The Problem With Porting Games

WOW...SO MANY THINGS INVOLVED.
I often see people commenting on games being badly ported, I don't personally have anything with "ported" games because I know programmers see their work as their own baby. They would do the best under the constraints.
Kudos for BT to give us an insight on this subject.

keyboard and mouse feel correct, wider camera angle, more detailed graphics, advanced graphics options and performs on an enthusiastic gaming machine.

those are the things i look for in a ported game, if most of which are there: GTA4, then it's a good port.

Halo 2 on the other hand is the worst port ever, wrong camera angle, wrong crosshair location, no more graphical details, no advanced graphics options and doesn't perform very good. don't forget key assignment is messed up.

halo 2 was a real bad port, i had to manually change the layout of my keyboard from AZERTY to QUERTY in the OS itself before i could even walk straigt :d. but i loved good and evil. (only the final battle was kind of stupid i felt)

however it's nice to see articles like this come up now and then, that's why i keep coming here. good job BT

Guitar Hero 3 for pc is a prime example. Basically the xbox360 version with a slightly different controller plug and a very poor emu built in.. lags like hell on even a 4850 :/

It's not about the code, it's not about the graphics. It's not about the controllers. Or camera angles. With time and effort, a Developer will happily modify and update code to make it suitable for any platform. The problem is cost and market. Those in charge of the purse strings do not see that the return is worth the cost of porting properly.

"So, the next time you complain about a PC game being a “port”, think about the reasons why the game isn't quite what you expected."

It's because they want to make some easy cash by extending the market with the smallest possible effort. To suggest that it is because "it's difficult" is insulting to Developers and Designers everywhere. Give a Dev and a Designer time and money and they will make the game suitable to run on a toaster.

whilst i appreciate this article going into depth as much as it has, it mentions nothing of the real problem thats pissing us off.

big colourful fisher price huds, appauling menu systems, ropey level design and so on and so forth

gameplay is the problem here gentlemen, not technicalities.

Rob Lang speaks the truth. The vast majority of developers can achieve the vast majority of technical feats with enough time and effort. The problem is the fact time and effort costs money. The Guitar Hero 3 port was crap because no-one put any real money behind it, simply because chances are, no-one would buy it. That only makes sense.

I understand a lot of what the devs are saying, but if I'm going to be really negative about this I couldn't help get an uneasy feeling reading about Dead Space. So, essentially he's saying "don't blame the consoles for the restrictive PC experience, blame us, we chose to make it restrictive!" Surely saying they designed it explicitly for consoles, so natrually it wouldn't work well on the PC, is the epitome of consolification? If I designed a game that only worked "as intended" on my Nokia 3210, and thus doesn't work well on anything else, claiming no-one can complain because it was originally designed for a phone is not an excuse. It's still just poor design choices.

seems to me a lot of these companies should tajke a leaf out of Capcom's book. the last three ports have been flawless.

the introduction of the 360 controller for windows has made many ports much more playable for me. DMC4 was excellent on the pc but would have felt very wrong on mouse and keyboard.

generally though yeah, ports suck

Hmm, this seems to be pulled straight from Custom PC again, come on guys stop the porting :P

It was written by one of the Custom PC guys, so I'm not surprised. :p

Batman is the best cross platform game I've seen in a while. It looks great on all systems.

There's a stereotype that says that PC games should have a first-person view

Is there? The only games that really need a first person view are first person shooters. If the game is designed correctly, there's nothing wrong with a third person view.

Try telling all the teenage boys from the mid-nineties that Tomb Raider would be better in first person view, without the ability to look at a pixelated arse.

Originally Posted by Bursar
...The only games that really need a first person view are first person shooters. If the game is designed correctly, there's nothing wrong with a third person view...

Wait, what?

I'm pretty sure the difference between first person and third isn't limited to shooting games. The main differences are in the way you interact with the game. First person - you are interacting directly with the game environment; Third person - you interact with the environment through an avatar, usually the game's protagonist.

Trouble is, the extra layer third person adds to the game can distance you from actions and consequences. For example; Mirror's Edge might not have had the same feeling of vertigo if you could see Faith in third person swan diving into the pavement, rather than tasting asphalt yourself.

Third person is okay, but if the engine is up to it and I have a keyboard and mouse, I'd rather have the first person option.

