Peter Moore G4TV interview online - devs voice their concerns

[ninzel]

Why don't we want it again???

Well for me it's not a case of not wanting it, but more a case of realizing that there won't be one standard and so why worry. Technology doesn't make great games,people make great games.
After having been a gamer for years, sometimes with and sometimes without the HDD you see that there has and will be great games without an HDD.
Next gen there will be games that load fast and slow WITH an HDD, there will be games that fast and slow WITHOUT and HDD. As Inane said it's up to the developer, don't put so much faith in technology by itself gauranteeing you any set desired result.

 

[Acert93]

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.

Scoob, this explains your attitude some about the HDD. You believe it is waaaay faster than they are. I am not sure what information has convinced you that a 5,400RPM SATA HDD is that fast, but whatever it is... burn it!

First off is that most HDDs have ATA100 or ATA133 interface or SATA (150). But that is the interface, and the drives are not limited by the interface but instead the limitations of the drive speed. We know for a FACT that the physical drives are slower than the interface. To put it another way: a Raptor on a SATA-300 connection WONT be faster than a Raptor on ATA100 in almost any situation.

If a 10,000 RPM raptor is not breaking the 100MB/s barrier in most situations, then surely a 5,400RPM drive wont even be close... which it is not. Here are some of the BETTER 20GB Laptop drives I could find:

Seagate 20GB 5,400 RPM drive; Avg. Sustained Transfer Rate (Mbytes/sec): 34.5 MB/s => http://www.xpcgear.com/st92011a.html

20 Gigabyte Seagate Laptop Hard Drive; Sustained Transfer Rate Up to 34.5 MB/s => http://www.harddisk.com/harddrive/laptop/st92811a.html

To compare, the burst transfer rate (which is significantly higher than systained) for high end drives is almost always under 100MB/s. The Raptor is the only drive over 100 (at 105), with the rest of the *high end* drives coming in between 66-97MB/s for burst performance.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20030501/wd360-06.html#benchmark_results

Further, a Raptor HDD has a *sustained transfer speed* of about 72 MB/s from my quick search. Needless to say a 5,400 RPM Laptop (2.5in) class HDD, SATA or PATA, is going to have a *sustained* performance significantly less that the 72 MB/s a Raptor achieves. So we can toss out any dreams of hitting 130MB/s!!

To put it into perspective, the 37GB Raptor has a sustained transfer rate of 55MB/s. In general your smaller drives tend to be slower.

And from what I can find is that a 20GB 5,400RPM drive is going to be in the ~30-35GB neighborhood for sustained transfer rate. DEFINATELY not the 130MB neighborhood you are expecting. Does that put the HDD in a little different perspective?

A 12x DVD with an average sustained transfer speed of ~17MB/s compares a bit more favorably to a HDD with a ~30GB/s average sustained transfer rate compared to one with a 130MB/s rate!

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

Like I said, I have a 74GB Raptor -- i.e. 10,000 RPM, 8MB cache (I also have an 80GB 7,200 RPM 8MB cache Maxtor, so I have a decent feel for the difference in speeds).

That said the Raptor--while faster than the 7,200 RPM drives -- STILL has some LONG load times in games with long load times. Yes, faster than those with slower drives (e.g. in BF42 I was always one of the first people in a game on a map reload because of my load times) I still have to wait... and wait... and wait!

To give some numbers between a Raptor and a Maxtor Diamondmax 120GB (8MB cache, 7,200 RPM): http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2073&p=9

FarCry
74GB Raptor: 40 seconds
120GB Maxtor: 43 seconds

Unreal Tournament 2004
74GB Raptor: 29 seconds
120GB Maxtor: 33 seconds

The biggest boost for the Raptor, IMO, is in seek time (4.5ms vs. ~9 for other drives) which translates to quicker file seeks. Anyhow, as the tests show...

