why do particle effects often keep going in the background when you pause a game while everything else is frozen in place?

Question

why do particle effects often keep going in the background when you pause a game while everything else is frozen in place?

In: 315

Answer 1

Pausing a game isn’t a kind of universal constant, it is whatever the developer codes to happen when you hit pause.

What that means is they might stop absolutely all actions, or they might just limit some game system time from advancing. Often things like graphical updates continue, especially if it is a game like a RTS or RPG that allows interaction with the game while paused.