RAGE *Multiple Discs or Less Visual Detail* Reactions?

I was just dumb founded by the info released in QuakeCon about the fact that the id developers will need more than two 360 discs in order to

represent the game in all its entirety. Their stance on microsoft's disc policy, and the ultimatum that they change it or settle with degraded visuals is a wierd situation.

Kinda like MGS4, but after playing that game it seemed as if it could be done on 360 easily. How much data is too much? Its coming to PC also, so is that platform going to have 3+ dvds, talk about installation disc requirements!

Come on id, be real, what are you guys thoughts on it?

It's because the devs are far too used to making games for PC where they have no size limit constraints and can code as sloppily as they want to. MS disc policy is to force developers to smarten up their act and code more efficiently.

If RAGE can't fit the game on two disc, what they are saying is they need in excess of 18GB, which is utter rubbish when you see what other games have managed with one.

MS should stick to their disc policy as we don't want to be changing discs throughout a game, and ID just need to be more efficient at putting their game onto a disc

Hell if the whole of The Orange Box can fit on one 360 disc, then it shows you what can be done when the devs put their minds to it.

It's because the devs are far too used to making games for PC where they have no size limit constraints and can code as sloppily as they want to. MS disc policy is to force developers to smarten up their act and code more efficiently.

If RAGE can't fit the game on two disc, what they are saying is they need in excess of 18GB, which is utter rubbish when you see what other games have managed with one.

MS should stick to their disc policy as we don't want to be changing discs throughout a game, and ID just need to be more efficient at putting their game onto a disc

Hell if the whole of The Orange Box can fit on one 360 disc, then it shows you what can be done when the devs put their minds to it.

Avenger1324

I do half agree with u and m$ royalties policy is designed 2 smarten up there act and also 2 show that the 360 is not inferior 2 the ps3. But what id r saying is that rage has an insane amount of texture data and 2 fit it on 2 1 DVD is impossible and they need 3 DVD 2 ensure that the 360 version is not compromised visually and cause of it m$ has 2 work out some kind of deal with id 2 get the game on 3 DVDs. Me personally i couldn't give a crap if the game is on 3 DVDs because i can get off my a** and change the disc which takes at most 10 seconds 2 do

MS should stick to their disc policy as we don't want to be changing discs throughout a game, and ID just need to be more efficient at putting their game onto a disc

Avenger1324

I could not disagree with that statement any more.

Swapping discs is not a big deal at all. Not only that, with the fall update there will be an option to do installs for games, which could help/prevent this situation. Multi-disc games are rare, but they are nothing new. Charging companies to have a game take more than 1 disc is an odd move.

I see this whole thing like the size limit for arcade games. Something that was unmovable until games with enough interest started pushing the limits...And now there is no size limit (thanks entirely to SF2 HD)

It's because the devs are far too used to making games for PC where they have no size limit constraints and can code as sloppily as they want to. MS disc policy is to force developers to smarten up their act and code more efficiently.

If RAGE can't fit the game on two disc, what they are saying is they need in excess of 18GB, which is utter rubbish when you see what other games have managed with one.

MS should stick to their disc policy as we don't want to be changing discs throughout a game, and ID just need to be more efficient at putting their game onto a disc

Hell if the whole of The Orange Box can fit on one 360 disc, then it shows you what can be done when the devs put their minds to it.

Avenger1324

John Carmack and ID are some of the best programmers in the business.jg4xchamp

For PC in the 90's I'd agree, but definitely not for current consoles. Just because you can write code well for one platform does not mean you have the knowledge or experience to automatically do the same on another platform.

I have first hand experience of seeing a PC FPS get ported to both PS3 and 360 and have seen some of the mistakes that get made. Artists used to making textures for PC make them on huge templates of 4096x4096 or larger, and are then surprised to see their work returned to them to be re-done because these chew up far too much memory on consoles when something a quarter of the size would have done.

The fact is the PC has massively more memory and knowing how to program efficiently within the confines of the availble memory is not something PC-only programmers have to worry about. If the game doesn't work smoothly with 1GB RAM, the answer is just to up the min spec to 2GB. This isn't an option on consoles, but the programmers don't see this as clearly until much further down the design process. A dev team run into huge problems if they only discover this late on in production as they are too far down the line to have the artists redo a lot of their work, and this sounds very much like what ID are experiencing now on RAGE.

By reducing textures to a sensible size for consoles also dramatically reduces the amount of space they take up, and will reduce the need for so many discs. Reducing texture sizes doesn't automatically mean there will be a huge drop in visual quality for the consoles. Consoles will be running at the lower 720p (as well as having to support Standard Def) instead of 2560x1600 which the high-end PC's the game is also designed to run on, will be using. 720p is already 1/4 the resolution of 1600p, so a proportional reduction in clarity is expected, and could be done with lower res textures.

