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

[Dural]

Why would anyone think the fastest available BR drive would be in the PS3 when the fastest CD and DVD drives out at the time were not in either the PS or PS2. They'll save those faster drives for products they can sell at a profit.

 

[dukmahsik]

i dont expect ps3 load times to be any worse than ps2 load times, which isn't much

 

[zidane1strife]

Why would anyone think the fastest available BR drive would be in the PS3 when the fastest CD and DVD drives out at the time were not in either the PS or PS2. They'll save those faster drives for products they can sell at a profit.

though, ps2 had massive yield problems, keeping costs in the stratosphere.

It seems for ps3 given the financial state of sony they're not doing a bbe+2xrsx-visualizer overkill setup. The chips are good and large, and it seems they've not gone overboard, but given the process/wafer size, and given how mature it is by now such problems are rather unlikely.

Given this, I'd not be surprised if they put a decent speed drive in there.

 

[onanie]

That would be because 16x is the physical limt for DVD media. Back in 2001 when you bought your 16xDVD the fastest writers were 2x speed.

Yes because a dvd rw carries a price preimum . Not because faster ones did not exist . When I bought my 52x cdrom drive there were 24x rw drives for around the same price and at twice the cost there were 42r drives and soon to be released there were 52x drives . There are also diffrences in the media not just the drives . I.e I bought a 16x dvd rw drive and it took a year before the media came out for 16x media and even then it was much more expensive than the 12x it replaced .

And so the keyword is "rw". As Gholbine was trying to point out to you, it is possible to have read speeds that are not constrained by the properties of rewritable media. Games will be played on BD-ROMs. Is that not the same reason why you could possibly have 16xROM when at the same time you could only attain 2xRW?

Even the venerable PC-Engine would say, "The physical limit of the disc itself is 10,000 rpm which equals about 12x BR".

 

[NavNucST3]

That would be because 16x is the physical limt for DVD media. Back in 2001 when you bought your 16xDVD the fastest writers were 2x speed.

Yes because a dvd rw carries a price preimum . Not because faster ones did not exist . When I bought my 52x cdrom drive there were 24x rw drives for around the same price and at twice the cost there were 42r drives and soon to be released there were 52x drives . There are also diffrences in the media not just the drives . I.e I bought a 16x dvd rw drive and it took a year before the media came out for 16x media and even then it was much more expensive than the 12x it replaced .

And so the keyword is "rw". As Gholbine was trying to point out to you, it is possible to have read speeds that are not constrained by the properties of rewritable media. Games will be played on BD-ROMs. Is that not the same reason why you could possibly have 16xROM when at the same time you could only attain 2xRW?

Even the venerable PC-Engine would say, "The physical limit of the disc itself is 10,000 rpm which equals about 12x BR".

According to everything the BDA has ever put out, recording speeds are what they are focusing on FIRST not last as with other media. So I don't find it likely that in this generation recording will trail reading, which is why they have ONLY released recordable drives. I think everyone should stop comparing to prior generations as this one will be reversed in some ways.

 

[scooby_dooby]

How long have Blu-Ray optical discs been around, like 3 years?

Why are they still at 1x and selling for like $3000? it just seems like they've been around for quite some time and they still don't have 2x or 4x readers on the market or even confirmed for release(as far as I know), it makes you wonder...

 

[onanie]

That would be because 16x is the physical limt for DVD media. Back in 2001 when you bought your 16xDVD the fastest writers were 2x speed.

Yes because a dvd rw carries a price preimum . Not because faster ones did not exist . When I bought my 52x cdrom drive there were 24x rw drives for around the same price and at twice the cost there were 42r drives and soon to be released there were 52x drives . There are also diffrences in the media not just the drives . I.e I bought a 16x dvd rw drive and it took a year before the media came out for 16x media and even then it was much more expensive than the 12x it replaced .

And so the keyword is "rw". As Gholbine was trying to point out to you, it is possible to have read speeds that are not constrained by the properties of rewritable media. Games will be played on BD-ROMs. Is that not the same reason why you could possibly have 16xROM when at the same time you could only attain 2xRW?

Even the venerable PC-Engine would say, "The physical limit of the disc itself is 10,000 rpm which equals about 12x BR".

According to everything the BDA has ever put out, recording speeds are what they are focusing on FIRST not last as with other media. So I don't find it likely that in this generation recording will trail reading, which is why they have ONLY released recordable drives. I think everyone should stop comparing to prior generations as this one will be reversed in some ways.

There is a more obvious reason why they have "ONLY" released recordable drives - it is simply the only way you will find content on a Blu-ray disc at the moment. It isn't because somehow their recording technology is more advanced than their read capabilities.

 

[Gholbine]

At this point in time, Blu-Ray has no uses except as a media player and recorder. A 1x drive is sufficient for exactly that... recording and playing HD movies on the fly. The Playstation 3 will be the first piece of hardware to use Blu-Ray as a data storage medium that requires speeds faster than the 1x required for movies. This is why we never hear anything about the speeds of future Blu-Ray drives, I believe...

 

[PC-Engine]

And after all is said and done, there is not a single 6x BR drive on the market. What makes you guys think SONY will skip 2x and jump to 6x? Has any console ever used a faster drive than was available on the market? Why are there no 6x BR burners on the market for PC use? Why are there no 1x BR burners for PC use?

