it’s not an optimization if you don’t measure an improvement.

This, so much. I often see this at work, theories about this and that being slow, or how something new « should » be better. As the resident code elder I often get to reply « why don’t you measure and find out »…

For some reason it seems nobody uses sampling profilers anymore, those tell you exactly where the time is spent, you don’t have to guess from a trace. Optimizing code is kind of a lost art.

Sometimes I wish compilers were better at data cache optimization, I work with C++ all the time but all of it needs to be done by hand (for example SoA vs AoS…). On the upside, I kind of have a good job security, at least until I retire.

Hey! I wanted to tell you that I came back to HFW after all due to your comment. I had logged 48 hours on it before I left, but was only 30% complete according to the PS5 dashboard.

I found that I liked the atmosphere, but it is definitely a slow game most of the time. So much filler dialogue between characters, puzzles are instantly spoiled by Aloy talking to herself way too soon before you’ve had a chance to work through them (God of War Ragnarok is also guilty of this).

And then there is the fact that Aloy will constantly put her life at risk at the slightest opportunity given by a stranger, even though story-wise she is literally the only one who can fix the Earth.

That being said I play the game in a particular way, I go through all missions (main or side) in the order of their level, and I tend to prefer the stealth approach to most fights. So this does slow down the game quite a bit. I think I am halfway through?

The overall vibe is really nice though, I might make it to the end this time. I’ve even put Burning Shores on my wish list!

Cheers!

I loved HZD so much on PS4, it is a great world, really good sci-fi story and awesome character progression. It feels so good to easily take down machines that you struggle with at the beginning, it never gets old to tear off parts and weapons to use against them. The DLC for it was a great addition.

Needless to say I jumped into Horizon Forbidden West as soon as it was released, and it did not live up to my expectations! The second go around everything feels so forced, I gave up midway through.

Solid recommendations throughout this thread…

What bothers me the most here is that those are 64 bit instructions, which did not exist when PS/2 was a Thing. But I still chuckled, nice work.

Back then our registers were 32 bits wide, and we liked it 🤣

I remember your previous post, congrats on not giving up.

Whipping up a script to solve a very specific problem is super satisfying, but I found that anything you write quickly becomes a liability. Debugging Perl can be super difficult, especially when returning to something you wrote a while back.

Personally I grew tired of the punishment and left it all behind! If I need a quick script I’ll use Python instead, and if it doesn’t work I can use a real debugger to fix it.

In any case it’s always fun learning new things, I hope this experience ends up being useful to you in the future and you get to easily solve a problem that stumps everyone else involved.

Cheers!

some people on IRC

Well there’s your problem! (just kidding)

Honestly though I don’t know why you would pick Perl unless you want to learn an obscure language that is both painful to read and write. May $deity have mercy on your soul.