Mobile Suit Gundam realtime demo

[hey69]

Mobile Suit Gundam (as seen the demo on E3 (probably cgi version?)

anyway, you can find on IGN the realtime demo in alpha stage i presume
aparently it only uses the cell with without the spe's

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748465/vids_1.html

 

[cthellis42]

Certainly looks pretty enough and nicely detailed, if pretty stilted right now. (Acceptable for an Alpha, certainly.)

I'm mainly hoping that the game will give some decent movement and animation, offer the kind of worldscape-destruction people who play giant mecha games yearn for ( ), and doesn't often force combat down "lockedannels" like those demos seem to portray.

 

[Farid]

Certainly looks pretty enough and nicely detailed, if pretty stilted right now. (Acceptable for an Alpha, certainly.)

I'm mainly hoping that the game will give some decent movement and animation, offer the kind of worldscape-destruction people who play giant mecha games yearn for ( ), and doesn't often force combat down "lockedannels" like those demos seem to portray.

There's a, succinct, article about this demo over IGN.
Better quote them than paraphrase them, so:

There isn't much life in the game world at this point, and with good reason. The demo doesn't use any physical calculations. Such calculations, which will add effects such as wind and smoke, will make use of the Cell's seven SPU processing units. The game in its current form uses just the main Cell processor (minus the SPUs) and the system's graphics chip.

Bandai pointed out that developer Beck created the demo from scratch, without the use of middleware. It's unclear if Beck hopes to continue along this fully independent development path, or if some of the powerful PS3 middleware tools will be incorporated in the final rev of the game.

 

[cthellis42]

Right, but much of the time that's a design direction rather than anything technical, so... it's not like I can automatically fill the gaps with things I want to see there.


Along other mech lines, From Software showed off their own stuff too, which I call attention to mainly for the screenshots like this that we can see presented at 1980x1080 and most importantly... it does not seem to have AA applied. Is this about what we can expect to see in both character detail (and mechs have lots of straight edges and sharp angles to examine AA) and background as a base state? If so... not too shabby. Still noticable, but one wonders how much it would be in motion, and how it would be affected by even light treatment techniques.

 

[Farid]

Along other mech lines, From Software showed off their own stuff too, which I call attention to mainly for the screenshots like this that we can see presented at 1980x1080 and most importantly... it does not seem to have AA applied. Is this about what we can expect to see in both character detail (and mechs have lots of straight edges and sharp angles to examine AA) and background as a base state? If so... not too shabby. Still noticable, but one wonders how much it would be in motion, and how it would be affected by even light treatment techniques.

The pictures of the FS Mecha game look like shiznitz, the video on the other hand is quite cool. Especiallly the destruction and the fully animated mecha. Nothing to write home about, though.

 

[one]

Along other mech lines, From Software showed off their own stuff too, which I call attention to mainly for the screenshots like this that we can see presented at 1980x1080 and most importantly... it does not seem to have AA applied. Is this about what we can expect to see in both character detail (and mechs have lots of straight edges and sharp angles to examine AA) and background as a base state? If so... not too shabby. Still noticable, but one wonders how much it would be in motion, and how it would be affected by even light treatment techniques.

Project Force is not bad in motion, the laser beam is cool, I just look forward to seeing direct feed if possible (well my PC won't be able to play a raw 1080p movie though )

 

[cthellis42]

No, not bad in motion either. Still some shimmer, though, but I'm not sure if that makes me irritated at still seeing shimmer, or excited that this can all be presented in real time!

Curiously, though, one of the mech shots (at 0:47 - the one right before this shot) shows some disparity with the ultra-closeup that follows. It looks notably worse from an AA respect and you can certainly see some crawling (minimal in the 0:48-49 zooming--mainly around the eye) which makes me curious as to what's going on.

How much of it all is video compression and downsampling versus what might be going on in the game, me wonder?

 

[London Geezer]

Along other mech lines, From Software showed off their own stuff too, which I call attention to mainly for the screenshots like this that we can see presented at 1980x1080 and most importantly... it does not seem to have AA applied. Is this about what we can expect to see in both character detail (and mechs have lots of straight edges and sharp angles to examine AA) and background as a base state? If so... not too shabby. Still noticable, but one wonders how much it would be in motion, and how it would be affected by even light treatment techniques.

Project Force is not bad in motion, the laser beam is cool, I just look forward to seeing direct feed if possible (well my PC won't be able to play a raw 1080p movie though )

Man that just looks COOL.

Can only imagine ZOE on PS3.