Even FAST HDDs are SLOW at game loads if the game is not optimized. A HDD is not an instant remedy to long load times unfortunately

So I am not sure what you are calling fast, but my experience with Far Cry, HL2, Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 1942 is that even with a FAST drive, the games still have LONG load times.

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

Agreed. While technology HELPS, and a hardware design aimed at minimizing bottlenecks and load times helps, a significant part of the issue is related to the developer.

PCs have far superior HDDs and DVD drives compared to the consoles, yet as I linked above games still have LONG load times.

Yet somehow a little console like the GCN or the PS2 has shown with good design a developer can really minimize load times. No wonder UE3 is going to have streaming technology!

While a HDD would help, I think MS looked at (1) PC load times and (2) the closing gap between a fast DVD drive and a 5,400 RPM Laptop drive and (3) how the Xbox1 HDD was used as a giant memory card and then made their decision.

I still would have liked the HDD standard, but with the cost involved and the industry (read: Sony and Nintendo) still uncommited it meant 3rd parties would still probably neglect it.

They are doing the very next best thing by 1) making the majority of early SKUs contain the HDD and 2) releasing it at launch and 3) [possibly] having games early on show consumers the advantage.

A large number (millions) of consumers will have the HDD. So it will be up to developers to use it in a way that makes it a "must have" addon. If developers can show its worth early on it will sell well. If not as time goes on the ratio between Xbox owners and HDD owners will increase.

Baically MS has asked the HDD to swim or sink based on its own merits. In the first 12 months there will be more HDD owners than not, so it will be interesting. My guess is that for gaming it will be under used. The big wins for a HDD are downloadable content and advertising (trailers, demos) and TiVo. It does not do TiVo at all, so basically it will be a big memory card (which is how the Xbox1 mainly used it). From MS perspective they might as well follow Sony and Nintendo and at least make money on their memory cards.

 

[Sis]

Sis the problem is you don't listen .

Jvd, I do understand what your saying. I'm merely pointing out that the hard drive--whatever impact it has--is NOT a requirement for good load times. I believe what you are saying is that having a hard drive makes reducing load times easier, which is probably true. What I've been saying is that if a dev wants to reduce load times WITHOUT relying on the hard drive, it is possible.

People have this impression that without a hard drive, load times will suck again. And maybe that's true, but i think it has far more to do with what devs were willing to engineer versus some magic bullet. Again, I'll point to KOTOR and Fable as examples of attrocious load times.

.Sis

[Edit: And Acert once again has a very well reasoned overview of this issue. See above ]

 

[Sis]

PCs have far superior HDDs and DVD drives compared to the consoles, yet as I linked above games still have LONG load times.

I'll make a seperate post for this, since it's a seperate point. I've pointed out before when all the outcry began about the lack of a standard hard drive on the Xbox 360, but it was ignored. So I'll try again .

Can anyone point me to a PC game--where the hard drive is standard--that has some video game mechanic breakthrough that is only possible given the existance of a hard drive? Keep in mind that we'll see 64 meg memory cards on the Xbox 360 and more on the PS3.

I can't think of any, but that may just be my console gaming focus (and thus PC gaming ignorance) shining through.

.Sis

 

[scooby_dooby]

Why does it need to be some miraculous breakthrough??

Can you show me one game where the extra 256MB of RAM provides some breakthrough game mechanic? Does that mean it doesn't contribute to a higher quality of game? It allows the system to be pushed farther, and do more, just like a HDD does.

Halo sold because of it QUALITY. Period. At the time PS2 had Red Faction, XBOX had Halo. And the quality if halo blew people away, it did not exist on the PS2 and millions of people went in pawned their PS2 and purchased the XBOX simply because they were so impressed with the next-level that Halo had brought to console gaming.

The HDD played a role in this, and as far as I'm concerned it's proof enough that the HDD is vital. What more could you ask for? Over 10million copies sold, on a game that uses the HDD extensively, not just for load times, but for the persistent worlds, the giant levels, the overall immersion in the game. You ask for a miracle which can't be shown, but I can point to QUALITY games that sold systems, games that DID use the HDD and used the heavily.

