Provocative comment by Id member about PS2 (and Gamecube)!

[bbot]

At www.computerandvideogames.com, they have an interview with a member of Id about Doom3. I found the following comment to be interesting:

quote:
"Hollenshead: Frankly, the PS2 couldn't do the math calculations for the geometry acceleration, real time shadows and light. GameCube is the same thing, no version planned."

 

[chaphack]

Well Duh! No body is expecting some magical D3 dust from a badly aging PS2.

GC though....hmm...thought we have already seen the BM and likes? Maybe its the RAM or something.

 

[Bohdy]

Hollenshed? He is "only" the head of the company isn't he? I assume the technical brains are somewhere else....

And if I remember correctly, even JC flat out denied a PS2 version was possible, but he was awfully vague about the GC however. I believe he said it was a more complex matter and he wouldn't like to talk about it.

Of course, It is devilishly hard to track down many direct quotes from him on the matter so don't take anything I may remember to heart ;-)

Although I always thought that the ram may be more of a burden of GC porting than any "power" issues.

 

[marconelly!]

Putting Gamecube in the same box as far as pixel operations necessary for a correct Doom 3 port are concerned is a more than a little unfair towards the Cube... It really doesn't sound like they even wanted to do any research before coming out with that statement also because PS2 is clearly capable of the shadowing system used in D3 (as shown in SH3) if not of the lighting method due to the lack of hardware DOT3 functions.

I very much doubt D3 will look good enough even on the Xbox, though. Today's consoles are all more than a bit outdated in a technology department, especially when it comes to available memory.

 

[chaphack]

But is it fair to use a semi-fixed cam game like SH3 as a benchmark against a 3D fps? I dunno, those crazy D3 dynamic shadows/lights seems no-no on full 3D PS2 game...does KZ have them? D3 on PS2 will probably look like "another" PS2 fps.

Carmack did say D3 will be fine on XB(it is a GF1/3 game afterall). No 4Ghz/5950Ultra/1600X/FSAA !POWER! but it should be okay at 480p. H2 with polybump and all looks fine too.

 

[marconelly!]

But is it fair to use a semi-fixed cam game like SH3 as a benchmark against a 3D fps? I dunno, those crazy D3 dynamic shadows/lights seems no-no on full 3D PS2 game...

Shadowing method is the same, it's scene-wide stencil shadowing and SH3 is a fully 3D game in the sense of calculation required for it. They could make SH3 a FPS game if they wanted, it wouldn't matter, as the camera has to move all the time as it is now anyways. They even went an extra mile in SH3 and made those shadows soft.

H2 with polybump and all looks fine too.

I guess that's true, but it's also true that Bungie spent great deal of time on their engine, where D3 for Xbox is being developed by some team I wouldn't put all my trust behind. D3 also probably uses a lot more high res textures, but that can all be scaled down... Anything can be scaled down actually, but I think D3 will look much better on the PC than on Xbox as a result of the lack of the memory. It might be the same fate that happened to Unreal Championship which actually uses a lot simpler engine than D3.

 

[chaphack]

Nay, i believe SH3 lights and shadows are nothing compared to D3. IIRC most of them are done off static objects/cutscenes. There is a D3 demo floating around. Beats the hell outta SH3. D3 will look/run awful on PS2, unless we talk about a really cutback, "typical-looking PS2 fps" version.

Which reminds me, all this talk about technically feasible yeayeayeay, brings back memories of DOA3. "pfft DOA3 aint nothing, PS2 could do that. Just changed a little here and there and over there. It will look as good!" -unknown PS2 bunch.

2 years down the road, what do we have on PS2? A maxXxed out SC2? Nice, but no DOA3!

Oh, it goes without saying D3 will look much better on PC. DUh! Xbox version, done right, will be at least H2 level. Of which, in the world of console fps, still looks top! Same goes with HL2.

 

[Lazy8s]

I'd be interested in seeing an appropriately-scaled Dreamcast port as a guage for what a newer generation of software might look like on the platform.

Doom 3's shading and shadowing are the kind of graphics the hardware is prime for. There are Dreamcast games that use dot product bump mapping (Windows CE titles no less), and Polybump technology from Crytech has already been included into the MBX's software development kit:

PowerVR MBX Supports Polybump Technology:
http://www.powervr.com/Release.asp?ID=49

 

[notAFanB]

Nay, i believe SH3 lights and shadows are nothing compared to D3.

if they are stencil shadowing I fail to see your point.

There is a D3 demo floating around. Beats the hell outta SH3

yes it does buit can the PS2 implement a version of it's ULM? since DOT3 is a gonna this should be the only part the PS2 'might' be able to handle.

Oh, it goes without saying D3 will look much better on PC. DUh! Xbox version, done right, will be at least H2 level. Of which, in the world of console fps, still looks top! Same goes with HL2.

you do realise both engines focus on different thing right?

to note, we have been promised 30fps and minimal texture loss for Xbox version so far.

I'd be interested in seeing an appropriately-scaled Dreamcast port as a guage for what a newer generation of software might look like on the platform.

so too would I.

 

[chaphack]

What is the idfference between soft and stencil shadows?

ANYWAY, IIRC, SH3 shadows look blocky, has some tiny white spots and alisaing on the edge? Not sure if thats how shadows are to be done, but SC has more less blocky shadows?

