Strazdas said:
Snip...
So unless you can give evidence of what you claim is happening, all im seeing is a bunch of hot air.
Finally someone who has done basic research. I'd be glad to provide evidence, though the evidence I have isn't for FRAPS. There are multiple cases with MSI Afterburner's OSD (RivaTuner Statistics Server - RTSS) that cause games to crash if the render mode is set incorrectly. In case you didn't know, the overlay has 3 different rendering options - Vector2D, Vector3D, and Raster3D [https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=161235.0]. The method used to render the overlay to the screen obviously changes with the three settings. The owning application may take offense to which render method you are using and it can cause a crash [http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=354412]. It isn't up to the developers to support all 3 rendering options as this is a third-party application trying to work its way into the rendering toolchain. RTSS also causes some games to crash if its detection method is set too high [https://steamcommunity.com/app/298110/discussions/0/624075566906834059/]. And then we have applications that cause games to crash or perform poorly just because [http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=192672].
Let's use your scenario for a scond, Strazdas. Even if the issue stems from the renderer itself, the cause of the issue is third party. If it does work for one game and not another (assuming both use the same rendering API, version, etc...), it might be because a developer went through and edited the toolchain to make it work with another module in their game or to add optimizations. Once again, that isn't the developer's fault, nor is it their problem. They don't
have to fix that, and no
problem exists. It isn't the developer's job to make their application work nicely with all third party applications, and people often forget that and feel entitled.
Not necessarily a case of faulty hooks being the issue, but it is a case where seemingly harmless third party applications manipulate the game and cause undesired behavior. As I keep saying it isn't the developer's job to make sure the game works with this application. This extends to all third party applications that cause performance issues like low framerates or long load times which can be seen with many [https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/2q5hy5/if_you_are_having_fps_problem_disable_avast/] anti-virus applications. Avast Antivirus is notorious for causing games to not load or for them to have bad performance. Hell, Steam even has a dedicated page [https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289] that lists out programs that interfere with Steam and have a negative impact on games. This list doesn't exist because Valve is trying to blow a bunch of hot air. While this isn't saying much, if you don't want to believe me, believe Valve.
Going back to antiviruses for a minute, we have another issue that occurs when a game with high requirements is launched (you can replace "high requirements" with "high framerate because I can"). The process of launching a game causes other third party applications to activate. This includes but is not limited to overlays, antivirus applications, behind-the-scenes updaters, and various operating system modules, among other things. These processes can take up resources and you'll end up seeing worse performance because of it. As to how this kind of thing is limited to a specific game? Well, that could mostly be bad timing. We see people try and play the game once, their computers do some weird stuff, and instead of trying the game again later they immediately go rant about poor performance. While the number of people who do this is likely very small it isn't zero.
I'll go one step further. People confuse low framerate with inconsistent framerate. You can be getting 400FPS, but the moment it drops to 200FPS you'll feel like you've experienced lag. The framerate is still absurdly high and that isn't poor performance. On a more practical note, if someone normally gets 120FPS and suddenly drops to 60FPS or 50FPS, they won't see the difference, but they will feel it. Sometimes users over-exaggerate that feeling and call it "severe lag".
Bottom line - it isn't always the developer's fault when you get low performance, though that's not to say they are never to blame. Batman Arkham Knight is a good example of this in that they were clearly at fault for releasing a game that didn't distribute work across all cores properly.
Once again, I am not saying it is the case with XCOM2. I am saying that people should make an effort to check that they aren't running programs that interfere with other applications, to not lie about it when asked, and to ensure they've done everything they can on their end before pinning the blame on the developer.
So yes, like I said in my last post I am done with this conversation, partially because they are arguing about XCOM2 (even though I didn't mention the game once in my arguments), partially because it isn't relevant, partially because I can't deal with people who lack a basic understand about their hobbies and aren't willing to learn, and partially because I have enough salt right now to create my own Middle-Eastern country. I have professional experience dealing with this kind of thing and it frustrates me when people simply don't make the effort to understand anything, but that doesn't matter and it's a big lie because I'm some random dude on the internet. Everything I say is a lie because they can do no wrong. It's extremely infuriating to me.
I wish you all the best. Have a good Monday.
