Is OBLIVION Possible on the PS3 without a HDD?

[BenQ]

I have heard many times that there will be no OBLIVION on the PS3 because there is no "out of the box" HDD.

But I don't fully understand why OBIVION would need a HDD?

I have heard that OBLIVION uses the HDD to cache large chunks of the environment so that there will be no/fewer load zones.

But there are other games with very large environments that seem to be possible without a HDD, such as GTA : San Andreas for the PS2.

Why can't you just "stream" a game such as OBLIVION?

 

[jvd]

Its not just that . The game will featuer a huge world in which all the npcs go about thier weekly tasks . I.e a baker would do what he woudl normaly do . Bake , run his shop , go get flower , whatever that intials .

All these things need to be tracked and stored in save files and all need to be run and saved some where through out the game .

A hardrive makes all these things much easier . Perhaps you can do it on a memory card . But i'm willing to bet that with no fixed size and memory cards rangine from 16 megs to 2 gigs its just not feasible to do this .

I'm sure there are other technical reasons but these are the ones i can think of

 

[BenQ]

jvd, you really think a 2 gig memory card wouldn't be enough?

The only other issue I can think of is one of modding. User created mods would be impossible without a HDD. I have read that the Xbox 360 version will support user mods, but there are still some issues as to how users will share their mods with other users. They want to do it over the XBL marketplace, but what if someone creates a truly offensive mod? Who would become responsible?

 

[jvd]

jvd, you really think a 2 gig memory card wouldn't be enough?

You didn't understand me . You will have people with 16 meg cards and people with 2 gig cards . Many people don't want to spend a 100 $ or more on a memory stick and lets say a 256 meg card would let u save say 10 times . each save about 25.6 megs which from what i remember from elder scrolls wouldn't be that far off esp considering the world and everything in it will be more advance .

Now thats a 256 meg card filled. Now what % of users will have a 256 meg card or above and wouldn't mind using it all for one game ?

Next up is the caching . Look at gta 3 on the ps2 , anyone one of them . If you notice the quality of graphics is much reduced from other games . Yes they have huge worlds but the graphics take the hit . In this game the graphics don't take a hit . They are very impressive. So streaming from the hardrive will be needed . You can't do this from a memory stick because once again the average user wont have a 2 gig stick . even then i doubt they would wnat to use it just for a cache file .

 

[Nicked]

Its possible...but it would probably consume most of a fair sized memory stick by itself. But yes its definitely possible.
Caching isn't the biggest issue around since the HDD in X360 isn't exactly blazing fast.
The main issue is item placement I guess. In morrowind you could drop an item and come back months later and it would still be there (IIRC).

I have heard many times that there will be no OBLIVION on the PS3 because there is no "out of the box" HDD.

It was actually never announced for PS3, and its never being announced it won't be on PS3.

Its not just that . The game will featuer a huge world in which all the npcs go about thier weekly tasks . I.e a baker would do what he woudl normaly do . Bake , run his shop , go get flower , whatever that intials .

You wouldn't have to save anything to do with their scripted actions...
The only thing you would have to do is set conversation flags.

 

[jvd]

You wouldn't have to save anything to do with their scripted actions...
The only thing you would have to do is set conversation flags.

its not just that . If the baker bakes 50 loafs of bread and I but 15 . That hs to be saved some where .

It also needs to record any convos the baker has with any other character . What he feels towards me after x even . I.e I kill a baker in another town that happens to be his brother .

Its alot of data to store .

 

[BenQ]

It was actually never announced for PS3, and its never being announced it won't be on PS3.

Maybe it was never announced for the PS3, but there was definately a time when a Ps3 version was being planned.

I remeber reading on a french website where the PS3 version was listed as "abandoned", and in the newest issue of Game Informer they have an article stating that the reason why the PS3 version was cancelled was because of no "out of the box HDD" for the PS3.

Obviously Bethesda is aware of the "success" of the add on HDD for the PS2.

 

[jvd]

Obviously Bethesda is aware of the "success" of the add on HDD for the PS2.

I don't think it was that . It could be that for future titles .

However if it was becaues of the hardrive iwould much rather believe that Bethesda looked at it this way . Console will launch at 300+ many will wnat 2 games an a second controller + memory card . Figure 150$ for all that . So your at 450$ + . Now for Oblivion not only would u have to spend that 450$ assuming its one of the launch games u buy . But then you have to buy a hardrive too in order to play it . Oblivion would most likely be a launch title or near launch for the ps3 considering it would have been out at least 6 months already on the x360 and pc . That combo above doesn't leave much of a reason to believe the game would sell well on the ps3 at launch .

