We’re in one other grim interval for poorly optimised PC video games, with the final couple of years bringing us a string of power-hungry digital slideshows similar to 2023’s Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and, extra not too long ago, Borderlands 4. Corpos like Randy Pitchford assume we must always cease moaning and fork out for a greater PC, as enjoying the best-looking video games merely calls for a rig able to lighting a small city.
However maybe there’s one other approach, one the place good design and technical ingenuity can take away a number of the sting from system necessities. In a roundabout approach, this was not too long ago demonstrated by modder, YouTuber, and mapper Goonya’s Animations, who took a map he was making for Half-Life 2 and in some way made it run in Half-Life 1’s GoldSrc engine with minimal visible distinction.
In a video titled “That is GoldSrc”, Goonya confirmed off the map in motion. The video begins with a run-through of the Half-Life 2 model of the map, which is halfway by way of growth. Its handful of corridors features a room full of pc terminals and faux-digital shows, and tiled flooring with fetching phong-shaded reflections.
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In descriptive captions working by way of the video, Goonya notes that he “used [Half-Life 2’s] customary property to bake lighting onto a single prop in Blender” whereas the map makes use of “two 2048×2048 DXT1 unlit textures with an total file dimension of 4mb.”
Then, the video transitions to the identical map rendered in GoldSrc. You’ll be able to inform it is Half-Life because of the lower-poly crowbar held by the participant character. There are a few different variations, too. There isn’t any phong shading on the flooring, and the display screen readouts are all static, whereas they’re animated within the Half-Life 2 model. Goonya additionally notes that, “because of GoldSrc limitations, all of [the] 2K atlases had been cut up into a number of 512×512 textures.”
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Other than that, although, the map seems to be nearly similar. It retains the identical moody lighting and shadowing seen within the Half-Life 2 map and the identical mannequin element on objects like all these pretty, bumpy pc terminals. But whereas the glow-up is spectacular, getting Half-Life to run on a contemporary machine is not precisely troublesome, even with all of the bells and whistles Goonya added.
However Goonya is one step forward of us, working a efficiency take a look at for the map on a Pentium 4 laptop computer from 2002. Utilizing “one of many oldest Half-Life builds which runs on Home windows XP, Goonya reveals his stage working between 30 and 60 fps on a machine that may have been considerably outdated when Half-Life 2 launched.
The response to Goonya’s video holds it up as a victory over technically unwieldy trendy video games “The truth that these graphics run so nicely on such an outdated and dangerous pc actually reveals that trendy video games want higher optimisation,” writes YouTube consumer DotMeister within the feedback. A number of replies fairly level out that trendy video games are rather more visually advanced than Valve’s basic shooters. ” Half-Life 2 and the unique Half-Life are doing nowhere close to that beneath the floor,” statejic1020 factors out.
Nonetheless, the video does spotlight the efficiency/constancy advantages that conventional lighting techniques can nonetheless present over all-purpose options like ray tracing. And that is extra related to trendy video games than you would possibly assume. For Battlefield 6, EA opted to not use ray tracing or mandate DLSS for good baseline efficiency, as a substitute specializing in making the best-looking sport that was, within the phrases of technical director Christian Buhl, “performant with out plenty of further stuff”.
The outcome is without doubt one of the slickest PC gaming experiences I’ve had in ages, working like butter down a cheetah’s leg on my historic 2080 Tremendous. And you understand what? I did not miss ray tracing in any respect. Goonya’s video served as a reminder that video games have appeared nice for a very long time now, and builders must be extra aware about whether or not pushing for marginal further features is well worth the efficiency (and in lots of circumstances, monetary and human) price.
