DVDs are big enough for Next-Gen + File sizes for X360 launch games

H

Hardknock

Veteran
This has been debated for ages. But here's the first in-depth article I've read on the subject. They appear to be pretty spot on. Check it out:

http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132

Some interesting tidbits. Here are some 360 launch game sizes:


Condemned: 3.9 GB

Madden 06 NFL: 3.3 GB

Dead or Alive 4: 5 GB

NBA 06: 4.5 GB


Also the HUGE morrowind on Xbox was only 900MB. Grand Theft Auto III is a paltry 733 megabytes, compared to Grand Theft Auto Vice City's still paltry 1.2 gigs.

Check out the article, very nice write up :!:
 
The last paragraph gave me the rolleyes.
The PS3 will be able to store more data with their blu-ray discs, but that won't necessarily mean that they'll be any less limited in their creativity. It might simply give developers more room to be sloppy in their programing.
Click to expand...
While I know close to nothing about programming, I believe it's not the program code that takes near the majority of disc space, but the graphics and music data.
So, there should be no need to fear more space would somehow result in sloppier game code... maybe in that sense as there would be less need top optimize where on the disc to put what data, but wouldn't that only be good in the programmers point of view.
Certainly, I don't think it would affect the "quality" of the programming as such, resulting in more buggy games.
So, the Blu-ray disc with the extra headroom in storage would just be another thing that makes the console easier to program for ;)
 
Cool to see that someone has actually done some calculation on the subject, and I agree, DVD is not too small for this gen, rather to big for previous gen.

And if developers bother to use procedural synthesis techniques, compression techniques and so on, I think that this gen the increase in filesize as the years go by will not even be as big as last gen, since those first gen games on xbox360 are really slopy in the use of procedural synthesis and compression.

As has been said before, even if you have ample space to spare on your disc you should still strive to have as "small" things on it anyway, since with the powerfull CPUs the new consoles will have, it is faster to stream a small file from the disc and decompress it, than to stream the uncompressed file, since the streaming from the disc is the limiting step and slow step.

The only thing I can see as a problem are all the CG movies/scenes in the game, those could increase in size qiute a bit. On the other hand I really wouldn't mind developers use less and less of those, since they cost loads of money and resources to make that could be better spent on the game it self...
 
Hardknock said:
This has been debated for ages. But here's the first in-depth article I've read on the subject. They appear to be pretty spot on. Check it out:
Click to expand...

Ehmm, so what they are saying is that on a DVD, games want take up more space than the media allows?

Impressive.

In any case it looks like dual layer DVD's are just around the corner for the next wave of 360 titles, considering that the first games already are close to filling up one layer.

GTA:pS3 on a DVD? yeah right ;-)
 
rabidrabbit said:
The last paragraph gave me the rolleyes.

While I know close to nothing about programming, I believe it's not the program code that takes near the majority of disc space, but the graphics and music data.
So, there should be no need to fear more space would somehow result in sloppier game code... maybe in that sense as there would be less need top optimize where on the disc to put what data, but wouldn't that only be good in the programmers point of view.
Certainly, I don't think it would affect the "quality" of the programming as such, resulting in more buggy games.
So, the Blu-ray disc with the extra headroom in storage would just be another thing that makes the console easier to program for ;)
Click to expand...

Agreed, the program as such does not take that much space, but maybe they mean in a more general sence, maybe they will not apply compression and procedural synthesis techniques and stuff like that since they don't need to...
 
Yes, there will be games with a lot of CGI movies next gen too, that's for sure [Final Fantasy XIII...) but I really don't mind that, not in a FF game at least.
I enjoy watching a good quality gci sequence every now and then, to give me a rest from gaming.
I really don't mind that much if it's different quality from gameplay, as long as it's significantly better quality, it doesn't pull me out of the gameworld.
It could be just because games still are so far behind the movies in suspension of disbelief, and that there anyway is so much other stuff that's more distracting than an intercut cgi, like menu screens, hud's, graphic bugs (clipping, simple animation compared to films...) that I really don't understand why game cgi has received so much negatives recently.
So, as there will be long cgi sequences in next gen games, I rather take them in HD thank you very many.
 
