360 Disc Space *spin off*

[vanquish]

What would the "shinier/more pronounced" normal maps have anything to do with storage space??

I doubt it, would probably only amount to a couple of kb difference, and the 360 has more available (and more flexible) system memory anyway so its not like these hi res maps would only fit into PS3 architecture.

COD5 according to this thread COD5 uses 6.5 GB of space, less than the 6.7GB COD4 used, so I don't think they ran out of space on the DVD.
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202456

 

[Arwin]

COD5 according to this thread COD5 uses 6.5 GB of space, less than the 6.7GB COD4 used, so I don't think they ran out of space on the DVD.

I don't think you can use a .2/0.3 difference as indicative of that they did or did not run out of space. However developers have rarely used this additional space on the PS3 for texture related stuff, and I doubt this will be the game to change that trend.

By the way looking at that size list above, it seems the max capacity on the 360's DVD's is 6.8 GB, aren't dual layer DVDs supposed to be 8.5 GB? Are there using different format DVDs, or is there nearly 2gb of copy protection on the game disc (unlikely).

I think this has been discussed before - something like 7,2 million bytes or 6.8GB is available max. The rest is for who knows what? Copy protection, firmwares, whatever. It's 2 million bytes less than the PS2 had available on its DVD disc, so I'm sure its used for something.

 

[vanquish]

I don't think you can use a .2/0.3 difference as indicative of that they did or did not run out of space. However developers have rarely used this additional space on the PS3 for texture related stuff, and I doubt this will be the game to change that trend.



I think this has been discussed before - something like 7,2 million bytes or 6.8GB is available max. The rest is for who knows what? Copy protection, firmwares, whatever. It's 2 million bytes less than the PS2 had available on its DVD disc, so I'm sure its used for something.

So you're saying that no one knows where the other 1.7 GB (or 20% of the total capacity) is going? It can't be firmware (loaded on the console), and what kind of copy protection requires 1.7 GB (its not like its uncrackable either).

Does the 360 use standard DVD 9s? or are they lower capacity. Cause isn't that less space than the Xbox 1? MS should give the rest of the space back to developers- games aren't getting smaller.

 

[AlNom]

So you're saying that no one knows where the other 1.7 GB (or 20% of the total capacity) is going? It can't be firmware (loaded on the console), and what kind of copy protection requires 1.7 GB (its not like its uncrackable either).

Does the 360 use standard DVD 9s? or are they lower capacity. Cause isn't that less space than the Xbox 1? MS should give the rest of the space back to developers- games aren't getting smaller.

8 500 000 000 ~=7.95 GiB, MS reserves 1.1GB for something. It's been discussed on the forums already. Figures are from a Gamefest 2007 presentation on disc usage.

 

[Gradthrawn]

So you're saying that no one knows where the other 1.7 GB (or 20% of the total capacity) is going? It can't be firmware (loaded on the console), and what kind of copy protection requires 1.7 GB (its not like its uncrackable either).

It can very well be firmware (or at least part of that space can be). Not all 360s are online, and those that aren't may not have the firmware version required to play a game (for the games that require newer firmware versions). I'd be amazed if there wasn't a TRC mandating any required firmware updates to be included on the disc.

EDIT

For clarification, by on the disc, we're referring to the update itself being on the disc (used to update the 360s firmware). Not the firmware being loaded and run from the disc.

 

[game-hunter]

The missing gig

360 disc's are hybrid discs. The slowest and inner most part of the disc is a regular dvd. It contains a video saying you need a 360 to play it. I believe this section requires a gig to play properly in all dvd drives.

 

[DrJay24]

360 disc's are hybrid discs. The slowest and inner most part of the disc is a regular dvd. It contains a video saying you need a 360 to play it. I believe this section requires a gig to play properly in all dvd drives.

That cannot be true or MS are idiots. Why not use a few MB for text and give the rest back to devs?

 

[Rangers]

That cannot be true or MS are idiots. Why not use a few MB for text and give the rest back to devs?

I believe guaranteed faster lowest common denominator read speed was a reason?

 

[game-hunter]

That cannot be true or MS are idiots. Why not use a few MB for text and give the rest back to devs?

The video itself is only a few megs and it is only a few lines of text on the screen. However the DVD spec requires around a Gig for it to properly play in all dvd players. Theoretically you could put a 1gig video on there for free but you would not be unable to watch the dvd part in the 360 since it would think it's a game disc.

 

[vanquish]

The video itself is only a few megs and it is only a few lines of text on the screen. However the DVD spec requires around a Gig for it to properly play in all dvd players. Theoretically you could put a 1gig video on there for free but you would not be unable to watch the dvd part in the 360 since it would think it's a game disc.

Lol, I didn't realise my post was spun off into a separate thread until now.

I also inserted a 360 disc into my DVD player, and the video is only 2 seconds long, stopping on the "to play this disc put it in to an Xbox 360 console" message in a couple of languages.

