Technical Director for Ubi on PS3 and Blu-Ray

[Rangers]

Actually his mention of loading times and the PS3 HD was one of my issues of contention with this guy's comments. He completely failed to mention it at all. Haven't we heard that Heavenly Sword loading times are 4-6 seconds, and although I don't know if it's a good benchmark or not, that High Def. GT demo shown at E3 loaded up in a couple of seconds. So, I'm guessing as long as the HD is used the slower data transfer speed of Blue Ray is rendered moot, No?

Not neccesarily, remember, it cant help with the initial loading. The Blu-Ray is like a stream, and no matter what it will be the limiting stream and you cant really exceed it. HDD will have a greater data stream but it's still getting fed by the Blu-Ray stream at all times. Of course the idea is you stream to HDD cache while the player is playing the first level, etc. But the initial loading is what HDD wont help with, only subsequent loads.

I think PS3 owners are in for a negative surprise there. One of my disappointments with Xbox was that, the HDD didn't seem to make any tangible difference in loading. Whether games didn't take advantage or what I dont know. But rest assured for those of you who may have not owned an Xbox, there was still plenty of "now loading" screens just like any other console. Now, I suppose it's not a fair thing to compare. But at an approximation, Xbox behaved something like a PS2 regarding loading. At least, I cant remember reviewers in general noting any broad advantage for Xbox over PS2 in loading times.


[QOUTE]If I recall correctly, around 13 GB of the X360's 20 GB disk is user accessible, the rest is reserved.[/QOUTE]

I actually think it's a good deal more. I suppose I could check on my own. But I recall there is a lot of stupid freebie content pre-loaded on the HDD that one is best off simply deleting, such as a hi-def Titanic trailer. I have heard the backward compatability component is only around 500 MB, and I'm not sure what else is on there that's crucial, but I dont see it taking 7 GB's by any stretch. Of course, isn't a 20 GB HDD "really" only something like 18.6 to begin with? That may account for some of the decline.

But yeah I never though of that, the PS3 20GB HDD wont be able to cache a full Blu-Ray game. The 60GB one should be good though, and I kinda suspect the 20GB model will be phased out by Sony in the future.
________
Prilosec Lawsuites

 

[rounin]

Just to avoid confusion for myself, can I assume that the Technical Director for Ubi wrote what was written on the first post

 

[-tkf-]

It certainly seems to me that it won't be hard to exceed DVD-9 in nextgen.

Your little math job here is pretty much one of the first hard fact arguments i have seen that "proves" what everyone has been saying (unless they are in the DVD camp of course).

 

[Acert93]

It certainly seems to me that it won't be hard to exceed DVD-9 in nextgen.

That makes the assumption that all art scales linearly. But in a practical sense I see this problem: PC games have not had these PS2 limits in VRAM (I have seen games require 128MB for a while and many games getting an advantage from 256MB and even 512MB now) and have been in HD Resolutions for nearly a decade. Yet most complete games are comfortably fitting on a single sided DVD ROM. These games have MUCH better textures than the PS2 games, higher resolutions, more detailed geometry, audio, etc

The think there are two factors to this: The first is that not every art assets scales as you are suggesting, or even needs to (and with the cost of art creation that is a good thing). The second is that PS2 DVD space has been overblown, which has been shown by the Xbox and PC versions of games. Many PS2 games use their space to aid in load times.

Not that more space isn't good or not usefull, but so far I don't think the arguements are sound about it being as "doom and gloom" as some suggest. The PC and first gen games have shown that you can create large worlds with detailed textures on a single DVD, let alone DVD9. And there are sound and practical ways to work around single disk limitations (like spanning). IMO I am going to go with a number of dev comments and say I think the biggest bottleneck isn't even static storage but is instead the pathetic transfer speeds of the optical media on the current consoles. Loading game content from a 2x BDR or 12x DVD is pretty slow when you have 512MB of memory. If content cannot be effectively transferred to system memory in a prompt fashion your gameworld is going to be limited by the art assets you can fit into 512MB of space.

 

[Inane_Dork]

Why would anyone seriously entertain an estimate when documented, proven measurement is at hand? We already have next-gen titles on single DVDs. So, obviously, they fit. What argument is there to be had?

