http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VFFR-5a-Ko

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VFFR-5a-Ko

Antes tarde Duke Nukem (wordplay that only works in portuguese with the well
known saying)

But I don't buy it, both ways.  It's just hype for the old game playing with its
legendary hold-on...

Btw, I thought it'd be another guitar solo... and speaking of games, how much
did you enjoy Alan Wake after all?  I recently bought a PS3 and finally got to
grips with nextgen gaming.  I'm positively impressed with Assassin's Creed,
classic Prince if Persia gameplay and mindblowing historical reconstructions...
Never thought too high of Ubisoft, but I take my hat for this.

Anyone into Crysis 2?

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Btw, I thought it'd be another guitar solo... and speaking of games, how much
> did you enjoy Alan Wake after all?

  I posted a semi-review in the past.

  The graphics and the storyline were absolutely superb (hard to find any
other game with such profound writing and storytelling), although the
gameplay suffers a bit from total linearity.

>  I recently bought a PS3 and finally got to
> grips with nextgen gaming.  I'm positively impressed with Assassin's Creed,
> classic Prince if Persia gameplay and mindblowing historical reconstructions...
> Never thought too high of Ubisoft, but I take my hat for this.

  I warmly recommend Assassin's Creed 2. I don't know how it is on the PS3,
but on the Xbox 360 it looks really gorgeous. They really pushed the
technical capabilities of the console. (The Xbox 360 often suffers from
surprisingly poor graphics compared to a top-of-the-line modern PC, most
probably because the console has so little RAM, but this game certainly
doesn't show such limitations.) I was also surprised how much I liked the
game otherwise (I was not expecting much because Oblivion pretty much
immunized me to the wonders of free open sandbox gameplay.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   I warmly recommend Assassin's Creed 2.

it's certainly on my list once I end Altair's quest.

> I don't know how it is on the PS3,
> but on the Xbox 360 it looks really gorgeous.

They are pretty equivalent, whatever Sony's hype for the Cell.  PS3 looks
slightly graphically better on its exclusives by its second parties, but for
multiplatform 360 has an edge, since it's basically PC tech and producers tend
to target that.

> They really pushed the
> technical capabilities of the console. (The Xbox 360 often suffers from
> surprisingly poor graphics compared to a top-of-the-line modern PC, most
> probably because the console has so little RAM, but this game certainly
> doesn't show such limitations.)

PC gaming is out of reach for a Linux guy.

In any case, PC gaming is cramped by the success of consoles:  what does it
matter to have all that power when it's used basically to run console game ports
with resolutions going higher than your monitor supports and frame rates higher
than your eyes support... LOL  Nextgen gaming to me is not playing Wii games on
PC via emulator with top settings, it's playing games that were not possible
before on previous hardware.  It was total shock coming from Shadow of the
Colossus to Assassin's Creed -- that's nextgen no doubt.

Plus I never enjoyed typical PC games like FPS, strategy and simulations... I've
been grown on arcades and consoles...

> I was also surprised how much I liked the
> game otherwise (I was not expecting much because Oblivion pretty much
> immunized me to the wonders of free open sandbox gameplay.)

I'm not a fan of open-world when it comes to GTA, where you just mindlessly roam
around bullying and killing people -- plus I play games to get away from
everyday reality and being thrown into a typical urban environment is not my
idea of fun.  Thus, although you are a professional historical assassin in AC,
such freedom is put to good use by having main goals, having to explore the
environment to find out how to tackle them and having many minor objectives...
let alone the great historical setting and top graphics.

Post a reply to this message

nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> In any case, PC gaming is cramped by the success of consoles:  what does it
> matter to have all that power when it's used basically to run console game ports
> with resolutions going higher than your monitor supports and frame rates higher
> than your eyes support...

  With more RAM you can have higher-resolution textures, shadow maps and
so on. Also most game engines support all kinds of graphical effects which
require both RAM and computing prowess and can be turned on and off. With
the console, with its limited RAM and somewhat aging display hardware, they
tune the game settings so that it will work at a good framerate on the
console, while on the PC they leave it up to the player to tune the settings
to the max if he wants and his PC can handle it. And it's not only about
textures and visuals: Also the sheer amount of objects to render can be
limited on the console due to lack of RAM and the aging display hardware.

  The difference can sometimes be pretty striking when comparing side by
side: Textures, view distances, shadows, visual effects can all be
significantly better on a top-of-the-line PC compared to the Xbox 360.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > In any case, PC gaming is cramped by the success of consoles:  what does it
> > matter to have all that power when it's used basically to run console game ports
> > with resolutions going higher than your monitor supports and frame rates higher
> > than your eyes support...
>
>   With more RAM you can have higher-resolution textures, shadow maps and
> so on.

at least as far as producers provide them. ;)

> Also most game engines support all kinds of graphical effects which
> require both RAM and computing prowess and can be turned on and off. With
> the console, with its limited RAM and somewhat aging display hardware, they
> tune the game settings so that it will work at a good framerate on the
> console, while on the PC they leave it up to the player to tune the settings
> to the max if he wants and his PC can handle it. And it's not only about
> textures and visuals: Also the sheer amount of objects to render can be
> limited on the console due to lack of RAM and the aging display hardware.
>
>   The difference can sometimes be pretty striking when comparing side by
> side: Textures, view distances, shadows, visual effects can all be
> significantly better on a top-of-the-line PC compared to the Xbox 360.

yep, but a top-of-the-line PC is also significantly expensive, plus games only
run on Windows.

More than that, my early comparison between Shadow of the Colossus for PS2 and
Assassin's Creed as a current gen tech should illustrate what I expect from
nextgen:  more, better everything, not simply better framerate, higher res
textures or more depth of field showing exactly same geometry.

SotC was topnotch on the PS2, but compared to AC it looks barren and empty, with
far less detailed world, far less detailed character and AC brings not just more
world visible at all at once, but much more detailed and populated with a
stunning number of characters themselves far more detailed than main character
in SotC.  Plus much better texturing, lighting, effects etc.

