What are the odds that 9 GIGs WON'T be enough for Next Gen?

[jvd]

Well sorry for having an opinion.
Maybe my facts are off, but I personally would rather pay an extra $50 for a future proof console.

You posted something and we corrected you .

YOu also haven't told us how its future proof . If anything its less future proof . Unless some where sony and toshiba decided hd-dvd is a standard .


Anyway there are very few games that you can't simply add more discs too . Those few games you can most likely use the hardrive to send data too to be uncompressed on.

Though its hard to think of one that will need that much space .

 

[Gholbine]

The more you compress a video, the less clean and beautiful it becomes, there's no avoiding it. Sure if Xbox 360 devs wanted HD-FMV in their games they could throw all sorts of compression at it, but in the end it's only going to look inferior.

In my opinion, Microsoft is releasing the Xbox 360 only slightly too early to incorperate either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. To release it with a next-gen optical disc format would send production and royalty costs sky-high, not to mention the problems they'd face with producing the actual hardware. I think given the choice, they'd include it in the Xbox 360. It's a mistake to leave the system with 9gb discs for the next 5 years - it's just not going to be enough. Multi-disc games are feasable, but not all the time.

In any case, it's the same arguments every generation. "The disc medium is far too large it will never be filled" etc. I think the jump in data usage next generation will be especially large because of the massive increase in resolution. Japanese developers are going to go nuts over the beautiful high definition FMVs, and that kind of thing is going to take insane amounts of disc space. I can't wait for next-gen Final Fantasy, it's going to be drool-tastic.

 

[zidane1strife]

You recall incorrectly. GT4 is ~5gb



See above, and why would GT4 be 3 dl-dvds if it were an xbox game? Forza managed just fine, at a mere 3gb infact. For more evidence that this theory is invalid look at GTA:SA. On PS2 it was 4.5gb. The Xbox version has better graphics and is gb.

I said 2dl-dvds on xbx, and even though it seems my numbers are off, it'd probably be so if you more than quad the model poly counts(it seems ps2 has to re-calc geometry with each pass or something, so the cars in gt4 are in the 4k~ poly, while IIRC some xbx racers are about 4x that if not more.),raise track geometry detail similarly, and texture resolution would be upped.

Going to xbx360 which is what I said, a next gen gt6, we can see how from 4k polys per car we go to the 80+k, and similar increases are seen in track geometry and texture detail. That's about 20X increase in geometry complexity, similar or even more for tracks and substantial increases in texture-resolution(not sure if 20x too) judging by PGR3.

So 5GB x 20 = 100GB, now now there's always compression, and I'd assume with such we could bring it down to 30-40GB, but bringing it down to 7GB is most likely not possible, IMHO.

This doesn't prove anything. Instead find a PC game that requires more than a DVD's worth of space.

Well if a short game with what seems like no fmvs, few voiceovers and few models/areas of sub-next-gen-detail lvls takes 4GB I say that's telling.

I disagree that it would exceed 2 DL-DVDs, not that it matters considering the original was 3 disks to begin with.

That game had like more than 100 different npc, enemy models, and IIRC, about two dozen summon models. If the game keeps the classic-rpg gameplay element, I'd think some of these(say the summons and bosses) could easily exceed 100k polys. Data assets would be even bigger than a gt4'ish game, and that's not taking into account possibility of voice-overs and HD-fmvs.

I can see some areas in the millions of polys, with super high-rez textures and with so many areas if HL2 took 4GB with just a few lower quality assets...

That explains multi-platform games, but not xbox exclusive games.

The PC shows us that you can have a high-res modern game without being limited by DVD at all. So other than HD FMVs, what is the problem?

I'm sure there must be some xbx games which approached the limit, as for the pc again they generally have insufficient budgets to create vast content. Plus it was only recently that they got games with dx9.0 gphx.s, and most of these are short'ish fps which seem to recycle models/areas judging by HL2(and what little I've played of Doom3-probably not dx9- and farcry).

