Scalability of ND's Uncharted engine *spawn

[betan]

And the last 2 sentances have nothing to do with the original proposition (can the UC2 engine keep the quality and be expanded to a completely open world ala GTA4).

No it cannot, and GTA4 part of the discussion should have been long concluded.
In fact, is there anyone still arguing against it? That discussion looks like a monolog to me.

Real interesting issues are:
How much effort is required for ND's engine to incorporate nonlinear streaming(no one knows)

What would U2 look like if they had opted for HDD streaming.
Can you come up with a world setup where streaming zones scale dynamically based on player dependent variables (watching cutscenes, spending extra time in parts) without visible texture popups?

How much U2 world can scale up while preserving the ~same level of detail but using HDD streaming instead of BDD.

Is GTA4 streaming tech close to being best possible today?

Does AC even have streaming tech?

 

[betan]

this is orthoganal tothe discussion. We aren't saying ND won't surpass U2. the question is igf the code they have written for U2 can be extended without modification to render larger areas with the same level of detail.

How do you extend a code without modification?

If you mean, can the engine be configured for non-linearity without modifications?
That question cannot be discussed to conclusion without knowing insider details.
Besides, I don't think it says anything besides ND's workflow with regards to U2 and yes Jak PS3.

there's nothing at all against ND as developers, or the effort they've put in, and no mention of the room the PS3 may or may not have to produce better games in the future. These are completel non-issues to the discussion at hand.

You seem to be mistaken. I'm not discussing ND ability, nor had any idea it was under discussion. In fact I haven't even seen the usual "they have great artists" comments.

Interestingly, their relative abilities wrt to others are not even being discussed, like what GTA4 would look like if it was from ND compared to Rockstar's final game, as opposed to U2.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Would a HD based cache for streaming lead to much improvement with Uncharted2, or is real bottleneck working memory? I'm assuming they have each room/scene constrained to X amount of memory so that you do not have texture swapping every time you switch your point of view.

Is that a valid assumption?

If they are able to load the current room/scene into memory, and preload the next room/scene into a reserved chunk of memory on-time from the BluRay disc, would there be any real benefit in switching to a HD based cache?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Actually, I suspect that ND is already using a two-stage streaming system... Some data is always cached on the HDD and that's what they can grab immediately when the player moves to a new area. 5-10 seconds of loading should work here.
Then they continuously update the contents of the HDD cache from the BR disc in a background task while the player moves through the actual part of the level.


Based on their presentations, UC1 had to use texture memory defragmentation. This suggests that they stream textures into RAM individually. That should work a lot better from the HDD, where seek times aren't such an issue. But they are not using as much disc space, so only parts of the game data are located on the HDD at any given time - so they also have to stream from the BR disc.



The idea about how GTA4 would look like from ND's art team is a very interesting one. However one must also compare the sheer number of assets in Rockstar's game - producing those at UC2 quality would more then likely have doubled the game's budget.

 

[betan]

Would a HD based cache for streaming lead to much improvement with Uncharted2, or is real bottleneck working memory?

The answer to that question can be deduced by simply looking at the village level where they reduce Drake's movement speed significantly (somewhat similar to increasing streaming speed), and the end result should be apparent to the blind eye.

I'm assuming they have each room/scene constrained to X amount of memory so that you do not have texture swapping every time you switch your point of view.

Is that a valid assumption?

Yes

If they are able to load the current room/scene into memory, and preload the next room/scene into a reserved chunk of memory on-time from the BluRay disc, would there be any real benefit in switching to a HD based cache?

Yes, but not with the current "room" (boundary) definitions.
They can however keep current "room"s spatial size smaller (because you can stream next room faster). That means same memory for smaller area hence more data per unit area.

Of course this not only means more "rooms" then it currently has, but also sometimes redesigning levels around that smaller rooms to have best memory usage especially when there is significant data sharing between rooms.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Does the PS3 reserve HD space for cache? I was under the impression it didn't. I was thinking they didn't cache to the HD because there is no game install, but I might be wrong on that one. Just wondering if they're doing what Josh has suggested they might be.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Some games can require an install, like MGS4; and AFAIK UC1 used a few hundred megs for cache...


