panda-zebra
Member
Jones nods.
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Crackdown 3 uses cloud-based physics processing to enable environmental destruction
- Thread starter mocoworm
- Start date
Jones nods.
Alx
Member
Those are two different strategies, there's not one more advanced than the other.
Gaikai compared to cloud processing :
pros :
- can run on any hardware with a decent internet connection, including a TV or a phone
- doesn't require additional work from the developers ; can actually be retrofitted to any existing software.
cons :
- is less scalable (you're mostly running a local game on a server, not splitting it on multiple servers)
- sends a compressed video stream, so with lower image quality
- requires much more bandwidth
- will have latency on all tasks, including small ones
Were you misled into thinking this was an opinion piece written by myself, after reading the OP?
I clearly laid out the fact that is a controversial piece written by GamesRadar.
The new thread title does not reflect what the article is about, and has now neutered the thread. This isn't about the fact that Crackdown uses the cloud, those threads already exist and we all know that information. This article is geared towards Joe confirming to them, as a dev, that this tech makes XONE the most powerful console ever created. Something reflected in the title of the article, and why I used it as the title of the thread.
Why change a thread title over 12 hours and 32 pages into a discussion? Mods (including Bish) were commenting in here without concern over 12 hours ago. It's either an example of bad moderation, or a breakdown of communication between mods over policy. I don't know which.
What has that to do with anything I wrote two years ago?
See here, and note the difference between "server" and "server time".
Mohonky
Member
Well their is The Order 1886, so yes, there is a sizable population that wants pretty but sterile over interactive yes.
I based this on that there were some other game here with gifs with cool destruction aswell, and that game was on last generation hardware.
And I was in the demoscene 30 years ago, and I've seen hardware perform things it shouldnt be able to thanks to pretty clever programming.
If you remember the C64, you had this border around your screen which you couldnt use.
Well, up to someone found a clever use of timing and voila you had sprites in the border.
Without the use of cloudbased calculating
lifeexpectancy
Member
Yes, and you chose to ignore the rest of my post that spoke directly to your point. Of course their server time isn't free. But their server time is already there and available in abundance. They might as well get someone on board to use it. Otherwise what's the point in having it in the first place. I, for one, would LOVE for Sony to hop on board and license out Azure server time to make a similar offloaded-processing game so that we could all stop talking about idiotic console war nonsense and focus on this tech and how interesting it potentially could be. As I said in my other post, I don't really care for its use in this instance b/c I'm 'over' destructible environments, but it's interesting and I'd love to see other uses for it.
I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain.
This thread....
Speaking of console war nonsense. I'm sorry, but no. No, no, nononono. Your post is wrong. The Xbox One, strictly speaking, is NOT the most powerful console ever made.
Now, stay with me here, for the sake of argument... if everything going on here in Crackdown 3 works as advertised in the end-product, then (if nothing else is doing this at the time), Crackdown 3 will be the most advanced GAME ever made. Or more accurately, Crackdown 3's online multiplayer code will require the most processing power of any console game ever made, but that processing power isn't coming from the Xbox One. Only a portion of it.
So no, the Xbox One is not the most powerful console ever made. The PS4 is. Check my post history and you'll see that I'm not a PS fanboy or fanatic or whatever you want to call it. I play Xbox One 25-30 hours a week, and only hop on my PS4 occasionally to dabble in a few offline exclusives I enjoy. But factually speaking, the power is not coming from the Xbox One. The power is on the servers, which then stream the info to the Xbox so it can present it to you on-screen.
And ya know what? Who gives a damn. At the end of the day, all that matters is which game you want to play. You want to play Halo? Buy an Xbox. You want to play Uncharted? Buy a PS4. You want to play both but can only afford one console? Look at all the games you want to play and make an educated decision on which console provides you the most entertainment value for your money. That's all that matters. Not P's. Not clouds. Not magical fairy dust. What matters is the games you want to play.
I cannot believe this thread... well, I can believe it, and fully expected these types of posts when I saw the title, but... sheesh.
People don't generally give credence to hyperbolic or unsubstantiated statements on these forums though. Microsoft was claiming the Xbox One was the most powerful console ever created even before this cloud example, hell even before the consoles launched, so I don't see why that changes anything.
