Support NeoGAF

[EventHorizon]

No, Azure is the cloud. It's a server platform that does in fact scale automatically and it does have features that allow it to crunch big data.

The drivatar data is stored and algorithms are crunched in the cloud, in scale. That requires a platform...to be programmed...that they didn't have to spend as much time on if they would have had to build it themselves.

You're still missing the fact that this is all about time. Time spent on one thing versus another. Dan says very clearly that the access to Xbox Live Compute, in the context of their drivatar technology, allowed them time to spend on other things.

Wanna try again?

Azure does not write the algorithms for you. It is simply a platform for running code on another machine. It is like remoting objects in C#. You could run the same algorithm on the console if you wanted to without ever touching Azure. Turn 10 did exactly this in prior versions of the game with their use of a training mode to create custom Drivatars.

You are missing the point that time spent adding a non-local feature to the console can't be used to get extra time in optimizing the code running locally on the box. Here is a thought experiment for you. What would have given Turn 10 more resources to use in optimizing Forza 5: Using Azure or totally dropping the cloud avatar feature altogether? The answer is obviously the second.

Using Azure is a net negative on the available resources needed for development. Now you might say that is was worth it to get their Drivatar implementation, but that is a priority decision on their part. They simply viewed having cloud drivatars worth the resource cost. The best that can be said is that Azure reduced the cost needed for the feature. You can not say that it created more time than it cost.

 

[PFD]

Back to the cloud bs again? I thought we were over that

 

[Thanati]

I laughed my arse off when I saw this!

But seriously, if I don't have a good net connection it's going to look like Out Run?

 

[Gen X]

That was a drivatar based on your local driving habits only though.

I edited my post but since it fell at the end of the page here is the edit.

The drivatar data is stored and algorithms are crunched in the cloud, in scale. That requires a platform...to be programmed...that they didn't have to spend as much time on if they would have had to build it themselves.

I'd like to see how much different this data and algorithms are compared to the first game. The first game took averages from races. If say you did three laps and misjudged a corner twice out of a three lap race then it would take that average of how many corners you took correctly (say 43/45 based on 15 corners per lap). Same as driving lines, it would take the average amount of time driving in the correct race line and put all that data into the Drivatar. The longer you raced the more accurate the data for the Drivatar was.

I can't remember if you could download anyones Drivatar from the leaderboards or if you needed a memory card to take it from a friends console. It was 8-9 years ago but I remember them being quite good for what they were.

 

[Desaan]

The only clouds I see are coming from whatever these guys are smoking.

 

[Gbraga]

Are we ready for it though?

 

[Sydle]

Azure does not write the algorithms for you. It is simply a platform for running code on another machine. It is like remoting objects in C#. You could run the same algorithm on the console if you wanted to without ever touching Azure. Turn 10 did exactly this in prior versions of the game with their use of a training mode to create custom Drivatars.

You are missing the point that time spent adding a non-local feature to the console can't be used to get extra time in optimizing the code running locally on the box. Here is a thought experiment for you. What would have given Turn 10 more resources to use in optimizing Forza 5: Using Azure or totally dropping the cloud avatar feature altogether? The answer is obviously the second.

Using Azure is a net negative on the available resources needed for development. Now you might say that is was worth it to get their Drivatar implementation, but that is a priority decision on their part. They simply viewed having cloud drivatars worth the resource cost. The best that can be said is that Azure reduced the cost needed for the feature. You can not say that it created more time than it cost.

Yep, this is what I was saying. : )

It's clear from the article that community-driven drivatar A.I. was a priority over achieving 1080p. The title and Greenwalt's comments make that much clear.

 

[pompidu]

Are we ready for it though?

my body is ready.

 

[Muppet of a Man]

Hahaha. So, he either inadvertently admitted that the game is not playable offline at all or what he is saying is total and complete bullshit.

Amazing.

 

[Zephyrus]

something about the thread title and the thread creator username makes me chuckle.

 

[jaypah]

Hahaha. So, he either inadvertently admitted that the game is not playable offline at all or what he is saying is total and complete bullshit.

