*spin off* Game Installs & PS3

[obonicus]

That's easy to fix, certification fail if you don't run without full install I realize why partial installs came to be, something had to be done to deal with slow blu-ray seeks. But they can still allow mandatory partial installs just keep them really small (maybe 1gb) so they don't become overly intrusive, and allow a full install option for those who've got the room. Games that benefit from a small dynamic cache can still go ahead and do that. There's lots of options available given then the hdd is standard, they just need to unlock that last option, the full install.

I wouldn't bet a penny on certification catching that sort of stuff; Last Remnant had downright unplayable FPS hitches without an install on the 360, there was no 'better not play this on an arcade' sticker on it.

 

[macabre]

I thought that certification only covers basic stuff like safety etc. ?

 

[joker454]

I thought that certification only covers basic stuff like safety etc. ?

Nah, there's tons of stuff you can be failed on. Load times fall under a user experience type category, and are usually very flexible at system launch. But they do get tightened up somewhat overtime. That's actually what led to mandatory partial installs many a moon ago, the acceptable load time trc got reduced and bam, mandatory installs were born.

 

[betan]

Of course it does, you talked about hdd caching!

HDD caching in general not necessarily specific to MW2. You see, someone claimed this:

Or Sony could allow games the option to be entirely installed to hdd giving every existing and upcoming game an automatic speed boost, save the fragile blu-ray drives some wear, and save every developer time, money and q/a from having to implement their own optical->hdd caching system.

And I'm asking how does optional install excuse anything? (third time now, without any answer)
As for MW2, it uses HDD caching for sure, to what extends or whether it's the best it can do it's not very clear, though I'm off the opinion the answer to the latter is no.
In fact you seem to be the one who implied there is value in hdd caching (for MW2?).
Doesn't matter, let's stop dancing around word plays and focus for a minute.

I can get all PS3 games for <= $10, so yeah I have Uncharted 2.

Good for you but I asked if you had played it or not, not if you had bought or stolen (for all I care).
It seemed like you weren't particularly well informed about either game.

That game clearly wraps itself around the optical->hdd cache system, it's been tailored to it. Which of course has zero implication on any other game since other games have different needs, a point that has proven almost impossibly difficult to get across. However it might be moot since it seems like you aren't talking about hdd caching at all.

Unfortunately I'm talking about hdd caching(now), but the original question of mine had nothing to do with any specific game and their needs.

I'm saying MW2 *might* not benefit from a optical->hdd caching system. As in most cases it's tough for us to know without more data, so raising the lazy flag is premature, and pointing to other games as examples is just wrong. It would be like me pointing to a Mitsubishi Evo and saying the designers are lazy because it can't go up a dirt hill as well as a Jeep. I mean they are both vehicles right? Both have engines, both have four wheels, both have awd right? Pointing to game 'x' and saying all games should do what it does is just as silly as my vehicle comparison.

Let's get this lazy devs argument out of the way. I think MW2 is a great port, it could possibly have been better but as a gamer I don't think it matters much.

Ok, you aren't talking about a hdd caching system at all, just a partial game install.That is totally different. A partial install isn't a cache, the data is always there, whereas an hdd cache is constantly updated with new data. Semantics I guess, but explains how I misunderstood you. Anyways, yes a partial permanent install would obviously help. You'd have to ask IW why they chose not to do that.

No I did give "partial" game level install as an example to why the cost is not an issue since it is not difficult to implement such a system for that particular console. Never mind, I'll ask IW.

They wouldn't be 25gb installs. We're encouraged to use as much blu-ray space as possible, whether needed or not, to pimp blu-ray.

Who are you? Third party multiplatform game devs? I'm not talking about the devs who are limited by 360 dvd size. Lots of exclusive games use BD space for real data. The game you gave as an example, MGS4 is dual layer with minimal prerendered stuff. It has 4-5 5+ GB installs in addition to the data it does not install. Lots of others however use long prerendered cutscenes making 360 like install not so practical.

To be honest, optional installs are only good for initialing loading and games with terrible or no streaming (or maybe when you have loud and cheap drives that can also break your discs).

For those who stream from BDD efficiently it has little value.
The real value is with mandatory install since the streaming engine and levels can be designed around that unlike optional install. It will show visually better results (unless of course it's simply a lazy port ala GTA4 ).

 

[joker454]

And I'm asking how does optional install excuse anything? (third time now, without any answer)

I think I have no clue what you are asking then. Full installs are not supported. They chose not to go with a partial install for whatever reason which I don't know, hence I said you need to ask them. All that's left is hdd caching which we don't know if they are using, and if they are they it's clearly not effective given the longer loading times and texture pop on the PS3 version. So what else is there? I don't get what you are asking.

