360 Limiting GTA IV In Some Ways

Last week CVG had a story from the Official PlayStation Magazine, a print entity partnered with the website, about limitations Rockstar faces on the 360. For almost the first time, we're now hearing about a title where lack of space on the disc and the lack of a guaranteed hard drive may be detrimental to Microsoft's console. "[Rockstar's creative vice president Dan Houser] continued, 'To be honest with you we haven't solved all those riddles yet.' The difficulties aren't limited to working on Microsoft's box, as Houser explains that 'both have enormous challenges' and that 'both have their own particular pleasures and pains'. Rockstar hasn't said anything about a target SKU between the two consoles, but they're currently demoing the game to press running on an Xbox 360 - so we wouldn't worry too much if you've only got Microsoft's console. Look for more on GTA IV in the next few weeks."

system requirements

[underwhelm]

One of the contributors at Kotaku suggested that Rockstar simply require the hard drive to play. I think that would be a great solution, but I'd be surprised if Microsoft let them do something like that.

Re:

[Lectoid]

Oblivion requires a hard drive. And that's been a pretty popular game.

Re:

[Jearil]

FFXI for the 360 requires a hard drive and it has (obviously) passed Microsoft's certification to run on the system.

Just saying that it's not an absolute requirement to run without a hard drive.

Re:

[EvilIdler]

People are expecting the Core to cease to exist. I'll allow MS+Rockstar this particular excluding move,
since the choice will be between Premium and Elite for new customers anyway.

Re:

[Fred Or Alive]

The Xbox 360 ports of Football Manager 2006 & 2007 both require the hard disc AFAIK, so it isn't totally unknown, although GTA IV would be the biggest titles to require it really, and it would be a kick in the bollocks for any idiots who thought they were getting anything like a good deal with the Crap Pack.

I don't see the problem

[Hubbell]

I'm THANKFUL they are running into this problem, maybe they won't make GTA4 the ridiculously countryside game that San Andreas was. I loved Vice City and GTA3, but San Andreas was FAR too open, you had no idea where the fuck you were without looking at the map every 5 seconds.

Re:I don't see the problem

[Applekid]

The problem was that the open areas of SA didn't really add to the game much. It's not like Oblivion where taking a detour could pay off in a neat cave or side story or something under the radar.

The aforementioned problem is a game design problem where extra stuff was padded in but not fleshed out. It was most certainly technically possible to remove that padding but they chose not to.

Technical limitations and getting around them aren't exactly going to help game design any.

Re:

[Durzel]

There also really isn't a vast amount of textures to deal with in Oblivion, many of the regions (especially the underground regions) look very similar. Oblivion masks this well by it's expansive and diverse storylines, it's a great game simply because there's just so many characters to interact with, things that change depending on your actions, etc. All of that is easy to squeeze onto a DVD.

GTA4 on the other hand is apparently going to include an accurate model of New York (with Rockstars own brand of hu

Re:

[metamatic]

Yeah. I thought San Andreas was the weakest GTA game. In Vice City it was worth wandering around exploring, because from time to time you'd find cool stuff. In San Andreas, most of the world was just empty scenery and buildings you couldn't enter.

I'd rather they spent more time on fleshing out the world and less on bleeding-edge graphics. Something the size of San Andreas but with the buildings more than textured boxes would be awesome.

I suspect I'm in the minority, though.

Re:I don't see the problem

[Xtravar]

I agree. And let's hope we don't have to sugar up girlfriends, feed ourselves, exercise ourselves, and dress ourselves in this one too. San Andreas was like a badass Sims game.

Re:

[RESPAWN]

I agree wholehartedly. I finally came back to GTASA last month with the intenet of finishing it up. I forgot how annoying the whole eating/exercising thing was. Eating restores health? Fine. Lose health if you don't eat enough? WTF. Exercising makes you stronger? Great. I have to keep exercising to maintain those muscles? I don't even do that in real life!