[QUOTE="jg4xchamp"]John Carmack and ID are some of the best programmers in the business.Avenger1324

For PC in the 90's I'd agree, but definitely not for current consoles. Just because you can write code well for one platform does not mean you have the knowledge or experience to automatically do the same on another platform.

I have first hand experience of seeing a PC FPS get ported to both PS3 and 360 and have seen some of the mistakes that get made. Artists used to making textures for PC make them on huge templates of 4096x4096 or larger, and are then surprised to see their work returned to them to be re-done because these chew up far too much memory on consoles when something a quarter of the size would have done.

The fact is the PC has massively more memory and knowing how to program efficiently within the confines of the availble memory is not something PC-only programmers have to worry about. If the game doesn't work smoothly with 1GB RAM, the answer is just to up the min spec to 2GB. This isn't an option on consoles, but the programmers don't see this as clearly until much further down the design process. A dev team run into huge problems if they only discover this late on in production as they are too far down the line to have the artists redo a lot of their work, and this sounds very much like what ID are experiencing now on RAGE.

By reducing textures to a sensible size for consoles also dramatically reduces the amount of space they take up, and will reduce the need for so many discs. Reducing texture sizes doesn't automatically mean there will be a huge drop in visual quality for the consoles. Consoles will be running at the lower 720p (as well as having to support Standard Def) instead of 2560x1600 which the high-end PC's the game is also designed to run on, will be using. 720p is already 1/4 the resolution of 1600p, so a proportional reduction in clarity is expected, and could be done with lower res textures.

i dont care how many discs there are. As long as the game scares the crap out of me like the picture on gamespots xbox 360 page. That zombie is freakin creepy:D

I CANT WAIT TO BLOW THE THING'S HEAD OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:twisted:

It's because the devs are far too used to making games for PC where they have no size limit constraints and can code as sloppily as they want to. MS disc policy is to force developers to smarten up their act and code more efficiently.

If RAGE can't fit the game on two disc, what they are saying is they need in excess of 18GB, which is utter rubbish when you see what other games have managed with one.

MS should stick to their disc policy as we don't want to be changing discs throughout a game, and ID just need to be more efficient at putting their game onto a disc

Hell if the whole of The Orange Box can fit on one 360 disc, then it shows you what can be done when the devs put their minds to it.

Avenger1324

And sloppy code makes stuff slow becuase the game has to process more things at once, not very good.

I was just dumb founded by the info released in QuakeCon about the fact that the id developers will need more than two 360 discs in order to

represent the game in all its entirety. Their stance on microsoft's disc policy, and the ultimatum that they change it or settle with degraded visuals is a wierd situation.

Kinda like MGS4, but after playing that game it seemed as if it could be done on 360 easily. How much data is too much? Its coming to PC also, so is that platform going to have 3+ dvds, talk about installation disc requirements!

Come on id, be real, what are you guys thoughts on it?

mikelary

You can install games on PCs. Also, id didnt want to go over 2 discs because MS charges a lot for the third disc.

Well the orange box was easy to put on one disc because every one of the games on it uses the same Source Engine. So it was really just, erase Half-life, put in white textures, gray textures, two models, a portal gun. done. next. replace gritty graphics with cartoons and really deformed people. done. next. Copy half life twice and just rearange it into a new story. done.
TADA! We fit four games in one disk! Not to mention that the games werent all that big anyways, its not like they had to pile on several sets of textures for the graphics settings or anything like on PC.

Well if Hideo Kojima said that MGS4 barely fit on a dual layered Blu-Ray disc, you'd better believe him. DVD-9 is an outdated format (or at least getting that way). High-cap discs is the way of the future. MS didn't do the smart thing and future proof their system and now they'll most likely pay for it.

Now that devs are getting the hang of these "next-gen" systems, a lot of them are creating games that are more system and space intensive then what was previously seen. So having to shoe horn your pride and joy, especially something that you've worked on for many years, onto a regular DVD is just crazy!

I think the MS will be the first to the market with a new console, probably a lot sooner then the others, because they choose to use an aging disc format and shoddy manufacturing on early systems.

Everyone knows that the Xbox is gonna come out with a newer system before the others, then disown and stop supporting the 360. Which if they do ,do that then we are going to see a lot of MS fans out there that will just give up on Xbox. Because they are showing that they are following the Sega path marketing,which led to Sega discontinuing systems and dying out.

