Speculation: lack of a next gen media format may be a big problem

[rounin]

I'm not sure using Oblivion actually "proves" anything about the merits of DVD9.

Draw in, framerate problems, stuttering for loads ... all of these are just equally if not more condeming of trying to fit things through compression, lack of redundancy,etc. Not to mention the inability to optimize for a harddrive in every machine

One can equally as easily say that it proves that expectations for "next gen" can be dropped to rather low levels.

 

[blakjedi]

I'm not sure using Oblivion actually "proves" anything about the merits of DVD9.

Draw in, framerate problems, stuttering for loads ... all of these are just equally if not more condeming of trying to fit things through compression, lack of redundancy,etc. Not to mention the inability to optimize for a harddrive in every machine

One can equally as easily say that it proves that expectations for "next gen" can be dropped to rather low levels.

The developers of Oblivion chose to compress it to just over half of the disk space... they had more space...

 

[kyleb]

But considering all the problems he mention, its really not an example of such a large game done right.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Draw in, framerate problems, stuttering for loads ... all of these are just equally if not more condeming of trying to fit things through compression, lack of redundancy,etc.

Load times ought to be improved through compression. Does anyone have a list of file formats on the XB360 version of Oblivion? Is there any complex decompression going on to explain such problems?

 

[weaksauce]

The developers of Oblivion chose to compress it to just over half of the disk space... they had more space...

Why would that be? Because they didn't want to go with dual layer?
With blu-ray you only have one 25gb layer!
:smile:

blakjedi, well that depends on how the rest of the game is... But it would be really stupid, if a developer who is working on a great game can't have everything in it because of lack of space.

 

[Sis]

Draw in, framerate problems, stuttering for loads ... all of these are just equally if not more condeming of trying to fit things through compression, lack of redundancy,etc. Not to mention the inability to optimize for a harddrive in every machine

How would a larger disc alleviate memory constraints?

 

[scooby_dooby]

Draw in, framerate problems, stuttering for loads ... all of these are just equally if not more condeming of trying to fit things through compression, lack of redundancy,etc. Not to mention the inability to optimize for a harddrive in every machine

What a load of crap, if anything these problems were caused by the slow transfer speeds of the optical drive, and lack of RAM, not due to extreme compression. They had another 4GB to add 'redundancy' if they had wanted.

If anything, moving to a HD disc format would make these problems worse as you would have even slower transfer and seek times, and in a game like oblivion, redundancy can not solve the problem as the content can be accessed nearly any order.

'Not to mention the inability to optimize for a harddrive in every machine'
I guess you ignore the reality that oblivion IS optimized for HDD...

 

[TheChefO]

My problem is this
Citing an example for your argument is well and good and part of debate. Telling people to stop trying to discuss the matter because you have stated your opinion isn't. After your Oblivion example, you should be open to people raising points about how accurate that is or isn't a basis for determining all/average disk requirements for next-gen games, not telling people to shut up discussing the matter. Having seen Oblivion I think that's not the be all and end all of what next-gen games will be looking like or needing. A load of generic caverns and medieval villages doesn't show the same level of requirements as a city-based game for example. As for procedural synthesis, saying it's going to fix all our problems is lovely, but how's about presenting at least some intelligent points how that can be done without heavily impacting the rest of the system? In a GTA/Getaway type game with up to say 30 people on screen at a time, driving down a street so new characters are appearing all the time, how much of an overhead is generating firgures on the fly going to be compared to loading pre-made characters off disc? Want to argue cost of producing a thousand different characters on that disc in the first place? Fine. How's about pre-generating those character procedurally offline and save them onto disk. Want to argue that compression will save the day and these thousand characters of 2MB models and textures can be compressed to useable sizes on a DVD? Okay, go do it. Give examples of current mesh compression schemes that are showing 100:1 compression or what have you. Don't cite a single freak procedurally generated FPS created for a competition as evidence that all games can be compressed and procedurally created to fit any size medium. Point of fact the world record for petrol consumption is in excess of 10,000 miles per gallon, but no-one in their right mind is going to reference that competition as what to expect from a normal-use automobile, Want to debate the relevance of a 2MB per character figure and suggest that in reality the most a game will need is 50 components that with randomized texture colouring and transformation at load time can provide all the people you could ever want with negligable processing overhead? Please do.

