Scalability of ND's Uncharted engine *spawn

[Boxercide]

I was always under the impression this was the standard giga vs gibi argument. When my 60 Gb was a 60 Gb and brand new, it had 55 Gb available.

 

[goonergaz]

I can understand a massive HDD footprint for any future improvements...but I'd expect a figure (eg 1GB) rather than a % of the HDD.

 

[flynn]

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.

IIRC the PS3 OS allocates two 2GB partitions for caching that games can use without requiring an install.

 

[upnorthsox]

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

I believe this was changed to a certain limit(like 5gb?) in an update but not sure. My 120 gigger shows 111gb which when you figure in the false 120 comes to around 5gb?

 

[ozzfreak]

I believe this was changed to a certain limit(like 5gb?) in an update but not sure. My 120 gigger shows 111gb which when you figure in the false 120 comes to around 5gb?

If it means much, I have a 120GB hard drive in a computer that registers as 111GB after formatting in Windows. Not sure if it would be the same in PS3 OS, but if it shows as 111GB, then it's not taking into account any reservations if it is the same.

 

[Kittonwy]

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?



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).

But then aren't we comparing apples and oranges here? The "Uncharted 2 engine" is not the tool set, the same way that the Gears engine is not the tool set, do we now compare UE3 to Edge Tools which is made by the Ice Team at Naughty Dog for the rest of SCEWW, in which case we do see that flexibility going from Infamous (open world) to God of War 3 (a complete cardboard movie-set with a fixed camera)? Uncharted 2 basically falls somewhere right in the middle probably a tad closer to Infamous.

 

[goonergaz]

I believe this was changed to a certain limit(like 5gb?) in an update but not sure. My 120 gigger shows 111gb which when you figure in the false 120 comes to around 5gb?

Actually a quick 'rough' maths shows if 80GB = 74.5GB then 120GB = ~111.75GB.

Therefore I'm not sure what amount (if anything substatial) is being held in reserve by the OS.

 

[JPT]

PS3 Slim thread we went through the HDD size and reserved stuff, look at page 20/21.

My 500GB 2.5" HDD reported that it had 412GB free out of 465GB when it booted up for the first time, only thing I did was to add a user, so that I could get into the XMB.

So in my case 465-412 = 53GB was reserved by the PS3.

 

[Richard]

But then aren't we comparing apples and oranges here? The "Uncharted 2 engine" is not the tool set, the same way that the Gears engine is not the tool set, do we now compare UE3 to Edge Tools which is made by the Ice Team at Naughty Dog for the rest of SCEWW, in which case we do see that flexibility going from Infamous (open world) to God of War 3 (a complete cardboard movie-set with a fixed camera)? Uncharted 2 basically falls somewhere right in the middle probably a tad closer to Infamous.

It's always about comparing apples to oranges. You never have exactly the same engine with two different games nor the same game using two different engines.

 

[Kittonwy]

It's always about comparing apples to oranges. You never have exactly the same engine with two different games nor the same game using two different engines.

So then basically UE3 can be used for open world games the same way that the Edge Tools can be used for open world games, are we basically equating Edge Tools with the Uncharted 2 engine in that case since we ARE comparing apples to oranges and the Uncharted 2 engine is made from Edge Tools which is also developed at Naughty Dog?

 

[Prophecy2k]

PS3 Slim thread we went through the HDD size and reserved stuff, look at page 20/21.

My 500GB 2.5" HDD reported that it had 412GB free out of 465GB when it booted up for the first time, only thing I did was to add a user, so that I could get into the XMB.

So in my case 465-412 = 53GB was reserved by the PS3.

Thanks JPT, I hadn't had time to pull up some linkage on the issue.

I knew I'd read it on the PS3 forums somewhere and I hadn't imagined it.

I realised it when I upgraded my 60GB to a 320GB which would have given me ~298GB but in fact gave me about ~268GB to play with. By my math that is about 10% of the total available HDD space that XMB can see.

I'm not 100% sure what the XMB reserves it for, I just assumed it was caching. I do know it's about ~10% that the XMB reserves.

Anyways, back on topic

 

[Richard]

So then basically UE3 can be used for open world games the same way that the Edge Tools can be used for open world games, are we basically equating Edge Tools with the Uncharted 2 engine in that case since we ARE comparing apples to oranges and the Uncharted 2 engine is made from Edge Tools which is also developed at Naughty Dog?

Like I mentioned previously:

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.

I suppose you could say: this other game/engine right here looks similar to U2/engine and what it does (high overdraw or high vertex rate, or whatever) so it's possible they'll scale the same way.