Now as for the multiple disc situation.MS should just take that rule and stop it,because they know they are running on an old DVD format.And it is not like the DVD 9 discs are expensive or cost a lot of money. If a Dev team needs an extra disc to fully complete a game they should let it.I understand that MS is trying to "smarten up the DEV" and say anything is possible with the system.Which is true the system could handle a lot it has proved itwith a lot of games.such as gears 1 and 2 Lost Odyssey and etc. Having multiple discs means nothing to me and to a lot of gamers since we been used to it since the PS1 days with the FF series all being 3-4 Discs long. It's not that big of a deal

MS backed themselves into a corner. I love the system and the push and support it's getting with all these games,and having a great Network with Xbox Live. They just need to face facts,with the new games coming out and the way the Dev team wants to do games. with all these intense graphics and epic story lines, and trying to make the game long lasting using that formula. it's not going to be enough with the DVD 9 format that they are currently using. it's not gonna hold all that data.on one disc. If they were smart they should have been making games on the HD Discs with the HD player they brought out. It was stupid for them to just make that into a player that just played movies. they should have started using those discs as gaming discs. It could have been done and made it easy for the Dev to go through this problem. It doesn't compare to a Blue-ray disc, but **** it's better than DVD 9

I hope MS themselves smarten up and listen to what the people are saying instead of going about and doing their own thing. it has worked in the beginning,but now we need to upgrade and demand an upgrade. and we do not mind changing Discs for certain games, since it has been done in the past.

Also would like to point out. for them to fix their hardware , because i still hear about 360's blowing out. I know because mine just recently did, and i hope this new one doesn't go that road like the other 2 i had

Well if Hideo Kojima said that MGS4 barely fit on a dual layered Blu-Ray disc, you'd better believe him. DVD-9 is an outdated format (or at least getting that way). High-cap discs is the way of the future. MS didn't do the smart thing and future proof their system and now they'll most likely pay for it.

Now that devs are getting the hang of these "next-gen" systems, a lot of them are creating games that are more system and space intensive then what was previously seen. So having to shoe horn your pride and joy, especially something that you've worked on for many years, onto a regular DVD is just crazy!

I think the MS will be the first to the market with a new console, probably a lot sooner then the others, because they choose to use an aging disc format and shoddy manufacturing on early systems.

EnderSR388

the reason MGS4 used up so much memory was because of uncompressed audio. the graphics are nothing that couldn't be done on the 360, it would just be a matter of reducing the audio quality slightly, which is a barely notable difference.

as for a poor disc format, i disagree. bluray had not been released yet, and hd-dvds were still very new, so microsoft choose what they knew. not only did this allow them to put their console out sooner, it also reduced the price. dvd-9 works perfectly fine, and if not having high-cap discs mean we need to use multiple discs so be it. is pushing the open button to place in a new disc really going to disrupt your gaming session any more than a loading screen?

Everyone knows that the Xbox is gonna come out with a newer system before the others, then disown and stop supporting the 360. Which if they do ,do that then we are going to see a lot of MS fans out there that will just give up on Xbox. Because they are showing that they are following the Sega path marketing,which led to Sega discontinuing systems and dying out.

DarthShino

last time i checked, microsoft didn't put out a bomb console, or charge $80 dollars for games, so i'd say we're still safe.

[QUOTE="Avenger1324"]

It's because the devs are far too used to making games for PC where they have no size limit constraints and can code as sloppily as they want to. MS disc policy is to force developers to smarten up their act and code more efficiently.

If RAGE can't fit the game on two disc, what they are saying is they need in excess of 18GB, which is utter rubbish when you see what other games have managed with one.

MS should stick to their disc policy as we don't want to be changing discs throughout a game, and ID just need to be more efficient at putting their game onto a disc

Hell if the whole of The Orange Box can fit on one 360 disc, then it shows you what can be done when the devs put their minds to it.

jg4xchamp

Well if Hideo Kojima said that MGS4 barely fit on a dual layered Blu-Ray disc, you'd better believe him. DVD-9 is an outdated format (or at least getting that way). High-cap discs is the way of the future. MS didn't do the smart thing and future proof their system and now they'll most likely pay for it.

Now that devs are getting the hang of these "next-gen" systems, a lot of them are creating games that are more system and space intensive then what was previously seen. So having to shoe horn your pride and joy, especially something that you've worked on for many years, onto a regular DVD is just crazy!

I think the MS will be the first to the market with a new console, probably a lot sooner then the others, because they choose to use an aging disc format and shoddy manufacturing on early systems.

EnderSR388

Everyone knows that the Xbox is gonna come out with a newer system before the others, then disown and stop supporting the 360. Which if they do ,do that then we are going to see a lot of MS fans out there that will just give up on Xbox. Because they are showing that they are following the Sega path marketing,which led to Sega discontinuing systems and dying out.

