Why would it blur the scene? MSAA doesn't do that. The only reason it doesn't work in certain places because there's a large dynamic range, which messes up MSAA unless you keep your subsamples around all the way through the HDR parts of your post processing pipeline.
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- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
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Why would it blur the scene? MSAA doesn't do that. The only reason it doesn't work in certain places because there's a large dynamic range, which messes up MSAA unless you keep your subsamples around all the way through the HDR parts of your post processing pipeline.
Flash USB drives that pass the 360's speed test and I think (based on comments about Forza) the internal flash are all fast enough to stream data comparably to the DVD drive, but in the case of BF3 that mustn't have been enough.
Yeah, I think they expected longer loads but not this. Thing is, putting a GB or two of data on the internal flash or a $4 USB pen wouldn't be too big of a deal but requiring a HDD is an altogether different proposition.
If if was disk space that DICE were shrewdly avoiding then the HD pack could have been installed to internal flash and the kind of USB drives that you can install whole disk images to. They also wouldn't have had about a Gigabyte of free space on the disk, and the HD install would have been at the very least a great deal smaller.
TheWretched
Regular
They could've just included an USB stick in the game package with the installed data on it^^
forumaccount
Newcomer
I'm not sure you really appreciate the brilliance of their HD pack.
The way things seem to work with this gen is you put a bunch of streaming systems into your engine, then you make a ton of content and spend the last month of the project cutting it down so it actually fits onto an Xbox DVD. (An interview about MW3 I saw described this process "we used to have 15 types of plants, now we have 12", etc.)
DICE completely avoided that month of work and corresponding minor downgrade in game variation with their HD install and second disc. When all your textures are guaranteed to be installed somewhere other than the DVD all of the sudden all your problems with fitting on DVD just go away.
There are two other things that make it smart as well.
First, say you fill up the DVD with as much content as you can and then take a few of your highest mips for textures of lower importance than others and drop them into your HD pack. People are really bad about noticing... for instance... the 1024 square texture they see without the HD pack compared to the 2048 squared one they see with it installed. So if they had done this, they'd have gamers going "why did I bother with this HD pack? There's nothing HD about it at all. It barely makes a difference. Stupid DICE." and on and on.
But they didn't do it that way. They make it so that the stuff you see without the HD pack installed is significantly lower res than you would see on a normal console game. When you install the HD pack, it's a night and day difference.
The second thing is me making guesses about how their streamer works. If you drop all of the streamed assets into the HD pack and have your low mips or always-loaded fallback assets on the disc, you have the option of only streaming from the install media rather than the DVD. Kids don't complain about drive spin up during play, and you don't even have to test streaming performance off the DVD.
Seriously, they solved 3 or 4 common modern day game development problems in one blow, with the biggest cost (literally) being the extra disc. I expect to see a lot more of this HD install sort of thing as this generation wanes.
I obviously don't know the specifics but the restrictions on where you can install the HD pack are either a bug/oversight (in which case I'd expect it to be patched) or disallowed by Microsoft via TRC. I suspect the latter... it makes the most sense.
Edit: There may be something I'm missing here too... the choice to go with only low res assets in the non-installed version seems like it will screw over Xbox owners with no HDD, which I'm sure was a concern. In cases like those we have to assume that there was a technical benefit to doing it the way they did... I'm assuming it's related to their streamer as noted above, but also having a stark contrast between HD pack and no HD pack is a benefit whether it was intended or not. I suspect it was intended as DICE appear to be pretty good at manipulating gamer opinion.
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I agree, and I get all that. But they had about a Gigabyte of space left on the disk. They could have reduced the size of the HD install pack by over half if storage was the only issue. So the above wasn't the reason for a 1.5GB install.
I'm pretty certain that DICE weren't the first people to wish they could spill over to the HDD to alleviate disk size issue (or to wish they could put highest LOD assets on HDD)!.
And this is the real issue IMO, the main reason behind the HD install and the main reason MS allowed it. The DVD drive just couldn't deliver the assets fast enough. The Bluray drive in the PS3 can't either despite its 50GB disks; it needs an even bigger install than the 360 and they don't even give you the choice there (because they don't have to).
Faced with a *big* multiplatform release that had the potential to drive Live subscriptions, and that would run on 360 but would have either huge LOD popping issues or downgraded graphics compared to the PS3, I think MS just decided to let them install the HD pack. I think MS will be interested to see how it works out and what kind of reaction it garners. They'll probably be watching HDD sales too.
I expect to see it to, but I think MS will be expecting or encouraging other developers to build around flash / USB drives that pass the 360 speed test.
It could be those things, but I think it's simply that only the internal HDD could guarantee the access time / BW required to make the game perform as was required.
Edit: I'll be happy if I'm wrong though.
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Even a pretty cheap 4GB flash drive should provide better average and worst case read BW than the 360s DVD drive. I like the idea of shipping a game on DVD and flash drive, but as most people have HDD enabled 360s it'd probably just be flushing moving down the toilet.
I hope that as the trend for partial installs begins (bag->cat) that games are required to work with USB drives that the 360 can determine are fast enough.
Also: I miss carts. Kind of.
