New Heavenly Sword Info (screens included)
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Interesting - does that mean the reserved RAM has been lowered (as many were speculating would happen over time)? I know, I know NDA's an' all that...
Also, how old is the build that these pics are from?
Does that mean technically capable at calculating AI for 2400 soldiers in general or capable at calculating AI for 2400 soldiers while displaying them all, with full graphics during ganeplay?
The game has a built in LOD system using imposters in the distance. So you can see them all at the same time tho most will be so far away that they are rendered very simply as they get closer they will be draw with more detail.
Each is a real entity, tho so can follow orders, attack you, get blown up etc.
Interesting - does that mean the reserved RAM has been lowered (as many were speculating would happen over time)? I know, I know NDA's an' all that...
Also, how old is the build that these pics are from?
I was talking about SPU ram (which has remained constant unlike reserved RAM). Its hasn't changed but as I've shaved off the fat of each grunt its effectively larger for how many grunts you can have... which is what i meant but didn't explain very well.
And it looks fairly recent... that green atmospherics the artists haves been playing with isn't that old afaik.
BTW just to correct a few people, nothing (HDR or DOF or atmospherics for example) has been removed but most are artist controllable, so if you can't see them as obviously as before, its probably cos they choose to make it look like that.
How sophisicated is the AI? Is it only capable of pursuing Nariko and avoiding problems, or could it be divided into 2 armies to wage war?
Hold the phone.....
Has Sony freed up some of the reserved memory now then?
Or is that in relation to the entire dev cycle which I'm sure the reserved ram has fluctuated quite a bit.
Don't tell me.... it's under NDA
So that would leave about 110 kB for code and some extra data.
Bloody impressive you can have it running on one single SPU with all the data available. You are able to parse through the horde of soldiers over and over again without touching the main RAM. Now that is how to make the Cell sing.
Hold the phone.....
Has Sony freed up some of the reserved memory now then?
Or is that in relation to the entire dev cycle which I'm sure the reserved ram has fluctuated quite a bit.
Don't tell me.... it's under NDA
I think Ninja Theory has just been optimising different parts of their engine, which resulted in some more RAM being available. But who knows - now that Sony has a better picture of what Home is going to be in its final form (any news on that April beta?) they may have a better picture of how much memory they are going to need.
But right now, I'm willing to bet Ninja Theory has been optimising their stuff, like the mentioned 16byte soldier status compression.
EDIT: it is exactly that 16 byte reduction in status bytes needed per soldier, now that I read more closely.
Not yet, but if I find out before you, I'll let you know after I've put my own name down
Deano answer that already...
Sounds great, thank you for the updates Deano.
Sounds almost like you plan on doing an RTS in the future.
Just curious, how smooth are the LOD transitions?
Sounds almost like you plan on doing an RTS in the future.
Hey look! Tera Patrick
....
LOL!
i kind of see the resemblance... haha
she's mad hot!!!
I've seen some of her *ehem* videos
Gradthrawn
Veteran
He didn't, actually. In fact, he only further fanned the flames.
He referred to the SPE memory being constant, "unlike the reserved RAM". Which, obviously, implies that the reserve memory has not been constant. Although, it could have just been a slip of the tongue, and we're reading too much into it.
Okay, I see. Deano's suggested Reserved RAM has been reduced. I thought we already had that news posted before? Some 16 MB or so was made available IIRC. Something like that. Primarily he's just saying that the OS RAM is subject to change, but that wasn't what allowed for larger armies. The increased RAM has come about from a decreased consumption of RAM.He didn't, actually. In fact, he only further fanned the flames.
Gradthrawn
Veteran
Now that you mention it, I seem to recall something like that as well. Which would fully qualify his statement of the reserved memory not being constant. He may have just been referring to "old" news. Phooey.
Absolutely. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
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It was one of the fundamental technical decisions I made back when I started. I'm not sure it was nessecarily the best choice but it works quite well, if you don't mind be very frugal with what each grunt stores.So that would leave about 110 kB for code and some extra data.
Bloody impressive you can have it running on one single SPU with all the data available. You are able to parse through the horde of soldiers over and over again without touching the main RAM. Now that is how to make the Cell sing.
Each grunt is split into two separate bits of state, its AI state (32 bytes) and 16 bytes thats just output render state for the render engine (that's not keep in memory for the AI SPU program).
The first SPU task does a spatial sort and fires off a SPU task for each non empty chunk of the battlefield. These tasks do the AI for all the grunts in there chunk, apart from a few rare atomic ops (for gameplay statistics and grunts issuing 'events' (which are the name of big things like explosion)) the AI runs out of its own RAM from start to finish (all grunts and its local heightfield and battlefield, battalion and unit data is in LS).
Which means you can program it like a normal processor and the AI code doesn't have to worry too much about DMA or synchronisation... Its taking care before and after its bit, which is nice ;-)
LOD isn't as smooth as i'd like but its on my TODO list to improve before ship. Tho I should point out that i'm very picky and its mainly the imposter to mesh pop I notice... still bugs me tho heheSounds great, thank you for the updates Deano.
Just curious, how smooth are the LOD transitions?
Sounds almost like you plan on doing an RTS in the future.
Actually a fundemental gameplay design concept we used when doing this, was that it should feel like an army and not a rabble of people. It should move and attack like its a bunch of separate units coordinated by commanders etc. Not just have 1000 people standing around waiting to pick on a girl ;-)
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I thought she was picking on THEM?
Thanks for the reply. Just out of curiosity though....answer only if you want, how many characters can be displayied at the same time during gameplay with full detail?
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