It adds to performance and it makes storage space a NON-ISSUE. On Halo 2 a system with only 64MB made great use of the HDD by caching over 1000MB of data. Why would anyone wants Dev's limited to a measly 512MB of ram in the year 2009, struggling between maintaining a persistent world and making full use of the very small amount of RAM?

Halo could have done without the HDD, but it would've had worse gfx because RAM would be dedicated to maintaining the huge persistent worlds, the game would load multiple times in a single level completely ruining the feeling you're on one big giant level, (one of the things that made halo seem so cool), the levels may have been smaller, the entire game wouldhave been less. WOuld it still have been the amazing game that raised the bar like it did? Who can say??

As long as Dev's are forced to make these tradeoffs we will see dumb downed games, that could have been better.

 

[Acert93]

Sis,

That deserves a new thread. Fire it up Sis!

Where the HDD is handy:

1-Mods and modding community

2-Games with large worlds with interactive/dynamic changing worlds (Although with smart scripting this could be done in a small space... the HDD just makes it easier). Think of stuff on the scale of Spore.

3-Downloadable content
...New maps/levels
...New gamplay modes
...New weapons, content
...(egad!) patches

4-Expansions. PCs are straight forward on how this works, but it need not be too difficult on a console (e.g. caching of game files for 'checks') (Console frequently ignore expansions because of the disk swapping issue w/o a HDD... so they go the sequal route... I think PCs really benefit from expansions and allow the dev to make more money on the initial release AND spend time building a new game behind the scenes while keeping fans happy with new content... paying $20-$30 for an expansion pack is pretty cool vs. paying $50 for a sequal that is basically an expansion)

5-Direct released games (HL2, Direct Drive, Americas Army, RtCW, soon the HL2 expansion Afer Life).

6-"Arcade Games" Basic games like Spades, Poker, Frogger, Pac-man, etc... just free "Mom" games (although this is more of an internet thing... skip this one!)

7-Demos. How many GOOD games don't get enough exposure on consoles? (This is one of the reasons we see so many sequals... GOOD new games often get ignored for bland sequals). Having game demos, FREE, is a good advertising method. Hardly anyone had heard of Battlefield 1942 before it was released. They put out a demo that people LOVED and the game went on to sell more than 4M copies on the PC. I doubt that happens without the demo.

8-Trailers and movies of upcoming releases (technically could stream this online)

9-Music (almost forget this because I don't listen to anything but classical!)


Looking at the list it is easy to see 2 things:

1.) PARADIGM SHIFT. To really make good use of a HDD you *need* online access. Unfortunately Live did not come up until 2002. At that time the Xbox install base was small, broadband access was much less than it is today, and Live was an uknown quality. Adoption has picked up in the last year, but that is a little late.

Basically all the elements to make that paradigm shift were not available at the Xbox launch. And as we all know, if a new feature gets release in 2005 on a console real/solid developer support will be 12-24 months behind in most cases. That usually translates to the death of that feature.

2.) Xbox1 did not use many of these ideas, and for the most part under utilized the others with rare exception.


Personally, I think a HDD makes a bigger difference to the *gameplay experience* more so than the game itself.

I see the HDD as a means to:

-Creating new revenue models (through expanion packs and downloadable content)
-Creating new advertising models to help get GOOD games get into consumer's hands (through demos and trailers... think "Gotham TV" but change that to "Xbox 360 TV")
-Creating a platform for user created content (through mods)
-Creating a new publishing medium (where older games, short minigames, or developers going the Valve route can get their games into the hands of consumers and reaping more profits--I truly consider this a revolution in the market, specifically for content creators)

I see these things changing and improving the gamer's gaming experience. Yet note that almost ALL of this requires high market penetration and adoption of BROADBAND. I really think a HDD is almost useless without Broadband.

