threads like this, because you learn and see so many Pov.
My favourite answer (not in this thread unfortunately) was:
*”If you write a story, the number of words you use can affect the reader’s experience.*
*Use too many words, and the reader takes a long time to get through the book, has difficulty remembering everything, and can’t separate what’s important and what’s not.*
*But use too few words and the reader will get an incomplete picture, make mistakes in understanding the story, and eventually become disinvested in the book.*
*A poorly optimized game is like one of these examples. Either too much goes in, making it difficult for the hardware to cope, or not enough goes in, making the game buggy and broken. (Sometimes both, but that’s beyond ELI5).*
*When it comes to optimising a reader’s experience, it is not about putting more or less words in but choosing the right combination of the right words at the correct time in the plot. Optimising a game is similar concept.*
*Most importantly, no matter how well you write a book, there are always people who will think it could’ve been written better, especially by them. “*
In: 404
Another example.
Minecraft looks at the terrain and for visual purposes tries to never look up things behind other things. Steve? can’t see through walls, the graphics engen doesn’t need it’s time wasted knowing things are there.
Minecraft items, if you drop a million torches in one spot they become one item and the game engine doesn’t have to keep track of every one.
(I don’t know that it’s currently done this way just that it was)
Counterexample, multiplayer doom, when it first came out each bullet was a network packet. So you and your 6 friends with miniguns kick down the door and find 2-3 spider things with two miniguns each. I don’t remember the exact math but it’s lots of packets, your network has been pounded to a crawl and if it belongs to someone else they are looking for you.
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