which has better graphics?

[0098386]

No, i am just giving a counter example to show that even if one thinks bluray is not useful in games now, it may be exceptionally important in the near future (next couple of years)

How and why? PC games have had HD textures, HD quality effects, models, surround sound etc, for many years now. Why is it just now that consoles are catching up to a 3 year old mid-range PC that more storage is suddenly needed?
They've never had this problem before but since Sony come along and try to promote their new format, with a couple of vocal devs to say how impossible their fairly standard looking games would be impossible without 50gb storage it now becomes a problem.

 

[Antares]

How and why? PC games have had HD textures, HD quality effects, models, surround sound etc, for many years now. Why is it just now that consoles are catching up to a 3 year old mid-range PC that more storage is suddenly needed?
They've never had this problem before but since Sony come along and try to promote their new format, with a couple of vocal devs to say how impossible their fairly standard looking games would be impossible without 50gb storage it now becomes a problem.

Has some vision. Look beyond what has already been and what games have come before.

Even if a developer doesn't need more storage space right now, it's always nice to have it available when the time comes that they do need it. Cartridge -> CD -> DVD -> Blu-ray There was a time when a cartridge of old held enough data for games. Would you say the same today?

 

[fiercetiger224]

So you actually believe the 20% performance joke? Wow.

And it isn't any extra time or effort. You just set the resolution when the game boots up. 20% performance, we should be seeing a 1080p CoD4... But we're not so, do we have a FUD smiley?

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=Call+of+Duty+4+20%25&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 is none existent.

Haha, sarcasm is a little hard to detect online eh? I thought you would have picked up that sarcasm smiley on my post, but oh well.

 

[MarsUltor]

How and why? PC games have had HD textures, HD quality effects, models, surround sound etc, for many years now. Why is it just now that consoles are catching up to a 3 year old mid-range PC that more storage is suddenly needed?
They've never had this problem before but since Sony come along and try to promote their new format, with a couple of vocal devs to say how impossible their fairly standard looking games would be impossible without 50gb storage it now becomes a problem.

Has some vision. Look beyond what has already been and what games have come before.

Even if a developer doesn't need more storage space right now, it's always nice to have it available when the time comes that they do need it. Cartridge -> CD -> DVD -> Blu-ray There was a time when a cartridge of old held enough data for games. Would you say the same today?

What Antares said... raggedjimi, why would you assume that we will stagnate at a game space that dvd's will accommodate... like what Antares said, game spaces have progressively increased, what would make this generation any different? and why would you even consider limiting yourself with DVD's, when a format of greater capacity is right there to use? its better to have it and not need it, than want it and not have it... and when all is said and done, the ps3 is a relatively inexpensive bluray player...

 

[0098386]

What Antares said... raggedjimi, why would you assume that we will stagnate at a game space that dvd's will accommodate... like what Antares said, game spaces have progressively increased, what would make this generation any different? and why would you even consider limiting yourself with DVD's, when a format of greater capacity is right there to use? its better to have it and not need it, than want it and not have it... and when all is said and done, the ps3 is a relatively inexpensive bluray player...

Of course storage space has increased. But there is no need for it to increase now, or at least not with such a leap. We are hitting a peak, well we have for years. Basically games never used to look real and took up fractions of what they do now (watch), but we're inching into realistic graphics. Where is there to go from here? With current and upcoming tech we don't need higher resolution textures, we're already playing with uncompressed sound. We're at the best. We don't even need to code in lengthy, large cutscenes now since whole game engines (with Euphoria, with lip-synching engines etc) can massively reduce the overall file size.
What a lot of people seem to miss is that codecs also progress. I've got H.264 HD films and TV shows that can easily fit on a single DVD.

All I'm saying is that whilst we have monitors that run at around 1600p and TV's lower still (and running certain games even lower than that), there is little need for anything over 9gb unless the studio wants to keep everything uncompressed.

