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Hitting the Ceiling: PGR4 limited by DVD

13

Posts

  • DigDug2000DigDug2000 Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Dirty wrote: »
    There is no great solution to this issue. Procedural textures would take away from some of the realism. More texture compression would take away from the prettiness. Disc-swapping would be a hassle for this type of game. The HDD isn't an option for many reasons.
    Would disc swapping really be that bad? Put half the tracks on one disc, and half on the other. On the track selection screen, don't show the ones that aren't on this particular disc. When you put the game in, you put the disc in with the track you want to play. How hard is that?

    DigDug2000 on
  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    DigDug2000 wrote: »
    Dirty wrote: »
    There is no great solution to this issue. Procedural textures would take away from some of the realism. More texture compression would take away from the prettiness. Disc-swapping would be a hassle for this type of game. The HDD isn't an option for many reasons.
    Would disc swapping really be that bad? Put half the tracks on one disc, and half on the other. On the track selection screen, don't show the ones that aren't on this particular disc. When you put the game in, you put the disc in with the track you want to play. How hard is that?

    Memorizing which tracks are on which disc would not be fun, neither would having to be looking it up to play a track you want.

    It will also make online play difficult for users, because then if you switch to a track not on your disc, boom, you've just delayed everyone while you get up and go change discs.


    I'm torn on this issue. It really does strike me as lazy development that they coulnd't do lighting the way pretty much every other game does to make it work, instead they use hi-res textures for everything, which really takes up a lot of space. They didn't have to make it hit the ceiling, but they chose to.

    wunderbar on
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  • CherrnCherrn Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    I'm absolutely positive that they could do it another way and still make it work. But it'd probably take longer time/cost loads more money, which is probably already a problem given how expensive it is to make a game like that.

    Cherrn on
    All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
  • DrezDrez Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    DigDug2000 wrote: »
    Dirty wrote: »
    There is no great solution to this issue. Procedural textures would take away from some of the realism. More texture compression would take away from the prettiness. Disc-swapping would be a hassle for this type of game. The HDD isn't an option for many reasons.
    Would disc swapping really be that bad? Put half the tracks on one disc, and half on the other. On the track selection screen, don't show the ones that aren't on this particular disc. When you put the game in, you put the disc in with the track you want to play. How hard is that?
    I have absolutely no desire to play a racing game with disc swapping, just for the record.

    Drez on
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  • MonkeydryeMonkeydrye Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    You are all right...They COULD do it in a way that made it fit. But that would mean more time and money. So, rather than spending the time and money to do something that likely won't effect sales a whole heck of a lot, you are going to get less product. Deal with it.

    Monkeydrye on
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  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited August 2007
    mausmalone wrote: »
    EDIT: btw, they're not just slapping high resolution photos on these buildings either. They're using photos as source material to create high res textures without any lighting on them so that the lightmap can do its job later.
    Pre-baked shadows, the future of gaming.


    In Half-Life 1.

    Glal on
  • mausmalonemausmalone Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Glal wrote: »
    mausmalone wrote: »
    EDIT: btw, they're not just slapping high resolution photos on these buildings either. They're using photos as source material to create high res textures without any lighting on them so that the lightmap can do its job later.
    Pre-baked shadows, the future of gaming.

    In Half-Life 1.

    o_O ... why not just say "texture maps, the future of gaming .... in Quake" ... or "polygons, the future of gaming .... in Virtua Racing?"

    A technology doesn't become completely irrelevant just because it's been around for a while, and it doesn't stop evolving either. The lightmaps in a game like PGR4 are nothing like the ones in HL, and the global illumination solver used to generate those lightmaps is orders of magnitude more complex than the one used for HL.

    mausmalone on
    266.jpg
  • .la1n.la1n Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Monaro wrote: »
    Threepio wrote: »
    Man, there's no reason you'd ever need a hard drive or an integrated disc medium that can store more than a DVD.

    Ever.

    Seriously: Nelson-style HA-HA. I'm not generally one for a victory dance, but for all the dinguses (dingi?) who blathered on about Blu-ray being a terrible choice and something that would never be required in video games: Up yours.

    I mean that in a polite way, but damn, that feels good.

    My belief is that Sony's disadvantage of Blu Ray's cost far outweighs MS's disadvantage of limited capacity.

    Having said that, anyone who believed that DVD's capacity would not be strained this generation is being very naive. Looking at a typical PC install in the last two years would indicate this.