That said, while MS initially indicated they were serious about approaching the market in a way I outlined above, it seemed they may have become more conservative and will continue on the "traditional" console path. There is something to be said of this, namely consoles have sold very well doing what they do. Sometimes reinventing the wheel just confused customers.


Anyhow, any way you dice it we can see that

1) The HDD, even on the PC, has a hard time validating itself in many ways. On the PC it is invaluable because you can save stuff.. a LOT of stuff. Do music, video editing, a mod, create web sites, do homework, create research projectes, TiVo like functions, whatever. But from the pure gaming aspect, I am not sure even on the PC that it really makes a huge difference. We get more free content, downloadable content, mods, expansions, etc. But as far as gameplay goes, there has not been a lot done that could not be done on a 64MB memory card. There are exceptions of course, but they seem to be far and between in my memory.

2) MS would have to be VERY serious about extending the use of the console, specifically with Live and providing a lot of new features, to really make the HDD be seen as a big perk. I LOVE this idea personally and think it could be a MASSIVE boom to profits if milked. I would rather they milk online than accessories... but granted, accesories are a PROVEN revenue system, so I cannot blame them.

In the end I think a HDD is most useful with online services. While MS is not saying the HDD is required for Live, the Premium bundle has "LIVE!" written all over it.

HDD
Headset
Ethernet cable

I think MS has recognized that most of the HDD-friendly features to gamers are most often used in conjunction with online gameplay and activity.

In the end I think you are right though. For the casual gamer they wont be missing much. And for the online user they will want the HDD. And I *do* think the HDD will be an accessory that "swims" because online users will get good mileage out of it.

 

[Acert93]

Why does it need to be some miraculous breakthrough??

I think Sis's point is that the HDD has basically provided no "Killer App". Sound, graphics, AI, Physics, etc... all have their killer apps. I cannot think of a single game on the PS2 that cannot be done on the Xbox with a 64MB memory card. Now that I think about it, I am having a hard time of thinking of a PC game as well and they have had HDD's since... well, basically forever.

Can you show me one game where the extra 256MB of RAM provides some breakthrough game mechanic? Does that mean it doesn't contribute to a higher quality of game? It allows the system to be pushed farther, and do more, just like a HDD does.

This is a weak arguement. We had a poll on this, we heard what devs said... Memory > HDD.

To put it another way: 256MB memory means less 50% less content.

-50% Less sound
-50% Less textures
-50% Less level size
-etc.

Since memory affects EVERY ASPECT of the game engine it WILL affect the game mechanics. No HDD means

-No HDD caching (well, in the 360 case it sounds like some games WILL have it still!)
-You have to BUY a memory card (like every other game owner has had to do since the migration toward optical media).

Halo sold because of it QUALITY. Period. At the time PS2 had Red Faction, XBOX had Halo. And the quality if halo blew people away, it did not exist on the PS2 and millions of people went in pawned their PS2 and purchased the XBOX simply because they were so impressed with the next-level that Halo had brought to console gaming.

The HDD played a role in this, and as far as I'm concerned it's proof enough that the HDD is vital. What more could you ask for? Over 10million copies sold, on a game that uses the HDD extensively, not just for load times, but for the persistent worlds, the giant levels, the overall immersion in the game. You ask for a miracle which can't be shown, but I can point to QUALITY games that sold systems, games that DID use the HDD and used the heavily.

Halo rocked because it was a FPS with solid vehicle combat, great sound, excellent AI, a theme most people can enjoy, killer multiplayer and MP options (like 4 way LAN), and because the graphics rocked due to the NV2a and having almost 2x the memory of the PS2.

The HDD played a very minor role. It basically reduced load times.

And as pointed out elsewhere load times CAN be reduced without a HDD. Further, a LOT of devs have been hard at work on content streaming so gamers can have MASSIVE worlds with no loads between segments of the world. We already see this method in use in some games on the PS, PS2, and GCN.