But don't say everyone should stop discussing this topic because you deem it closed and obvious, or everyone who disagrees with you is just plain wrong.

ok - I'll give you the short and sweet version of "get over it people". No one that is doing multiplat on both ps3 and 360 has said "oops, we can't make the game on the 360 because of size limitations". Too many people are arguing the supposed "need" for something which has not been an issue to anyone up to this point. Now just because Sony is pushing it with their own agenda on ps3 it's a "must have" and anyone who doesn't have it, is up S&^# creek? Color me skeptical but somehow I think the sky is fine and I don't foresee any pieces falling anytime soon.

You get all bent out of shape because perhaps I didn't draw out the argument with enough evidence for you but I say there isn't enough evidence out there now to PROVE that I AS A GAMER, NEED BLURAY. Fair?

 

[scooby_dooby]

ok - I'll give you the short and sweet version of "get over it people". No one that is doing multiplat on both ps3 and 360 has said "oops, we can't make the game on the 360 because of size limitations. Too many people are arguing the supposed "need" for something which has not been an issue to anyone up to this point. Now just because Sony is pushing it with their own agenda on ps3 it's a "must have" and anyone who doesn't have it is up S&^# creek? Color me skeptical but somehow I think the sky is fine and I don't foresee any pieces falling anytime soon.

You get all bent out of shape because perhaps I didn't draw out the argument with enough evidence for you but I say there isn't enough evidence out there now to PROVE that I NEED BLURAY. Fair?

But if you take a PS2 game like MGS3 and add hi-res textures it's larger than a DVD. Clearly this demonstrates DVD's are inadequate for next generation games.

 

[TheChefO]

But if you take a PS2 game like MGS3 and add hi-res textures it's larger than a DVD. Clearly this demonstrates DVD's are inadequate for next generation games.

uhoh

 

[Fox5]

That's a good point, but that implies we are not talking JPEG class compression rates.

In that case, decompress to the harddrive first.

BTW, what disc format will the next gen of consoles use? The next gen successors to Blu-Ray and HDDVD won't be ready, and if HDDVD is used for the next xbox console, well that has less space available than bluray does. I guess they could go for an inbetween format, like Sega's GD-Rom, cd based but it held up to 1GB.

 

[TheChefO]

In that case, decompress to the harddrive first.

BTW, what disc format will the next gen of consoles use? The next gen successors to Blu-Ray and HDDVD won't be ready, and if HDDVD is used for the next xbox console, well that has less space available than bluray does. I guess they could go for an inbetween format, like Sega's GD-Rom, cd based but it held up to 1GB.

According to Sony we will have to have hd-bluray available day one or the system will fail as it is impossible to have a new system be succussful without an industry standard optical medium with at least 5 times the previous storage space. If not we are doomed I tell you doomed!

Perhaps Sony will commercialize holographic storage medium with SuperDuperTrueHonestToGoodnessCantLiveWithoutit VHDTV.

Very High Definition Television.

Of course we'd have to buy all new tvs to truly enjoy it but that's besides the point.

Good point.

 

[weaksauce]

According to Sony we will have to have hd-bluray available day one or the system will fail as it is impossible to have a new system be succussful without an industry standard optical medium with at least 5 times the previous storage space. If not we are doomed I tell you doomed!

Perhaps Sony will commercialize holographic storage medium with SuperDuperTrueHonestToGoodnessCantLiveWithoutit VHDTV.

Very High Definition Television.

Of course we'd have to buy all new tvs to truly enjoy it but that's besides the point.

Good point.

No we should stick to what we've got for the rest of our lives or make a small update every four years.

 

[Crossbar]

That's a good point, but that implies we are not talking JPEG class compression rates.

In that case, decompress to the harddrive first.

Shifty already addressed this case. It does not really reduce the amount of CPU work or help the texture quality if you first decompress a JPEG file from the optical disk and then compress it to S3TC format to the harddrive so it later can be streamed back efficiently to the GPU, but of course it reduces the space needed on the optical disk.

 

[TheChefO]

No we should stick to what we've got for the rest of our lives or make a small update every four years.

By this statement I take it you believe ps3 is a "large/big/huge/stupendous update" based on bluray?

I have nothing against bleeding edge tech, But I don't like it when that tech is forced(bundled) upon me with unrelated tech and leaving me with a bill that says pay up or don't game.

I say F%^& you Sony I'll buy my hd media/player when I'm damn good and ready. Thank you.

 

[weaksauce]

By this statement I take it you believe ps3 is a "large/big/huge/stupendous update" based on bluray?

I have nothing against bleeding edge tech, But I don't like it when that tech is forced(bundled) upon me with unrelated tech and leaving me with a bill that says pay up or don't game.