That's nextgen, not just better tech settings or slightly clear textures...
we're still to see that, even on PC.  I suspect only when Crytek and Epic reveal
their nextgen engines running on latest GPUs...

Post a reply to this message

On 25/03/2011 07:32 PM, Warp wrote:

>    I warmly recommend Assassin's Creed 2. I don't know how it is on the PS3,
> but on the Xbox 360 it looks really gorgeous.

I found the graphics to be fairly tame on the PC versions of AS1 and 
AS2. I also liked the style of AS1 more than AS2. (It's really hard to 
take people seriously when they speak with an Italian accent. It just 
sounds like a bad comedy sketch.) That said, AS2 is certainly not a 
*bad* game. It's much bigger than AS1, and a lot more varied too. It's 
just much harder to keep track of what's supposed to be happening...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I found the graphics to be fairly tame on the PC versions of AS1 and 
> AS2.

  Depending on how powerful your PC is, you might be simply comparing it
to other PC games, rather than to other Xbox 360 games.

  The Xbox 360 has a pretty decent CPU and GPU even by today's standards
(although the GPU is probably getting a bit antiquated by the month), but
the absolutely major flaw of the system is the amount of RAM: 512 MB, which
by today's standards is absolutely puny. (Many PC games have had a minimum
requirement of 1GB for years.) What is worse, the RAM is shared by the CPU
and the GPU, in other words, the GPU doesn't have its own RAM (as is
customary in a PC). This means that graphics and other game data have to
share the 512 MB (unlike on a PC, where graphics can be done mostly on the
GPU's RAM and whatever the game needs on the main RAM).

  This is a real shame because the hardware is otherwise pretty capable.
The major problem is that games run out of RAM pretty fast, and have to
be content with lesser memory-hungry graphical settings such as lower
resolution textures, shadow maps, and so on. It also often limits visiblity
distances and forces somewhat drastic LOD changes.

  Having played several Xbox 360 games and, while they were graphically
nice, being slightly disappointed at some of the graphics (especially
low-resolution textures are sometimes a bit annoying), I was positively
surprised at the graphical quality of Assassin's Creed 2. Most textures
are really crisp, and the levels of detail are really high even at very
large distances. While you can sometimes see changes in LOD as you move,
it's surprisingly rare. And this on an open sandbox game.

  I'm sure they had to resort to pretty clever tricks to get this while
being constrained by 512 MB of RAM in total.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Le 2011/03/28 13:37, Warp a écrit :
> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> I found the graphics to be fairly tame on the PC versions of AS1 and
>> AS2.
>
>    Depending on how powerful your PC is, you might be simply comparing it
> to other PC games, rather than to other Xbox 360 games.
>
>    The Xbox 360 has a pretty decent CPU and GPU even by today's standards
> (although the GPU is probably getting a bit antiquated by the month), but
> the absolutely major flaw of the system is the amount of RAM: 512 MB, which
> by today's standards is absolutely puny. (Many PC games have had a minimum
> requirement of 1GB for years.) What is worse, the RAM is shared by the CPU
> and the GPU, in other words, the GPU doesn't have its own RAM (as is
> customary in a PC). This means that graphics and other game data have to
> share the 512 MB (unlike on a PC, where graphics can be done mostly on the
> GPU's RAM and whatever the game needs on the main RAM).
>

It's one of the reason to refuse any PC with an integrated video. Most 
laptops are in that case, and all netbooks. Those also have shared main 
RAM/graphics RAM.
Another problem with that, is that the CPU always have to wait for the 
GPU. Whenever the GPU, and other display hardware, is accessing your 
RAM, NOTHING else can access it. If it was the other way around, you'd 
get corrupted display with shearing, horizontal and vertical rolling, 
and lot of flicker.

Depending on the resolution used, colour depth and refresh rate, it can 
hit your CPU performance by over 50%.
On multicore systems, it's even worst.



Alain

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Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:
> It's one of the reason to refuse any PC with an integrated video.

  When I bought my current PC a friend of mine had a bit earlier bought
an almost identical one (same motherboard, same CPU, same amount of RAM).
The difference was that he wasn't going to use his PC for gaming, so he
was content with the integrated GPU on the motherboard, while I bought
one of the top GPUs of the time. (Well, another difference was that he
had more hard drives, but that's inconsequential.)

  Because it's not every day that one can test almost identical hardware
setups side-by-side, with the only difference being the GPU, we tested
with a version of 3DMark. The difference in speed was outright astonishing.
His computer ran it at about 1-2 frames per second at worst, while mine
ran it at a comfortable 15-20 frames per second at the lowest (higher on
average).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 3/28/2011 12:21, Alain wrote:
> Another problem with that, is that the CPU always have to wait for the GPU.

The Amiga (as well as some other machines of that era) and some old 
mainframes would clock the memory at a multiple of the CPU speed and 
time-slice the DMA that way. Now that memory is the slowest non-moving part 
of the system, one can't really do that any more.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

>> requirement of 1GB for years.) What is worse, the RAM is shared by the
>> CPU
>> and the GPU, in other words, the GPU doesn't have its own RAM (as is
>> customary in a PC). This means that graphics and other game data have to
>> share the 512 MB (unlike on a PC, where graphics can be done mostly on
>> the
>> GPU's RAM and whatever the game needs on the main RAM).

It has advantages though, like not needing to transfer any data between 
the CPU RAM and the GPU RAM (which is a major bottle-neck in a PC, 
causing many complex algorithms to be developed).  On the xbox the CPU 
can update textures and meshes directly without needing to either write 
a complex vertex/pixel shader or transfer over large amounts of data 
per-frame.

The lack of CPU RAM isn't as large a problem as you might expect.  A 
well written PC game engine tries to minimise transfer between CPU RAM 
and GPU RAM each frame, spreading out large data transfers (eg due to 
the player entering a new part of the level) over many frames.  On a 
console you load the new data from disc directly to the shared RAM 
rather than from CPU RAM.

