*Game Development Issues*

[FirewalkR]

It would be very interesting to hear from the guy that actually writes the PS3 code for ID, and his thoughts.

Jon Olick, ex-Naughty Dog/ICE Team and from what I heard, one of the main guys behind the PS Edge tools. Of course, I don't think he's the only PS3 programmer they have. With this guy onboard, Carmack should know very well what the PS3 can or cannot do.

 

[chachi]

hm.. seems plausible considering the HUD is 720p and presumably drawn last i.e. 1080p = afterthought. But why not composite a pixel-perfect HUD instead and then let the hardware scale up or down in hardware Memory constraint ?

They're using more memory to rescale it in software since it requires the initial framebuffer and the 720p one in addition to the art assets. That's why it's interesting, because it's so weird.

I'd say the answer is probably more like they had the assets for 720p and didn't bother redoing them for the larger framebuffer they used on the 360. If it's only going on a 720p set then it doesn't really matter all that much, it's only when 1080p is involved that their weirdness becomes a problem.

Also if scaling from the original to 720p is done to achieve the TCR in that it softens edges then it seems so would scaling from the original to 1080p (or doing any scaling, or just a general blur, some choices are obviously better for IQ than others but all would soften edges).

 

[JPT]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6195345.html

Furthermore, Toriyama also revealed that, as of July 29, his team hasn't yet received the tools needed to begin work on the Xbox 360 version of FFXIII. "I'm telling them to not think about the Xbox 360 right now," he said. "We can think about it after the development kits arrive."

So can we assume that all we have seen is pre render videos from PCs? And why does PS3 and Xbox360 versions "differ" in video playback?

 

[wco81]

Some insight into EA having a bit more problem keeping X360 and PS3 versions at parity.


http://www.operationsports.com/forums/2038562580-post16.html

 

[GuestLV]

Re: FIX PS3 replay issue or Im NOT buying!
http://www.operationsports.com/forums/2038562580-post16.html

Anim8or
MADDEN Animation Director

Our animation technology was designed for both PS3 and 360. We honestly don't favor one platform over the other at all (in fact we are contantly told we can't do that), PS3 is just harder to write code for due to multi-processor stuff so it took us longer to catch up, and the 50/50 RAM split. I would say we put more effort into the PS3 because it's a more complicated architecture, but we have devoted a lot of R&D to allow us to work on both platforms seamlessly, and that stuff is really finally coming together this cycle.

I actually posted a thread on this weeks back. Obviously with RAM constraints we can't have an unlimited replay buffer, and it does really annoy the animators that the longer the replay the more robotic the motion (this is because we HAVE to start dropping frames of animation at some point, since our replay shows the whole play snap to whistle, no matter how long it lasts).

We could take the 2K approach and only show you the last 8 seconds of the play, that would allow us to keep full rez replay, but in the thread I started a couple months ago it seemed very split weather it was more important to see the entire play no matter how long, VS. wanting to see the animation uncompressed in replay...

but anyway, the RAM constraints are the reason the replay look worse than the game. Hope that helps people understand the decision to allow animation to reduce in quality over longer replay lengths.
__________________
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Simon Sherr
Animation Director
Electronic Arts Tiburon
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[Arwin]

Weird. Can't they just give an SPE a job to stream and compress the animation data to HDD? And back? Should be a piece of cake, and give you unlimited replay without quality loss. Why waste RAM on it at all?

 

[GuestLV]

Weird. Can't they just give an SPE a job to stream and compress the animation data to HDD?

It seems they dont care about Cell SPE
Looks like a Carmack path of programing?
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=204508&page=2

Eurogamer: Given your personal in-depth understanding of the architectures of the competing console platforms - the 360 and the PS3 - do you think one will have a significant technical advantage over the other in the years to come?

John Carmack: You know right now they're both really good, and that's why any time that people make comments one way or the other about the consoles it's easy to leave aside of the fact that it's the best that it's ever been in any generation in terms of support capabilities and all that, but what you can say really quite clearly and not get into too much argument about it is that the 360 is much easier to develop for, it's easier to get the performance out of it that it can deliver, and the rasterizer, the GPU side is generally faster than what the PS3 has.

If you were doing a whole lot of simulation, you can in theory get more performance out of the Cell processor than out of the two other dual-thread processors on the 360, but that's a big 'in theory'. You could design a game where the PS3 would be the superior platform, but you'd have to go out of your way to do it. If you're doing a game like people just want to do games now, the 360's the better platform.

If most people choose GPU oriented path of programing ,it will be bad for Sony Cell oriented programing strategy

 

[Heinrich4]

EA focus on ps3 as lead platform?

http://gamer.blorge.com/2008/08/04/ea-focus-on-ps3-as-lead-platform-for-game-development/

(EA at this times with more earns/profit in ps3 than x360 maybe change "status" of x360 as lead platform too who knows)

 

[jandlecack]

DICE already changed with Mirror's Edge (and possibly Bad Company) and it's no surprise to me that EA as a whole follow lead. There's more companies to do this already, e.g. Criterion under EA. It's really the sensible thing to do in order not to piss off PS3 owners but also satisfy Xbox owners.