    I am of the opinion that Microsoft looked at this issue, and decided that a high definition disc format would be too cost prohibitive to address that.

    I don't mean this offensively but just out of curiosity - does anyone remember if people complained this much when the Sega Saturn or 3DO was around?

    Also, It is disheartening to hear PGR4 will not have the full content the developer intended but I don't think it will effect my enjoyment of the game, I loved 3 and I'm sure I will love 4. As for the Sony argument, you do have to realize that if the game was on PS3 that all the content would be there - that's all i'm saying - leaving it at that.

    .la1n on
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited August 2007
    mausmalone wrote: »
    o_O ... why not just say "texture maps, the future of gaming .... in Quake" ... or "polygons, the future of gaming .... in Virtua Racing?"

    A technology doesn't become completely irrelevant just because it's been around for a while, and it doesn't stop evolving either. The lightmaps in a game like PGR4 are nothing like the ones in HL, and the global illumination solver used to generate those lightmaps is orders of magnitude more complex than the one used for HL.
    I'm just amused at the hyping of decade-old tech in a game from the generation of consoles lauded for Extreeeeeeeeme Graphical Capabilities. I guess from my point of view is kind of like pointing out an expensive sports car, then praising its lack of computer-controlled steering.

    Glal on
  • FireflashFireflash Montreal, QCRegistered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Is it currently impossible to attain this level of graphics using all real-time lighting? I mean, real life doesn't have 2 sets of textures for day and night. Can't they have an engine where texture are drawn with their "true" colors and be appropriately affected by the realtime lighting?

    Fireflash on
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  • slash000slash000 Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    What the heck, guys.

    The way they're doing lighting in PGR4 is a much better way to get photo-realistic tracks running in realtime rather than trying to contrive an engine that does it for them.

    The amount of power required to render something like the typical screenshot of PGR4, in real time, would require a massive amount of power if all of the lighting were done all at once. There'd be no way that they could make it as realistic as they have if they could not get most of the shadows there in place beforehand.


    The fact is, a realtime lighting system would be a waste of their time and money, and would not look as realistic as their current method. Not only would they have to cut back on polygons/texture resolutions/etc to make the game run better while it renders all of the shadows and such, or alternatively simply have ugly/unrealistic shadows/lighting, but it would add a great deal of development time compared to the current method. And more importantly, most of the lighting/shadows in racing games are fixed because nothing besides the cars are moving from a fixed/predetermined path.

    slash000 on
  • Dinosaur_NeilDinosaur_Neil Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    lol microsoft, "oh no it's a different time of day on the track, gotta change the disk!"and it's only gonna get worse :P

    Dinosaur_Neil on
  • BaronVonSnakPakBaronVonSnakPak Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    http://www.bizarrecreations.com/article.php?article_id=5257
    We've never had to cut content to fit on the disc, and we probably never will.

    BaronVonSnakPak on
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  • cloudeaglecloudeagle Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Whelp, this was pointless.

    cloudeagle on
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  • DigDug2000DigDug2000 Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    wunderbar wrote: »
    DigDug2000 wrote: »
    Dirty wrote: »
    There is no great solution to this issue. Procedural textures would take away from some of the realism. More texture compression would take away from the prettiness. Disc-swapping would be a hassle for this type of game. The HDD isn't an option for many reasons.
    Would disc swapping really be that bad? Put half the tracks on one disc, and half on the other. On the track selection screen, don't show the ones that aren't on this particular disc. When you put the game in, you put the disc in with the track you want to play. How hard is that?

    Memorizing which tracks are on which disc would not be fun, neither would having to be looking it up to play a track you want.

    It will also make online play difficult for users, because then if you switch to a track not on your disc, boom, you've just delayed everyone while you get up and go change discs.
    I know that this issue has been solved, but this comment just seems dumb to me. Publishers can write the track names on the front of the disc, or put pictures on their for the growing population of illiterate gamers. You don't have to spend time memorizing shit. Online games would probably just be limited to only racing people who were using your particular disc right then. All I'm saying is that a racing game can use multiple discs and not be a total pain in the ass. It isn't as if you're going to race 3 laps and then have to swap discs. Having to put in the right disc to match your friends is something that you already have to do on both the 360 and PS3. You chat with a friend. Decide to play Gears or something, and then get up and put the disc in. Its not like it would change life that much.

