Gran Turismo 4 delayed (again)

[Phil]

Well, common sense would tell me that in online mode maybe we don't need all that, since 1 out of one million actually notices how the heat affects the friction or hwatever geeky thing they put in the physics engine... A dumbed down version would be enough..... But maybe that would be against PD's interests (of releasing 9 versions of GT4 Epilogue)...

Well, the entire game mechanics including all the physics-factors combine to what makes GT4 what it is. Any difference wouldn't go unnoticed as it would make the game experience different. And if the online mode would be that dumbed down - would it even we worth putting it in? I expect the game-engine to already have the necessary interfaces for online play there - making a dumbed down online mode would require a new game-engine and the most trival thing would be the consumers all togehter!

If you already play the game to get all your cars and learn how to drive your car and all its challenges that come with it - would you even dare to touch a version of the game that doesn't take all those factors into account? It'd be like driving an entire different car, let alone a different game all together! I know I wouldn't - and after Polyphony spends years into improving and perfecting their game-engine - doubt they would want anything less playable coming from them.

 

[London Geezer]

I don't see how "time" will make things better then.

 

[Phil]

hmm.. I suppose lag would be one of the prime concerns, especially considering how quick something could influence the way the car drives (or turns or whatever). Lag can cause the framerate to either decrease or ghosting cars in which the game suddenly doesn't get the data in time to know where it is and what happened to it. Coupled with collision detection and this could have a bad impact on the game, especially in a head to head race when both cars are driving head to head into a curve or something and one players car suddenly idles because there's lag occuring. Either framerate dips on all consoles until data is received or the game continues and the car with the lag goes crazy/unpredictable.

There are so many issues I can think of.

As for what time could help.. well, I suppose making the whole process on how the data is sent across to the other machines more efficiant? Perhaps even in trying to find a way on how to send less information and calculate the rest on the other machines? Though this would require more performance and with a game running like GT4, I doubt there is much 'untapped' to be found unless they want to undergo more major changes within the code.

Hopefully time will sort out some of this issues and bring down the requirements a bit. If 1Mbps upload is needed to play this lag free (perhaps with maximum count of users), then I feel sorry for Swiss users as we don't have affordable plans yet with such high uploads. I also suspect the requirement for just 2 players wouldn't be that high...

 

[London Geezer]

"Requiring" 1Mb upload speeds is outrageous. Every other game works just fine with much slower connections. As good as GT4 might be, it's just too much. Maybe they're just waiting for internet speeds to go up, but it's gonna take a while until everyone will have >1Mb upload connections. I have (will have ) a 4Mb down but only 700-something up, maybe not even that... and it's the fastest in the UK. As far as i'm aware.

 

[Phil]

I just thought of something. If they are using servers to centralize the bulk of processing... upload requirement should shrink as the only thing that needs to be send is the information of your own car every single frame to the centralized server. On the other hand, one would still have to receive the information from each car on the track.

Perhaps the time consuming factor for Polyphony is that they are trying ways to simplify the big flow of data that needs to be processed and/or setting up servers that can process information to make it less bandwidth consuming for each and every user to the network? On the other hand, perhaps they are figuring out which information needs to be sent at 60Hz and which data is less trival and can be sent at <=30Hz intervals? There could be so many things they're thinking of... and I'm sure they'll find some sort of solution in the end.

 

[Phil]

Correction: Thinking about a centralized server (or just any PS2 that will take the role of a server), I doubt upload will need to be that high. Download definately though, but perhaps 1Mbps is the requirement for a PS2 acting as a server? Maybe it's just the minimum download bandwidth requirement?

 

[London Geezer]

I just thought of something. If they are using servers to centralize the bulk of processing... upload requirement should shrink as the only thing that needs to be send is the information of your own car every single frame to the centralized server. On the other hand, one would still have to receive the information from each car on the track.

Perhaps the time consuming factor for Polyphony is that they are trying ways to simplify the big flow of data that needs to be processed and/or setting up servers that can process information to make it less bandwidth consuming for each and every user to the network? On the other hand, perhaps they are figuring out which information needs to be sent at 60Hz and which data is less trival and can be sent at <=30Hz intervals? There could be so many things they're thinking of... and I'm sure they'll find some sort of solution in the end.

Oh i'm sure they will, after 8 Epilogues. And 5 sequels. After having inflated their profits by some orders of magnitude with "Special Edition!" and "Special Edition Moscow++" and the "GT4 Epilogue Singapore"...

