guide/how to: ULTRA LOW settings for weak systems

It's not just about money. If you have smart programming techniques you can develop a flexible enough graphics architecture to run on old systems.

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Drakier wrote:

Feel free to create one and come back when it's done.

From experience, I know how difficult GOOD engines are to make. That's why a lot of companies spend MANY years (and LOTs of time/money) developing their engines, then the next few years refining and tuning and optimizing them. It's also why some companies started out with nothing BUT an engine.. the "games" came later.

GGG could have chosen to license an engine that was already out there, but they decided to write their own. For better or worse, it is what it is. No amount of complaining about it is going to change what it is. They aren't going to completely rip out the guts of the engine and re-write it, or introduce a "purchased" engine.

They've hired someone who is an expert in that area and he is working on fixing their engine to work better. He's just one guy though. It's going to take some time. Until then, you have to live with what is there.. whatever that may be.

There's still no reason why GGG can't turn down the graphics that contribute most to lag. Even on my MBA, 90% or so of the game runs fine. It's only when I encounter a large pack of mobs, a shrine, a rare mob with an aura, piety, or dominus that my FPS drops to <1 and my game freezes. This means that they have shown they can create a game that runs smoothly on weak systems for 90% of the time, but it's just that 10% of the time when they decided to through in excess graphical effects that the performance is ruined.

So all GGG needs to do is make the 10% of the game that runs the slowest more like the 90% that runs fast. Nix all unnecessary graphical effects or add an option to turn them down. Seriously, rain of blood during dominus fight? My friend has a pretty powerful computer and never has lag problems but even during the rain of blood his machine freezes for a split second. This is obviously just an oversight that was never tested.

You can come up with all sorts of excuses about limited time and money, the engine is what it is, etc. but you are avoiding keyhole solutions. Solutions need not cost excess time and money. If you simply play test your game and identify areas of graphical weakness and tweak them to produce less graphics, the problem is solved and all you did was what you should have been doing anyway. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect proper testing as part of the production cycle.

I worked for a software company before so I am well aware of all the excuses managers give for having bugs in their product. "We ran out of time', "we have limited resources", "it's not a priority right now", etc. etc. What they really mean is "we screwed up, and we're refusing to own up to it."

I understand the retorts against people who ask for more custom leagues, better trade features, better balancing of different builds, etc. because implementing those things genuinely takes seriously time and thought. But fixing graphical bugs is one of those things that should've been fixed during development and testing. It's easy to just sit back on your armchair and say, "get a better pc", but that's not always an option for everyone and its scarcely an optimal fix. So every single person with a weak computer has to go out and spend $500-1000 on a new machine just to play POE? That's ridiculous. GGG should just fix the graphics already. They've already proven that 90% of the game can run smoothly on weak systems, now all they need to do is fix the other 10% to run more like the 90%.