-tkf- said:
Ehmm, so what they are saying is that on a DVD, games want take up more space than the media allows?
Click to expand...

No, that bigger media is not needed.

GTA:pS3 on a DVD? yeah right ;-)
Click to expand...

If it comes on a BR disc it will be more for "political" reasons rather than space constrain reasons. Going from 1.2 gigs to over 9 gigs is more than 7 times the assets...
 
rabidrabbit said:
Yes, there will be games with a lot of CGI movies next gen too, that's for sure [Final Fantasy XIII...) but I really don't mind that, not in a FF game at least.
I enjoy watching a good quality gci sequence every now and then, to give me a rest from gaming.
I really don't mind that much if it's different quality from gameplay, as long as it's significantly better quality, it doesn't pull me out of the gameworld.
It could be just because games still are so far behind the movies in suspension of disbelief, and that there anyway is so much other stuff that's more distracting than an intercut cgi, like menu screens, hud's, graphic bugs (clipping, simple animation compared to films...) that I really don't understand why game cgi has received so much negatives recently.
So, as there will be long cgi sequences in next gen games, I rather take them in HD thank you very many.
Click to expand...

I don't doubt there will be CGI stuff next gen as well, and I don't mind them myself, it is more that I would rather see them maybe using the game engine for cutscenes and since the new machines are so powerfull CGI start feeling a bit over the top and ususally during cut scenes you can polish the game engine even more. It is just that with all the talk about how much games will cost in the future, I would rather see them using the time and money for CG in the game instead...
 
anyone else notice they don't use percentage increase to calculate the size of the biggest games. instead they add on 3 gigs or so (i don't have the page still loaded to check.) and are the results for 2004 just not available or aren't they using them for a reason.
 
Hardknock said:
So you expect GTA to jump from 1.2GB to over 7.5GB for next-gen?? :oops:

If Oblivion can fit on one DVD, I don't see why GTA can't.
Click to expand...
5.1 (7.1?) surround sound, possibly in lossless dts (though probably not)?
I know 5.1 surround sound doesn't in itself take that much more space than standard stereo, but in today's games the audio is quite heavily compressed compared to for example in DVD movies.
I'm not sure, but as it's only the graphics and the space it takes that's only taken into consideration mostly, it seems the audio is always forgotten in discussions.
How much by estimation would next gen audio take space in a next gen audio heavy game? How much the audio is occupying the disc space in today's audio heavy games like GTA-SA?

Is the reason today's games are mostly below 4.5GB one that the developers do not like to use the other layer in the disc? Or is the second layer used also in games that do not exceed the single layer space? For a non programmer like me it would make sense to do so, as that would make the data density bigger in the same area.
I could be totally off here though, as likely it would be too slow to swithc from layer one to layer two to make it work.
 
Platon said:
No, that bigger media is not needed.
Click to expand...

You, as others like Hardnock, are clearly missing the point. The argument was never if more space is needed - the argument was always that more space allows for more possibilities. Period.

As has been mentioned multiple times, more space allows more content, as it also allows the disk space to be used for redundant data blocks to decrease expensive seeks and help streaming. There several benefits to having more space. Of course developers will find ways to get passed space limitations - it doesn't however mean that they make use of more space if they had it available.

I think the more interesting advantage of having more space in PS3 over Xbox360 are the implications if PS3 will end up being the primary development platform and disk space is effectively used because its there and can be used [to an advantage]. I can forsee that it might make porting more challenging when the only way to get all content onto DVD are multiple disks... and depending on the game and how extensively data redundancy was used, that may or may not be a possibility. Make no mistake though, solutions can/will/may (or may not) be found - the question is, how many will actually bother looking for them?
 
Phil said:
You, as others like Hardnock, are clearly missing the point. The argument was never if more space is needed -
Click to expand...

No, actually this is the argument I've always been hearing. You've brought up an entirely new one. While I see your point, I still don't think DVDs will be a limitation for any developer going by the past. If they want to be lazy or use redundant data to decrease load times, they can still just put it on multiple discs. If not, with a little effort they can easily squeeze it on one DVD just fine, with more often than not room to spare.
 