EQ2 would be the only massive game of a sorts, that could suggest otherwise. And even there the game's filled with vast-stretches of recycled content, and they've extremely diminished armor/equipment variety(prior to any expansion packs, btw, not been paying atttention to it as of late), most likely model/enemy variety as well. Plus in terms of complexity/detail this game is significantly below next-gen lvls of detail, IMHO.

 

[jvd]

I said 2dl-dvds on xbx, and even though it seems my numbers are off, it'd probably be so if you more than quad the model poly counts(it seems ps2 has to re-calc geometry with each pass or something, so the cars in gt4 are in the 4k~ poly, while IIRC some xbx racers are about 4x that if not more.),raise track geometry detail similarly, and texture resolution would be upped.

Your off because you didn't factor in compression. The xbox uses dxtc compression formats .

Going to xbx360 which is what I said, a next gen gt6, we can see how from 4k polys per car we go to the 80+k, and similar increases are seen in track geometry and texture detail. That's about 20X increase in geometry complexity, similar or even more for tracks and substantial increases in texture-resolution(not sure if 20x too) judging by PGR3.

that is fine . You do realise that the models which are wireframe take up very little room right .

As for the texture res your also going to be compressing them . They also wont be 20x more than what they were on the xbox . If anything they will be the same to slightly bigger .

So 5GB x 20 = 100GB, now now there's always compression, and I'd assume with such we could bring it down to 30-40GB, but bringing it down to 7GB is most likely not possible, IMHO.

Your mulitplying the wrong areas . Some areas wont increase by 20times . Some area's just wont increase at all or actualy decrease . Sound can be one of these area's . Most xbox games used 5.1 dts and it will be the same on the x360 . However they have had 4 years to come up with better compression means .

As for textures we've also gotten better texture compresion. It can go from mabye 2-3 gigs of textures to 10 gigs of textures but using advanced texture compression that can be brought back down to 5 gigs or so .

Well if a short game with what seems like no fmvs, few voiceovers and few models/areas of sub-next-gen-detail lvls takes 4GB I say that's telling.

look at everquest 2 . That is about 4-5 gigs . Each npc is fully scripted with tons of dialogue . It has high rest textures , advanced affects and a huge world much bigger than anything on current consoles .

This also doesn't use any texture compression but dxtc . The xbox 360 will have more advanced compression schemes .

EQ2 would be the only massive game of a sorts, that could suggest otherwise. And even there the game's filled with vast-stretches of recycled content, and they've extremely diminished armor/equipment variety(prior to any expansion packs, btw, not been paying atttention to it as of late), most likely model/enemy variety as well. Plus in terms of complexity/detail this game is significantly below next-gen lvls of detail, IMHO.

what do you think next gen console games are going to have 5 gigs of grass textures ? Get real all games will recycle textures . There simply wont be the buget to make that many textures .

As for eq2 the graphics are extremely well done when u factor in teh scale and that while i was playing there were times when i was with 500 other characters on my screen in a big city or vast plains area . There is also tons of audio for the game along with many lvls of texture quality.



However you still haven't told us why we simply can't have a second dvd and what is so bad about 2 dvds ? 2 dvds is actually expected in the video market . Many people will pass up the single dvd release and buy the extra content collectors edition Couple this with the fact that we are talking 20 + hours of gaming content vs 2 hours of movie content and it seems that multi dvds are not bad . And wont affect much of anyhting .

 

[zidane1strife]

Your off because you didn't factor in compression. The xbox uses dxtc compression formats .

Maybe not two WHOLE dl-dvds but certainly more than 7.4GB, the geometry's gone up by a factor of at least 4, and you've significantly upped the rez of multiple textures for the car models, same for the rest of the tracks.

that is fine . You do realise that the models which are wireframe take up very little room right .

I dunnoh, 300+ models at 80+k each, in addition to more than a dozen multi-million poly tracks should take some space.

As for the texture res your also going to be compressing them . They also wont be 20x more than what they were on the xbox . If anything they will be the same to slightly bigger .

Not more than xbox, but they may be 20x more than gt4, and we've seen how gt4 takes 5GB already with little use of fmvs and probably no-voice-overs.