 

[mckmas8808]

A team of guys said that they are ready to put a 6X drive out anytime that it is needed. I can't find the quote, but I think that its from TDK.

 

[PC-Engine]

A team of guys said that they are ready to put a 6X drive out anytime that it is needed. I can't find the quote, but I think that its from TDK.

Stop trolling...your post means nothing.

 

[mech]

At this point in time, Blu-Ray has no uses except as a media player and recorder. A 1x drive is sufficient for exactly that... recording and playing HD movies on the fly. The Playstation 3 will be the first piece of hardware to use Blu-Ray as a data storage medium that requires speeds faster than the 1x required for movies. This is why we never hear anything about the speeds of future Blu-Ray drives, I believe...

Exactly... DVD players were 1x in speed back when the PS2 launched. A lot still are The difference here is that there are BD-ROMs out.

This debate is silly anyway, we won't know anything until it's launched. But my guess is it'll be at 2x, and more probably 4x.

 

[Bjorn]

A team of guys said that they are ready to put a 6X drive out anytime that it is needed. I can't find the quote, but I think that its from TDK.

Only thing i've seen is that they already have 6X writing speed on a quad layer disc:

http://columbiaisa.freespaces.com/dvd_hddvd_bluray_guide.htm

How far that is from achieving 6X read speed on a let's say dual layer disc and manufacturing it at consumer level prices is another thing though.

 

[Gholbine]

According to blu-ray.com, Pioneer has had 2x BD-ROMs since 2004. I think Sony will be able to muster up at least a 4x drive between now and Spring. At least that's what I'm hoping

 

[PC-Engine]

Exactly... DVD players were 1x in speed back when the PS2 launched.

Sure, but there is ZERO reason to put a faster reader into a standalone DVD player while there is good reason to put a faster BR burner into a recorder, but there is still no 4x BR burner on the market let a lone 6x.

 

[mistan]

And after all is said and done, there is not a single 6x BR drive on the market. What makes you guys think SONY will skip 2x and jump to 6x? Has any console ever used a faster drive than was available on the market? Why are there no 6x BR burners on the market for PC use? Why are there no 1x BR burners for PC use?

Couldn't the same exact thing be said for the CELL in some ways. (in terms of speed)
Isn't the CELL like one of the most powerful chips in the world....yet it is being put into the Ps3.

 

[PC-Engine]

And after all is said and done, there is not a single 6x BR drive on the market. What makes you guys think SONY will skip 2x and jump to 6x? Has any console ever used a faster drive than was available on the market? Why are there no 6x BR burners on the market for PC use? Why are there no 1x BR burners for PC use?

Couldn't the same exact thing be said for the CELL in some ways. (in terms of speed)
Isn't the CELL like one of the most powerful chips in the world....yet it is being put into the Ps3.

No that analogy doesn't fit. Emotion Engine was also more powerful than any desktop computer CPU on the market with respect to floating point but it still had a slow DVD drive.

 

[Fafalada]

So in reality, having higher transfer speeds/lower seek times reduces load times.

Reality is that XBox and PS2 both have over 2x faster drives then GCN, and yet GCN is the one with perception of "fastest load times".
Point is - higher transfer speeds on optical drive don't automatically improve load times - it takes optimized software to take advantage of it. But yes, of course I would prefer to have a faster drive.

Yes because a dvd rw carries a price preimum . Not because faster ones did not exist . When I bought my 52x cdrom drive there Yes because a dvd rw carries a price preimum . Not because faster ones did not exist.

I don't know if faster writeable drives they existed in labs, but they most certainly weren't sold in 2001. The fastest you could buy was 2.4x DVD+RW.

Anyway, like I said I don't think DVD history in this regard bears much relevance to what will happen with BRD. That said, I am completely certain we'll get 2x speed BRD at least. But to make this guess sound more fancy I'll call 2.4x speed

 

[London Geezer]

And after all is said and done, there is not a single 6x BR drive on the market. What makes you guys think SONY will skip 2x and jump to 6x? Has any console ever used a faster drive than was available on the market? Why are there no 6x BR burners on the market for PC use? Why are there no 1x BR burners for PC use?

Couldn't the same exact thing be said for the CELL in some ways. (in terms of speed)
Isn't the CELL like one of the most powerful chips in the world....yet it is being put into the Ps3.

Bad analogy. If anything, the bigger and better the Cell chip is, the more expensive it is, the less money Sony has to put another expensive thing in PS3, such as a faster BR drive than really needed, if they want to keep in budget.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Couple of point to throw out there.

1) No-one's talking about read speeds, so we don't hear about 4x or 6x BRD readers. But there's no nede to talk readers as there's no use at the moment. BRD is for the time being a writable format. Now seeing as burning is hard than reading (going by other optical mediums - maybe BRD is magicaly different?) if they can manage a 4x writer, then they have the gear to produce a cheaper 4x reader and lose the writing part. NOTE: I don't know where the costs come in between different speed writers/readers. At a guess it's the step motor accuracy for head placement, as there nothing harder about spinning a disk faster!

2) KK's recent ramblings were talking of PS3 being expensive because it's good for 10 years. May just be meaningless waffle, but if true the cost/benefit of a 4x reader up front is small in the long term view of things, but going with a cheaply available 1x willleave the system at a disadvantage later on.

I think there's good reason to consider a faster than basic drive. It would be nice to know what causes the cost increase between drive speeds as that's really the deciding factor on what's attainable and why.