BUT seriously, the level of D3 shadow/light easily outpaced that of SH3. Being technically able to do this 'n' that, doesnt mean it can be done completely in a game. I need more ingame proof that PS2 is hot with shadows. It has always been PS2 technically yeyeayeay, but where is tEh monEy??

IIRC again, Chaos Legion PC has self shadowing, while PS2 version doesnt. Not sure if that has anything to do with D3 on hand though.

 

[3dilettante]

I wonder how much space Doom3 would take up on a game disk. In this respect, it might simply be impossible to fit the entire program onto one of the GC's mini disks.

I guess they could try spacing it out onto multiple disks, but I don't really know about size requirements and how easily the program lends itself to being compartmentalized.

 

[cybamerc]

I think it's worth keeping in mind id won't be handling the Xbox conversion itself and as such the comments are not likely to be based on hands-on experience. We know id dismissed a PS2 port a long time ago and I suspect that the reservation towards Cube comes from Vicarious Visions who struggled to make a primitive Quake 3 engine based game run on the platform. There's also M$ money hats to keep in mind.

 

[V3]

What is the idfference between soft and stencil shadows?

Stencil, refer to the technique, generally involved of generating volumes, etc, etc. Soft shadows just mean the shadow is soft edge.

ANYWAY, IIRC, SH3 shadows look blocky, has some tiny white spots and alisaing on the edge? Not sure if thats how shadows are to be done, but SC has more less blocky shadows?

BUT seriously, the level of D3 shadow/light easily outpaced that of SH3.

SH3 and D3 uses stencil shadow. So in D3, you probably get something like SH3. Maybe worse, if it is hard edge. But D3 has unified lighting model though.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I wonder how much space Doom3 would take up on a game disk. In this respect, it might simply be impossible to fit the entire program onto one of the GC's mini disks.

I guess they could try spacing it out onto multiple disks, but I don't really know about size requirements and how easily the program lends itself to being compartmentalized.

Isn't PC Doom3 coming on CD(s), CG mini size disc is a DVD.
I have the impression that Doom3 is not a FMV heavy title, so fitting the game to mini DVD disc should not be a problem at all.

 

[_phil_]

BUT seriously, the level of D3 shadow/light easily outpaced that of SH3. Being technically able to do this 'n' that, doesnt mean it can be done completely in a game. I need more ingame proof that PS2 is hot with shadows. It has always been PS2 technically yeyeayeay, but where is tEh monEy??

D3 hight frequency aliased 100% black shadows ? no sir.and D3 doesn't run on Xbox yet ,and it's not exactly a piece of cake to make is run on it.

D3 also needs badly antialiasing ,because it contrasts black and white with no concession.In 640*480 it's a pixell mess (shiny shine to overdose).

If they have to reduce the size of the normal map,it will feel "big pixels" like in the first x86 games (but with acurate shadow maths).

 

[cthellis42]

Isn't PC Doom3 coming on CD(s), CG mini size disc is a DVD. I have the impression that Doom3 is not a FMV heavy title, so fitting the game to mini DVD disc should not be a problem at all.

Yes, but likely many disks (I would guess three at least), with lots of compression and install procedures to go through first. Could be more than the GC could handle on the fly, storage-wise. (Then again, they could always cut it down to the point that it fits. I rather assume they'd have to make other sacrifices to get it to run on the consoles anyway, so it could go under the size limit anyway.)

Regardless, I don't think that would be the most pressing issue. If they wanted it enough, they could work around it.

 

[maskrider]

ANYWAY, IIRC, SH3 shadows look blocky, has some tiny white spots and alisaing on the edge? Not sure if thats how shadows are to be done, but SC has more less blocky shadows?

To my eyes (I think I have spent quite a lot of time SH3 to justify my observations), the shadows of SH3 is gorgeously done. I didn't see anything blocky except may be the lighting (squarely light on the wall).

 

[jvd]

i believe all systems can do it. It just comes down to the fact that its already done for the xbox except some tweaks and playing with the textures to make it fit in the xbox ram.

 

[Josiah]

no doubt, that the shadow effects in SH3 look very nice. but there are a few differences: only one light will cast a shadow (if you notice in dark rooms your flashlight casts the shadow and in rooms with some other light source it does not) and not every object creates a shadow (it's not really a global effect, it's special-cased).

 

[Gubbi]

BUT seriously, the level of D3 shadow/light easily outpaced that of SH3. Being technically able to do this 'n' that, doesnt mean it can be done completely in a game. I need more ingame proof that PS2 is hot with shadows. It has always been PS2 technically yeyeayeay, but where is tEh monEy??

D3 hight frequency aliased 100% black shadows ? no sir.and D3 doesn't run on Xbox yet ,and it's not exactly a piece of cake to make is run on it.

Well, unless monsters are semi transparent they should be black shouldn't they ?

D3 also needs badly antialiasing ,because it contrasts black and white with no concession.In 640*480 it's a pixell mess (shiny shine to overdose).

Bollocks. D3 has less aliasing than most other titles @ 640x480, simply because scenes has lower polygon count and hence less edge aliasing. pixels internal to tris are filtered.

The high level of visual fidelity is reached by the combination of the global illumination model (shadows and light attenuation) and bumpmapping.

Stating that D3 is a pixel mess shows two thing: 1.) Bias. 2.) Yoiu haven't had any hands on experience with D3.

To the original post: I don't see why the statement is provocative. It's simply a statement of fact. The PS2 doesn't have the capabilities to run D3 satisfactory, end-of-story.

Cheers
Gubbi