Good for you but I asked if you had played it or not, not if you had bought or stolen (for all I care).
It seemed like you weren't particularly well informed about either game.

Don't be silly, I buy all my games. Unlike many others that just go by reviews and screenshots, I actually play the games.

Who are you? Third party multiplatform game devs? I'm not talking about the devs who are limited by 360 dvd size. Lots of exclusive games use BD space for real data. The game you gave as an example, MGS4 is dual layer with minimal prerendered stuff. It has 4-5 5+ GB installs in addition to the data it does not install. Lots of others however use long prerendered cutscenes making 360 like install not so practical.

Ok, you either don't get it or you are purposely being difficult. Have you even played MGS4? I finished it, and it is absolutely *not* a 50gb game. That doesn't mean that it doesn't take up 50gb of disc space. It's easy to make a game eat up all that space and we're encouraged to do so again to pimp blu-ray and to look impressive. Heck, I could make Pong require a 50gb disc if need be. But again, just because it does doesn't mean it had to! It's unbelievably easy to artificially eat up all that space. Just wait and see, if there ever is a downloadable version of MGS4 made available in the future I'll bet you $1000 that it will offer the exact same experience yet magically require far less than 50gb.

To be honest, optional installs are only good for initialing loading and games with terrible or no streaming (or maybe when you have loud and cheap drives that can also break your discs).

Right, just like early PS3's which have fragile blu-rays that are known to be prone to failure. It's also good for consoles like PS3 that have optical drives with terrible seek times. So there is definite benefit. And games just run faster from hdd, plain and simple. It's a crying shame that PS3 users are still in 2009 subjected to long load times when everyone else has long since solved the problem. Sorry, but it's ridiculous especially when it can be so easily fixed. And redesigning every game around the slowness of a blu-ray drive is not the solution.

For those who stream from BDD efficiently it has little value.

I don't agree.

 

[N_B]

MGS4 is 34GB, but that is mostly to do with uncompressed audio.

I don't think the problem of load times has such an easy solution. There are far more potential problems with OS installs on PS3 than the 360 had. First you need a way to deal with games already with mandatory installs, optional installs, and "special" installs like MGS4 and Fallout 3. Then you need an intelligent way of telling which data is and isn't reduntant, and games with uncompressed audio or 1080p cutscenes will still be far to big. If you just leave all audio or video on the disc you wont cut down on wear and tear on the drive so a huge benefit is lost. There is no easy fix.

EDIT: And caching. I suspect there would be far more games prone to Halo 3's problem on PS3.

 

[betan]

I think I have no clue what you are asking then. Full installs are not supported. They chose not to go with a partial install for whatever reason which I don't know, hence I said you need to ask them. All that's left is hdd caching which we don't know if they are using, and if they are they it's clearly not effective given the longer loading times and texture pop on the PS3 version. So what else is there? I don't get what you are asking.

Forget about installs for a second. You can also forget about whether they are using HDD caching or not.

Did you or did you not tell us having optional OS level installs on PS3 would save developers time and money because they wouldn't have to implement hdd caching? (yes or no)

It just makes no sense, because the install is optional not mandatory. If you are still confused at this point, please forget about that discussion all together.

Don't be silly, I buy all my games. Unlike many others that just go by reviews and screenshots, I actually play the games.

How should I know, it's far from obvious whether you have played it or not. Anyway, let's not derail anymore. I trust you played it, and simply missed the facts about cutscenes.

Ok, you either don't get it or you are purposely being difficult. Have you even played MGS4?

I bought it for 10 bucks. (OK I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it, last time).

I finished it, and it is absolutely *not* a 50gb game. That doesn't mean that it doesn't take up 50gb of disc space. It's easy to make a game eat up all that space and we're encouraged to do so again to pimp blu-ray and to look impressive. Heck, I could make Pong require a 50gb disc if need be. But again, just because it does doesn't mean it had to! It's unbelievably easy to artificially eat up all that space. Just wait and see, if there ever is a downloadable version of MGS4 made available in the future I'll bet you $1000 that it will offer the exact same experience yet magically require far less than 50gb.

You see, assuming you indeed played this game the difference between you and me is that I actually checked how much the game installs after an act instead of complaining about it. Unless you claim they are stupid and install padded data, I fail to see how you can argue otherwise.
Plus dual layer BD costs more, they would be doubly stupid to pad junk in excess of first layer, which should be enough to hurdle that non-existing piracy of yours.

Right, just like early PS3's which have fragile blu-rays that are known to be prone to failure.

