For those big commercial games that allow you to explore Multiple Worlds in them, how many
thousands of variables (parameter values) do these type of big games actually use? Does anyone
here any any idea?
Because in my game script (not in the unreal blueprints) but I understand that I do need to create data struct
tables for all my game variables. But in my game script I have got over 2,200 of
them already set up in my game to define all the values and conditions for the worlds and
systems that are in it. And I haven’t even set up half of the worlds yet.
As long the target hardware has enough memory and processing power, there no such a limit for this.
X360, some games usually would start tanking the system at around 300.000 ~ 400.000 function calls PER FRAME; depending on how the game was built…
For higher end hardware you can do even more sht with it, an indie don’t have to worry about this stuff…
But, if you need so many variables on a single object, your software design/strategy is fundamentally flawed.
This is a Desktop PC, so What do you mean, if I need to use so many variables on a single object,
what single object exactly are you referring to?
In my game script on one of my planets I have only set up 9 variables to keep track of 9 different weather patterns.
so the dialog can keep track whenever the weather changes and change the dialog if it needs to, I also used an
array to change the weather patterns each time you land down on the planet.
As Bruno Xavier points out, this smells like something is fundamentally flawed in the strategy.
So what do you mean with “2200 of them” ? Do you have that many different types of Structs? Or you have that many data records in total of all your Struct Types?
If you have that many different Structs it sounds like something is going haywire in the approach.
Counting single variables you can have a lot as already pointed out in the thread. And I agree that this is seldom something you as a indie developer need to think about. Especially as a pre-planning-strategy.
Start building and do small optimisation during development when needed but the big optimisation in the end of the product life.
Do I have 2200 different Data Struct Tables? goodness no… I have 2,200 Data Variables that has to go into an Unreal data struct table. But because I’m still adding stuff into the game, it may have to be broken up into smaller data struct tables types later on. So for now I just want to just stick them all into one main struct. Basically the goal is just to get it working, then worry about optimising it all later…
But I did optimize the save routine. I use just one save block to cover all the save checkpoints that are in the game. Much more easier by tagging all the planets checkpoints so I can just jump the game back and forth into the save block then jump back out again.
In the end I will probably end up with about 15-20 different data structs. To cover things like Loot Drops, Weapons, Spells if I decide to use spells, Weather Patterns, regions, ect ect, a data struct for the Party Members and all their Stats, I also been advised because my game has thousands of line of dialog to put each character party’s dialog also in separate data tables for each member.