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[Bullet Club]

YT description:

It's the real deal. This is an Epic-made build of Gears of War 3 for PS3. This build is dated May 19 2011, and is the only build of this ever located. As far as I know I'm also the only person with a working build of this particular data as well. I don't know why it exists, I dont know why it was made. All I can do is speculate.

This is distinctly different from the January 2011 build, as that build was rebuilt from source by an unknown party. As a result, theres 2 builds on PS3, one being unofficial (Jan 2011), the other being this one (May 19 2011). There's a lot of differences from final, as well as a lot of changes from the January data, but I'll skip over them for now.

Important notes

It's currently running on a PS3 Devkit. These have additional RAM that is available and without it you cannot play this.

RPCS3 is not fully able to play this either, but small parts can be loaded under specific conditions.

Splitscreen works, as does multiplayer with the right commands.

Network play is not available as far as I know, as it cannot connect to Xbox Live, nor can it connect to PSN. If it's able to connect with other systems, I cant test it.

Buttons still show Xbox 360 buttons, as well as tries to read storage like the Xbox 360, but if you select a profile it will softlock the system.

I'm keeping the fix for the data private.

No I wont share it.

How well does it run?

Performance wise, better than the unofficial build remade from source, but not free from flaws. Anya is the biggest performance loss during all of this due to her hair.

Control wise, it has the same issues as the unofficial build. Fully horizontal and vertical aiming movement is quite poor, so you must include slight offsets to your aiming, which in turn makes actually shooting things really difficult.

For levels playable, everything is playable outside of 2 specific cases. Convoy (Act 3 Chapter 3) is unplayable due to an unavoidable RSX exception.

Normally you could skip this by loading a specific checkpoint, but the checkpoint system is broken. In turn this leaves it impossible to play the level.

The other level is the finale, where the boss gets stuck on a scripting issue. It leaves the level impossible to finish, but is almost complete.

 

[Shakka43]

Was a possible port to Playstation the reason Microsoft bought the IP?

 

[diffusionx]

Was a possible port to Playstation the reason Microsoft bought the IP?

It's possible they did this because it is a cross-gen engine and they used the GoW games to enhance it and add new features.

Pure speculation of course... but I don't think this was going to land on PS3.

 

[SleepDoctor]

Was a possible port to Playstation the reason Microsoft bought the IP?

I believe so, epic was on verge of going mulitiplatform iirc. So ms just bought the ip from them.

 

[DoctaThompson]

This could only run on the devkit, because it had more ram. This wouldn't run on the consumer ps3 version.

 

[Fake]

Very interesting.

 

[kruis]

This could only run on the devkit, because it had more ram. This wouldn't run on the consumer ps3 version.

Games that can only run on dev kits are obviously versions that haven't gone through an optimization phase to limit ram usage and improve frame times.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Losing Gears would have torn up Microsoft fanboys asses lol according to this video it was possible

 

[LordOfChaos]

I wonder how much PS3 bespoke optimization was running here, like SPE usage. Clearly looked like there was a ways to go for optimization, but I wonder how far they had went before going exclusive.

 

[Sub_Level]

DF Retro episode? DF Retro episode.

 

[oldergamer]

doesn't look as good as Xbox 360. I wonder if this was a factor i MS buying the franchise from Epic.

 

[SCB3]

Hmm, but why exactly was this even tested? Gears pretty much was Xbox Exclusive from the first game and wasn't going anywhere else. The Unreal Engine at this point was hard to use on PS3 due to the Cell Architecture so perhaps this was made as a test?

 

[Saber]

This sounds pretty good. Even more because GW3 is the best GW game imo.

 

[oldergamer]

I wonder how much PS3 bespoke optimization was running here, like SPE usage. Clearly looked like there was a ways to go for optimization, but I wonder how far they had went before going exclusive.

I doubt it would have been running without using the SPE's

 

[Bolivar687]

Hmm, but why exactly was this even tested? Gears pretty much was Xbox Exclusive from the first game and wasn't going anywhere else.

Epic could tell which way the wind was blowing.

 

[rofif]

It's unreal engine so it's ready for all platforms.
I just wish Gears trilogy made it to pc

 

[DoctaThompson]

Games that can only run on dev kits are obviously versions that haven't gone through an optimization phase to limit ram usage and improve frame times.

Losing Gears would have torn up Microsoft fanboys asses lol according to this video it was possible

It's literally in the article

It's currently running on a PS3 Devkit. These have additional RAM that is available and without it you cannot play this.

RPCS3 is not fully able to play this either, but small parts can be loaded under specific conditions.

