As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Microsoft and the "HDD of doom" (or the lack there of)
GnomeTank
What the what?Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
What the what?Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
So as I was playing Mass Effect, it really started to dawn on me what the major disadvantage of having the HDD as "non-standard" is: Lack of disk/install caching in games. If any a game ever needed it, it was Mass Effect. I think I took months of play time off the DVD drive in my 360 with Mass Effect, because it was ALWAYS streaming from the CD. Because MS has the HDD as non-standard, and I think prohibits developers from using the HDD as a large disk cache (I know FF11 did it, but I haven't seen another game since), games like Mass Effect really suffer.
If there is an area where the PS3 can really shine, this is it. I refuse to believe it's difficult to ask the 360 if it has an HDD or not (it's probably a single system call), so why aren't more developers taking advantage of it when it's there? I refuse to believe it's because a "minority of players" have them, because we all know that's BS. I have no hard data of course, but empirical data suggests that it's probably 60% or more that have an HDD, versus those that don't. Is it HDD size? Is it a restriction from MS? Do any of you in the industry have some deeper insight?
What is stopping developers from actually using the HDD in the 360 for more than just saved games? A simple disk cache for games like Mass Effect would raise performance, lessen stress on the brittle DVD drive (I've had it stop reading the disc twice in Mass Effect, just freeze the system and drop to "Cannot read" screens) and put some of that HDD to use for something other than videos and saved games.
This is sort of a semi-rant/call for discussion on the subject.
If there is an area where the PS3 can really shine, this is it. I refuse to believe it's difficult to ask the 360 if it has an HDD or not (it's probably a single system call), so why aren't more developers taking advantage of it when it's there? I refuse to believe it's because a "minority of players" have them, because we all know that's BS. I have no hard data of course, but empirical data suggests that it's probably 60% or more that have an HDD, versus those that don't. Is it HDD size? Is it a restriction from MS? Do any of you in the industry have some deeper insight?
What is stopping developers from actually using the HDD in the 360 for more than just saved games? A simple disk cache for games like Mass Effect would raise performance, lessen stress on the brittle DVD drive (I've had it stop reading the disc twice in Mass Effect, just freeze the system and drop to "Cannot read" screens) and put some of that HDD to use for something other than videos and saved games.
This is sort of a semi-rant/call for discussion on the subject.
Steam: Brainling, XBL / PSN: GnomeTank, NintendoID: Brainling, FF14: Zillius Rosh SFV: BrainlingOh c'mon FyreWulff, no one's gonna pay to visit Uranus.
GnomeTank on
0
Posts
Oblivion uses it... Halo 3 uses it... I'm sure a lot more games use it but those I know for sure.
Basically... I think you heard wrong... I think you heard that the HDD can't be used for game cache if a HDD exists but it can... and it does... and there is space reserved for it.
If it does, it's using a tiny portion of it, and it's not caching very much. If it was, after the first few hours you were playing the game, the DVD wouldn't keep streaming the same textures and such in. It's obvious it never tries to get already loaded data from the HDD, because as soon as you go to load a level you've been to, the DVD whirs up and you get that texture pop as it tries to get the textures from the DVD. If it's loaded from the HDD, you fooled me. They may be caching something, but they aren't caching much.
It may cache just the data for the level you're in, but I want it to cache data is it loads and keep it cached. So as I play the game, my load times should get faster (for places I've already been), and that pop-in gets lessened because the textures are streaming from the HDD rather than a slow DVD.
All I'm saying is that the HDD can, and is used for game cache.
Mass Effect may apply. It either suffers from being pulled out of the oven slightly early, or it could be an issue with the HDD.
I won't mind games that require an HDD. Most people wouldn't. Only those that haven't gotten one yet would care.
I wish we knew how many people didn't have a hard drive.
There is no evidence to my knowledge to support that these problems have anything to do with the console itself. Other games use the hard drive, there is no 'don't use the hd law' at MS. There is just a "don't REQUIRE a hd". And even that is broken by DLC.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
MMOG Comic, Quests, and News. www.thebrasse.com
I don't really agree with this. Other than a MMO with huge downloadable content as a REQUIREMENT, what kind of game out there now would be IMPOSSIBLE without a hard drive?
I don't think any game would be. It might just be not as good. MS already supports a dev using the HDD if present to improve performance for those with the HDD.
I don't see where allowing devs to exclude the non HDD users would help anything.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
MMOG Comic, Quests, and News. www.thebrasse.com
In other words, they're using new software which hasn't been perfected yet and the hardware is not at fault. Expect mass effect 2 to suffer far less problems.
edit: the post was 2-3 mass effect threads ago.
I thought that it was required that developers not use the hard drive because every system might not a hard drive, it's one of those things but it's something that Microsoft needs to fix ASAP because it's a big problem plus games like Mass Effect has these problems because they are required to make sure the game can run without a hard drive.
Because Microsoft screwed up and there should of never been 360 without a Hard drive but now there is and it's really a negative against the system IMO
"Was cursing, in broken english at his team, and at our team. made fun of dead family members and mentioned he had sex with a dog."
"Hope he dies tbh but a ban would do."
I am not sure what you count as minimal, but Mass Effects load times are not minimal. The combination of frequency and length makes Mass Effects loading somewhere between "Unplayably annoying" and "minor inconvienence".
Loading from the HDD would be orders of magnitude faster than loading from an optical medium like DVD.
I don't "think" anything, there are numbers to prove that loading from an HDD is orders of magnitude faster than an optical medium like a DVD. You are the one thinking that loading from an HDD is slower than it is. I've played plenty of PC games, thanks.
Mass Effect's load times are slightly less annoying that Oblivions.
