Carmack console stuff begins leaking from Quakecon

[Nesh]

Sony should do something about the memory taken by the OS. Thats too much.

What have they been thinking?

 

[Titanio]

They're rumoured to be reducing it, slowly.

It's interesting, though, because from other comments on the Q+A it's not video memory that's the problem.

1: Q: If Rage will ship on 2 DVDs, how will that work for multi-console?

A: The source data is more than that even. We go through tons of data compression, so the game is segmented in that regard. I wouldn't expect an HD DVD release for Rage though. What's interesting though is that it all fits fine with a 256m video card. On PS3, video requirements doesn't even completely use the 256 video memory; we wish we could use more in other places. Bottom line, it can be compressed from source.

Their memory challenges would seem to be elsewhere. I guess as long as it all turns out the same, it's no big deal in this case (for us consumers, whatever about for development ease).

I wonder how big the PC HDD install will be. I also wonder how exactly "the game is segmented" on multiple discs. Depending on how that's done it could be more or less messy for online multiplayer gaming re. disc swapping, on 360.

 

[Nesh]

They're rumoured to be reducing it, slowly.

It's interesting, though, because from other comments on the Q+A it's not video memory that's the problem.

I hope we get a confirmation soon

 

[assen]

I would be cool if you could pop the Bluray version of the game into your PC and play it there too! All the content assets would be the same. Id would just have to provide the game binaries as a separate < 10MB download. Sort of like how they did it with Quake3 linux.

This was possible because first, both version worked on PCs, and second, so far id have used horribly inefficient data formats (TGA, JPEG, text files, ZIP), favoring extensibility (mods) over performance.

For consoles this will HAVE to be different, and every single piece of art would be mangled in a platform-specific way. The 360 *could* load the PS3 version's data, but somewhat slower, breaking their no doubt maxed out streaming budget.

 

[czekon]

looks great i like the art style and post apocalyptic atmosphere hope gameplay will be good to

 

[tabs]

They're rumoured to be reducing it, slowly.

It's interesting, though, because from other comments on the Q+A it's not video memory that's the problem.



Their memory challenges would seem to be elsewhere. I guess as long as it all turns out the same, it's no big deal in this case (for us consumers, whatever about for development ease).

I wonder how big the PC HDD install will be. I also wonder how exactly "the game is segmented" on multiple discs. Depending on how that's done it could be more or less messy for online multiplayer gaming re. disc swapping, on 360.

There is more than one problem that he is facing. One is the media on 360 (remedied by using multiple discs), the other is the lack of available memory in the PS3(remedied partially by Sony hopefully lowering their OS requirements).

I can see why he'd make a bit more of a big deal about the PS3 problem, as it's something completely out of his control. Also even if he had access to the whole 256 what if he wanted more?

 

[DJ12]

He'd use XDR like everyone else.

 

[idsn6]

I really want to see how iT5 deals with texture pop-in.
Much respect for Carmack.

 

[tabs]

He'd use XDR like everyone else.

Well, whatever he and the team have done, they've found a way to deal with it, but it has meant that they are using the PS3 as the lowest common denominator due to the memory limitations they are facing.

It's just this engine though isn't it. He's wanting multiplatform in a really balanced and level way, for the benefit of the artists and designers.

None of this means that your beloved PS3 is a bag of rubbish, in fact he does state that there is potentially more power to be had from the PS3 than the 360.

What it means at the end of the day is that you are going to get just as good and experience with IdTech5 games on the 360 or PS3. It doesn't mean that PS3 specific engines are going to suck compared to 360 specific ones.

 

[ninzel]

I'm a little confused about something.
On one hand they are saying how it will be easy with their engine to port stuff across multiple platforms but on the other they are talking about how they had to hire a special PS3 programmer and how much harder it is to develop for.That seems to contradict one fo the stated benefits of their engine.
Are they saying that developing an engine to use across multiple platforms is the challenge,but once they are done with their engine their engine will cure those problems?OR is it the case that even once a developer licsences Id Tech5,a special PS3 programmer would be needed to get an equal result from PS3 games?

 

[assen]

Are they saying that developing an engine to use across multiple platforms is the challenge,but once they are done with their engine their engine will cure those problems?OR is it the case that even once a developer licsences Id Tech5,a special PS3 programmer would be needed to get an equal result from PS3 games?

Depending on how much your game is EXACTLY LIKE the game they build the engine for. The more it is alike, the more you can benefit from the expertise of their PS3 guru; the more it strays aside, the more it is likely you will hit into problems they didn't have and you'll need to pour in additional PS3 expertise.

 

["Nerve-Damage"]

http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200708/N07.0803.1731.12214.htm

Game Informer: When we interviewed you at CES this year, and QuakeCon two years ago you weren’t too thrilled with developing for multicore systems. Obviously now, that’s the case across all platforms. Were you kind of at the point with id Tech 5 where, you said, “We give in?â€

John Carmack: You have to take advantage of what’s on the table. Although it’s interesting that almost all of the PS3 launch titles hardly used any Cells at all. We hired one of the best PS3 guys around who did the Edge Acceleration technology for Sony – he’s on our team now so we’ve got some of the best PS3 experience here. In fact when we were doing all of the tech demos, we’d bring in the developers and they’d walk over and say, “it’s running on the PS3!†(laughs) They’d sit there and stare at it for a while.