The dressing didn't bother me too much towards the end. Eventually I picked out some nice duds and just wore them for the rest of the game. Wh

Re:I don't see the problem

[TrevorB]

I may be in the minority in this thread, but I loved San Andreas' countryside because while it may have been a hindrance to gameplay, there was something else it added that a compressed city map couldn't: Mood.

The first thing I do when ever I've played any GTA game is to hop on a motorcycle and just drive for a few hours, listening to the radio stations. I'm guessing that not too many people here have ever driven on the California coast, but much like the maps of San Fran and Los Angeles, they absolutely nailed it. Driving through that countryside while tedious to some was beautiful to me. Just don't get out of your vehicle. :)

I did wish they fleshed out these areas and made them more than just visually appealing. Maybe Oblivion will give them a good swift kick in the ass on this one.

Re:

[sam0ht]

One man's meat... I loved the countryside in San Andreas, weaving through traffic at ridiculous speeds, going vigilante in the copter, etc. The missions in the countryside were pretty fun, too. Possibly driving-game fans like me are the only ones who like the wide open rural areas, though.

I love how that's gotten cut down

[deathsquirrel]

The interviewer asks specificaly if the 360 has limitations and the interviewee says that yes, both platforms have their challenges and this becomes "DVD and lack of built-in HD is limiting GTA4!!!

Re:

[Aphrika]

...and at that point, Mr Hauser probably thought "oh crap, we should be writing games for the PC"

Seriously though, they've got hard drives, and you can stick a game on multiple DVDs if necessary. It also hasn't been unknown for a game to be released on one specific media either - Farcry only came on DVD. Add to that the fact that 99% of game developers out there could happily develop on an x86 box rather than cryptic head-bending Cell or less common PowerPC code, and I think he'd be onto a winner.

Oh, th

Re:

[Zach978]

GTA as a PC only game would fail...PC gaming snobs must realize that the demographics are much different for PC gamers vs Console gamers, and that console games almost always outsell the PC equiv.

The two demographics:

• PC gaming - playing counterstrike/WoW, with virtual friends online, alone, in the dark.
• Console gaming - playing GTA/Madden, passing around the controller to friends (in real life), while at the same time passing the bong, listening to music, etc

Re:

[nschubach]

That's funny, cause my PC gaming is RTS or RPG, real life friends over the Internet with my light on. And my console gaming, I prefer long story driven content on the big screen alone in the dark...

Re:

[LWATCDR]

"or less common PowerPC code"
Most of they code they write is in C. Yes using the Cell has it's challenges but the PPC cores in the 360 are would be pretty straight forward. BTW for what you do have to code in assembly the PPC is MUCH nicer to code for than the X86.

Re:

[The Warlock]

Bigger userbase? Really?

Given the level of graphics in the trailer, how many PCs on the market do you think could handle GTA4? I'm going to guess a whole hell of a lot less than ten million. Remember, the current market leader in PC graphics chips is not AMD or nVidia, it's intel. Think about that for a minute. Intel doesn't have anything faster than the GMA 900. You think that's going to handle GTA4? It can't even handle GTA3.

Re:I love how that's gotten cut down

[Runefox]

Ahem. Not only is the GMA 950 more powerful and more popular these days, but ever heard of the X3000/X3100 [wikipedia.org]? You know, the up-and-coming Intel chip with hardware TnL, pixel shaders, vertex shaders, actual rendering pipelines, and a 667MHz dedicated core? That'll probably do it if you turn the settings down.

But let's face it here. People who buy PC's for games know what they're buying. People who buy PC's for $500 and expect it to play the latest games don't know what they're doing, buying, or even using, half the time. The problem is, in order for said PC's to be $500, they need to cut them down to be as bare as possible - A decently powerful system will probably cost someone upwards to $1000, which will be adequate to at least run newer games.

If you're just going for the games, you're fine with a console, though I personally vastly prefer the keyboard/mouse style of control. You'll save yourself some money with a console, though (well, that's the idea), and you'll get a few years out of it. If you're looking to do games, rip DVD's, browse the internet properly, use IM, e-mail, newsgroups, and generally multitask, you're looking at a better value out of a PC. For something that does both, $1000 isn't too far off the mark for the cost of a low-end PC and a game console.