Anyhow, Halo is just as good of a game w/o the HDD. Outside of content caching the entire game is doable without a HDD.

It adds to performance and it makes storage space a NON-ISSUE. On Halo 2 a system with only 64MB made great use of the HDD by caching over 1000MB of data. Why would anyone wants Dev's limited to a measly 512MB of ram in the year 2009, struggling between maintaining a persistent world and making full use of the very small amount of RAM?

The Xbox1 is not the Xbox 360. The gap between the Xbox1 DVD-ROM drive and the Xbox 1 HDD is far greater than the gap between the Xbox 360 DVD-ROM drive and the Xbox 360 HDD drive.

To put it another way: If the Xbox1 had a 12x DVD drive that transferred 17MB/s it may not have needed to cache content on a HDD.

You are also ignoring the fact that the HDD was frequently used "because it was there" and made the job easier to toss it on the HDD. This is not to say the same result could not be reached without it.

Halo could have done without the HDD, but it would've had worse gfx because RAM would be dedicated to maintaining the huge persistent worlds, the game would load multiple times in a single level completely ruining the feeling you're on one big giant level, (one of the things that made halo seem so cool), the levels may have been smaller, the entire game wouldhave been less. WOuld it still have been the amazing game that raised the bar like it did? Who can say??

This is equally true of the HDD! To swap you still need to have memory dedicated to swapping out content.

The difference being the HDD is faster than the DVD drive on the Xbox1. As pointed out earlier HDD's are not as fast as you think and DVD drives have closed the gap on sustained transfer rates.

As long as Dev's are forced to make these tradeoffs we will see dumb downed games, that could have been better.

I am going to give a scenario for you based on the previous quote. Assume MS had a budget of $300 for their console. The core parts are $250, and they have to choose between a $50 HDD or $50 in 256MB additional memory. So lets compare.

System A. Xbox 360 w/ 256MB memory w/ 20GB HDD

System B. Xbox 360 w/ 512MB memory w/ 64MB memory card


In System A. you have a game where the game uses "tiles" to for streamable content. In this game you stream 3 seconds ahead in every direction, which at 35MB/s is 105MB of game data. So of your 256MB of game data, 105MB is dedicated to streaming. That is 41% of your total game space, and that leaves 151MB for the OS, game engine, and everything else it needs to run.

In System B. your DVD drive is only 1/2 the speed of the HDD so you need to stream sooner. So instead of 3 seconds you need a 6 second stream segment and need to DOUBLE your memory cache to "keep pace". So you have 210MB dedicated to streaming game data. This is still 41% of your total game space, but that leaves you with 302MB of Memory for the OS, game engine, and everything else it needs to run. And remember, that 3012MB goes a much further way because some things, like the OS and game engine, are always going to be there. So that 302 is signifantly more than the 50% that it appears on face value

So while System A has a faster media format to stream content, the compromise between the faster media content and system memory leaves them with LESS content for the actual game!

So spending money on a HDD *instead* of more memory would have resulted in more dumbed down games! IMO, if MS had sacrificed Memory for a HDD they would have been affected, and dumbed down, MANY MANY MANY more games than those hurt by not using a HDD.

And what games make good use of the HDD other than shortening load times again?

For those situations a 64MB will suffice in almost all cases, and the few that it does not: They slap a sticker on that says "HDD required".

MS is not saying developers cannot make games that use the HDD. So this "They are dumbing game down" really is a misnomer.

 

[robofunk]

A lot of you are saying 512MB will take a long time to fill, hopefully though everything comming off the DVD drive and HDD will be heavily compressed. The XeCPU has some integrated hardware for this purpose so the MS' SDK probably makes it very easy for everything on the DVD and HDD to be compressed. I'd like to see some benchmarks. Durring loads the memory might also be filled using procedurally generated content.

