Topic: Sony getting hit Hard lately

[capamerica]

From what I've heard from a few developers the only reason a game like Lair takes up 4GB per level is because Sony is not alowing compression on the games, silimlar to what happen with the PSOne and PS2. Compression makes a huge differnece just look at any of the GTA games on the PS2 and Xbox, The PS2 version in over 4GB while the Xbox version barely breaks 1.2 GB.

I'm more then willing to bet they could fit Lair with no quility losse on a normal dual layer DVD if they wanted to.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

you talk as if lair was a dvd movie

[capamerica]

Graphics and Sound can be compressed down to smaller file sizes, For Example a MP3 file is a hell of alot smaller then a WAV file and a PNG file is far smaller then a TIFF file. The reason that Developers were using uncompressed files on the PSone and PS2 games was that the system was not powerfull enought to work with compressed files. This is why the version of GTA3 on the PS2 was over 4GB and the Xbox version was only 1.2GB. The Xbox could handel having files compressed while the PS2 on the other hand could not.
And its not just Xbox, Resident Evil 4 on the PS2 was over 4GB while the GameCube version was just a little bit over 2GB and to make matters worst for the PS2 the GameCube version was far better looking.

From what I've been hearding come out of developers who are working with the PS3, Sony is having them work with uncompressed files so it looks like they are taking advantage of the storage space on the Blu-Ray disc.

IF Factor5 wanted Lair on the Xbox360 all they would have to do is compress the sound, movie and image files and they should be able to fit it on a normal Dual Layer DVD if not a normal singel Layer DVD.

We'll get a better idea on how much PS3 games could be compressed down once the first batch of Multiconsole games hit the 360 and PS3 and we get rips showing up on the web.  

[SixthAngel]

capamerica has it right.  They are hardly compressing these games, if at all, probably to show us how much we "need" bluray.  Does anyone have any idea how big the biggest (or most complicated graphically) xbox360 (or computer) game has been.  They are in HD and I don't think they have had a problem with filling up the dvds.

[Spak-Spang]

What is the benefit of not using compression?  Sure you may get cleaner visuals and audio, but aren't you also costing the gamer time with longer loads and such.

I thought that the Xbox 360 had long and annoying load times because of its high defination visuals, sound, and obviously more to load into memory.  Is the PS3 going to be even worse?  Nobody knows exactly how fast this blu-ray technology is, specially compared to the amounts of data it is going to be pulling off the disc.  

If load times are really bad, it could be another small problem for Sony.  

[capamerica]

By not compressing the files it put less strain on the system it self. Its easier for a computer to read a WAV file then a MP3. The PS3 has no lack of power compaired to how bad the PS2 was. So its really weird why Sony would want their games uncompressed.

[Smash_Brother]

I'm more than willing to bet it's to show "how much we need Blu-Ray". It also fights piracy because the games are so damn huge.

Also, it makes it harder to port the same media to other systems.  

[KDR_11k]

Who says they were forced not to compress? Who says they didn't choose to avoid compression because they could? Compression on audio files wastes CPU cycles and compression on textures leaves artifacts. No compression means the game looks better. And the PS3 has a harddrive to chache stuff to. Of course the 4GB aren't going to be used at once since the PS3 has too little RAM, it'll be streamed. With linear, fixed scrolling levels that's easy to do. The common stuff is going to be cached on the HD, the rest is streamed in gradually while the level plays. Net result? Short load times.

IF Factor5 wanted Lair on the Xbox360 all they would have to do is compress the sound, movie and image files and they should be able to fit it on a normal Dual Layer DVD if not a normal singel Layer DVD.

That's of course assuming they aren't depending on any specific abilities of the PS3 hardware. Knowing Factor 5 a lot of their code is assembly and it's using the SPEs to their very limit so the code would need to be rewritten in large parts to play on the 360.

[WuTangTurtle]

KDR has some good points however what percentage of those Developers are going to A) spend the time and B) the money to have their programers setup data streaming during gameplay.  It doesn't help either that many developers aren't getting much development support from Sony.

If i recall correctly the original Xbox was capable of streaming and even used it as a selling point for expansive Adventure and RPG games, but how many freaking loading screens have we seen in xbox games (Fable im looking at you, you B@stard!)