Alx
Member
I was actually looking at mobile phones and tablets when identifying that trend. Nobody really cares how powerful your mobile device is nowadays, you care about how good the online services are. And you don't have to bother if your device will run a feature or not, your content provider is in charge of upgrading his own servers while you do nothing.
I'm not the first person wondering if there is a future in powerful local hardware now that competent streaming technologies are becoming available. Sure today we still need it, but things change fast. Netflix wouldn't have been possible 10 years ago, and now it has become a very real threat to traditional TV and theatres.
You do not understand the economics of Cloud Computing. Server time is not just "sitting there in abundance" when a single tenant is not using it. You can flexibly allocate it to other tenants than just one use case or customer. Multi-tenancy is kinda the entire point of it...
I understand your point, but I disagree with your use of 'unsubstantiated'. We have seen a demonstration that shows Crackdown using 9 times the compute power of an Xbox one. Do you think that was a disingenuous presentation? These aren't hyperbolic claims, we have seen it.
Erm .I care about how powerful my mobile device is, in-fact, it's the main reason I upgrade my devices every year or so. Better hardware in mobile phones generally means everything runs faster too, from the OS, to the apps, games, web browsing etc. Software optimisations help of course, but hardware makes a difference. For example, we know that iOS is exceptionally fluid and well optimised, whilst some of Samsung's software (TouchWiz) is less so, but it's the vastly superior hardware and memory amount in devices like the Galaxy S6, that allow it to be as quick if not quicker than the iPhone 6 at many tasks, despite the phone running at a significantly higher resolution, offering more features and better multitasking.
Alx
Member
Do you really think you need more resources for web browsing ? And what kind of apps require more resources that you didn't have on your previous phones ?
Differences in fluidity/multitasking are more related to software quality/architecture than hardware performance, once you have enough power to do the common tasks. And for phones we've reached that point long ago.
Differences in fluidity/multitasking are more related to software quality/architecture than hardware performance, once you have enough power to do the common tasks. And for phones we've reached that point long ago.
Backfoggen
Banned
You could argue that Xbox One is ahead in CPU power, which is what Crackdown would be limited by.
SolidusDave
Member
Some of the physics look very wonky, but still. If cloud-computing is the only way we can get some advanced physics this gen I hope other companies (Sony) will follow suit.
It's something I was really hoping for when the new consoles were announced...
On the other hand this should not affect gameplay, it just makes it look prettier how you destroy a wall (amount of pieces etc.). I really wonder what the limitations are, like, will there be some freak deaths from falling debris that can only occur when you are connected to the servers?
Regarding your note: So destroying buildings at whim won't be something you do regularly in the final game (like in JC)? Isn't that a bit of a waste or does also the small-scale destruction require so much performance that it has to be outsourced to the servers?
Btw as the hardware still has to actually render all those debris pieces etc, I guess there could be situations in which the outsourced physics cannot be displayed anymore w/o sacrificing performance?
We've seen a demo of Crackdown using cloud computation to assist in physics. We've heard a claim that it's using 9x the physics capability of the Xbox One, but it's not exactly verifiable at this point in time. Companies, publishers etc make brazen claims with bold uses of figures all the time.
Take the 9x power figure. 9x what exactly? The Xbox One's CPU offers what, 112 gflops of theoretical max computational power in total? How many cores are reserved for the OS? 2? 1? Remove that from the equation. Say you're now theoretically working with 100 gflops. How much of the cpu is Crackdown actually using for physics based calculations? 20%? 30%? 50%? More? Take whatever number that is, and multiply it by 9, what are you left with? 450 additional gflops? More? Less? Does that then make it the most powerful console ever created?
In that sense, it's not substantiated. We don't even know what Microsoft mean, let alone the workings of it.
For Crackdown, power is a progressive thing. You start off pretty weak and progressively get more and more powerful until you're dropkicking cars around the place or slamming into buildings. Maybe the server stuff is there as things get more and more hectic. Sure I would love a mode where its full of destruction but progressively feeling more and more powerful and attempting something again that may have failed previously, is what CD is about.
