What makes a game "unoptimized"

[DrPepper]

Recently I've heard alot of games being branded as unoptimised but I was wondering is there any reason behind it. Many people say crysis is unoptimised because even today it can't be run at completely full settings at 60fps.

I'd like to compile a list of genuinely unoptimised games that no matter what setting you have it on you don't get half decent frames per second. I'm meaning truly broken games that just crash, terrible frames per second no matter what kind of hardware you have.

So tell me games you think are unoptimised and I'l see if I can test them. In fact we can all test them together and compile the results to find games that are fecked.

I'd like to start with GTAIV. I will post the results of the ingame benchmark to see if the game is unoptimised.

Broken games
Empire Total War - Several patches later and still has random crashes
Fallout 3 - Suffers audio crashes
STALKER - Crashes. Resolved through patches.
Lock On Modern Air Combat - Crashes, Low FPS no matter what settings.
Resisent Evil 4 - No official mouse support, Low FPS, No settings, Problems with fullscreen.
Neverwinter Nights 2 - Very buggy, Improved with patches but not quite done, Performance issues.
ArmA - Crashes alot due to incompatibilities and some other random shit I couldn't begin to fathom
Sims 2 - Multiple patches later and there are still bugs, performance issue's with everything.
Sim City 4 - Game runs badly on hardware mode despite advanced gpu's. Performance issues.
Battlefield 2 - Do I need to say anything ... It crashes alot <- big understatement <- very big understatement

 

[ShadowFold]

GTAIV and Crysis are about the only games I can't max*. Everquest 2 is one of the worst but it's playable with a really good CPU.

*Max for me is 1920x1080, all settings highest, AA isn't really needed but I like it.

 

[DrPepper]

GTAIV and Crysis are about the only games I can't max*. Everquest 2 is one of the worst but it's playable with a really good CPU.

*Max for me is 1920x1080, all settings highest, AA isn't really needed but I like it.

Usually I don't AA at 1920 x 1080 only if I have spare fps. Really though I was reading through forums and kept seeing cryostasis was unoptimised and I figured if we could get a list of games that are genuinely broken we'd be able to see if there was anyway to fix them. Most people on the internet don't know their system well so thats another reason why I made this thread.

 

[Darknova]

Fallout 3. It's audio engine is a nightmare. 99% of all crashes are audio related. You have to piss around with codecs, exclusions etc. etc. etc.

I love the game, but it crashes so much...

What makes a game "unoptimized" is a game that has massive amounts of problems on a wide variety of hardware. IE memory leaks, audio problems, graphical issues across the board.

 

[KainXS]

GTAIV and Crysis are about the only games I can't max*. Everquest 2 is one of the worst but it's playable with a really good CPU.

*Max for me is 1920x1080, all settings highest, AA isn't really needed but I like it.

did you try cryostasis yet, that game brings my GTX' 260s to their knees and bitchslaps em

 

[DrPepper]

Fallout 3. It's audio engine is a nightmare. 99% of all crashes are audio related. You have to piss around with codecs, exclusions etc. etc. etc.

I love the game, but it crashes so much...

What makes a game "unoptimized" is a game that has massive amounts of problems on a wide variety of hardware. IE memory leaks, audio problems, graphical issues across the board.

I should have mentioned that crashes etc cound as unoptimised. I'd stop calling it optimised and say it was broke. For example Empire total war one of my favourite games ever is truly fecked. Crashes all the time for no reason.

 

[ShadowFold]

Yes Cryostasis is a pitiful POS. I can't get above 25FPS with everything on low at 1680x1050.

 

[DrPepper]

Yes Cryostasis is a pitiful POS. I can't get above 25FPS with everything on low at 1680x1050.

What if our graphics cards aren't capable of playing it maxed out.

 

[RadeonX2]

I agree on Cryostasis as a unoptimized game I've finished the game with struggle because of low FPS it dips below 20 to 10 FPS. The game isn't GFX intensive put Cryostasis in your #1 list.

Also Saints Row 2, even with the new patch released the game still runs sh1t :shadedshu

 

[DrPepper]

Is there anyway to benchmark it ? I'm not going to put games on without evidence.

 

[RadeonX2]

no benchmark on Cryostasis but I can assure you it's worse than Saints Row 2.

 

[DrPepper]

no benchmark on Cryostasis but I can assure you it's worse than Saints Row 2.

Okay well I'l try get a hold of cryostasis. I can't find saints row 2 anywhere but I'l try.

 

[ShadowFold]

Saints Row 2 runs WAYY Better than Cryostasis
I get 50+ FPS on SR2

 

[RadeonX2]

Have anyone tried Necrovision? well its far better than Cryostasis Im just getting low FPS when shooting or being covered with enemies.

Saints Row 2 runs WAYY Better than Cryostasis
I get 50+ FPS on SR2

no stutter or hdd load? it runs 20-30 FPS with blur off on mine.