 

[Acert93]

A lot of you are saying 512MB will take a long time to fill, hopefully though everything comming off the DVD drive and HDD will be heavily compressed. The XeCPU has some integrated hardware for this purpose so the MS' SDK probably makes it very easy for everything on the DVD and HDD to be compressed. I'd like to see some benchmarks. Durring loads the memory might also be filled using procedurally generated content.

Someone at MS had noted this around E3 in an interview. Basically the processing power to uncompress content was cheaper than the bandwidth to transfer it compressed.

Which is a very good point btw. Thanks for making it.

As for procedural content, that is an option too. I guess I always had procedural content limited to the view of the patents which was to have the CPUs get a "list" and procedurally generate it on the fly and feed it to the GPU and to do this for every frame. So if your trees were procedural you have some CPU overhead, but you are cutting out the large amount of content in the memory, transfering it over the bus and consuming gobs of bandwidth, and then saving the entire thing for any changes (like a tree being knocked down, wind direction change, etc).

But if they procedurally create them the CPU could dump it into the main memory tool if the main goal was to avoid load times and they were not worried about bandwidth and/or were more CPU limited.

Good info robofunk!

 

[robofunk]

Of course I haven't heard much beyond the realm of theory for procedural content. It would be cool if in Oblivion most trees were only described by algorithm parameters but not wanting to limit artist creativity they could just as easily be unique. I always thought runtime procedural stuff was silly unless you want to create endless random forests. Allowing map artists to create beautiful forests or urban jungles quickly is where I thought it would be useful. I hope it's used as a tool for better and more content and not a gimick.

 

[Inane_Dork]

The HDD played a role in this, and as far as I'm concerned it's proof enough that the HDD is vital. What more could you ask for? Over 10million copies sold, on a game that uses the HDD extensively, not just for load times, but for the persistent worlds, the giant levels, the overall immersion in the game. You ask for a miracle which can't be shown, but I can point to QUALITY games that sold systems, games that DID use the HDD and used the heavily.

It adds to performance and it makes storage space a NON-ISSUE. On Halo 2 a system with only 64MB made great use of the HDD by caching over 1000MB of data. Why would anyone wants Dev's limited to a measly 512MB of ram in the year 2009, struggling between maintaining a persistent world and making full use of the very small amount of RAM?

Halo could have done without the HDD, but it would've had worse gfx because RAM would be dedicated to maintaining the huge persistent worlds, the game would load multiple times in a single level completely ruining the feeling you're on one big giant level, (one of the things that made halo seem so cool), the levels may have been smaller, the entire game wouldhave been less. WOuld it still have been the amazing game that raised the bar like it did? Who can say??

As long as Dev's are forced to make these tradeoffs we will see dumb downed games, that could have been better.

This argument is basically without flaw except that it makes an implicit switch at the end between the Xbox and the Xbox 360. It may be reasonable to do so, but it needs proving.

Put another way, just because the Xbox needed the HDD for Halo to be great doesn't mean the Xbox 360 will need a HDD for Halo 3 to be great (same vague level of "great" here). A case in point is Oblivion. Before MS's intentions were fully known, its huge, detailed world with all the persistent data was a poster boy to many of what HDDs do for games. Well, now we know that's not true. And yet the game is amazing anyway.

So, maybe the HDD is not really needed on the X360. Honestly, is Oblivion's level of persistence less than 1 level of Halo's? And, for read-only caching, is not the 12x DVD drive in the same ballpark as the X1's HDD? I don't really know the answer, but I know enough to say it's not a slam dunk either way.

 

[Sean*O]

A case in point is Oblivion. Before MS's intentions were fully known, its huge, detailed world with all the persistent data was a poster boy to many of what HDDs do for games. Well, now we know that's not true. And yet the game is amazing anyway.

