Chapter 46: Turbocharged Optimization

"Chen Ba, are you coming to the vocational school reunion the day after tomorrow? We haven’t seen each other in a long time!"

"Next time for sure..."

Looking at the WeChat message from his high school classmate, Chen Ba shook his head and typed a refusal decisively.

What kind of vocational school reunion happens every day?

Really, don’t mess with that. It’s better to call him for a postgraduate reunion, but he won’t join the vocational school gathering this time.

They say it’s a vocational school reunion, but it’s actually just a joke. It’s about our old high school classmates taking advantage of the New Year to find a place to get together.

This has become a tradition.

Every year at the end of December, someone initiates an invitation, asking returning classmates to join a small gathering, eat, drink, and catch up with old friends.

Chen Ba also attended in the previous two years and must admit that this group of classmates has decent character, unlike the snobby and mean supporting roles in online novels. The atmosphere is quite harmonious.

No matter how well or poorly they’ve done outside, the conversations are always about the fun and embarrassing stories from high school, sharing the cost to keep it under two hundred per person, with no one rushing to pay to show off, just having a good time...

Unfortunately, because of the new game "Star Emperor" development work, he couldn’t go back for the vocational school reunion this year.

Yang Dong didn’t go home either.

Tianba Studio has been on holiday since two days ago, and everyone went their separate ways, not returning until the eighth day of the New Year.

Chen Ba couldn’t go back partly because the outsourced art resources for "Star Emperor" needed someone to handle.

On the other hand.

The studio’s two older games are participating in the Steam Platform’s Lunar New Year Sale, which requires monitoring the backend to resolve any issues promptly.

The reason Yang Dong didn’t go home for the New Year is simple: he’s afraid of being pressured into marriage...

Yang Dong stayed in Jiangning because of his ex-girlfriend, but his parents don’t know about this. The old couple thinks simply: since he’s broken up, they should just push him to find another one!

"Instead of going home to be pressured into marriage, which is both annoying and hard to refuse, I’d rather stay in Jiangning with you under the guise of being busy with work for the New Year."

"You’re really something!"

Chen Ba was speechless, though he spoke well, this guy definitely thought there was nowhere to go for the New Year, so why not come to him to mooch food and drink.

It must be like this!

What do you mean lonely? How is he lonely? He clearly had plans to go to Wang Kun’s place for New Year’s Eve dinner, and now...

Hopefully, uncle and aunt don’t mind an extra pair of chopsticks!

The New Year is lively, especially around the Jiangning Food Court, where you can see various folk acrobatic performances almost every day.

However, the outside excitement has nothing to do with the two left in the studio.

The 15-day Steam Platform Lunar New Year Sale kicked off, with tens of thousands of new and old games offering discounts, bringing New Year greetings to players.

Among them, Tianba Studio’s two games are also on sale at the lowest prices ever.

There’s even a bundle option!

Under the temptation of the lowest prices ever, both games saw an increase in sales, with daily downloads nearly tripling.

The good news is the studio made money.

The bad news is the new game’s development has come to a halt due to the holiday.

Chen Ba and Yang Dong couldn’t do much else, so they just ate and drank at the studio, quietly waiting for everyone else to return.

Out of boredom, Chen Ba went on Dream Building Forum every day, checking out other people’s shared insights on developing with the Dream Building 5 Engine and game optimization.

The focus was on visual effects!

"Star Emperor" is a game with incredibly outstanding visual effects, which is one of the core selling points of the game.

Because the visual effects are so great and skills in the fighting game are used frequently, optimizing it became a tricky issue.

In standard mode, Chen Ba and Yang Dong already tested it, and there were basically no issues. The game maintained a steady frame rate without lowering the resolution.

But "Extreme Sublimation" mode didn’t work out.

Once entering Extreme Sublimation mode, the game’s frame rate would take a nosedive, turning slightly weaker graphics cards into a PowerPoint presentation.

Smoothness is crucial!

Especially for a fighting game, what’s the game experience if it turns into a PowerPoint presentation? You might as well not play!

To ensure players don’t face sudden frame drops, Chen Ba kept working hard on optimization.

But unfortunately...

Optimizing such complex scenes isn’t something he could tackle alone.

The others didn’t have better suggestions either, besides lowering resolution, the problem seemed unsolvable.

"The problem is, even if you lower the game’s resolution to the minimum, Extreme Sublimation will still drop frames..."

To resolve the fighting frame drop issue, Chen Ba used the system’s built-in optimization tools.

The system truly deserves its reputation!

After the system’s "miraculous" optimization, the situation improved significantly. Even at ultra-high resolution with Extreme Sublimation mode on, maxing out the graphics wouldn’t cause severe frame drops.

The frame rate might drop from 100 to 80, but never from 100 to 20, which is a huge leap!

With this miraculous optimization, "Star Emperor" instantly elevated its gaming experience to a new level.

Worried it was just a fluke, Chen Ba also dragged Yang Dong into multiple rounds of testing.

Eventually concluding.

This optimization really works well, no matter the situation, the frame rate stays locked at 60.

frames is sufficient!

Many players’ computers don’t even have high configurations. Under normal circumstances, they might not even reach 20 frames; optimizing to a stable 60 frames is practically black magic.

How did Ba manage this?

Yang Dong was shocked and wanted to know the optimization logic behind it, but no matter how he asked, the answer was always "commercial secret."

Okay, okay, commercial secrets, got it.

Even though it’s unclear why the game’s optimization reached this level, in any case, it’s definitely a good thing.

Originally, Yang Dong’s biggest concern with the "Star Emperor" project was that it was too demanding on configurations, potentially excluding countless players.

This isn’t baseless worry.

Anyone with a discerning eye knows that Ba’s idea is good, but most games focusing on high graphics end up with poor sales due to high recommended configurations.

Take an example.

Two games of the same quality, one enjoyable on a low-end graphics card and the other requiring a high-end card to run smoothly. Which one will have more players?

Ignoring other factors, the game with better optimization, lower recommended configurations, and a low entry-level barrier will definitely have more players.

"Star Emperor’s" concept isn’t breathtaking and implementing it isn’t hard; it’s just an alternative fighting game focusing on visuals and effects.

But the reason no one did it before is the difficulty in optimization.

If perfect optimization can be achieved, allowing every player to play smoothly and enjoyably, then no one would reject a game like "Star Emperor."

"Exactly!"

Chen Ba nodded: "Our game’s recommended configuration threshold will be low. Computers from four or five years ago should be able to run it."

Though they might have to use simple graphics, lowering all effects and textures to the minimum... But you have to admit 60 frames counts as smooth, right?

This is a stable 60 frames, not the fluctuating, inconsistent average of 60 frames.

The gaming experience can already rival that of consoles.

In terms of just visual perception, this stable 60 frames could even appear smoother than a fluctuating 120 frames.

Of course!

No matter how godlike the optimization is, it can’t break the shackles of hardware performance, so Chen Ba is talking about mainstream computer configurations from four or five years ago.

If it doesn’t meet this standard and the hardware is even older, there’s nothing that can be done; even miraculous optimization won’t help.

No hope left, better get a new computer!