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

[Hardknock]

If you've twice as much space available for a, XB360 game as an XB game, doesn't that imply you're limited to twice the data size? So models and textures can only have twice as many vertices and pixels as XB games before you run out of space? Unless they use compression above and beyond that which the XB used, which i'm not sure exists, it just seems a forgone conclusion that you're going to be storage medium limited.

NO. With more powerful hardware comes better compression. You are able to get more than double the space of a DVD with compression techniques nowadays. The same for RAM space, you can get over a gig of RAM from the 512MBs that the 360 and PS3 use from compression.

People just like to make bigger issues out of things than they really are.

Also aren't seek times going to be terrible without duplicate data blocks if you don't have an HDD for caching? It'll be interesting to compare later larger games between Core and full systems and see how much impact that has.

COD doesn't have any "duplicate data" to my knowledge and it loads faster than the PC version that is installed on a harddrive!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

NO. With more powerful hardware comes better compression.

More powerful hardware speeds up the decompression, and potentially allows for higher, more complex levels of compression to be used which would be too slow on lesser hardware. But the maximum compression amount is limited by the compression algorithm, and the power of the hardware has no influence.

Game data is already compressed on XB games as that speeds loading times (according to dev comments on this board). For XB360 to get the file sizes smaller they'll need more ferocious compression. Now if we take an example 256x256 texture for an XB game of some rocky environmental surface, that takes up 192 Kb uncompressed. JPEGing at 1% quality reduction produces a file of 61 Kb. 10% gives 27 Kb. (this is taking a random texture from my computer as an example. Obviously different images can compress at different levels, such as a plain black 512x512 texture taking 2 Kb at all JPEG compression levels. The average for photo quality textures should be prety similar though)

For XB360 with more resources, the textures will be higher resolution. A similar texture but at 512x512 resolution is 768 Kb uncompressed, 261 Kb at 1% JPEG, and 129 Kb at 10% JPEG. It's 4x as big as the XB texture uncompressed, 4.2 times bigger at 1% compression, and 4.7 times bigger at 10% compression.

The only way to get the file size increase of a 4x resolution texture to be smaller than 4x the low res version is to use stronger compression, which either means going more lossy and degrading quality, or using a different algorithm that has better results. In the case of the former, you'd need a JPEG compression of about 43% to get the 512x512 texture filesize to be about 2x the filesize of the 256x256 texture. The quality drop is quite pronounced. In the case of the latter, in the same way h.264 gets better quality per MB than MPEG2, it may be possible to get better image quality using a better compression algorithm. What would this compression scheme be? It's not an area I'm well versed in so maybe there are some new compression schemes that can greatly outperform those used in XB games and allow 4+ times the data to take up no more than 2x the space without suffering in the quality stakes as a result.

Perhaps if XB compression is only slight for performance reasons, and XB360 can use more aggresive compression as it has the processing power to cope, this can be managed? Does anyone know what compression schemes and level of compression current XB title use and how that could be improved with XB360?

 

[one]

2 words, diminishing returns!
Let's not sacrifice the 3rd core in the Xbox 360 CPU for slightly better compression.

As I wrote in the first page of this thread, I expect there will be many non-MMOG Xbox 360 games that require HDD installation 3 years later. This way Microsoft can sell 80GB or larger HDD and make money off of them. Then selling/downloading 20GB games on internet will be common in 2008, this way Microsoft can finally be free from the burden of physical disc format in both HD movies and games, which is the real goal of Bill Gates. But it may be a bit too far fetched.

 

[function]

Why would you have to sacrifice a core for anything? Currently, one much slower core does everything (including decompression).

Three years from now MS expect to be shifting a lot of Core systems for $150 that will never get attached to a HDD. Games that require installation will be rare and probably limited to those that expect to have large volume of downloadable content. Add on content that you save to the HDD (like cars, tracks, maps) will be more common, as it already is with the current Xbox.

 

[function]

Actually, I feel the other way around about this: Swapping discs is more of a hassle in RPGs, in my opinion. Enter the city, swap disc. Forgot to do sg, leave city, swap disc. Coming back swap disc. It just bothers me.

Can you think of any CD based RPG where this happened? I can think of a few floppy games, but nothing on CD. As you progress through the game you move through the disks - that's the way things work these days.

 

[Farid]

Thread Merged and Pruned

I merged the new thread and this one together.

