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[jax (old)]

lol @ the response post from ozymandias. Does he post on gaf? I thought he did because of the name but wasn't sure. Seeing that XBL gamertag so of makes me think he does.

His comment about compression technology doesn't change the fact according to the MS powerpoint, that at least 2 cores are needed for some sort of decompression - whether it be audio or texture.

and consumer choice. :lol True but still funny. I don't think anyone is really sold on the add on.

 

[Moderation Unlimited]

http://ozymandias.com/archive/2006/...0_-We_2700_re-in-Violent-Agreement_2900_.aspx



interesting read.

They both, for once, give pretty candid answers from opposing viewpoints. There are definite advantages and disadvantes to both ways of doing things. It's really whatever you think to be the right path. I personally would like to see games get more complex, with deeper gameplay elements that require massive processing power (more types of interaction, at different levels, and higher quality interaction). I personally would not want to waste precious CPU/GPU cycles on anything but texture decompression schemes, which have native hardware support anyway. File decompression (general decompression) certainly still does not, and thus is software driven which is highly inefficient IMO.

 

[jax (old)]

IThe fact that the data is decompressed and dumped onto the harddrive for PC games does not negate the fact that the textures were compressed, stored on DVD, and in ---'s opinion, look better then PS3 textures.

if you read that carefully, it makes no sense

 

[HokieJoe]

When was the last time a PC developer cared what most people currently have hardware wise? I don't play PC games but it seems like they just put requirements what run it and don't really care what the majority of people have, could be wrong though.

Any game like HL2 or UT2K4 have target hardware audiences. I would imagine that PC developers have it kind of tough in this regard actually. They have to build their game to work across a broad spectrum of PC config's. Not everyone has a DX9+ GPU and a Athlon 64 X2 you know. Some people are still running DX7 and DX8 cards with a ~1.2GHz Pentiums or Athlon XP's. That's fine for desktop apps, but it's the bare minimum for a resource intensive PC game. If the developer is good at their craft, the game will look good *even* on lower-end machines.

There are also the inevitable bugs caused by poor interface with the multitude of video or sound card drivers out there. As well, sometimes it's a combination of things that can cause problems. All of that *stuff* has to be tested for. Even then, they can still run into problems after the fact. Since MS tried to standardize the driver base with XP (theoretically it should improve even more with Vista) it has improved, but you still have rogue configurations that can cause issues for various games.

 

[Pseudo judo]

if you read that carefully, it makes no sense

You're out of context.

 

[Pimpwerx]

Both are good arguments. Yes, compression is the solution to the storage restrictions. However, compression costs clock cycles. It's a tradeoff. The Getaway may end up forcing Rockstar to go whole hog on GTA4. Team SOHO should be going apeshit on the graphics side of things. GTA was never a killer looking game, but it always held its own against The Getaway games. PEACE.

 

[----]

The proof is in the pudding. The texture quality of launch PS3 games seems underwhelming to me thus far. Some people say that this will improve over time, so I guess it's a wait and see thing for now. If texture quality doesn't improve significantly for PS3 games I will be very disappointed in the hardware design decisions that Sony made. It's ironic to me that people are saying the thing that Blu-ray enables is higher quality textures when texture quailty has been the biggest problem I have with the PS3 games I've seen thus far.

 

[Vyer]

Admittedly, Blu-Ray looks dicey from several non-capacity angles. Blu-Ray movies require a 1.5x Blu-Ray drive, or 54Mbits/second. Sony announced that PS3 uses a 2x BD drive, which is 72Mbits/second or 9MB/second. The Xbox360 uses a 12x DVD, which should give it about 16MB/second. That is significantly faster for games and will result in shorter load times. And that 12x DVD drive should be a whole lot cheaper. (Note that the PS3 drive will do 8x DVD, and even that is faster than 2x BD.)

So is this saying PS3 will have longer load times? I wonder what 'signficantly faster' translates to.

 

[OmniGamer]

Is drive speed the only thing to take into account? Didn't Blu-Ray tech have some extra advances that also should be considered?

I've only see one other person echo this question in the whole thread...isn't this pretty significant? Blu-Ray isn't just a 25GB DVD, there are several "next gen" features, so it's not just a 1:1 comparison when it comes to DVD vs BRD drive speed, correct?

