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scott <sco### [at] scott com> 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
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> 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) :-)
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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!).
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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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