I hope I am not misunderstanding that quote, but I don't think it can be said that Oblivion is going to be "amazing anyway" on the X360 CORE, or as good an experience as playing it with the HDD attached since no one has gotten to play it yet. There may yet be some serious limitations to the game without the HDD that have not been revealed.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Scoob, this explains your attitude some about the HDD. You believe it is waaaay faster than they are. I am not sure what information has convinced you that a 5,400RPM SATA HDD is that fast, but whatever it is... burn it!

First off is that most HDDs have ATA100 or ATA133 interface or SATA (150). But that is the interface, and the drives are not limited by the interface but instead the limitations of the drive speed. We know for a FACT that the physical drives are slower than the interface. To put it another way: a Raptor on a SATA-300 connection WONT be faster than a Raptor on ATA100 in almost any situation.

Something else to bear in mind is that ATA transfer speeds are limited by the interface speed of the slowest device on the bus - if XBOX had the HD and DVD on the same cable then the maximum transfer speed of the HD will be the same as the DVD.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

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

Why does that matter? Right now we have PC's with 1 GB RAM and PS2's with 32 MB. That's 32x as much RAM in PCs, not including PC swap files, but that doesn't slow down PS2 loadings. At the end of the day consoles are not produced to go head-to-head perofmrance wise with top end PCs five years later. The technology doesn't exist now to match a top end PC from 5 years future. Consoels are designed to provide a good gamesplaying piece of kit with certain compromises that a $2000 PC rig doesn't have to worry about (and which much of that $2000 rig's power goes underutilised because the software is designed for a mainstream $500 rig!)

 

[Guden Oden]

I've not heard of an optical drive in recent memory that did not support at least ATA33 transfers, and the tiny el cheapo HDD in the original box will NOT transfer more than a fraction of that anyway. My guess is that thing probably benches around 15MB/s or so on sequential accesses. The interface is extremely unlikely to be any kind of a limiting factor...

 

[Farid]

The interface is extremely unlikely to be any kind of a limiting factor...

Warning: The following statement is made of 100% anecdotical evidences.

When I was modding one of my Xboxes, I read that some users saw a clear diiference in loadtimes and disc access times, when they used others IDE cables.

What IDE cables they were talking about, is true or not, does that affect retail games or only games installed on the HDD, that I can say, since I don't follow the Xbox modding scene. I just soft modded one of boxes to use it as an an region free Xbox, so I didn't check all the possible subtleties of the machine.

 

[Inane_Dork]

I hope I am not misunderstanding that quote, but I don't think it can be said that Oblivion is going to be "amazing anyway" on the X360 CORE, or as good an experience as playing it with the HDD attached since no one has gotten to play it yet. There may yet be some serious limitations to the game without the HDD that have not been revealed.

Even if true, it's irrelevant to my point. My point is that Oblivion was held as an exemplar by some of what gaming with a standard hard drive is like. Whether Oblivion plays better with the optional hard drive in or not is another matter. That it does not require a hard drive is solid proof that the X360 is still getting amazing, big, persistent games without a standard hard drive.

 

[BlueTsunami]

I'm wondering how bad of a hit Oblivion will take without the HDD (I still don't even know where that hit will be taken...load times?). It makes me wonder if the game needs the HDD that badly...couldn't they find an alternate way to make it work....probably not better than having the HDD but it will atleast make any load times bearable to someone who opted not to get it. But as Inane stated...it will probably look the same without the HDD and whatnot (still beautiful) but where will the detriment be and how bad will it be.

EDIT: I guess when I say work...I mean like...not make it as bad a hit..it seems as though there going all or nothing with the HDD and people without the HDD will be feeling it. I do understand that it WILL work without the HDD...my question is..did they prepare the functions that need the HDD for a HDD less 360 (so they don't get the shortest end of the stick, atleast make some optimiztion for streaming off other media).

 

[Qroach]

They certainly could find an alternate way to make it work, but the question is if they want to.

 

[3roxor]

The certainly could find an alterate way to make it work, but the question is if they want to.

how?