"2x the power of the GC," can someone clarify what this means? (ERP)

[pc999]

you don't mean dreamcast games, do you? as in size they are mostly anywhere from 0.5 to 1GB.

, there will not be DC games on Rev (by now), but eg from N64 games if you do have ~5 then you already filled half of the memory.

 

[Thunder Emperor]

Statement by Epics mark rein to fuel the flames, but not , he himself said he has not seen final hardware. courtsey Joystiq.com


Heard@GDC: no Unreal Engine 3 on Revolution

Posted Mar 28th 2006 1:00AM by Christopher Grant
Filed under: Nintendo Revolution, First Person Shooters, GDC
During a Q&A session following a demonstration of their new Unreal Engine 3, Epic Games' Mark Rein said, "It won't be easy to take something HD res here to the Revolution," continuing we probably "won't be seeing Unreal Engine 3 on the Revolution."

Although he was clear to say that he has not seen the final hardware for the Revolution, Rein said the existing Unreal Engine 2 would provice more than enough muscle to take full advantage of the Revolution's hardware since it won't require HD resolution.

Naturally, nothing's been announced, so despite the fact this came from Epic's VP, consider it unconfirmed. Any geeks in the house care to pontificate on whether or not UE3 is in fact worth it for Revolution developers?

 

[pc999]

That is a strange thing to say after all why would he talk about HD in Rev? it almost seems that UE3 only worth if it is at HD and IMO from what I already shaw, even at lower rez, it should worth a lot, it may lost a lot of detail of it normal maps and such but even with out them it still does bring us new physics, AI, lightning/shadows, poligon counts, voice control, fx, streaming system etc... all of them very important IMO.

Can you past the source/link so we can dig a bit more.

 

[Mariner]

Why would lower resolution impact the use of UE3?

What a strange comment from Rein.

 

[Ali-G]

Rein's talking silly again, tomorrow he'll probably apologize and say he was drunk

If the only point of the Unreal 3 Engine was High Definition then there would be no point in it at all. It'd just be the Unreal 2 Engine at HDTV resolutions.

 

[fearsomepirate]

For some reason, certain people have picked up on HD as a talking point, as though there's something magical about 720x1280 that would cause a rift to open in the universe and demons to eat our souls if the same image were displayed at 640x854 or 640x480. I'm sure it has nothing to do with MS paying them big bucks for Gears of War.

It's especially weird because Unreal Engine 2 was designed for "HD" resolutions. I didn't know anyone who played the UT games at 640x480 on their PCs.

darkblu, I saw tons of jaggies in interlaced mode, especially in the village levels. There was also some severe texture aliasing in the castle. Strangely, when you got to the military base, they seemed to be using some sort of AA. I saw no specularity in the village, but you may be right, it could be that I'm so used to "HEY! LOOK OVER HERE! SPECULARITY!" that I just don't see it. The thing that stood out to me was that the game looked near-perfect, but I couldn't really put my finger on much of anything, unlike games that impress you by punching you in the face with SFX.

 

[pc999]

It's especially weird because Unreal Engine 2 was designed for "HD" resolutions. I didn't know anyone who played the UT games at 640x480 on their PCs.

BTW there is the link


The funniest thing is that he end saying that it is possible tu run UE3 at HD on the Rev (but it is not easy, even if it is indeed very hard it is possible), so if it is possible at HD it should be relative easy to do it at 480 (I am taking this as it will not be easy to have something playable, as this is the only thing that make sense IMO, but fell free to disagre), and this is probably what he wanted to avoid given the final statement (that can now be interpreted as "won't be seeing Unreal Engine 3 on the Revolution [at HD]").

 

[darkblu]

darkblu, I saw tons of jaggies in interlaced mode, especially in the village levels. There was also some severe texture aliasing in the castle. Strangely, when you got to the military base, they seemed to be using some sort of AA. I saw no specularity in the village, but you may be right, it could be that I'm so used to "HEY! LOOK OVER HERE! SPECULARITY!" that I just don't see it. The thing that stood out to me was that the game looked near-perfect, but I couldn't really put my finger on much of anything, unlike games that impress you by punching you in the face with SFX.

you subconsciously discerned the look as realsitic, though nothing stood in your face. that basically is a sign of good work on behalf of presentaion.

btw, you won't find many specularities in the pueblo even if you sought for them - no specular surfaces there (aside from water), and rightfully so, it's a misty fall in a forrest environment, with clouded (diffuse-scattered) sunlight. but it's enogh to make leon put on his kevlar vest to see what i'm talking about. again, nothing in-your-face. also, a place where you can see exaggerated specularities even in this game is the inventory when examining an object, but that's intentional as those objects are meant to stand out outside of any lighting context.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

I didn't see any specularities to speak of. Now I really wonder what you're talking about. I do wish the game had at least 2x FSAA...it's gotta be the jaggiest game on the Cube.