Better hardware in mobile devices pretty much always makes a difference in speed with things like web browsing, even when the two compared devices are running the exact same OS versions. Eg, comparing an iPhone 5 with an iPhone 6, an S5 with an S6 and so on. It's only logical. Performance scales with the hardware. The phone is going to be processing whatever tasks are necessary at a faster rate, and that means less time to open web pages, apps and whatever else. In real world terms it may only be the difference of a few seconds, or 10fps in certain games or whatever, but it's a difference none-the-less, and does improve my overall experience. Hence the reason I upgrade in the first place.
Muppet of a Man
Member
The game is going to be great fun and very interactive (especially mp), but from what we've seen demoed, it's just not the prettiest game out there...no where near it in fact. It's very cool stuff but unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be a game changer or anything like that for Xbox's market position this gen. The average gamer is going to see lots of physics with relatively toned down visuals. The server side physics compute advancements will make a bigger splash on better hardware (maybe next gen or on pc now). This is great stuff that MS is leading the charge on, but I think it will make a bigger impact down the line. This is also a technology (like game streaming) that will not stay isolated to a single platform. When it's applied in a prettier game with greater breadth and depth (e.g., the next GTA) is when it will have a much bigger impact.
Alx
Member
The thing is, there's no reason web browsing should be slow on any recent hardware. Specifically because all the heavy lifting (queries, rendering,...) is done server-side, or should be. All your local client should have to do is retrieve and display text, images and video streams. Or sometimes a few fancy animations and menus. It should only be limited by network bandwidth and server-side limitations.
With that said I'm not saying web browsing is smooth everywhere on current platforms, but that's more an issue of bad browsers and/or badly designed websites.
9 times the compute power in one very specific area, not overall. The Internet is only good for sending fairly small pieces of data that aren't too affected by lag. It's not like it's throwing down millions of extra polys and 8k texture maps.
Umm, yeah...That's exactly what I'm saying... Microsoft is going to have the exact same maintenance costs regardless of whether they are using the servers for Xbox games or if the are renting them to enterprise customers... Those maintenance costs are already covered by the $600million annual server business... There's not reason to "charge" the Xbox division anything, as the Xbox division isn't adding any costs... Not to mention the amount of capacity reserved for Xbox is a drop in the bucket compared to Azure's overall capacity.
Are you surprised that a company would use revenues from one area to subsidize another? Because it happens all the time...
But they aren't claiming it's doing any of those things... Still the fact remains that it's being used for processes that the console couldn't do independently, while simultaneously relieving the internal hardware from all physics responsibilities... Freeing the silicon to handle extra, more latency dependent tasks.
At the end of the day, why do all those specifics matter? When you're playing the game , and the city is crumbling around you, it'll be pretty obvious that the xb1, left to its own devices, would fall way short of this type of performance. That's without question... And apparently the only limit is how much cloud processing power MS is willing to allocate to a single gaming session.
So you can choose to nitpick wording... Looking for a crack in the armor... Or you can sit back and enjoy the new, previously unthinkable use of technology...
Interceptor
Banned
I took it to mean the" most powerful" in terms physics calculations How many other consoles do you know can dedicate around 450gflops or even more purely for physics?
I agree. Clearly the article is talking about the physics calculations.
That is bloody impressive. Still work to be done no doubt to iron out a few kinks with the physics but that looks awesome. Hopefully it's financially feasible for each platform holder to implement a similar infrastructure because I'd like to see where they can take gaming with this sort of server integration.
Right, but those additional things still rely on your local hardware. Eg loading text, images, animations, ads, gif's, videos and so on. And I'm not saying web browsing is slow on my S5, I'm saying it's faster on my S6, even though both devices are on the same firmware revision, and that's mostly because of the improved hardware. You can google such comparisons on YT right now to see for yourself. And that's what it boils down to. Better hardware equalling better performance. That isn't going to change going forward. Better GPU's, CPU's, DDR4, stacked ram, HBM etc. All these hardware improvements will continue lending to better performance.
Anyway, I think we've sort of gone off tangent lol.
Bad? More like progress. I'm over the moon at the possibilities this could bring. Thanks for the concern though. You don't represent consumers, so don't try to speak for them.
