Developer assistance needed. Streaming is it hard?(360 related)
- Thread starter skilzygw
- Start date
yeah... I was wondering about this myself. Now that they are basically going to be developing streaming tech for their games, isn't it still relatively trivial to also have the game detect the HDD, and then say "cache to hdd, now look for everything on the HDD" 
It seems like something not unlike copying a game to a modded Xbox's hard drive and have the game run from there.
It seems like something not unlike copying a game to a modded Xbox's hard drive and have the game run from there.
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scooby_dooby
Legend
I would guess it very simple to check whether the HDD is present and if it is implement whatever caching technique you want.
The problem is a numbers game. if 50% of users don't have HDD, it's not worth a Dev's man-hours to set up a whole caching system when 50% of the time it won't be used. And they wil have to cater to the 50% without HDD as they don't want half of their users suffereing from horribly slow load times.
On the other hand, if 85-95% of the users end up buying the HDD-version, then it would see much more support since the effeort would impact the vast majority of gamers, and it would be acceptable to let the 5-10% without HDD suffer through slow load times, tradeoff being that 90% see a marked improvement.
The problem is a numbers game. if 50% of users don't have HDD, it's not worth a Dev's man-hours to set up a whole caching system when 50% of the time it won't be used. And they wil have to cater to the 50% without HDD as they don't want half of their users suffereing from horribly slow load times.
On the other hand, if 85-95% of the users end up buying the HDD-version, then it would see much more support since the effeort would impact the vast majority of gamers, and it would be acceptable to let the 5-10% without HDD suffer through slow load times, tradeoff being that 90% see a marked improvement.
scooby_dooby
Legend
According to a blogcast on major nelson with a MS tech guy, they are building this into the system so that Dev's can utilize HDD caching very easily.
Logic being, if they make it easy enough, Dev's will use it.
Who knows if this is true or more MS crap lies.
Logic being, if they make it easy enough, Dev's will use it.
Who knows if this is true or more MS crap lies.
scooby_dooby
Legend
This quote from M_Hael, a user at xbox-scene and Dev for neversoft should answer your question:
-----------------------------------
What people are missing is the HD's primary use and its NOT for games. It will be a LIVE Storage device. Plain and simple. Yes some games can be designed to use the caching if its required. Others will not bother for whatever reason.
...
if(HDDPresent)
{
// Cache files
}else{
// don't
}
ooh aren't I good eh ?
...
[in reference to the above] this wasn't a joke.
...
caching (HD or NOT) is VERY VERY Simple to do and requires NO Changes to the "GAME" at all.. its an under the hood small change. Trust me I've implemented it several times and will implement it where ever possible.
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------
What people are missing is the HD's primary use and its NOT for games. It will be a LIVE Storage device. Plain and simple. Yes some games can be designed to use the caching if its required. Others will not bother for whatever reason.
...
if(HDDPresent)
{
// Cache files
}else{
// don't
}
ooh aren't I good eh ?
...
[in reference to the above] this wasn't a joke.
...
caching (HD or NOT) is VERY VERY Simple to do and requires NO Changes to the "GAME" at all.. its an under the hood small change. Trust me I've implemented it several times and will implement it where ever possible.
-----------------------------------------------
I don't see why it couldn't be an OS level service. Seems like it wouldn't be much different than caching IMO.
The OS could see you were loading from DVD-ROM. It could then run whatever algorithim (locality and what not) to determine what data should be cached. Copy it all to the hard drive, and call it a day.
The game itself would just check memory like it currently does, with the addition of another level.
So, it'd go L1 -> L2 -> RAM (oops!) -> HDD -> DVD-ROM.
Is there any reason something like this isn't feasible?
The OS could see you were loading from DVD-ROM. It could then run whatever algorithim (locality and what not) to determine what data should be cached. Copy it all to the hard drive, and call it a day.
The game itself would just check memory like it currently does, with the addition of another level.
So, it'd go L1 -> L2 -> RAM (oops!) -> HDD -> DVD-ROM.
Is there any reason something like this isn't feasible?
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You might want to put some RAM in that access pipeline you've got there!
PG2G said:
That would rather work that way (OS service wise).
IO access (-> HDD cache )-> DVD-ROM.
When engine performs disk IO operation (Input in fact), it goes through the OS, which might have cached stuff on disk and would transparently return it instead of accessing the slooooowwwww DVD-ROM device.
(Prolly what you wanted to say, but you mixed internal engine managed mechanism, with OS Service work.)
scooby_dooby
Legend
i think it's more in how your mind works, people who are really good at math tend to be very logical thinkers, and good programmers.
dev's don't do much ACTUAL math do they??
dev's don't do much ACTUAL math do they??
Software devs in general aint needing maths, of course its dependand on your field.scooby_dooby said:
I dint even go to highschool and had no probs taking a book and doing some basic 3D-Stuff, actually many algorithms are already hidden in APIs like Direct3D so you dont have to know how things are done. I seem to have a strong talent for maths though and its a nice thing to have if you are looking to be a programmer.
now for doing 3D-Stuff... knowing linear algebra and numerics sure would be an advance.
PS. ..becoming a developer with a fix good job.... that I would be interested to know
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Regards being a dev, there's different levels. If your writing a 3D game engine you need to be good at maths. If you're doing any low-level libraries you tend to need to be good at maths, plus understanding the hardware. If your using someone else's tools then you need to be a 'programmer' which is someone who strings commands together to get the program to do what you want. The just needs training to understand programming languages. Amongst programmers you get good ones and not-so-good ones - those who really understand coding and those that have more difficulty coming up with efficient hardware-friendly solutions to problems.
Npl : Have you seen Epic's latest comments about wanting to attract the best and most talented to Epic for a secure and comfortable programming career?
Npl : Have you seen Epic's latest comments about wanting to attract the best and most talented to Epic for a secure and comfortable programming career?