I happen to have sold my 360 so I'm likely to never see for my-self how GeoW3 (more importantly Unreal Engine 3 on console) compares with BF3 (more importantly Frostbyte Engine 2 on console) especially when it comes to textures quality. What are the 360 users here opinion on the matter?
By the way it's sad there is no PC version of Geow3 so we could have a clue (assuming Epic uses proper texture technology) how an installed "HD pack" would bring on the table.
By the way it's sad there is no PC version of Geow3 so we could have a clue (assuming Epic uses proper texture technology) how an installed "HD pack" would bring on the table.
I can't speak for BF3, but GeoW3 on the 360 has the best textures I've ever seen on the console - helped significantly by great aniso filtering which is externally rare.
The guys over at GameBlurb have just posted their slider comparison of Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Looks pretty close this time around, however the 360 still has the edge on lighting, bloom and shadows.
GameBlurb - Versus - Assassin's Creed: Revelations [720p/HDMI]
GameBlurb - Versus - Assassin's Creed: Revelations [720p/HDMI]
dragonelite
Veteran
SSAO bugs in both version ?
As Joker has stated MANY times on this forum, that the split mem config on the PS3 can make certain thing challenging for a dev.
It turns out that this was a major issue for Bethsada when working on Skyrim.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=454358
It turns out that this was a major issue for Bethsada when working on Skyrim.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=454358
Because they made awful save system that stores whole save file for a whole world in memory.
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Yeah. It's gotta be said, there's no reason for this slowdown with a properly designed engine. Why not stream content via region in a DB on HDD? Just dumping the whole world contents into RAM was never going to be a good idea.
djskribbles
Legend
I'm not a technical person at all, but it seems to me that they didn't design the engine with the PS3 in mind at all (or not by much) and released a broken game on the Sony platform. Seems difficult to fix it now, but if they don't, they'll have A LOT of angry PS3 owners.
You can blame Sony all you want for using a split pool design, but how could Bethesda release such a broken game?
I'm not calling Bethesda lazy per se, but if this is what they came up with for the PS3, they should have either delayed it or not release it at all.
You can blame Sony all you want for using a split pool design, but how could Bethesda release such a broken game?
I'm not calling Bethesda lazy per se, but if this is what they came up with for the PS3, they should have either delayed it or not release it at all.
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I was asking in the Skyrim thread if there were bugs because I associate Bethesda with being a poor quality dev. They assured me things were looking good, and then this doozy raises its head! 
So in my mind this is par for the course for Bethesda, only they consolidated all their normal bugs into one killer bug. They need to get themselves some proper console developers.
So in my mind this is par for the course for Bethesda, only they consolidated all their normal bugs into one killer bug. They need to get themselves some proper console developers.TheWretched
Regular
Well, in a LOT of cases, the PC version is just as buggy. My copy suffers from VERY low sound volume (i.e. I have to turn my speakers WAY up and no in-game settings change that), frequent crashes to desktop with no error messages whatsoever, WILDLY fluctuating framerate, although my PC is more than able to handle this game at ultra settings... In a lot of cases, the game won't start, if your audio device has set up something different than 44kHz. Dragons don't land... (all of my problems were pre patch, as I stopped playing the game, as I got bored by it).
But the worst offender, in my eyes, is the HORRIBLE gamepad UI. I prefer playing with a pad, so I can't comment on mouse and keyboard, though I've heard they enable mouse acceleration by default and the input is affected by the framerate to a high degree.
The ui controls are just so inconsistent, its horrible. But I will spare you the details... just try and play the game with a pad and see for yourself.
But the worst offender, in my eyes, is the HORRIBLE gamepad UI. I prefer playing with a pad, so I can't comment on mouse and keyboard, though I've heard they enable mouse acceleration by default and the input is affected by the framerate to a high degree.
The ui controls are just so inconsistent, its horrible. But I will spare you the details... just try and play the game with a pad and see for yourself.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
I was asking in the Skyrim thread if there were bugs because I associate Bethesda with being a poor quality dev. They assured me things were looking good, and then this doozy raises its head!
Actually Shifty, it's been well documented at this point that this savegame increasing lag issue has existed in their last three games. Fallout 3, Fallout NV and now Skyrim all have the same issue on the PS3.
The explanation that i believe was posted above was from an Obsidian dev who posted about the issue on the Fallout New Vegas boards. They said they were basically dumped with the buggy engine and tools, and told to make the game in 18 months, and since the problem was with the save system implimentation on an engine level they had not the time nor the desire to fix it. I believe that that is the same sentiment shared by Bethesda, since only one platform seems to experience the issue to any great degree.
It's pretty piss poor in my eyes, and i wouldn't be surprised if bethesda start seeing a few class actions.
This "BUG" is there since Oblivion and not FNV... remember that i restarted oblivion every one hour because the game run at cca 5-10FPS and crashed ... ive never finished the main quest in oblivion because of this.. the save was a couple of gigs big lol
edit: sorry not the save file but the Game Data increased from few MBs to couple of gigs ... when i remember correctly... when the Game Data was over 4,5GB the slideshow started...
edit: sorry not the save file but the Game Data increased from few MBs to couple of gigs ... when i remember correctly... when the Game Data was over 4,5GB the slideshow started...
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