 

[3roxor]

It looks very nice, sharp and exactly like promised allthough far from done. The only thing a little less realistic is the smoke from the bullets hitting those buildings but it's still alpha stage so.

 

[passby]

the video on the other hand is quite cool. Especiallly the destruction and the fully animated mecha. Nothing to write home about, though.

You are under-rating the possibility of a fully destructable environment! It will never rival a game with static objects and environments, but is a fair tradeoff. It's a different kind of visual fun to see buildings actually shattered in mech battle. More interesting than improved visuals, you may be able to just shoot a beam through a building to strike an opponent.

The game in its current form uses just the main Cell processor (minus the SPUs)

I'm quite encouraged to know that this is just a 2.4Ghz Cell CPU. Since there are no RSX announcements I think this still uses the SLI GPU configuration.

 

[3roxor]

I'm quite encouraged to know that this is just a 2.4Ghz Cell CPU. Since there are no RSX announcements I think this still uses the SLI GPU configuration.

The dev kit uses the G70 GPU..no SLI.

 

[Farid]

You are under-rating the possibility of a fully destructable environment!

If the game have some true real time alteration/destruction of the environment (Like the Red Faction Geomod, but taken to a next level), it surely looks great, and would definitely feel next-gen.

But if the destructions are the classical animated meshes stuff we have in today games, then I have to say that I'm not impressed at all.

 

[passby]

The dev kit uses the G70 GPU..no SLI.

You are right, I just read impress watch's coverage.

- RSX only expected in December
- The XDR is still 2.4 Gbps. (Well... Cell is still 2.4Ghz here) Will increase to 3.2 Gbps in final hardware.
- No FlexIO yet. Current system uses the 5 GB/s south bridge to connect to G70 with PCIe x4, providing 2 GB/s downstream. FlexIO will privide 20 GB/s downstream.
- In PS2, firmware loads the machine and the disc loads the OS and library. In PS3, firmware loads a 'hypervisor', a VMM(virtual machine manager). Games run on their own 'guest OS'. (devs correct me if mistaken)

 

[Pozer]

Between buying a x360 for Chrome Hounds and this on the ps3 Im going to be broke. Mech games are my weak spot. Looks really really nice.

 

[hey69]

some clearer pics:

 

[passby]

If the game have some true real time alteration/destruction of the environment (Like the Red Faction Geomod, but taken to a next level), it surely looks great, and would definitely feel next-gen.

But if the destructions are the classical animated meshes stuff we have in today games, then I have to say that I'm not impressed at all.

We are definitely thinking on different frequencies! You are thinking about the graphical representation of destruction. I am thinking about how a fully-destructable environment tortures path-finding and AI routines, and offers new gameplay possibilities.

 

[Pozer]

If the game have some true real time alteration/destruction of the environment (Like the Red Faction Geomod, but taken to a next level), it surely looks great, and would definitely feel next-gen.

But if the destructions are the classical animated meshes stuff we have in today games, then I have to say that I'm not impressed at all.

We are definitely thinking on different frequencies! You are thinking about the graphical representation of destruction. I am thinking about how a fully-destructable environment tortures path-finding and AI routines, and offers new gameplay possibilities.

I took these videos more as a Tech Demo/Engine Demo than an alpha release. I would be very very surprised if destructable enviroments (blowing up buildings) were not included in the final product. Especially considering all the great mech game of this generation had them (Steel Battalion, MechAssault1, etc)

 

[DeanoC]

In PS3, firmware loads a 'hypervisor', a VMM(virtual machine manager). Games run on their own 'guest OS'. (devs correct me if mistaken)

Hypervisor is a virtual OS manager, similar to the vanderpool tech in x86. If you require, you can run several operating systems each with a virtual image of the machine.
N OS's then run under the hypervisor, an app then runs as a client of the OS.

If we take a 'normal' OS

Level        Name                Example use
0            Hypervisor          OS Manager
1            Kernel              Linux Kernel
2            User                Open Office

For games there is an extremely light weight level 1 OS and we write at level 2.

 

[two]

Following Epic Games, Bandai showed off a real-time demo of its PS3 Gundam game. The game is clearly still in development, as the demo featured a low frame rate, but high-resolution graphics and detailed mechs. Bandai Games company president Shin Unozawa revealed that the demo is only using one of the Cell's SPEs, and that he was amazed at the power of the PS3. The demo was developed by Bandai subsidiary BEC, and was made solely with in-house developed engines and shading programs.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/22/news_6129611.html

 

[passby]

Thank you Deano for the clarification.