DVD :
Average Seek Time: 100ms (10 centiseconds)
HDD :
Average Seek Time: 8ms (less than 1 centisecond)
That's an order of magnitude given that one is measured in centiseconds and one is measured in milliseconds. Way to sound like a know it all jack ass though.
*shrug*
I've really enjoyed Mass Effect - but if I can't run across a god damn courtyard without getting a LOADING three times, there's a serious issue. If I could travel back in time, the only reason I'd off John Connor would be if he was the douche who came up with the idea of "let's drop the hard drive and have a cheaper model".
Also - hard drives that users can't expand without buying an overpriced accessory... plus 5GB+ downloadable titles? Fuck you Microsoft.
I will say this once again...
There is no rule to NOT use the hard drive for game caching. MANY games use it. Heck, I am pretty sure MassEffect uses it even.
The only thing that MS requires is for developers to write their games so that they can still play if there is not HD to cache to. The games that use the HD, have longer loadttimes on the non HDD 360 systems.
Oblivion had long loadtimes, and it used the HD a lot. guess what? It had long load times on the PC as well! They were longer on the 360 due to most pcs having 1-2 gigs of RAM, nothing to do with the HD.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
MMOG Comic, Quests, and News. www.thebrasse.com
Oh boy. Seriously, read more into how the process works.
Seek time /= load time.
Usage #1 of "use the hard drive": cache frequently or recently accessed stuff - will still require frequent hits to the DVD drive because most assets are still on the DVD.
Usage #2 of "use the hard drive": the way the PS3 does it - loads a buttload of data and assets onto the hard drive, thus rarely (or never?) using the disc again except to load up the game and authenticate, etc.
So a game on the 360 can still use the hard drive but still suffer from problems that might have been alleviated if the developers were allowed to cache more.
Just a thought.
There's not really a limit as far as how much they can cache (there's ~7 GB set aside for that on the HDD). I'm pretty sure the choice between those two options is entirely up to the developer, as long as the game still works without any hard drive.
I'm not sure you can really be safe with that assumption at all.
not at all but it would help with some of the things that mass effect has problems that having a hard drive required and it would help with the load times even if it's not that much, but I wish it was required to have a hard drive on all 360 systems.
Again you're assuming a required hard drive would be used differently than one that is optional.
I really don't think anyone can make that assumption unless we are talking about the kind of install PS3 games to... which is actually to combat BluRay and it's 2x crutch.
The PS3 still uses the disc constantly. The blu-ray drive doesn't spin as fast as a DVD and so it's a lot quieter as a result. (Correct me if I'm wrong on this.) Their average read speeds are roughly the same and games don't install most of the game on the HDD (40-60 gigs would disappear fast if they did). Load times are born from the type of game. In a game where the developer has complete control over where the player goes and how they travel (traveling solely on foot), load times are greatly reduced. When you can jump across the galaxy at will, load times are going to exist. Compare the load times of Halo 3 campaign when you choose a mission from where you just play through.
Same way that Ninja Gaiden for the xbox1 did it's major hd install.
You see it more on the PS3 because the blue ray is pretty slow compared to a faster dvd drive (just because of the age of the tech probably). Is the next complaint going to be that the MS dvd drive is too fast? Because the faster dvd drive means less devs think a major HD cache is not required?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
MMOG Comic, Quests, and News. www.thebrasse.com
I don't.
Again, you trying to sound smart.
Seek time is a measure of how fast a single piece of data can be "seek"'ed on the disk from a ready state, meaning the disc is read to be read from. Obviously sequential data doesn't need to be sought to be read, but every time you go to load a new piece of data, a seek is issued. Seek time is used as a basic measure of how fast it takes to look something up on a disc.
That said, you still haven't proven where I was wrong in starting that HDD's load data orders of magnitude faster than optical mediums (hint: because you can't, because that's the way it is).
This is false. They both have the same average transfer speed. The rumor mostly likely started because if they use twice as much data but maintain the same transfer speed, load times would increase. However the speed difference between the two is minimal. The only negative of the blu-ray drive is it's price (big negative). If you had the choice between DVD and blu-ray and the price was the same, you should pick blu-ray every time.
I think he meant that most Blu-Ray drives spin slower than most DVD drivers, but I am not really sure, I've never looked in to the tech behind Blu-Ray. In any case, the argument shouldn't be whether DVD or Blu-Ray is faster (because as you said it's negligible), but whether pre-aching to disc and loading that way is worth the HDD usage incurred (I think it is, others don't).
not really. Seek time refers to the speed of arm which houses the optical reader. Read time is the time it takes for data to be read.
That's what I said, so I am not sure where you're "not really" comes from, but okay.
because you've got a lot of wrong in there. and that's not what you said.
seek time is the time it takes the arm of an HDD or the laser on a track to move to a specific sector. That's not all there is to reading, and seek time isn't too important. There's more to reading than seek time, there's also read time. Read time is what's used to measure how long it takes to get something off a disc.
It's already been posted by a Bioware employee in one of the ME threads that there were restrictions related to using the HDD that resulted in longer load times. Digging up that post would clarify things.
So I'd say everyone should just stop using Mass Effect as an example of why MS should do this or that with the HDD.
I still think they made a big mistake not including an HDD with every system but I think they made an even bigger mistake by having the initial HDD be 20gbs. They sort of shot their various DLC services in the foot with that decision. I know I haven't bought some TV series from them simply because of storage issues.
Even worse are the terrible prices they charge for the 120gb HDD. I'd have bought one by now if it was available for a reasonable price.
EDIT: Okay so now it sounds like load times were an issue because of HDD rules from MS but the texture pop-in wasn't. I'm confused again.