Great Odin's beard! Tell me you are not serious fp, it has by far the second best lighting engine ever developed upon the Cube. (bested only by RSIII's per-pixel goodness & light scattering) The diffuse lighting was masterfully used. Jaggiest? For the love of all that is holy! Have you not seen Cubivore amongst a host of other games fearsome? Btw there is no such thing as a "jagless game" this generation, nor will there be the next. As I said earlier, the PCs will forever be ahead esp. in regards to its superior anti-aliasing capability.

Strangely, when you got to the military base, they seemed to be using some sort of AA. I saw no specularity in the village, but you may be right, it could be that I'm so used to "HEY! LOOK OVER HERE! SPECULARITY!"

If you are accustomed to playing high-end PC or even XBX games then no, the specularity wasn't implemented in such a manner so as to draw your attention away from the rest of the environment, say like the lighting in Splinter Cell series was. But AA was applied to the military base, & not a form of it as it is Flipper processor function.

lower resolution, lower texture resolution, lower physics, lower AI, more loading time
and depending on gpu, lower number of effects (HDR, etc)

if it will end near 2x the gamecube, with 128 MB of mem, its first software gen titles will be barely differenced by an xbox1 game of 3th software gen

there's few that you can do to avoid loading time
compression, compression, compression

but with 88-128 MB the loading times will be huge (decompression takes time too)

Why are you being redundant? A lower maximum resolution setting translates into lower-res textures, it's understood. I do not have the time, nor patience to illustrate to you Griffith the GC as a comprehensive system. The GC's texture upload, compression/decompression, & load times were effectively & comprehensively shorter than the XBX's despite it boasting essentially a 37mb advantage in memory on paper, though not in reality. The UMA required the OS, sound, Z-buffer, etc. to all be drawn from that 64mb, thus further reducing the amount that could be allocated for textures, though it still bested the GC's by a good margin. And with 1st party Nintendo developed titles, there was absolutely no contest as they were loaded virtually seamlessly. (LOZ:TWW, MP, MP:Echoes, Pikmin II, SMS, etc.) Do you know what type of compression scheme the Rev will utilize? Cache sizes? Did you even bother to read my post on MoSys 1T-SRAM-Q's characteristics?

So a system that supports a GPU with DX9 functionality, with a primary dedicated 128mb of 1T-SRAM-Q ram, (more than double what the XBX can hold & process) e-DRAM, & a third ram pool solely for sound (& perhaps secondary functions as well) will be the equivalent of only 3rd generation XBX titles? You have made me say "WoW." You act as if the XBX was running unoptimized code (ala the PS2) from its beginning, & due to the platform's programming complexity therefore initially made it very difficult to extract optimal performance from.

Wrong. As this isn't the PS2. PDO, Halo, JSRF, etc. still hold up when comparing generational software. Why would that be exactly? Because the DX8 (8.1) API in addition to the dedicated pixel & vertex shaders made it a programmer's dream. (esp in comparison to the PS2 & GC) No more of the laborious hand assembly code was needed for optimizing visual performance, animation, & effects. According to developers, it was obviously easier by far to create visually impressive software & effects, & as a result they could spend more of their time & assets focusing on these aspects. While the GC was easier to get game code up & running, exploiting the TEV's abilities was far, far more difficult as well as time consuming.

I'm not saying that these successive gen. titles didn't utilize the XBX's power more proficiently, (normal maps, etc) but it's visual progression generationally was nothing compared to that of the PS2. And if the Cube had more talented 3rd parties attempting to code to the GC's metal, creating its software architecturally from the ground up (Factor 5's RS series, (GDS) Square-Enix's FF:CC, Retro's Prime series, Capcom's Studio 4's RE4, Rare's SFA) I believe we would have seen an even more pronounced visual succession than even that of the PS2. (simply due to the more advanced feature-set, & platform efficiency)

But the market leader always is the recepient of the most competitive development environment & gets dug into most deeply.

More often, publishers focus their ambitious projects for that console, backing it with larger budgets, more staff, and more resources overall. Games are often conceptualized and tuned more aptly for the machine. Developers' "A Team" staff are put on the job. A larger general sampling of developers, which in turn, means a larger number of talented developers, continue to raise the technical bar at a faster pace for what can be done with the machine.

Back on topic, Nintendo has admittedly loathed loading times ever since before the N64, & have even gone on record to say they are using advanced technology to ensure a fast start-up for the Revolution, but this is in your mind outside the realm of possibility I'm assuming?