Of course some things need a lot of CPU RAM which are not possible on 
the xbox (or need some clever programming), but I guess they decided the 
unified RAM between CPU and GPU gave the best bang-for-buck for most games.

> Another problem with that, is that the CPU always have to wait for the
> GPU. Whenever the GPU, and other display hardware, is accessing your
> RAM, NOTHING else can access it.

The difference between the xbox and normal PCs with shared memory is 
that the xbox has a memory bandwidth of 22.4 GB/s.  Cheap PC 
motherboards today with onboard GPU have something like 8 GB/s memory 
bandwidth, laptops probably lower.  Even today the latest DDR3-2133 RAM 
has "only" 17 GB/s.

> If it was the other way around, you'd
> get corrupted display with shearing, horizontal and vertical rolling,
> and lot of flicker.

Well you can still write to the RAM (obviously not at *exactly* the same 
time as the GPU is reading it), you just make sure what you are writing 
to is not needed by the GPU that frame (usually you write to a shadow 
copy which then gets used the next frame).

Post a reply to this message

>> I found the graphics to be fairly tame on the PC versions of AS1 and
>> AS2.
>
>    Depending on how powerful your PC is, you might be simply comparing it
> to other PC games, rather than to other Xbox 360 games.

I haven't seen any Xbox games. I'm just comparing AS1 and AS2 on the PC 
to, say, Team Fortress 2 on the PC. (I could compare it to Crysis, but 
surely nothing else is *that* insane...)

Don't get me wrong, the graphics weren't *bad*. They just weren't 
especially great, as PC games go.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Le 2011/03/29 04:04, scott a écrit :
>>> requirement of 1GB for years.) What is worse, the RAM is shared by the
>>> CPU
>>> and the GPU, in other words, the GPU doesn't have its own RAM (as is
>>> customary in a PC). This means that graphics and other game data have to
>>> share the 512 MB (unlike on a PC, where graphics can be done mostly on
>>> the
>>> GPU's RAM and whatever the game needs on the main RAM).
>
> It has advantages though, like not needing to transfer any data between
> the CPU RAM and the GPU RAM (which is a major bottle-neck in a PC,
> causing many complex algorithms to be developed). On the xbox the CPU
> can update textures and meshes directly without needing to either write
> a complex vertex/pixel shader or transfer over large amounts of data
> per-frame.

Not at all in the case of the PCs. The GPU don't see the memory used by 
the CPU, and the CPU don't see the memory used by the GPU. For the CPU, 
the RAM allocated to the video just don't exist. The boundary is set on 
the BIOS level and can't change at run time.
The data need to be moved between the main part of the RAM to the video 
part. It passes through a simulated PCI/AGP/PCIe interface.

>
> The lack of CPU RAM isn't as large a problem as you might expect. A well
> written PC game engine tries to minimise transfer between CPU RAM and
> GPU RAM each frame, spreading out large data transfers (eg due to the
> player entering a new part of the level) over many frames. On a console
> you load the new data from disc directly to the shared RAM rather than
> from CPU RAM.

On a PC, there is NO shared RAM. On a game console, you may have it.
On a PC, the video RAM looks just like that of a dedicated video card.

>
> Of course some things need a lot of CPU RAM which are not possible on
> the xbox (or need some clever programming), but I guess they decided the
> unified RAM between CPU and GPU gave the best bang-for-buck for most games.
>
>> Another problem with that, is that the CPU always have to wait for the
>> GPU. Whenever the GPU, and other display hardware, is accessing your
>> RAM, NOTHING else can access it.
>
> The difference between the xbox and normal PCs with shared memory is
> that the xbox has a memory bandwidth of 22.4 GB/s. Cheap PC motherboards
> today with onboard GPU have something like 8 GB/s memory bandwidth,
> laptops probably lower. Even today the latest DDR3-2133 RAM has "only"
> 17 GB/s.

I'd gues that is dual ported DDR, possibly dual channel.

>
>> If it was the other way around, you'd
>> get corrupted display with shearing, horizontal and vertical rolling,
>> and lot of flicker.
>
> Well you can still write to the RAM (obviously not at *exactly* the same
> time as the GPU is reading it), you just make sure what you are writing
> to is not needed by the GPU that frame (usually you write to a shadow
> copy which then gets used the next frame).

There is an hardware, BIOS controled, mutex with absolute priority to 
the GPU. There is only ONE data bus.
To do what you mention, you'd need dual ported RAM (that's totaly 
different from dual channel). Dual port enable you to have 2 concurent 
data exchanges, 2 reads, 2 writes, or a read and a write, at the same 
time from 2 sources or destinations. Some video RAM IS dual ported and 
maybe some consoles do use that kind of memory. It's not new, the Matrox 
video cards used that in the 90's for consumer level dards. I have one, 
a Matrox Mystic.

As warp was able to test it, a distinct video card on a PC can mean a 
tenfold performance boost.

I orinaly mentioned a 50% hit, looks like it's more like an 80 to 90% hit...



Alain

Post a reply to this message

>>>> requirement of 1GB for years.) What is worse, the RAM is shared by the
>>>> CPU
>>>> and the GPU, in other words, the GPU doesn't have its own RAM (as is
>>>> customary in a PC). This means that graphics and other game data
>>>> have to
>>>> share the 512 MB

>> It has advantages though, like not needing to transfer any data between
>> the CPU RAM and the GPU RAM (which is a major bottle-neck in a PC,
>> causing many complex algorithms to be developed). On the xbox the CPU
>> can update textures and meshes directly without needing to either write
>> a complex vertex/pixel shader or transfer over large amounts of data
>> per-frame.
>
> Not at all in the case of the PCs. The GPU don't see the memory used by
> the CPU, and the CPU don't see the memory used by the GPU.