    DigDug2000 on
  • AccualtAccualt Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    When we started designing PGR4 our primary goals were to create a great and unique experience over and above PGR3, to push the hardware as far as we could, and obviously to ensure that we give great value for money. DVD size is absolutely not a factor that we consider when designing our games... and PGR4 is no exception. DVD9 gives us more than we need to create a fabulous experience for you guys.

    Welp.
    Okay.

    Accualt on
  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    haha, awesome. it's fun when threads are rendered pointless ;)

    wunderbar on
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  • PeekingDuckPeekingDuck __BANNED USERS regular
    edited August 2007
    lol sony?

    PeekingDuck on
  • TheSonicRetardTheSonicRetard Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    http://www.bizarrecreations.com/article.php?article_id=5257
    We've never had to cut content to fit on the disc, and we probably never will.

    I love hearing game devs talk about next gen wars. "There are advantages to each next gen format." They are so much more level headed than fans.

    TheSonicRetard on
  • CoJoeTheLawyerCoJoeTheLawyer Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    http://www.bizarrecreations.com/article.php?article_id=5257
    We've never had to cut content to fit on the disc, and we probably never will.

    I love hearing game devs talk about next gen wars. "There are advantages to each next gen format." They are so much more level headed than fans.

    Of course Game devs are more level headed. As long there is a format war, they're the ones getting F****** rich.

    CoJoeTheLawyer on

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  • The WolfmanThe Wolfman Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    I never understood the supposed allure of photo-realistic graphics in a racing game of all things. You're zipping along the track at 150 - 200 MpH. Who the heck has time to admire how shiny the texture is? If you slow down to look... surprise! You lose.

    Focus on the stuff you WILL see, like the cars. That I can appreciate. I'm really not going to care if the wall and buildings are a few polygons short if they're only a blur anyways when I pass them.

    The Wolfman on
    "The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    The guys who made .kkrieger should make a consulting firm.

    I know this is late, but they, uh, did.
    Well, they made a commercially licensable tool specifically for making procedural textures, at least.

    http://www.werkkzeug.com/

    japan on
  • The_SpaniardThe_Spaniard It's never lupines Irvine, CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    edited August 2007
    So is Nelson going to eat his haw haw now?

    The_Spaniard on
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  • FasihFasih Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Ok... A couple of things:

    1) There is a major difference between reading data off a harddrive and reading data of an optical medium (such as DVD, CD, HD-DVD, or BD) To put it simple, harddrives are made of circles, so to speak. They have multiple heads which can seek multiple pieces of data in a designated location. In short. Harddrives are fast.

    Optical media on the other hand, uses only one head (the lens) and they resemble a spiral instead of circles. Think of it as a continuous line. Now if the data was to be read in sequence (like a book) optical medium would have an advantage. It's head can read the data without lifting itself off the disc while the harddisk HAS to lose time taking its head off one circle and then putting it onto the other. But games hardly read data that way.

    In games lots of data and code is repeated. So things have to read over and over again. Therefore if the game is using an optical storage medium, lots of information is repeated at several intervals to make disc access faster. Also keep in mind that these optical media cannot be written on. So the machine cannot create a swap file or a buffer file. In short. The same game with the same loading time may take a lot less space on a harddisk then it takes on a DVD.

    2)Putting the remaining data onto the XBOX 360 harddrive would be a good idea. IF... as mentioned before... all XBOX 360s had a harddrive. But they don't. And the people who have no harddrives are unlikely to but them.

    It is a fact of games industry that in the entire history of this thing, not a single optional accessory reached the same pairing rate of 1:1 with the core device. Not even close to be called "successful" (the exception is the 500KB Extra Fast Memory Board for the AMIGA 500)

    So not only the makers of PGR4 would be excluding all those who do NOT have a harddrive but MS is probably pressuring developers to make their games in a way that they'd work on both SKUs. (and they are not wrong in doing this) It simply would not work.

    Furthermore most XBOX 360's have only 20 GB harddisk space and 8 of those GBs are usually reserved for the OS. So how much data do you want on your harddrive for ONE game? And what happens if all games suddenly start using this system? Think about a 3 disc racing game... Assume it uses DVD9... 3 discs. One in the drive. The other 2 on the harddisk? 18 GB on the harddisk? Only the elite users could play that game.

    And how many games would you want on your tiny harddisk really?