 

[Faizal]

I've only see one other person echo this question in the whole thread...isn't this pretty significant? Blu-Ray isn't just a 25GB DVD, there are several "next gen" features, so it's not just a 1:1 comparison when it comes to DVD vs BRD drive speed, correct?

I think you're confusing it with BRD movies vs DVD movies. If you're just talking about data storage I don't think there's any other advantages.

 

[LevelNth]

My disagreement with the argument against Blu-Ray is that I find those who choose this side of the coin offer up a very short sighted viewpoint on the matter. The talk always seems to revolve around the present or the near future, but completely sidesteps something I think is exceedingly important: I think 5 year console cycles are now obsolete, as the technological advantages available (when constricted by the normal console constraints of cost and developer capabilities/budgets) won't be significant enough to show a meaningful level of improvement, which will negate the largest motivator of most gamers to upgrade.

So with that in mind, back to my original point, will DVD's offer sufficient storage in 2009? 2010? Will they start to hold back or limit the scope of development by that time? And to be honest, I think this coming gen needs to last at minimum a year or two beyond that point. IMO, the BD argument boils down to a matter of foresight, future-proofing and maximizing one's investment. For a gen that I feel needs to last a minimum of 6-7 years, I'd rather spend a $100 premium than risk a storage format hindering (in any way) the final 25-50% of my purchases' shelf life (aka. the quality of the games).

 

[Raistlin]

I've only see one other person echo this question in the whole thread...isn't this pretty significant? Blu-Ray isn't just a 25GB DVD, there are several "next gen" features, so it's not just a 1:1 comparison when it comes to DVD vs BRD drive speed, correct?

It has faster seek times, constant velocity, plus some other technologies (some sort of random access capability, etc.) that DVD does not have.

How those transfer to real-world transfer rates ... damn if I know. I'm sure we'll hear some dev impressions over the next year though.


To my knowledge, you are correct that it isn't as easy as a 1:1 comparison. Simply comparing BD MB/s versus DVD average MB/s does not give an accurate impression of real-world performance.

 

[Raistlin]

I think you're confusing it with BRD movies vs DVD movies. If you're just talking about data storage I don't think there's any other advantages.

I believe you are incorrect.

 

[Faizal]

My disagreement with the argument against Blu-Ray is that I find those who choose this side of the coin offer up a very short sighted viewpoint on the matter. The talk always seems to revolve around the present or the near future, but completely sidesteps something I think is exceedingly important: I think 5 year console cycles are now obsolete, as the technological advantages available (when constricted by the normal console constraints of cost and developer capabilities/budgets) won't be significant enough to show a meaningful level of improvement, which will negate the largest motivator of most gamers to upgrade.

So with that in mind, back to my original point, will DVD's offer sufficient storage in 2009? 2010? Will they start to hold back or limit the scope of development by that time? And to be honest, I think this coming gen needs to last at minimum a year or two beyond that point. IMO, the BD argument boils down to a matter of foresight, future-proofing and maximizing one's investment. For a gen that I feel needs to last a minimum of 6-7 years, I'd rather spend a $100 premium than risk a storage format hindering (in any way) the final 25-50% of my purchases' shelf life (aka. the quality of the games).

Is having multiple game discs really so horrible? If we can allow for a game to be on 2 DVDs instead of 1, this whole argument becomes moot, right?

During the PS1 era, CD was already old technology and woefully inadequate for holding game data, but we were still able to live with multiple disc games for most of the PS1 lifespan. I don't remember anyone complaining that the storage capacity of CDs was "limiting" the potential of the PS1 or "hurting" its game quality.

I mean it's nice to have more storage and not having to swap discs, but I don't understand the reasoning that somehow having to use DVDs is going to "cripple" X360 games.

 

[bud]

The proof is in the pudding. The texture quality of launch PS3 games seems underwhelming to me thus far. Some people say that this will improve over time, so I guess it's a wait and see thing for now. If texture quality doesn't improve significantly for PS3 games I will be very disappointed in the hardware design decisions that Sony made. It's ironic to me that people are saying the thing that Blu-ray enables is higher quality textures when texture quailty has been the biggest problem I have with the PS3 games I've seen thus far.

 

[megateto]

I've only see one other person echo this question in the whole thread...isn't this pretty significant? Blu-Ray isn't just a 25GB DVD, there are several "next gen" features, so it's not just a 1:1 comparison when it comes to DVD vs BRD drive speed, correct?