 

[Thunder Emperor]

Great Odin's beard! Tell me you are not serious fp, it has by far the second best lighting engine ever developed upon the Cube. (bested only by RSIII's per-pixel goodness & light scattering) The diffuse lighting was masterfully used. Jaggiest? For the love of all that is holy! Have you not seen Cubivore amongst a host of other games fearsome? Btw there is no such thing as a "jagless game" this generation, nor will there be the next. As I said earlier, the PCs will forever be ahead esp. in regards to its superior anti-aliasing capability.



If you are accustomed to playing high-end PC or even XBX games then no, the specularity wasn't implemented in such a manner so as to draw your attention away from the rest of the environment, say like the lighting in Splinter Cell series was. But AA was applied to the military base, & not a form of it as it is Flipper processor function.





Why are you being redundant? A lower maximum resolution setting translates into lower-res textures, it's understood. I do not have the time, nor patience to illustrate to you Griffith the GC as a comprehensive system. The GC's texture upload, compression/decompression, & load times were effectively & comprehensively shorter than the XBX's despite it boasting essentially a 37mb advantage in memory on paper, though not in reality. The UMA required the OS, sound, Z-buffer, etc. to all be drawn from that 64mb, thus further reducing the amount that could be allocated for textures, though it still bested the GC's by a good margin. And with 1st party Nintendo developed titles, there was absolutely no contest as they were loaded virtually seamlessly. (LOZ:TWW, MP, MP:Echoes, Pikmin II, SMS, etc.) Do you know what type of compression scheme the Rev will utilize? Cache sizes? Did you even bother to read my post on MoSys 1T-SRAM-Q's characteristics?

So a system that supports a GPU with DX9 functionality, with a primary dedicated 128mb of 1T-SRAM-Q ram, (more than double what the XBX can hold & process) e-DRAM, & a third ram pool solely for sound (& perhaps secondary functions as well) will be the equivalent of only 3rd generation XBX titles? You have made me say "WoW." You act as if the XBX was running unoptimized code (ala the PS2) from its beginning, & due to the platform's programming complexity therefore initially made it very difficult to extract optimal performance from.

Wrong. As this isn't the PS2. PDO, Halo, JSRF, etc. still hold up when comparing generational software. Why would that be exactly? Because the DX8 (8.1) API in addition to the dedicated pixel & vertex shaders made it a programmer's dream. (esp in comparison to the PS2 & GC) No more of the laborious hand assembly code was needed for optimizing visual performance, animation, & effects. According to developers, it was obviously easier by far to create visually impressive software & effects, & as a result they could spend more of their time & assets focusing on these aspects. While the GC was easier to get game code up & running, exploiting the TEV's abilities was far, far more difficult.

I'm not saying that these successive gen. titles didn't utilize the XBX's power more proficiently, (normal maps, etc) but it's visual progression generationally was nothing compared to that of the PS2. And if the Cube had more talented 3rd parties attempting to code to the GC's metal, creating its software architecturally from the ground up (Factor 5's RS series, (GDS) Square-Enix's FF:CC, Retro's Prime series, Capcom's Studio 4's RE4, Rare's SFA) I believe we would have seen an even more pronounced visual succession than even that of the PS2. (simply due to the more advanced feature-set)

But the market leader always is the recepient of the most competitive development environment & gets dug into most deeply.



Back on topic, Nintendo has admittedly loathed loading times ever since before the N64, & have even gone on record to say they are using advanced technology to ensure a fast start-up for the Revolution, but this is in your mind outside the realm of possibility I'm assuming?

great post Liu Mu bai, thanks for explaing to them that a hard drive is not nessacry fo rfaster loadtimes, as it did not help the xbox on load times in comparison to GC.

Unto Mark rein's statement, isn't UE3 scaleable so what do Rev not having HD have anything to do with it?

 

[Rodéric]

Unto Mark rein's statement, isn't UE3 scaleable so what do Rev not having HD have anything to do with it?

Just forget it until we have Revolution Specs, then we'll know what he could have meant, because the quote is far from being clear...

 

[fearsomepirate]

Great Odin's beard! Tell me you are not serious fp, it has by far the second best lighting engine ever developed upon the Cube. (bested only by RSIII's per-pixel goodness & light scattering) The diffuse lighting was masterfully used.

Yeah, but I didn't see many specularities. I didn't say the lighting wasn't brilliant (it's pretty competitive with Half-Life 2 IMHO). I said I didn't see much in the way of specularity. Despite what you say, the jaggies periodically go nuts for the first 2/3 of the game. It has some serious MIP and/or AA issues up until near the end, and I just can't ignore that. Metroid Prime, Prince of Persia, Fight Night 2, Wind Waker, and Rogue Leader are all way smoother than RE4, to name a few. I don't play PC games much anymore; I'm just comparing to other Cube titles. The only other titles I've got with similar aliasing problems are Killer7 (the worst of the bunch) and Soul Calibur II. Like I said, I saw AA in the mil base (and yes, it was a "form" of AA. 8x SSAA is a form of AA. So is 2x MSAA. So's Quincunx. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't "true" AA or something).