 

[hey69]

what if you take of the detachable harddisk of the Xbox360? games will stop loading ? i dont think so. does this mean the harddisk wont be used for caching and streamin?
is the detachable hardisk only needed for music/ live ?

 

[jvd]

If you take off the hardrive i'm pretty sure the game will have to start streaming from the disc and you will run into problems .

You will most likely get a live menu poping up to tell u hook up the hardrive again before continuing .

I also believe that the developers were told not to assume the hardrive would be there and to program around not being sure there is a hardrive attached stems from an earlier console configuration with out a hardrive at that point ms was still up in the air about it . Same goes for the 256-512 megs of ram .

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I can't see data size requirements being too vast to fit on a small storage. Let's say 10,000 individual people in the game world. You wouldn't need more than maybe 1kb for each. That's 10 megs. Then there's objects which need location, position + object type, which can be handled in say 24 bytes. How many indidual objects would there be? Overall I imagine evn a relatively small flash storage solution could cioe.

I think the problem is that lack of guarenteed space on PS3. Even if player hace a spare 256 mb CF card that they don't use since getting a 1gb card for their camera at Christmas, or even if 1gb MemSticks are 40 bucks at PS3 launch, you can't be sure it's there. That would need an extra requirement for users to look out for, like an icon to go with EyeToy, DualShock, Multitap, Memory card free space required icons.

I think someone will be watching use of flash storage closely and if it's got sufficient numbers, eventually it may well get used for large games. Perhaps Oblivion2 could appear on PS3 as a result (though of course, maybe HDD will do really well too)?

But that's why not for launch of the platform - no gaurentee of large non-volatile storage for the platform.

 

[seismologist]

How big are the save files in Morrowind?

I dont have it installed, but I'm playing Gothic right now and it looks like the save files are about 5 megs.

 

[Riddlewire]

Well, I don't recall the 'blocks-to-memory' conversions, but most Morrowind save files were around 200-250 blocks. They could technically, but not practically, be larger than that. For some reason, if your save file was over 250 blocks, the game would crash/freeze frequently. At least, this was the case with the original DVD. Don't know if they fixed it for the GOTY edition.

And...

In morrowind you could drop an item and come back months later and it would still be there (IIRC).

This isn't exactly true. Items dropped 'in the wild' would eventually disappear. Only items stored in chests would stay permanently.

 

[inefficient]

Just FYI. My Morrowind + Tribunal + Bloodmoon saves are about 2-3megs.

 

[therealskywolf]

Kotor used up to 14,000 blocks for save.

Now in Oblivion they expect to track every NPC action, every aging process on them, every kill, every decision from the player in a NPC interaction.

Its obvious that for some games, HDD is needed. And a developer could make the HDD mandatory, like the game wont boot if the HD aint there, i mean there's no consequences in doing that. Because there's no reason to be playing Xbox 360 without the HDD attached on.

 

[Bohdy]

I think that it could, and that it is just nonsense to think that it would be impossible. Certainly the game could be made without hard-drive caching using a streaming load system (which I doubt Bethesda is capable of, however), and things like Save sizes could be optimised with some cleverness to no more than an array of switches for the most part.

 

[hey69]

Kotor used up to 14,000 blocks for save.

Now in Oblivion they expect to track every NPC action, every aging process on them, every kill, every decision from the player in a NPC interaction.

Its obvious that for some games, HDD is needed. And a developer could make the HDD mandatory, like the game wont boot if the HD aint there, i mean there's no consequences in doing that. Because there's no reason to be playing Xbox 360 without the HDD attached on.

why wouldnt there be a reason?

 

[BenSkywalker]

I'd be surprised if Bethesda could get it working right on the XBox360- no way can I see them being remotely talented enough to get it working on both next gen consoles. Anyone having doubts please try and play through Morrowind on the XBox(the single poorest coded software I've seen on a console ever hands down).

 

[flick556]

I think they should port to both systems and require the hd to play.
No hd should display a message that says this game requires a hd.

 

[therealskywolf]

Kotor used up to 14,000 blocks for save.

Now in Oblivion they expect to track every NPC action, every aging process on them, every kill, every decision from the player in a NPC interaction.

Its obvious that for some games, HDD is needed. And a developer could make the HDD mandatory, like the game wont boot if the HD aint there, i mean there's no consequences in doing that. Because there's no reason to be playing Xbox 360 without the HDD attached on.

why wouldnt there be a reason?

Why would you play the game without the harddisk? Unless you are a retard trying to prove something, there's no reason at all.