Edit: it's the x360 where mandatory installs are discouraged, but if there's a HDD on the system then many games are making some use of it.
And of course now we have optional full install for most games.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Some games can require an install, like MGS4; and AFAIK UC1 used a few hundred megs for cache...


Edit: it's the x360 where mandatory installs are discouraged, but if there's a HDD on the system then many games are making some use of it.
And of course now we have optional full install for most games.

Having the arcade means 360 can't count on having HD cache space available, but I just wondered if the PS3 OS reserved some space so that devs could optimize their games knowing it would be available. If it doesn't reserve it, they'd have to optimize assuming there wasn't any space free if they didn't have a mandatory install.

 

[patsu]

Uncharted 1 cover says "at least 2.56Mb HDD required". I don't have U2 with me at the moment to see what the cover says.

Having the arcade means 360 can't count on having HD cache space available, but I just wondered if the PS3 OS reserved some space so that devs could optimize their games knowing it would be available. If it doesn't reserve it, they'd have to optimize assuming there wasn't any space free if they didn't have a mandatory install.

PS3 claims/reserves about 10% of your total HDD size. I don't exactly know what they are for though.

 

[Cornsnake]

Uncharted 1 cover says "at least 2.56Mb HDD required". I don't have U2 with me at the moment to see what the cover says.

Uncharted 2 says 1GB minimum.

 

[betan]

Does the PS3 reserve HD space for cache? I was under the impression it didn't.

It's irrelevant whether there is a dedicated directory/mount point specifically for caching that can be emptied by OS on demand (such as system bootup or another game needing "cache").
TB says developers are pretty much free to do whatever they want with HDD, we also know games can install/copy data whenever they want during the game (like persistent cache of Oblivion/Fallout 3).

UDF also had HDD caching, most likely U2 has as well.

I was thinking they didn't cache to the HD because there is no game install, but I might be wrong on that one.

My U2 currently uses around 150MB of my HDD as "install" data. How much of this, if any, is left from caching I wouldn't know.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Well, it's relevant if someone has a 20 gig PS3 that they've filled to the brim with video, music, photos and PSN games. If they reserve the space the devs can count on it being there. If they don't reserve the space, they can't, unless they do a mandatory install or otherwise force the user to free up space. Seems like reserving some space with the OS would be easiest.

 

[Richard]

I think saying 0 hours is going too far in the other direction, though.

I agree actually. The problem becomes how many hours (or rather man-months) are we allowing into this discussion then? Then we could also factor in the cleverness of the developers that will be doing the modifications: are we talking Sweeney, Carmack or thick guys?

My zero-hours remark was more for limiting the number of independent variables we should consider lest we can't reach any sort of conclusion. I disagree with you that 0-hour is a pointless discussion because you have an engine such as DOOM 3 where you can only have something like Quake 4 with 0-hours but an engine like Source you can have HL2 and Might & Magic.

If we're talking scalability of an engine (-version) then we're really discussing about no-mods, or if you want, no significant modifications because, as we've established once you have a compiler and time to burn you can make any engine do anything - you just can't make it do everything which is what we're discussing: can U2's level of detail scale up to open-world?

We even have what is often described as an open world game with very high graphic detail (Batman) albeit with a vastly limited scope (and with plenty of gating). Of course, now we might be back to trying to define what an open world game is, which isn't my point.

Same, but if I may, how can Batman AA be defined as an open-world game, no matter how loosely you use the term? When I think open-world I think Oblivion, GTA, Need For Speed: Underground/most wanted, etc. Even games like Assassin's Creed/FarCry are already more closed-up.

The comparison of engines is quite frankly not helpful because our discussion is already highly speculative: we have no access to the U2's source code so we can only infer design decisions. If you start comparing that to other engines which we also don't have the source code we begin to compare inferences.