I'm assuming this is because the split ram the ps3 had. Yes it was running poorly, but nonetheless running. Not playable on a consumer ps3, and you'd have to load small chunks in an emulator to even get it to run.

 

[jakinov]

I think it's likely because Gears was probably their flagship demo/poc/prototype for UE3; they often always used that game to show off new features in tech demos for UE3. They probably used the game to test/prove whatever features they were adding UE3 worked on the PS3 too.

 

[M1chl]

Losing Gears would have torn up Microsoft fanboys asses lol according to this video it was possible

In retrospect it would not matter that much, because last good Gears was 3.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Would have been interesting to see a final version compared to 360. I remember most multi-plats I played last gen looked better on 360.

 

[Agnostic2020]

In retrospect it would not matter that much, because last good Gears was 3.

Honestly this is kinda true. In grand scheme of things nothing would have happened as the best years of gears were 1,2 and 3. Still enjoyed gears 4 and 5 though but first 3 were something else for their time

 

[M1chl]

Honestly this is kinda true. In grand scheme of things nothing would have happened as the best years of gears were 1,2 and 3. Still enjoyed gears 4 and 5 though but first 3 were something else for their time

Agreed. Bring back Bleszinski!

 

[Lupin3]

Interesting! Now print a cover for it.

 

[angelic]

Interesting, but small half height pop up wall shooters died 10 years ago. Leave them buried.

 

[Riven326]

Interesting, but small half height pop up wall shooters died 10 years ago. Leave them buried.

They're still pumping out Gears games.

 

[angelic]

They're still pumping out Gears games.

Straight to Gamepass and irrelevant though, it's not the franchise it used to be when everyone was playing it on live.

 

[ZywyPL]

Apparently Cell was so powerful it could even run X360 exclusives

 

[DoctaThompson]

Apparently Cell was so powerful it could even run X360 exclusives

Rumor has it that each of the 12 channels in the ps5 SSD, is paired with a Cell SPE. You heard it here first, bookmark this post.

 

[Riven326]

Straight to Gamepass and irrelevant though, it's not the franchise it used to be when everyone was playing it on live.

Isn't virtually everything on Gamepass?

 

[MCplayer]

any exclusive can run on another platform with some tweaks

 

[V2Tommy]

Gears 1 was the best and only good one, so this is a loss. The horror shooter was invented and killed in a single entry of one franchise.

 

[DoctaThompson]

Isn't virtually everything on Gamepass?

There are singles in your area, ready to fu*k.

Only on gamepass

 

[HE1NZ]

Naturally PS3 can barely run it.

 

[angelic]

?

Yes, but gears is still past it's prime.

 

[DoctaThompson]

Naturally PS3 can barely run it.

Shhh don't say that too loud, you'll get laughed at. It's true though. Abysmal framerate and low quality assets, dropping well below 20fps. Sony should have went with unified 512mb of ram back then, instead of the split system.

 

[Riven326]

Yes, but gears is still past it's prime.

So is Mike Tyson.

 

[CamHostage]

Whoa, weird, Gears 3? I thought at first before clicking that this was a prototype build of Gears 1, back when Epic was shopping it to publishers (I assume it wasn't a full MGS production from the start?) and the team was still cobbling a game together of UE3 tech demo assets.

Was a possible port to Playstation the reason Microsoft bought the IP?

It would have been the other way around, I imagine: that Epic made the PlayStation port while negotiations were still active whether MS would own the franchise or another publisher would take the franchise multiplatform. Having a port mostly done would allow them to pivot quickly if things went the other way, and if the PS3 port came to nothing, it might still help with the engine refinements that internal Epic game productions help funnel down to the tools team (and vice-versa.)

I think it's likely because Gears was probably their flagship demo/poc/prototype for UE3; they often always used that game to show off new features in tech demos for UE3. They probably used the game to test/prove whatever features they were adding UE3 worked on the PS3 too.

It's possible they did this because it is a cross-gen engine and they used the GoW games to enhance it and add new features.

But you wouldn't port the whole game, though, right?

Seems like they could have just done a vertical slice of a level or so if they wanted to use a new Gears as a tech demo for selling the engine (though by the time of Gears 3, Epic hardly needed help getting Unreal Engine 3 licensed or shown off.)

Or similarly, they could have used just portions of the game as internal test material, like "Hey Gears 3 team, we want to get Hair optimized for PS3 in the next UE3 build, could you take what you have of the Gears 3 project that's using the new Hair system and do a test-run on PS3 so we could refine it and catch some errors?"