"So 5GB x 20 = 100GB, now now there's always compression, and I'd assume with such we could bring it down to 30-40GB, but bringing it down to 7GB is most likely not possible, IMHO."-zidane

Your mulitplying the wrong areas . Some areas wont increase by 20times . Some area's just wont increase at all or actualy decrease . Sound can be one of these area's . Most xbox games used 5.1 dts and it will be the same on the x360 . However they have had 4 years to come up with better compression means .

I assume sound's not taking a significant amount of space, and most of the space is taken by track/car geometry and textures though could be wrong. A couple music tracks and some engine sounds can't take more than a few 100MBs, no?

As for textures we've also gotten better texture compresion. It can go from mabye 2-3 gigs of textures to 10 gigs of textures but using advanced texture compression that can be brought back down to 5 gigs or so .

look at everquest 2 . That is about 4-5 gigs . Each npc is fully scripted with tons of dialogue . It has high rest textures , advanced affects and a huge world much bigger than anything on current consoles .

This also doesn't use any texture compression but dxtc . The xbox 360 will have more advanced compression schemes .

what do you think next gen console games are going to have 5 gigs of grass textures ? Get real all games will recycle textures . There simply wont be the buget to make that many textures .

As for eq2 the graphics are extremely well done when u factor in teh scale and that while i was playing there were times when i was with 500 other characters on my screen in a big city or vast plains area . There is also tons of audio for the game along with many lvls of texture quality.

I'd still like to know why a small game like HL2 takes 4GB, is it the increased detail?

However you still haven't told us why we simply can't have a second dvd and what is so bad about 2 dvds ? 2 dvds is actually expected in the video market . Many people will pass up the single dvd release and buy the extra content collectors edition Couple this with the fact that we are talking 20 + hours of gaming content vs 2 hours of movie content and it seems that multi dvds are not bad . And wont affect much of anyhting .

For most games it's enough. For gt4 like games it may span 3 disks or more, viable for rpgs, but it'd be impractical for racing games.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I can't think of many games where splitting the game to 2 or more discs wouldn't be a very big nuisance. Enough for me at least to put off buying that game.

Only very very linear games, like the oft mentioned FFVII are such where the disc swapping has relatively little effect to enjoyment of the game, but as the games are becoming more and moer big freely explorable worlds and branching storylines I think disc swapping in most next gen games would be much too frequent.

OK, strictly level based games like Doom and HL2 type first person shooters... they might still get away with a disc swap or two between the levels.
Linear adventure games where you do not have the possibility to travel via some "hub" or go back visit places freely, like this gen MGSs, Splinter Cells, ... they'd be playable with a disc swap break or two, they could even mask the disc swapping "experience" to be part of the game (Codec: "Snake, to bypass the security you must take the Disc marked "3" provided in your backback and put it into the device")

Racing games, no, I think disc swapping would be difficult to put into the game so that it wouldn't happen too frequently and unexpectedly.
Fighters, big free-to-go-anywhere-anytime games, puzzles, any games with internet multiplayer, games where you can go back and forth via a hub and/or teleporter... anything big and/or nonlinear.. those games are hard, if not impossible to make multidisc without breaking the gaming experience.

... 2 dvds is actually expected in the video market . Many people will pass up the single dvd release and buy the extra content collectors edition Couple this with the fact that we are talking 20 + hours of gaming content vs 2 hours of movie content and it seems that multi dvds are not bad . And wont affect much of anyhting .

Isn't the 2nd DVD in those 2 DVD editions usually (always?) something other than the game, like interviews, "making of" and other extra material that has nothing to do with the playable game code and content on the 1 st disc, so you naturally don't need to swap that 2nd disc during gameplay because the 2nd disc is not part of the game?

 

[jvd]

Maybe not two WHOLE dl-dvds but certainly more than 7.4GB, the geometry's gone up by a factor of at least 4, and you've significantly upped the rez of multiple textures for the car models, same for the rest of the tracks.

and how much room do you think the wireframes are going to take up ? I dont' see why u need to store poylgon data . That should all be caculated on the fly . As for the textures they may have gone up but what compressions are added to them ?

