Behind the pretty frames: Resident evil | Hacker News Reader

Behind the pretty frames: Resident evil

mamoniem.com

108 pointsnbaksalyar13 comments

Warning that this is an, all told, 1GB page (on desktop): https://i.imgur.com/HbMMuzt.png

To the author, I highly recommend using WEBP everywhere[0], and never directly using the `full` image size[1]. The GIFs are also killing you, equivalent OGV/MP4 would be tiny. ...It also looks like the site is suffering from a bad WP Super Cache (TTFB of >30s).

[0] Lossless reduces by 20%. 99 quality reduces size >60% https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/06/07/wordpress-5-8-add...

[1] All other sizes get compressed. Use `add_image_size()` to create a bigger size if needed, and the filter `wp_editor_set_quality` fine tunes compression. (Be sure to regenerate thumbnails)

Curious, how did you notice? Did it load slowly and you decided to check?

Funny how well modern phones handle that sort of page.

TTFB was brutal so I popped the hood :) did web perf full time for years so my ears perk up easily

I think a lot of gamers would be much more humble if they read a couple of these articles from start to finish.

I'm always embarrassed to be a gamer myself when I read comments like "this looks like [insert old hardware] graphics!" from people who are not only always exaggerating, but also totally oblivious to the amount work that went into whatever they are criticising.

I take such dismissive comments as a sign of youth. Who hasn't talked shit in their teens/early 20s? I honestly believe not many males can say they haven't done so.

If a 30, let alone 40+ person does so, then you are most likely dealing with an idiot. Thankfully most forums allow ignoring other members

There was a whole fiasco right now on the Halo: Infinite subreddit because someone downloaded Wireshark and started inspecting traffic and realized that each match uses 300mb. It's interesting that gaming invites non-technical people to comment on what is arguably the hardest type of development ever.

However a day later someone started inspecting more parts of the game and they figured out that the game transfers 1 GB of data very often, so I guess there's work to be done there. Nonetheless, the comments I see on subreddits from people who play video games is truly baffling.

I guess you'll have to forgive my ignorance. Without some sort of rational explanation, I'm baffled that a single match would require 300MB of data transfer, as well as the fact that the game apparently moves 1GB around "very often."

People have already dug deeper and found out that it wasn't the match itself, it was downloaded after the match. Looks like a bug with them fully refetching all store skins and models every time the user lands into the main menu after a match.

Also the GTA online loading times fiasco, in case there's somebody on HN who haven't seen it already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31681515

> amount work that went into whatever they are criticising

most criticism is usually about the games content, not the graphics. Unless we read very different reviews, I guess.

Great article. As an aside, the unshaded "color" GBuffer channel [1] makes me want a game that's fully lit like that.

The original Resident Evil game for PS1 was (because of technical limitations back then) comparatively brightly lit, and it lent the game a weird atmosphere — you have the normalcy of the house, but intruded upon by the supernatural. It's scary in a different way than the newer games, which are darkly lit and rely on jump scares.

The only recent game that comes to mind is Control, and only certain parts of it.

There are a few movies that are lit more naturalistically — The Shining and Day of the Dead come to mind — and I love the effect.

[1] https://mamoniem.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/re_gbuffer_d...

These are great technical articles, really amazing level of detail + clarity. I wish the author editorialized a little more, and judged/explained how optimized the game is. His Elden Ring article explained why the game had microstutter and low fps (from memory, it was redrawing some frame buffers too often and didn't have low poly models for distant objects), but it was buried halfway through a textbook's worth of information.

Huge high quality work, thanks for that!

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