Thanks for saving my question! And for the replies too

 

[OmniGamer]

Thanks for saving my question! And for the replies too

No prob...it's something that can get lost in the "compression/multi-disk" shuffle.

 

[tiddles]

From the comments on Ozymandias' reply:

A 12x CAV drive like the one in the 360 will be 12x speed for around 15% of the outer disc, that figure is peak performance. The closer to the inner ring it gets the slower accesses get (5x speed on the inner ring) - probable average: around 8x speed. Another interesting thing seems to escape everyone is that the 12x DVD drive in the 360 only reads dual layer discs at a maximum of 8x speed. As it was in single layer, the 8x speed is peak performance. The 2x speed BD drive performs quite well in this case: a BD25 on PS3 fares better than a DVD9 on the 360. The great majority of 360 games are and will be pressed on DVD9s. Another interesting point with existing CLV BD drives is that they do not have the dual layer penalization with DVD dics. If a BD drive is rated to read DVDs at 8x, it will read dual layer DVDs at 8x as well. This is why Sony is comfortable with its choice and knows it will hold its own against MS's choice in the DVD format.

Caching thankfully minimizes either DVD or BD's shortcomings, and careful authoring on either format will help minimize speed issues. These technicalities shouldn't matter to a true gamer and any advantages in either format will in all likelyhood go unnoticed in any regard to the untrained.

Interesting (if it's true) - I hadn't heard any of that before...

 

[Mrbob]

Ozymandias ownz0rrrrrrd it seems.

Is that really true where the 360 drive only reads 8X with dual layered DVD discs? That sucks because nearly all 360 games will be dual layered. Perhaps BRD FTW after all. No compromises.

 

[Pseudo judo]

http://images.elotrolado.net/news2/270306165942_1big.jpg

I'm sorry but is this meant to represent good texture quality or poor? IMO, the models look fine but the textures aren't anything to get excited about. Maybe there are better examples but you chose a poor one here if you meaning was meant to be positive.

 

[Mojovonio]

Again, MS was in a very tough position.

They could have released the 360 with a HD-DVD drive and charge as much as Sony is. What if HD-DVD fails? It will be very expensive to produce the drives.

They sure as hell weren't going to go with blu-ray.

Had they delayed the 360 a year (since the 360 came out too soon anyways), then maybe they wouldn't be in this mess, but alas, they wanted to be the first out the door.

 

[Mojovonio]

I'm sorry but is this meant to represent good texture quality or poor? IMO, the models look fine but the textures aren't anything to get excited about. Maybe there are better examples but you chose a poor one here if you meaning was meant to be positive.

Oh STFU.

Plus, is that even in-game?

 

[LevelNth]

Is having multiple game discs really so horrible? If we can allow for a game to be on 2 DVDs instead of 1, this whole argument becomes moot, right?

During the PS1 era, CD was already old technology and woefully inadequate for holding game data, but we were still able to live with multiple disc games for most of the PS1 lifespan. I don't remember anyone complaining that the storage capacity of CDs was "limiting" the potential of the PS1 or "hurting" its game quality.

I mean it's nice to have more storage and not having to swap discs, but I don't understand the reasoning that somehow having to use DVDs is going to "cripple" X360 games.

This is a decent argument, and admittedly it's fine for certain genres or certain games, but I think continuous streaming and seamless play is the best advancement of the last gen, and it's something that can be put to use in so many genres. The age of loading screens, constricted levels and forced linearity can come to an end this gen thanks to the power in these systems (which is the biggest difference between the PSone), and disc swapping only hinders that.

But more so than that, the reality is many developers are going to try and limit their games to one disc. I personally think that's a damn near fact. So they may start overly recycling textures, downsampling audio, lowering texture res, etc. This is what I don't want, yet this is what I'm afraid is going to happen.

 

[bud]

I'm sorry but is this meant to represent good texture quality or poor? IMO, the models look fine but the textures aren't anything to get excited about. Maybe there are better examples but you chose a poor one here if you meaning was meant to be positive.

those textures don't look good?

you're lost.

Oh STFU.

Plus, is that even in-game?

yes

 

[Mojovonio]

those textures don't look good?

you're lost.



yes

Where has it been confirmed?

 

[bud]

Where has it been confirmed?

one of the devs playing it or something.

 

[Bodom78]

Who cares, the 360 is stuck with the DVD format, that’s not going to change and if there is a great game to be played and it spans across multiple DVD's then that sure as hell is not going to be the deciding factor in me not purchasing it.