Re:

[powerlord]

I imagine it's because the PS3's problems are just difficulty in programming, which programmers work hard at and get done. Whereas not having enough space to make your game is an obstacle that you can't really overcome with a little elbow grease.

Probably true. That I suppose is the real difference between the consoles this generation.

Nintendo: Interesting hardware that has "low" graphic limits, but has interesting interface possibilities. "Small" Optical Media (but not pushed because of "low" graphic lim

And the Solution?

[morari]

Dump the consoles. There's this thing, it's called a computer. It's that little (probably beige) box with an attached television-like thingie that you use to make the game anyway. It's much better...

Re:And the Solution?

[Rude Turnip]

My Xbox 360 is a computer. A very specialized one that is much more powerful than my desktop or laptop. It sits under my TV and is small and quiet. And, it's partly subsidized by Microsoft, so it's far cheaper for me, too. The best part...it's one fixed standard, aside from this hard drive issue (hint, screw you if you don't have a hard drive), so developers can develop for one fixed set of hardware.

Re:

[shidoshi]

When I play games, with the exception of Warcraft, I want to kick back on my couch and relax, not be hunched over my computer. Plus, I rather enjoy buying games without having to worry if my video card is good enough or if I have enough RAM for the game or whatever else.

Re:

[cbreaker]

My computer monitor is 23", not square but Widescreen, and I sit two feet from it. It's very large when you put it that way.

And why use a PC when you can use a game console? How about: It's extremely versatile, PC games are usually cheaper then console ones, it's cheap to upgrade them, you have a 101 button controller, and a mouse. There's no monthly fee to play most PC games, with the exception of MMORPG's, and MMORPG's exist for the PC.

FPS games are better with a mouse. Sorry, Halo might be fun bu

Re:

[Kelbear]

You have to factor in the PC's monitor into the cost if you include the TV in the console's cost. Also the TV size would be compared against the monitor's size. Not really fair to compare a 20inch monitor to a 50inch TV, not an apples to apples comparison.

Or in my case, I'm playing the wii and xbox360 off the same two monitors that my PC is hooked up to.

Monitors don't really fit into the equation.

The primary difference is that the consoles have less variance in their specs compared to PC. It's a pro and a c

some translation help needed

[yincrash]

What does this sentence mean exactly?

Rockstar hasn't said anything about a target SKU between the two consoles

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Stock Keeping Unit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_Keeping_Unit [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[jbellis]

"Rockstar hasn't announced which version of the PS3 (20GB/60) or 360 (Elite/Premium/Core) it will recommend for best performance."

Re:

[eln]

I think the submitter is either trying to convince us he's really into inventory management or he works in a warehouse. He is more likely, in reality, a hobo who sleeps in a dumpster outside of a warehouse, because even knowing the definition of SKU I can't figure out what he meant by that sentence.

Re:some translation help needed

[Cutriss]

Unlike the other reply, I'll try to actually help you out here.

What this statement means is that the reporter wants to know if Rockstar might stipulate that GTA IV for the 360 requires the hard disk, meaning that instead of potentially inhibiting the game by designing around a lack of hard disk, they would require the hard disk and simply require Core owners to buy one if they don't have one already. Rockstar has not made any indication about that.

The hard disk is standard in the PS3, so that's a known quantity on the PS3. It isn't required to play almost all the games on a 360 (the only ones I know of that require it are FFXI and the Halo 3 beta, and Halo 3 probably only requires it since the beta content is too big to be stored on a memory card). I don't have any real numbers but anecdotal evidence suggests that the number of Core 360s in the wild without a hard disk attached is very low. Considering the price of the HDD versus the memory card ($100 for 20 GB versus $40 for 0.05 GB), requiring the 360 to have a hard disk would not be an onerous burden for most gamers, I would think.

Re:

[yincrash]

I would believe this to be the most likely intent.
However, I also wanted to point out with my original post that using the term SKU should not be used in news articles because it doesn't really mean anything important unless you're in a warehouse or working at a store.
Basically, that was a really piss poor sentence because several replies to my post all inferred different meanings.

