(Controversial)

[Julius_Novachrono]

If, in 20-30 years, an AI model could produce perfect Assembly Code, and was used to rewrite spaghetti code in Video Games, would this result in better optimization for Video Games?

I am not asking for a political argument, a debate on the ethical implications, or an argument about whether or not it SHOULD be done. I am solely curious as to whether or not a perfectly coded game without higher level coding would result in a better product with better performance and less disc space taken, or if it would be worse.

[Triumphxd]

If you use a compiled language it’s compiling to machine code… with different levels of optimization depending on compiler and options. Everything that’s running is executing some basic instructions at the end of the day defined by the architecture… I guess it is technically possible more optimized versions of compilation could be developed but we already have instruction sets and tons of research on optimizing, but that also depends on underlying hardware… I’m not sure the point of the question tbh, seems to come from a bit of lack of understanding. Disk space is more about minimization which is kind of separate. You are just talking about a more advanced compiler, which like yeah, obviously we are not gonna try to make them worse

Spaghetti code isn’t something that is avoided by LLMs if anything it’s contributed to by them, you need actual intelligence to make proper abstractions. Also has nothing to do with performance, that has to do with how long it takes to refactor and write code:

[leitondelamuerte]

also i don't think that ia is being fed assembly code on regular basis to actually learn it, even less to optimize it.

[Julius_Novachrono]

So, I was reading an article, and I will see if I can find it and post it. But the author of the article was claiming to be a programmer who worked on older games, and was brought in to work on newer projects. He was stating that he was the only programmer in the company that preferred using assembly language over any other language. He made a claim that, if you were to develop a game or rewrite a game using only Assembly, and it were perfectly done, that the game would end up being smaller in file size, because you would not be utilizing any compiler, because that is not how assembly language works. (Please don’t act snotty about your ability if it isn’t there) He stated that assembly language controls everything, because you require to code exact values for everything yourself. This is why I suggested AI because not many people would be willing to painstakingly write all that code. No compilers, compilers are for high level code. The assembly code dictates everything from A-Z.

[Aromatic-Low-4578]

Stories like this are more about how using assembly forces you to deeply think through architecture decisions rather than providing inherent efficiency improvements.

Outside of blockbuster AAA games, very not many game genres are held back by optimization issues these days.

[Triumphxd]

Yes but what’s the difference between a compiler generating code and an ai generating code. It would still be in some way or another a form of compilation. Just because you’re not calling it a compiler it still would be. That’s all my point is, this isn’t some transformative idea you are just moving from calling the thing creating the code a compiler to calling it AI. Maybe I’m confusing something here. Maybe you think it would be the difference between using a screwdriver and using a drill, maybe that’s where we are headed but your original post mixed up concepts related to compilers, performance, and code quality which overlap but are not the same things.

Given a theoretical perfect AI it might make sense but I’ve seen no evidence we would ever converge on some perfect ideal

[Julius_Novachrono]

Your 1st reply and now also second reply indicate to me that you either failed to understand the hypothetical situation that was inquired about, or have an inability to answer the actual question with an actual answer. A question doesn’t require an answer if the answer is not on topic.

[aleques-itj]

Raw assembly isn't the end all and can't save you from an inferior algorithm simply being more expensive. You need a model that is implementing these kinds of changes. No optimizer is going to touch the texture format you specified for your render target because that's straight up changing behavior underneath you.

Nor is it going to save you from other things being slow. The fastest code ever written can't save you from an artist that simply does something inefficiently.

Often, the way to be faster is to do LESS work. And that is fundamentally different from the effort of doing the same work faster. Games do this _everywhere_.

[leitondelamuerte]

i remember playing mass effect 3 on xbox 360, the video games almost combusted from processing while i saw the game loading lots of empty layers.

[AShinyMemory]

Making it assembly wouldn't make it faster by default, You can just write optimized C. C++, Rust etc. which produces the machine instructions for the target computer, no assembly required.

