Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*
- Thread starter Cheezdoodles
- Start date
Not paying for things you don't want is actually a really good argument. I generally prefer to not buy things I do not want. That's some damned expensive dirt. And no you don't use blu-ray every time you play a game, only if you play a game that came on a blu-ray disc.
It doesn't use much power, it doesn't require internal cooling or high speed electrical motors which take up a ton of space for the reading device. This lets you use a smaller power supply and a smaller box and it can be much more quiet.
Technically the limit on flash capacity is higher than blu-ray (at least available to consumers), although it's certainly cost prohibitive right now, that might not be the case in 2020 when the install base might justify the use of more assets.
I've only said it twice already on this page alone... it's not just the cost of the drive. You have to build a bigger noisier box that uses more power to support it.
The price of a bigger BOX is pretty hard to guesstimate, but you could take a shot
Games are already limited by Space now on a DVD, so you don´t have to wait until 2020 for that to happen, and it´s a good point really. With most 360 games htting the size limit for XBOX games and "surprise" ports of these DVD games take up the same space on PC and PS3, there is no reason to think that flash based games would take any advantage of the speed whatsoever. As the 360 has proven, the lowest common denominator sets the bar. Exclusive games , just as the PS3 has proven might take advantage of the extra speed from flash, but they will be limited to just those games.
Imagine that, limited by size, nothing gained in speed, multiplatform games are really heading for new low
Blazkowicz
Legend
optical drive doesn't consume a lot of power, it's just noise next to the GPU power budget.
we even had a handheld console with proprietary mini DVD.
we even had a handheld console with proprietary mini DVD.
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upnorthsox
Veteran
I don't want to wade in to this whole debate as both side have good points, but on speed, a 6x BDD is 27MB/s and an 8x BDD is 36MB/s. This is certainly comparable to a class10 SD at 30MB/s.
How good is the throughput for the flash card vs BD when trying to read 1MB in 8kB chunks?
As you move away from the outside edge of the disk the read speed will plummet. I like the idea of flash / carts but every cent that a consumer spends on the cart is a cent less that the platform owner and publishers can potentially take in profit.
A DVD + flash / rom combo could work very effectively and have a lower total cost per game than flash / rom alone but would be a hassle in terms of manufacture, distribution and also customer usage (people are lazy and lose stuff).
A DVD + flash / rom combo could work very effectively and have a lower total cost per game than flash / rom alone but would be a hassle in terms of manufacture, distribution and also customer usage (people are lazy and lose stuff).
Didn't BD drive in PS3 have constant linear speed?
I believe so, but faster drives are likely to be CAV drives with variable read speed. Maintaining > 4X read speed across the whole disk will result in mega-high spin speeds and crazy-noise when you're reading the inside edge.
Relying on optical -> main ram without some kind of install or large buffer is going to really suck next generation.
Relying on optical -> main ram without some kind of install or large buffer is going to really suck next generation.
upnorthsox
Veteran
Read speed over a BD disc is constant.
I haven't done the math but how big is the needed spinning speed difference between inner- and outermost are of a disk? More than 3x? If it was 3x then the drive would achieve 12x spinning speed when reading inner-most track.
Though that kind of speeds won't likely be needed all that much as they contain several times less data than outer ones and if I were a developer I'd put the to-be-installed data there and stream from the outer edges where the drive produces less noise.
That depends purely on the drive. CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) makes certain things easier while limiting speed on the outer side and increasing seek time (having to speed up/slow down rotation). CAV (Constant Linear Velocity) has opportunity for higher speed and lower access times, but since max-speed is possibly higher it requires better/more expensive head tracking mechanics.
Anyway, to me any cent invested in flash for a next-gen console is wasted. Put the money in more RAM instead. PCs do fine without it, and next-gen consoles should have >300GB HDDs anyway. You can work around pretty much everything but lacking memory.
I don't have any Blurays, but taking a tape measure to a DVD I get about 2.8x outer to inner diameter, so circumference will be the same. If data distribution is uniform along the whole disk then I guess that's roughly what you're looking at.
I know that on the Xbox a lot of work goes into optimising the position of data on the disk - a couple of the devs here talked about it a while ago. The only problem with putting the install data on the inside of the disk is that initial setup takes longer and that you need something to install it to (*cough* Xbox).
