If the PS3 winds up with a 1.5X - 2X BR Drive, What does that mean for it's Games?

[Inane_Dork]

I am sorry, but are you telling me that load and seek time of a HDD are not better than those of a optical drive?

That's not even remotely close to what I said.

there's too manyy variables to compare different games across different platforms and try and judge the impact pf HDD's on load times.

Actually, that's the most helpful metric. The question, really, is will developers effectively utilize it. Cherry picking one game out of the entire field does nothing to answer that question.

The only fair way to eally judge the impact is to take a game built to take advantage of the HDD, and see how it runs with and without the HDD installed.

Best examples we have now is Oblivion, and according to the developer you will get much quicker load times with the HDD installed.

That's the fair way? I don't think so. The only way you could convince me of that is if Bethesda has optimized loading times without the HDD as much as possible. But it's more likely that they just have it to a passable state and tell people to get the HDD for improved performance.

 

[!eVo!-X Ant UK]

Maybe the reason PS3 has a HDD as standard is because it would be cheaper to include that then to upgrade the drive to a 3x or 4x. Just a thought

 

[Guden Oden]

Maybe the reason PS3 has a HDD as standard is because it would be cheaper to include that then to upgrade the drive

Yeah, could be an idea, perhaps. Though I don't really know what would be so costly about including a faster optical drive. Even a 4x BDROM wouldn't represent a particulary monstrous datarate, and since it isn't a writer at the same time, there won't be any issues with that. Reading existing datatracks is much simpler than burning them. The upgrade in mechanical components wouldn't be any cost increase at all, and electronics scale down in cost much more gently than hardware does anyway.

Everybody's so hung up about cost with regards to BR, it's as if they think it's an entirely new tech or something. Goddammit people, optical data drives have existed for like 20 years now, if not more. All this is WELL understood.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Actually, that's the most helpful metric. The question, really, is will developers effectively utilize it. Cherry picking one game out of the entire field does nothing to answer that question.

its not a useful metric at all. You can't say a PC has long load times & PC has a HDD therefore HDD does not improve load times, that's ridiculous. There are dozens of other factors that could be attributing to longer load times and have nothing to do with the HDD.

Same with XBOX and PS2, they have different amounts of ram, different compression abilities in the CPU, different transfer speeds on the optical drives, different compression formats, it's an absolutely useless metric to use for measuring the HDD's impact on load times.

Even if you want to use this totally flawed metric, xbox did prove to be the faster loading console (although that could easily be because of the faster optical drive and more cpu power for decompressing files...which is why these comparisons are next to useless)

As far as Bethesda optimizing for the games without a HDD, that argument is always going to be there and can go either way. They can either optimize for a HDD, or without, and one will probably get more attention than the other. But imo you're really your not giving the HDD a fair shake unless you look at a game that was truly designed to utilize it, and then see how it would've performed otherwise.

There is no way to truly do this without having an alternate reality where a developer takes 2 different paths, but taking a game that uses a removeable HDD and measuring the difference with and without is the closest we can get to an accurate comparison.

Even if Bethesda were to 'optimize' for not having a HDD, it's probably safe to say they still would never have been able to get the load times down to what they are now without lowering detail or doing something else to lower the quality of the game.

 

[Inane_Dork]

its not a useful metric at all. You can't say a PC has long load times & PC has a HDD therefore HDD does not improve load times, that's ridiculous.

I said nothing even remotely like that. Stop reading into my words the antithesis of what you think.

I said the metric is useful because it indicates how developers will actually utilize the HDD. This was clearly spelled out at least twice.

Even if you want to use this totally flawed metric, xbox did prove to be the faster loading console...

Link?

As for as Bethesda optimizing for the games without a HDD, that argument is always going to be there and can go either way. They can either optimize for a HDD, or without, and one will probably get more attention than the other. But imo you're really your not giving the HDD a fair shake unless you look at a game that was truly designed to utilize it, and then see how it would've performed otherwise.

As I already said, that's a biased test by its very nature. If you build the game to depend on any piece of hardware and then take it away, the game suffers. I could say the same about RAM, the Rev controller or an HDMI cable. It's also biased because most games don't need an HDD to fulfill potential. So I don't understand how you can possibly label that a fair test.

