Peter Moore G4TV interview online - devs voice their concerns

[jvd]

Once again your pointing out one game on the ps2 . I can point out many games like sh3 that load like crap for every game u claim loads well .

Simple fact of the matter is that

you have about a 3x speed increase in loading data from the dvd drive .
You however have 8 times more ram to fill .

Caching to the hardrive will decrease load times and seek times from the disk drive when used properly . Its simple fact

Why your saying it isn't is beyond me .

If god of war was made on the xbox and they spent the time to cache to the hardrive the load times would have been even faster than they were on the ps2 and the lvls could have most likely been made longer due to the hardrive and caching from it .

 

[mckmas8808]

The seamlessness with which several Xbox games moved between levels and worlds with NO load screens through the entire game, creating the illusion of one continuous expanse was really cool and never seen before (by me).

Now whether devs can optimize the game to do that with OR w/o a Hdd or with the disk streaming/Ram, remains to be seen. I just hope this is not the end to a really cool feature.

What?? Weren't there a some PS2 games that did this too?

 

[Farid]

What?? Weren't there a some PS2 games that did this too?

Some PSone games already were loading-less, streaming world data off the disc in real-time.

 

[jvd]

Some PSone games already were loading-less, streaming world data off the disc in real-time.

Jet set raido on the dc did this in a big way . Yet you could hear the disc go nuts . Imaging if you weren't limited to the seak and load times of the disc drive for massive lvls . The disc drive can just load it all to the hardrive .

 

[Sis]

Once again your pointing out one game on the ps2 . I can point out many games like sh3 that load like crap for every game u claim loads well .

And I can play this game with Xbox library as well (Fable, KOTOR). I think the issue is that load times on the Xbox were low because they needed to be in order to stay competitive.

Also note that by my presenting JUST ONE TITLE, it completely negates the debate that a hard drive enabled low load times. This point is ignored tho.

Simple fact of the matter is that you have about a 3x speed increase in loading data from the dvd drive .
You however have 8 times more ram to fill .

Caching to the hardrive will decrease load times and seek times from the disk drive when used properly . Its simple fact

Why your saying it isn't is beyond me .

Because I have proof that the hard drive is not required for this (GTA:SA, GoW). You have only correllating evidence that it is required.

.Sis

 

[jvd]

Sis the problem is you don't listen .



The hardrive makes loading and caching faster .



So while your spewing this out over and over again

Because I have proof that the hard drive is not required for this (GTA:SA, GoW). You have only correllating evidence that it is required.

.Sis

Your not getting the simple fact that everything in gta texture wise was crap. The game looked bad and it had repeate textures and models all because it lacked a hardrive to make up for the slow streaming of the optical drive. Designed around a hardrive they could have increased the quality of all textures , models and added more because the streaming wouldn't have been a problem .

In gow's case they could have made the lvls longer , they could have cut out having to load new lvls .

Just because a dev does a crappy job with loads doesn't mean that a hardrive wont decrease loads at the begning and through out the game .

If you don't believe me why don't u ask fal , deanoc and other programers . THey will all say when properly done a hardrive will speed up loading times and will be benfitial to the games .

 

[Guden Oden]

Sis the problem is you don't listen .

The hardrive makes loading and caching faster .

Maybe the problem actually is you only want to see what you want to see.

Since titles like GTA, Jak, and many others stream huge levels with no problem on PS2, maybe loading from DVD isn't a problem after all. Ever thought about that?

Pointing out RAM size grows 8x is all good and well, but since we have a streaming game anyway it probably follows that you wouldn't have to fill all of that memory anyway before gameplay can begin, yes?

 

[jvd]

Maybe the problem actually is you only want to see what you want to see.

Since titles like GTA, Jak, and many others stream huge levels with no problem on PS2, maybe loading from DVD isn't a problem after all. Ever thought about that?

Pointing out RAM size grows 8x is all good and well, but since we have a streaming game anyway it probably follows that you wouldn't have to fill all of that memory anyway before gameplay can begin, yes?

Except none of them push the ps2 graphicly . None of them have stunning detailed graphics . Gta is one of the worse looking games for that system .

 

[mckmas8808]

Except none of them push the ps2 graphicly . None of them have stunning detailed graphics . Gta is one of the worse looking games for that system .

Come on jvd you know better than this. Jak did push the PS2 a bit. And GTA:SA is not one of the worse looking games for the PS2. Please have you checked the reviews for the game? Why do people give it 8s, 9s, and 10s for graphics?

 

[randycat99]

...This is going to become another, "It's not 100%, so I'm actually right" arguments, I can tell.

 

[JasonLD]

Having HDD is definitely better than without it...but I really dont think not having HDD is as big problem as you would think. Even if PS2 had standard HDD, I don't think GTA would have been better than what we have right now, besides shorter load time maybe. I think VRAM limitation is more to do with graphical shortcomings of GTA rather than lack of hard drive.

 

[Acert93]

Did some checking...

12x DVD
Max Sustained Transfer = 16.8 MB/s
Random Seek time = 120ms

20GB 5,400 RPM HDD
Sustained Transfer = 25MB-30 MB/s (saw a couple up to 34)
Seek Time = <12ms


Now sometimes this stuff is measured differently (I believed someone had mentioned DVD's are average whereas BR, for example, is from the inside tracks because they are the slowest).

