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Can you picture what will be? So limitless and free. The [end of consoles]

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Posts

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Now that MS is in the hardware game, I wonder if we might not see an Xbone/PC hybrid from them.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    Phyphor wrote: »
    redx wrote: »
    XBone is a major selling point to me.

    As others have said, the reason this architecture is a big deal is that it is in the realm of the good integrated GPUs that are starting to appear in mainstream computers. They could have gone the other way and used a card that was so much faster than integrated that the newly "caught up" chips were left in the dust again, but instead they are actually focusing developer attention on this mid range hardware. I think that means games running well enough on mainstream computers and tablets will become the norm, and that is a huge deal compared to past console launches.

    You got to wonder if MS is actually just trying to kill off the console market. If they make the XBwhateverthefuck on par with a decent new windows PC, then come out with a dual bootable XbOS, that will play all the third party titles and have full XB capabilities...

    I don't know, I'm probably just being paranoid or something but

    XBox grand strategy:
    Embrace.
    Extend.
    ???
    Profit like whoa, due to Sony getting forced out of the games market

    Remember, Microsoft 'wins' if PCs or XBs win. Or those split, and sony loses.

    MS has already said no xbone exclusives on pc

    Which only means that we will definitely probably not see any XBone exclusives on PCs in the first year, maybe probably.

    They could change their minds at any time, if it seemed a profitable venture.

    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    Now that MS is in the hardware game, I wonder if we might not see an Xbone/PC hybrid from them.

    It already is a pc? They've been in the hw game for a while

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Phyphor wrote: »
    Now that MS is in the hardware game, I wonder if we might not see an Xbone/PC hybrid from them.

    It already is a pc? They've been in the hw game for a while

    They weren't in the PC hardware game though. Surface hanged that. And the XBone is just a mouse, keyboard and some freedom to install programs away from bring a full on PC.

  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    So was the orignal xbox?

  • The EnderThe Ender Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    My recollection - and I could be misremembering - is that preliminary footage released for PS3 games also looked nicer than what we saw in comparable footage from 360 games. This didn't bear out in the actual games. I'm not going to put too much stock into anything but an actual released game. Even if the games are nicer, though, keep in mind this will affect a handful of exclusives.

    As someone who can't play every game I want to as-is, minor graphical improvements in a few games don't really sell me. 95% of the games I want to play will be available for me either way, and look nigh-identical, so if I don't get to play God of War 12, I'll be too busy playing 20 other games to notice. For me, then - and I think for a lot of people - it comes down to intangibles. Which system looks cooler? Which one has a more appealing navigation system? Which one has smoother online? Which system did I like better last time? Which one has "Bone" in the name?

    I mean, seriously. MS's new system has 100% more Bone in its name as compared to Sony's. This is a glaring oversight by Sony, and I think it's going to cost them.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-4HNmuEAKg

    You are not misremembering at all, @ElJeffe.

    'OH YEAH. THAT IS TOTALLY RENDERED IN GAME. TOTALLY.'


    I would love it if this could be the start of some players in the industry taking a step back and saying, "Okay. How far do we really want to push fidelity? There's obviously a point of diminishing returns as far as more polygons -> better sales go, so where is that point? Have we already passed it*? Maybe scaling down and learning from the successes of other new players in the market, or that Wii thing everyone likes to trash talk after they already bought two, is a Thing We Could Do."

    *
    We went smoking passed it. Screaming, even. Smoking and screaming passed it, while passengers tried and fatally failed to surf on the roof.

    With Love and Courage
  • Salvation122Salvation122 Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    SNES, I think. Though I'm sure there's still people who would argue that the Genesis was technically the more powerful system (it wasn't, and I was a gigantic Sega fanboy back in the day)

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited May 2013
    The Ender wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    My recollection - and I could be misremembering - is that preliminary footage released for PS3 games also looked nicer than what we saw in comparable footage from 360 games. This didn't bear out in the actual games. I'm not going to put too much stock into anything but an actual released game. Even if the games are nicer, though, keep in mind this will affect a handful of exclusives.

    As someone who can't play every game I want to as-is, minor graphical improvements in a few games don't really sell me. 95% of the games I want to play will be available for me either way, and look nigh-identical, so if I don't get to play God of War 12, I'll be too busy playing 20 other games to notice. For me, then - and I think for a lot of people - it comes down to intangibles. Which system looks cooler? Which one has a more appealing navigation system? Which one has smoother online? Which system did I like better last time? Which one has "Bone" in the name?