Amazing.

Or he's saying that they didn't spend man hours dealing with network stuff so they could focus more on polishing the graphics. If you'd like to call foul on that have at it, but that's his claim. Nothing about using the cloud to render the game. You read that OP?

something about the thread title and the thread creator username makes me chuckle.

Lol, clever! You'd think someone would have caught that by now.

 

[zenosparadox]

I am no Xbox fanboy, but it is amazing that many of you are not reading the quote carefuly. It specifically says that Microsoft's cloud structure allowed them more time to optimize the graphics and physics engines to get to 1080p 60fps. Without that time, they would have not reached that goal. Reading comprehension, people, do you have it!?

 

[Sword Of Doom]

I've read it three times already and I still cannot believe that the cloud gives them better resolution and frames per second.

So if I play offline I'm boned screwed?

So it's an always online game? I call bullshit on this. Sounds like PR nonsense

I am no Xbox fanboy, but it is amazing that many of you are not reading the quote carefuly. It specifically says that Microsoft's cloud structure allowed them more time to optimize the graphics and physics engines to get to 1080p 60fps. Without that time, they would have not reached that goal. Reading comprehension, people, do you have it!?

I don't have issues with reading comprehension I just think it's kind of a stretch what they're saying. Going out of their way to make the cloud sound magical. If the cloud is actually helping the game run at 1080p in real time then that's a different story.

 

[Boost]

Does the resolution drop when you play it offline?

My thoughts exactly.

 

[fade_]

 

[seattle6418]

WHY? Why are they still doing this silly power game? Nintendo isn't stupid anymore to do that because they are focusing on other stuff.

Since Forza's competitors are sims on PS4 and PC, they have absolutely no chance to "out-tech" them, so it would be best to just leave as is.

I know they have to sell the corporate line, but this is so stupid. I'm not a tech guy, but the little i know already gives me confidence to say that they are so full of shit on the cloud features...

 

[EventHorizon]

Yep, this is what I was saying. : )

It's clear from the article that community-driven drivatar A.I. was a priority over achieving 1080p. The title and Greenwalt's comments make that much clear.

Ok got ya. My pushback comes from the fact that Turn 10 is trying to equate the cloud with Forza 5 running at 1080p @ 60 FPS. Azure is only linked to having cloud calculated and distributed Drivatars be feasible. Note this quote

The reason we say that, though, is because we could have done cloud-powered opponents last generation, but we would have had to have done all the infrastructure," he continued. "Now with Xbox One we get servers, we get Azure, we get Thunderhead, and it's so easy to plug into.

It is quite clear that without Azure, the Drivatar cloud feature would have simply been dropped like is was for the 360. There isn't any special Azure time dilation field that allows extra work to be done on other unrelated parts of the project. All it did was to reduce the time requirements of the cloud Drivatar to the point where the feature could be included in the game.

If there is any linking at all to Azure and the 1080p resolution it would be by Turn 10 or Microsoft's own doing by requiring cloud based drivatars even if the feature was prohibitively resource expensive to accomplish.

WHY? Why are they still doing this silly power game? Nintendo isn't stupid anymore to do that because they are focusing on other stuff.

Since Forza's competitors are sims on PS4 and PC, they have absolutely no chance to "out-tech" them, so it would be best to just leave as is.

I know they have to sell the corporate line, but this is so stupid. I'm not a tech guy, but the little i know already gives me confidence to say that they are so full of shit on the cloud features...

Agreed that Microsoft isn't doing themselves any good. The cloud could be a real feature to promote if they didn't oversell it. Instead of us talking about all the things that the cloud could do for gaming, instead we are talking about the distance between the reality of the Azure system and the hype.

 

[I H8 Memes]

Shhhhh. No Dignity. Only Clowds Now.