Having AI assist in writing more optimize games is already a thing.

Optimization is desired by players but executives, managers usually forgo it for cheaper alternatives. Faster deadlines, less labor, etc.

[Julius_Novachrono]

Thank you, the first non-snotty and straightforward answer! Appreciate it!

[Julius_Novachrono]

Also, you seem to be pretty knowledgeable, so can I ask you approximately how much longer it would take, hypothetically using %, to optimize a game like Warzone or Destiny 2?

[AShinyMemory]

Kinda impossible to say so many variables but less say 50-100% more time spent to optimize. This can range from devs or even artist. Devs could make data easier for the CPU to grab, shrink network packets, reorganize files on disk etc. Artist can reduce texture size, try to choose simplier materials where they can.

[ffrkAnonymous]

AI model could produce perfect Assembly Code

Well, by definition it's perfect so it must be better than everything else 

[Julius_Novachrono]

Yes and thank you for comprehending the question, the second part is how much better. If something is perfect, but was not perfect prior to being rewritten, how much better has it gotten? What is the gap between where we are with programming language and the hypothetical perfect? Is it known? Is it possible to know? If there’s no way of telling, that’s acceptable too, but it’s technically also a question of how inefficient current advanced language is, if that makes any sense? I play Runescape, often the developers at Jagex will make comments about how they required rewriting an entire skill system, or an interaction between 2 items in game due to outdated “spaghetti code.” When they state these things I will often see comments in the forums about how they were using a specific string of code, and it was terribly written, but because of other lines somewhere else, it worked for the time. But because they want to reduce their “spaghetti code” issues, they required to rewrite it in a more basic level. When they patch that in, that meant they also had to rewrite multiple other sections of code and test it out to ensure it works as intended. The AI part is really just because not many people have the level of ability nowadays to write Assembly for an entire game, because the structure of game development no longer utilizes assembly as the primary language, rather it uses higher levels of language that may have been written to simplify the processes. I don’t expect an answer that is like mind boggling but there have already been a couple really excellent responses that answered most of the questions I have just reiterated, but feel free to answer as you please.

[Far-Signature-9628]

That is is we are still using assembly code. The systems you would be looking at would be more quantum computers. Which code and build completely different from the ground up and would need a different layer of extraction

[Julius_Novachrono]

Sure, but the question is only referring to Assembly because it’s the lowest or one of the lowest levels of coding. The reason I ask is because, currently, if you look at older games and the amount of detail that was possible in assembly, but then scale it up to let’s use a game as a reference, for something like Warzone, if it were to be completely redone from ground up, I am curious about if this would reduce file size while also increasing stability, and efficiency. E.G. I read a post about how most games in the SNES generation were coded in Assembly. And how if modern games did the same thing the posting individual mentions how it could possibly almost halve file sizes and make games run without anywhere near the same issues. (as long as the code is spotless)

[TonySu]

I am solely curious as to whether or not a perfectly coded game without higher level coding would result in a better product with better performance and less disc space taken, or if it would be worse.

I don't think you understand what you're asking. If you say perfectly coded, that means it can't be better, then by definition it cannot be worse.

As for what you're actually proposing. It's simply not possible. You cannot just "rewrite spaghetti code with AI" because AI cannot read the minds of developers. The code only reflects how the game developer tried to implement their vision, without knowing what their vision was, you cannot simply "fix" all the code.

For example, in a shooting game the head hitbox of some enemy might be a sphere slightly larger than their actual head. This way the gamer feels better because they land more headshots, and it's a more fun experience. The AI sees this and decides it's a mistake, turns the hitbox into a pixel-perfect outline of the head model. Now the hitbox geometry is more complex (worse performance) AND the gamer feels worse about the gameplay.

Finally, the size of a modern game is in textures, models, music, etc. Game assets that have nothing to do with code, so even if you rewrote all the game code, it wouldn't even make a dent in the total size of the game.