    I mean, seriously. MS's new system has 100% more Bone in its name as compared to Sony's. This is a glaring oversight by Sony, and I think it's going to cost them.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-4HNmuEAKg

    You are not misremembering at all, @ElJeffe.

    'OH YEAH. THAT IS TOTALLY RENDERED IN GAME. TOTALLY.'


    I would love it if this could be the start of some players in the industry taking a step back and saying, "Okay. How far do we really want to push fidelity? There's obviously a point of diminishing returns as far as more polygons -> better sales go, so where is that point? Have we already passed it*? Maybe scaling down and learning from the successes of other new players in the market, or that Wii thing everyone likes to trash talk after they already bought two, is a Thing We Could Do."

    *
    We went smoking passed it. Screaming, even. Smoking and screaming passed it, while passengers tried and fatally failed to surf on the roof.

    There has literally never been a point where fidelity is more important than art design, no matter what anyone says.

    Fencingsax on
  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    I gotta say, I'm done with paying extra for a console's online service. If the XBone requires me to pay for XBox Live to do multiplayer (and I'm sure it will) then I'm out. Same goes for the PS4, though it's certainly possible they won't charge extra for that.

    steam_sig.png
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    From what I'm told the PS3s bigger failing is Sony's hardware and software is not nearly as easy to program for.

    Towards the end of the consoles gens they're still learning tricks to get games running on the 360 that graphically should kick the system's ass(stuff like skyrim and Assassins Creed). Where games like that seems to suffer considerably on the PS3

  • BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    I always felt that lack of power is what killed the Dreamcast.

  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    I always felt that lack of power is what killed the Dreamcast.

    I always felt the ridiculous ease of making copies of games is what killed the Dreamcast. One of my friends in college literally had a binder of like 200 CD-Rs with Dreamcast games on them.

    steam_sig.png
  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    I've got some cash saved up. I'm leaning towards the PS4 right now, but there really aren't enough details about either console to definitively choose one over the other yet. If they both suck, I'll just spend the money on a decent media PC that can also play games.

  • BSoBBSoB Registered User regular
    chrisnl wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    I always felt that lack of power is what killed the Dreamcast.

    I always felt the ridiculous ease of making copies of games is what killed the Dreamcast. One of my friends in college literally had a binder of like 200 CD-Rs with Dreamcast games on them.

    Right, games were so easily available that nobody wanted to buy the system... that happened.

  • EmperorSethEmperorSeth Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    SNES, I think. Though I'm sure there's still people who would argue that the Genesis was technically the more powerful system (it wasn't, and I was a gigantic Sega fanboy back in the day)

    I was just thinking that. Maybe Jeffe counts the Neo-Geo as a legitimate contender, though.

    You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
  • EmperorSethEmperorSeth Registered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    I always felt that lack of power is what killed the Dreamcast.

    I'm pretty sure the last three Sega systems are what killed the Dreamcast.

    You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    BSoB wrote: »
    chrisnl wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    I always felt that lack of power is what killed the Dreamcast.

    I always felt the ridiculous ease of making copies of games is what killed the Dreamcast. One of my friends in college literally had a binder of like 200 CD-Rs with Dreamcast games on them.

    Right, games were so easily available that nobody wanted to buy the system... that happened.

    Simply buying the console is not enough to make the console successful for the company making it, unless the console is sold at a profit from the get-go. You need to sell software, too.

    DarkPrimus on
  • The EnderThe Ender Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    I always felt that lack of power is what killed the Dreamcast.

    Games journalism crapping all over the Dreamcast, a lack of a DVD Rom, Sega's market share being sandwiched between huge players in redefined market and, yes, Sega's lagging technology - which meant that thrid parties abandoned it in favor of systems that were meatier, had wider audience appeal and were more secure - collectively hurt the Dreamcast's sales. Ultimately, Sega deciding to pull the plug on hardware manufacturing is what actually killed the system.

    It was not a 'lack of power' that somehow doomed it from the get-go.