For what it's worth, from what we know of UE3, the engine was made with versatility in mind and they had licensees before the debut game (Gears) shipped so the "final" engine most likely has features the original game (Gears) didn't even use. This is in sharp contrast to id engines, for instance, where Carmack himself says he doesn't like implementing engine features that their base game doesn't use simply to make life easy for licensees (as a segway, this is probably another good reason why UE completely dominates the licensing market nowadays).

 

[patsu]

Well, it's relevant if someone has a 20 gig PS3 that they've filled to the brim with video, music, photos and PSN games. If they reserve the space the devs can count on it being there. If they don't reserve the space, they can't, unless they do a mandatory install or otherwise force the user to free up space. Seems like reserving some space with the OS would be easiest.

Since you can redownload stuff from PSN, the developers will simply assume that the HDD space is there. It's a question of whether you reserve the space upfront or get the user to clean up on-demand.

For people who keep their home media on the PS3, we would probably make more noise when told to make room on the PS3. Then again, we are also likely to have large HDD (Any 2.5" HDD will do).

For purchased movie/TV content, I think they allow us to backup these titles to an external HDD since 2.70.

EDIT:
http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/Latest_Sony_PlayStation_3_Firmware_Update.shtml

 

[goonergaz]

Since you can redownload stuff from PSN, the developers will simply assume that the HDD space is there. It's a question of whether you reserve the space upfront or get the user to clean up on-demand.

For people who keep their home media on the PS3, we would probably make more noise when told to make room on the PS3. Then again, we are also likely to have large HDD (Any 2.5" HDD will do).

For purchased movie/TV content, I think they allow us to backup these titles to an external HDD since 2.70.

EDIT:
http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/Latest_Sony_PlayStation_3_Firmware_Update.shtml

Indeed, as stated - the game requires 1GB HDD space so the user simply does housekeeping...let's face it, anyone at any time could easily 'find' 1GB if required.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Indeed, as stated - the game requires 1GB HDD space so the user simply does housekeeping...let's face it, anyone at any time could easily 'find' 1GB if required.

Sure! Just delete one of the many 1.5+GB demos you have stored on there... et viola!

I was under the impression that the 10% HDD space reserved by XMB on every PS3 was reserved for the purpose of HDD caching for devs to use for their games? Otherwise, apart from apps like Home, Photoviewer etc I can't see why they'd reserve so much HDD space

 

[goonergaz]

Maybe the game requires 1gb more than the reserved amount?

TBH I don't see where you get '10% of every HDD' from - are you miscalculating the actual HDD space (a common mistake) where a 60GB HDD is actually nearer 55GB than 60GB?

"So, if a manufacturer advertises an 80 GB (80 billion bytes) hard drive, the actual disk space is around 74.5 GB of space, roughly 7% less than what they advertise. "

http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/a/ActualHDSizes.htm

 

[Prophecy2k]

Maybe the game requires 1gb more than the reserved amount?

TBH I don't see where you get '10% of every HDD' from - are you miscalculating the actual HDD space (a common mistake) where a 60GB HDD is actually nearer 55GB than 60GB?

"So, if a manufacturer advertises an 80 GB (80 billion bytes) hard drive, the actual disk space is around 74.5 GB of space, roughly 7% less than what they advertise. "

http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/a/ActualHDSizes.htm

Nope! Even when taking this into account you will always have less space available on your PS3 HDD because the XMB does in fact reserve 10% of the HDD space for itself. It's a well known fact.

You only need to go onto the PS3 official forums to see the droves of people complaining after upgrading their HDD. I should know I was one of them.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The 10% reservation could be to maintain defragmation space, although I expect it has to do with caching. But if there's no spare space, maintaining non-fragmented files could prove hard.

 

[goonergaz]

the XMB does in fact reserve 10% of the HDD space for itself. It's a well known fact.

Any chance of some linkage? Not that I don't believe you, I just fid it odd - I mean, if I have a 500GB HDD it will 'steal' 50GB!? :O