I dunnoh, 300+ models at 80+k each, in addition to more than a dozen multi-million poly tracks should take some space.

Well the models wont take up much room. I don't have numbers in front of me but all that needs to be stored are the wire frames . . As for the polygons they once again don't have to be stored. You can apply the polygons later onto the skin . Once you have the frame stored that is the easy part .

Not more than xbox, but they may be 20x more than gt4, and we've seen how gt4 takes 5GB already with little use of fmvs and probably no-voice-overs.

well the pc version takes up 4.6 however what is compressed in that ? THe game was developed for the ps2. What compression was applied to the xbox and pc versions ?

I assume sound's not taking a significant amount of space, and most of the space is taken by track/car geometry and textures though could be wrong. A couple music tracks and some engine sounds can't take more than a few 100MBs, no?

I would say it go

video
textures
sound
models

I'd still like to know why a small game like HL2 takes 4GB, is it the increased detail?

hl2 runs on video cards that don't have all forms of compression. There is no 3dc or newer compression types used. Its just dxtc and I believe the normal maps are uncompressed . As for how big the game is i cna't tell u . My steam folder is 6 gigs . However i have many maps , add ons , mods , cs sourse and other things saved. Where are u getting the hlf2 size from and are u sure that doesn't include cs source ?

For most games it's enough. For gt4 like games it may span 3 disks or more, viable for rpgs, but it'd be impractical for racing games.

for a game like gt4 i doubt it will need more than one disc. The nature of the game itself will call for many many models to be reused. Just look at how bad the actual graphics of gta 3 series is . Its very low for the ps2 .

For rpgs I don't see why u can't chagne a disc once. It was done in psone years . and as for racing games I really can't phatom why u need more than 7.4 gigs for a game . That is a huge amount of data . I think your over estimating just how big the models really are in size

 

[jvd]

I can't think of many games where splitting the game to 2 or more discs wouldn't be a very big nuisance. Enough for me at least to put off buying that game

So you never bought any final fantasy game on the psone or any of the other big rpgs on that system that took more than 1 disc ?

There were many games that required 1 or more discs then .

I don't see how changing a disc once in a 20 hour or more game is a big nuisance .

You must have put off buying many psone games

Only very very linear games, like the oft mentioned FFVII are such where the disc swapping has relatively little effect to enjoyment of the game, but as the games are becoming more and moer big freely explorable worlds and branching storylines I think disc swapping in most next gen games would be much too frequent.

perhaps a poorly done game . However we still don't know how many games will need to go to multi disc . What if its only 10 games out of the x360's final game library ?

OK, strictly level based games like Doom and HL2 type first person shooters... they might still get away with a disc swap or two between the levels.
Linear adventure games where you do not have the possibility to travel via some "hub" or go back visit places freely, like this gen MGSs, Splinter Cells, ... they'd be playable with a disc swap break or two, they could even mask the disc swapping "experience" to be part of the game (Codec: "Snake, to bypass the security you must take the Disc marked "3" provided in your backback and put it into the device")

There are many games where swapping discs aren't a problem. I agree that there may be a few games where swapping discs can be annoying . However by smartly designing your game you shouldn't have to worry about that .

I.e in mgs 5 lets say. Why would u ever need to go back to the first lvl of the game when you are almost done ? That would not be very realistic .

The games i see not being able to be done on multi discs are sports (Which i can't see needing more than a disc ) some big rpgs and racing games .

All of which can be worked around . I.e putting new tracks and cars on the hardrive thus eliminating the need to switch a disc . Or by storing important areas in the rpg . Like say your home on the hardrive so u can vist that and the small villiage using some type of travel with out switching the disc .

Racing games, no, I think disc swapping would be difficult to put into the game so that it wouldn't happen too frequently and unexpectedly.
Fighters, big free-to-go-anywhere-anytime games, puzzles, any games with internet multiplayer, games where you can go back and forth via a hub and/or teleporter... anything big and/or nonlinear.. those games are hard, if not impossible to make multidisc without breaking the gaming experience.

I agree on racing . However as i mentioned there are ways around it .