Before i start ranting: good article, very interesting read. ;)

The problem for multi-platform game developers making PC games is that at some point you have to say “stop” when it comes to extra hardware features. You can always add higher-resolution options in the PC game, but you begin to upset the guys in control of the game's budget if you start putting serious man hours into developing graphics features that are only available to a small number of PC gamers, let alone console gamers. “I know people are going to read this and say, god that guy's telling us that we've bought all this hardware for nothing,” says Bozz, “but the reality is that as much as I'd like to support this stuff, I can't do that at the expense of the other 98 per cent of gamers.”

See, now this is exactly the nonsense that pisses me and milions of other PC owners off. You don't hear Ferrari execs saying that they will start making sensible 4-door saloons with 80bhp because 99% of the roads in the world won't even allow you to go over 120km/h.

I have no objection to some studios producing games for mainstream (afterall, we do need Kias and Volkswagens), but the porblem is that nobody is making a Ferrari anymore. The last one was Crysis, released in november 2007. Game developers have the advantage over car manufacturers that they can produce a Ferrari for the same price a Volkswagen would cost, yet they keep being held back by investors that seem to be hellbent on mainstream. If there is nothing at all to be starry-eyed over, the mainstream will lose it's appeal too.

As far as games go, the performance crown is still held by Crysis, which was released almost two years ago. On the hardware front, we were just marvelling at our q9400's and eagerly awaiting the new g92 cards from nVidia at that time, look how far we've progressed! Meanwhile, on the software front nothing has happened to be starry-eyed about.

We want a game that doesn't run again, like Crysis did the first time we subjected our poor socket 939 rigs to it. I don't understand that nobody is doing this at all, and i havent heard of any plans in the pipeline either, which basically means that Crysis will at least be able to celebrate its 30th month on the throne before it is replaced.
The saddest bit of gamenews for me was when i read about CryEngine 3, that isn't built to finally step forwards again, but to be able to run on Xbox and PS3. MAJOR FAIL. :(

[edit]
Direct X 11 is coming. A grand total of 6 (six) games have announced that they will be using it. Only one of these games is PC-exclusive, and that is a BattForge, a game that's been out for a while that will receive a graphical refresh. If I understand the article correctly, this means that all the others are watered-down for consoles. Cheers.

Originally Posted by Xtrafresh
/snip

hes right, and whilst you might not get along with Crysis you have to admit it was the last shining example of the quality of what a pc exclusive game should be.

I got bored of driving a kia and i wanted a lambo. hence i am a PC Gamer.

^^ +1

I'm happy I still have a GT8800 and not SLI GTX295 on high power game rig waiting for ever for those dx11 games that are replaced by some stupid mario part 212 wii console to PC port.

On the other hand i feel the pain of those with the high end game systems eating away power and GPU features that are sleeping since the last 'hi-tech' PC game. But if you read my posts 20 months ago about the uselesnes of Multi GPU rigs you would have known...

Originally Posted by Silver51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bursar
...The only games that really need a first person view are first person shooters. If the game is designed correctly, there's nothing wrong with a third person view...

Wait, what?

I'm pretty sure the difference between first person and third isn't limited to shooting games. The main differences are in the way you interact with the game.

True. But the point isn't 'Oh, it's a PC game, therefore it needs a first person view' which is what the article is suggesting. The point is that the game should determine which view works best. Gears of War is a great game, and the cover system really benefits from the third person view. I doubt it would work as well with a first person view.

And as you say, Mirrors Edge would lose a lot of its appeal if it was moved out of first person and into third person.

Ugh, so at least there was an explanation for the utterly horrible third-person perspective in Dead Space. I bought the game after reading the review and several forum posts hailing it as brilliant, and then I got about ten minutes into the game before quitting and uninstalling it in a fit of frustrated rage! The controls were crap and the perspective was horrible to the point of being nausea inducing. Haven't touched it since I'm afraid, and it's a shame because I did want to play it. As far as I know there is no first-person option in it. Maybe I'll reinstall it some day and give it another go, but I have to say - even though the intro was enthralling, I couldn't bear the controls and perspective.