Until super mega epic games start rolling out on multiple DVD's we're fine. Right now Mass Effect, Stalker, Oblivion, Crysis all ship on 1 DVD each.

 

[MarsUltor]

What a lot of people seem to miss is that codecs also progress. I've got H.264 HD films and TV shows that can easily fit on a single DVD.

All I'm saying is that whilst we have monitors that run at around 1600p and TV's lower still (and running certain games even lower than that), there is little need for anything over 9gb unless the studio wants to keep everything uncompressed.

Until super mega epic games start rolling out on multiple DVD's we're fine. Right now Mass Effect, Stalker, Oblivion, Crysis all ship on 1 DVD each.

You seem to be under the impression that the only thing that takes up any space is graphics... although the most visible, it is only a fraction of the total game... i don't claim to know a lot about programming, but as AI gets sharper, and physics engines get more realistic, and all the other factors that make a game become more realistic (more than just graphics, and sound that have a point of limiting return), all these factors are going to add to more an more data... i think you mentioned that programming has come a long way, that's very true, but realism is exceptionally complex... and the closer we get to a realistic game, the more data storage one needs.

Also, i don't know why you posted that video... i grew up with an atari 2600 and a nintendo, i know the good old days of video games

 

[0098386]

Video, graphics and audio (in that order, game depending) take up most space. The difference between them and say, AI or physics storage space is vastly different. Storage space isn't a bottleneck for the programming side of games, it's more or less the CPU.
Even in my own game I've programmed a full physics engine capable of friction, elasticity, flammability, buoyancyetc... It's in a 2D plane but adding an extra value to the dimensions isn't going to bulk the size up.

 

[MarsUltor]

Regardless, like i said earlier, its better to have it and not need it than want it and not have it... bluray that is...

 

[NAG]

But if the console doesn't have any games you want to play then you're left with a console without games you want to play. I'm not saying the PS3 or the xbox or the Wii have no good games. Just that they don't all have the same games (although they share a lot of them).

It all comes down to which console has the games you want (unless you're buying it for a bluray player because you're into that whole hd movie thing then you probably should get the ps3 since it is the only future proof bluray player on the market pretty much).

 

[0098386]

Regardless, like i said earlier, its better to have it and not need it than want it and not have it... bluray that is...

So when it costs more to produce the format, adding costs to publishers and also adds more to the consumer; then it's not better. Heck the 360 should have shipped with 5 CPU's that you can wire up and play games in a render-farm like solution since that would be better.

 

[MarsUltor]

So when it costs more to produce the format, adding costs to publishers and also adds more to the consumer; then it's not better. Heck the 360 should have shipped with 5 CPU's that you can wire up and play games in a render-farm like solution since that would be better.

Have you not noticed the descending costs of ps3's? obviously the cost is coming down because, in part, bluray is becoming a more accepted tech... once you have the capital in place to produce the format (and more entrants making the tech competitive), the costs drop significantly... so yes, initially it did cost more, but the cost have been balancing... while shipping with 5 cpu's, as you said in your example, is somewhat irrational... you're comparing apples to oranges, the mass production of cpu's is far more expensive than the mass production of printed bluray discs, or bluray players for that matter...

 

[0098386]

Have you not noticed the descending costs of ps3's?

Of course electronics get cheaper as production becomes more effecient, as material prices drop. But the matter of the fact right now is the base PS3 is twice the price as the base 360 here despite both systems outputting pretty much an identical image.

And what falling costs? About 6 months ago we had an official PS3 bundle with 2 games and 2 controllers for £300, now you just get the PS3 for that price. If anything here it's quite oddly increasing.

 

[MarsUltor]

Sorry it took so long to reply, but I have been quite busy...

I don't think either of us will be capable of changing the others opinion of this issue anytime soon... so this argument has been rendered moot. I suppose we both have different visions of the future... at least think of it in these terms, there would be no reason for sony to exclude it's own technology when it was (at the time) trying to actively corner the market on the next-gen optical devices, ie bluray.

 

[stagi]

just get both