Anyhow, we are looking at a 20GB HDD being only ~2x as fast. So on average to fill* 512MB of memory will theoretically take:

~17sec for a 20GB HDD
~30sec for a 12x DVD

Obviously
1. Many games can begin without fully loading all the level content into the memory. e.g. if it is a large level they could begin streaming the far off parts of the level while the gamers begins played
2. This assumes contiguous blocks... segmented game data will be slower on the DVD due to the slower seek time
3. Load times are not only dependant on transfer speed but also are related to the time the machine can "set up" the game data

It is hard to compare the Xbox situation because it had a 5,400RPM HDD I believe anda 4x DVD. That means the DVD drive was only 1/3 the speed of the 360 DVD drive, yet the HDD was probably within the same class of performance (yet obviously slower... but probably not significantly).

Quite a few devs have talked about streaming game content to avoid load times (this is built into UE3). If that is the case this may mean they can avoid some of the longer initial load times. A HDD would help load times as well, but the difference seems to be much less this generation than last between the HDD and DVD. Is an extra $50 in cost an acceptible hit to cut load times in half? From that perspective I can understand why they chose the extra256MB memory. That alone probably cost $50, but will have a much more significant impact on gamers.

I would not pay for a HDD alone if it only meant improved load times. It is the other features that it opens up (that have been under used ) that would motiviate that purchase.

 

[ninzel]

Sorry to bring Nintendo into this but I remember Iwata staing that the Revolution would be even quicker loading than the GC. So if Nintendo can design a system to load games with a DVD drive and more memory faster, anyone can. For all we know the DVD drive in the 360 has a reading method to allow for faster loading. I remember reading about the GC's disk drive and how the way it read helped contribute to faster loading.

 

[therealskywolf]

I still dont get it....12x Dvd drive instead of 16x. Like WTF? They dont wanna spend the extra 25 cents?

 

[ninzel]

Anyway what do you guy's expect for $300-$400? You can go out and buy a $1000 high end PC with a big ass SATA drive and still have long loading times. If it were as simple as HD=fastest loading why don't we have huge completely seamless transparently loading PC games by now. Maybe the HD is making devs lazy instead of making them better.

 

[Acert93]

I still dont get it....12x Dvd drive instead of 16x. Like WTF? They dont wanna spend the extra 25 cents?

I believe a dev (was it DeanoC?? I could be wrong, so don't hold me to that) had said in the past that 16x drives are not as stable, are significantly louder, and have a higher rate of destroyed discs. Another aspect is that while having higher peak rates do not actually perform significantly better. Sometimes there is a tradeoff for peak transfer rate and access time--which can be true of anything.

An anecdote related to this was quite a few years ago my dad and I both went to a local shop to get new CD-ROM drives. I got a 32x drive from Matsushita and he got a 24x Sony drive. Mine was like $5 more. Anyhow, his 24x drive outperformed my drive SIGNIFICANTLY in most situations. Mine took a couple seconds to "warm up" and anytime it had to seek it was SLOOOW. The only time it beat out my dad's drive was when there was a single LARGE contiguous stream of information.

Needless to say I still kick myself for getting the "better number" without checking out what was behind it. The 32x label was a selling point at the expense of real world performance.

So a high quality 12x drive may perform a lot better than a 16x drive of similar cost.

 

[Acert93]

Anyway what do you guy's expect for $300-$400? You can go out and buy a $1000 high end PC with a big ass SATA drive and still have long loading times. If it were as simple as HD=fastest loading why don't we have huge completely seamless transparently loading PC games by now. Maybe the HD is making devs lazy instead of making them better.

I agree. All I know is that there are a LOT of PC games with REALLY SLOW load times And that is off the HDD. I have a 74GB Raptor and 1GB of fast RAM and games like BF and FEAR are just slooooow. It is not only my system though... I have seen people with 256MB and 512MB of memory have slow load times too with fast HDD. As you are noting, even a fast HDD does not mean there wont be long load times.

I think the GCN, which typically has some pretty good load times, is that it is part game design and implimentation and partly how much time/effort they put into it. Obviously there are a lot of games with long load times NOT because of the time to transfer content but because it is processing the information loaded to begin the game. We have to consider that as well.

 

[therealskywolf]

I agree. All I know is that there are a LOT of PC games with REALLY SLOW load times And that is off the HDD. I have a 74GB Raptor and 1GB of fast RAM and games like BF and FEAR are just slooooow. It is not only my system though... I have seen people with 256MB and 512MB of memory have slow load times too with fast HDD. As you are noting, even a fast HDD does not mean there wont be long load times.

I think the GCN, which typically has some pretty good load times, is that it is part game design and implimentation and partly how much time/effort they put into it. Obviously there are a lot of games with long load times NOT because of the time to transfer content but because it is processing the information loaded to begin the game. We have to consider that as well.

Well you gotta check the info 1st. I have a Western Digital 80 GB 7200, 8MB cache, and the thing is FAST.

 

[Inane_Dork]

I thought it was painfully obvious by now that load times are primarily determined by developer, not hardware.

I guess not.

 

[scooby_dooby]

What about the fact that in 2009 we will have PC's with 4GB of RAM? Consoles wil have a very meager 512MB.

To have 2 or 3 gigs available in writeable swap files would surely be a good thing and allow dev's to push the games further.

I don't know where you're getting yor numbers for sustained transfer rates on a 5400 RPM SATA drive, it should be at least ~130MB/s maximum.

I don't get why everyone insists on marginalizing the HDD. Just because console makers have been to cheap, to provide us with permanent storage in the past everyone clamours that it's not needed.

It's like it's so ingrained into everyones expectations that people actually go as far as defending the game companies and making argument why they shouldn't have a harddrive at all. these are top-end computers running off memory sticks....what's wrong with this picture?

It improves games, it improves the system perforance, it saves us money, and it allows for a greater number and variety of PC-based games.

Why don't we want it again???