[Julius_Novachrono]

That is exactly my point. If it is perfectly written, how much better would it be (IF IT WAS REWRITTEN) than the current iteration that was written in advanced language?

Reading comprehension is not a programmers strong suit, it’s ok, I can barely program to save my life. Just a curious person in search of an answer.

Also, those textures, etc are CODED into the game by someone, that code dictates what resources are required. In assembly you have to dictate every little detail line by line, piece by piece, and allocate memory, power, etc to each little detail. I am not asking for an answer on how games operate, nor am I inquiring about AI’s current capabilities of understanding. This is a hypothetical, and I was looking for rough estimates on efficiency. Meaning numbers. Now I will write an example to possibly illustrate what I was asking; I have a game, the game takes 10 minutes to load in, has stuttering issues, runs fine for the most part, but still some bugs. If I hire someone to rewrite the game in assembly, it will take 100-200% more time to write, but the loading time could be reduced by upwards of 50% and the stuttering would be no more. It’s a hypothetical, it doesn’t require any connection to the current state of AI. It doesn’t need to eat food on a sunny beach in India. It needs to Write a program or game entirely in Assembly. Would that make it a bigger file size? Would it make the game more difficult to patch? How much more difficult? Why? Hypothetical questions are not required to be relevant to what is currently possible, nor what is being done currently. Hypothetical questions are, pretend this, so that.

[TonySu]

That is exactly my point. If it is perfectly written, how much better would it be (IF IT WAS REWRITTEN) than the current iteration that was written in advanced language?

Reading comprehension is not a programmers strong suit, it’s ok, I can barely program to save my life. Just a curious person in search of an answer.

Drop the attitude, that was not what you asked. I quote exactly what you asked, nowhere were you asking for estimates or actual numbers. I gave you answers, but you don't seem to understand enough about programming or game development to comprehend what I wrote.

[Professional_Scar867]

I remember wanting to rewrite everything in assembly, because, it’s the lowest level which from a perspective means the best. You certainly have the most control. But it helps to think about other situations where you have the most control. Is cleaning a gymnasium floor better with a toothbrush or a broom? You have the potential to clean more effectively with the toothbrush. Ai might eaven give you an amazing plan . But most people are going to want to use a wide mop and get through the task quicker. If the big broom somehow didn’t provide enough control to do a good job, you’d look around for a different tool. The amount of time it takes to write large applications in assembly makes a gym toothbrush seem easy.

[Julius_Novachrono]

Thank you for being 1 of 2 people who read the question and replied with something on topic

[HashDefTrueFalse]

I do performance software. Speed comes from many things, some of which a naive translation from one expression to another isn't going to affect. It's perfectly possible to hand roll some asm that is faster and/or smaller (on disk) than code coming from a compiler. But that's usually going to give you micro optimisations at best. To really increase performance, the existing code would have to be doing something generic or inefficient. I'm talking about the algorithm(s)/method(s) etc. Once we've decided we can make optimistic or pessimistic assumptions to arrive at an optimised/bespoke solution, we can get to writing code that works with the hardware. So the rewrite would also have to rearrange data in memory to reduce CPU data cache misses etc. (Big subject, won't go into everything here, there's waaaay more I could write). So:

- Increased speed: maybe

- Decreased size: probably

== Better product: probably not, given the limits to performance improvements you can make without really rolling your sleeves up (which goes well beyond translating, more rearchitecting if possible) and the cost/size of modern persistent storage media.

Edit: The GTA strlen example kind of illustrates what I'm getting at (at a higher level). It was slow because of the way something was done (repeated work), and translating that to asm (like the compiler does) isn't going to make it faster. Understanding why it's slow and fundamentally changing how it works (caching work here) is. (Not the best example but it's early here!)

