Topic: 2-3 Times as powerful as GC true, sez IGN

[nemo_83]

It could prove less taxing to load six frames of a room than to render it in real time allowing the power to be focused on rendering the character in real time, streaming AI, physics, and lighting.

Imagine for example, Samus' ball, prerendered using cube mapping, perfectly round.  Imagine her arm cannon prerendered (as if it came right out of a hollywood movie) in six dimensions all at once allowing you to see it in 3D.  

[odifiend]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
65+ USD would be a bad move

I wouldn't expect prices like that. MS themselves are pushing for 50$ prices and I doubt Sony would appreciate such pricing, either. Besides, games are as expensive as customers are willing to buy them and I doubt they could tell to people "look, Blu Ray is so expensive, our games are more expensive as a result".

MS may be pushing for $50 games but with the exception of inhouse titles, that was not a reality.  I'd imagine with HD graphics and increased development time, royalty-paying publishers want to ensure their games make a profit.
I actually see Sony as not discouraging this trend of games over 50 USD just because of their current debt and reports that they will be taking losses on the hardware.  How else could they profit?

[KDR_11k]

allowing the power to be focused on rendering the character in real time, streaming AI, physics, and lighting.

Characters can be VERY detailled on the system, you wouldn't need to put its full power into rendering characters. AI and physics are handled by the CPU (the bit of power that ordering the GPU around needs is probably surpassed by the operating system's idle usage...), not the GPU and lighting can be kept at the same performance by baking the lighting for the scenery and only calculating it for the characters (that's what many games do these days). If the shaders can handle the lighting for the characters then that's enough.

With prerendered scenery you can't move the camera around and you're much more restricted in what you can do. Moving the camera around allows for much more immersive games since he camera would be closer to the player (unless you want the player to move only step wise as seen in Myst).

MS may be pushing for $50 games but with the exception of inhouse titles, that was not a reality. I'd imagine with HD graphics and increased development time, royalty-paying publishers want to ensure their games make a profit.

MS can't enforce it but they're sure as hell trying to discourage 60$ games. I'd expect publishers to fall in line with that within the next few months (for now they know that there's not much competition so they can demand outrageous prices). Most publishers are just porting the PC version's graphics to the x360, anyway (while selling the PC game for 40 Euros compared to 68 Euros for x360 games)

I actually see Sony as not discouraging this trend of games over 50 USD just because of their current debt and reports that they will be taking losses on the hardware. How else could they profit?

Sony makes the same profit whether the game costs 50 or 60 (their license fee is constant), the only difference to them is that at 60 people will buy fewer games and therefore pay less to Sony. Plus lower game prices make the system look better to the customer and many casuals won't pay that much so it'd even threaten Sony's sales.

[odifiend]

Hmm, I didn't know royalties were the exclusive way the hardware company makes money.  Still unless Sony and MS agree to subsidize dev. costs, I don't see how 3rd parties could be satisfied with that game - increased expenditure with the same returns?  And of course the risk of your game flopping even if it isn't a piece of crap.

[KDR_11k]

Well, Sony could offer bundles like "BRD pressing included in the license fee" but I doubt that's necessary. We're talking about a few dollars (probably one or two but could even be just cents, DVDs are dirt cheap so "more expensive" is a very broad definition) difference at most and the differences in license fees are larger. Of course, higher license fees may be the reason so many publishers stopped supporting the Gamecube but unless the PS3 sells at Gamecube levels (unlikely) I'd expect the publishers to swallow those few dollars. The bigger "increased expenditure" will be the more expensive development. They're very greedy (hello, Ubisoft? Do you know what a "manual" is? Do you realize that the manual holder isn't there to hold the second CD in a paper sleeve?) but I think they know their limits.

Besides, they can afford releasing GBA games for less than console games despite expensive cartridges. Media costs are really a minor factor.

[attackslug]

Quote
Originally posted by: nemo_83
It could prove less taxing to load six frames of a room than to render it in real time allowing the power to be focused on rendering the character in real time, streaming AI, physics, and lighting.

Imagine for example, Samus' ball, prerendered using cube mapping, perfectly round.  Imagine her arm cannon prerendered (as if it came right out of a hollywood movie) in six dimensions all at once allowing you to see it in 3D.