 

[wco81]

As many have speculated, maybe PD wants to keep the online modes as good as the offline modes. All PS2 online games have disclaimers that online modes will not have the same experience. The difference is subtle a lot of the times.

When a few 720p mode games for the Xbox has problems online, maybe the telecom infrastructure just isn't up to snuff. We won't have 1 Mbps or greater upload for years. They may be more common in Japan and other Asian nations but in the US, a couple of telcos are starting to lay fiber but it's going to take a long time before that kind of bandwidth is widely available.

But the PD guy did say the main problem was servers and infrastructure. Maybe they want to do their own rather than go with some turnkey setup like GameSpy, which is what a lot of PS2 online games run on.

Some of the previews talked about things like emailing photos to each other. So maybe they got some ambitious plans which are taking longer to implement. That would be a refreshing change because most Japanese games are lacking in online features compared to American games. For instance, you don't have niceties like keyboard or headset support (instead you have odd workarounds like the communication system in RE Outbreak).

I'm not a big GT player so I will wait until the online version comes out or not at all. What is going to be bad is that you will probably have to play through the singleplayer mode a lot in order to be able to use good cars online. GT is popular enough but a lot of casual racing gamers would be more likely to pick up the game if they could choose a good car for some online races, like when they play a racing game at the arcades. You have to offer an option where people can pick up things casually.

 

[sir doris]

After reading a few of your posts I rememmbered something else from the interview. He said that the US could probably cope with the online but Europe and Japan was the problem and that because online isn't a big issue in Japan they are focusing on the B spec mode instead.

Assuming they are using servers to run the online games and sync everything up then maybe 1Mbit down is more likely the requirement. Like LB said upload speeds are a long way from 1Mbit in the UK. I've got 3Mbit down but only 256Kbit up.

 

[thop]

I don't think you can buy 1Mbps upload anywhere here. I can get 5Mbps down, but only 512kbps up. In Japan they apparently all have 10Mbps up/down in their homes, but in the US quite a few people still run on 56K. The only place that i can think of that might compete with Japan here is Sweden.

 

[London Geezer]

Well the UK is moving fast, apparently there is a new service that provides 8Mb down for the same price of my 4Mb one. Not sure about upload speeds, but hey, i appreciate the progress.

 

[wco81]

One of the reasons upload speeds are constrained is that service providers reserve bandwidth to sell hosting services, which are more profitable.

There aren't too many consumer applications which require a lot of upload bandwidth. Until there is, ISPs will offer the minimum the market requires.

For instance, my Comcast connection dropped to like 40kbps all of a sudden instead of the advertised 256kbps. I didn't notice it for normal surfing but when I tried to access my computer from work, that is when I knew something was up. I complained bitterly and after about a month, they fixed it. But I'm guessing a lot of my neighbors have a similarly degraded performance and most of them don't notice it.

 

[Inane_Dork]

I'm still not really clear on why exactly online play is sooooo not viable on GT4. It's viable on many other games, why not GT4? What's GT4 doing that other games are not?

Would you like to play Global Thermonuclear War?

 

[wco81]

Hey why does Switzerland have "CH" for its country code?

What does it stand for?

 

[ban25]

Hey why does Switzerland have "CH" for its country code?

What does it stand for?

Confederation Helvetica

 

[arhra]

there is a new service that provides 8Mb down for the same price of my 4Mb one. Not sure about upload speeds, but hey, i appreciate the progress.

Only 400k up

 

[Qroach]

Phil know his stuff here. IMo, any game where the player is moving at significant speed and change direction between frames, will require some sort of prediction to keep the error correction to a minimum.

 

[wco81]

Hey why does Switzerland have "CH" for its country code?

What does it stand for?

Confederation Helvetica

The country is named after a font?

Must be originally in French, since English is not an official language over there?

How does Germany become DE? Allemagne?

 

[Lazy8s]

Gran Turismo doesn't need to track some extreme bandwidth of parameters beyond other online simulators. Online play of any real-time action game requires a good balance of sampling and prediction to work. Moreso than a racer, a fighting game would be sensitive to lag and present a challenge for the network code, and Dead or Alive Ultimate has shown that challenge can be met impressively.

 

[ERP]

Network gameplay is one of things that requires upfront thought.

It's not really that hard to do right if you plan for it, but it's a really hard retrofit to a lot of architectures.

If I had to guess, they are probably still using some variant of an earlier GT engine that wasn't designed for network play and they're struggling with the issues.