    The Ender on
    With Love and Courage
  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    edited May 2013
    And a lack of let's call it market momentum. Did sega have a successful system after the genesis? Sega CD was pretty meh, 32x was a joke, gamegear couldn't compete(I can't even remember their other technologically awesome, commercial failure of a handheld), saturn was poorly received...

    By the time the dreamcast rolled around Sega had been scrub tier for almost a decade, and most of the competition was between sony and nintendo(not that the market wasn't ripe for the Xbox Genus Edition), right?

    redx on
    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • The EnderThe Ender Registered User regular
    This is where TSR arrives with a puff of brimstone to tell us all about how, really, when you look at it, Sega basically saved the entire world and nobody even thanked them for it. :P

    No, Sega was by no means some washed-up company by the time the Dreamcast was being released. The Saturn actually had really good sales in Japan, and the Sega add-ons - while failures - were pretty far removed from Sega's later trials.

    The fact is that Sony entering the market meant that the market changed in a very big way, and Sega did not want to try adapting to that change, so they bowed out.

    With Love and Courage
  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Worldwide sales figures
    PlayStation – 102.49 million shipped (Japan: 21.59, US: 40.78, Europe: 40.12) [39] including PSone – 28.15 million shipped [39]
    Nintendo 64 – 32.93 million[8][40] (Japan: 5.54 million, the Americas: 20.63 million, other: 6.75 million)[8]
    Sega Saturn – 9.5 million[37] (Japan: 6 million, North America: 2 million,[34] Europe: 1.5 million)
    3DO - 2 million[41]

    From wikipedia. But it's important to remember the PS1 stuck around for a far longer time than those other consoles, so it wasn't as crushing a defeat as it appears here. The saturn fared about as well in Japan as the N64.

    I think it could be said that stepping up to discs with the DC was an attempt at that adaption, but it was a heck of a failure for a lot of reasons.

    It certainly wasn't anything close to a decade though. even if you just count from the original genesis.

    redx on
    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Also of interest, the XBone can offload non-latency dependent calculations to the cloud. But, since you can play games without an Internet connection, the games need to be scaled down when you are off line. This, along with the PS4/XBone power disparity, suggests that for the first time ever, developers of console games need to account for some degree of power scaling. Games being designed to look good on the base, mainstream hardware powering the XBone, but which scale up when more power is present? Sound like the perfect direction for development to go in for real gaming on comparable hardware in tablets/laptops/phones to become the norm.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    SNES, I think. Though I'm sure there's still people who would argue that the Genesis was technically the more powerful system (it wasn't, and I was a gigantic Sega fanboy back in the day)

    I was just thinking that. Maybe Jeffe counts the Neo-Geo as a legitimate contender, though.

    Keep in mind that "there was no correlation" doesn't mean "the more powerful hardware never won". Because that would, itself, be a correlation. What I mean is that it doesn't matter. (And no, the Neo-Geo wasn't a contender. Nor the Jaguar, 3DO, or CD-i.)

    If the DC could be said to have failed because of lack of power, it would be because it didn't meet the minimum threshold for graphics. It wasn't just below the PS2 et al in terms of power, it was considerably below them. It wasn't as bad as Wii versus PS360, but it was pretty bad. That said, my belief has been that the DC lost before the first system hit shelves, simply by pissing off the user base.

    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • HedgethornHedgethorn Associate Professor of Historical Hobby Horses In the Lions' DenRegistered User regular
    BSoB wrote: »
    chrisnl wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    I always felt that lack of power is what killed the Dreamcast.

    I always felt the ridiculous ease of making copies of games is what killed the Dreamcast. One of my friends in college literally had a binder of like 200 CD-Rs with Dreamcast games on them.

    Right, games were so easily available that nobody wanted to buy the system... that happened.
    Wikipedia wrote:
    Worldwide sales standings [edit]
    PlayStation 2 153.6 million (as of November 21, 2011)[29]
    Xbox 24 million (as of May 10, 2006)[4][5]
    GameCube 21.74 million (as of September 30, 2010)[6]
    Dreamcast 10.6 million (as of September 6, 2002)[30][31]

    Considering the Dreamcast was discontinued after about 18 months, it actually compares pretty favorably to the OXbox and Gamecube, which were both marketed for 4-5 years.

    And my college roommate also had a binder full of every Dreamcast game. I'm not even sure he ever played half of those games.