I hope Ubi shift ASAP. I know that the Far Cry 2 devs have different teams working on each version, so there isn't a sloppy port, which I'd consider just as good as making PS3 lead platform.

 

[nAo]

What can I say..it was about time.

 

[eastmen]

DICE already changed with Mirror's Edge (and possibly Bad Company) and it's no surprise to me that EA as a whole follow lead. There's more companies to do this already, e.g. Criterion under EA. It's really the sensible thing to do in order not to piss off PS3 owners but also satisfy Xbox owners.

I hope Ubi shift ASAP. I know that the Far Cry 2 devs have different teams working on each version, so there isn't a sloppy port, which I'd consider just as good as making PS3 lead platform.

Why should xbox 360 owners not be pissed. I'd want the xbox 360 games to be the very best they can be, I don't see how focusing on other platforms and then porting is going to do that.

I don't buy EA titles anymore though so its no skin off my back

 

[aselto]

EA focus on ps3 as lead platform?

That entire article is just pure speculation.

 

[wco81]

What can I say..it was about time.

You saying you had a role in EA studios switching?

 

[nAo]

You saying you had a role in EA studios switching?

Where have I said that? I've been advocating this methodology since when? I think 360 and PS3 had not even been released yet..

 

[wco81]

The "What can I say ... " sounded like taking credit.

That is, beyond posts at this forum.

EDIT: Especially since San Mateo (or is it Redwood Shores EA is located at these days?) isn't too far from "San Francisco."

 

[betan]

Weird. Can't they just give an SPE a job to stream and compress the animation data to HDD? And back? Should be a piece of cake, and give you unlimited replay without quality loss. Why waste RAM on it at all?

Nothing involving an SPU is a piece of cake.
That said, the reason for lack of HDD usage is probably the other console as always.
(Of course it's also equally likely Sony may not be allowing continues streaming to HDD, but we know a couple of Sony games using background streaming, so maybe not).

What's weird -for me- is that they seem to be recording animation frames as if animation is not deterministic (not even psedo-random).

 

[catisfit]

Some interesting quotes about Edge on PS3:

There’s a set of tools called Edge that were developed on the Naughty Dog premises, actually, by a group of very, very senior games programmer, some from Naughty Dog and some from elsewhere. I think it’s tremendously visionary of Sony to make these tools, which are largely low-level libraries.

It’s code that runs on SPUs, and it’s to do with things like animation compression, generalised compression and rendering optimisations.

These guys are really old-school programmers: guys who are always looking to shave another cycle off an operation. And part of the skill of developing for the PlayStation 3 is getting the GPU to farm jobs out to the six SPUs - seeing which SPUs are idling and can take up some of the slack in a frame-to-frame kind of way.

That’s why we think we’re probably only using 30 or 40 per cent of the power of the PS3 right now, and there’s this great, untapped potential. All third-party developers can get the Edge libraries for free and are going to be able to use them in their own ways, to get more and more and more out of the PS3 over the years.

...and about how the exclusive studios cooperate:

We have this culture of open communication: we like to trade stories about what we found were ways of doing things that worked, and what didn’t. We’re always trading war-stories with Insomniac and Evolution and Sucker Punch.

We’re just one block away from Sony Santa Monica - the guys who made God Of War - and we get our designers together with theirs for formal lunches, and just talk about tools, design approaches and so on. So there’s this town square feeling of everybody trading stories about our best practices, and I think it makes everybody stronger and smarter.

 

[Nesh]

They claim that they get only 30 to 40% of the PS3's power. But my question is, are these tools good enough to exploit that untapped power?

If for example Uncharted which is amazingly beautiful, is just the beginning, how much better can the graphics improve and will they improve that much?

 

[Arwin]

I'll say this - right now no existing games nor any games coming out in the next year has anything remotely on Uncharted when it's at its best. At least that's how I feel after playing it again. Initially I thought it may look a bit aging now that I played it again, but man once you get to the fortress again it's amazing quality graphics just strikes you hard!

There's a lot of interesting tech in Uncharted (streaming, graphics pipeline) and it's all well and publicly documented too. I'm still worried that multi-platform development won't use any of it, but then again comforted that at the very least there will be a sequel to Uncharted!

 

[liolio]

They claim that they get only 30 to 40% of the PS3's power. But my question is, are these tools good enough to exploit that untapped power?

If for example Uncharted which is amazingly beautiful, is just the beginning, how much better can the graphics improve and will they improve that much?

A spin off would be is the cell overpowered in regard to the overall system?

Not like have spare of cpu power is bad but in regard to system limitations like:
GPU power
RAm available
Bandwidth
etc.

Like Ms wanted a cpu good enought to saturate the graphic sub system, it could be like cell even mostly 'untaped" is enought to sature ps3 other parts?