That is a very cool post mort. I really liked hearing the candid comments from a smaller, independant developer. A lot of their "things that went wrong" are very obvious in retrospect but things I think most would take for granted if starting off green. Nice to see an ambitious project succeed and to hear about it.
Roboblitz: 50 Mb Xbox Live Arcade using UE3
- Thread starter basanti
- Start date
That is a very cool post mort. I really liked hearing the candid comments from a smaller, independant developer. A lot of their "things that went wrong" are very obvious in retrospect but things I think most would take for granted if starting off green. Nice to see an ambitious project succeed and to hear about it.
No, it's not. There is something called floating-point precision which will stop this fantasy in its tracks. As for arbitrary precision, its been tried, and it costs an awful lot in processor terms, so keep dreaming of "every level of zoom" (also, not many things are fractal/infinitely zoomable so it's a stupid thing to have).
Last edited by a moderator:
Stop what fantasy in its tracks? Creating content procedurally is no more hampered by floating point precision than textures are, but can benefit from scaling the detail arbitarily within sensible limits set fo rht egame universe. You don't need to scale a texture infinitely far. You only need an algorithm that creates a realistic texture from the clsoest viewpoint needed in the game, out to whatever you look you want when viewed from afar.
Read the post I quoted (highlighting added to show where FP will kill things).
"the big step jump" refers to arbitrary precision texturing. That will be limited by the granularity of FP up-close, and the sparsity at distance.
As I see it, that's no worse off then textures.
What's to stop you using different algorithms for different distances? eg. Have a 'distance' brick process, and as you get nearer, blend in a 'close' brick process, and nearer still, a 'rough surface' process?
Rainbow Man
Veteran
Arbitrary within reason, certainly. If FP precision is good enough for all kinds of other rendering tasks I think it'll be good enough for this as well. It is for game use after all. People forgive all kinds of inaccuracies and shortcuts.
Usually without even noticing they're there.
Anyway it would be interesting if you expanded your claims with some firm numbers or somesuch. I'm sure many would appreciate it. I'll probably not be able to understand, but I'll nod and make it look like I know what you're talking aobut.
Peace.
That's sweet. It's absolutly a boon to Live Arcade if it takes off. And if this where to become the norm, it could alieviate some of the worries about DVD limitations on 360. Pavement, sand, tree bark.... this is just the sort of surfaces that would be a target for procedural texturing, no?
I have questions! =D
Does this have implications for streaming off a disc?
If this becomes a breakthru technology in this generation, will any of the rendering hardware in current systems languish? Or should I say: Is it different enough that it could work against the design of current consoles?
I have questions! =D
Does this have implications for streaming off a disc?
If this becomes a breakthru technology in this generation, will any of the rendering hardware in current systems languish? Or should I say: Is it different enough that it could work against the design of current consoles?
scooby_dooby
Legend
lol, MS just upped the limit of Arcade Games to 250mb...
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3156520
Man, what a kick i the ass after spending so much time and effort to squeeze it into 50mb, I think I just heard a collective groan from the naked sky studios!
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3156520
Man, what a kick i the ass after spending so much time and effort to squeeze it into 50mb, I think I just heard a collective groan from the naked sky studios!
Yeah and supposedly, the limit could in fact be 450 MB. Which according to 1up's dubious logic hints at a 512 MB memory card coming (instead of the oft rumored 256 that has yet to show up).
Ten million dollar XBLA games will no doubt be next
As XBLA enters the arms race every other games dev has to deal with of ever increasing costs and complexity.Seriously though, this is a good move. Hopefully we will get more complex games now
Methinks 450MB could just about fit many disk games. (IIRC say, Ridge Racer was like 700 MB?)
As I see it, that's no worse off then textures.
What's to stop you using different algorithms for different distances? eg. Have a 'distance' brick process, and as you get nearer, blend in a 'close' brick process, and nearer still, a 'rough surface' process?
I accept you could do this, if you can design several algorithms that produce the correct transitions.
