Epic: Gears Of War "Impossible" on PS3

[Hardknock]

http://www.siliconera.com/index.php/2006/10/26/from-the-gears-of-war-hollywood-launch-party/

Since Epic is working with the PS3 hardware and the Xbox 360 hardware could Gears of War ever work on the Playstation 3? “256 MB of RAM makes a huge difference. There is no way we could ever do Gears of War on 256, we had trouble fitting everything on 512MB. We pushed the 360 to the limits.” Another member from Epic’s team chimed in with the fact that there are currently more Playstation 3 programmers than Xbox 360 programmers. “It (the PS3) is in our future. We always had plans for the Playstation 3 and an engine already runs on it.”



What about the Wii could a game like Gears of War work with the Wiimote? “I love the idea of the Wii, taking a paradigm and completely changing it. For shooters getting the accuracy is really hard. Graphically, we couldn’t even get he engine on the Wii.” Is Epic planning on supporting Nintendo’s console in the future? “Epic has no plans right now, but in the future who knows.”

Interesting. Is there a bit more to this split memory architecture then is being let on? I figure they both had 512MBs? Just that PS3's is split...

 

[AlNom]

yes, if you stick Gears of War into the PS3, it will not work. I tried it.



Joking aside... It's known that devs could use the XDR for vid memory. It'd just be a little more memory management than the 360.

I mean... take Factor 5's statements about doing their game on 360 i.e. couldn't be done without a lot of reworking.

 

[nintenho]

http://www.siliconera.com/index.php/2006/10/26/from-the-gears-of-war-hollywood-launch-party/
Interesting. Is there a bit more to this split memory architecture then is being let on? I figure they both had 512MBs? Just that PS3's is split...

Doesn't the PS3 have 256 MB of VRAM and 360 has 400 MB of VRAM? This could all just be PR spin.

In other news, did anybody go to the GOW hollwood promotional thingy? They let normal people play the game for like 3 hours. Is there a thread or a discussion in a related topic?

 

[Hardknock]

They both have 512 to my understand. PS3's is just split. not sure if that limits the quality of textures that can be used.

 

[cloudscapes]

from what I understand, the 360 has shared memory (or has much greater than half that can be used for fast texture memory) while the ps3 is split 256/256. fast texture mem and slower mem. so lets say you have a 360 game that uses 300 MB of textures at its peaks, then they need to optimize/scale-down textures untill it can fit inside of 256 if they want to port to the ps3. on the other hand, that allows devs to use higher-quality sound and other stuff that doesn't require fast memory, if they have the assets.

this is my understanding anyway. feel free to correct/add-to.

 

[22psi]

Firstly, is this a dev speaking or some PR guy?

 

[nintenho]

Firstly, is this a dev speaking or some PR guy?

A QA manager (Preston Thorne) at last night's GoW event.
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/10/26/is-gears-of-war-as-good-as-it-gets/

 

[flick556]

The split has its advantages and disadvantages. It is enough of a difference to make porting non trivial.

+ More bandwidth Overall two 128 bit buses vs. one
+ No contention between CPU and GPU
+ XDR has advantages over GDDR

- 512 not split allows for an arbitrary split between GPU and CPU
- GPU / CPU interaction simpler


Overall I think the Xbox way is great for the GPU, but pretty bad for the CPU as it has to play second fiddle to the GPU. By sharing memory it may be tough having the CPU and GPU operate in parallel with out contention. If you want the GPU to go nuts with huge textures and such consuming >256 memory, then 360 will be best(just storing lots of textures, displaying is still bandwith limited). If you did this it will be tough to port to PS3. RSX may never be able to consume all the memory comfortably like the 360 GPU can. Though bandwidth will likely limit things before memory. PS3's split memory, required HD, etc. pretty much force you to use streaming, and you can’t just add streaming as an afterthought you need to create the game with it from the beginning.

 

[mckmas8808]

Man that was a good laugh. I could have sworn that Heavenly Sword took up more than 300 MBs of data at one time.

 

[Skrying]

If they started over, yes they could do it. Actually, this really should be: How 512MB really is not that much memory.... at all.

 

[nintenho]

Man that was a good laugh. I could have sworn that Heavenly Sword took up more than 300 MBs of data at one time.

textures?

 

[expletive]

Was it ever confirmed that the PS3 OS reserves ~90MB?

 

[mckmas8808]

If they started over, yes they could do it. Actually, this really should be: How 512MB really is not that much memory.... at all.

It is enough memory when you consider that devs are targeting the same hardware. These consoles don't need 1 GB worth of memory.

 

[btdvox]

hasnt it been stated that if need be the ps3 can use all 512 of ram for the gpu?

 

[Sis]

It is enough memory when you consider that devs are targeting the same hardware. These consoles don't need 1 GB worth of memory.

Holy Mother of Ironic Statements Batman!

What's your opinion on Blu-ray again?

(Note: that is a sarcastically-delivered, rhetorical question--I am not looking for a response nor attempting to derail the thread.)

 

[blakjedi]

Another member from Epic’s team chimed in with the fact that there are currently more Playstation 3 programmers than Xbox 360 programmers.

Hmmm... that is either due to hardware complexity or expected marketshare...

 

[Oninotsume]

I wouldn't really get too excited about this.

I've been playing games for about 25 years now and every single generation you get tons of developers saying they've "maxed" the machine out, or this is "impossible" on a different machine only to see it trumpted a couple of months later.

 

[Nesh]

http://www.siliconera.com/index.php/2006/10/26/from-the-gears-of-war-hollywood-launch-party/



Interesting. Is there a bit more to this split memory architecture then is being let on? I figure they both had 512MBs? Just that PS3's is split...

Perhaps the allocation between RAM and VRAM on the 360 is the reason. It seems they used above 256MB of VRAM and less than 256MB for RAM. So if we assume they used 350MB for VRAM and 162MB for RAM, its understandable why its impossible on the PS3.

 

[Rangers]

So like, you're making a 360 game, how much mem do you take for Vram, what's the split, 400/100? And what's the 100 for (game engine/CPU stuff right, but what is that?)


I mean like, take a PC, say it has GPU with 256 MB and 1GB system ram, on a typical game why is it using that whole 1GB? We know some do cus you can get performance increase in some games by going to 2 GB system RAM.

 

[Rangers]

Perhaps the allocation between RAM and VRAM on the 360 is the reason. It seems they used above 256MB of VRAM and less than 256MB for RAM. So if we assume they used 350MB for VRAM and 162MB for RAM, its understandable why its impossible on the PS3.

Couldn't they just texture out of XDR? In fact, isn't that desired for BW reasons anyway?