Also the "MS should have waited a year" argument is lame, I mean had they launched the same time or closer to the PS3 they would not have stood a chance.

At least now the 360 has a nice library of titles and some great looking next gen titles on the horizon while the PS3 has almost nothing to show aside from MGS4 which in my eyes is the only decent thing I have seen so far and that’s not due for a while anyways.

 

[mckmas8808]

Where has it been confirmed?

It was a leaked screenshot. Everybody here @ GAF knows it is real-time. Now you do.


I think this needs to be posted again.

A 12x CAV drive like the one in the 360 will be 12x speed for around 15% of the outer disc, that figure is peak performance. The closer to the inner ring it gets the slower accesses get (5x speed on the inner ring) - probable average: around 8x speed. Another interesting thing seems to escape everyone is that the 12x DVD drive in the 360 only reads dual layer discs at a maximum of 8x speed. As it was in single layer, the 8x speed is peak performance. The 2x speed BD drive performs quite well in this case: a BD25 on PS3 fares better than a DVD9 on the 360. The great majority of 360 games are and will be pressed on DVD9s. Another interesting point with existing CLV BD drives is that they do not have the dual layer penalization with DVD dics. If a BD drive is rated to read DVDs at 8x, it will read dual layer DVDs at 8x as well. This is why Sony is comfortable with its choice and knows it will hold its own against MS's choice in the DVD format.

 

[StingerNLG]

those textures don't look good?

Those textures DO???

Look at the knight! Is there an ounce of AA in that screenshot at all?

Come on, at least use the Resistance screenshots.

 

[Y2Kev]

Those textures DO???

Look at the knight! Is there an ounce of AA in that screenshot at all?

Come on, at least use the Resistance screenshots.

What does AA have to do with texture quality?

 

[Raven.]

HAHA LOL.

You are always trying to beat this point home. Developers will find a way to make it work. PC is a valid format too you know. Most devs will plan on restricting size to a DVD9 this gen. The PS3 is outnumbered man. GTA4 will surely not have this problem. Crackdown has an absolutely massive environment, so does Oblivion, so does Saints Row, with no problems with disc storage. Their is already proof on the market that your assumption is ASS and fanboy dreaming.

GTAs have been increasing in land-mass 2-3x~ from sequel to sequel, and hopefully they'll continue to do so throughout their nextgen iterations. If they allow all indoor locations to be accessible and increase textures beyond mere blurs + 5.1 radio.... it's only a matter of time.

 

[sugarhigh4242]

considering how there's already games pushing 7GB on the 360, the people claiming a significant number of games won't surpass DVD9 capacity have no credibility.

 

[loosus]

Have the DVD-ROM drive specs been leaked for Wii yet?

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Have the DVD-ROM drive specs been leaked for Wii yet?

I'd rather Wii be kept out of this Red Ocean of Hell and have it left alone to explore in the Blue Ocean of Pure Gaming Goodness.

But seriously, Wii will offer games completely different from X360 and PS3, no point in really comparing optical drive read speeds. And as far as I can remember, there hasn't been anything on the Wii optical disc speed.

 

[sonycowboy]

A 12x CAV drive like the one in the 360 will be 12x speed for around 15% of the outer disc, that figure is peak performance. The closer to the inner ring it gets the slower accesses get (5x speed on the inner ring) - probable average: around 8x speed. Another interesting thing seems to escape everyone is that the 12x DVD drive in the 360 only reads dual layer discs at a maximum of 8x speed. As it was in single layer, the 8x speed is peak performance. The 2x speed BD drive performs quite well in this case: a BD25 on PS3 fares better than a DVD9 on the 360. The great majority of 360 games are and will be pressed on DVD9s. Another interesting point with existing CLV BD drives is that they do not have the dual layer penalization with DVD dics. If a BD drive is rated to read DVDs at 8x, it will read dual layer DVDs at 8x as well. This is why Sony is comfortable with its choice and knows it will hold its own against MS's choice in the DVD format.

Caching thankfully minimizes either DVD or BD's shortcomings, and careful authoring on either format will help minimize speed issues. These technicalities shouldn't matter to a true gamer and any advantages in either format will in all likelyhood go unnoticed in any regard to the untrained.

Wow. So, there's no penalty at all for the BD-Drive other than the obvious cost to produce the extra content

Faster than the 360 DVD, more storage, and a next-gen player to boot for the trifecta.