I don't know about PCs with shared memory (I can imagine they are not 
designed for gaming speed!), I was talking about the xbox360, which is 
specifically designed for gaming speed (with compromises that wouldn't 
work for a normal PC).

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/03/30 04:12, scott a écrit :
>>>>> requirement of 1GB for years.) What is worse, the RAM is shared by the
>>>>> CPU
>>>>> and the GPU, in other words, the GPU doesn't have its own RAM (as is
>>>>> customary in a PC). This means that graphics and other game data
>>>>> have to
>>>>> share the 512 MB
>
>>> It has advantages though, like not needing to transfer any data between
>>> the CPU RAM and the GPU RAM (which is a major bottle-neck in a PC,
>>> causing many complex algorithms to be developed). On the xbox the CPU
>>> can update textures and meshes directly without needing to either write
>>> a complex vertex/pixel shader or transfer over large amounts of data
>>> per-frame.
>>
>> Not at all in the case of the PCs. The GPU don't see the memory used by
>> the CPU, and the CPU don't see the memory used by the GPU.
>
> I don't know about PCs with shared memory (I can imagine they are not
> designed for gaming speed!), I was talking about the xbox360, which is
> specifically designed for gaming speed (with compromises that wouldn't
> work for a normal PC).

True.


Alain

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> It has advantages though, like not needing to transfer any data between 
> the CPU RAM and the GPU RAM (which is a major bottle-neck in a PC, 
> causing many complex algorithms to be developed).  On the xbox the CPU 
> can update textures and meshes directly without needing to either write 
> a complex vertex/pixel shader or transfer over large amounts of data 
> per-frame.

  The major problem is not the speed, but the amount, as I mentioned.
The architecture would be fine, the problem is that the amount of RAM
is puny compared to modern game requirements. If the Xbox360 had, for
example, 2GB of RAM (or more), then it would really be a killer gaming
platform.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 3/31/2011 8:58, Warp wrote:
> example, 2GB of RAM (or more), then it would really be a killer gaming
> platform.

I have noticed that games on the xbox seem to have more prettiness than the 
same games on the PS3.  Even looking at youtube videos of gameplay you can 
tell whether it was recorded off an xbox or a ps3.

Is that just because the games I happened to look at were more polished on 
the xbox, or does the xbox have actual noticably better support for 
sophisticated shaders and such?

(I also noticed that the PS3 games seem to have huge wide-open spaces that I 
don't see on any xbox games, but I suspect that's just my selection of 
games. Altho it would make sense, having a bluray drive and probably more RAM.)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I have noticed that games on the xbox seem to have more prettiness than the 
> same games on the PS3.  Even looking at youtube videos of gameplay you can 
> tell whether it was recorded off an xbox or a ps3.

> Is that just because the games I happened to look at were more polished on 
> the xbox, or does the xbox have actual noticably better support for 
> sophisticated shaders and such?

  Looking at the hardware specifications of both consoles, they seem pretty
similar: Same amount of total RAM and similar GPUs (both based on the same
generation competing GPUs of ATI and NVidia respectively). The Xbox 360 GPU
might have a slight edge in that it seems to have some 10MB specialized
internal fast framebuffer that offers 4-sample antialiasing, alpha compositing
and Z/stencil buffering practically for free.

  On the PS3 the RAM is divided half-and-half between the GPU and the CPU,
with the GPU having 256 MB of dedicated RAM plus access to up to 224 MB of
the main RAM (whatever that means). I suppose that means that the CPU has
only up to 256 MB of RAM to play with (unlike the Xbox 360 where the CPU
can use all of the 512 MB). I don't know if this makes a difference, but
it might.

  The CPU architectures are completely different, with the one on the PS3
being extremely exotic. The PS3 suffered a lot in its initial years because
of that (no existing game engines could be easily ported to it so that they
would take full advantage of the CPU design). In fact, AFAIK it's still
suffering from it to some extent to this day. I don't know how much of an
impact this has on game visual quality and performance.

> (I also noticed that the PS3 games seem to have huge wide-open spaces that I 
> don't see on any xbox games, but I suspect that's just my selection of 
> games. Altho it would make sense, having a bluray drive and probably more RAM.)

  There are many Xbox 360 games that have huge sceneries, such as the
Assassin's Creed series, Red Dead Redemption, Oblivion, etc.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 3/31/2011 10:15, Warp wrote:
>    Looking at the hardware specifications of both consoles, they seem pretty

I just noticed that things on the PS3 seem less ...  shiney. :-) Like, 
there's much more detail in batman's cape on the xbox than the ps3, from 
what I can notice without having them physically side-by-side.  Maybe the 
dev tools for that sort of thing are easier on the xbox, so more work goes 
into making it prettier.  Or it might just be my imagination. :-)

>    There are many Xbox 360 games that have huge sceneries, such as the
> Assassin's Creed series, Red Dead Redemption, Oblivion, etc.

Yeah, that's the kind of thing I was thinking about. I've only personally 
seen it in Uncharted and inFamous, which are PS3-specific.

Thanks for the info! :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New escreveu:
> On 3/31/2011 10:15, Warp wrote:
>>    Looking at the hardware specifications of both consoles, they seem 
>> pretty
> 
> I just noticed that things on the PS3 seem less ...  shiney. :-) Like, 
> there's much more detail in batman's cape on the xbox than the ps3, from 
> what I can notice without having them physically side-by-side.  Maybe 
> the dev tools for that sort of thing are easier on the xbox, so more 
> work goes into making it prettier.  Or it might just be my imagination. :-)
> 
>>    There are many Xbox 360 games that have huge sceneries, such as the
>> Assassin's Creed series, Red Dead Redemption, Oblivion, etc.
> 
> Yeah, that's the kind of thing I was thinking about. I've only 
> personally seen it in Uncharted and inFamous, which are PS3-specific.

whatever the differences, they are pretty much negligible.  The bluray 
would not allow for more anything than would be able to fit in the 
memory at any one time.  Both consoles support huge open-worlds and the 
360 GPU may have an edge on graphics (or artists just the bump up 
spec/normal maps for the Microsoft console on multiplatform games).  The 
bluray player just seems to allow for far more cinematics, scripted 
events, history and voice acting, as seen in Uncharted, God of War 3 etc.

