![]() ![]() We equipped our QA team with a wide range of PCs, using multiple combination of CPUs, GPUs, RAM, hard drives, and monitors to test the game. During the pre-production phase we created benchmark assets and levels to set the quality bar but also to explore existing and novel techniques to optimize the content across all specifications. We have integrated many improvements and optimizations from the Gears 5 engine such as temporal upsampling to help us get a crisper image on notebooks at sub-1080p resolutions.įrom gameplay to cinematics, our technical art team worked closely with each art discipline to author content with scalability in mind. Modern notebooks have high resolution displays but fairly slow GPUs in comparison, so having an integrated graphic chip as one of our primary targets caused us to constantly optimize our gameplay critical systems and content. We held ourselves accountable with monthly milestones to reach our performance targets for each spec. Whilst game consoles generally have a fixed hardware throughout their lifecycle, making performance profiling relatively easy, the same cannot be said about a PC game that has to account for a plethora of components and varied conditions on the players machine.įor Gears Tactics, the gap in processing power between our targeted minimum and recommended specifications was too large to consider focusing our effort on a single specification, instead we opted to focus our efforts on three main specs that would run the game with our low, medium and high quality pre-sets respectively throughout development. Scalability is first and foremost a set of tools that empowers developers to author content with different hardware limitations in mind, allowing them to make sound decisions when trade-offs have to be made. From a game design perspective, they must enjoy the experience under the exact same conditions as their counterparts playing on high-end rigs.Īs part of our wider content creation pipeline, we defined different “tiers” of importance, clearly separating the cosmetic aspects from the game content that was critical to the user experience. Gameplay critical items such as the HUD, diegetic UI, geometry occlusion or fog of war were under extra scrutiny for their run-time cost as these elements could not be compromised on low specifications - players should not be penalized by the hardware they’re playing on. “Optimization first, scalability second” was our motto throughout the development of the game. These are the minimum, recommended (including laptop), and ideal specifications we shipped the game for:įrom integrated graphics chips to 4K capable machines The hardware targets were set early in development and held all the way through to the end. ![]() The teams at The Coalition and Splash Damage were determined to achieve this, focusing on performance from the prototyping phase all the way through to the final bug fixes. Changing the art style or lowering quality was not an option – Gears Tactics had to live up to series expectations and deliver a gorgeous looking campaign on high-end hardware while also running smoothly on laptops and lower-end devices to help bring the franchise to a broader audience of PC gamers. The Gears franchise has always been a graphical showcase for Microsoft’s first-party line-up and the franchise upholds very high standards, Gears Tactics would be no exception. Ultimately, this meant optimizing the game for low end specifications such as integrated graphics chips on notebooks or desktop PCs using decade-old components. Broaden the audienceįrom the very beginning, one of our primary goals was to reach a much wider audience on the PC. As a PC-first game, this was a fantastic opportunity for us to expand the franchise and reach an even greater number of players, therefore we did not want hardware to be a barrier for entry. This new installment in the franchise takes players in an immersive character-driven story in which your squad must outsmart the Locust Horde in brutal turn-based tactical combat. In Gears Tactics, you step into the boots of Sergeant Gabriel Diaz as he recruits, equips and commands his squad on a desperate mission to hunt down the relentless and powerful leader of the Locust army: Ukkon. Gears Tactics is a fast-paced, turn-based strategy game set in the universe of one of gaming’s most-acclaimed franchises - Gears of War. ![]() ![]() This edition, which offers an in-depth look at how Gears Tactics was optimized for a variery of PC hardware to remove the barrier for entry, was penned by Splash Damage technical art director Raouf Bejaoui and The Coalition technical director Cam McRae. Earlier installments cover topics such as building an adaptive tech tree in Dawn of Man, achieving seamless branching in Watch Dogs 2’s Invasion of Privacy missions, and creating the intricate level design of Dishonored 2's Clockwork Mansion. ![]()
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