Why does a computer run a game poorly, but is able to show a video of it perfectly fine
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You know how long it took Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? 4 years. You know how long it took me to take a picture of it with my phone?
That’s the difference. Computer graphics means a computer has to take the numbers that describe the virtual world (positions of all the characters and objects, their textures, lighting, etc.) and translate them to a picture on your screen. And then it has to do it again for the next frame, and again, and again. That takes a lot of computation, and your computer has to do it in real time, because it (mostly) doesn’t know ahead of time what the game world will be like. If your computer can’t do this fast enough (let’s say at least 30 times per second), then the game becomes unplayable. Not only do the images start to look stuttery rather than a smooth video, but also there starts to be a lag between when you give an input to the game and seeing the result of that input.
A video of the same game has been rendered ahead of time. Some computer has already done the job of taking the game data and making it into pictures. So all your device now has to do is show these picture on the screen, and that’s a much easier process.
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