    3)Some people appearently do not understand the need to redo textures for the night. In lighting, fact is this: You cannot turn day into night and vice versa. The difference between day and night is not simply a difference in lighting. Any filmmaker would tell you that. You can use 10 Arc Lights of 12000W. And still not be able to turn day into night. Why? Because of many things...

    The sky is blue in the morning, and black at night. This is not a light issue. People turn on their lights at night. etc. It just doesn't work.

    Yes of COURSE it doesn't need to be perfect. You can work AROUND that. Who'd notice the subtle differences in lighting. Yeah sure. Just make it darker and add some light sources or the traffic lights yeah. But... this brings us to the fourth and final point...


    4)You can work around all this. You can use sloppy lighting, compressed textures etc etc. But the point here is the fact that you'd NEED to work around IT... "It" here, being the problem.

    If you need to work around it, it means there IS a problem. And in order to work around it you need to devote resources to working around and fixing problems. People fix problems. People cost money. Fixing costs time. And no one wants additional costs. These are all caused by low storage space. It's a as simple as that.

    Sure we don't NEED NEED Blu Ray... But for that matter, we also don't NEED DVDs really. In fact still some games on PS2 can fit easily onto a CD. Some games can be put on two CDs. Make it four. We had four CD games on PS1... why not on PS2 too.

    We don't need them. But it makes our lives much easier.


    BONUS POINT) There was a guy who accused sony with dividing the market and being obsessed by their own formats. Well.. that's what all companies do. There are simply two formats fighting. Why is it SONY who is dividing the market here?

    And for that matter in many TV studios people are still using the far superior BETA format for their cassettes. (superior to VHS) Think again if you think Sony is making crappy stuff.

    Fasih on
  • Death of RatsDeath of Rats Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Fasih wrote: »
    crappy stuff.

    I guess you missed that this thread was wrong and they didn't "hit the ceiling".

    Death of Rats on
    No I don't.
  • His CorkinessHis Corkiness Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    So is Nelson going to eat his haw haw now?

    Or Threepio.

    His Corkiness on
  • fragglefartfragglefart Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Threepio wrote: »
    Drez wrote: »
    Threepio wrote: »
    Man, there's no reason you'd ever need a hard drive or an integrated disc medium that can store more than a DVD.

    Ever.

    Seriously: Nelson-style HA-HA. I'm not generally one for a victory dance, but for all the dinguses (dingi?) who blathered on about Blu-ray being a terrible choice and something that would never be required in video games: Up yours.

    I mean that in a polite way, but damn, that feels good.

    Blu-Ray was, is, and always will be a terrible choice. Sorry, but this thread is not vindication for you.

    Perhaps you didn't hear me. Ha-fucking-ha. You're missing out on content (well, so am I, were I to purchase this game for MY 360) because DVD can't handle it. Blu-ray? Good choice. *fist pump*


    Really, that's just there to piss you off, but man, you've had it coming.

    Just so you know, you came prematurely.

    Ha-fucking-whatever.

    Going with DVD9 still meant the 360 came out in 2005, and not 2007, for a far cheaper price, and granted me like 15 months next-gen gaming while Sony got their shit together in Europe (let alone the time it is taking them to get their software library looking like anything interesting). If Microsoft made a mistake, it was making a hard-drive anything but mandatory, certainly not selecting DVD9 as a software delivery option over the clumsy next-gen-disk format war.

    If and (more likely when) DVD9 becomes a limiting factor for next gen gaming I might consider a Blue Ray equipped PS3 an attractive option. Until that time, I'll look upon it as a collective clusterfuck of overpriced bad judgment, a hardware Trojan horse with little relevance or benefit to the games I am currently enjoying.

    fragglefart on
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  • mausmalonemausmalone Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    So is Nelson going to eat his haw haw now?

    Or Threepio.

    I would say that we should lay off him because he gets enough fanboy/system war guff already ... but the *fist pump* was a little unnecessary.

    As was the "Up yours." And the "HA HA."

    mausmalone on
    266.jpg
  • KlykaKlyka DO you have any SPARE BATTERIES?Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    So, question:

    Would no one make anymore games for the 360 once they reach the "end of the DVD9"?

    Cause every time such a discussion starts, all the doom sayers make it sound as if the 360 would just stop and be done.

    Klyka on
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  • NohmanNohman Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Fasih wrote: »
    crappy stuff.

