LONG Load Times. The Future of PS3 Games? - IGN

[BenQ]

How fast will the optical disc drive be?

Blu-ray technology transfers at 36.5Mbps at 1X speed, or about 4.5MB per second. If the PlayStation 3 needed to load 128MB at the start of a level, it would take nearly 30 seconds (assuming nothing is cached on a HDD). If it were to load 256MB, we're talking almost a minute. 2X or even 4X speeds would cut this time down either by 1/2 or by 1/4.

As Blu-ray drives aren't really available to the public yet (aside from a handful of pre-final parts in Japan), coupled with the price of the drives, we expect the PlayStation 3's drive to run at 1X (but the official speed is still forthcoming).

http://gear.ign.com/articles/636/636968p2.html

The numbers I have for the X360 12X DVD is that it runs about 133.96 Mbps thats about 16 MB/s. ( Is that correct? )

This sucks. I was hoping that load times would be reduced, or practically gone, but it's looking like they may get even longer

 

[scooby_dooby]

Load times last gen were only ~5mb/s, so it's at least 3 times faster now for DVD's.

the ps3 will probably use DVD for most games and will have a 12x or 16x dvd read speed.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I hope that Xbox3 (360's successor) and Playstation4 make use of much more advanced game media as well as mass storage. i am talking about stuff that has been in development for years, and possibly avalible for commercial, industrial and government use, but is not current out for consumers.

I want 2 to 4 second loading times, like what you would have with Genesis, SNES, NeoGeo or Nintendo64.


even say, 4x Blu-ray, would not be anywhere near good enough. with RAM size increasing (a good thing) we need storage systems and game-media that can overcome loading times, to the point where loading is at a bare minimum (like N64) and almost not-noticable.

 

[BenQ]

Load times last gen were only ~5mb/s, so it's at least 3 times faster now for DVD's.

the ps3 will probably use DVD for most games and will have a 12x or 16x dvd read speed.

Thy may be 4X's faster but were also dealing with between 8X's ( Xbox to Xbox 360 ) and 16X's ( PS2 to PS3 ) more RAM come next gen.

 

[Pozer]

I guess the last system I owned with instantanuos loading was the Genesis/MegaDrive so load times aren't that big of a deal for me. I guess thats the price we paid for going to cheap media.

Also if a game comes out that looks/plays like the KillZone video, I'd wait all day to play.

 

[mistan]

Isn't one of the features for having such large amounts of space redundancy.
They can use the extra space for faster loading or something right?
I remember hearing it on these boards.
Also, doesn't Blu-Ray read faster as it moves outwards?
I also remember hearing such on here.

 

[coldstorm]

most manufature quote drive speed as outer edge speed. redundancy of data would lower seek time not imporve drive throuput but the issue of file index might come into play as to how to data is suppose to be grabbed. I think IGN confusing blu-ray write speed which is 34.5 Mb/s with it read spead 54 Mb/s. Though currently i think the blu-ray foundation need to agree on if this will be true in v2.0 of blu-ray specfication.

 

[MechanizedDeath]

In any case, that Philips BR player reads DVDs at 16x (so it said in the spec). So if the DVD read speed is at least 12x, it'll be fine. I'm still hoping (wishfully) for a 4x drive, but I see a 2x as minimum. Why? I have no idea. The DVD read speed should level the field though (ignoring HDD). PEACE.

EDIT: Oh yeah, BRD-ROM transfer rate is 54Mbps, as stated in the FAQ.

 

[Xenus]

No there seem to be two different rates mentioned in the whitepaper. ones 36Mb/s ones 54Mb/s. I'm totally lost.

 

[coldstorm]

No there seem to be two different rates mentioned in the whitepaper. ones 36Mb/s ones 54Mb/s. I'm totally lost.

36Mb/s is write speed. so 2x would be 72Mb/s
54Mb/s is read speed. so 2x would be 108Mb/s

 

[BenQ]

I am expecting Sony to put in the absolute minimum speed required for Blueray movie playback. I don't think even Sony believes that Blue Ray discs will be the norm for Ps3 games. I think the vast majority will come on DVD's. Only the most HD-FMV heavy games will need the extra space blueray offers, and with the kind of ingame graphics possible next gen, one wonders how important FMV will really be anymore.

 

[PARANOiA]

I very much doubt these figures. Sony aren't stupid. They're not going to make a supercomputer that takes a few minutes to load per game.

This is all assuming 1x as well.

This article looks written to feed the hit-count.

 

[Npl]

You can bet that data will be heavily compressed, atleast the stuff that loads before the gameplay starts. Might even get generated from HOS or Prodeduraly. Otherwise the CPU would just do nothing.
But yes, I doubt it will get better than this time. 16 times the RAM and kinda like 3-6 times the Drive-Speed...

 

[Gholbine]

I expect a 4x Blu-Ray drive minimum. I wouldn't be surprised if they even managed 6x (although that might be pushing it). We'll just have to wait for the announcement.

 

[jvd]

I expect a 4x Blu-Ray drive minimum. I wouldn't be surprised if they even managed 6x (although that might be pushing it). We'll just have to wait for the announcement.

I don't see how this is possible . Bluray players aren't even in mass production yet u expect them to be able to put in a 4x or greater ? THat is a tall order and the laser s are going to be expensive to produce .


I'm thinking 2x is about where things will be at . Perhaps 1x if yields of 2x are bad

 

[mckmas8808]

I expect a 4x Blu-Ray drive minimum. I wouldn't be surprised if they even managed 6x (although that might be pushing it). We'll just have to wait for the announcement.

I don't see how this is possible . Bluray players aren't even in mass production yet u expect them to be able to put in a 4x or greater ? THat is a tall order and the laser s are going to be expensive to produce .


I'm thinking 2x is about where things will be at . Perhaps 1x if yields of 2x are bad

Didn't Sony surprise the world with the DVD drive speed that they put inside the PS2? I forgot the number but wasn't it faster than most DVD players at the time?

jvd they do have a 6X working now in the lab so... I don't know.

 

[jvd]

Didn't Sony surprise the world with the DVD drive speed that they put inside the PS2? I forgot the number but wasn't it faster than most DVD players at the time?

I don't beileve so . Wasn't it a 4x ? dvd drives were also in mas production for 4 years before they put out the ps2. I belive pcs had a 8x avlaible at the time

jvd they do have a 6X working now in the lab so... I don't know.

They also have holographic 1 terabyte drives working in the labs. Doesn't mean i'm going to be using one in march in a 300$ system

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

How much power does a blue laser use in comparison to the red laser used in DVDs??

Also, is there any correlation to speed and power? That is a 12x blue laser more power hungry than a 1x?? I imagine not so, right??

 

[BenQ]

How much power does a blue laser use in comparison to the red laser used in DVDs??

3.12 JigaWatts at 88 MPH

 

[jvd]

How much power does a blue laser use in comparison to the red laser used in DVDs??

Not sure but the beam it self is much smaller . In bluray its even smaller than hd-dvd and as speeds go up the intensity of power and the laser will need to go up . Lowering yields and raising costs . Let alone problems with the discs spinning which is why 16x dvd roms don't hit close to 16x they are normaly a bit faster than 12x because of the discs wobbling