Yes they are, mostly because dirty lens, incidentally easy to clean .

It's also good for consoles like PS3 that have optical drives with terrible seek times.

I was told PS3 seek times are not terrible (relatively speaking) simply because much higher data density (which makes sense). Even so, the argument against "optional" stands.

So there is definite benefit. And games just run faster from hdd, plain and simple. It's a crying shame that PS3 users are still in 2009 subjected to long load times when everyone else has long since solved the problem.

Yet big games with minimal load times are only available to PS3 users. Go figure.

Sorry, but it's ridiculous especially when it can be so easily fixed. And redesigning every game around the slowness of a blu-ray drive is not the solution.

I'm saying PS3 games should be designed around the "fastness" of HDD, not slowness of BDD.

I don't agree.

Fair enough, "little" after all is subjective.

 

[Fafalada]

In both of those cases you still deal with texture pop as you are first running around in the game so the pop uglyness is still there

Let's clear one thing first - there's no silver bullets of any sort for this. Texture popup still happens both in downloadable and fully installed games across all platforms (including PC). And it's not like people aren't used to long-ass level load-times in online games, PC exclusive titles are usually the worst of the crop in that regard.
That aside, yes, HDD caching doesn't work for every situation, but it at least encourages good development practices that tend to help load-times across the board. HDD installs don't, period.

That's easy to fix, certification fail if you don't run without full install

Of course they would still run from disc - I was talking about how well.
You would need a TRC enforcing performance without install. Historical precedent for such "soft" requirements (Ie. stuff that is not game-breaking or law-breaking) is a slippery slope - lots of examples of such rules becoming progressively looser until they are dropped alltogether (and this goes for all manufacturers alike).

And IF such a TRC remained strict, it would completely contradict what you wrote here:

Or Sony could allow games the option to be entirely installed to hdd ... save every developer time, money and q/a from having to implement their own optical->hdd caching system.

You either eat your cake or you don't. I for one agree with your assertion that dev/pub would use this as cost-saving, which would inevitably lead to games that would run so poorly from disc that noone in their right mind would want to play without an install anymore. Long-term this benefits neither the consumer, nor the platform holder.

 

[semitope]

Hmm, 4 seconds to stream textures from DVD versus 8 seconds for BluRay. Is the BluRay drive really that slow compared to the DVD drive in X360? I always thought that while the BluRay drive was slightly slower it was still pretty comparable.

Regards,
SB

My take on it was that its a DVD game optimized for the varying speeds on DVD. Made to run off the DVD first and Bluray an afterthought. This would seem a common thing in multiplats right now and I dont see a reason for IWs MW2 to be thought of as different

I wonder also about the size of the game in relation to some of the lower res textures I see in the game on the consoles. Wondering if they could have used up more space on disc with a properly implemented streaming system to raise texture quality overall. Can the textures in the game be better using the size of a bluray disc? What do you think they could have improved in the game by taking advantage of bluray?

 

[AlNom]

Can the textures in the game be better using the size of a bluray disc?

You still have a RAM limitation.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You either eat your cake or you don't. I for one agree with your assertion that dev/pub would use this as cost-saving, which would inevitably lead to games that would run so poorly from disc that noone in their right mind would want to play without an install anymore. Long-term this benefits neither the consumer, nor the platform holder.

I'm not entirely sure about that. It hasn't happened on X360, although I suppose the fact that the Arcade exists basically forces devs to optimize for DVD access even when there's an option to install the game to the HDD.

But I can't imagine Devs on the PS3 would suddenly decide that everyone will be enamoured with having a virtually unplayable/unpleasant experience with their game if they "don't" install. Assuming all games had the option to install to HDD as on the X360.

Either way to go back to an earlier comment in your post. I have to state that I much MUCH prefer long load times to texture streaming. Texture pop-in is hugely annoying.

Now, that said. I'm not entirely unhappy with streaming as long as it doesn't feature texture/feature pop-in. And there are some games that stream data without it. Unfortunately streaming of textures appears to be the new "in" thing for games. And THAT I do hate. It's in my face everytime I play Borderlands on my PC. It's ugly, it's distracting, and it totally ruins any sense of immersion you might have built up playing the game.

I really hope texture streaming either improves significantly or it dies a horrible horrible death. I'd prefer lower res textures to the abomination (in my eyes) of texture pop in.

Regards,
SB

 

[semitope]

You still have a RAM limitation.

At some point you would, but are the textures in the game the maximum the RAM in both systems could handle or are they the maximum the DVD could hold for the entire game. Would be interesting to know where the textures are stored on the DVD as that affects how fast they load.