Those chunks better be on the harddrive or someone messed up their game development,
I'm surprised this thread is still alive.
The only way I see SD card to be relevant to high end gaming anytime soon is if real-time procedural content creation takes off greatly. It's still not there.
Another option is standardization of texture pack, as in the PC world or BF3 on the 360. But also sound pack, why not some other things?
Sd card have to be as tiny as possible and still not compete with optical disk cost. Then the topic move to digital distribution of some form, you need a internet access to download the texture packs.
Could SD card help with piracy? I don't know PS3 proved that piracy can be a taken at bay with a properly designed system. So I'm not sure that there are any intensive in this regard.
Let say I'm pretty negative on the issue still way too expansive.
The only way I see SD card to be relevant to high end gaming anytime soon is if real-time procedural content creation takes off greatly. It's still not there.
Another option is standardization of texture pack, as in the PC world or BF3 on the 360. But also sound pack, why not some other things?
Sd card have to be as tiny as possible and still not compete with optical disk cost. Then the topic move to digital distribution of some form, you need a internet access to download the texture packs.
Could SD card help with piracy? I don't know PS3 proved that piracy can be a taken at bay with a properly designed system. So I'm not sure that there are any intensive in this regard.
Let say I'm pretty negative on the issue still way too expansive.
If we accept that the next gen will have harddrives and expect them to come with something 250-500GB then installs should not be a problem. That would make Blu-Rays and their access time less important except for those giant games that stream alot of content, though i think that we could see something like GTA6 with a complete install to the Harddrive and only secondary stuff left on the Disc (music, cutscenes etc). In any case, it would and should be possible to stream and read data from the Blu-Ray drive and the Harddrive at the same time. A fast Blu-Ray drive or a Flash based media would primarily be able to install the game faster
The main advantage of flash is random access speed, any game created with this in mind (as i have said a few times) have a problem with other platforms that doesn´t support flash. The transfer speed while good, is not necessarily a giant leap over Harddrives
The main advantage of flash is random access speed, any game created with this in mind (as i have said a few times) have a problem with other platforms that doesn´t support flash. The transfer speed while good, is not necessarily a giant leap over Harddrives
-tkf- said:
Additional design issues, additional production costs, additional shipping costs, additional warehousing. It's really not simple.
A 12x BRD can use upwards of 25W during random reads. I'm not sure what a 4x uses, but every watt is a significant amount in a console, especially when you consider it's going to be a constant over the life of the box.
And we know how the mini dvd turned out.
If we accept that the next gen will have harddrives and expect them to come with something 250-500GB then installs should not be a problem. That would make Blu-Rays and their access time less important except for those giant games that stream alot of content, though i think that we could see something like GTA6 with a complete install to the Harddrive and only secondary stuff left on the Disc (music, cutscenes etc). In any case, it would and should be possible to stream and read data from the Blu-Ray drive and the Harddrive at the same time. A fast Blu-Ray drive or a Flash based media would primarily be able to install the game faster
I'd accept that every box will have onboard storage, I wouldn't necessarily agree that they will have a hard drive. I could certainly see MS shipping with an arcade box again with some amount (32GB or so )of flash onboard
Continually repeating it doesn't make it true.
You already got an example (PSP), you can have another one - Wii. How much smaller do you think a home console should be.
And while we are at it, next-gen will almost certainly have way over 100W powerdraw so I fail how a BD-Drive will have a big effect on size. Might be for "PSfour" way down the line but I doubt it, the times where consoles were content with 20W are long gone
You mean all those USB 12x BD Writers suck 25W over a port that provides only 2.5W max?
Way better than the non-optical N64.
You mean there wont be an option for a harddrive? Otherwise its no argument at all...
Then stop doing it
I dunno, if you look inside the Xbox 360 the DVD drive takes up a huge whack of space that would have allowed for a monster cooler. Faster drives may need to be bigger for extra damping or whatnot, and even at the same speed read errors may be fewer with a better mechanism. A quick search isn't showing laptop BR drives over 6x - although that's probably about as fast as you'd want in a quiet system going by spin speed.
Don't those 12X usb BR burners use a mains PSU?