Yeah, MS really dropped the ball here

[Mr_eX9]

I thought from the very beginning that making the hard drive optional was a step backwards in the system's design.

The original Xbox was a really ballsy system overall. It was the first (commercially successful) console to have a hard drive and internet connectivity built-in. It brought LAN gaming and broadband online gaming to console gamers in a really big way. I thought it was really cool that if I played the same couple of maps or levels in Halo over and over it only had to load them once because Bungie was able to stream the files to the hard drive.

I feel like MS pussied out on the 360's design by removing the hard drive because they took that away from developers. Instead of innovating the console market again, they just seem to be riding on the success that they've already created. Now we're finally seeing a successful multi-platform developer complain about the 360's limitations. I don't think this looks very good for the 360 or for Microsoft.

P.S.: I'm sure the PS3 has development issues too--mainly the long load times as a result of the Blu-Ray disc and still figuring out the Cell architecture. But Rockstar is used to taking crap from Sony, so they're not complaining about it.

Re:

[SuperCharlie]

I agree and I squeeled like a stuck pig on my xbox forum of choice when I learned of no Hard Drive option in the 360's. I think the decision was made for a few reasons. First, I think the Hard Drive was what eventually bit MS on the rear towards the end of XB1 as far as cost. If I remember correctly (maybe not) that size drive went out of normal production and was expensive to include as the lifecycle ended. Also, besides the tard pack low cost option, I think they made the decision to up the RAM instead o

Re:

[Politburo]

If I remember correctly (maybe not) that size drive went out of normal production and was expensive to include as the lifecycle ended.

Doesn't make much sense to me.. they could have gotten cheaper/larger drives and just formatted them down to 8 GB.

Re:

[Chandon Seldon]

Doesn't make much sense to me.. they could have gotten cheaper/larger drives and just formatted them down to 8 GB.

Or... get this... formatted it at the new disk size and pass on the tech advantage to their customers.

Re:

[Chris Burke]

I feel like MS pussied out on the 360's design by removing the hard drive because they took that away from developers. Instead of innovating the console market again, they just seem to be riding on the success that they've already created. Now we're finally seeing a successful multi-platform developer complain about the 360's limitations. I don't think this looks very good for the 360 or for Microsoft.

I speculate that the thinking behind the decision was that Microsoft understands that game consoles are pri

Re:

[gad_zuki!]

The 360 is much less ballsy. Essentially, they should have aimed for a 400 price mark and not done an elite or a core. If that means wired controllers and a smaller drive, then fine. Right now, MS's strategy is to hobble the premium by making sure everything works with the core. They should have just hafd one system with a HD and a damn wifi adapter. Instead, the MS wireless adapter is 100 MSRP. The 20 gig drive costs that much and the damn VGA cable is 40 dollars. This is just price gouging. This tie

Weird Development Approach Foreshadowing Delays?

[Bones3D_mac]

I don't get it... why are they claiming the 360 is somehow imposing limitations on a game's design? Hasn't it always been developer policy to create software for the least common denominator (ie, a 360 sans hard drive) first and *then* add extra features for more powerful systems afterwards?

If I had to guess, it sounds like they are testing the waters, seeing if the 360's multiple configuration can be used as a viable scapegoat, should the developers miss the deadline they publicly set for themselves.

Sure, the PS3 fanboys are probably eating this up now, but will they be chomping at the bit later on, if it turns out the delays were actually caused by the nightmares involved in developing for the PS3?

Re:Weird Development Approach Foreshadowing Delays

[Retric]

I don't get it

GTA IV was well into development before they decided to add the 360 so developers designed and built a game thinking they could use a HDD. Now that they can't use it they are running into problems with their basic design. As a developer you run into this stuff all the time when management decides to move from Oracle to MySQL well it's going to take longer and have X, Y, and Z issues...

PS: It's not hard to build PS3 games that use 30-50% of the systems capabilities the issues are in tweaking

Gates says

[TravisO]

9.4GB is enough for anyone!

Re:

[Verunks]

that's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft

I said the same thing ...