 

[Sydle]

Ok got ya. My pushback comes from the fact that Turn 10 is trying to equate the cloud with Forza 5 running at 1080p @ 60 FPS. Azure is only linked to having cloud calculated and distributed Drivatars be feasible. Note this quote



It is quite clear that without Azure, the Drivatar cloud feature would have simply been dropped like is was for the 360. There isn't any special Azure time dilation field that allows extra work to be done on other unrelated parts of the project. All it did was to reduce the time requirements of the cloud Drivatar to the point where the feature could be included in the game.

If there is any linking at all to Azure and the 1080p resolution it would be by Turn 10 or Microsoft's own doing by requiring cloud based drivatars even if the feature was prohibitively resource expensive to accomplish.

I think the more likely case is 1080p dropped in favor of developing cloud Drivatar tech, because Microsoft wants to collect data.

1080p doesn't allow you to collect player data and, I know it's not a popular opinion on GAF, but most people wouldn't even care about the resolution so long as it looked good.

 

[Cerilli]

Oh... oh my goodness, I have never seen so much OP non-reading in a single thread.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

I think everybody would do well to read that entire article. There's nothing remotely controversial about what's said. They aren't saying that cloud power is giving the system more power to achieve 1080p 60fps. They're saying that because they didn't have to spend extra resources and time trying to build the infrastructure required for the cloud features they have in place for Forza 5, it allowed them to spend a lot more time and resources on getting the game running at 1080p 60fps.

Oh... oh my goodness, I have never seen so much OP non-reading in a single thread.

It's a little bizarre that so many seem to have entirely neglected to actually bother reading what was actually said. Come to think of it, this thread will be useful for one other purpose. Will slowly sift through it a few times every few days seeing which posters actually read the article, and which ones didn't. It will help me better filter and improve my GAF reading experience.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

wow

Does the resolution drop when you play it offline?

lol

 

[Cerilli]

 

[SenjutsuSage]

...


He isn't saying that Xbox Servers is making the game 1080p. He is saying that because of them, they have been able to spend more time optimizing, and less time creating their own server solutions.

Quite simple, and logic even.


This thread is gonna be fun.

It's been a goldmine, but for different reasons. One of the more annoying things to do is to try and have a discussion with someone that didn't even bother to read and properly understand the article. It's one thing if you seem generally confused, or are poking fun at the various misinterpretations, but I'm literally going page by page looking to see who clearly didn't read what was said before overreacting and am saving myself the headache in future threads. It's happened many times before, but this one takes the cake.

 

[Liabe Brave]

I think everybody would do well to read that entire article. There's nothing remotely controversial about what's said. They aren't saying that cloud power is giving the system more power to achieve 1080p 60fps.

I think you would do well to read the entire thread. Yes, many have been leaping to erroneous conclusions based on a misinterpretation, which is unfortunate. But there's also been real discussion about the actual claim, which you phrased:

They're saying that because they didn't have to spend extra resources and time trying to build the infrastructure required for the cloud features they have in place for Forza 5, it allowed them to spend a lot more time and resources on getting the game running at 1080p 60fps.

This claim is more than just controversial, it's completely misleading. As many--including you? I don't recall--have said in the various resolution threads, 1080p60 is a design decision, not a technical limitation. No amount of time saved by easy online APIs matters at all, because they could've been 1080p60 from day one if that was their priority. (Indeed, if they started from the base of their Forza 4 engine, I bet they were 1080p60 from day one.)

The vacuous nature of the claim can be made quite apparent simply by switching out any other feature for resolution:

"Forza 5 wouldn't have had tire physics without the cloud."
"Forza 5 wouldn't have had online racing without the cloud."
"Forza 5 wouldn't have had cockpit view without the cloud."

 

[Au{R}oN]

i call this a BS. and we can easily test this once the game arrives.

Play Offline and Online ---> No Differences?? => BS

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

This is "The power of the Cell" all over again. It's just the tables are turned now.

Cell could launch missiles and shit but its power was never claimed to be infinite. Let's not do this "Sony too" thing in every MS thread.

 

[BBboy20]

WHY? Why are they still doing this silly power game? Nintendo isn't stupid anymore to do that because they are focusing on other stuff.