The recently released Crysis 2 is a huge open-world and has been awarded 
king of graphics on consoles so far, with 360 with a slight edge at 
this, that in the mouths of fanboys assume gigantic proportions.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> The 
> bluray player just seems to allow for far more cinematics, scripted 
> events, history and voice acting, as seen in Uncharted, God of War 3 etc.

  Nothing forces a game to be released on 1 DVD. Lost Odyssey comes in
4 DVDs, Blue Dragon, Star Ocean: The Last Hope and Final Fantasy XIII
com in 3 DVDs each, and Mass Effect 2 comes in 2 DVDs.

  Of course a Blu-Ray can hold the same amount of data as about 6 DVDs,
so it's easier to put put even more stuff in one.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 3/31/2011 12:41, nemesis wrote:
> whatever the differences, they are pretty much negligible.

Oh, agreed in all ways. It's not like we're comparing the Wii or something.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Oh, agreed in all ways. It's not like we're comparing the Wii or something.

  It's curious that technically the Wii is like 10 years old, yet if you
look at the sales, it surpasses the Xbox 360 and the PS3 combined. By a
large margin.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>    The major problem is not the speed, but the amount, as I mentioned.
> The architecture would be fine, the problem is that the amount of RAM
> is puny compared to modern game requirements. If the Xbox360 had, for
> example, 2GB of RAM (or more), then it would really be a killer gaming
> platform.

Don't forget games for the PC that quote 1GB or 2GB RAM requirements 
need to accomodate the Windows OS and all other running services and 
apps as well as the game itself.  I would be quite surprised if any game 
for Windows actually used 1 or 2GB of RAM just for itself - apart from 
caching files from disc on the way to the GPU, what else would a game 
need that much CPU RAM for?

Post a reply to this message

> I just noticed that things on the PS3 seem less ... shiney. :-) Like,
> there's much more detail in batman's cape on the xbox than the ps3, from
> what I can notice without having them physically side-by-side. Maybe the
> dev tools for that sort of thing are easier on the xbox, so more work
> goes into making it prettier. Or it might just be my imagination. :-)

I haven't played on the xbox360 very often (I don't own one) but my 
impression is games on the PS3 use motion-blur and depth-of-field 
approximation effects more.  Maybe the devs are just trying to find ways 
to use up the spare CPU cores, but often it makes the game look quite 
bad in still shots, when you can see that they are just faking the effects.

Mind you, apart from the shadows (why use low resolution shadow map 
textures in such a polished game??), Gran Turismo 5 is beautiful.

Post a reply to this message

On 01/04/2011 08:49 AM, scott wrote:

> Don't forget games for the PC that quote 1GB or 2GB RAM requirements
> need to accomodate the Windows OS and all other running services and
> apps as well as the game itself. I would be quite surprised if any game
> for Windows actually used 1 or 2GB of RAM just for itself - apart from
> caching files from disc on the way to the GPU, what else would a game
> need that much CPU RAM for?

While I would imagine that most of that is texture data, and possibly 
models, a chunk of it is probably sound data too. Depending on the game, 
it might also need to store non-trivial amounts of gameplay data.

Post a reply to this message

> While I would imagine that most of that is texture data, and possibly
> models,

I imagine a good written game-engine (like a good written OS) will use 
up whatever unused resources it has available to the benefit of the user 
- in this case filling up the CPU RAM with a cache of GPU data that 
might be needed soon.  But it's not a minimum requirement for such RAM 
to be available, it's just loaded directly from disc a few frames 
earlier (big CPU<>GPU transfers are spread out over many frames anyway) 
if the files aren't in the cache.

> a chunk of it is probably sound data too.

Didn't think of that, I guess uncompressed CD-quality sound takes up 10 
MB or so per minute, maybe this is used a lot by PC games, IDK.  At 
least when using XNA with the xbox, the sounds/music are stored in some 
compressed format, it wouldn't surprise me if they are decompressed 
on-the-fly to avoid using up too much RAM.

> Depending on the game,
> it might also need to store non-trivial amounts of gameplay data.

Yeh, this is the main point I was wondering about, apart from graphics, 
what sort of data might a game need to store that runs in to several 
hundred MBs?  I couldn't think of anything straight away.

Post a reply to this message

>> a chunk of it is probably sound data too.
>
> Didn't think of that, I guess uncompressed CD-quality sound takes up 10
> MB or so per minute, maybe this is used a lot by PC games, IDK. At least
> when using XNA with the xbox, the sounds/music are stored in some
> compressed format, it wouldn't surprise me if they are decompressed
> on-the-fly to avoid using up too much RAM.

Yeah, MP3 or similar seems to be the norm here. (And these days, 
decoding MP3 takes so little CPU power...)

>> Depending on the game,
>> it might also need to store non-trivial amounts of gameplay data.
>
> Yeh, this is the main point I was wondering about, apart from graphics,
> what sort of data might a game need to store that runs in to several
> hundred MBs? I couldn't think of anything straight away.

I know when I looked at the HalfLife 2 engine, you needed to build 
navigation maps to allow the NPC AI to navigate around the map. That's 
not model data as such (it never goes near the GPU), but it's data that 
you do need to run the game. On the other hand, for a typical HL2:DM or 
CS:S map, it's only a dozen MB or so...

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> I haven't played on the xbox360 very often (I don't own one) but my 
> impression is games on the PS3 use motion-blur and depth-of-field 
> approximation effects more.  Maybe the devs are just trying to find ways 
> to use up the spare CPU cores

  Those effects are not dependent on the CPU.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> Don't forget games for the PC that quote 1GB or 2GB RAM requirements 
> need to accomodate the Windows OS and all other running services and 
> apps as well as the game itself.