For fighters ... well why would u need more than 1 disc unless its for fmv . You have x amount of stages and x amount of characters. I highly doubt u will go past one disc .

puzzle games ? Um no don't see u needing more than one disc . Games with internet multiplayer u can have a second disc called multiplayer and fill it with maps and skins and a second called single player . Don't see the problem .

 

[rabidrabbit]

For a pure arcade racing game it really is difficult to imagine where the extra storage beyond DVD would be needed.

But it is easy to imagine where a game like Gran Turismo for PS3 would use that extra capacity; HD videos of the real world cars, racing footage, some historical data with HD fmv, videos where they present the car features using realtime footage. For example the car interiors and controls could be presented using real video, the car could be videod from various angles (using the "bullet time" filming technique that was used for example in Matrixs For hundreds of cars) and navigated interactively by using the more advanced Blu Ray interactivity features.
There are places where I would take high quality real fmv over cgi in games.

jvd, yes those were just examples of genres where I thought disc swapping would be potentially harmful, I was aware that games of some genres are 'nt likely to need much storage space in the future either.

And yes, I did play all the FF's on PSOne, didn't you read my second sentence?? I said FF's were a very good example where the disc swapping didn't ruin the gameplay.

 

[jvd]

D videos of the real world cars, racing footage, some historical data with HD fmv, videos where they present the car features using realtime footage

So your talking about movie instead of game .

For example the car interiors and controls could be presented using real video, the car could be videod from various angles (using the "bullet time" filming technique that was used for example in Matrixs For hundreds of cars) and navigated interactively by using the more advanced Blu Ray interactivity features.

Errr i'm not following you . Your saying you want a real time video of the car in which you can look at it ?

Why ? Why not just use the in game models . Talk about breaking the game experiance .

I don't really see what any of this has to do with the game . Of course u can also just put this stuff on a special disc and call it a bonus and let them pop it in and play with real life videos of the car .

There are places where I would take high quality real fmv over cgi in games.

Doesn't this break the game experiance ? Which is what you were claiming changing a disc does ? I mean going from actual ingame models and visual quality to cgi must be jarring to many .

Isn't the 2nd DVD in those 2 DVD editions usually (always?) something other than the game, like interviews, "making of" and other extra material that has nothing to do with the playable game code and content on the 1 st disc, so you naturally don't need to swap that 2nd disc during gameplay because the 2nd disc is not part of the game?

Well i have m ylord of the ring movies which are all 2 disc . Then lets not forget seasons of tv shows which come on 5-6 discs depending on the show . All of which people find exceptable to switching discs. Heck aqua teen hunger force is on 2 dvds and its 10 eps at 15 misn each which givs us 2.5 hours of viewing time . There are alot of shows that make us switch discs for 2-5 hours of content . People seem fine with this .

Secondly your example of gt 5 above would be akin to a special eddition where one disc just has fluff .

However once again on a 20 hour game its much diffrent than a 2 hour movie . Yes changing a disc during a 2 hour movie would be annoying. But how about on a 20 hour movie ?

 

[jvd]

And yes, I did play all the FF's on PSOne, didn't you read my second sentence?? I said FF's were a very good example where the disc swapping didn't ruin the gameplay.

Yet who defines when something ruins or doesn't ruin game play ?

There were other games besides rpgs that needed more than 1 disc on the old systems also .

 

[zidane1strife]

jvd, I think you've confused the game I was talking about. I get the impression you think I was referring to San Andreas when I spoke of gt4. It's gran turismo 4.

Seeing how far things have gone from gt4 to PGR3, per model/track data seems at the very least 20 fold.

 

[DotProduct]

When you speak about media capacities, you have to discuss load times/reading speed, too. You do not want to wait 2 miniutes or even just 30 seconds to load, until you are able to race/fight your friend.

Filling 512mb with textures/modells in resonable time, will force developers to use heavy/sophiticated compression, texture baking and propably even synthesis.
I guess the media limit is 100-200mb for a level/racetrack whatever.
(Just copy 200mb from your fastest DVD-Drive to HD and count the time... puh you do not want to wait any longer while playing games!)