Since Forza's competitors are sims on PS4 and PC, they have absolutely no chance to "out-tech" them, so it would be best to just leave as is.

I know they have to sell the corporate line, but this is so stupid. I'm not a tech guy, but the little i know already gives me confidence to say that they are so full of shit on the cloud features...

Gran Turismo 6, so far, seems to out-tech Forza 5.

 

[EventHorizon]

I think the more likely case is 1080p dropped in favor of developing cloud Drivatar tech, because Microsoft wants to collect data.

1080p doesn't allow you to collect player data and, I know it's not a popular opinion on GAF, but most people wouldn't even care about the resolution so long as it looked good.

I still don't see how you can equate the two. The ultimate resolution and FPS are nailed down in the final stage of development during optimization. The decision to include cloud drivatars was made much earlier than that. If any compromises are made, it is in the tradeoff with the visual quality and FPS in order to get the best overall quality possible.

It seems highly implausible that the developers would ever say "We are not going to hit 1080p during our final optimization a year from now because we are going to do extra network coding now".

Besides like I quoted above, by Turn 10s own words they have already faced these decisions. They said that they dropped cloud based drivatars for the 360 because it required too much work. They also said that the reason the 360 was not 1080p had nothing to do with network coding, but with the fact that the 360 could not handle the physics engine and 1080p at the same time. This observation that processes local to the console are what drives the visual appearance on that console should come as a surprise to no one. However the idea that networking code would would be the driving factor to the implementation of 1080p should make everyone's bs detector go off.

 

[Nokterian]

It's been a goldmine, but for different reasons. One of the more annoying things to do is to try and have a discussion with someone that didn't even bother to read and properly understand the article. It's one thing if you seem generally confused, or are poking fun at the various misinterpretations, but I'm literally going page by page looking to see who clearly didn't read what was said before overreacting and am saving myself the headache in future threads. It's happened many times before, but this one takes the cake.

Cloud cake i presume?

 

[SpinningBirdKick]

But what of high fidelity games that are single player and don't need the cloud?

The time/effort saved implementing cloud features wouldn't exist in that scenario, so there would be no "free" time gained to spend on fixing the terrible resolution and framerate issues.

 

[acm2000]

just a load of PR bollocks

the game wouldnt have been 1080p without th new mono drivers, sure, but they came too late for most the launch games.

 

[Timu]

Is this the 1st and only game so far to use the cloud for this kind of stuff???

 

[Septimius]

Ok, so, the main feel of this thread now seems to be that the 1080p60 is from "not having to develop the infrastructure required to do the online computing". Ok, that's fine. I see that that has merit. Azure already is an established service. It's MS', but I don't like the way they're tacking it on as some sort of brand new tech only MS has and was developed for the Xbone. There are tons of services like this, out there, and I can't imagine Azure is the only one that automatically scales. With today's virtual environments, it's a basic function of any server farm.

Even with a custom API from MS to Azure, writing a custom API for server communications with, say, Amazon, is probably a week's job. There is not much time to be saved here. I know Azure is a great feature, and it's great that it's pretty much plug and play, if that is the case they're trying to arrive at. But it's simply not true that Turn 10 would have to make their own server park, or spend more than a tiny fraction more time setting up the required stuff to have the same functionality with another cloud service provider.

So it feels like one of those "technically, it's true"-statements, because, yes, they'd have to spend a lot of time to develop their own server park, but it's not something they'd have to do, even if they didn't have Azure, and even MMOs today don't build their own server infrastructure anymore.

Then we need to come back to the other factors that makes this feel iffy. This isn't only about development time. It's explicitly said that "we're doing fancy physics models, and due to the cloud, we can offload it". I have no idea how you can offload something as time critical as that. I'd be amazed to hear it, but so far it smells a lot like pure bullshit, and trying to twist some technicality into something it isn't. I'm so tired of the deception-game MS are playing.

 

[kpaadet]

So you are telling me Turn 10 (a 400 man studio) could not have gotten this game to run 1080p without getting help from this "cloud" even with a premier 1st party budget and 3 year development time. WOW! talk about underpowered hardware, no wonder other smaller studio's have problems.

