[360, PS3] RAGE Discussion

At 30fps?or means less decompression works vs xbox360 version?

 

We all know XB360 fits about 7 GBs per disc, right? So two XB360 DVDs is 14 GBs.

 

Uncharted 2 isn't going dual layer, because it simplifies and speeds up the test-through process (i.e. faster and easier to burn test-discs). It makes it doubtful that id will do something different for Rage, but then again, Rage isn't out for a while yet and their tech may well be less complicated - they could install the important stuff on HDD on the PS3 and just stream the megatexture from the DL Bluray disc. They also mentioned the SPEs are helping out nicely with the decompression stuff.

Since it doesn't seem they have even fully decided on what to do there yet (stream using a combination of HDD and BD), there's a PC version to consider, and it would be a way for id to show off their tech much better, it's not out of the question, but it's ... well ... by no means a guaranteed thing, that's for sure .

They did say it was a hell-of-a-lot of extra work and really tough to get the game compressed enough to fit on the two DVDs for the 360 though.

 

One thing they can do is still ship the game on a dual layer blu-ray, but keep all the stream-able stuff on layer 1 (~25gb worth of mt's), and put all the stuff to be copied to the hdd on layer 2 (~5gb worth of whatever). That way they can ship with a dual layer blu-ray, get around 30gb of storage, and not pay any layer transition penalty.

Or...seeing that the game is being designed as "two parts" (when you are on dvd 2 you never need to access dvd 1, otherwise the game would not work on 360 arcades), that implies that the two sets of data are mutually exclusive. So that means they could:

Layer 1: 20gb of streaming mt data (first half of the game)
Layer 1: 5gb of data to be copied to hdd (first half of the game)
Layer 2: 20gb of streaming mt data (second half of the game)
Layer 2: 5gb of data to be copied to hdd (second half of the game)

That lets them ship with a dual layer blu-ray, use the 50gb in it's entirety and not pay any in game layer transition penalties.

 

As far as I know, there is actually no layer transition penalty on bluray. The penalty Naughty Dog talks about is purely in the time it takes to burn a dual layer disc - they have to burn a fair bunch of them each time, presumably dual layer burning takes longer both because there would be more data, because dual layer burning is probably slower, and finally I reckon they'll have more single layer burners in the office than double layer burners.

 

There is a penalty. Easiest way to see it is on some early blu-ray movie players, where there is a short pause during the movie as the layer switch occurs because they weren't buffering enough data to mask the delay. There is the issue or yield, replication and media costs with dual layer blu-ray, so it remains to be seem if they want to spend the extra money to use them.

There is always a third solution. Make the game require both a 360+PS3 to play, leverage each machines strengths Install the data client on the PS3, and let it's blu-ray+hdd+spu's load and prep the data for use, then ethernet them over to the 360 where the render client is running, and use it's extra memory, edram and gpu to display the results at 60fps with full res transparencies and msaa. Could be historical, the first game to need two competing consoles to play Cloud computing ftw!

Hmm...do publishers really want to do that anymore? They have stripped down costs to where there isn't even a single sheet of paper in many PC games when you open them up. Do they want to go back to say an 8 dvd disc game, which have more chance of a bad disc, heavier and hence might cost more to ship, and ultimately 8x the replication costs?

 

PC is always better

 

You'll need to substantiate that comment if you mean anything beyond an ill-conceived fanboy outburst. The PC version is (as currently stated) shipping on 2 DVDs, with ~14 GBs for the megatextures. PS3 will ship on BRD for 25+ GBs storage for the megatextures, which means less compression and greater fidelity. The only alternative for PC in this respect is more DVDs and a large installation, which may happen, but hasn't been confirmed yet. So no, in this case, PC isn't 'always better'.

 

Depends on what media each version ships with. If the PS3 version ships on a 50gb blu-ray, then the PC version would need 6-7 dvd's just to match the compression level. Framerate, msaa, etc, will be better on the PC of course, but texture fidelity in this case is very much determined by the shipping media.

I'm secretly hoping that Id offers a "texture megapack" that can be bought direct from them for say $8, and they ship you two dual layer blu-rays with 100gb of mt's. I figure 100gb is as much of a users disk space as they would brave to swallow up though.

 

Thats a no from me. I would love to but there is simply no point at the moment. Its one of those catch 22 deals though. The gamers won't get the drive because there are no games published on Blu-ray and the publishers won't create games on Blu-ray because no-one has the drive. Id could be the catalyst if they were to release a higher quality Blu-ray version though. I would buy a drive for that. Not because I particularly need the higher quality texture, more because I just want an excuse to get a drive

 

Yes, so far it is only really interesting for those with interest of using their PCs to play Blu-ray movies. Reason I got the LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray/HD-DVD/DVD-burner player roughly 1 year ago. However I bought it for 120$ (EU) and that was normal price. I pretty much see it as an investment in the future as I wont need to change it with it's 6x Blu-ray read speed and 3x HD-DVD read speed (yeah I know that media type is dead now) and excellent build quality aswell as being impressively "quiet" beyond regular players even at 16x DVD read speed.

 

John Carmack actually discussed this catch 22 once, and mentioned he didn't mind being the one to help break it.

A few weeks ago, he also mentioned that Doom 4 is being targeted as coming out both in 3 DVD or 1 BluRay format. For Rage they are going for two DVDs however because the game is basically set up as two large wastelands, and you can't really meaningfully split it any other way. Though that doesn't preclude release on BluRay, the way this is phrased combined with Doom seeing release at least a year after Rage, it seems clear enough.

 

Yeah Im thinking of getting a blu-ray player for the PC, the only thing thats stopped me until now is lack of blu-ray films at weekly hire rates!! having to pay more than US50c a film is a dealbreaker.
Surely its in sonys interest to try and convince id to have a blu-ray version of the game (OK without it the ps3 seems special) but having one game on blu-ray could be the catalyst to convince others to also release there games on blu-ray which has gotta be good for sony.
Personally Ild love to see some RPGs etc using megatexture, as theyre tailor made for it. according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatexture
it seems as if none are planned at the moment, is this info out of date?

 

Most games have a collectors edition these days. id just need to add the extra couple of discs to that version only (or swap the 2 DVDs for a BD-ROM, surely a sub $1 cost?) package it in a nice looking box/tin and charge an extra $10. Job done and everybody's happy. id take more revenue, PC gamer's don't get a compromised version if they don't want one and those with little HDD space just buy the low end model.

 

I got a BR drive, but the player software has been a huge PITA. At first it passed DD sound, then it wouldnt play movies as they had been updated for security crap. So I updated the player and now it is only stereo. DVD did so great b/c it "just worked".

 

Would be interesting if they released a limited edition HD DVD version for those 360 owners with the HD DVD addon drive.

 

The drive cannot be used for games.

 

2 DVD on X360 =/ 2 DVD on PC ... You can fill up to 8.5GB data on a dual layer DVD for PC... And if id manage to compress the game enough for PC version , when you install RAGE completely to the HDD you can get as much data as PS3 version , theoretically... But installation process would be looooong ...

 

I doubt that PS3 have enough vram and RSX power to keep 10Gb more textures,remember it still at 30fps , i think more compression means more CPU-GPU work for decompression