I say F%^& you Sony I'll buy my hd media/player when I'm damn good and ready. Thank you.

No I believe 360 is a very small.

What would you say then if ps2 didn't have dvd? More like what the DC had? Why didn't DC have dvd? PS2 was also $100 more expensive than DC.

 

[rounin]

What a load of crap, if anything these problems were caused by the slow transfer speeds of the optical drive, and lack of RAM, not due to extreme compression. They had another 4GB to add 'redundancy' if they had wanted.

If anything, moving to a HD disc format would make these problems worse as you would have even slower transfer and seek times, and in a game like oblivion, redundancy can not solve the problem as the content can be accessed nearly any order.

'Not to mention the inability to optimize for a harddrive in every machine'
I guess you ignore the reality that oblivion IS optimized for HDD...

Put me back on your ignore list. Please.

How would a larger disc alleviate memory constraints?

I don't know how it would

I've seen my friend riding around on a horse and there is some obvious stuttering due to loading and the DVD drive is quite load at those times. I was thinking this could possibly an issue with trying to decompress things that have been compressed too much or having the disc seek things to load into memory from different areas of the disc (ie different textures for grass, foliage, buildings). Framerate problems could also be tied into the decompression demands, I suppose. Of course, this could be a memory issue of trying to decompress as well, I don't know.

Of course, I'm no game designer and so my arguments are not going to be absolutely correct, but given the direction of the thread so far, I don't think its too far out from the margin of error allowed to some other users thus far

 

[kyleb]

But if you take a PS2 game like MGS3 and add hi-res textures it's larger than a DVD. Clearly this demonstrates DVD's are inadequate for next generation games.

Not at all. The problem here is you are just arguing black and white stupidty of "its either space enough or it's not", where as I'm pointing to an obvious example of how more space can be put to good use.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You get all bent out of shape because perhaps I didn't draw out the argument with enough evidence for you but I say there isn't enough evidence out there now to PROVE that I AS A GAMER, NEED BLURAY. Fair?

Of course no-one has the answers or absolute evidence of most stuff talked about here. The key point is that when you make your points as to why you thinking DVD is enough (or any other subject) you don't make sweeping comments that the case doesn't need discussing. You should really be hoping someone takes up your points and questions them. You should be here to question your own assumption and preconceptions to see whether they are right or wrong. eg. If you believe some technique can be used on some system, you throw it out there and see what responses you get, whether they confirm your views or not. As example, from your citing the procedurally created FPS, you should have been looking forward for views that either confirm this is a good example indicative of however much procedurally generated content can contribute, or for replies that question it's validity. Blanket 'full-stop' comments don't encourage that.

I'm not all all bent out of shape by your opinions that DVD is enough, or that BRD isn't necessary. I'm not the slightest bit bothered that you have offered evidences for opinions that I disagree with. What bothers me is a reluctance to discuss the points on an intellectual level. In pretty much all conversations on this board there isn't much evidence to prove anything, but the 'fun' comes from the tit-for-tat debating and picking other people's brains, finding out what things you know that are right (or probably right) and what things you thought you know that were wrong. In this case, the evidence proving whether you need BRD as a gmaer or not isn't there, but probing the subject can help form an expectation from logic. eg. If the arguments against compression and procedural generation are sound, the merits of BRD can be seen without it being proven in real games.

 

[TheChefO]

No I believe 360 is a very small.

What would you say then if ps2 didn't have dvd? More like what the DC had? Why didn't DC have dvd? PS2 was also $100 more expensive than DC.

That comparison is invalid in that dvd was established at the time ps2 launched. It was relatively cheap and basicly a nobrainer. I predicted the first machine that came standard with a dvd player and good developer support would dominate the market as it doubled as a dvd player for the kids room/den/bedroom.

The market is very different for bluray.

There is no benefit if there is no hdtv to hook it up to. How many people have a second or 3rd hdtv in their house?

Bluray is not on the market established, which means it costs a lot to add to the cost of said games machine.

Bluray is not coming to the market without competition. DVD was the decided standard before it launched.

How many more reasons do you need not to spend $200 more for a ps3?


I'm starting to sound like a broken record but:
Don't get me wrong. If that cost was DIRECTLY game related meaning more bandwidth, more ram, faster/morepowerful gpu/cpu etc; then I would say "great, good luck to you sony at gunning for the high end of the market and I hope you do well. You've had a nice run and I'll let you know when the developers have some time out of their busy Nintendo/360 schedule."

Instead they want us (gamers) to foot the bill on a bluray movie player. (and justify it with x, y feature)