Can Xbox 360 get back the missing GB from it's DVD?

[Rangers]

Sam Houser on the 360 (though it's not clear if he's talking about the DVD or hard drive)

. I think that the 360 is going to have to get 'round this issue we're talking about. I can think of various ways they can do it. Hopefully, they're going to adopt one of those in the next year or so, because it's going to become more of an issue. If we're filling up the disc right now, where are we going? It's not like our games are going to get any smaller. I think that issue's on the table with a bunch of games right now. I'm sure they'll come through with an intelligent solution.

Well one of the things I was thinking, 360 is supposedly limited to 6.8GB of storage (or 7.something of the other way of measuring..). Whereas a dual DVD can hold 8.5GB

I've heard the missing storage is taken by copy protection, which obviously didn't work. So you'd think they could reduce it. I also heard the reduction was for speed reason, by reading only the outer 6.8GB the drive could maintain a faster read speed.

So I'm just wondering if there's any way to get a GB or so of that missing DVD back. It's 14% more storage, and could help a lot easing this space crunch given all GTA managed to pack into 6.4 GB.

Please dont turn this into a Blu Ray vs DVD debate and just focus on the topic..

 

[vazel]

x360 usuable disc space can hold 6.7GB according to a slide I saw once. Standard DL discs can hold 7.95GB. 8.5GB is that other way of measuring bytes(like the way HDD manufacturers use to make their drives look bigger for marketing).

Over a gig for DRM is really stubborn. I don't know wether DVDs are limiting for next-gen games in general, I'm not going to get into that can of worms, but they should really free that up for developers to use just for the sake of having that space for them to use if they want to.

 

[betan]

Sam Houser on the 360 (though it's not clear if he's talking about the DVD or hard drive)



Well one of the things I was thinking, 360 is supposedly limited to 6.8GB of storage (or 7.something of the other way of measuring..). Whereas a dual DVD can hold 8.5GB

I've heard the missing storage is taken by copy protection, which obviously didn't work. So you'd think they could reduce it. I also heard the reduction was for speed reason, by reading only the outer 6.8GB the drive could maintain a faster read speed.

So I'm just wondering if there's any way to get a GB or so of that missing DVD back. It's 14% more storage, and could help a lot easing this space crunch

Reducing redundancy may increase read times that much as well.

given all GTA managed to pack into 6.4 GB.

This 6.4GB, is it the size of pirated iso file?
I have been wondering whether those iso rips are with or without encryption/authentication redundancy. Broken copy protection doesn't necessarily imply broken encryption.
So if anybody knows how 360 DRM works and what the hacked firmware does, maybe we can reason about 1GB being redundancy or not.

Please dont turn this into a Blu Ray vs DVD debate and just focus on the topic..

BD rocks

 

[.Melchiah.]

x360 usuable disc space can hold 6.7GB according to a slide I saw once. Standard DL discs can hold 7.95GB. 8.5GB is that other way of measuring bytes(like the way HDD manufacturers use to make their drives look bigger for marketing).

Over a gig for DRM is really stubborn. I don't know wether DVDs are limiting for next-gen games in general, I'm not going to get into that can of worms, but they should really free that up for developers to use just for the sake of having that space for them to use if they want to.

Would you happen to have a link for the slide, or have it saved somewhere?

 

[assen]

I've heard the missing storage is taken by copy protection, which obviously didn't work.

Whoa, not so fast. The copy protection didn't work, but other aspects of the DRM system of the Xbox 360 remain unbroken even today - e.g. there's no way to extract game data on non-broken games, nor there is a way to inject malicious data and code and e.g. cheat by playing with a modified client, as I understand was very common in the Halo2 days on the original Xbox.

 

[vazel]

Would you happen to have a link for the slide, or have it saved somewhere?

It was 6.8GB like the OP said.

 

[Arwin]

I've been collecting DVD size limitation quotes in this thread:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=44916&highlight=bluray&page=26

I'll do a summary post (or maybe start a new one) in the near future.

 

[.Melchiah.]

It was 6.8GB like the OP said.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v152/deathkiller/1-2.png

Thanks for the confirmation.

