I truly hope sweeney can push this one through to next gen consoles. I would love SSD storage as baseline for next gen.
Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*
- Thread starter Cheezdoodles
- Start date
I truly hope sweeney can push this one through to next gen consoles. I would love SSD storage as baseline for next gen.
And is implementation in rage perfect? Based on the amount of whining on internet rage seems like a huge technical failure on many ways. The "streaming" didn't work even on pc's having nearly infinite memory.
What about some other games like BF3, does it suck there so bad too
BF3 only seems to use virtual texturing for terrain. Ordinary object textures will be loaded as normal, unlike in Rage. According to a DICE presentation I'm looking at*, they store high resolution textures based on position and not FOV, meaning they'll have to use a lot more memory to get the same detail and will be using memory for high detail textures that you can't actually see.
This probably requires both low latency memory access for the terrain virtual texturing and also relatively high bandwidth for loading entire high LOD textures in (regardless of visibility) at short notice. That's probably why the 360 version can't install the HD texture pack to (low latency but low bandwidth) flash memory.
The cost of not having Rage's issue with quickly turning is using more memory for things you can't see. Don't forget that BF3 is running at only half the frame rate of Rage so they also have twice as long to fetch data in before you see a LOD glitch.
In short: BF3 is cool and all but it really isn't doing the same thing as Rage, and you shouldn't view it as such. The texturing in Rage is amazing, and proof that we don't actually need consoles to spend lots of memory storing things we aren't looking at. I want next gen technology that helps something like Rage and minimises "wasted" memory, and that's going to require a decently sized chunk of solid state memory somewhere in the chain...
*Edit: DICE are great too! http://www.slideshare.net/DICEStudio/shiny-pc-graphics-in-battlefield-3
Why didn't rage work even on those highend pc's properly?
And what have I been saying all the time? Have optical for predictable reads and have a flash memory in each console to replace regular fairly expensive hdd that cannot be cost reduced. Guaranteed mass storage in each console gives a lot of advantage, not just good speed cache for game install. Flash based mass storage can be price reduced nicely over next gen 2014-2024, regular hdd doesn't see similar price reduction.
Blazkowicz
Legend
wild idea you put 16GB of DRAM as cache. maybe use registered memory or something to run in from a single channel. well a 16GB ddr3 stick is expensive but I'm not the engineer trying to work that out . or a regular 8GB stick is incredibly affordable already compared to not long ago.
it can be filled in three minutes from a HDD, so you load up your game, start playing it after a short enough waiting time, but the game continues loading GB after GB of content starting with the most local, relevant one and when hard disk grinding is done, you can explore the game with no pop in ever even if you use a horse, vehicle, fast turning speed etc. and fast forward a few kilometers away by pointing at the map rather than manually riding your horse on the way etc. and not having to refill your cache, as it's got all the content already .
it's just a variation on the SSD but, where are our small and fast and cheap SSD? it may be that needing multiple flash chips to get good enough transfer rates put a floor price on SSD as well. so far cheapest SSD and cheapest HDD are the same price. but time may prove me wrong on this.
. or a regular 8GB stick is incredibly affordable already compared to not long ago.it can be filled in three minutes from a HDD, so you load up your game, start playing it after a short enough waiting time, but the game continues loading GB after GB of content starting with the most local, relevant one and when hard disk grinding is done, you can explore the game with no pop in ever even if you use a horse, vehicle, fast turning speed etc.
and fast forward a few kilometers away by pointing at the map rather than manually riding your horse on the way etc. and not having to refill your cache, as it's got all the content already .it's just a variation on the SSD but, where are our small and fast and cheap SSD? it may be that needing multiple flash chips to get good enough transfer rates put a floor price on SSD as well. so far cheapest SSD and cheapest HDD are the same price. but time may prove me wrong on this.
Heres hope that memory can be used for more than just caching. Simulating big worlds for an instance, wouldnt you like a GTA where the effects ripple through the whole city, less cops (KIA) means crime will flodd in from other parts, destroyed/damaged cars keep there till they are carried away (setting up strategic roadblocks). Or just for an already existing example - RTS`s like "Supreme Commander"
More RAM = huge boost for things like VT and caching in general, but the real beauty is that its not limited to that!
I still dont see why flash has to be "onboard", it needs a controller anyway, so just use a Sata-SSD that will benefit from the same cost-reduction... and it wont be an unnecessary expense for those getting a SKU with a big (mechanical) HDD.
Pretty sure game on a flash card would load significantly slower than same game on reasonable speed BD drive.
Flash memory, how much at what price?
upnorthsox
Veteran
wild idea you put 16GB of DRAM as cache. maybe use registered memory or something to run in from a single channel. well a 16GB ddr3 stick is expensive but I'm not the engineer trying to work that out
it can be filled in three minutes from a HDD, so you load up your game, start playing it after a short enough waiting time, but the game continues loading GB after GB of content starting with the most local, relevant one and when hard disk grinding is done, you can explore the game with no pop in ever even if you use a horse, vehicle, fast turning speed etc.
it's just a variation on the SSD but, where are our small and fast and cheap SSD? it may be that needing multiple flash chips to get good enough transfer rates put a floor price on SSD as well. so far cheapest SSD and cheapest HDD are the same price. but time may prove me wrong on this.
