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[Gorgon]

Knowing Id, there is a good chance my GTX295 will not provide me the quality and framerate I expect. Hopefully Nvidia has the GTX380 out by the time this game is out.

It depends on what you mean by "quality". The geometry and textures will be the same across platforms, maybe with a very slight improvement on the PS3 due to the Blu-Ray, but that will depend on balancing storage space vs. read/stream/decode speed (although there's no reason not to ship the game to PC on 3 DVDs, but oh well).

The only difference on PC will be resolution, AA and AF levels, nothing else. There may also be less pop-in present on the PC version due to higher speed HDDs (7200 rpm is standard on PC and a 7200 rpm HDD on the PS3 seems make no real diference in most cases). With the GPU you have you will be perfectely fine, don't worry.

 

[FirewalkR]

The only difference on PC will be resolution, AA and AF levels, nothing else.

Everything I've read indicates this, but I wish they'd go all out and had options for better shaders, effects, postprocessing, etc. Kind of Crysis high->very high. Or medium->very high, more likely. And perhaps they will. *crosses fingers*

 

[Pctx]

Everything I've read indicates this, but I wish they'd go all out and had options for better shaders, effects, postprocessing, etc. Kind of Crysis high->very high. Or medium->very high, more likely. And perhaps they will. *crosses fingers*

I think the underlying point at this option based on the information we have is we won't need it. Weird to say.... but interesting to say the least.

 

[jett]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/tech-5-id-software/23184

You're wlcome.

I had forgotten how crazy their tech. I still don't quite understand how can texture quality and resolution not impact performance though...but hey, more awesomeness for my low-end video card.

It's funny seeing him pitching the tech there though, considering the days of them shopping around their engines is over...kinda sad really that that id is more or less gone.

 

[Gorgon]

I think the underlying point at this option based on the information we have is we won't need it. Weird to say.... but interesting to say the least.

Hum...post-processing, effects, etc are things that are quite independent from texture quality, so I don't think that "we won't need it" makes much sense in this context. I think, however, that there won't be any options like those on the PC simply because id WANTS the various versions to be the same. Plus, the art direction itself for the game may not "demand it" even if it was a PC-only game.

But I really doubt there will be anything like that as an extra for the PC version, so don't hold your breath.

 

[baultista]

It depends on what you mean by "quality". The geometry and textures will be the same across platforms, maybe with a very slight improvement on the PS3 due to the Blu-Ray, but that will depend on balancing storage space vs. read/stream/decode speed (although there's no reason not to ship the game to PC on 3 DVDs, but oh well).

The only difference on PC will be resolution, AA and AF levels, nothing else. There may also be less pop-in present on the PC version due to higher speed HDDs (7200 rpm is standard on PC and a 7200 rpm HDD on the PS3 seems make no real diference in most cases). With the GPU you have you will be perfectely fine, don't worry.

id Tech 6 will use a more advanced technique that builds upon the MegaTexture idea and virtualizes both the geometry and the textures to obtain unique geometry down to the equivalent of the texel: the Sparse Voxel Octree (SVO). It works by raycasting the geometry represented by voxels (instead of triangles) stored in an octree. The goal being to be able to stream parts of the octree into video memory, going further down along the tree for nearby objects to give them more details, and to use higher level, larger voxels for further objects, which give an automatic level of detail (LOD) system for both geometry and textures at the same time. The geometric detail that can be obtained using this method is nearly infinite, which removes the need for faking 3-dimensional details with techniques such as normal mapping. Despite that most Voxel rendering tests use very large amounts of memory (up to several Gb), Jon Olick of id Software claimed it's able to compress such SVO to 1.15 bits per voxel of position data.

From my understanding of this description, pop-in should not be an issue.

The ability to store geometry data using MegaTexture is pretty remarkable, actually.

 

[SPACECADET]

i'm really excited for this game. i love when games feel too good to be true. especially when they turn out true.

 

[Daigoro]

i have faith in ID!

this looks awesome. cant wait.

 

[Death Dealer]

It depends on what you mean by "quality". The geometry and textures will be the same across platforms, maybe with a very slight improvement on the PS3 due to the Blu-Ray, but that will depend on balancing storage space vs. read/stream/decode speed (although there's no reason not to ship the game to PC on 3 DVDs, but oh well).