 

[joker454]

Did you or did you not tell us having optional OS level installs on PS3 would save developers time and money because they wouldn't have to implement hdd caching? (yes or no)

It just makes no sense, because the install is optional not mandatory. If you are still confused at this point, please forget about that discussion all together.

Ok I get it now. Having the full install be optional doesn't mean hdd caching would still have to be implemented on every game. Right now the only "fast load" option is a mandatory install which is a pain to some as being forced to delete stuff off your hdd to play a game is never a good idea. But the PS3 doesn't live in a vacuum, it's load times will be compared to the 360's. With mandatory install being frowned upon and no full install option, we then have no choice but to spend time experimenting with hdd caches even if we know they may yield little benefit on our particular game. It's like any other game feature, a judgment call is made and a feature is either explored or dropped. If it's determined that an hdd cache would benefit then one would hope that avenue is explored. But with the current situation, cycles get spent on it even if it's thought to yield little benefit because, what choice do we have? If full install was an option, and we determine that a cache wouldn't benefit our game, then we could not spend anytime on it. But right now we have to spend time on it no matter what.

You see, assuming you indeed played this game the difference between you and me is that I actually checked how much the game installs after an act instead of complaining about it. Unless you claim they are stupid and install padded data, I fail to see how you can argue otherwise.
Plus dual layer BD costs more, they would be doubly stupid to pad junk in excess of first layer, which should be enough to hurdle that non-existing piracy of yours.

I saw how much they installed and none of it makes sense to me. I don't think they are stupid, but I do think data was made unnecessarily large to promote blu-ray. I'll assume you finished the game, irregardless of how much space each act took on disc, did it really seem like a 50gb game to you? It definitely didn't to me. N_B is saying they stored audio uncompressed, if that's the case then that explains a lot of the bloat right there. In some cases the bloat is data duplication to help the blu-ray feed data quickly, in other cases the bloat is for marketing. In MGS4's case, I think it was for marketing because the game didn't need it from what I saw. Bloat sometimes is for piracy also. Piracy might not be an issue now, but maybe it will be someday, so may as well make their life difficult if the need arises.

Dual layer blu-rays are dirt cheap btw, blu-ray movies that sell for $15 have been using them for a long time now and are profitable, cost is not really an issue.

Yet big games with minimal load times are only available to PS3 users. Go figure.

Didn't you find the boot time of Uncharted 2 really long? It took so long to start that I almost timed it to see if it would have been a trc fail! I suspect they must be populating the cache during boot. How about Little Big Planet? Takes quite some time to start up, again I suspect cache related.

I'm saying PS3 games should be designed around the "fastness" of HDD, not slowness of BDD.

Right, but a cache (the fast hdd in this case) can only be so effective. Look at memory caches. As fast as they are, if code is accessing memory all over the place then their effectiveness drops dramatically. Same with using the hdd as a texture cache. We have no full installs, but we have a small but fast chunk of hdd that can be used as cache for the blu-ray. How effective is it? Depends on the game. Uncharted 1 and 2 were designed to help it be very effective, it probably works great for those games. But the effectiveness ultimately varies from game to game. Plus designing around the "fastness" of the hdd only gets you so far.

That aside, yes, HDD caching doesn't work for every situation, but it at least encourages good development practices that tend to help load-times across the board. HDD installs don't, period.

I'd agree, except in this case good dev practices are already enforced by something else, the 360 Arcade. It's not like if PS3 supported optional full installs that we could then all kick back and assume hdd speed. Whatever we do has to run on the hdd-less 360 anyways.

You either eat your cake or you don't. I for one agree with your assertion that dev/pub would use this as cost-saving, which would inevitably lead to games that would run so poorly from disc that noone in their right mind would want to play without an install anymore. Long-term this benefits neither the consumer, nor the platform holder.

I'd say the same as above, the 360 Arcade ensures that performance just off blu-ray alone wouldn't be appalling. It would likely run slower compared to just off a dvd drive, but if they are unplayable off blu-ray alone then the user experience is probably pretty bad on the 360 Arcade as well.

 

[joker454]

I don't think the problem of load times has such an easy solution. There are far more potential problems with OS installs on PS3 than the 360 had. First you need a way to deal with games already with mandatory installs, optional installs, and "special" installs like MGS4 and Fallout 3. Then you need an intelligent way of telling which data is and isn't reduntant, and games with uncompressed audio or 1080p cutscenes will still be far to big. If you just leave all audio or video on the disc you wont cut down on wear and tear on the drive so a huge benefit is lost. There is no easy fix.