Another thing leaving textures uncompressed will kill frame rates.  Unless of course you like your games using only 2 Textures for everything, look how eye bleeding detailed that tea pot is, AMAZING!

Being serious again....I guess they could really pull off a lot of things if they did some real good zoning which would lessen the stress on the processor.  For those who don't know what zoning is, its basically telling the system to not process anything in one zone when you are in another zone, for example it would be pointless for a game to process a room that you can't immediatly get into.

[KDR_11k]

KDR has some good points however what percentage of those Developers are going to A) spend the time and B) the money to have their programers setup data streaming during gameplay.

Electronic Arts, for example?

Another thing leaving textures uncompressed will kill frame rates. Unless of course you like your games using only 2 Textures for everything, look how eye bleeding detailed that tea pot is, AMAZING!

Only if you exceed the available texture memory. Since a console is a controlled environment you can know much better how full the texture memory is. And noone says you can't combine compressed and uncompressed textures, either. After all you'll want to keep the normalmap uncompressed at all times.

[Athrun Zala]

LOL

[Zach]

Thats funny, but not that unusual considering were always getting banner adds to "WIN A FREE PSP!!!!"

[ThePerm]

yeah, thats not Sony's website. So its not funny. Whats funny is the stupidity of people thinking its funny. Thats like ign having a wii advertisement on its ps3 channel. Its console resource center with an ad for a console.

if it were Sony's real website...than it would be funny.

[WuTangTurtle]

ah c'mon Perm its a little bit funny.

[Ceric]

On the compression topic I agree with KDR.  If you can get away with Uncompressed data I'm all for it.  Compression takes up CPU cycles that could be better used for something else.  Lets say Lair has 5 levels at 4 gigs each.  Thats 20 gigs.  Now you compress everything so it can fit onto a DVD and be uncompressed to the same resolution using a 8 gig DVD (Dual Layer).  20/8  1:2.5 compression ratio.

Ok.  Now I don't think anybody here thinks that decompression is free.  It can be quiet costly.  There are some amazing compression algorithms out there that can take humongous amounts of data and make them itty bitty with no noticeable loss.  Why don't we use them?  It takes to long for compression and decompression.  In a game it does me no good if I can store a world of billions of unique people onto a DVD if it takes a day to get them into a useable form.

This is one of the reasons I was hoping that Nintendo found a really good set of compression schemes that were generally used that could be dedicated to a piece of hardware.  That way you could compress things and then not waste your precious CPU cycles in getting them back.  That be done with a specialized chip.  This is of limited use to a regular computer but in a console it could be very handy.  Back to the topic at hand.

If they had truly used the full power of the PS3, which is at the least equivalent to the 360, the decompression would take up enough processor on the system getting the port that I doubt it be able to have the game running smoothly.  So sacrifices would need to be made.  Hence not as good of a game.

Just my thought.

[capamerica]

We deal with compressed files all the time already and we don't see it effecting load times all that much.
Just look at any multiconsole game that comes out on the PS2, Xbox and GameCube. The Xbox and GameCube versions are almost always smaller cause they can get away with using compression on files, since they both have the power to uses compression. The systems are more then powerful enought today that compression will not effect them in the least.

Compression isn't some new thing that no one has never used before.. well except for Sony. MS and Nintendo have been using compression for awhile. The Xbox used it and the N64 and GameCube used.

If you look at any of the GTA games on the PS2 and compair them to the Xbox versions not only do they look better on the Xbox, but the load times are faster. This doesn't back your claim that they games would run slower.

If anything the only reason why Lair would not be ported would be what KDR said and that if Factor5 used "specific abilities of the PS3 hardware" that could not be duplicated on the Xbox360 hardware.

[Athrun Zala]

lol, I thought it WAS Sony's website....oh well, then it isn't as funny

cap, the thing isn't if it can or can't be used, it's that if the data can be uncompressed, then the CPU doesn't have to decompress the data and can be doing something else, whcih in the end would be more efficient

[capamerica]

but uncompressed files do use more Video & System RAM and more disc space then a compressed files. So even if you are saving the CPU from making a couple extra calculations your losing that by making the Graphics card and RAM work harder to support it.