 

[Mr. Saturn]

Didn't the 360 have four revisions? I also agree, Matt posted comments like "Double the clockspeed of the Flipper & Gekko & you're just about there." Huh? You didn't even have in your possesion the 3rd iteration of the Rev devkit when this was written, it certainly did give the false impression he was experimenting with the final hw. Although Nintendo could've clearly given out spec. projections on what to expect, but why absolutely no GPU/Hollywood mentions then? Nintendo seemed keen on getting developers to familiarize themselves with the Revmote 1st & foremost, & even actively assisted some of the larger 3rd party developers with control implementation as well as ideas. As I posted here:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25383

I'd hate to bring this up so late, but does having the final development kit really make that big of a difference? I remember hearing that the final development kit is usually only a 10-15% increase in power. I'm just wondering if there's any truth to that statement.

 

[pc999]

I'd hate to bring this up so late, but does having the final development kit really make that big of a difference? I remember hearing that the final development kit is usually only a 10-15% increase in power. I'm just wondering if there's any truth to that statement.

Dependent on the case, eg in most cases XB360 SDKs are based on G5+X800 which is about 1/3 of the final (acording to them) only very few (eg Rare) got early prototipes, in the case of PS3 IIRC it has 75%.

Plus he is not saying that it will be just analizing the situation that it is know (at least at the time).

And in this case they only got SDKs that resemble final HW little ago,

Developers making Revolution software that will show up at E3 2006 in playable form - high profile companies like EA and Ubisoft, to name a few - will soon be sent the official fourth SDK prototype [ie prototypes] , which promises to deliver between 90% and 95% of the final system's performance.

So yesm it may be the case.

 

[ERP]

Dependent on the case, eg in most cases XB360 SDKs are based on G5+X800 which is about 1/3 of the final (acording to them) only very few (eg Rare) got early prototipes, in the case of PS3 IIRC it has 75%.

True but I new what the final configuration of the Xbox360 hardware was down to memory latencies long before I even saw anm alpha kit.

 

[pc999]

True but I new what the final configuration of the Xbox360 hardware was down to memory latencies long before I even saw anm alpha kit.

That is what is interesting in this case, once they use expressions like "belived" and such for the GPU/CPU and played a big role in this thread. , althought from Reed Steel it seems that IGN is right , yet one can still hope given the SDKs time frames (and given that we now nothingh from the Rev HW).

Well, hope is the last thing to die...

 

[sfried]

That is what is interesting in this case, once they use expressions like "belived" and such for the GPU/CPU and played a big role in this thread. , althought from Reed Steel it seems that IGN is right , yet one can still hope given the SDKs time frames (and given that we now nothingh from the Rev HW).

Well, hope is the last thing to die...

Red Steel was developed with pre-alpha kits (GC) and was just recently moved to Rev's later SDK's, so they could still implement a few more effects before release.

 

[pc999]

If it is a significant updated HW, I hope more than a few, IIRC a few months before the release SW:RSII looked much worst than the final product.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

If it is a significant updated HW, I hope more than a few, IIRC a few months before the release SW:RSII looked much worst than the final product.

As did TWW & Metroid Prime especially. As of Red Steel's showing to GI (this was pre-GDC btw, so the interview & hands-on must have taken place sometime between late February to early March) Based upon the aforementioned time-frame, the game still had 8-9 more months of development time remaining as of GI's pressing, if the Revolution's late 4th qtr. release date holds true. (early-to-mid Nov. afaik) We just do not know how current the build shown to GI was, though clearly it is a work in progress. (as mentioned, final prototype dev-kits will be issued to 3rd parties in June, promising 90-95% of the system's total power) Red Steel was developed primarily with pre-alpha & alpha kits, essentially GC spec. machines with FHCs enabled.

Nintendo's thought process behind this being get developers familiarized & creating unconventional control schemes that utilize the FHC's many features first & foremost. As this is to be the main aspect differentiating the Revolution from its competitors, as well as its most attractive selling point on the next-generation market. Also, architecturally it wasn't going to be vastly different from the GC. Nintendo is even currently actively assisting many third parties with implementation & ideas ranging from Sega, EA, Kuju, Ubi Soft, N-Space, Namco-Bandai, Konami, Atari, etc.

 

[pc999]

Thanks for the info LMB. (BTW I said SW:RSII because it has also a launch title without final HW, althought yours eg may be a better example)

Do you know/think if they will show upgraded engines/games in (near?)final SDKs at E3 (like it seems from IGN sdks report) or still based on GC ones (with a , eventually, "still 1/3 of the power" like coment if needed)?