[tb3]

a couple of months ago [slashdot.org]. I thought the mass storage of the 360 wasn't up to par with the PS3. Whether or not Sony can recover from the marketing disaster that was the PS3 launch is another question entirely.

Who has a 360 with no hard drive?

[gelfling]

Does such a thing even exist? Even if you ran tight on space you could upgrade to a 60GB unit. That' about 8 HD-DVD'sdatawise.

From Xbox.com:
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
* Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
* Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
* VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
* 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
* 1 M

Re:

[HAKdragon]

Does such a thing even exist?

Yeah, it's called the Core version. However, we don't know how many people bought the Core and hard drive separately.

They claimed both system has issues.

[kinglink]

The full interview shows how biased the magazine is. Even the linked story has it. They basically laid out the obvious flaws with the xbox 360 and all Houser could do is say yes. What a shock for the Playstation Magazine.

But on the other hand they at least mentioned he said both systems have issues. And trust me from what I've seen with the PS3 and how my company is handling it, the HD issue and the Disc capacity should be the least of their worries. The 360's issues are easy to enumerate and resolve.. the PS3, not so much.

Seriously the 360 has proven itself over and over. We have Oblivion, yet if Rockstar can't get their head out of their ass and figure out how to do the work they don't deserve your money. We have at least 4 major open world games on the 360 (hell Just Cause was also available on the PS2, at the same size world which was "fucking enormous".) And Rockstar the guys who everyone seems to think can piss gold can't figure this one out?

Please.

Agree (sort of) but...

[A_Non_Moose]

When "limitations" are mentioned, I think about the GTA series (well, 3, VC and SA) in general.

30fps limit and/or 60hz on computer.

Think about it for a second, 30fps limit on machines that can churn out 2 to 5x that amount?

Or the 60hz, which gets even more painful to my eyes as time goes on? Hell, I've amazed people
by being able to look at a monitor and tell the diff between 60/75/85hz w/o looking at the display
properties. 60hz hurts (pun intended), 75hz is tolerable and 85hz and above is best looking and

Require a HD?

[StikyPad]

So put a hard drive in the system requirements. If the game is good enough, core system owners will buy the HD. Sure, it's a bigger risk since you're limiting your market, however that risk is mitigated by the fact that you won't have to compromise on the quality of the game. (Although I wonder what percent of core 360 owners don't have, or have plans to buy, a hard drive).

Re:Consider the Source

[Corporate Troll]

Developing on the PS3 III

That must be the new Sony console everybody's been talking about.... especially since the PS3 flopped. The PS3 III might be the next big thing in console gaming!

Re:

[Rude Turnip]

I'm running out to the ATM machine right now so I can put down a deposit at EB Games.

Re:Consider the Source

[scooterjohnson]

I would suggest hitting the ATM instead of the ATM machine. I hear those things can be a pain to carry around.

Re:

[Blublu]

It's funny because it must have taken you hours to type "btw I'm posting from a wii" from a Wii.

Re:

[Nerdfest]

Taking the source into account brings up the possibility the the interviews were faked, based on the company's history.

That aside, is it acceptable for a game to release for HD equipped consoles only? I seem to remember way back that a console that required a CD-ROM released one with the game ... perhaps they should look into it.

Re:Consider the Source

[KDR_11k]

I heard talk from Rockstar employees about how they already hit the limit of the medium with GTASA, due to the slow layer switching (no idea if the 360 still has that issue) only one layer of the disc could be used to keep the load times lower (with streaming it'd be fatal if the loading took too long). Even without the layer switching overhead a "next-gen" GTA game is going to hit the limit of DVD9 very quickly so this report is very likely true.

From what I heard Microsoft requires that all games are basically playable (i.e. it doesn't matter that you can't feasibly finish the game without saving, it just has to be theoretically possible) on a 360 Core system OOTB, this would make HDDVD-only games not allowed.

Re:

[Pojut]

You know what, call me stupid but any time I watch a dual-layer DVD on my 360, the point at which it switches layers is practically unnoticeable. Compare this to my year-old standalone mid-range DVD player that takes nearly a full half-second to switch layers.