 

[Louis Cyphre]

I found this as it may touch upon this subject,

http://gamingbolt.com/ps4-xbox-one-cloud-gaming-interview-implementation-challenges-development-issues-and-more

We recently got in touch with Christine Arrington who is a senior analyst in the games group at IHS.

Rashid Sayed: Microsoft believes that with the power of cloud, the Xbox One will be ableto render even better graphics and physics simulation[article reference here]. What are your thoughts on the same?

Christine Arrington: It is an interesting way to think about how to keep the console on par with PC advances. Once consoles launch PCs quickly outpace them in graphics and processing capabilities. If that can be compensated for in the cloud that take some of the advantage away from the PC. It is a large investment, and the core PC gaming market is not very large in comparison to the console market. So, pushing that side of cloud gaming probably isn’t going to be a high priority in the beginning. It will become much more important as the consoles age.

Rashid Sayed: But on the other hand we have Sony’s Mark Cerny whobelives that there are hindrances to cloud gaming and one cannot better graphics using the cloud.

Christine Arrington: There are merits to both arguments. I believe this is more a matter of timing. Right now doing much of the heavy lifting on the server side would be very expensive and there probably is not a lot of infrastructure with high-end GPUs deployed. So Cerny is right in that sense. However, Microsoft is also right that eventually that could be offloaded to the cloud and future proof consoles.

Rashid Sayed: From a technical perspective do you think that the PS4 is more capable than the Xbox One to stream games due to its powerful GPU and GDDR5 memory? Or is it the case of specs simply don’t matter at all when one is streaming games from the cloud?

Christine Arrington: I don’t think the console specs come into play much when the processing is done in the cloud. If either were to implement a hybrid approach with some processing done locally it might make a difference, but even then the whole point is offloading processing so it doesn’t make all that much difference.

 

[Sydle]

I still don't see how you can equate the two. The ultimate resolution and FPS are nailed down in the final stage of development during optimization. The decision to include cloud drivatars was made much earlier than that. If any compromises are made, it is in the tradeoff with the visual quality and FPS in order to get the best overall quality possible.

It seems highly implausible that the developers would ever say "We are not going to hit 1080p during our final optimization a year from now because we are going to do extra network coding now".

Besides like I quoted above, by Turn 10s own words they have already faced these decisions. They said that they dropped cloud based drivatars for the 360 because it required too much work. They also said that the reason the 360 was not 1080p had nothing to do with network coding, but with the fact that the 360 could not handle the physics engine and 1080p at the same time. This observation that processes local to the console are what drives the visual appearance on that console should come as a surprise to no one. However the idea that networking code would would be the driving factor to the implementation of 1080p should make everyone's bs detector go off.

It's clearly not just network code that goes into moving around data AND implementing into the game. Even if it were just network code you still have to consider management's time is always involved in checking things off. Let's never mind that programmers are involved in creating and optimizing algorithms and code to take advantage of said data being moved around between the cloud and local machine (how it's integrated in the game's A.I.).

You think network coders would handle that end to end? Is that what you're suggesting?

 

[Maninthemirror]

I found this as it may touch upon this subject,

http://gamingbolt.com/ps4-xbox-one-cloud-gaming-interview-implementation-challenges-development-issues-and-more

We recently got in touch with Christine Arrington who is a senior analyst in the games group at IHS.

Rashid Sayed: Microsoft believes that with the power of cloud, the Xbox One will be ableto render even better graphics and physics simulation[article reference here]. What are your thoughts on the same?

Christine Arrington: It is an interesting way to think about how to keep the console on par with PC advances. Once consoles launch PCs quickly outpace them in graphics and processing capabilities. If that can be compensated for in the cloud that take some of the advantage away from the PC. It is a large investment, and the core PC gaming market is not very large in comparison to the console market. So, pushing that side of cloud gaming probably isn’t going to be a high priority in the beginning. It will become much more important as the consoles age.