1.21Gigawatts
Banned
There is a good reason why they aren't doing that and that reason is latency.
If you render the whole game on a server and stream the video you don't have a responsive game, you also have video compression.
If you only outsource parts of the code that aren't latency crictical you can have resposive as ever gameplay and boost certain things like physics, AI etc.
Another thing is that you can't just throw game code at a server. You either need servers that include XboxOne hardware or you need to have an XboxOne emulator running on the server.
I really dont get why I should be impressed by this as much as media claims I should be.
All those article headlines claiming "most impressive console game ever" hyped the fuck out of me and then I proceeded to load the video and saw a game with graphics that barely can be considered current gen (XB1/PS4) ...
Sure, full destruction is great, especially in a multiplayer game, but this is not considered anywhere close to the "most impressive" taglines awarded by a portion of the gaming press.
That doesnt mean that the game isnt fun, it could very well be the greatest multiplayer experience ever, I am not trying to bring down the game as a whole, but if I focus on the technical aspect/gfx of the game, then hell yes I would choose an impressive looking next gen game (Quantum Break for ex) with far less destruction over this, to please my gfx whore side.
All those article headlines claiming "most impressive console game ever" hyped the fuck out of me and then I proceeded to load the video and saw a game with graphics that barely can be considered current gen (XB1/PS4) ...
Sure, full destruction is great, especially in a multiplayer game, but this is not considered anywhere close to the "most impressive" taglines awarded by a portion of the gaming press.
That doesnt mean that the game isnt fun, it could very well be the greatest multiplayer experience ever, I am not trying to bring down the game as a whole, but if I focus on the technical aspect/gfx of the game, then hell yes I would choose an impressive looking next gen game (Quantum Break for ex) with far less destruction over this, to please my gfx whore side.
This bugs me.
If you actually cared about this technology you would of scraped that information from the very 10 minute video which has been posted a lot round here. Dave clearly states that the bars shown, while in debug, are the equivalent of the available physics time which they have assigned the CPU locally. It uses 10x that on the cloud. No ifs, no buts, its shown.
None of them say that. No-one has seen the game yet.
Alx
Member
But that's precisely because you are a (self proclaimed) "gfx whore", while not everybody is. For reference the most popular game of the moment is Minecraft. Just think about it...
I think the press in general is getting used to see pretty graphics. They still appreciate them, but going to such shows must be constantly going from pretty game to pretty game.
For once they're seeing something that is still technically impressive, but also new and different. No wonder they come out more impressed from that experience.
... and yet people don't believe. It's insane. It's like these crazy religious people who believe the world is 6000 years old, being shown dinosaur fossils. The evidence is there, they can see it with their own eyes but they still refuse to believe.
Here is another demo on IGN
http://uk.ign.com/videos/2015/08/06/17-minutes-of-explosive-crackdown-3-gameplay-gamescom-2015
http://uk.ign.com/videos/2015/08/06/17-minutes-of-explosive-crackdown-3-gameplay-gamescom-2015
UnluckyKate
Member
It's crackdown for you. No wonder it sold only in the US...
But the crappy art and animations aside, it's tons of fun
Alx
Member
No way we can tell, really. It's been presented as "Xbox exclusive", if they intend to port it to PC they probably won't talk about it before some time.
Alx
Member
I know those tech demos are tightly controlled to make sure they don't meet any unexpected issue, but I'd love to see the destruction from a different point of view for a change. For example show the point of view of a player inside the building while it's falling down...
Hmm, i own a pretty powerful current gen PC, Wii U, PS4 and new 3DS. There's no need for me to get an Xbox One at this point. There's only so much games i can play/handle. I hope they do the right thing and profit from the PC playerbase, and bring this wonderful tech/game to Windows
1.21Gigawatts
Banned
I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work on other plattforms.
And I think if 3rd party devs want to adapt the tech they will certainly want to be able to use it more plattforms than just Xbox.
Question is who will pay for the servers? Microsoft(or others with suitable server farms) won't just provide them for free. Would probably require the 3rd party publishers to pay for the servers.
Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
How long will the attempts to downplay and discredit go on?
Amazing scenes.
Amazing scenes.
Why is it bad if it works ???