Cube mapping doesn't do this.  I don't know where that idea came from, but it looks like the interpretations everyone seems to love on Gamespot's forums.  "Panoramic cubemapping" only allows for what is essentially a skybox. Creating true 3d objects out of 2d images is just BS through and through.  The closest thing to what you've described is displacement mapping (a whole new can of worms), that in a nutshell converts textured bumps and depth into ACTUAL bumps and depth (ie more polys), allowing for the creation of very complicated detail on models quickly and accurately.  For instance, if a displacement map of a rough, pockmarked brick wall was used on a flat surface, it would would modify the geometery of the wall to actually have pocks, bumps, and spaces between the actual bricks.  It's  quick and efficient compared to actually modelling the individual details in the wall by hand, but it is very taxing on the CPU and GPU because of the huge increase in polygons.

I've seen this theory of getting enormous detail at no cost many times before, just applied to a different name.  First it was applied to NURBS, this cubemapping bit, and now displacement mapping -- everyone seems to latch onto the idea that these are some sort of magic bullet that will allow for the rendering of complex, fully 3d objects without the use of system resources. This is, of course, utter bollocks.  Everytime someone shoots the rumor down, it just gets shifted to another CG technology that people don't fully understand.


ANYWAYS, this is an example of panoramic cubemapping:  http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen5/f14a-pope.html
You need quicktime to view it, and it ought to give a pretty good idea of what the limits of this technology entail.
You had the right idea when you described it as a more dynamic take on what goes on in Resident Evil.  I *think* that Nintendo's patent is a step forward in that it eliminates the need for a polygonal mesh for the interaction of realtime objects and the pre-rendered scene, somehow through the use of a corresponding depthmap for each face of the cubemap.

I'm by no means a 3d modeling guru, but I have a decent understanding of the basics. Also keep in mind that if any of these fantastic rumors/interpretations of patents had any weight behind them, you'd see all sorts of stuff about it on anandtech, gamasutra, etc, and NOT a casual gaming forum like GS or PGC.









PANORAMIC CUBEMAP

[Kairon]

I don't think that Blue-ray is as expensive as it's being implied.

It will still be cents a disc...BUT it can't be made at any existing CD manufacturing plant. This means that all the costs associated with it are merely the couple hundred million dollars in start up costs that it'd take Sony to build a brand new Factory.

I bet though PS3 games would be 60 bucks at launch, it'll eventually settle back into a more sensible 50-55 dollars range for new releases quickly. Marginally more expensive, but then again third parties are understandably getting worried with high dev costs.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Edit: Oh! I KNEW that the edit button hadn't just magically disappearted from the forum! Yay!

[BiLdItUp1]

F*ck the MPAA and Sony for Bluray. " Blu Ray won't cost 20$ per disc or something, the price isn't as much of an issue as the MPAA loves to make of it." KDR hit it right on the mark all the way up there.  

[Kairon]

Uh...

In my last post, where it reads "family?"

I meant factory. Uh, yeah. Have NOOOO idea what happened there! hehe....*gulp*

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[KDR_11k]

Bottom right corner of your post, button labelled "edit".

[ssj4_android]

They're launching with SSB, right? They've got their "killer launch title". They just need to make the system more powerful.

[Bill Aurion]

Let's stop pretending that the Rev is underpowered till we actually see game footage, thanks...

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Let's stop pretending SSB will be a launch title, thanks.

[Kairon]

Can we pretend that Mario Paint is in development?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[couchmonkey]

I'll go with that!!  *pretends*

[ShyGuy]

I like to pretend I'm a pony!

Have there been any confirmed launch titles?

[Caterkiller]

It was said that Smash Bros would be a launch title but then we find out that supposidly they just started on the game when they wanted the origonal director back. But then I defenitly remember Nintendo saying its been in development since March. I'll find links to both.

And Iwata wants Miyamoto to have Mario ready for launch but there have been no promises yet.  

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

That's right.  No promises yet.

[NINTENDO] "WE ARE MAKING STUFFS, DO NOT WORRY."

[jasonditz]

I'm surprised that the specs are this low, but not THAT surprised. Frankly, I don't see the point of designing a custom CPU if it's just a double powered Gecko: you could've used a stock G3 and gotten way better performance without spending money on R&D.

It leaves me actually feeling pretty good... I'm still buying the rev, of course, but if it manages to stay in the $99-$149 range I can probably think about adding either a PS3 or an Xbox 360 later in the year.  