  The OS doesn't take half a gigabyte of RAM. That would be ridiculous
(even for Windows). You can actually see the amount of free RAM from the
task manager, and there's usually just some tens of megabytes less than
your total amount of physical RAM in the worst cases.

  And you shouldn't be running RAM-heavy apps at the same time you are
playing.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> Yeh, this is the main point I was wondering about, apart from graphics, 
> what sort of data might a game need to store that runs in to several 
> hundred MBs?  I couldn't think of anything straight away.

  The scene geometry cannot be loaded all at once onto the GPU RAM if the
scenery is huge (which is the case at least with open sandbox games and even
non-sandbox ones if the scenery is very detailed). The scenery has to be
loaded dynamically as the player moves. The more RAM you have, the less
loading needed and the faster the game.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> I haven't played on the xbox360 very often (I don't own one) but my
>> impression is games on the PS3 use motion-blur and depth-of-field
>> approximation effects more.  Maybe the devs are just trying to find ways
>> to use up the spare CPU cores
>
>    Those effects are not dependent on the CPU.

The CPU is routinely used for graphics effects in the PS3, here's the 
first reference I could find via google:

"We're doing all the post-processing effects on the Synergistic 
Processing Units." Screen Space Ambient Occlusion for example, was done 
completely on the SPUs"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted_2:_Among_Thieves#Graphics_and_technology

Post a reply to this message

>    The scene geometry cannot be loaded all at once onto the GPU RAM if the
> scenery is huge (which is the case at least with open sandbox games and even
> non-sandbox ones if the scenery is very detailed). The scenery has to be
> loaded dynamically as the player moves. The more RAM you have, the less
> loading needed and the faster the game.

Why should loading the scenery from disc slow down the game?  It's done 
in the background before you get to the part of the level where the 
scenery is needed (the same way stuff is transferred from the CPU RAM to 
the GPU RAM on PCs).  Otherwise it would be impossible to race around a 
huge areas like the Nurburgring (or cities on GTA) on the PS3 without 
"Loading..." screens half way around (which would be a little stupid for 
a car driving game) :-)

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> The CPU is routinely used for graphics effects in the PS3, here's the 
> first reference I could find via google:

> "We're doing all the post-processing effects on the Synergistic 
> Processing Units." Screen Space Ambient Occlusion for example, was done 
> completely on the SPUs"

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted_2:_Among_Thieves#Graphics_and_technology

  Well, I suppose that if the CPU has direct fast access to the different
GPU buffers, it could be used for that purpose.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >    The scene geometry cannot be loaded all at once onto the GPU RAM if the
> > scenery is huge (which is the case at least with open sandbox games and even
> > non-sandbox ones if the scenery is very detailed). The scenery has to be
> > loaded dynamically as the player moves. The more RAM you have, the less
> > loading needed and the faster the game.

> Why should loading the scenery from disc slow down the game?

  Odd question. Because the disc is really, really slow?

  The more RAM you have, the more scenery you can preload, which allows
showing more detail at greater distances, reduce the amount of visible
changes in level-of-detail when you move, and overall works as a larger
"cache" for the scenery.

  If you have less RAM, this "cache" gets filled a lot quicker needing
a lot more loading from disc as you move around, and it reduces the amount
of detail you can show and introduces more visible changes in LOD levels.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> Why should loading the scenery from disc slow down the game?
>
>    Odd question. Because the disc is really, really slow?

The CPU and GPU can carry on working whilst a file is loading, you don't 
have to block everything whilst the file loads (thankfully!).

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >> Why should loading the scenery from disc slow down the game?
> >
> >    Odd question. Because the disc is really, really slow?

> The CPU and GPU can carry on working whilst a file is loading, you don't 
> have to block everything whilst the file loads (thankfully!).

  It's hard to work on something that has not been loaded.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>    It's hard to work on something that has not been loaded.

There's an obvious solution to that, which I think most large-world 
games use, even on the PC (due to slow transfer between CPU and GPU 
RAM).  IIRC on GTA3 if you hacked the cars to go really fast, you could 
drive to places before the high-resolution textures and models had 
loaded, then after a second or so everything would suddenly get more 
detail :-)

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Le 01/04/2011 14:47, Warp a écrit :
> scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
>>>> Why should loading the scenery from disc slow down the game?
>>>
>>>    Odd question. Because the disc is really, really slow?
> 
>> The CPU and GPU can carry on working whilst a file is loading, you don't 
>> have to block everything whilst the file loads (thankfully!).
> 
>   It's hard to work on something that has not been loaded.
> 
Right.
But you can usually split the scenery in areas. You only need the
current area and its neighbour in memory.
New area could be loaded when changing the list of neighbour (in fact,
you could just keep the current area, its neighbour and its neighbour's
neighbour. When the neighbour become current, there is still plenty of
works for CPU & GPU while loading the new neighbour's neighbours.)

That's the difference between games that put you in a tunnel/corridor,
and the ones which don't: the former only manage a 1D of areas, usually
as a basic list... the latter is more complex.

-- 
Software is like dirt - it costs time and money to change it and move it
around.

Just because you can't see it, it doesn't weigh anything,
and you can't drill a hole in it and stick a rivet into it doesn't mean
it's free.

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Warp escreveu:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Oh, agreed in all ways. It's not like we're comparing the Wii or something.
> 
>   It's curious that technically the Wii is like 10 years old, yet if you
> look at the sales, it surpasses the Xbox 360 and the PS3 combined. By a
> large margin.

Unless you're considering sales only in one particular region.  Global 
sales for 360 and PS3 combined are higher than for Wii.  Which is a good 
thing as far as true gaming is concerned.

Wii didn't target gamers who are into this media for ages.  They tried 
to bring a new audience into the media, by offering a new largely 
buttonless control experience.  Unfortunately, the people playing Wii 
are more acurately described as the people playing Wii Sports and a few 
other casual games -- besides the die-hard loyal Nintendo fanboys.  Part 
of this audience is now buying Kinect instead.