[Smoke39]

Compressed data is stored uncompressed in RAM.  Otherwise, you'd be running the decompression algorithm every time you wanted to use it, ie every frame that it was being used.

[Athrun Zala]

Quote
Originally posted by: capamerica
but uncompressed files do use more Video & System RAM and more disc space then a compressed files. So even if you are saving the CPU from making a couple extra calculations your losing that by making the Graphics card and RAM work harder to support it.

as somke said, they have to be decompressed to be used, so you'd use the same amount of RAM anyways..... uncompressed have the advantage of using less CPU resources, so if the space is there, uncompressed is the way to go

[Ceric]

Quote
Originally posted by: capamerica
but uncompressed files do use more Video & System RAM and more disc space, (this part is fact by definition) then a compressed files. So even if you are saving the CPU from making a couple extra calculations your losing that by making the Graphics card and RAM work harder to support it.

Very wrong and did you not read what I said.  Of course a games for the PS2 can be compressed and not have hiccup on the Cube and XBox.  Maybe even be better.  Why?  Because they were both more powerful and, in the case of the Gamecube, more efficient machines then the PS2.

Quote
...and be uncompressed to the same resolution

Since I have lossless compression going on and that they are being uncompressed to the same size as the PS3 assets then they'll use the same amount of Video and System RAM. <rambling> Now lets say I took Lair and moved it to the Wii.  Well all the Assets would have to go down from what is it 1920x1080 to 640x480 a drastic change by anyones standard.  Of course this would at least half the size of it.  You would lose detail.  Actually it wouldn't be compressed.  I wonder how small it would actually become.</rambling>

Quote
If they had truly used the full power of the PS3, which is at the least equivalent to the 360, the decompression would take up enough processor on the system getting the port that I doubt it be able to have the game running smoothly. So sacrifices would need to be made. Hence not as good of a game.

If they fully used the power of the PS3 those extra calculations really add up.  Sorting Algorithms are good examples how a little extra extra calculation's can really add up, (So you know, Big O is the number of comparisons made per item in looses terms.)  There is in fact an algorithm for manipulating matrices that adds 3 or so additions to get rid of one of the multiplications signs and the matrices has to be of a certain size.  You gain a significant speed boost from doing this.  Addition takes only 1 cycle and multiplication takes a couple.

Now, as I mentioned before, if there was a dedicated piece of hardware that did the encoding/decoding of the data then it be a moot point.  At that point it be relatively trivial if it was used, like with sound.

Oh and yes I totally agree that Uncompressed data uses more disc space.  

[KDR_11k]

Textures can remain compressed at all times since graphics chips can handle compressed textures (and already could on the XBox and GC) but they use blockwise palletization to do that (i.e. a block of 16 pixels can only have 4 different colors) which is lossy. That's ugly if you do it with normalmaps which is why those have to remain uncompressed. Specmaps can often be compressed with little loss of quality, diffuse maps have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Terrain can use a large number of textures, each pretty big as well and the heightmap can take a lot of space which cannot be compressed. If the levels are large enough it's no big feat to plaster 4GB of textures on it, even with compression where it can be used.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Uhhhhh ::tries to figure out what is being said. Head explodes::

[Arbok]

Quote
...shares in Sony Corp. fell to a 2-1/2-month low today (Monday) over news of continued problems with batteries made by Sony for laptop computers. Analysts estimated that the recall of Sony batteries could wind up costing the company some $420 million. In a note to clients, Koichi Ogaawa of Daiwa SB Investments, commented, “Without a doubt this is damaging for Sony. However, we've been hearing about this recall for some time, so there is also no need for panic.” Most analysts said that the real damage was a public relations one -- tarnishing Sony’s reputation as an elite maker of trouble-free products.

Source

Clearly these analysts have never purchased a PS2...

[Ceric]

Seconded.  That was the old Sony.  Pre-PSX I thought Sony was quality.  They had proven that to me.  When they released the PSX I thought it would never make it.  I was wrong but you know it happens.  Ever since then though there quality had gone down.  The PSP is a very good example of this.  Sony used to make a respected line of PDA's so there shouldn't have been as many design flaws in the PSP as their are.  Though to be fair, quality on all  things have gone down since I was little.