The only way to utilize huge amount of data is streaming, because otherwise load times explode. On the other side many games store several instances of inagme material on the disc to speed up loading (reducing seek times) - This technique will propably be a no no on XBox 360 and be replaced by compression, synthesis.

Imo the only way to exceed the several gig limit (without wasting space - which is common) is video data.
With 512 mb RAM it would be interesting to mix videos and realtime in games - not just cutscenes - but still load times will prohibit the usage of more than lets say 20gb of such video material. And 10gb fmv is nearly a complete movie - and true HDTV quality fmvs will be to expensive for 99% of the studios to produce (yes costs increase with resolution here, too).

Maybe some Xbox 360 games will go multi disc - I do not think this is a problem.
Everyone who doesn´t care about hd-movies probalby doesn´t care about hd-dvd in XBox 360 and is right so.

 

[scooby_dooby]

This is a tough one to call, I mean we know that there wil be some examples of games that requires more space, but on the other hand I feel like we've reached a certain "plateau" on disc storage and file sizes. It seems bandwidth will become the limiting factor if we go to 10-20gb games.

When you see a game like Oblivion that is just barely fitting on a single DVD, and it's a launch game! then it's hard to see how the single DVD will not become a limiting factor. On the other hand, they've stated the majority of the space is pure audio, so this is a special case.

Other reasons I can't see it being a big problem is that current xbox games by the most part, are consistently between 2-4GB. They've stayed this way for the entire life of the console. And despite what you may think, AAA titles do not tend to be bigger than the others.

In addition, the x360 has more decompression power and I'm sure there are a ton of tricks dev's will come up with. That coupled with the fact that the previous gen 95% of games were < 4gb makes me think a single DVD should be fine for the most part. The other thing no-one's talking about is the fact that last gen there was no need to worry about saving space, if reducing filesize was a concern I'm sure many of the games released could have been much smaller than they ended up being.

The types of games that will max this out, we're talking ridiculous amounts of audio, or large amounts of FMV, are the same genres that lend themselves to multi-disc gaming, mostly RPG's.

As a last thought, Is it not forseeable that if this does become a real concern that they could use this new DVD-technology down the road, via a firmware upgrade to the dvd-drive, to pack more data onto regular DVD's?

 

[jvd]

jvd, I think you've confused the game I was talking about. I get the impression you think I was referring to San Andreas when I spoke of gt4. It's gran turismo 4.

Seeing how far things have gone from gt4 to PGR3, per model/track data seems at the very least 20 fold.

I see . Yet pgr3 still fits on one dvd . It may even fit on a single layer .

How does that factor into your arguement . Even if it was only a 4x total increase in room needed it would require more than 1 dvd . Yet it doesn't .

 

[Apoc]

Have any of you noticed that Xbox Halo is 4.4 GB (spanish language only) and PC Halo is only a cd? Talk about compresion.

 

[Tap In]

To summarise:

• Sony fans insist it won't be enough space
• Xbox fans insist it will be enough

Sound about right? :|

did we really expect much more from this topic? :neutral:


The closer the launch of X360 gets and the more the system looks like it has its chit together, the worse the challenges to its design and implementation will become, I'm afraid, as people try to tear it down until the PS3 is released.

I look froward to more of the "a DEV secretly that said that X360 wasn't... yadda yadda yadda... see I told you. the DEVS said so".

 

[V3]

I never read anything like that .

Sure you have, we have discussed this before on this board.

 

[Tap In]

Procedural Synthesis

that is one of the strategies that the engineers designing the system planned for, I'm sure. As well as the compression methods mentioned numerous times in this thread.

 

[Bjorn]

Obcourse GoW looks better than LH2. It's pushing more impressive FXs. And isn't it interesting that a game designed for only 512MB of total RAM looks better to you then a game with a mode designed for a 1GB of total RAM? *imagines a bulb lighting up over Bjorn's head*

Not really since we're talking about a Console vs PC game. Then there's the fact that UE3 levels will use runtime streaming when loading levels so there's no need to load the whole level into RAM. Which i'm pretty sure that HL2 does.