But Wii was just the begining into bringing down the industry to more 
primitive and cheaper gameplaying experience.  Just look at Apple and 
the 99 cents one-shot games proclaiming the death of Nintendo and even 
consoles...

I for one had my fair share of primitive (but far more challenging) 
gameplay in the 80's.  They are all the rage again now, except with no 
challenge and much arrogance...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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scott escreveu:
>> I just noticed that things on the PS3 seem less ... shiney. :-) Like,
>> there's much more detail in batman's cape on the xbox than the ps3, from
>> what I can notice without having them physically side-by-side. Maybe the
>> dev tools for that sort of thing are easier on the xbox, so more work
>> goes into making it prettier. Or it might just be my imagination. :-)
> 
> I haven't played on the xbox360 very often (I don't own one) but my 
> impression is games on the PS3 use motion-blur and depth-of-field 
> approximation effects more.

hmm, there's DOF in Assassin's Creed whenever you target someone.  Is 
there none in 360?

> Maybe the devs are just trying to find ways 
> to use up the spare CPU cores, but often it makes the game look quite 
> bad in still shots, when you can see that they are just faking the effects.

Most new effects in this generation only make them justice in motion. 
Normal and spec maps are wonderful, but in shots they just look like 
more texture.  You don't see lighting dynamically changing them.  DOF 
and motion blur much the same.

> Mind you, apart from the shadows (why use low resolution shadow map 
> textures in such a polished game??), Gran Turismo 5 is beautiful.

Shadow maps are another incredible effect, allowing for much shadowing 
on characters and even self-shadowing.  They are lowrez after all, but 
still impressive.

It's amazing how we've gone from blocky characters with almost no 
texturing besides goraud shading and circular ground shadows in the 
first generation of 3D hardware, to fine textured models with all 
fingers and shadow projections in the environments in the second 
generation to fully detailed models with fine details provided by 
normal/spec maps and self-shadowing and environment shadows casted upon 
them nowadays.  It's a marvel to behold.  Guess nextgen high quality AA, 
motion blur, hirez shadow maps, HDR lighting, screen space AO, screen 
space Subsurface scattering and real-time tesselation will pretty much 
provide Pixar-level excellence in 60 frames per second...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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On 4/1/2011 11:22 AM, nemesis wrote:
>
> Shadow maps are another incredible effect, allowing for much shadowing
> on characters and even self-shadowing. They are lowrez after all, but
> still impressive.
>

Have you ever played Splinter Cell for the 1st Xbox? Shadow maps really 
gave that game justice.

> It's amazing how we've gone from blocky characters with almost no
> texturing besides goraud shading and circular ground shadows in the
> first generation of 3D hardware,

Super Mario 64 was great...

> to fine textured models with all
> fingers and shadow projections in the environments

Even the character in Driver 2 had shadows (plus a way to work your way 
into any building)...

> in the second
> generation to fully detailed models with fine details provided by
> normal/spec maps and self-shadowing and environment shadows casted upon
> them nowadays. It's a marvel to behold.

It must be. I don't know whether to get a handhold emulator or the next 
best Xbox... (or a Wii, because Mario games /rock/)

> Guess nextgen high quality AA,
> motion blur, hirez shadow maps, HDR lighting, screen space AO, screen
> space Subsurface scattering and real-time tesselation will pretty much
> provide Pixar-level excellence in 60 frames per second...

Ah, someday realistic 3D rendering will merge completely and 
unequivocally with gaming technology. Hopefully those cards will be 
optimized for raytracing. Can you imagine making a game with POV? (I 
can, but the SDL needs some work :) )

____________
Now Playing:
  Clonk Rage
   Also Playing:
    Landslide, Smashing Pumpkins
     irony: 100%

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Le_Forgeron <lef### [at] freefr> wrote:
> Le 01/04/2011 14:47, Warp a écrit :
> > scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >>>> Why should loading the scenery from disc slow down the game?
> >>>
> >>>    Odd question. Because the disc is really, really slow?
> > 
> >> The CPU and GPU can carry on working whilst a file is loading, you don't 
> >> have to block everything whilst the file loads (thankfully!).
> > 
> >   It's hard to work on something that has not been loaded.
> > 
> Right.
> But you can usually split the scenery in areas. You only need the
> current area and its neighbour in memory.

  Which is exactly where more RAM helps a lot: You can have more detailed
models and higher-resolution textures (and other types of bitmaps) for
larger visiblity distances, and overall have a larger "buffer" for the
scenery, allowing for less visible changes in LOD levels.

  I don't even understand why we are having this conversation. What I'm
saying should be patently obvious. The counterargument makes it sound like
one doesn't need RAM at all to draw a 3D scene in real-time.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 4/1/2011 11:22, nemesis wrote:
> hmm, there's DOF in Assassin's Creed whenever you target someone. Is there
> none in 360?

One of the neat effects in the XBox version of the Batman game is when 
you're choking the crap out of someone, everything not close goes all 
blurry.  So, yeah, they're managing it somehow.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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stbenge <"egnebts <-inverted"@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/1/2011 11:22 AM, nemesis wrote:
> >
> > Shadow maps are another incredible effect, allowing for much shadowing
> > on characters and even self-shadowing. They are lowrez after all, but
> > still impressive.
> >
>
> Have you ever played Splinter Cell for the 1st Xbox? Shadow maps really
> gave that game justice.

yeah, the original XBox was definitely ahead of both PS2 and GC.

> > It's amazing how we've gone from blocky characters with almost no
> > texturing besides goraud shading and circular ground shadows in the
> > first generation of 3D hardware,
>
> Super Mario 64 was great...

it indeed was.  Magical at the time.