The only potentially reasonable one I can think of is that, over time, disc space needs will increase. Given the increase in game size from early PS2 titles to late PS2 titles, it's reasonable to expect that games will grow over the course of the PS2/X360 generation as well. But I don't see that we have close to a quorum of information to judge to that argument.

 

[ArturNOW]

Not neccesarily, remember, it cant help with the initial loading. The Blu-Ray is like a stream, and no matter what it will be the limiting stream and you cant really exceed it. HDD will have a greater data stream but it's still getting fed by the Blu-Ray stream at all times. Of course the idea is you stream to HDD cache while the player is playing the first level, etc. But the initial loading is what HDD wont help with, only subsequent loads.

I wonder if PS3 will be able to determind in with level player is and if he's beginning the game it will load first level as soon as you insert the disc if you have loads it can load last level you were playing. I really doubt it, but who know.

 

[DemoCoder]

That makes the assumption that all art scales linearly. But in a practical sense I see this problem: PC games have not had these PS2 limits in VRAM (I have seen games require 128MB for a while and many games getting an advantage from 256MB and even 512MB now) and have been in HD Resolutions for nearly a decade. Yet most complete games are comfortably fitting on a single sided DVD ROM. These games have MUCH better textures than the PS2 games, higher resolutions, more detailed geometry, audio, etc

Some PC games are already pushing the 9GB limit and PC games are typically targeted at lowest to middle common denominator. They also tend to be alot shorter and and less heavy on the cinematics, and feature less unique textures because they typically are not streaming type games. It is true that PC games have been running an HD resolutions for a long time, and that the PC has more RAM, but the PC platform is not fixed and this leads to much more wastage as well as middle of the road content. Most PC games I've seen feature way more repetitive textures than consoles. Exceptions are console ports, and maybe some top-end FPSes.

Most PC games IMHO look inferior to what we've seen on next-gen platforms and trailers. Hell, even Kameo blows away most PC games in texture quality, not to mention ubiquitious parallax occlusion mapping.

And certainly for MMORPGs, 9gb ain't gonna be enough for next-gen. EQ2 already eats up more space than Oblivion, and EQ2 has vastly inferior textures.

The think there are two factors to this: The first is that not every art assets scales as you are suggesting, or even needs to (and with the cost of art creation that is a good thing).

Certainly textures scale like I am suggesting, and duplicating disc space to aid load times has nothing to do with it. A 128x128 16kb texture becomes a 128k 512x512 DXTC compressed texture, or 8x larger, period. I'm not even assuming that next-gen games will have *more* textures, just 4x the X and Y resolution.

Loading game content from a 2x BDR or 12x DVD is pretty slow when you have 512MB of memory. If content cannot be effectively transferred to system memory in a prompt fashion your gameworld is going to be limited by the art assets you can fit into 512MB of space.

Not when every machine has an HD minimally, you can then target your game assuming you have HD transfer rates. That's the beauty of having a fixed platform, and it's why XB360 and PS3 games will look better than PC games which even have superior hardware to consoles.

 

[mrboo]

I'll say it again,

Only TIME will tell if Blu-Ray was the right choice.

 

[Arwin]

I'll say it again,

Only TIME will tell if Blu-Ray was the right choice.

Sure. To me, BluRay is without a doubt better for games. The question isn't about whether or not games can use 25gb+ to their advantage, however, the only question is whether or not the resulting price difference between the 360 and the PS3 is going to make a difference in the relative uptake of these systems.

For what it's worth, there was an interview in a Dutch OPM way back earlier this year with the Assassin's Creed crew where they were asked whether or not they would use the HDD, and they said that they were very happy with how well streaming from BluRay worked, that they designed their whole game around it so wouldn't really need the HDD for improving load times. Rather they were considering it for new features, like recording a full replay of the level you have been playing. They also mentioned that their game would definitely be something like 20Gb or more on the PS3. So it's going to be interesting to see whether that still holds or if they have decided to go for something that runs on all three systems without too much scaling going on.