 

[OmniGamer]

Wow. So, there's no penalty at all for the BD-Drive other than the obvious cost to produce the extra content

Faster than the 360 DVD, more storage, and a next-gen player to boot for the trifecta.

Now you're getting it

 

[Yoboman]

Lazy developers amirite?

 

[mckmas8808]

Wow. So, there's no penalty at all for the BD-Drive other than the obvious cost to produce the extra content

Faster than the 360 DVD, more storage, and a next-gen player to boot for the trifecta.

YEP! Notice after that information was disclosed this thread went to shit?:lol

What happened to all the 5, 6 pages of conversation? I'm serious.

 

[dirtmonkey37]

so.....360 will not be able to hold games of the future.........




Whatever. Just give me ME and Too Human (and BK 3) which will all come out in a period that DVD 9's are still not obselete and I'm happy. As long as I get fun games I'm happy.

 

[mckmas8808]

so.....360 will not be able to hold games of the future.........




Whatever. Just give me ME and Too Human (and BK 3) which will all come out in a period that DVD 9's are still not obselete and I'm happy. As long as I get fun games I'm happy.

Of course you should be happy. They will be good games. The point of this thread is to show the advantages and disadvantages of Blu-ray games.

And honestly there's more advantages than disadvantages.

 

[monkeymagic]

Wow. So, there's no penalty at all for the BD-Drive other than the obvious cost to produce the extra content

Faster than the 360 DVD, more storage, and a next-gen player to boot for the trifecta.

Samsung 12X DVD-ROM reading DVD9 disc doesn't quite reach 8X:

 

[Luckyman]

The proof is in the pudding. The texture quality of launch PS3 games seems underwhelming to me thus far. Some people say that this will improve over time, so I guess it's a wait and see thing for now. If texture quality doesn't improve significantly for PS3 games I will be very disappointed in the hardware design decisions that Sony made. It's ironic to me that people are saying the thing that Blu-ray enables is higher quality textures when texture quailty has been the biggest problem I have with the PS3 games I've seen thus far.

 

[Wollan]

NDs jungle game is the new old man.

 

[Oni Jazar]

A 12x CAV drive like the one in the 360 will be 12x speed for around 15% of the outer disc, that figure is peak performance. The closer to the inner ring it gets the slower accesses get (5x speed on the inner ring) - probable average: around 8x speed. Another interesting thing seems to escape everyone is that the 12x DVD drive in the 360 only reads dual layer discs at a maximum of 8x speed. As it was in single layer, the 8x speed is peak performance. The 2x speed BD drive performs quite well in this case: a BD25 on PS3 fares better than a DVD9 on the 360. The great majority of 360 games are and will be pressed on DVD9s. Another interesting point with existing CLV BD drives is that they do not have the dual layer penalization with DVD dics. If a BD drive is rated to read DVDs at 8x, it will read dual layer DVDs at 8x as well. This is why Sony is comfortable with its choice and knows it will hold its own against MS's choice in the DVD format.

Can we get confirmation on this? First I've heard it.
This is how I understood it:

 

[Forsete]

Can we get confirmation on this? First I've heard it.

Same here..
Hmm, quite interesting.

 

[gofreak]

Can we get confirmation on this? First I've heard it.

The stuff about the speed varying to a maximum of 12x is correct, but I'm not sure about the min speed and averages.

Hadn't heard about the max being 8x on DL discs either, would like confirmation on that myself.

One additional thing I had heard was that there's a non-negligible penalty when switching layers on a dual-layer disc.

 

[mckmas8808]

Some MS devs sure could help piece this together with a confirmation.

 

[Zaptruder]

Can we get confirmation on this? First I've heard it.
This is how I understood it:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/170/3

That's about as close as I could find... you'll see in a table about halfway down, all the DVD burners suffer a speed performance drop reading dual layer discs. Note, it's not just extra time taken to read discs, but that the reading speed drops too. Whether that extends to all DL DVDs and CAV DVD drives is upto your conjecture... but it does seem pretty solid IMO.

As for reading it faster on the outside then on the inside, that's the nature of CAV drives.

 

[deathkiller]

The read speed with Dual Layer media is indeed worse than with single layer media.

This is a graph of average real speed of 16x lectors:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2260&p=12

 

[Raistlin]

NDs jungle game is the new old man.

:lol











(yes)