  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    Yeah I mean I'm not normally one to blame piracy for the ills of a market or console or whatever, but the Dreamcast really seemed to be hurt by the ease of copying. I realize that not everybody had a binder full of pirated games for the console, and the console had a bunch of other problems to overcome, but that additional factor certainly didn't help.

    steam_sig.png
  • Salvation122Salvation122 Registered User regular
    chrisnl wrote: »
    BSoB wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Knight_ wrote: »
    I just don't think power is going to win the generation. Of course, I also don't think anyone is going to win the generation, I expect a split of some sort at best, and bad things happening to both makers at worst depending on how AAA gaming moves in the next few years.

    Power has never won a console generation. There a certain minimum graphical threshold a console has to meet, and beyond that it's pretty much irrelevant. Like, if you look at the most powerful console of each gen versus the most successful console, there is literally no correlation at all.

    I always felt that lack of power is what killed the Dreamcast.

    I always felt the ridiculous ease of making copies of games is what killed the Dreamcast. One of my friends in college literally had a binder of like 200 CD-Rs with Dreamcast games on them.

    Ridiculous hype over the PS2 and Sega burning both retailers and consumers previously is what killed the Dreamcast. Piracy just put the dirt on the coffin.

  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    Plus Sega managed to piss off some key third party developers too, EA specifically boycotted the system at a time where their sports games were a huge draw from console players

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    As far as tech I'd like to see in the next gen - and I've mentioned this in past console threads - I want some non-hideous fidelity on my shadow and lighting models. I would like to see the main characters not being ravaged by giant gray pixel monsters. Better dynamic lighting, maybe some full-blown radiosity going on, hi-res shadow maps, gimme all that shit. Poly counts and textures are pretty sweet where they are, but shadows are generally these big ugly things. Please fix that MS and Sony, kthxbi.

    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • EtiowsaEtiowsa Registered User regular
    Well, they should actually be able to do that with all the ram they are adding. Shit, I'm amazed at how well they managed to do with the puny amount they used this gen.

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Etiowsa wrote: »
    Well, they should actually be able to do that with all the ram they are adding. Shit, I'm amazed at how well they managed to do with the puny amount they used this gen.

    I think my car has more ram than the 360. I'm not even joking.

  • Salvation122Salvation122 Registered User regular
    Plus Sega managed to piss off some key third party developers too, EA specifically boycotted the system at a time where their sports games were a huge draw from console players

    In fairness the NFL/NBA/MLB2k games were flatly better than EA's

    Lost out on the NCAA games, though

  • Salvation122Salvation122 Registered User regular
    Etiowsa wrote: »
    Well, they should actually be able to do that with all the ram they are adding. Shit, I'm amazed at how well they managed to do with the puny amount they used this gen.

    Seriously. Say what you will about the gameplay or story or whatever but Halo 4 looks like something I expected on the next gen consoles and it came out last year.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    I'm currently playing Bioshock: Infinite and it is one of the prettiest things I've ever seen. Like, stop doing gameplay stuff so I can walk around the environment gawking at everything levels of pretty. So yeah, they can do some amazing shit already. I can't wait to see what they can do with 8 times the RAM.

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  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Also of interest, the XBone can offload non-latency dependent calculations to the cloud. But, since you can play games without an Internet connection, the games need to be scaled down when you are off line. This, along with the PS4/XBone power disparity, suggests that for the first time ever, developers of console games need to account for some degree of power scaling. Games being designed to look good on the base, mainstream hardware powering the XBone, but which scale up when more power is present? Sound like the perfect direction for development to go in for real gaming on comparable hardware in tablets/laptops/phones to become the norm.

    This is marketing bs, same as it was for simcity. Notice how both xbone and ps4 have the exact same cpu? They will handle the exact same compute payloads. Cloud offloads are only useful for multiplayer (with dedicated resources and calculations 1 second in the future), the only thing I can think of that might apply is pathfinding. Except they'll still need to make sure they can get it done on platforms without it (ps4) or if the network hiccups

    They've always had to handle platform scalability - high end pcs have always dominated in resources and previous consoles were not nearly as equal as this gen will be! The biggest change this generation is that they're adding ram in parity with pcs. So many games have had terrible pc ports because of the assumption of no ram. Now they can do expansive worlds. No more gta3-must-keep-car-in-view-or-it-disappears crap

    Phyphor on
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Phyphor wrote: »
    Also of interest, the XBone can offload non-latency dependent calculations to the cloud. But, since you can play games without an Internet connection, the games need to be scaled down when you are off line. This, along with the PS4/XBone power disparity, suggests that for the first time ever, developers of console games need to account for some degree of power scaling. Games being designed to look good on the base, mainstream hardware powering the XBone, but which scale up when more power is present? Sound like the perfect direction for development to go in for real gaming on comparable hardware in tablets/laptops/phones to become the norm.

