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XBOX 360 - time to end the no hard drive lie 360 DOES CACHE TO HDD
tbloxham
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Its rapidly becoming apparent that the lack of a hard drive to pre-load textures to is a thorn in the side of the Xbox 360. With games requiring ever more texture preloading for high definition, pop in like the cut scenes in mass effect is simply going to become more prevalent. Clearly this is not only annoying, but unnecessary considering I don't think anyone has ever deliberately bought a 360 without a hard disk. Combine the annoyance for gaming, with the fact that Microsoft is increasingly placing the 360 as a viable option for movie rentals and TV streaming etc the totally undesired hard diskless model is limiting profits and consumer enjoyment.
So, I ask you this, is there anything stopping Microsoft from saying "enough is enough" and announcing that any publisher who can demonstrate the need for it, can put a sticker on the box saying "XBOX360 Hard Disk required for play". Would anyone be opposed to this, does anyone in the world own a core 360? Do we care about the feelings of those who do, or should we crush them beneath the Iron Shod heels of progress?
So, I ask you this, is there anything stopping Microsoft from saying "enough is enough" and announcing that any publisher who can demonstrate the need for it, can put a sticker on the box saying "XBOX360 Hard Disk required for play". Would anyone be opposed to this, does anyone in the world own a core 360? Do we care about the feelings of those who do, or should we crush them beneath the Iron Shod heels of progress?
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Supposedly they gave developers a choice when the hardware was being finalized you know. 256 MB of RAM and a hard drive in every system or 512 MB and this tiered launch bullshit.
Honestly they should have added $25 bucks to the core, taken a slightly bigger loss on the front end and had the premium hard drive in there and put a bigger HD in the new Premium or just have, you know, launched with one console. I'm sure the Elite would have come along anyways.
MS isn't fooling anyone.
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Its a bad idea though as it seriously cuts back the potential market buying the game. Despite the claim that everyone buys an Xbox 360 with a hard drive, many many xbox 360 owners will own a HDD less console.
Fuck Core owners...they're only playing Uno (Offline) and Scene It! anyway.
Honestly, I wish MS would just bite the bullet and release a cable enabling outside harddrives to be used. Like, encrypt the game saves so people don't hack them or something!
I can find a 500 GB HDD on newegg right the fuck now for the price of your 120 GB 'official' one. :x
They don't give the smallest possible fraction of a shit about people modifying game saves. Hell, go down to Best Buy and pick up one of Datel's fine products and you can connect your 360 drive to your computer and fuck with your game saves to your heart's content. Microsoft doesn't allow you to hook up third-party hard drives because they like the idea of making something like a 110% profit margin on that 120 gig hard drive that people are upgrading to.
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I'm confused. Would you rather it not reserve those seven gigabytes for game cache and the Xbox 1 emulator? I mean, then what would be the fucking point of having a hard drive?
Well, considering how bad similar effects tended to be on Jade Empire and KOTOR I'd say Bioware is mainly to blame for that.
The game assets pretty much flew of the disc. KOTOR and JE both run better on the PC and don't have so many hitches and pop in. There are a hand full of developers out there that also have the same problem.
PS3 is also guilty of some pop in, Unchartered had the occasional hiccup and the game has some pre loading.
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i think it's a great idea - i don't think i'll buy a 360 until something like this happens, but when it does, count me in
I've got 120GB BEVS series HDDs I paid $23.99 a piece for. I threw one in the PS3, one in the ailing laptop (dieing Seagate 120GB), and I saved one for an XBOX 360 upgrade (this just happens to be the drive needed to do TheSpecialist's self-upgrade hack). I just need a 20 giger to gut.
that wasn't really advertised, but honestly i have zero intentions on every playing a oxbox game.
That doesn't count. You know what the thread was really talking about, using an HD to cut down on loads and smooth out the general play.
1) Inadequacies in the UT3 engine by Epic
2) Bioware being silly enough to use an engine designed for small multiplayer maps and linear levels when their game is not that.
3) Bioware failing to use the UT3 engine to it's full potential. There is a trick to the UT3 engine where you can select what texture you wish to use first to avoid pop in. This was more of a time issue rather than any thing and Bioware did not have time to fully implment this.
