Left 4 Dead 2 is a killer multiplayer shooter, designed for well-coordinated teamwork and clearly designed for the PC platform. However, Valve released a port on Xbox 360 in 2008. Orange Box was previously released for Playstation 3. And although the port to the Japanese console was developed by another studio, nevertheless, after this experience, Gabe Newell admitted in an interview that he was not eager to release any more games on this platform. At least on the Source engine.
People who play on video are bad at shooters. But they love them. Very. But they play them poorly. Especially on a gamepad. So don’t focus on this and I apologize if such a gaming skill causes damage to your psyche :).
For a number of reasons, it is more convenient for me to publish such short materials (at least now). Is it appropriate to post such volume on the website?? If not, speak up about it, I’ll take it into account and won’t do it again.
At GDC (Game Developers Conference) 2008 there was even a presentation from Valve, which had the title"How To Go From PC to Cross Platform Development Without Killing Your Studio".
Slide from presentation
It talked about the difficulties of porting their updated Source engine. It very, very often mentions the memory limits of game consoles of that generation. There was also a lot of talk about the difficulty of debugging and testing on consoles compared to PC.
Some of the problems they had to face
Nevertheless, Valve released ports of its games on consoles of the current generation. Half-Life 1-2, Team Fortress, Portal and now – Left 4 Dead. The second part in this case.
The game runs at a resolution of 1280×720, but it seems without any anti-aliasing.
Increase 200%. Clickable. https://simbagamescasino.co.uk/mobile-app/
But there is vertical synchronization and you won’t see tearing in this game. This is surprising, because games since the time of the original Xbox with enviable regularity have ignored synchronization and, as a result, frame tearing – a common situation on Microsoft platforms. Left 4 Dead 2 doesn’t have this problem.
When the resolution is output at 720p, smoke and fire effects are output at a lower resolution. You’re unlikely to see this during a game run, but if you look closely, it’s clearly visible.
Very noticeable when moving
This is slightly hidden by fine post-processing – various blurs, including classic motion blur, as well as film grain. These effects are unobtrusive enough not to spoil the picture.
Quite appropriate and unobtrusive motion blur
Low-resolution shadows and simplified lighting – common features of seventh-generation consoles – are fully represented here. The memory limits that I mentioned earlier were solved by changing the models to simplified ones, as well as repeatedly reusing zombie models in the game, changing the textures not only entirely, but also partially, applying various elements. As a result, if you don’t look closely, zombies seem quite different during battle. But in fact, from a couple of zombie models it turned out 24,000 (!) variations.
About zombies in Left 4 Dead 2 at GDC 2010
The missing parts of the zombie’s body were cut off using primitives, and everything was smoothed out by applying textures.
We cut off with a primitive.
This was already told at GDC in 2010. By the way, the materials are still available online. If you’re interested, you can check it out.
As for performance, there is a quite expected lock of 30 frames per second, which the game engine can more or less withstand on Xbox 360 hardware.
There are some drawdowns with a large accumulation of effects, but surprisingly, the console’s GPU processes a large amount of geometry with better results, which is important for a game with a bunch of zombies.
Of course, display optimization also contributes to this – these are quite clamped LODs and the rapid disappearance of corpses and decals.
It becomes more interesting in my favorite game mode – cooperative play on one screen. When you enable split screen, synchronization locks rendering to.. 20 fps.
And I can’t say it’s a bad decision. Yes, for a shooter, and such a one at that, 20 frames per second is certainly not enough, at least for quick control response. On the other hand, the console obviously would not be able to cope with issuing 30 frames per second in this mode, and with a lock of 20 frames, a more or less stable frame time is obtained, which is still better than if the frame rate jumped from 19 to 30 with huge jumps in frame time.
In addition, the Source engine perfectly operates with the sequence of events, synchronization of animations and other things. And as a result, even under such circumstances the game plays quite well, and during the game the lock on 20 frames does not bother.
But considering that the purpose of the gaming session is entertainment, not a high score on high difficulty. And as for me, the game copes with this – a good port, albeit with low but stable performance, which still entertains us.
In the first decade of its existence, Valve delighted with its ports to systems with great limitations. Half-Life for PlayStation 2 sported improved models, decent performance and generally good pictures. Half-Life 2 for the original Xbox, despite significant graphics cuts, pleasantly surprises with the preservation THE SAME HL2 on a system that, it would seem, couldn’t even run the game properly. Orange Box on Xbox 360 was pleasant in all respects – good picture, stable performance and streamlined controls. I think Left 4 Dead 2 can be counted among the successful ports of games from Valve.