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
"For Nintendo, Silicon Knights and Left Field and Factor 5 were pretty much duds."

I'll give you Left Field but SK and F5 are both talented developers that could have done way better if Nintendo wasn't such a moron regarding marketing.  Eternal Darkness was given a horrible marketing push and then SK was treated like a glorified port house to work on a remake of MGS.  ED itself was quite good which you can't say for Giest.  They left apparently because they didn't like the direction Nintendo is taking regarding non-gamers.  Factor 5 made THE killer app for the Cube in Rogue Leader but Nintendo focused on Luigi's Mansion instead in their commercials.  Rebel Strike sucked but considering that Factor 5's N64 games were also quite good I consider that a fluke caused by a poor design decision to feature foot missions.  F5 left because of Nintendo skimping on the hardware (I think).  If Nintendo wasn't making an underpowered remote-controlled non-gamer console conceivably BOTH developers would still be with Nintendo.  They had talent.  Nintendo just blatantly misused them.

And regardless of how you feel about Rare now they made the game that let the SNES beat the Genesis and they basically carried the N64 on their back.  Rare is one of the best things Nintendo has ever had.  They probably wouldn't have been able stay in the console market without them.

I really disagree with all the hate for LF... Courtside for the Cube was a compelling play experience, much of the play mechanics (pass stick) were eventually copied by the bigger players. It really needed a chance to get some more polish, and a franchise mode, and I was sorry to see Nintendo pull the plug on it.

[KDR_11k]

The G3 would need some adjustment as well to run the GC's extra instructions but overall I agree, they could have gotten more power for little money more. Well, I've heard claims that the current Rev devkit is about as unfinished as the early X360 ones i.e. the processor is meant to run the instructions for the Rev, not give the full power of it, perhaps there's some truth to that.

[Caterkiller]

Has anyone checked this out at Revo-Europe? http://www.revo-europe.com/news.php?nid=8636

If its true then Nintendo really has found some amazing new way of making games with lower power but able to perform graphicly just as good as Microsoft and maybe Sony. Hope, this isn't what you guys were all talking about a page or 2 ago.  

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: Caterkiller
Has anyone checked this out at Revo-Europe? http://www.revo-europe.com/news.php?nid=8636

If its true then Nintendo really has found some amazing new way of making games with lower power but able to perform graphicly just as good as Microsoft and maybe Sony. Hope, this isn't what you guys were all talking about a page or 2 ago.

I saw that too... I'm skeptical until I see it in action, but it would make sense as far as making ports from the other systems possible.

Not that the rev's success is going to live or die on ports from the other systems... first party is and has always been the key for nintendo.

[Ian Sane]

The things from Revo-Europe, even if it's real, might not quite be an ideal solution.  It would work well for exclusives but what about ports?  Exclusives usually always look great.  But when you have the same game on all consoles that's when direct comparisons are made.  The Cube could make amazing looking games like RE4 and Metroid Prime but when anything was ported to it it usually ended up pretty crappy.  That was largely laziness on the third party's part but still, it's an issue.  So Nintendo might be able to make great looking games using "displacement mapping technology" but if that requires some major work to get comparable graphics from a port then it won't do much good.  Ideally Nintendo needs something that even with a lazy port job the games look great.  I don't know if displacement mapping technology is hard to work with but it cuts back on polygons and I imagine that makes a quick 'n' dirty port harder to do.

[attackslug]

Displacement mapping is NOT new, nor is it some miracle technique that will magically produce fantastic visuals at little to no cost in performace.

Displacement mapping increases polycounts, actually.  Basically, it works kind of like bump or normal mapping in that it uses a greyscale texture to alter the appearance of the model. Unlike bump/normal mapping, which simulate the illusion of complex geometry by dynamically changing the highlights and shadows of a texture, displacement mapping  makes the geometry more complex by subdividing the mesh and modifying it's shape to confrom to the texture.

For example, a flat wall given a brick-patterned displacement map will actually have bumps and crevices "modeled" into it, potentially bumping the amount of polygons needed to render it through the roof.

In short, it's quick and efficient in terms of time and effort needed to construct detailed models or maps, but that much more taxing on the hardware because of the additional polys it needs to push. If the rev actually uses this technique, it could speak quite well for the horsepower of the system -- it takes alot of resources to do this, which is why we won't be seeing it in any games until later Xbox360 or PC releases.