Even if Bethesda were to 'optimize' for not having a HDD, it's probably safe to say they still would never have been able to get the load times down to what they are now without lowering detail or doing something else to lower the quality of the game.

That's a possibility, but considering that we only know a tiny bit of the way the game loads, I don't think any hypothesis we come up with has critical mass.

 

[Sis]

Link?

Pretty much every head-to-head review of multiplatform games proved this out. Buuuuut: didn't the xbox have a faster drive? And more memory, thus relying less on seek time and more on throughput? So it doesn't really matter?

And why does every sentence in my post have a question mark? Except the first?

 

[scooby_dooby]

Link?

As I already said, that's a biased test by its very nature. If you build the game to depend on any piece of hardware and then take it away, the game suffers. I could say the same about RAM, the Rev controller or an HDMI cable. It's also biased because most games don't need an HDD to fulfill potential. So I don't understand how you can possibly label that a fair test.

As I said, it's not a completely fair test, just the fairest.

For a totally fair comparison, we would need the same game, with the same budget and timeline, with an optimized for HDD version, and non-HDD version, then compare the final product. Of course that's impossible.

But now that we have removeable, external HDD's, we have the best opportunity we've ever had for being able to get an accurate measure of the HDD's impact on load times.

As for a link, it's common knowledge, ps2 had longer load times on almost ever single cross-platform game.

Anyways, I won't bring this more off-topic. 1.5x-2x BR drive is my prediction, no HDD. Load times will be long, and consumers will continue to be indifferent.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Everybody's so hung up about cost with regards to BR, it's as if they think it's an entirely new tech or something. Goddammit people, optical data drives have existed for like 20 years now, if not more. All this is WELL understood.

I've thought that, but from discussion on this board I think the difference is the accuracy of the motors and head alignment. Tracks are a lot thinner on BRD than red laser so the motor control and mechanics have to be that much more accurate. Getting them that much more accurate is where things get tricky I think.

 

[AlNom]

I've thought that, but from discussion on this board I think the difference is the accuracy of the motors and head alignment. Tracks are a lot thinner on BRD than red laser so the motor control and mechanics have to be that much more accurate. Getting them that much more accurate is where things get tricky I think.

Oh, definitely. Vibrations become more problematic as the precision requirements increase too.

I'm quite amazed that such things can be constructed in mass (and work well ), especially since console drives probably see more use than the average optical drive in a PC.

 

[!eVo!-X Ant UK]

From the kilkizo article :

" we're programming the game as if it will be written for a 10-speed DVD drive. Anything less would affect load time."

Why would they program for a 10x DVD if PS3 is supoosed to be a slower 1.5x or a 2x blu-ray drive????

 

[seismologist]

I'm not sure how much the HDD would help. It looks faster on paper but I play alot of my PS2 games from the HDD (HDloader) and the loading difference is pretty minimal.

 

[Bad_Boy]

I'm not sure how much the HDD would help. It looks faster on paper but I play alot of my PS2 games from the HDD (HDloader) and the loading difference is pretty minimal.

I'd like to say the opposite, i use Hdloader also, and loading times drop dramatically, and you especially notice it on games with long loading, and games with little short loads like fighting games. *cough* also loading a game off the memory stick on the psp, is ALOT faster than loading off a UMD *cough*

 

[seismologist]

I guess it depends on what people consider noticeable. It's nothing like cartridge loading.

Of course PC games all load from the HDD too many many of them still have long load times.

 

[BenQ]

From the kilkizo article :



Why would they program for a 10x DVD if PS3 is supoosed to be a slower 1.5x or a 2x blu-ray drive????

I have read the article where that quote is from and the impression it gives is that they simply don't know the speed of the PS3's drive.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm quite amazed that such things can be constructed in mass (and work well ), especially since console drives probably see more use than the average optical drive in a PC.

Yeah, I'm often amazed out how electronics and tiny machines are successfully pulled off. If you stop to think what they're doing, it all sounds very implausible, but somehow it works!