“All of the key scenes, the things anyone is going to take a screenshot of are going to look exactly the same on both platforms. They’ll get the high quality compression,” said Carmack. “But if you go into some areas in the wasteland, like behind a fence where nobody will typically go and explore, this is where the 360 version may look a little blurry compared to the PS3.”

-Carmack

 

[Pctx]

Hum...post-processing, effects, etc are things that are quite independent from texture quality, so I don't think that "we won't need it" makes much sense in this context. I think, however, that there won't be any options like those on the PC simply because id WANTS the various versions to be the same. Plus, the art direction itself for the game may not "demand it" even if it was a PC-only game.

But I really doubt there will be anything like that as an extra for the PC version, so don't hold your breath.

From the sounds of it though, all engines across all platforms shouldn't have an issue with all of the effects you mentioned due to the amazing handling of the textures (texture stream really).

The only thing that I'm counting on is higher resolution, more AA and mods. Other than that, it sounds like most moderate PC's will handle this game just fine.

 

[RoboPlato]

This game was completely under my radar until now. The tech and concept behind it is pretty awesome. Hope we hear more about it at Quakecon this year.

 

[Gorgon]

From my understanding of this description, pop-in should not be an issue.

The ability to store geometry data using MegaTexture is pretty remarkable, actually.

Thats for id Tech 6, not id Tech 5

 

[Gorgon]

“All of the key scenes, the things anyone is going to take a screenshot of are going to look exactly the same on both platforms. They’ll get the high quality compression,” said Carmack. “But if you go into some areas in the wasteland, like behind a fence where nobody will typically go and explore, this is where the 360 version may look a little blurry compared to the PS3.”

-Carmack

Yes, but I read on a more recent interview that they were not sure how it would end up due to a balancing of storage space, streaming speed and decoding speed. It may end up like they said in the interview you quoted, of course.

 

[Gorgon]

From the sounds of it though, all engines across all platforms shouldn't have an issue with all of the effects you mentioned due to the amazing handling of the textures (texture stream really).

The only thing that I'm counting on is higher resolution, more AA and mods. Other than that, it sounds like most moderate PC's will handle this game just fine.

I'm convinced of that, too.

 

[dfyb]

saw screenshots in the game informer issue. looks pretty amazing. it's just dissapointing that 360's DVD drive is affecting gameplay.

 

[BravoSuperStar]

Not to be rude, Gorgon, but you don't need to triple post to reply to people...


Anyway, this game is going to rock. Draft's eloquence pretty much sums it up.

Best tech.

Best art.

60 FPS.

And it drives militant fanboys mad.

Game of the Generation, most likely.

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

saw screenshots in the game informer issue. looks pretty amazing. it's just dissapointing that 360's DVD drive is affecting gameplay.

From what Willits said, the same content is all there as was originally planned, they just organized the game world a bit differently.

We also shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves talking about tech 6. It's entirely possible that it will end up being very different in terms of what it brings to the table than what has been speculated. Carmack loves to speculate about what he'll do next but until he does a good bit of research even he doesn't know.

One thing you have to keep in mind when listening to Carmack...he is NOT one that is going to hold back on ideas that he has, even if he is only 10% sure they'll actually make it in. Actually the only time he really shows much restraint is when he begins to implement a new technology and doesn't want to be beaten to the punch, and even that has only been recently.

 

[Gorgon]

Not to be rude, Gorgon, but you don't need to triple post to reply to people...

Yeah, I thought of that too but wasn't sure how to do multiple quotes on the same post :lol

Sorry everyone, it wasn't on purpose.

 

[Sciz]

We also shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves talking about tech 6. It's entirely possible that it will end up being very different in terms of what it brings to the table than what has been speculated. Carmack loves to speculate about what he'll do next but until he does a good bit of research even he doesn't know.

Maybe, maybe not. He was talking about virtualizing textures back before DOOM 3, even, and look where we are now. He's mentioned that he wrote something similar to his sparse voxel octree renderer in software a few years back, and he's been talking more and more about the concept in the last couple years. If some sort of geometry virtualization doesn't happen in Tech 6, I'll be surprised.

