Our impressive result: additional 200 megabytes of memory being freed up was achieved when we ported a game from PC/Console to Nintendo Switch. Check out our latest success story to discover how we did it.
Case: Brigada Games ported the game, which was originally developed for PC/Console, to Switch, which allowed a developer and a publisher to tap into a new mobile games audience.
Process description:
A long and careful work of memory optimization was conducted in the game logic for an engaging open-world game to work effectively with the limited amount of available memory on the Switch console.
Throughout this complex process, developers were forced to make many compromises and significant changes to adapt the game to the Switch console's limitations, which required a deep understanding of the game's structure, its assets and the relationships between them.
One of the primary aspects of the work was to analyze all the relationships and links between the blueprints in the game. This allowed to identify secondary links and references to assets that were only used in rare cases. Special attention was paid to studying the blueprint that was used throughout the whole game. During the analysis, it was discovered that it contained a link to a part of the boss blueprint that was only needed at a certain point in the game. Such redundant links were carefully studied and removed, which allowed to reduce the amount of memory taken.
To carry out this task, developers used advanced tools provided by Unreal Engine 4. Tools such as Reference Viewer and Size Map became invaluable helpers in identifying unnecessary associations between blueprints and identifying the most voluminous blueprints. This allowed to focus on optimizing those blueprints and achieving maximum memory release.
The results exceeded expectations. Thanks to the hard work of the developers, an additional 200 megabytes of memory was freed up. This is a significant increase in available resources on the Switch console, which led to a smoother and flawless gaming experience. Now the game can more effectively use the limited resources of the console and offer players an exciting open world.
Case: Brigada Games ported the game, which was originally developed for PC/Console, to Switch, which allowed a developer and a publisher to tap into a new mobile games audience.
Process description:
A long and careful work of memory optimization was conducted in the game logic for an engaging open-world game to work effectively with the limited amount of available memory on the Switch console.
Throughout this complex process, developers were forced to make many compromises and significant changes to adapt the game to the Switch console's limitations, which required a deep understanding of the game's structure, its assets and the relationships between them.
One of the primary aspects of the work was to analyze all the relationships and links between the blueprints in the game. This allowed to identify secondary links and references to assets that were only used in rare cases. Special attention was paid to studying the blueprint that was used throughout the whole game. During the analysis, it was discovered that it contained a link to a part of the boss blueprint that was only needed at a certain point in the game. Such redundant links were carefully studied and removed, which allowed to reduce the amount of memory taken.
To carry out this task, developers used advanced tools provided by Unreal Engine 4. Tools such as Reference Viewer and Size Map became invaluable helpers in identifying unnecessary associations between blueprints and identifying the most voluminous blueprints. This allowed to focus on optimizing those blueprints and achieving maximum memory release.
The results exceeded expectations. Thanks to the hard work of the developers, an additional 200 megabytes of memory was freed up. This is a significant increase in available resources on the Switch console, which led to a smoother and flawless gaming experience. Now the game can more effectively use the limited resources of the console and offer players an exciting open world.