I highly doubt that this video takes up 1 GB of space due to different formats for different players, aren't the normal variation in spec PAL, NTSC and DVD+R and DVD-R? Making 4 different versions of the video, maybe taking up 20 MB?

If it really does take up 1GB, i'll be ROFL, talk about pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Seeing as the disc has noticeable Xbox 360 logos emblazoned on it, perhaps MS thinks of it as free marketing to the illiterate.

But seriously this can't be true, when one of the system's biggest criticisms is lack of media space. Wonder why John Carmack didn't mention it.
Is this informed speculation, or certified fact?
I can't recall a GB of space going missing when I burn DVDs, and they work fine on any DVD player.

Perhaps it's a temporary limitation, like the PSP's 222 Mhz speed cap. MS might be trying to force devs to utilize compression more, and leave some breathing space for games later on in its life.

And apologies with regards to the 360 firmware point. I understand what you mean now.
BTW won't the firmware only take up about 32MB on the disk? Even if the full NXE (avatars and all) is included it would still be in the region of 100-150MB.

Have any devs asked MS where their substantial 1 GB of space has gone?

 

[BRiT]

As was stated previously...

The Xbox 360 game discs are multi-session. The first session is the video session. The second session is the game data.

The DVD Spec requires a minimum of 1Gig on the filesystem / session to be compliant. The video itself is only a few megs. The rest of the video session / filesystem is empty. If you want to blame anyone for this, blame the DVD hardware manufactures which produced units that are incapable of recognizing anything less than 1Gig as being a DVD Video disc, thus having this min-size restriction put in place.

 

[Arwin]

Well, you could argue that having a DVD message on the disc wasn't worth sacrificing 1 GB? How often are people going to put a 360 game into a regular DVD player?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Well, you could argue that having a DVD message on the disc wasn't worth sacrificing 1 GB? How often are people going to put a 360 game into a regular DVD player?

I agree, losing a GB from already a tight space budget doesn't sound very smart. I've seen the message also, because I have tried to watch a bonus disc from some game and the bonus discs are often 360 data disks and must be played on a X360.

 

[Richard]

Well, you could argue that having a DVD message on the disc wasn't worth sacrificing 1 GB? How often are people going to put a 360 game into a regular DVD player?

More importantly than that: if 1gb is indeed used for *that*, now that the Xbox 360 has been on the market for 3 years wouldn't that mean MS could easily stop that practice for future games, or even only for those that would benefit from the extra space? Seems entirely like an optional feature that was thrown in because when it launched most games wouldn't need to fill a DVD-DL.

If it was 1.1gb wholly taken up by firmware/offline Live updates/DRM/gramma's recipes then it would be a problem that would dog us for the entire lifetime of the console.

 

[expletive]

I agree, losing a GB from already a tight space budget doesn't sound very smart. I've seen the message also, because I have tried to watch a bonus disc from some game and the bonus discs are often 360 data disks and must be played on a X360.

Perhaps MS felt that the data on the innermost tracks couldnt be read at a fast enough data rate for the purposes of the games anyway? Putting the video on there allowed them to make some use of the space that would otherwise be seldom used?

 

[assen]

Perhaps MS felt that the data on the innermost tracks couldnt be read at a fast enough data rate for the purposes of the games anyway? Putting the video on there allowed them to make some use of the space that would otherwise be seldom used?

Even the slowest areas of the DVD are good enough for voices, which are a huge part of disk budgets.

 

[vanquish]

Even the slowest areas of the DVD are good enough for voices, which are a huge part of disk budgets.

Exactly, perhaps you can put the localization data on there. I don't think any dev would rather not have the 1.1 GB because it has slow access speed.

As I mentioned above, perhaps MS is saving this 1.1 GB for games that will come out later in the 360's life, similar to how Sony removed the 222Mhz cap on the PSP last year.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The 222MHz cap was to maintain a reasonable battery life. Why limit what games can do now? What's the advantage?

Is this 1 GB video in addition to, or the reason for, the reserved capacity of the XB360 disc?

 

[Arwin]

It's the other half of the 2GB that's not available to games (the first half being space for DRM, FirmWares and such). It was clear that there was always only 7GiB (6.8GB) available for games even from presentations from Microsoft themselves, and now we basically know where each of the missing GB's went (compared to say Champions of Norrath on PS2 which was the full 9GB).

 

[vanquish]

It's the other half of the 2GB that's not available to games (the first half being space for DRM, FirmWares and such). It was clear that there was always only 7GiB (6.8GB) available for games even from presentations from Microsoft themselves, and now we basically know where each of the missing GB's went (compared to say Champions of Norrath on PS2 which was the full 9GB).

Isn't DVD-9 capacity 7.95 'true' GB? As the max space being used currently is 6.8 GB, it leaves 1.1 GB unaccounted for.

So is the 1 GB video taking up most of this space, rather than half?