All I'm saying is that the whole "switching layers" argument seems like complete bullshit to me. I mean, heaven forbid it takes an additional quarter of a second in the loading times...

Would additional space be a virtue? Yes, of course it would be.

Re:Consider the Source

[Neon Spiral Injector]

It is not the single layer switch that happens when watching a movie. This is predictable, and always happens at the same place. The head also does not need to move during the layer change, it just reads from the inside to the out on L1 and then switches to L2.

The problem comes from random access reads between layers.

To decrease this issue each layer has to be treated like its own disc. Once the transition is made to L2 you stay there. That means any part of the game engine that is not always in memory has to also be on both layers. Along with any textures, models, sounds, etc. that are used through out the game. So going to two layers does not double the ammount of space available due to having to store a lot of data twice.

Re:

[The Warlock]

The X360's DVD drive is a good deal faster than the PS2's, so it shouldn't be as big a problem this time around, though.

Re:Consider the Source

[JebusIsLord]

You know, when trying to prove a point to someone, the worst thing you can do is insult them right upfront. That pretty much garantees they aren't going to read the rest of what you have to say. Also, it makes you sound like a socially inept basement dweller.

Re:Consider the Source

[icepick72]

Well then it's a good thing you saved your insult until the last sentence. I read your complete post proving your right!

Re:

[Afrosheen]

I agree with the fantastic comments from the people above, also known as "morans". ;) Too late, I know.

Re:

[smallfries]

Nicely put.

But ... he was an idiot and I'm impatient

Re:

[nschubach]

I was waiting for the inevitable "doo-doo head" insults to start flying. Guess I'll have to wait for another thread.

Re:

[superpulpsicle]

Speaking of san andreas I still haven't beat it. If you play without the flying cars, infinite machine guns and infinite cash that game is tough.

Re:

[Dan Ost]

Took me about 3 weeks to beat it (no cheats). Once you're out of the first city, you're basically 80% finished with the game (although flight school was almost enough to make me quit). It's really too bad...such a big world and you really only get to know the first 25% with any intimacy.

Re:

[superpulpsicle]

The mission "supply lines" is the one that I have been stuck at for a long time and still can't past it. I know of 2 other people who gave up the game because of that mission. Personally I wanted to throw my game out the window.

Re:

[Firefly1]

Ah yes, that mission; fortunately, it's only required if you want to complete the Zero strand. Oddly enough, the last mission in the strand - 'New Model Army' - could actually be easier: someone suggested going around and bombing all of Berkley's tanks before laying the bridges.
I, too, found it much less stressful to simply leave that job on the shelf. In an attempt to provide some perspective, here's a short list of gaming challenges I've run across recently:

• fighting the final boss (the supership Ragn

Re:

[Kelbear]

For what it's worth, Saints Row already has trouble loading the city at a rate fast enough to keep up with their top tier cars. I'm sure there are optimizations that can help, but there will still be an upper limit on what the Xbox360 can stream. It's not outrageous to believe that GTAIV would benefit from a harddrive or faster stream.

But there's always a benefit to be had from having more of a resource. You just work with what you have. Crackdown lets you see the other side of the city if you can get high

Re:

[malevolentjelly]

I heard talk from Rockstar employees about how they already hit the limit of the medium with GTASA, due to the slow layer switching (no idea if the 360 still has that issue) only one layer of the disc could be used to keep the load times lower (with streaming it'd be fatal if the loading took too long). Even without the layer switching overhead a "next-gen" GTA game is going to hit the limit of DVD9 very quickly so this report is very likely true.

From what I heard Microsoft requires that all games are basically playable (i.e. it doesn't matter that you can't feasibly finish the game without saving, it just has to be theoretically possible) on a 360 Core system OOTB, this would make HDDVD-only games not allowed.

Actually, the 360 has excellent streaming performance since it doesn't have the obscene memory constraints the PS3 has (the 360 has more bandwidth, more efficient pipeline, high performance DRAM on die, and its got that 512 mb of shared RAM for added flexibility.)