    This is marketing bs, same as it was for simcity. Notice how both xbone and ps4 have the exact same cpu? They will handle the exact same compute payloads. Cloud offloads are only useful for multiplayer (with dedicated resources and calculations 1 second in the future), the only thing I can think of that might apply is pathfinding. Except they'll still need to make sure they can get it done on platforms without it (ps4) or if the network hiccups

    They've always had to handle platform scalability - high end pcs have always dominated in resources and previous consoles were not nearly as equal as this gen will be! The biggest change this generation is that they're adding ram in parity with pcs. So many games have had terrible pc ports because of the assumption of no ram. Now they can do expansive worlds. No more gta3-must-keep-car-in-view-or-it-disappears crap
    Our first question had to do with the 300,000-server cloud architecture that Microsoft says the Xbox One will use to help support "latency-insensitive computation" in its games. What does that mean exactly, and can laggy cloud data really help in a video game where most things have to be able to respond locally and immediately?

    "Things that I would call latency-sensitive would be reactions to animations in a shooter, reactions to hits and shots in a racing game, reactions to collisions," Booty told Ars. "Those things you need to have happen immediately and on frame and in sync with your controller. There are some things in a video game world, though, that don't necessarily need to be updated every frame or don't change that much in reaction to what's going on."

    "One example of that might be lighting," he continued. "Let’s say you’re looking at a forest scene and you need to calculate the light coming through the trees, or you’re going through a battlefield and have very dense volumetric fog that’s hugging the terrain. Those things often involve some complicated up-front calculations when you enter that world, but they don’t necessarily have to be updated every frame. Those are perfect candidates for the console to offload that to the cloud—the cloud can do the heavy lifting, because you’ve got the ability to throw multiple devices at the problem in the cloud."

    Booty added that things like physics modeling, fluid dynamics, and cloth motion were all prime examples of effects that require a lot of up-front computation that could be handled in the cloud without adding any lag to the actual gameplay. And the server resources Microsoft is putting toward these calculations will be much greater than a local Xbox One could handle on its own. "A rule of thumb we like to use is that [for] every Xbox One available in your living room we’ll have three of those devices in the cloud available," he said.

    While cloud computation data doesn't have to be updated and synced with every frame of game data, developers are still going to have to manage the timing and flow of this cloud computing to avoid noticeable changes in graphic quality, Booty said. “Without getting too into the weeds, think about a lighting technique like ambient occlusion that gives you all the cracks and crevices and shadows that happen not just from direct light. There are a number of calculations that have to be done up front, and as the camera moves the effect will change. So when you walk into a room, it might be that for the first second or two the fidelity of the lighting is done by the console, but then, as the cloud catches up with that, the data comes back down to the console and you have incredibly realistic lighting."

    http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/how-the-xbox-one-draws-more-processing-power-from-cloud-computing/

  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Physics modelling is usually pretty essential to compute in realtime, and when it's not, you still have to show something moving and integration of two different physics calculations... I'm just glad I'm not going to be in charge of figuring that out. Cloth and fluid simulations AFAIK don't have particularly large setup times, but do have rather steady compute payloads. I suppose they could precompute the entire motion... but that also supposes no interaction with these objects that would invalidate the simulation. Not exactly what we want from next-gen - cool-looking, static, non-interactive things. Lighting would depend on the specific location and rendered geometry... for their example of lighting in a forest, hopefully the trees aren't going to be static, so the solution would have to be constantly recomputed and the data transmission will be a bottleneck for that. It could work for fixed environments like a room with a window though, but those are ripe for precomputing at build time anyway. The cloud needs data to work and needs to give you back data and we're still incredibly constraied in that department. If you need to send 60k of data that could easily take half a second on broadband.