An SSD is 16-24 chips + controller(s) so yea there's a floor because that's alot of silicon and we're already at 19nm so it's not going to gain much there. In a few yrs it'll all be stacked but that'll only make the package smaller, not the amount of chips. Eventually we might get plastic litho on glass which could be a big $$ saver but that's far off.
And is implementation in rage perfect? Based on the amount of whining on internet rage seems like a huge technical failure on many ways. The "streaming" didn't work even on pc's having nearly infinite memory.
What about some other games like BF3, does it suck there so bad too
The Rage about Rage (yes yes i know) was, shall we say classic internet, first of all AMD screws up the driver release in a truely epic fashion, packs the wrong drivers, ships them, everyone downloads them, chaos ensues and graphics look broken and the game crashes. This at the same time where the BF3 performance drivers was released from AMD and Nvidia, it was ugly. After a few days i think AMD got something "stable" where you both had Rage and BF3 drivers in one package. But i still ask myself, how it´s possible to develop a game without having drivers? And how it´s possible to release a game with no working drivers? Confusing...!
And things looked ok, however, at the same time there was the most nerf´d graphics options ever in a ID game, so those that had 2GB cards with custom cooling that made ice bears long for something warm didn´t get the "best of the best" at "max" settings. So naturally there was a bunch of posts and guides on how to create the classic id software config files in order to max out the graphics. But people were made it wasn´t included and that id didn´t release HighRes textures.. which i doubt are there?
The texture popup more or less only happend when you "twicted" with the mouse, something that the natural gameplay doesn't really require that much. But even that was enough to call in the internet rage.
Add to that the low texture search patrols that would show "low res" textures as an example of how bad MEGA Texture just was, and how everybody was lied to.
On my machine Rage looks pretty good with a 4870, i find some of the scenery astounding, and it´s my experience that medium sized PC´s get an equally impressive impression, mostly down to the Consoles as benchmark for how much they could tax PC´s i think. And it runs very smooth, the gameplay "ok" but not a revolution.
Rage was imho the perfect internet storm.
So, after this gen where several games made horrible use of HDDs, you think adding yet another pool (cheap or fast - pick one) will help?
The problem is with devs not making good use of the HDD, there are a few examples of whats possible(Uncharted, Oblivion).
And it wont be much cheaper to place it onboard, how much can a plastic casing cost, 1$?
i dont know 2014 or 2024 price. I would hope for 32-64GB. I would be willing to bet that flash was cheaper after next gen is over than what the mandatory hdd is/was for sony this gen. And you cannot forget if something is optional devs cannot optimize fully.
sony/ms can always finance part of flash cost via optional premium priced 2.5” hdd(ms does that already). Part of money would also come back from digital content purchases/rent which are not possible without mass storage.
Which is the case for PS3 and HDD`s - yet it dint work out right in many cases.
Problem: devs dint utilize pools of memory effectively (I count HDD as memory).
Solution: add another pool of memory?
Only in the SSD-SKU. But adding flash, which might or not be used effectively in all consoles is worth it? (compared to say, invest the money in more RAM which can be utilized rather easily)one dollar in 100 million consoles is some money
ram is empty after every reboot/starting new game. Install times could be quite horrific and then we come back which rewritable mass storage makes most sense...
i think xbox360 was lead sku this gen and didn't have mandatory hdd. Pc ports rely on huge memory no streaming. I guess worth of hdd could be deemed via ps3 exclusives like uncharted3 or known streaming solution games like rage or bf3.
i think xbox360 was lead sku this gen and didn't have mandatory hdd. Pc ports rely on huge memory no streaming. I guess worth of hdd could be deemed via ps3 exclusives like uncharted3 or known streaming solution games like rage or bf3.
The PS3 did as well, presumably due to all the encryption of the drive. That seems why going to a 7200rpm or SSD drive on PS3 doesn't make anything like the kind of impact you'd expect.
is encryption on modern/2014 timeframe ssd controllers really that bad? There are ways getting around needing to encrypt all temporary data if that becomes a dealbreaker. (ie. Store hashes of temp data to trusted location and do integrity check upon loading. Though i doubt encryption on hw would be too slow).
I don't know. Probably because the game wasn't using - or was unable to use - the hardware as it wanted? I think tkf is right and that a lot of the uber hate seems to be about driver issues and texture resolution expectations.
Just because reads are predictable doesn't mean that there will be no seeking. Pulling a known set of textures and models off a disk could require a large number or drive head seeks if they're separated or, conversely, none if they're all packaged together. As individual models and textures will probably get larger next generation and cover larger areas of disk, and as "spare" disk space for storing multiple copies of the same data is reduced, the likelihood of longer seeks would seem to grow IMO.
Despite the predictability of virtual texturing (which you actually commented on) the Bluray drive on the PS3 alone was incapable of handling Rage despite having sufficient raw read bandwidth (something Sebbi points out in the post you linked to).
I like the idea of putting a decent amount of reasonably fast flash storage into every next gen system - especially if it's paired with a high capacity mechanical drive. What we'll actually get could be any one of a wide range of options, from 64GB of 200+ MB/s memory in every system to 16GB of super slow flash that gets taken out of the HDD equipped SKUs. Or maybe nothing will have flash and everything will have a HDD.
I think there are more possible options this generation than any generation before. I just hope no-one drops the ball and does a 360 Core - a slow (and noisy / disk chewing) optical drive and nothing else to back it up.