 

[dfyb]

From what Willits said, the same content is all there as was originally planned, they just organized the game world a bit differently.

there's a quote in the game informer issue talking about how they'd wish they could use 3 DVDs, but they didn't want to have to split up the world like that. so if it weren't for 360's DVD limitation, the game wouldn't have been compromised.

in before "maybe it'll be better because of DVD" crowd.

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

Maybe, maybe not. He was talking about virtualizing textures back before DOOM 3, even, and look where we are now. He's mentioned that he wrote something similar to his sparse voxel octree renderer in software a few years back, and he's been talking more and more about the concept in the last couple years. If some sort of geometry virtualization doesn't happen in Tech 6, I'll be surprised.

He also said that there are significant hurdles that may make a mega texture like solution for geometry a bit challenging.

I'm sure he'll tackle it at some point, but it's difficult to say when. He was playing around with stencil buffer shadows in Quake 2, and bumpmapping in Quake 3 (or rather Trinity, before Quake 3), yet neither of those became utilized fully until Doom 3.

My main point is that if you try and predict where Carmack is going to be 5 years from now, you're kindof shooting in the dark. He'll undoubtedly bring something amazing. He has done that every time. I wouldn't bet money just yet on what it will be, though.

Or maybe I just like to be surprised and amazed.

there's a quote in the game informer issue talking about how they'd wish they could use 3 DVDs, but they didn't want to have to split up the world like that. so if it weren't for 360's DVD limitation, the game wouldn't have been compromised.

in before "maybe it'll be better because of DVD" crowd.

Oh I know, my main point is that it's a bit silly to try and extrapolate how much was changed from what little we know. They have explicitly said there was no content "cut", but that could mean any number of things as these decisions were almost certainly made early in the process.

One thing he's been pretty clear about with the new tech is the tools give them the ability to check how they are doing in terms of data storage and performance every single day, so they avoid problems like getting late in the development cycle and realizing that they're 80 megs over the ram limit on the ps3 or a gig over the disk space of the 360.

 

[SPACECADET]

just got the gameinformer issue. shots looked real nice.

 

[Poimandres]

Looks incredible- such smart tech by the sounds of things as well.

As a long term fan of ID, I can't wait to see how this one turns out.

 

[Guilty Conscience]

I still can't get used to the fact that this is the first game from a traditional PC developer that will run as good, if not better, on PS3 as its 360 counterpart. Carmack should be proud of himself, and yet I get the sense from all his interviews that he develops the PS3 version begrudgingly... merely to market id Tech 5 as a multiplatform engine for the sake of marketability. Considering this, the PS3 version continues to feel like the third wheel. It's almost cognitively dissonant.

 

[EvilDick34]

I am really curious as to how many Gb's this is going to take up on my HDD on the pc. Whatever it will be, it will be even more interesting how much it will take to install Doom4 on pc.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

Best tech.

Best art.

60 FPS.

And it drives militant fanboys mad.

Game of the Generation, most likely.

Where is that pillar that all of Draft's posts go on?

 

[Sciz]

I still can't get used to the fact that this is the first game from a traditional PC developer that will run as good, if not better, on PS3 as its 360 counterpart. Carmack should be proud of himself, and yet I get the sense from all his interviews that he develops the PS3 version begrudgingly... merely to market id Tech 5 as a multiplatform engine for the sake of marketability. Considering this, the PS3 version continues to feel like the third wheel. It's almost cognitively dissonant.

Carmack probably hasn't had all that much to do with that version since they decided to hire a PS3-specific programmer to do the port.

 

[squicken]

It's a strange feeling, being at the crossroads of dfyb's fanaticism and reality.

I guess I don't get the need for the Mac version. Apple doesn't care about games (well, "core" games), and don't most Apple users who game have boot camp?

 

[charlequin]

Yes, but I read on a more recent interview that they were not sure how it would end up due to a balancing of storage space, streaming speed and decoding speed. It may end up like they said in the interview you quoted, of course.