    I guess you missed that this thread was wrong and they didn't "hit the ceiling".
    You won't see different times of day per city because this involves recreating all the textures again (one for day and one for night). Whilst this wasn't a problem for our dev team, it was a problem fitting all this data onto a single DVD. So we've worked around the problem by providing different lighting models per city. For example, Macau is always in the daytime, but if you play it during a storm everything looks darker and more foreboding. If you play during a blizzard then things are slightly tinged blue and everything seems more frozen. Of course, playing this track in sunshine will make everything appear bright and yellowy. :D

    Ben

    Then why did a Bizzare employee on the company forums say they did, specifically citing the space on the DVD?

    He also then addressed having 2 discs,
    Ben again wrote:
    Having the game spread across two discs isn't an option for a number of reasons. Sorting out gameplay both in single and multiplayer where you always have to swap discs around would be difficult, and detrimental to the flow of the game. Also, having two discs puts the price of manufacturing up, and that's one we'd have to discuss with the publisher.

    As it stands, we've got the best of all options. We've got tonnes of cities, the best lighting effects we've ever done, and weather which dramatically changes the look of the cities too. And it all fits on one disc. :D

    Ben

    EDIT: Those quotes are taken from the Bizarre Creations company forum by the way, the article in the op links to CVG, which in turn links to the relevant topic.

    I have no idea if Bizarre are first or third party to Microsoft, but if anything, I'd wager the first statement is the truth, and then when they realised they inadvertently handed Sony a massive PR windfall about using Blu-Ray, they back pedaled as quickly as they could, not wishing to unnecessarily antagonise Microsoft.

    Nohman on
  • Tumbler 360Tumbler 360 Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Anyone know if the comment referred to a Single Sided DVD that was being filled for this game? I'm wondering if this comment was more of a gripe towards the distributor or producer. Whoever decides what type of disc this game will ship on.

    I think the first game probably shipped on a single sided DVD and the company probably wants to maximize profit so if they force the developers to use a single sided DVD it would probably piss them off enough to complain about it like this.

    I'm not convinced that games need a bigger format for now, the games we're seeing are good enough and long enough to justify the cost in most cases.

    Tumbler 360 on
  • KamiKami Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Yeah, it's a bit confusing.

    "We couldn't do everything we wanted, simply because we didn't want to push the threshold of data storage, as we don't want multiple discs."

    "Whattya talking about?! Of COURSE a single DVD is enough room! PFT, you kids and your crazy theories!"

    I mean, I completely respect the series, and Bizarre for actually coming out and saying that they couldn't do everything they wanted, but don't turn around and pull a 'sike!' on your audience. It doesn't make much sense.

    Kami on
  • MarlorMarlor Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    I think it's pretty obvious that if you have a lot of pre-rendered textures, then you are going to hit the capacity limit of a DVD.

    That's mainly an issue for games like this, where they want to cut down on dynamic lighting, so they just apply the lighting effects to the textures multiple times beforehand.

    Hell, you could fill a BluRay disc easily enough if you had enough tracks or rendered the textures for a large number of different scenarios.

    Marlor on
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  • The_SpaniardThe_Spaniard It's never lupines Irvine, CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    edited August 2007
    mausmalone wrote: »
    So is Nelson going to eat his haw haw now?

    Or Threepio.

    I would say that we should lay off him because he gets enough fanboy/system war guff already ... but the *fist pump* was a little unnecessary.

    As was the "Up yours." And the "HA HA."
    I was trying to be subtle..

    The_Spaniard on
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  • fragglefartfragglefart Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Nohman wrote: »
    stuff

    http://images.gamersyde.com/gallery/public/5998/1163_0001.jpg

    Does that look particularly compromised?

    fragglefart on
    fragglefart.jpg
  • darleysamdarleysam On my way to UKRegistered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Nohman wrote: »
    stuff

    http://images.gamersyde.com/gallery/public/5998/1163_0001.jpg

    Does that look particularly compromised?

    if it came down to it, i'd drop nighttime racing in an instant for those weather effects.

    darleysam on
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  • NohmanNohman Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Not at all there is no doubt whatsoever the game looks incredible, just they had a larger storage medium, the game could look incredible during the day and at night. :P

    The Project Gotham games never did anything for me, but I can certainly see teh appeal in them, and I'm certain that 4 will be as good if not better than the rest, I was merely pointing out that this thread was not "wrong" as the Death of Rats put it, a Bizarre employee publicly stated that yes, DVD capacity was going to restrict choices made in the games development.