Games can just be flagged as "doesn't support full install" until they are patched. I think Crackdown on 360 didn't support being installed, but apparently a patch recently fixed that. So it wouldn't be too hard to implement. Same with a Halo 3 type situation, a game could be restricted from full install if performance were to drop. Worse case they just add support for it and default all existing games to no full install support without a patch, but new games would support it, as was done with Trophies.

 

[joker454]

I wonder also about the size of the game in relation to some of the lower res textures I see in the game on the consoles. Wondering if they could have used up more space on disc with a properly implemented streaming system to raise texture quality overall. Can the textures in the game be better using the size of a bluray disc? What do you think they could have improved in the game by taking advantage of bluray?

Not really, available memory and gpu are the limiting factors on current consoles, at least on non mega texture renderers.

 

[obonicus]

I'm not entirely sure about that. It hasn't happened on X360, although I suppose the fact that the Arcade exists basically forces devs to optimize for DVD access even when there's an option to install the game to the HDD.

There's at least one high-profile game from a major publisher that is unplayable without an install on 360 (well, unless you can live with serious framerate hitches). It got slammed hard by reviewers so they're not likely to try this again, but it was tried. And most 'optional install' PS3 games have pretty brutal load times without the install.

 

[PeterT]

How do you know an optical->hdd cache would even work fast enough for MW2? You can run around really fast in that game, and unlike Uncharted 2 the level design isn't built around supporting an optical->hdd cache type of setup with levels cut up into small digestible sections, or having long cutscenes to mask the time taken to repopulate the cache.

I have an anecdote from Uncharted 1 to share concerning this. There are a few areas in the game where you can very quickly move from one part of a level to another. Since I was extremely impressed with UC1's textures back then I specifically tried to produce some texture pop-in in those areas. I failed. I haven't played Uncharted 2 yet but I doubt their technology got worse. I realize that it's not as simple as that, but I can understand how people can look at ND's games and think that other developers are lazy. (I've been playing plenty of games on a PC that's around an order of magnitude faster in many areas than the consoles and still get pop-in)

 

[semitope]

Not really, available memory and gpu are the limiting factors on current consoles, at least on non mega texture renderers.

(-_-)

I disagree, unless all games are going to be repeating textures like crazy along with other game content that has to fit on disc for the entire gameplay experience. Otherwise you can come up on a delivery bottleneck. Same as being able to playback 7.1lossless HD audio might be nice but you dont have the disc space to actually include it in the package you sell to the consumer. If they could find a way to make the textures better and stream as fast or faster yet they have no way to get those textures to the consumers' systems that would not be a RAM/GPU limitation. Imagine if they tried to fit RAGE, FFXIII and other games on 1 DVD. Textures, sound quality, video would drop to ridiculously low quality

Guess this has gone off the original topic.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I'd like to question Joker's comment about designing around the BD drive's slower speed "not being a good solution"...

Why not? Especially for devs intending to develop their game as multiplatform title. Surely the principle design philosophy is to "develop for the lowest common denominator". When MS releases the HDD-less arcade version of the 360, that meant that all multiplatform devs had to design for that. Why, when designing a game to run equally well on both 360 and PS3, shouldn't you target the BDD speeds rather than DVD drive speeds?... seems a little inconsistent to me.

Also, with the whole HDD caching, manditory/optional installs issue... I just don't get Joker's stance... I thought the general consensus amongst devs was that the Arcade 360 was a pain in the ass because it limited all multiplat devs to having to target a HDD-less SKU rather than having the benefit of a HDD in every box? Why then when Sony does indeed ensure a HDD in every box, would a dev complain that they don't allow"optional full installs"?!?! From a developer time/money point of view, surely you would save time/money just implimenting a single partial/install system or HDD caching system for streaming your textures, than having to allow for the possiblity of both?!?!... if every user has a HDD installed from the get go, it seems like a waste to not make use of that.

I get that a certain online vocal minority of gamers cares so much about manditory installs, but is it really that much of an issue that the benefit of having a HDD in every box should go completely wasted?

I would personally welcome manditory full installs for every game on both PS3 and 360 (balls to the arcade), but alas that'll never happen. My only solice is in the hope that next gen, HDD prices will be so darn cheap (along with a great emphasis on digital distribution for DLC) that there will be a HDD present in every SKU of every console next gen.

 

[eastmen]

Sony has to play catch up because multiplatform games still sell more on the 360.

Its the same thing as last gen. Why were all the games gimped by the ps2 instead of using the full extent of the original xbox abilitys.

Its the way it goes. Market leader (and the 360 is the hd console market leader ) gets to dictate these things.