I also had to prune the threads of the useless one liners.
If you have something thoughtful you want to discuss, go ahead, if all you have to say is one liner to mock or cheer for your favorite or less favorite Consumer Electronic corporation, just abstain.

 

[blakjedi]

2 words, diminishing returns!
Let's not sacrifice the 3rd core in the Xbox 360 CPU for slightly better compression.

As I wrote in the first page of this thread, I expect there will be many non-MMOG Xbox 360 games that require HDD installation 3 years later. This way Microsoft can sell 80GB or larger HDD and make money off of them. Then selling/downloading 20GB games on internet will be common in 2008, this way Microsoft can finally be free from the burden of physical disc format in both HD movies and games, which is the real goal of Bill Gates. But it may be a bit too far fetched.

Great great answer. Ms may want to shift systems into peoples homes using the CORE but the really want folks to upgrade into a HDD based system eventually I think...

 

[JarrodKing]

Maybe they'll design with 360 in mind and make most of the story/missions take place within individual cities/regions, but on ps3 large multi-city/region missions stories will be possible, along with seemless travel between all of them. This is the fate of either gta next or one of its sequels if the dev. keeps tradition.

Zidane,
I read your theoretical situation and it made me think of something that disturbed me very much. What if they just made the dumbed-down, not as expansive or detailed 360 version and released it basically unchanged on the PS3 as well!! It seems that most people expect a lot of companies to release basically the same versions of their games for 360 and PS3. What a shame if not only is the 360 limited by its DVD drive, but the PS3 is limited by the 360's drive as well!

I guess there will always be PS3 exclusive games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

From talk same happened this gen. XB games were 'dumbed down' when they were PS2 ports, instead of making better use of the XB's resources. So I can well imagine companies targetting 8 GB discs for both systems even if there was a benefit to larger BRD storage.

 

[Pozer]

Any GC owners know if zelda or re4 was hampered by 1.5gb disc capacity?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Do any GC owners know how much better those games could have been if they had twice as much storage capacity?

The fact that good games can come in smaller capacities isn't in dispute. The question is what are the limits imposed by smaller capacities. Would you be happy if XB360 or PS3 came with a 1.5 GB disc? Or if we had never progressed beyond CDs? Bigger games with more detail need more space. How much is 'enough' for next-gen? 1GB? 5GBs? 9 GBs? 15 GBs? And how can that requirement be determined?

 

[seismologist]

Any GC owners know if zelda or re4 was hampered by 1.5gb disc capacity?

Most of the games hampered were multiplatform games where the GC version had to be squeezed onto one disk.

 

[Platon]

Most of the games hampered were multiplatform games where the GC version had to be squeezed onto one disk.

But weren't many games better looking on the GC than the PS2, despite the lower capacity disc?...

 

[one]

Any GC owners know if zelda or re4 was hampered by 1.5gb disc capacity?

RE4 is a 2-disc game.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Perhaps if XB compression is only slight for performance reasons, and XB360 can use more aggresive compression as it has the processing power to cope, this can be managed? Does anyone know what compression schemes and level of compression current XB title use and how that could be improved with XB360?

We know it had a celeron with 64mb of ram, doeasn't exactly sound like a decompression beast.

Surely a triple core 3.2 Ghz processor should provide much more aggressive compression.

One - RE4 came on 2 discs. And did anyone really care? Did it affect it's sales? did it affect it's scrores? No. swapping discs = minor annoyance, and DVD is so large that the minor annoyance will be extremely few and far between.

So it's just not a big deal, some people seem SO inetent on making it seem like a big deal. It's minor.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Do any GC owners know how much better those games could have been if they had twice as much storage capacity??

I think it's called RE4, which came on 2 discs.

There is just no solid argument for this being a major problem. Either they;ll use compression to make it fit, or they'll use 2 discs, or whatever, dev's will make it work with as little impact on the game as possible(cause that affects their sales)

 

[zidane1strife]

GC has better iq than ps2 , and a more feature rich gpu, lots of things suffered due to the small medium, and many games would be too much trouble porting to it, but overall it did look better in most games.

Cut scenes are the bread and buffer of a crappy CGI house trying to create an RPG game. If I want cutscenes, I'll either go see or rent a pixar film. If I want an RPG, I'll buy an RPG, that has character development and not 3000 hours of time spent rendering subpar CGI that doesn't look like the rest of the game.

