/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9185997
Well, for FPS games the like, it's quite a bit more complicated than that. The computer has to do raycasting to figure out what you can and can't see, then try to minimize the work to process the objects you can see, while prepping those you cannot that may enter the scene, then there's anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering on angled surfaces, lighting, shadows, and post-processing, all that other crap. It's literally building a chunk of a universe as you go through, placing in every little prop you see as you are angled to it, and all the physics behind the motion of everything in the scene and just beyond. It's kind of amazing all the insane math that goes into it all - and indeed, things like PhysX have opened up whole new fields of math just to deal with those sorts of calculations that go into making these virtual worlds. (Although it's also a little embarrassing how much math has been dedicated to "breast physics".)

A movie, on the other hand, is just a series of images and sound. It's amazing how much work goes into those as well - between the props and special effects and all, millions of dollars worth, but by the time it gets on your device, all the work's all been done. In a game, the computer actually has to assemble the whole scene, figure out how everything in it is going to move, and "film" it as you play.

Plus, in a movie, when you blow something up, physics takes care of it for you. In a game, the computer actually has to work out those physics in an abbreviated enough fashion to both do it in real time and make it immersive. Games don't just show you a tweaked recording of reality from a single angle, as movies do, they actually have to build that reality and figure out how you're going to interact with it.

Thus, any computer can play back a movie, but not every computer can play Fallout 4 (or whatever the latest high-end game is, I'm a bit behind.)