As to the argument about FP: MasterDisaster said arbitrary zoom - not finite zoom, arbitrary with detail at every level. 360 uses floating point and can't handle this if you get extremely close (unless you switch scale as Shifty said) because the functions will break down as the floating point numbers 'come together'. Look at Manderbrolt fractals, most naive implementations can only get to about 4 levels of zoom!
lthough it might feel like that, I do think that it was great that they did it, and now they know how it works and what they can do with the stuff and have I am sure an advantage over the competition. Because eventhough the size limit has increased I am sure most developers would still prefer to have small sized games on the xbla, and imagine, with this tech, they could more or less make a full fledged game for xbla, the RPG Roboblitz: the saga should becomming soon
...
The upping the limit is something very needed, and I dare say is a reaction to Sony's online efforts that are certainly benefiting. It seems the reason for the 50MB limit was the limit of the memory card. Well, where does that put Core owners? They bought their 360 + 64 MB card for $360 instead of the $400 XB360+20 GB HDD, and now they need to shell out on a 256 MB card as well? They'll have paid the same amount for less? That'd be quite a kick in the teeth if so, I think. However, does anyone buy Live! Arcade games without an HDD? Was the original limit based on the wrong idea that people without an HDD will want to use the online services?
DudeMiester
Regular
Given that flash memory can be found for as little as $30CAD per GB, I don't see why not.Yeah and supposedly, the limit could in fact be 450 MB. Which according to 1up's dubious logic hints at a 512 MB memory card coming (instead of the oft rumored 256 that has yet to show up).
Ten million dollar XBLA games will no doubt be next
Seriously though, this is a good move. Hopefully we will get more complex games now
Methinks 450MB could just about fit many disk games. (IIRC say, Ridge Racer was like 700 MB?)
Anyways, I think that they should maintain a 50MB division, perhaps calling it "Live Demoscene".
Yes, I think that's the original intention of Microsoft. I'm not so sure it's a bad idea. Acert and Arwin are talking about this same issue in the Gates interview thread right now and they make some great points. Having a system without a hard drive opens up competitive pricing and the ability to do things like IPTV streaming services for the set-top market. As Awrin said, at the time Microsoft had to make the decision to go with a standard hard drive, Sony's PS3 HDD intentions were not clear. Microsoft went the route of price(lack of standard HDD) because they want to make profits and dictate pricing this gen. Had they not, they may had been in the same boat as last gen and never been able to attain the marketshare they wanted. I'm not really sure if Sony made their HDD decision on what Microsoft did, but if I was Microsoft, I wouldn't have chanced it.
Would it had been better if they had required a HDD for Live? Possibly, but I'm not so sure if the uptake on the free Xbox Live Silver service would have been as good. I think the free Silver service does more to sell Core owners on the HDD versus the memory card and naturally that's good for Microsoft since they make more money.
Microsoft just needs to be more deligent in regularly upgrading the size of the memory cards. Especially considering that both Wii and PS3 use standard memory cards now. Microsoft announced a 256mb card last E3 and it has yet to come out. Maybe they were waiting for larger hard drives too? Who knows. But since they waited this long, they might as well upgrade it to a larger one. 512MB doesn't sound too bad, but a 640MB would be cooler. "It's 10X Bigger!"
But then again, Rainbow Man mentioned in the "MS Bumps" thread that they could just allow burning Arcade games to CD and bump the limit to 650MB. There may not be a need to have a larger memory card going that way. Unless Microsoft is still worried about security/hacking/piracy of the Arcade games, Live accounts and game saves that all can be stored on a memory card.Tommy McClain
xbox360 has no universal flash card reader, it accepts only the proprietary xbox360 memory cards, and they are always quite a bit more expensive than say SD card of similar capacity.Given that flash memory can be found for as little as $30CAD per GB, I don't see why not.
Anyways, I think that they should maintain a 50MB division, perhaps calling it "Live Demoscene".
Can an USB mass memory be used in xb360 for storing XBLA games?
No. This'd be something you'd have to do on PC. And knowing MS, you'd need Vista to do it!
scooby_dooby
Legend
No. This'd be something you'd have to do on PC. And knowing MS, you'd need Vista to do it!
Actually knowing MS you could download it from their website and burn it with any burning software, like you can do with Backwards Compatability updates right now.