There’s no doubt that with all of the platforms that we have running here PS3 is the most challenging to develop on. That’s what I’ve been saying from the beginning. It’s not that it was a boneheaded decision because they’re a lot closer the fact that they can run like this [points to the 4 different gaming stations running Rage] – they’re a lot closer than they’ve ever been before. It’s a hell of a lot better than PS2 versus Xbox. But given the choice, we’d rather develop on the Xbox 360. The PS3 still does have in theory more power that could be extracted but it’s not smart. We don’t feel it’s smart to head down that rat hole. In fact, the biggest thing we worry about right now is memory. Microsoft extracts 32 megs for their system stuff and Sony takes 96. That’s a big deal because the PS3 is already partitioned memory where the 360 is 512 megs of unified and on the PS3 is 256 of video, 256 of memory minus 96 for their system…stuff. Stuff is not the first thing that came to my mind there. (laughs)

The PS3 is not the favorite platform but it’s going to run the game just as good. To some degree there’s going to be some lowest common denominator effect because we’re going to be testing these every day on all of the platforms, and it’s going to be “Dammit it’s out of memory on the PS3 again, go crunch some things down†That’s probably going to be the sore spot for all of this but because we’re continuous builds on all of these we’re going to be fighting these battles as we go rather than build these things out and go, “Oh my God we’re so far away from running on there.†Which is the situation where Enemy Territory is suffering with at a degree right now, and a lot of other people have that.

Good Lord the PS3 OS is bloated!

I could have sworn some developers said/stated (here) the PS3 OS is currently using 56-64MB of memory.

 

[tabs]

The rest is GPU memory I believe.

 

[Carl B]

Good Lord the PS3 OS is bloated!

I could have sworn some developers said/stated (here) the PS3 OS is currently using 56-64MB of memory.

This has been discussed forever; numerous threads on the subject.

It's 32MB of GDDR3, and down to ~52MB of the XDR. The XDR set-aside has come down since launch, which is what the 96MB (32+64) figure would refer to. Carmack's not speaking in exact terms there.

 

["Nerve-Damage"]

This has been discussed forever; numerous threads on the subject.

It's 32MB of GDDR3, and down to ~52MB of the XDR. The XDR set-aside has come down since launch, which is what the 96MB (32+64) figure would refer to. Carmack's not speaking in exact terms there.

Memory partitioning aside; 96MB is just too much for a console with a total footprint of 512MB.

 

[assen]

Memory partitioning aside; 96MB is just too much for a console with a total footprint of 512MB.

Anybody know what is the OS reservation on the Wii?

 

[ninzel]

Depending on how much your game is EXACTLY LIKE the game they build the engine for. The more it is alike, the more you can benefit from the expertise of their PS3 guru; the more it strays aside, the more it is likely you will hit into problems they didn't have and you'll need to pour in additional PS3 expertise.

So they are employing a special PS3 programmer now while developing the engine,so a developer licensing the engine later doesn't have to?

 

[BoardBonobo]

Well, whatever he and the team have done, they've found a way to deal with it, but it has meant that they are using the PS3 as the lowest common denominator due to the memory limitations they are facing.

It's just this engine though isn't it. He's wanting multiplatform in a really balanced and level way, for the benefit of the artists and designers.

None of this means that your beloved PS3 is a bag of rubbish, in fact he does state that there is potentially more power to be had from the PS3 than the 360.

What it means at the end of the day is that you are going to get just as good and experience with IdTech5 games on the 360 or PS3. It doesn't mean that PS3 specific engines are going to suck compared to 360 specific ones.

PS3 engine will be just as good or potentially better in some ways

It would appear that they'd do alot less than suck!

 

[assen]

So they are employing a special PS3 programmer now while developing the engine,so a developer licensing the engine later doesn't have to?

They are employing a top-notch PS3 guru, so they can present to potential licensees a decent PS3 version of the engine, unlike, ahem, other, ahem, popular all-in-one game packages.

Whether you'll be able to buy id tech 5, prepare content for it, write general game code and release a decent PS3 game just with some help from id's PS3 guru(s), without getting somebody on your team very familiar with the intricacies of the PS3, depends on how much your game strays from what id envisioned the game to do. For example, if they make a Martian base sci-fi horror corridor shooter, and you make a WWII corridor shooter, you might just get away with it. If you want a open-space shooter with dozens of enemies, you'll have trouble. If you want an RTS, and they only did shooters with the engine, you'll need your own PS3 guru, because you'll have to include a significant amount of custom engine-level code.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

T
Depending on how that's done it could be more or less messy for online multiplayer gaming re. disc swapping, on 360.

Its rather obvious that unless your high on crack you would include everything you need for multiplayer on one disc.