    And even then, does it really matter? DVDs could theoretically limit whats possible with a game for the 360, same way the Wiis lack of power comparable to the PS3/360 may limit the games it can produce, or the standard controls of the PS3/360 preventing Wii titles crossing over, etc. Every console developer will have to deal with restrictions somewhere along the way, this just happens to be one of the 360s possible ones, and even then it's one that won't really affect a great many titles.

    I eagerly anticipate the expected "Please Insert Disc 2" screen for Mass Effect.

    EDIT: On a separate note, that collage of screens and real locations is the first actual set of screenshots I'd seen of PGR4 aside from those horrific blurry ones first released. It's hard enough to tell the difference between the real and rendered environments, at this rate PGR5 or 6 will be just about indistinguishable.

    And I'm sure this is where someone tells me they're all rendered, and then I feel silly.

    Nohman on
  • slurpeepoopslurpeepoop Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Nohman wrote: »
    Not at all there is no doubt whatsoever the game looks incredible, just they had a larger storage medium, the game could look incredible during the day and at night. :P

    The Project Gotham games never did anything for me, but I can certainly see teh appeal in them, and I'm certain that 4 will be as good if not better than the rest, I was merely pointing out that this thread was not "wrong" as the Death of Rats put it, a Bizarre employee publicly stated that yes, DVD capacity was going to restrict choices made in the games development.

    And even then, does it really matter? DVDs could theoretically limit whats possible with a game for the 360, same way the Wiis lack of power comparable to the PS3/360 may limit the games it can produce, or the standard controls of the PS3/360 preventing Wii titles crossing over, etc. Every console developer will have to deal with restrictions somewhere along the way, this just happens to be one of the 360s possible ones, and even then it's one that won't really affect a great many titles.

    I eagerly anticipate the expected "Please Insert Disc 2" screen for Mass Effect.

    EDIT: On a separate note, that collage of screens and real locations is the first actual set of screenshots I'd seen of PGR4 aside from those horrific blurry ones first released. It's hard enough to tell the difference between the real and rendered environments, at this rate PGR5 or 6 will be just about indistinguishable.

    And I'm sure this is where someone tells me they're all rendered, and then I feel silly.


    But the whole issue is that the DVD9 isn't what's limiting the game, it's Microsoft's attitude toward catering to the lowest common denominator, which is a terrible product of releasing gimped hardware.

    It would be the same issue if Sony was shortsighted to the point to release a hard-driveless PS3, which would render many PS3 games unplayable, no matter how big the discs are. Fortunately, this is one of the very few areas that Sony did not mess up, so games can be configured to take advantage of the hardware, whereas many 360 games cannot.

    There are many possible scenarios that would not only fix this situation, but could possibly make a couple extra bucks (DLC ftl), and all involve utilizing the hard drive.



    As an aside, all this "PS3 Blu-ray hooh-hah!!" drives me crazy. Even if this game spanned three DVDs, required a hard drive, AND charged money on XBL for extra options, it'd still cost $200 less to play than a PS3 version on one disc.

    slurpeepoop on
  • ThreepioThreepio New Westminster, BCRegistered User regular
    edited August 2007
    Rather than having two "fixed" times of day, this time around we decided to use our time to create a dynamic weather system.
    We've never had to cut content to fit on the disc, and we probably never will.

    Hmm, sounds like fixed times of day were cut. Yet, they're not! They decided to do something different this time.

    Honest.

    We swear it. Riiiiiiiight. Hear that dinging? The collective bullshit detectors all across the world, clanging in harmony.

    Threepio on
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  • NohmanNohman Registered User regular
    edited August 2007
    I agree, DVDs are only a limiting factor if developers are forced to work without any kind of larger storage medium at all, ie. the hard drive. Had Microsoft included one in all units, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

    They didn't however, so that's irrelevant. I can't really say if would be in Microsofts best interests to burn the current guidelines, and allow games to require the hard drive, without seeing a percentage make-up of Core/Premium systems, and hard drives to upgrade. I imagine they should, it gives Sony a minor PR victory for a week, and then is forgotten about when even more awesome games are released with the new scope allowed for. If they aren't going to change those guidelines, then this is simply something devs will have to deal with, for better or worse.

    Also, be fair, the PS3s Blu-ray drive is a boon to developers, or at least will be when Sony are eventually forced to drop the price of the PS3 to competitive levels and people start really buying them.

    Nohman on
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