Satans..... hints.....
Ok, so why the hell did that BIOWARE programmer say they couldn't do it? Something about going through some legal crap to do it and it wasn't worth their time.
It was in one of the Mass Effect threads.
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Cool. It uses the cache for 360 games, too, which is why load times are typically shorter when you have a hard drive.
I take it you haven't played Psychonauts?
That would be perhaps the dumbest thing that Microsoft could do this gen. You're essentially talking about a new console. Microsoft will never release games on HD-DVD; they're not stupid: they know what happened to Sega after they tried to do essentially the same thing with the Sega CD.
Not really missing out on much if he hasn't. To be honest, backwards compatability was always a less important feature on the 360. Basically a way to hold people off until they got Halo 3 on the way.
i don't think it's a dumb idea at all. there's a new console 'SKU' (shudder) for those who don't want to bother upgrading and/or are coming to the 360 for the first time, but all that most of the old users will need is a HD-DVD add-on. core users aren't ruled out completely, but they'll need a couple of upgrades instead of one.
i'm sorry but i simply don't see the XBOX competing meaningfully with the PS3 beyond another year or two without these additions, and they are both quite easy to implement. no need for re-structuring the inside, it's just a new optical drive tacked onto an elite or something. on the other hand, if they completely pulled out of the generation early for an entirely new system they might get a headstart, or they might just completely lose the trust of people who have invested in their systems hoping for a full generation worth of use. i'd be pissed if i bought a 360 only to have it made redundant by a whole new system which is still probably going to share a hell of a lot of multiplatform titles with the ps3
i think it'd be a good idea for them
Might want to get some source on that quote because that's wrong. Titles can cache to the HDD to improve load times and other items, however they cannot require the HDD to function except in titles that have been given express permission my Microsoft.
:roll:
The PS2 had no hard drive and one-fourth the RAM as the first Xbox, and yet the Xbox never quite managed to leave the PS2 in the dust, now did it? And let's face it here, RAM is a good deal more important than optical disc size.
Besides, HD-DVD is essentially dead. Microsoft doesn't want to tie itself to it any more than it has to.
Saying "hey, you need to buy a $200 add-on to play new games" is stupid and Sega ran that strategy right into not making consoles anymore.
Oh, certainly, and the fact that last gen, the Xbox and Gamecube versions of crossplatform titles were often saddled with the PS2's low-poly models and low-resolution textures kinda sucked, too, but it's a fact of life: multiplatform games are (with some exceptions, certainly!) designed for the console that's leading the market and then ported elsewhere. This time we're seeing some major hardware stratification between Nintendo's offering and everyone else's, which should throw things off a bit, but as far as 360/PS3 stuff goes, the PS3 will need to lead the market before companies start designing crossplatform games with its strengths in mind.
(of course this is all ignoring that the 360 has certain features that the PS3 doesn't have, too, but then that's not what this thread is really about)
The only reason you do an in-engine cutscene is if what you are trying to do involves waaaaay too much geometry or fast scene swapping than the system can handle.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
sorry, what i meant by in-engine cutscene was what you're saying - a cinematic event produced by the engine on the fly. i understand fmv will take up more room, as long as its not set in non-playable location full of new assets, for example
The entire point of you having a gaming system that runs from Optical Media is so you don't have to install anything onto a physical drive.
Very much why I'm digging my Wii.
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On the other hand, if you give people the option, it gives developers the potential to add much more to the game.
utilising the hard-drive isn't the same thing as installing a game. in uncharted, for example, you won't see a loading screen once other than when you first hit 'start' - you can play from beginning to end without loading ever again. it's all done with clever caching - the game doesn't even have an option to install. it's bloody great
hard-drives can be used for much much more than just permanent storage
Exactly, with a hard disk present we can cut down load times, use larger levels and textures and so forth. The option to use it, and so many more options beyond it, is why I am digging next generation consoles and think Microsoft need to get onto the bandwagon too
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To be fair though the amount of textures the Wii needs is fuckall compared to most graphical powerhouse games available for the 360&PS3.
Satans..... hints.....
Not gonna lie i had an original x-box. I never played it. Nothing interested me on it, except Burnout 3.