 

[DJ12]

This 6.4GB, is it the size of pirated iso file?

I wonder how big the PS3 version is.

It would be interesting to see if they did ramp up the quality of sound and textures (looking at some of the roads in both versions the PS3 seems to have better looking textures - This could be due to lighting/camera angle though)

 

[Rangers]

I wonder how big the PS3 version is.

It would be interesting to see if they did ramp up the quality of sound and textures (looking at some of the roads in both versions the PS3 seems to have better looking textures - This could be due to lighting/camera angle though)

Could be PS3 having better AF again. But most sites are saying the games look near identical so I doubt a big difference. IGN also has a head to head video which although somewhat small, they look to be identical.

 

[betan]

Whoa, not so fast. The copy protection didn't work, but other aspects of the DRM system of the Xbox 360 remain unbroken even today - e.g. there's no way to extract game data on non-broken games, nor there is a way to inject malicious data and code and e.g. cheat by playing with a modified client, as I understand was very common in the Halo2 days on the original Xbox.

OR they can limit the mandatory DRM to executables and give the option to the developers for the rest of their data (or parts of).

 

[Rangers]

So the 360 actually has close to 7.3 GB of storage, right? A Gigabyte=1000 bytes according to wiki..

 

[Rockster]

If the firmware on the 360's DVD drive could be modified to support VMD how do you think that would be viewed?

1) Negatively, conceding that their previous position was inaccurate and disk space is indeed too limiting in the current environment.

2) Positively, like when new dashboard functionality provided a highly requested feature.

 

[DJ12]

If they are already hitting a brick wall I doubt a "measly" gigabyte is going to make that much difference, not when it's compared to 25gb/50gb anyway..

I imagine MS would sooner take the hit than admit they were wrong all along.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I imagine MS would sooner take the hit than admit they were wrong all along.

This is going to lead things down the Bluray vs DVD path, but I think saying MS was wrong not to include a larger storage disc is subjective. There are a lot of reasons for and against the DVD as a standard for the 360.

I'm curious to know what is taking up the additional space on the discs, though I'm not sure we'd notice a huge difference in games with or without the extra space. It's more likely we'll see multi-disc titles, which doesn't really bother me too much, depending on how it's done.

 

[DJ12]

MS made their choice as is there right. There are vs debates already on the go so that was not my intention to get one going here.

There are many people that said DVD was enough this gen, and I think that has been proven false now.

It was totally right for MS to go the way they did though as they wouldn't have been a year in the market first if they had gone with a HD DVD drive and it wouldn't have been any cheaper than a PS3 either.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So the 360 actually has close to 7.3 GB of storage, right? A Gigabyte=1000 bytes according to wiki..

Depends on which form of 'Giga' you use. The modern standard that snuck in on HDDs is the billion bytes, but at the beginning of computing it was 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes. Wiki differentiates with gibi for a binary giga, but I don't know when this terminology first appeared nor if it's official now with the words gibibyte etc. taught at college. Wiki says the bimary equivalents were suggested in 1999, so, if it follows the way of most sensible standards, Gibibytes won't be commonplace until 2023!

 

[Npl]

...
So I'm just wondering if there's any way to get a GB or so of that missing DVD back. It's 14% more storage, and could help a lot easing this space crunch given all GTA managed to pack into 6.4 GB.

Please dont turn this into a Blu Ray vs DVD debate and just focus on the topic..

I think youre reading to much into things that just arent there. How I understood is that rather than squeezing a bit more data on DVD, Houser speaks of a required HDD. AFAIK XBox-Games are required to run without one currently.
A required HDD would solve the Problems they were facing, they simply couldve provided x "Install-DVDs" and one "Play-DVD" for authentication.

 

[Mintmaster]

I imagine MS would sooner take the hit than admit they were wrong all along.

If MS waited for and paid for BR they would be dead from day one. Period. Another generation of being marginalized to 15% marketshare, another few billion lost.

Let's stop rehashing this pointless argument.

 

[Heinrich4]

I think 6.8GB disc will not be a problem if each x360 have HDD as default.(but with Arcade version...)

(maybe guys homebrew can free 2 extras GBs with some code or firmware "hacked")