Aaron Spink

I want GOW/FFVII lvl NPCs and monsters , and hopefully non-recycled too, while that will mostly be the case, as it was this gen, I'd hope for variety in npcs.

That's 100+ at about 32MB a piece, according to the given info. I'd also hope for very large cities this time. The time of small Indian tribe hut town should give way to multiple truly large cities.

Can you think of any CD based RPG where this happened? I can think of a few floppy games, but nothing on CD. As you progress through the game you move through the disks - that's the way things work these days.

Non but that was because they were designed with that in mind. Even the plot made sure of it. In FFVIII, entire areas are destroyed or locked throughout the story as you move from disc to disc, by the end, by the final disc, while you still have a ship and can travel around the world most if not all cities are destroyed or locked due to plot events. In ffvii something similar happened to a few areas, and in ffix it too happened to a few areas, iirc.

Zidane,
I read your theoretical situation and it made me think of something that disturbed me very much. What if they just made the dumbed-down, not as expansive or detailed 360 version and released it basically unchanged on the PS3 as well!! It seems that most people expect a lot of companies to release basically the same versions of their games for 360 and PS3. What a shame if not only is the 360 limited by its DVD drive, but the PS3 is limited by the 360's drive as well!

I guess there will always be PS3 exclusive games.

It is possible such a thing could tragically happen, on another note, it is also possible assets gets reduced in quality below what the xbox360 h/w could provide with quick ports just to fit on the dvd disc, making h/w debates more difficult.

From talk same happened this gen. XB games were 'dumbed down' when they were PS2 ports, instead of making better use of the XB's resources. So I can well imagine companies targetting 8 GB discs for both systems even if there was a benefit to larger BRD storage.

Did something change? Did some new info come up? Weren't xbox360 game discs around 7GB due to security features taking a ridiculously hefty chunk?

 

[ERP]

You can only really compare disc sizes and game sizes if you understand the breakdown of the discs content, and that's going to be hard to get real figures on.

Only then can you understand the potential compromises, that might have to be made.

if 70% of a game is textures and geometry, it paints a different picture than if 70% of a game is movies and music.

 

[seismologist]

I think it's called RE4, which came on 2 discs.

RE4 was made for the GC. It was unlikely for multplatform games on a single disk to be split into multiple disks. I dont think any publisher did that. Instead they just cut features,levels, etc.

 

[scificube]

I played RE4 and yes swapping disks was annoying. What made this forgivable was that RE4 was a stellar game more than anything else.

RE4 also had content added to it on in the PS2 version which could very well mean there was enough space on the disk media to allow for this as well as devs simply having more time to do this since allot of the PS2 version's art assets etc were already done from the GC version.

Disk swapping also forces a level of linearity to a game unless a dev decides to allow players to continuously hot swap disks which I have not seen to date and don't expect to this any time in the future.

Another issue to consider is that if swapping was proper or rather an equivalent alternative to a larger media why weren't cross platform GC ports commonly ported using more than one disk? I'm not sure if any port at all used more one disk. I would argue that it cost the developers more money, disk swapping was not always compatible with the flow of their games and even it it was developers would rather not have players have to deal with swapping if they could avoid it...of course there is the issue of working harder for a smaller user base in play here on some issues. In any case, developers opted to used the GC's compression capabilities as best they could and then reduce the amount of content or the fidelity of the content to fit on the GC's smaller media. One thing the media had going for it was that is was physically small so that transfer speeds were pretty high over all of the disk which helped reduce the need for redundant data...because there wasn't much room for any if at all.

To me this seems like a lot of apples to oranges comparisons but oh well. I don't see how more capacity is a bad thing and why it would not be used. Textures have doubled or quadrupled in size with HD resolutions alone...and when artists begin to add more texture data as it it will be common that more types of textures will be used in more instances in a scene that much more space is consumed on the medium. Then there is sound, game data etc...and they're all asking for more storage space. I think better compression can play it's part but I don't see where there has been some major breakthrough in this field or either Nvidia, Ati...somebody would be crowing about it. If I'm not mistaken GPUs handle texture compression in the vast majority of cases so why wouldn't ATI be implementing it in their upcoming GPUs or why has there been no mention of Xenos's exemplary compression capabilities? I'm kinda skeptical of some snazzy new compression at the moment.

I think Blu-Ray's capacity will almost surely be used for PS3 games...because developers will actually need to do so as well.