Or I guess they could have used the full game code as a multiplatform test of the finalizer, making sure that a new version of the exporter could write a fully playable executeable on each platform of the latest UE3 components, using the vanguard Gears 3 project as the sample (is there also a PC build somewhere in storage? Is there like an unplayable iOS export attempt in the cabinet, where they stress-tested UE3 on phones by seeing what the development suite would do if you tried to spit Gears onto it?) Why though, other than novelty, would the company keep the build once you've done a test-pressing?

I'm not in development, but I'm not yet seeing why you would do a fully playable port?

 

[skneogaf]

If gears of war 3 came out on a playstation it would be one of the best games ever but the fact is it is only a mediocre shooter that needs new ideas.

 

[FranXico]

The port was made for internal use at Epic. They used it to test Unreal Engine. That's all there is to it.

Cool find.

 

[LostDonkey]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Bernkastel]

Was a possible port to Playstation the reason Microsoft bought the IP?

Originally Epic owned the ip. Microsoft bought the ip and there AAA team which became Coalition.

 

[jakinov]

Whoa, weird, Gears 3? I thought at first before clicking that this was a prototype build of Gears 1, back when Epic was shopping it to publishers (I assume it wasn't a full MGS production from the start?) and the team was still cobbling a game together of UE3 tech demo assets.


It would have been the other way around, I imagine: that Epic made the PlayStation port while negotiations were still active whether MS would own the franchise or another publisher would take the franchise multiplatform. Having a port mostly done would allow them to pivot quickly if things went the other way, and if the PS3 port came to nothing, it might still help with the engine refinements that internal Epic game productions help funnel down to the tools team (and vice-versa.)




You wouldn't port the whole game, though, right? They could have done a vertical slice if they wanted to use a new Gears as a tech demo for selling the engine (though by the time of Gears 3, Epic hardly needed help getting Unreal Engine 3 licensed or shown off.) Or they could have used a single level as an internal demo, like "Hey Gears 3 team, we want to get Hair optimized for PS3 in the next UE3 build, could you take what you have of the Gears 3 project that's using the new Hair system and do a test-run on PS3 so we could refine it and catch some errors?" Or I guess they could have used it as a multiplatform build test, making sure that a new version of the exporter could write a fully playable executeable on each platform of the latest UE3 components by using the vanguard Gears 3 project as the sample (is there also a PC build somewhere in storage?,) but then why (other than novelty) would you keep the build once you've done a test-pressing?

I'm not in development, but I'm not yet seeing why you would do a fully playable port?

They might want to if they want to test out all the features and ensure it's stable and working as intended in all areas/situations. Also, I believe part of UE3's sell was cross-platform development was easier. So it was probably not a whole lot of work getting a UE3 game at least running on the PS3. It's also likely not about selling but about testing and proving internally okay we got this feature working well on both platforms and we can edit on one place and have it work correctly on both places.

 

[kingbean]

Super interesting. I think it would be interesting to see if Epic themselves could have made UE3 run well on PS3.

 

[Codes 208]

It's possible they did this because it is a cross-gen engine and they used the GoW games to enhance it and add new features.

Pure speculation of course... but I don't think this was going to land on PS3.

you means Gears.

Gears = Gears of War
GoW = God of War

hell this is so much of a hot topic that coalition even renamed the series to just Gears. (Gears 5, Gears Tactics and almost Gears 4)

 

[Riven326]

The port was made for internal use at Epic. They used it to test Unreal Engine. That's all there is to it.

Cool find.

On the inferior console. Just to have a laugh.

 

[HE1NZ]

The port was made for internal use at Epic. They used it to test Unreal Engine. That's all there is to it.

Cool find.

Why would they develop it for testing at the end of PS3 lifecycle? They already have UT3 for it.

 

[Codes 208]

Why would they develop it for testing at the end of PS3 lifecycle? They already have UT3 for it.

Rumors early on were that once the exclusivity wore up with MS they planned on porting Gears 3 to the PS3, and then later on there was that Gears remake rumor for ps4.

I believe MS bought the IP for the same reason they bought halo from bungie just before their contract expired: continued exclusivity.

 

[thelastword]

PS3 could have easily run Gears if Epic optimized it. Unreal on PS3 was more than testament and it looked better than Gears too.

 

[darkinstinct]

This sounds pretty good. Even more because GW3 is the best GW game imo.

As a campaign only player Gears 3 is the worst game in the main series and it is not even close.

 

[Codes 208]

As a campaign only player Gears 3 is the worst game in the main series and it is not even close.

Cool but as the whole package, when it comes to horde and MP its arguably the best in the series.