But it does seem in line with what the Ubisoft guy here is saying, mostly.

 

[Geo]

Understanding that my last console was Pong, I hope you will have reasonable patience for what may be the Stupid Question of the Week at B3D CF. . . . but, is there some particular reason why an ISV couldn't ship an XB360 game on two DVDs? Say game + level's 1-6 on Disk 1, and game + levels 7-12 on Disk 2? Sure, it costs a bit more, but I wouldn't think prohibitively so. . .

 

[Titanio]

Understanding that my last console was Pong, I hope you will have reasonable patience for what may be the Stupid Question of the Week at B3D CF. . . . but, is there some particular reason why an ISV couldn't ship an XB360 game on two DVDs? Say game + level's 1-6 on Disk 1, and game + levels 7-12 on Disk 2? Sure, it costs a bit more, but I wouldn't think prohibitively so. . .

What you're saying isn't so much of a problem, with linear games at least. But not every type of game is conducive to that. Imagine a game where you could hop into a fighter jet and fly between arbitrary locations in the world at any time - if you've split your world across two discs, you could prohibitively frequently depending on the mix of locations you're traversing. Sure, you could place artificial limitations in there to limit the amount of travel between one part of the world and the other, but that's then a fairly significant compromise in the design of your game.

Asides from design considerations, multiple discs are not technically very efficient. You won't get an effective doubling of capacity by doubling the number of discs because of the need to have a certain amount of common data on both discs, for example. It also doesn't help much if you need more capacity for redundancy.

 

[Geo]

Sure, I wouldn't argue there aren't advantages to not needing a second (or third) disk. I do remember all the disk shuffling that Myst required (oy!). It just seemed to me like I see this question treated like an absolute, and I wanted to confirm there are some options. . .

 

[SugarCoat]

Sony has said - though nobody, not even them can tell if they really mean it or if it's just hype - that they want the PS3 to be future-proof for ten years. That'd mean we wouldn't see a new PS until 2014 give or take.

Woah now, where did you determine that conclusion from? All they could simply mean is they plan on supporting development and releasing games for the next 10 years, not that the platform wont be getting a successor. I think Sony would have to be pretty stupid to try to push the PS3 that far when their competitors would obviously move onto a new platform before then. Imagine the N64 being the only platform nintendo released until this year and that will give you an idea of what you're saying Sony is doing.

 

[Black Dragon37]

Retaliation FTW!!!

 

[Geo]

Retaliation FTW!!!

Errm. . .linked in the first sentence of the OP?

 

[scificube]

That makes the assumption that all art scales linearly. But in a practical sense I see this problem: PC games have not had these PS2 limits in VRAM (I have seen games require 128MB for a while and many games getting an advantage from 256MB and even 512MB now) and have been in HD Resolutions for nearly a decade. Yet most complete games are comfortably fitting on a single sided DVD ROM. These games have MUCH better textures than the PS2 games, higher resolutions, more detailed geometry, audio, etc

The think there are two factors to this: The first is that not every art assets scales as you are suggesting, or even needs to (and with the cost of art creation that is a good thing). The second is that PS2 DVD space has been overblown, which has been shown by the Xbox and PC versions of games. Many PS2 games use their space to aid in load times.

Not that more space isn't good or not usefull, but so far I don't think the arguements are sound about it being as "doom and gloom" as some suggest. The PC and first gen games have shown that you can create large worlds with detailed textures on a single DVD, let alone DVD9. And there are sound and practical ways to work around single disk limitations (like spanning). IMO I am going to go with a number of dev comments and say I think the biggest bottleneck isn't even static storage but is instead the pathetic transfer speeds of the optical media on the current consoles. Loading game content from a 2x BDR or 12x DVD is pretty slow when you have 512MB of memory. If content cannot be effectively transferred to system memory in a prompt fashion your gameworld is going to be limited by the art assets you can fit into 512MB of space.

PC titles still primarily ship on CDs. With 5 CDs being the limit even when a DVD version of a PC title is released the storage space is not taken advantage of and only the number of disks that need to be pressed is an advantage. (transfer speed being irrelevant with installed PC games.)