Honestly, when developing an open-world 360 game (I've worked on one), the biggest problem is the lack of an HDD- which means we need to disc stream all our data. It causes some major issues.

It's sort of a toss- the 360 is conventionally more powe

Re:

[Babbster]

It's sort of a toss- the 360 is conventionally more powerful in a lot of cases, but the PS3 has that standard HDD. It's ridiculous, really, since Core systems are far more scarce than Premium. Microsoft should let us use the HDD to a greater extent, when available.

I suspect that the second Microsoft feels comfortable dropping the price of the 360, the core system will disappear from the market (they don't really need to worry about going below $300 with the PS3 at $600) and they'll allow developers to requ

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Xbox 360 game Final Fantasy XI (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/f/finalfantasyXI/ ) is not playable without a hard drive, so clearly some developers are defying Microsoft's rule. Which is a good thing in my opinion.

Re:There are no HD equipped 360's

[Carbonite]

I think the "HD" refers to hard drive, not HD-DVD.

Re:

[krakelohm]

I would not call it just FUD if this is coming from the developers. It is mighty nice of OPSM to relay this *unbiased* information though, HA. Anyway I can see how this could cause challenges, but if I did own a 360, I would not be too worried.

Re:

[Applekid]

The source, TFA, is Dan Houser, Creative VP at Rockstar.

What would a person titled "Creative VP" have to do with announcing a technical limitation of a game that just finished releasing a trailer which implies the game is coming pretty soon? I dunno.

Would it be a big loss to target the game to HD-equipped 360's only? How about it looks less detailed if the console doesn't have one, so that those users can decide if they want extra detail and spring for the HD.

Granted adding a HD to a 360 isn't quite the sam

Re:

[twistedsymphony]

It can't be that strict of a licensing requirement because there are a few games that require the hard drive... FFXI and LMA Manager come to mind, I'm sure there are others.

Re:

[badasscat]

Sony is simply looking to spread some FUD about the Xbox 360 as well.

The source is Dan Houser, who works for Rockstar last I checked, not Sony.

btw, what is new about this article that it deserves another mention on the site? This is the same quote as in the OPM article; it's apparently just CVG referencing OPM.

Re:

[PhoenixOne]

I'm sure they took stuff out of context (like ignoring the part where Houser talks about the drug rehab program he will have to put his PS3 system programmers into after they finish the project), but the DVD size and lack of harddrive will be an issue for the XBox360 going forward.

Re:

[Durzel]

You'd think someone who was trying to pass themselves off as authoritative on a subject (i.e. an actual PS3 developer) would at least get the basic facts right, like - I dunno - the actual console name.

Re:

[oGMo]

Developing on the PS3 III is an absolute nightmare. Sony is simply looking to spread some FUD about the Xbox 360 as well.

I bet the infidels are actually committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates, too, eh?

640k is enough

[Banaticus]

I don't know what all you script kiddies are complaining about. 640k is plenty big enough for anyone to run any program that they need to run. Grumble, grumble, wasteful bloat-ware. ;)

Re:

[Carbonite]

GTA4 isnt the only game strugling with the 360, you'll notice many highend EA projects have now moved from 360 to PS3 due to the space and processing issues.

Any specific examples?

Re:

[TB]

Wardevil is one of the more recent ones.

Re:

[TB]

All games are compressed, and have been since the 80s. With every generation of console, games have increased in size by about 4x, so why wouldnt it for this generation?

Re:

[Sciros]

Well for starters, when texture resolution approaches TV resolution, you're done. Second, sound quality can only get so high before further improvements become negligible.

Really, you have PS2 games on multiple DVDs and you have Oblivion on one. I think some folks just are better at getting a lot of quality content onto one disc... or at least try harder.

Re:

[Chandon Seldon]

Well for starters, when texture resolution approaches TV resolution, you're done.

This generation just jumped from 480p to 1080p - that's a factor of six more pixels than before. If multi-DVD games were shipping with last generation consoles, that implies that we will see multi dual layer BD-ROM games in this generation, since a dual layer BD-ROM is only 5x as big as a dual layer DVD.

