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

Ok i can see this thread going downwards already but lets get back on topic.
Benq should have a 2x drive blu-ray drive ready for beginning of next year. expecting more from sony would be pushing their luck but is possible if launch is delayed from spring.

 

Maybe not "mass" production, but Blu-Ray players have been around since 2003. TDK has got working 6x Blu-Ray players and discs (as far as I know) and in a years time i'm sure they'll be able to start mass-producing 4x at the very least.

Also, I think Sony is skipping 2x and going straight for 4x. At least, that's what I heard. Anyone confirm?

 

Got links to these tdk players or articles on them ?

as for mass production they have had limited runs of 1x drives i doubt they've even made the amount that sony will need for a ps3 launch

 

Bah.. nevermind got my bits and bytes mixed up.

 

Thanks JVD.

Found some data... seems it's something like 65mW to 5mW... or so... I'm still reading through them... so I dunno how the accurate that is, but noticable difference...


http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/cx_news/vol40/pdf/sld3233vf.pdf
http://ykuo.ncue.edu.tw/publication/J012-SPIE%20Proc%203419%20(1998)%20110-118.pdf

 

yea well IGN has never been the know all source for technical information

 

dvd is approximately 11.1 Mb/s (1.38MB/s) for 1x
so it's right.
substain read speed normall work out to be about 2x less drive speed with my dvd drives so about 13.875 MB/s

 

3-6x would be where it's at. Let's hope.

 

*raises hand*

Uh sir I do, I do pick me, pick me.

Yes that's 216 Mbps!!!

Link http://www.tdk-europe.presscentre.c...ase.asp?ReleaseID=2204&NID=Press Releases

 

Only a slight note you do know that says recording speed so the read speed is actually higher than that.

 

Right in the lab . Not in a mass production device . Two diffrent things and i'm not sure i believe that it will change in the next 5-7 months when sony has to start producing the bluray drives for a spring launch

 

nope.

PS2 DVD drive was 4x. launched in March 2000. my Dell PC that I bought in August 1999 had a 6x DVD drive, and that was not even the fastest for PCs at the time, I think 8x was.


I expect a 2x Blu-ray drive for PS3. if we are really lucky, a 4x drive, but that's pushing it, IMO.

a 6x drive? impossible for PS3's price and launch timeframe.

 

So after reading this thread we already know the 36.5Mps is wrong, it will be at least 54Mbps or 6.3MB pr sec. 1xspeed DVD is around 10Mbit, so 5 times faster, but 16 times more memory IF we say it's 1xspeed drives..

Well not exactly blazing speed, i'm more worried about games that stream data from the disc though, as this generation so clearly showed, it's more a question of how good the developers handle the loading than the technology.

 

i don't think we see any 4x drive (out of labs) till end of 2006

 

I also don't expect more than 2x. I fear that by putting out more than that, there will be a horrible defect rate.

I've had a nasty history of defect consoles just out of warranty period My PS1 (bought at launch) had a CD drive that died about two weeks after warranty expired . And they weren't cheap at launch.

 

Worst case scenario, PS3 has long load times like PS1, PS2 and PSP, all of which had faster-loading competitors.

Everyone would like faster load times but long load times appear to be tolerated.

 

This IGN calculation is flawed since it ignores pipelining. The only calculation that matters is how long until enough data can be loaded to start displaying something.

The reality is, many game engines cheat. They load up some data, and start displaying splash screens or the start screen, continuing to load in the background. Then when the game is started, they load a little more. The rest of the game is streamed in.

IGN assumes a "load up everything, and then start" scenario, which is the worst case, and annoying as hell ON PC SHOOTERs. Half-Life was the first FPS to demostrate what non-30-to-60 second level loads could look like.

There are many PC games that have agonizingly long load times, while sporting an order of magnitude better I/O performance.

It's the subjective load time that really matters.

 

By no fault of I/O performance though - blame the software for that. Fact is that games with bad load times don't even come close to utilizing the read speed of the external storage.
Now on optical discs that's usually the fault of bad data management - seek times can trivially reduce your read speed by an order of magnitude (and more).
Faster BRD drive would help making things easier - but it will help the "least" with games that would have bad load times anyway.

I agree, but people will continue blaming hardware for it because that's what they learned in transition from cartridge to optical.

Well these aren't really all the same thing though. PSP drives are well - pretty damn slow, and they have to compete with cartridges.
PS2 on the other hand had a fast drive, the reason for bad load times is purely software fault there.

 

Well, that also depends on the type of game you're doing...

 

After seeing Jak & Daxter, I'm inclined to think that just about *any* game regardless of the type can optimize load times in a way that it's quite tolerable and makes the best out of the drives performance.

I think it's less the type of the game that matters, but the approach at how the developers tackle the loading routines.