 

[Zehnsucht]

Guitar Hero 3 on PC. It works fine for me, but look at the recommended reqs:

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
* Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHZ or AMD Athlon Dual Core 4400+
* Video Card (ATI): Radeon HD 2600
* Video Card (Nvidia): Geforce 8800 GT
* 2 GB RAM

 

[DrPepper]

Guitar Hero 3 on PC. It works fine for me, but look at the recommended reqs:

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
* Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHZ or AMD Athlon Dual Core 4400+
* Video Card (ATI): Radeon HD 2600
* Video Card (Nvidia): Geforce 8800 GT
* 2 GB RAM

For a simple guitar game there is a lot of physics and crap involved in the background. Plus the models and their hair are quite hard to render apparently.

 

[Mussels]

i'll give some examples.

Crysis: unoptimised because it takes a massive amount of hardware power to run the game smoothly. Even systems that CAN run it, often have trouble (excessive lag in the final level, or on snow levels). An optimised game doesnt have level design that doesnt play well with its own engine!

Supreme commander: The game itself is great, and runs on weak systems... but the AI is not. Even on my PC, running a large game with 2 AI's results in a massive reduction in game speed. Single core (and low end dual cores) basically cant play with AI's because the game slows down too much (This is NOT to be confused with FPS)

Optimised games:
Left 4 dead. High end machines can max it out for great graphics, without any issue. Low end machines can simply turn settings down and have it run great too.

Unreal tournament games: as they each come out they take a beast to run on max, but they always worked well on older machines with settings turned down (and had a LOT of options to let you choose what to turn down)

summary: optimised games are ones that smoothly scale from weak PC's to fast ones. On weak machines it may look poor, but at least it RUNS good - while powerful machines can at least crank it up.

Crysis is a perfect example of failing there, because beast or netbox, its going to lag on you at certain stages of the game no matter what you do.

 

[RadeonX2]

Guitar Hero 3 on PC. It works fine for me, but look at the recommended reqs:

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
* Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHZ or AMD Athlon Dual Core 4400+
* Video Card (ATI): Radeon HD 2600
* Video Card (Nvidia): Geforce 8800 GT
* 2 GB RAM

put my videocard into your rig let's see if it works fine

 

[DrPepper]

@mussels

With crysis though I think its a misconception between a high standard of graphics and playability. The game itself isn't broken but takes a couple GTX260's run at highest settings.

Assume for a moment an 8800GT is low end graphics. It can play it quite well at high 1680 x 1050 and all the way upto the top of the range gtx295 can play it max res at very high.

 

[v12dock]

Need for speed undercover runs terrible, the patch helped a little though.
But Trackmania Nations runs amazing for how good it looks, and the biggest advantage is that it is free!

 

[Mussels]

@mussels

With crysis though I think its a misconception between a high standard of graphics and playability. The game itself isn't broken but takes a couple GTX260's run at highest settings.

Assume for a moment an 8800GT is low end graphics. It can play it quite well at high 1680 x 1050 and all the way upto the top of the range gtx295 can play it max res at very high.

8800GT is still on the upper side of "mid range"

I've played the game on an 8600GT, 8800GTX, 4870 1GB and 4870 crossfire... and i can say this: the game takes a ridiculous shitload more power, for very little increase in visible quality.

 

[silkstone]

I don't understand why everyone bitches about crysis. I played the game using a E2180 + 8500GT medium/high settings 1440x900 no problems whatsoever. Only reason i can see someone not being able to run crysis is if they have a sub 2ghz processor and/or sub 7500GT

 

[DrPepper]

8800GT is still on the upper side of "mid range"

I've played the game on an 8600GT, 8800GTX, 4870 1GB and 4870 crossfire... and i can say this: the game takes a ridiculous shitload more power, for very little increase in visible quality.

I said assume. It will be low range next series. I feel crysis played very well even on low end systems. I've completed it on a 3450 before all on low but hey thats what you get for a £20 card.

The point of this thread is to identify broken games that crash alot, lag no matter what the settings etc.

 

[RadeonX2]

Need for speed undercover runs terrible, the patch helped a little though.
But Trackmania Nations runs amazing for how good it looks, and the biggest advantage is that it is free!

NFS UC runs great on my rig with the patch installed. I guess the patch did really help my stutter and slowdowns without the patch the car handling and stutter is a nightmare.

I think COD4 is currently the best looking and highly optimized FPS game as of date. Any1 agree?

 

[MilkyWay]

my definition of unoptimised, if it is multiformat and it runs great on consoles but shit on pc its unoptimised
a type of classic example is resident evil 4
if its graphics are similar to other games but runs really bad compared to the other games its unoptimised

if for example its empire total war and it lags bad for no reason
if its gta 4 and the draw distance is killer
if its saints row 2 and at settings that look similar to the console it runs shit

crysis isnt unoptimised its just demanding looking at the detail no wonder you take a hit! nothing else is close to it in terms of graphics

sometimes a simple patch or update can solve issues

games full of bugs are unoptimised