The first interview was already in response to the decision to ship the 360 version on two discs instead of three. Literally nothing whatsoever has changed about id's plan between the time of that previous quote and the GI article.

there's a quote in the game informer issue talking about how they'd wish they could use 3 DVDs, but they didn't want to have to split up the world like that. so if it weren't for 360's DVD limitation, the game wouldn't have been compromised.

What they said was that DVDs would have been better for storage purposes, but the game itself didn't divide in three evenly, so they took a slight compression hit on the 360 rather than change around the content to make 3 discs "work." Nothing is "compromised" by the 360's storage medium except the texture quality on the 360 version.

 

[Sciz]

I guess I don't get the need for the Mac version. Apple doesn't care about games (well, "core" games), and don't most Apple users who game have boot camp?

As I recall, the Mac version is basically the result of a bored programmer and a few days worth of work. It isn't quite as actively maintained as the other builds, but apparently isn't hard to produce. This is id we're talking about, they make Linux versions of their games for the heck of it.

 

[Raistlin]

As far as textures go, it's waaay above anything else on ANY system.

I played Crysis, Uncharted and Killzone 2 and all of them them had a few low quality textures here and there. That's nothing to be surprised at all considering that all those engines use textures in a traditional way, that is, they are all under limitations to texture size budget due to limits on available Video memory.

id Tech 5 has NO limitations whatsoever in terms of texture size because it is NOT dependent on video memory. Each pixel on a megatexture can be customized. In fact, there are only two things that limit the size of textures on id Tech 5:

- storage space, be it DVD9, Blu-Ray or HDD, and
- how fast you can stream the texture data into the system memory

Theoreticaly, with id Tech 5 you could have CGI movie-like quality textures running in real-time on a console with 256 MB of video memory. The reason why you won't is simply because the game would have to be shipped on a 1 TB HDD plus you would never be abble to stream the texture data fast enough to actualy play the game :lol

And that is why id Tech 5 is a REVOLUTIONARY engine (texture-wise) as opposed to something like Cryengine 2/3 which is "simply" evolutionary, that is, Cryengine achieves what it does by pure brute force and in a traditional way (the more vid mem the better, specially for those texture mods).

As far as geometry goes, I don't know how Cryengine 3 will compare to id Tech 5; I'm sure id Tech 5 will be abble to hold its own but to what extent remains to be seen. Lighting in id Tech 5 also looks fantastic, and I seem to recall some talk that it is actually pretty amazing for something on consoles at 60 fps, but I'll have to see more to make my judgement.

But again as far as textures go, there's absolutely NO WAY to beat this with a traditional engine limited by texture size budgets constrained by video memory. Unless everyone else comes up with their own variations of megatextures for their engines they will simply not be abble to pull out what id Tech 5 will.

Carmack is indeed awesome ... but to be fair, he didn't invent the megatexture concept.

Regardless, he's putting it to amazing use. I can't wait to see how Tech6 turns out, when he applies a logically similar concept to geometry (SVO FTW).

 

[LiquidMetal14]

It's compromised

 

[JMC]

The only difference on PC will be resolution, AA and AF levels, nothing else. There may also be less pop-in present on the PC version due to higher speed HDDs (7200 rpm is standard on PC and a 7200 rpm HDD on the PS3 seems make no real diference in most cases). With the GPU you have you will be perfectely fine, don't worry.

This is true so long as data is still being streamed from the BD drive. Even games that do have big mandatory installs still need to pluck data from the BD every now and then. For games that run from the HDD, a 7200rpm drive would be much better than a 5400rpm drive for combating pop-in.

 

[VaLiancY]

I guess I have to thank GameStop for this issue of GI. RAGE does indeed look great and anyone turned off by the cover artwork, don't fret, the art direction of the wasteland still looks the same. The skybox is amazing in one of the shots!

 

[Gorgon]

This is true so long as data is still being streamed from the BD drive. Even games that do have big mandatory installs still need to pluck data from the BD every now and then. For games that run from the HDD, a 7200rpm drive would be much better than a 5400rpm drive for combating pop-in.