    And again, they're still going to have to handle the same things on PS4 without a cloud

    I'll believe it when I see it

    Phyphor on
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    While cloud computation data doesn't have to be updated and synced with every frame of game data, developers are still going to have to manage the timing and flow of this cloud computing to avoid noticeable changes in graphic quality, Booty said. “Without getting too into the weeds, think about a lighting technique like ambient occlusion that gives you all the cracks and crevices and shadows that happen not just from direct light. There are a number of calculations that have to be done up front, and as the camera moves the effect will change. So when you walk into a room, it might be that for the first second or two the fidelity of the lighting is done by the console, but then, as the cloud catches up with that, the data comes back down to the console and you have incredibly realistic lighting."

    So it'll be like how when I start streaming a movie on Netflix, the video quality fucking sucks, but then the network pulls its head out of its ass and I get decent video, and then every now and then it hiccups? Because I fucking hate that, and I really would rather not have my games pull the same shit.

    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Something along those lines yeah. Also if you're playing multiplayer the extra data used by this also causes you to lag, so you'll have to turn it off and play with low graphics anyway!

    Phyphor on
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Phyphor wrote: »
    Physics modelling is usually pretty essential to compute in realtime, and when it's not, you still have to show something moving and integration of two different physics calculations... I'm just glad I'm not going to be in charge of figuring that out. Cloth and fluid simulations AFAIK don't have particularly large setup times, but do have rather steady compute payloads. I suppose they could precompute the entire motion... but that also supposes no interaction with these objects that would invalidate the simulation. Not exactly what we want from next-gen - cool-looking, static, non-interactive things. Lighting would depend on the specific location and rendered geometry... for their example of lighting in a forest, hopefully the trees aren't going to be static, so the solution would have to be constantly recomputed and the data transmission will be a bottleneck for that. It could work for fixed environments like a room with a window though, but those are ripe for precomputing at build time anyway. The cloud needs data to work and needs to give you back data and we're still incredibly constraied in that department. If you need to send 60k of data that could easily take half a second on broadband.

    And again, they're still going to have to handle the same things on PS4 without a cloud

    I'll believe it when I see it

    something useful (!) from the comments:
    The way I understood it (or rather how I would design it), is that the xbox1 is capable of doing the calculations in real time all on its own, but that means that it is running at full CPU usage all the time when adding in all the other calculations being performed. This can work, but is inefficient, wastes power, causes excessive wear on the components, and generates excessive noise and heat. The ideal thing to do is take a portion of the calculations, run them on a remote server where they will finish far faster, and then load the results into memory, so that some of the load can be removed from the console CPU.

    In order to figure out which calculations to off load we need to categorize the calculations. Obviously some calculations can never be offloaded because they are direct reactions to your controller input (running, shooting, driving, etc.), and then some calculations can be cached because they never need to be recalculated (terrain, menu animations, cut-scenes, etc.). Then there are calculations whose initial conditions are variable, but whose variability is fixed over a short time frame; stuff like room/terrain lighting, or weather conditions, or NPCs walking around a market. Calculating the room shadows, or how the sun hits a waterfall cannot be done ahead of time if a game has an open structure and a day/night cycle. However, once the initial conditions are set (time of day, wind, rain, etc.) they are going to change according to an algorithm (or several algorithms), and that means that they can be precalculated by a remote server.

    So the best way to think about this remote processing thing is not that the graphics quality is going to jump up and down, but that the CPU/GPU fan will be able to slow down/turn off more often which will actually improve immersion.

    Keep in mind that this is just how I would design it, but I would be surprised if the engineers at microsoft didn't come up with a similar approach.

    I have no idea is this makes sense though.

  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    edited May 2013
    That is probably sort of what they're going for yeah, but I think they're being optimistic in its usability. NPC walking around a market is just pathfinding, something they definitely can offload because that does change very slowly and the data is minimal (positions of actors and a path), lighting works if it's an open environment or a static light source like a window, but since most of that is handled by the GPU shaders, there's only so much they can precalculate. Certain effects with lighting and realistic shadows require exact geometry present for computation (or you just get the current jaggy shadows) and that can be tough to send in realtime and would just look bad if it lags. Or you just precalculate the main world and have to do most of the work locally anyway

    Running the machine less hot will help a bit with lifetime, if that's what they're going for... but the devs who would have to do all this work don't care about that

    Phyphor on
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