Re:

[Sciros]

Actually last generation's Xbox supported 720p and 1080i. The Cube supported 480p only... speaking of which, that's the best the Wii does as well but I guess Nintendo's just weird like that.

Also, textures aren't higher for 1080p as opposed to 1080i, that's interlaced vs progressive display and doesn't mean there's more pixels in any texture image.

Re:

[nschubach]

Well for starters, when texture resolution approaches TV resolution, you're done. Second, sound quality can only get so high before further improvements become negligible.

Texture resolution and screen resolution are two different things... Right now their are cards with support for 4096 x 4096 pixel textures but most textures will be in the 256x256 or 512x512 range to keep the disk requirements to a minimum. Simply using 1920x1080 textures will not magically fix the world's gaming issues.

Another note

Re:

[Sciros]

I agree that they are two different things, of course. But using higher-resolution textures than the screen resolution doesn't make sense to me, even if it weren't a question of hardware limitations (storage, bandwidth, etc.). Most textures are indeed the sizes you mention, and naturally since they are *below* screen resolution, it's clear that more HD space (and RAM) for textures can't hurt.

Anyway I think folks are losing sight of what I was replying to. I was asked why the storage requirements wouldn't

Re:

[nschubach]

You also have to consider that some textures are wrapped around objects. If you only view that object from one side, you either need one texture for each side, or a texture that you can stand next to and still see it as clear as the artist intended. Instead of breaking up a billboard into several small blocks, you might be able to use one large texture to cover the whole thing. It makes for less polygon calculation as well. The Unreal Engine 3 uses texture tricks to make things look more detailed than t

Re:

[cornface]

Plus the original Xbox supported 1080i and 720p. Only the upcoming "Elite" will support 1080 progressive.

All of the 360 models support 1080p over component and VGA. This was added in one of the dashboard updates. All the elite adds is HDMI support.

Re:

[Sciros]

I don't think you know what exponents are...

Re:

[Stevecrox]

You've seen the GTA IV trailer right? The size of the map looks much larger than San Andreas, the texturing, AI and everything else has improved (I can see them using a DVD in texturing alone.) It not like they can even use mutliple layers for the DVD because streaming issue would (probably) kick in.

Re:

[TB]

GTA4 is smaller than SA in land used but is much larger is the terms of textures, models, sound, shaders, and such, not to mention the addition of multiplayer.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

It not like they can even use mutliple layers for the DVD because streaming issue would (probably) kick in.

If your streaming is designed intelligently enough and your disc layout is also well-designed, this does not have to be an issue.

I also have a hard time imagining that with all of the power involved in the Xbox 360 that procedural textures are outside the scope of the system...

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Which would you rather use your power for? Making a more immersive environment or procedurally generating textures?

Given the speed of the Blu-Ray drive, I'll take procedurally generated textures.

But actually, the answer to your question is "Mu", which means "the question cannot be answered as asked". This is because your question consists of a logical fallacy - because procedurally generated textures provide a more immersive environment. Why? First, they reduce load times. The procedure for the texture is

Re:

[shish]

Lack of space on a DVD means to me that these guys aren't using the space well...

Games developers could really do with taking some tips from these guys [farbrausch.de]...

Re:

[tgd]

HD means harddrive.

Apparently the moderators missed that, too, though.

Re:

[Durzel]

"128K of RAM or something". Clearly you're pretty well versed on PS3 development then, or do you just get all your info from xbox-scene.org?

Re:

[Durzel]

How can he be "more right than me" when I haven't even mentioned any numbers or tech specs? I was pointing out the fallacy in armchair fanboys who usually don't have a clue how to develop games quoting FUD as if it's gospel.

Re:

[steveo777]

The most significant part of that comment

REQUIRES a HDD or a memory card to play

(emphasis mine)

means that it mearly requires that you be able to save system data to play the game. Technically this does limit your market to anyone who does not own a memory card, but it is assumed universally that owners of consoles without internal memory have external memory. The HD is a different issue. Perhaps the same ballpark... well, maybe not the same ballpark, but at least the same sport.