In the case of the PS3, that is not exactely true. From the tests I've seen (they're available at various sites, just google it) there's very little benefit to install a 7200 rpm vs. a 5400 rpm HDD on a PS3. The reason is that games are "engineered" taking into a account a balance of reading/transfer speed from HDD and/or disc and subsequent decompression of the data by the CPU.

Even with a faster HDD there is a delay on te PS3 because of the decoding that "holds" most of the benefits of a faster HDD and the resulting difference is neglegible. It's not that it couldn't benefit, it's simply that you have to take that into account during development (for example in the level of compression of data) to balance the increased tranfer speed and balance it with the needed decoding by the cpu. What happens is that PS3 programmers simply assume that you have a PS3 with a 5400 rpm HDD so you don't get much of an advantage.

I'm not saying that in some cases you won't notice less pop-in (or even faster loading times), but it is by no means the norm.

 

[Grayman]

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59630
Some details, maybe from the mag i have not read.

Rage is currently being designed for controllers because "the largest chunk of our market's going to be on consoles," id's John Carmack explained, echoing comments made by CEO Todd Hollenshead earlier this year. "I mean, yes, you can use the mouse for it but it's critical that the controller be the way that we design the game."

I am hopeful that the shooting will still be good.

Multiplayer modes are currently not finalised.

I'm betting on deathrace

more at the article.

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

Final day is up at the teaser site, www.aftertheimpact.com. Enter "general cross" at the prompt for...

VIDEO!

It's low res, and has some static filter over it, but you can see a little bit.

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

Wow, new video and no comments? Fail harder, gaf. I dare you. Even if it is low quality, it's the first new stuff we've gotten in almost a year.

 

[Fodaquinhentos]

Site's not loading for me.

FUUUUUUUUCK

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Wow, new video and no comments? Fail harder, gaf. I dare you. Even if it is low quality, it's the first new stuff we've gotten in almost a year.

That teaser was far out man! All kidding aside, the game looks bad-ass. It's such a rarity to see graphics like that with a solid frame rate, especially from a third party. The only question left is the gameplay which we haven't seen yet. It's been said over and over again that the game looks to be a contender for the best graphics of the generation. Keep your fingers crossed that the game play delivers.

 

[jersoc]

the trailer reminded me of Starship Troopers.

i want to see this game in action soon and see what the engine can really do.

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

Wow, new video and no comments? Fail harder, gaf. I dare you. Even if it is low quality, it's the first new stuff we've gotten in almost a year.

I gots no problem killing people.

It's taken me a while but I'm properly starting to feel the hype for this.

Put the Carmack in my veins!!!

 

[Grayman]

Wow, new video and no comments? Fail harder, gaf. I dare you. Even if it is low quality, it's the first new stuff we've gotten in almost a year.

I feel good about killing "people"!

Not a lot to discuss from the teaser itself though. Fallout in no way has a monopoly on that style but the teaser gives me a bad taste in that way.

 

[Sciz]

Seems pretty safe to assume that the kiosks will be the RAGE equivalent of DOOM 3's voice logs and guide videos. Looking good, but as it said, the real info comes at QuakeCon.

 

[RoboPlato]

It looks like the main character is wanted for something. I couldn't make out the text after the video. When is Quakecon? I can't wait to see more.

 

[jett]

http://www.aftertheimpact.com/assets/videos/rageVideo.flv

This is the vid.

 

[rezuth]

http://www.aftertheimpact.com/assets/videos/rageVideo.flv

This is the vid.

Thanks, looks great!
I want more tech videos

 

[Nirolak]

It looks like the main character is wanted for something. I couldn't make out the text after the video. When is Quakecon? I can't wait to see more.

It's part of Con craziness week.

Quakecon: August 13th-16th
Gamescon: August 17th-19th
Blizzcon: August 21st-22nd

 

[Chiggs]

Video was pretty cool.

"But when the time comes, how do you feel about killing...people?

:lol

 

[UT66]

Everything I've read indicates this, but I wish they'd go all out and had options for better shaders, effects, postprocessing, etc. Kind of Crysis high->very high. Or medium->very high, more likely. And perhaps they will. *crosses fingers*

no way.:lol they have to sell that console version. remember? hell most console "ports"
( ironic isn't it) dont even have proper aa or widescreen support.