Third-person in Max Payne worked brilliantly though.

what extrafresh said

even games like diablo 3 and dragon age dont look as if they are going to push any boundaries, and these are supposed to be primarily PC games!

i picked up a GTX280 cheap to replace my 8800GT, and tbh apart from Warhead i've had absolutley no reason to do that. do we have to constantly wait for the console upgrade cycle? looks like it.

thx bit-tech i was waiting for this

Originally Posted by Teq
Hmm, this seems to be pulled straight from Custom PC again, come on guys stop the porting :P

+1 The irony is palpable. CPC articles are to bit-tech as console ports are to PC gamers.

Baranec seems like he can't stop putting his foot into his mouth. His talk about save points was especially enlightening. He doesn't seem to get that the reason people want to be able to save just before a battle is because they've just walked through an easy section of gameplay. Spending 5 minutes walking through the same area every time I die in a particularly difficult area at the end, is frustrating and will make me stop playing the game.

Apart from that the two biggest problems with ports are interfaces and controls. Controls not so much; its usually a sluggish feeling to aiming that I never quite understood. Interfaces like the pip boy in FO3 are what can really kill the experience. With no hotkeys it makes a late game search for the right item a nightmare. Mass effect also suffered this somewhat even with the re-design of the interface. No stacking items an a tiny space through which to view your inventory meant way too much scrolling.

This is the kind of article that bit-tech (and by extension CPC) should be publishing more of! Excellently written and researched; entertaining, informative and interesting to read. Top notch stuff!

xfresh hit the nail in the head.

the software isn't pushing the boundary, so no one's upgrading. without anyone upgrading, games like Crysis is a huge financial gamble. and we get stuck in a loop.

i blame the other non-PC specific media (such as gametrailers). Crysis is a success, innovative suit gameplay, fantastic graphics, old formula works great with the new mechanics. only thing held it back was the PC hardware.
with a single game that pushed the hardware boundary, the 2 year old 8800GTX owners finally felt the need to upgrade in shader power. with the public upgrade comes games with better graphics, and good port such as GTA4.

now, no game is pushing the 8800gts/9800gtx requirement. people are not buying new hardware, which leads back to bad games.

come on people, gtx260 is dead cheap!

My beef with the console ports that I've played is that they don't even show any consideration that they've even made it for the PC. "push the 'A' button" with a little green circle around it. pice of crap if I'd wanted to play on a microsoft pad I would have gotten a stinking xbox. (am I allowed to say that all those little boys playing with the xbox joeysticks need to grow up and get a mouse?) Halo 2 = worst port ever IMHO. The fun factor just dissapeared and the whole "vista only" thing really irked me especially since it was origionally designed for a box that could only handle DX8. and I couldn't belive that the frames would drop and stutter on a AMD 6400+ with a 9600 gt slightly overclocked. :-o. I actually enjoyed playing the first game on PC, thanks microshaft for yanking co-op play that I was really looking forward to on PC with some of my buddies. I guess all I'm trying to say is that if they even tried to make it feel like they made some effort to make it PC worthey then I wouldn't complain so much. Fallout 3 is one of the best ports I've played, seemlesly from first to 3rd whenever I wanted to, I actually enjoyed that feature, there are some situations where I liked playing in the 3rd better since I could see what my caracter was doing. It didn't "feel" like a port it actually felt like they had designed it to play on a pc, at least when I played it it felt like that to me. no little button reminders for an xbox controller, just little squares with the key that I had bound to that action, now was that so hard?

btw confusis I don't know what your problem is but I can run GH3 on my 9600 GT underclocked to 500 mhz core and 600 mhz mem butter smooth, must be a driver issue ;-).

Very nice and interesting article guys! Keep it up :) Could you please explain the fact where you have mentioned " its often Pc's that can't keep up with the computing power and not the other way around"?

Originally Posted by Journeyer
Ugh, so at least there was an explanation for the utterly horrible third-person perspective in Dead Space. I bought the game after reading the review and several forum posts hailing it as brilliant, and then I got about ten minutes into the game before quitting and uninstalling it in a fit of frustrated rage! The controls were crap and the perspective was horrible to the point of being nausea inducing. Haven't touched it since I'm afraid, and it's a shame because I did want to play it. As far as I know there is no first-person option in it. Maybe I'll reinstall it some day and give it another go, but I have to say - even though the intro was enthralling, I couldn't bear the controls and perspective.

Third-person in Max Payne worked brilliantly though.

yeah the controls took a bit to get used to.. you should have stuck it out- you missed out on one hell of a game :D