> > in the second
> > generation to fully detailed models with fine details provided by
> > normal/spec maps and self-shadowing and environment shadows casted upon
> > them nowadays. It's a marvel to behold.
>
> It must be. I don't know whether to get a handhold emulator or the next
> best Xbox... (or a Wii, because Mario games /rock/)

the Wii is a GC under different plastic box.  It's got none of the hardware
prowess of 360 and PS3 whatsoever.  You'll be playing games with same graphics
of past 10 years.  Mario Galaxy is awesome, but I can't have my gaming fix on
just Mario and Link alone.  Even Samus Aran should have ended her career in
Super Metroid or the first Metroid Prime...

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On 4/2/2011 9:54 PM, nemesis wrote:
> stbenge<"egnebts<-inverted"@hotmail.com>  wrote:
>> On 4/1/2011 11:22 AM, nemesis wrote:
>>> in the second
>>> generation to fully detailed models with fine details provided by
>>> normal/spec maps and self-shadowing and environment shadows casted upon
>>> them nowadays. It's a marvel to behold.
>>
>> It must be. I don't know whether to get a handhold emulator or the next
>> best Xbox... (or a Wii, because Mario games /rock/)
>
> the Wii is a GC under different plastic box.  It's got none of the hardware
> prowess of 360 and PS3 whatsoever.  You'll be playing games with same graphics
> of past 10 years.

Gah! Nintendo might as well be selling exercise videos :(

> Mario Galaxy is awesome,

I'd love to play that one. Just 48 hours of caffeine-fueled 
uninterrupted game time...

> but I can't have my gaming fix on
> just Mario and Link alone.

What is up with those guys anyway? Always having to save the princess. 
Peach breaks a nail, "help me Mario!" Zelda sees a pig, "the Moblins are 
attacking the castle!" Get a grip, Zelda! Or better yet, pick up a power 
glove once in a while, sheesh!

> Even Samus Aran should have ended her career in
> Super Metroid or the first Metroid Prime...

Aw, c'mon! Another (2D) Metroid game made well would be great! I thought 
of a great prequel entitled, "The Last Chozo," where of course, you'd 
play as a Chozo. There would be some storyline about how you were the 
last one, Metroids along with space pirates invaded your home world, 
blah, blah, blah... the Metroid games were more about action anyway ;)

Post a reply to this message

>    Which is exactly where more RAM helps a lot: You can have more detailed
> models and higher-resolution textures (and other types of bitmaps) for
> larger visiblity distances, and overall have a larger "buffer" for the
> scenery, allowing for less visible changes in LOD levels.

If you need to send data to the GPU faster than a hard disc can supply 
then you're going to have far more serious problems with your game 
design.  And even if you do manage somehow to get good performance with 
loading that much data, your CPU RAM is going to run out in a matter of 
seconds (unless you have some carefully constructed repeated pattern of 
textures/meshes that are swapped in and out every second or so).  I 
can't think of a realistic situation where it is absolutely necessary to 
have a large amount of CPU RAM to achieve some effect.

> The counterargument makes it sound like
> one doesn't need RAM at all to draw a 3D scene in real-time.

Just to clarify we're talking about CPU RAM here, not RAM in general. 
It's completely possible to write a program on a PC that fills the GPU 
RAM with complex meshes and textures, then releases nearly all CPU RAM 
(apart from needed pointers and space for the CPU code itself).  It will 
still work and be able to draw the scene in real-time, CPU RAM usage 
will be minimal.

Post a reply to this message

stbenge escreveu:
>> but I can't have my gaming fix on
>> just Mario and Link alone.
> 
> What is up with those guys anyway? Always having to save the princess. 
> Peach breaks a nail, "help me Mario!" Zelda sees a pig, "the Moblins are 
> attacking the castle!" Get a grip, Zelda! Or better yet, pick up a power 
> glove once in a while, sheesh!

I'll probably still get Zelda: Skyward Sword by end of the year for Wii. 
  Wii's swann's song, no doubt.  And perhaps even happens like TP: 
launched for both GC and Wii.

Motion control games so far have only been used for simplistic sports 
mini-games collections, fun for a while but ultimately too shallow and 
repetitive.  Z:SS OTOH will deliver 1:1 sword playing, shield defensing, 
arch&bow, canoeing and more all in one top adventure game.  The Wii was 
built for games like this, but hardly delivered...

>> Even Samus Aran should have ended her career in
>> Super Metroid or the first Metroid Prime...
> 
> Aw, c'mon! Another (2D) Metroid game made well would be great! I thought 
> of a great prequel entitled, "The Last Chozo," where of course, you'd 
> play as a Chozo. There would be some storyline about how you were the 
> last one, Metroids along with space pirates invaded your home world, 
> blah, blah, blah... the Metroid games were more about action anyway ;)

There's always the mobile versions, of course.  Fusion on GBA had better 
controls than SM, but still not quite the feeling of SM.  There's also 
Metroid Zero, which is basically Metroid 1 revamped with 16-bit 
graphics.  Many great side-scrollers found much better home in the 
Nintendo handhelds, including the awesome series of Metroidvanias from 
Konami since Castlevania:SotN.

I was talking specifically of Metroid:Other M for Wii.  Not quite so good.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > The counterargument makes it sound like
> > one doesn't need RAM at all to draw a 3D scene in real-time.

> Just to clarify we're talking about CPU RAM here, not RAM in general. 
> It's completely possible to write a program on a PC that fills the GPU 
> RAM with complex meshes and textures, then releases nearly all CPU RAM 
> (apart from needed pointers and space for the CPU code itself).  It will 
> still work and be able to draw the scene in real-time, CPU RAM usage 
> will be minimal.

  I am talking about the Xbox 360 with its shared RAM (the same RAM is used
by the CPU and the GPU), and how 512 MB is a puny amount.

  Consider it in the other direction: Imagine that the amount of RAM would
be 128 MB instead. Would games still look as good as they do? If not, why
not?

  Now consider 2 GB vs 512 MB. Exact same thing.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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