Phil said:
You, as others like Hardnock, are clearly missing the point. The argument was never if more space is needed - the argument was always that more space allows for more possibilities. Period.

As has been mentioned multiple times, more space allows more content, as it also allows the disk space to be used for redundant data blocks to decrease expensive seeks and help streaming. There several benefits to having more space. Of course developers will find ways to get passed space limitations - it doesn't however mean that they make use of more space if they had it available.

I think the more interesting advantage of having more space in PS3 over Xbox360 are the implications if PS3 will end up being the primary development platform and disk space is effectively used because its there and can be used [to an advantage]. I can forsee that it might make porting more challenging when the only way to get all content onto DVD are multiple disks... and depending on the game and how extensively data redundancy was used, that may or may not be a possibility. Make no mistake though, solutions can/will/may (or may not) be found - the question is, how many will actually bother looking for them?
Click to expand...

No doubt that more space is gives more possibilities, but possibilities of what? Oblivions shows quite nicely that you can have huge gamming worlds, hours and hours of gameplay, great graphics, lots and lots of spoken dialogue and still not need more than a DVD. Possibilities cost money, filling a BR disc with real content, not just redundant data, will cost huge amounts of money, I don't see many dev houses that are willing to do that.

As for the redundant data, no biggie, worst case scenario xbox360 will have to do without them with slow loading times, but if the DVD in the xbox360 is faster than the BR drive in the PS3 then maybe the difference will not be all to big...
 
Platon said:
No doubt that more space is gives more possibilities, but possibilities of what? Oblivions shows quite nicely that you can have huge repetitive gamming worlds, hours and hours of repetitive gameplay, great repetitive colourless graphics, lots and lots of repetitive spoken dialogue and still not need more than a DVD. Possibilities cost money, filling a BR disc with real content, not just redundant data, will cost huge amounts of money, I don't see many dev houses that are willing to do that.

As for the redundant data, no biggie, worst case scenario xbox360 will have to do without them with slow loading times, but if the DVD in the xbox360 is faster than the BR drive in the PS3 then maybe the difference will not be all to big...
Click to expand...
Sorry, but couldn't resist. The bolded parts added by me ;) That was unnecessary by me, and not necessarily 100% true, so take it as a joke mostly.

I do agree on the increased costs, but as the demands of gameplayers increase, they have little options left than to supply.
Gamers are starting to except more varied game universes, not the same brown tile corridor with an odd detail texture added here and there for variety, or the same troll instanced 200x with identical animations, and that I expect take more space and resources and money.
 
I do think that dvds are very large, but at the same time it's almost guaranteed next gen games will consume a good deal more space than last. With this gen I expect texture sizes to jump 3 or 4 times that of last gen, because the systems have more memory. On HDTVS texture details will be even more obvious; this will make games that use low rez textures look bad. Cut scenes will also idealy be encoded in a higher resolution to accommodate hd.

So if you take the size of last gen games and multiply by three or four you will be starting to reach the limit of dvds for same games and a couple of games cross the limit.

Not to mention many games use a technique of spreading multiple copies of the same data across the disk to increase seek times. For that to work effectively you need to be consuming as small a percentage of the overall disk space as possible.

From a programming perspective you are always to make due with what is available just because last gen did not consume lots of disk space does not mean that anent practical uses for more disk space. I don’t think we should think of a programmer who uses lots of disk space sloppy until consider what this additional space is being used for.
 
Platon said:
Going from 1.2 gigs to over 9 gigs is more than 7 times the assets...
Click to expand...

GTA: San Andreas from the Take 2 Website: required 4.7GB of free hard disk space (full install)

So, low res textures, low poly everything on a PS2, it would be impressive if they kept it below 9 GB on the PS3.
 
The good thing for the PS3 is that if the developer doesn't need alot of space they can always use DVD's, while the others can use Blu-ray disc. This is not possible of the X360. To me I thought that was always the arugment.:???:
 
First gen games for ps2 we're on CDs, now they are on dual-layer DVDs.
I wouldn't think so.
And the games for xbox360 now, are not next-gen. :smile:
 
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