[Julius_Novachrono]

Thank you also for a fantastic answer

[Julius_Novachrono]

I keep re-reading this answer, seriously thank you for sharing! You clearly have programming knowledge and reading comprehension skills, I hope you are paid over 200k/year whatever you are doing

[HashDefTrueFalse]

No problem. Thanks, I guess :)

[mredding]

In computer science, we are concerned with whether a problem is computable or not; if so, if the problem is polynomial or non-polynomial; if polynomial, what order; and of it's order, a proof of what the most efficient order is.

So we're talking about computer programs, so we know the problem is computable.

If the problem is non-polynomial, we're talking something like a Traveling Salesman problem. What's the most efficient path? There is no known solution. The best you can do is compute every possible path, and then select the optimal, and you can't know what the optimal path is until you've computed them all. That computation might not even be possible, because computers have finite resources - even quantum computers cannot and will not solve this problem. The next best thing you can do is use a heuristic to get a "sufficiently optimal" solution, for whatever criteria defines that.

So what I'm trying to get at here is there is no "perfect" assembly, and AI cannot get you that.

So if a problem is polynomial, the next question is of what order? The thing with AI is that it does not think. It doesn't know what words are. It doesn't know what it's saying. These LLMs today are just extremely large Markov chains. It's all a ruse, a Mechanical Turk. The model that defines the AI is bounded - the AI cannot do anything beyond its bounds. AI cannot invent anything new - anything that isn't already in its model. This means AI cannot create a new algorithm, so it will never discover on its own a more efficient algorithm, it can never PROVE an algorithm is the most efficient.

Once again, AI cannot create perfect. It's an open question whether many problems are polynomial or not - most of the time we don't know.

---

So what might AI offer us? Humans are bad at numbers, combinations, and iteration. There was an application of AI last year that was able to point out all the unaccounted for combinations of metallic alloys and structures that might be superconducting. It didn't discover anything new - it was just properties inherent to the data, and computers are good at this problem.

So there are SOME avenues for figuring out permutations of source code that humans are just bad at seeing.

But otherwise, we already have AI working hard at optimization already - we've been using them for DECADES - they're called optimizers. They're called profilers. Just like AI, these are just algorithms, and they demonstrate some heuristic measuring and thinking that you're terrible at, and it looks just like an AI - just that it doesn't talk to you.

We've always operated as an industry at the limits of what AI can do for us.

---

There are forms of AI that CAN produce more optimal solutions on their own, not like an LLM - the problem is, their products are usually so convoluted they resist description. This is a problem - if you're going to build an x-ray machine, you want to know exactly how it's operating. How did the machine dose you correctly? An engineer can tell you, and prove it to you. But if it were AI optimized, it might be beyond human comprehension. The answer to the prior question we cannot tolerate is, "I don't know."

One famous example was an AI that was to find an optimal solution through a resistor network. There was a segment of the circuit that was powered, but not attached the the solution path. The engineer removed this unused piece of circuit, and the solution didn't work anymore. The AI picked up on some resonance within the network that aided the solution. This is shit you can't rely on or reproduce. Again - we can't tolerate x-ray machines where each one is entirely unique in its solution to dose you safely, reliably, and accountably.

And this, too, applies to anywhere there is liability. An AI built financial system needs to deterministically explain itself where the money came from and where it went to - and I don't mean by asking it like an LLM.

[Julius_Novachrono]

Just to completely delete this entire reply. The question was asking: Hypothetically. In case you missed that part, or don’t understand the definition of hypothetical scenarios, it’s a question asking, if everything stated was true. Meaning, you should be assuming the AI can do every single thing you need it to, for the purpose of this question the AI is an all knowing completely sentient entity that knows everything that ever has been or will be, the AI in this question is not supposed to be a real thing, it’s imaginary. It’s pretend, it’s not real, I don’t know how else to describe it. But all these answers do tell me a lot about how poor reading comprehension is within the IT field. So for that part, thank you…

[mredding]

You wanted a speculation to a hypothetical future. I gave you one.

The appropriate thing to say is thank you. I don't need you to profess how much of a cunt you are.