PC developers do not make DVD only games because they have concerns about "the lowest common denominator." DVD /DVD-9 can't be leveraged if they fear most players in the world do not have DVD players. I can't remember the title but there was a uproar once over a developer trying to go DVD only before. It just slips my mind.

Anyway, the reason PC games still look good is because they can decompress to the HDD during install which some titles do when we see some PC games pushing well into 7-9GBs...not all but some. This obviously means they can place higher fidelity assets on the disk media because they only penalize players with a long wait once and the wait is expected and forgiven. The wait during install is what I'm referring to. The other main reason PC games look good is that although the lowest common denominator is a factor, when proper gaming HW is available it is brute force powerful enough to make things look relatively good in spite of. Asset quality need not improve for a game to look ridiculously better with this being the case. A switch from no AF to 8-16X AF illustrates this and even more so if is angle independent. The same applies for AA. The same applies for shaders one can jigger on and off. The same applies with playing a game a 640x480 vs. 1600x1200. These and other such things that are what PC hardware (mainly GPUs) provide developers/gamers as means to increase the visual splendor in games despite what amount of data can be stored on the disk media. You can't make always make a ugly title look good by doing this but if the game is decent these things will go a VERY long way...so far as to have distinguished PC games over console games for a very long time. That is up until now I would say.

To be more concise...the power of the GPU that can readily unleashed with a settings menu in or out of game along with being able to install to the HDD AFTER you've placed your data on the disk media has been what has allowed PC games to accomplish HD and high qualtiy graphics up until now. This is indeed in spite of 5 CDs worth of storage being the common limit on storage for developers. That said PC games simply utilizing DL DVDs and good->aggressive compression will allow them to go quite far along side Blu-Ray games on the PS3 or Blu-Ray/HD-DVD games on PC should they appear....barring games on next gen media do not do the same or do so to the sam degree over time.

 

[blakjedi]

i think the first real world comparison we will have to guage the value of the use of bd versus dvd9 will be assassins creed. assuming ps3 is the lead SKU, if the the textures are generally crisper and higher res on ps3... with minimized loading so there are fewer breaks in the illusion of the game world... then there may be some teeth to ths argument... brd just makes things easy... not better... until then none of these arguments is really swaying

 

[expletive]

5.1 in-game sound won't neccessarily imply bigger storage. It's just positional sound, but you can use the same clips. But 5.1 soundtracks will, because you're talking about a DD/DTS stream precompressed. And True DD/DTS (lossless PCM) will really chew up storage.

I personally think the next-gen consoles should have had 2gb of main RAM.

2 hours worth of DD music only takes up about 360MB of space (if my calcs are correct) and I dont see any need for True HD in games at this point. The % of people that have audio hardware that could tell the difference is miniscule.

 

[Black Dragon37]

Errm. . .linked in the first sentence of the OP?

With extras (!)

 

[scificube]

i think the first real world comparison we will have to guage the value of the use of bd versus dvd9 will be assassins creed. assuming ps3 is the lead SKU, if the the textures are generally crisper and higher res on ps3... with minimized loading so there are fewer breaks in the illusion of the game world... then there may be some teeth to ths argument... brd just makes things easy... not better... until then none of these arguments is really swaying

I'm not sure this would be a good rubric for measurment myself.

What if Ubisoft is concerned with...

A large portion of it's gamers being jaded by not getting the "best" version of the game.
The cost of development rising as two sets of assets would be needed.
Designing portions of the game the leverage the Blu-Ray/HDD combo that would have to
be removed from the X360 version for lack of guaranteed HDD support for caching all those high fidelity assets that cannot sit in memory all the time.

There is a good chance that things again will be scaled to the lower denominator for a number of reasons. Now...if UbiSoft makes the effort to leverage and the Blu-Ray/HDD with the PS3 incarnation of the game it should be obvious that they did by a number of means vs. them simply saying they've done so and really haven't. If they don't do so we have no base to compare things.

I'm not sure multi-platform titles will ever be a good measurement of what each respective system is capable of and furthermore what developers COULD do with those capabilities. It may be apples to oranges but I feel first party titles are about the best point to draw comparisons unfortunately.