Rashid Sayed: But on the other hand we have Sony’s Mark Cerny whobelives that there are hindrances to cloud gaming and one cannot better graphics using the cloud.

Christine Arrington: There are merits to both arguments. I believe this is more a matter of timing. Right now doing much of the heavy lifting on the server side would be very expensive and there probably is not a lot of infrastructure with high-end GPUs deployed. So Cerny is right in that sense. However, Microsoft is also right that eventually that could be offloaded to the cloud and future proof consoles.

Rashid Sayed: From a technical perspective do you think that the PS4 is more capable than the Xbox One to stream games due to its powerful GPU and GDDR5 memory? Or is it the case of specs simply don’t matter at all when one is streaming games from the cloud?

Christine Arrington: I don’t think the console specs come into play much when the processing is done in the cloud. If either were to implement a hybrid approach with some processing done locally it might make a difference, but even then the whole point is offloading processing so it doesn’t make all that much difference.

But cloud gaming does not add pixels

 

[lherre]

So .. how it performs without an internet connection?

 

[Dwight Schrute]

Does the resolution drop when you play it offline?

Yeah, so fake.

 

[Raist]

I found this as it may touch upon this subject,

http://gamingbolt.com/ps4-xbox-one-cloud-gaming-interview-implementation-challenges-development-issues-and-more

We recently got in touch with Christine Arrington who is a senior analyst in the games group at IHS.

Rashid Sayed: Microsoft believes that with the power of cloud, the Xbox One will be ableto render even better graphics and physics simulation[article reference here]. What are your thoughts on the same?

Christine Arrington: It is an interesting way to think about how to keep the console on par with PC advances. Once consoles launch PCs quickly outpace them in graphics and processing capabilities. If that can be compensated for in the cloud that take some of the advantage away from the PC. It is a large investment, and the core PC gaming market is not very large in comparison to the console market. So, pushing that side of cloud gaming probably isn’t going to be a high priority in the beginning. It will become much more important as the consoles age.

Rashid Sayed: But on the other hand we have Sony’s Mark Cerny whobelives that there are hindrances to cloud gaming and one cannot better graphics using the cloud.

Christine Arrington: There are merits to both arguments. I believe this is more a matter of timing. Right now doing much of the heavy lifting on the server side would be very expensive and there probably is not a lot of infrastructure with high-end GPUs deployed. So Cerny is right in that sense. However, Microsoft is also right that eventually that could be offloaded to the cloud and future proof consoles.

Rashid Sayed: From a technical perspective do you think that the PS4 is more capable than the Xbox One to stream games due to its powerful GPU and GDDR5 memory? Or is it the case of specs simply don’t matter at all when one is streaming games from the cloud?

Christine Arrington: I don’t think the console specs come into play much when the processing is done in the cloud. If either were to implement a hybrid approach with some processing done locally it might make a difference, but even then the whole point is offloading processing so it doesn’t make all that much difference.

So basically, Gaikai. But... MS said it's not worth it because shitty internet connections

 

[Scorpion Soldier]

So .. how it performs without an internet connection?

The cloud acts in mysterious ways.

 

[lensoftruth]

I am no Xbox fanboy, but it is amazing that many of you are not reading the quote carefuly. It specifically says that Microsoft's cloud structure allowed them more time to optimize the graphics and physics engines to get to 1080p 60fps. Without that time, they would have not reached that goal. Reading comprehension, people, do you have it!?

Would they have it running in 4k if they'd used AWS instead of the awful Azure?

 

[Grief.exe]

WHY? Why are they still doing this silly power game? Nintendo isn't stupid anymore to do that because they are focusing on other stuff.

Since Forza's competitors are sims on PS4 and PC, they have absolutely no chance to "out-tech" them, so it would be best to just leave as is.

I know they have to sell the corporate line, but this is so stupid. I'm not a tech guy, but the little i know already gives me confidence to say that they are so full of shit on the cloud features...

Shows what Microsoft thinks of the comprehensive ability of its userbase.