Now as for the multiple disc situation.MS should just take that rule and stop it,because they know they are running on an old DVD format.And it is not like the DVD 9 discs are expensive or cost a lot of money. If a Dev team needs an extra disc to fully complete a game they should let it.I understand that MS is trying to "smarten up the DEV" and say anything is possible with the system.Which is true the system could handle a lot it has proved itwith a lot of games.such as gears 1 and 2 Lost Odyssey and etc. Having multiple discs means nothing to me and to a lot of gamers since we been used to it since the PS1 days with the FF series all being 3-4 Discs long. It's not that big of a deal

MS backed themselves into a corner. I love the system and the push and support it's getting with all these games,and having a great Network with Xbox Live. They just need to face facts,with the new games coming out and the way the Dev team wants to do games. with all these intense graphics and epic story lines, and trying to make the game long lasting using that formula. it's not going to be enough with the DVD 9 format that they are currently using. it's not gonna hold all that data.on one disc. If they were smart they should have been making games on the HD Discs with the HD player they brought out. It was stupid for them to just make that into a player that just played movies. they should have started using those discs as gaming discs. It could have been done and made it easy for the Dev to go through this problem. It doesn't compare to a Blue-ray disc, but **** it's better than DVD 9

I hope MS themselves smarten up and listen to what the people are saying instead of going about and doing their own thing. it has worked in the beginning,but now we need to upgrade and demand an upgrade. and we do not mind changing Discs for certain games, since it has been done in the past.

Also would like to point out. for them to fix their hardware , because i still hear about 360's blowing out. I know because mine just recently did, and i hope this new one doesn't go that road like the other 2 i had

DarthShino

I was just dumb founded by the info released in QuakeCon about the fact that the id developers will need more than two 360 discs in order to

represent the game in all its entirety. Their stance on microsoft's disc policy, and the ultimatum that they change it or settle with degraded visuals is a wierd situation.

Kinda like MGS4, but after playing that game it seemed as if it could be done on 360 easily. How much data is too much? Its coming to PC also, so is that platform going to have 3+ dvds, talk about installation disc requirements!

Come on id, be real, what are you guys thoughts on it?

mikelary

WTF? What disc policy? Lost Odyssey was four discs and Blue Dragon was three theres no two disc limit.

Personally I couldn't care if there were 5 discs. You only have to get up and change them every what... like 5 hours? In a two disc game, maybe after 9 hours of gameplay?

I would like to see a more gracious returns policy on multi-disc games though, as you could be into a game for 2 weeks before realizing the second dics was a dud.

good thread.

Personally I couldn't care if there were 5 discs. You only have to get up and change them every what... like 5 hours? In a two disc game, maybe after 9 hours of gameplay?

I would like to see a more gracious returns policy on multi-disc games though, as you could be into a game for 2 weeks before realizing the second dics was a dud.

good thread.

aspro73

Definitely agree with the returns policy. I seem to recall there was a problem on Lost Oddyssey with either the 3rd or 4th disc, but by the time many people reached it it was several weeks after they bought it.

Back to the disc swapping issue though, how much of an inconvenience it is depends largely on the type of game. A fairly linear story can be done conveniently, so after say 9 hours you swap to disc 2 and continue. Not really a big problem.

But take a game like Oblivion and assume that came on 4 discs instead of just one. It isn't a linear game so the game could be split by regions onto different discs. The problem here is that people can use fast travel on the world map jumping around to finish quests, but have to keep changing discs because they went from the North to the South, then West and East.

A similar problem arose on the original Baldur's Gate on PC. It came on 5 CD's and split the game world into parts. If you moved from one region to another you had to swap discs. Because some quests would require long back-tracking journeys you could be changing discs several times within a short period of gameplay. They did eventually release a version that came on a single DVD which helped greatly, but that is the kind of fix only available on a PC - afterall you can't just replace the DVD drive in a 360

[QUOTE="jg4xchamp"]John Carmack and ID are some of the best programmers in the business.Avenger1324

For PC in the 90's I'd agree, but definitely not for current consoles. Just because you can write code well for one platform does not mean you have the knowledge or experience to automatically do the same on another platform.

I have first hand experience of seeing a PC FPS get ported to both PS3 and 360 and have seen some of the mistakes that get made. Artists used to making textures for PC make them on huge templates of 4096x4096 or larger, and are then surprised to see their work returned to them to be re-done because these chew up far too much memory on consoles when something a quarter of the size would have done.

The fact is the PC has massively more memory and knowing how to program efficiently within the confines of the availble memory is not something PC-only programmers have to worry about. If the game doesn't work smoothly with 1GB RAM, the answer is just to up the min spec to 2GB. This isn't an option on consoles, but the programmers don't see this as clearly until much further down the design process. A dev team run into huge problems if they only discover this late on in production as they are too far down the line to have the artists redo a lot of their work, and this sounds very much like what ID are experiencing now on RAGE.

By reducing textures to a sensible size for consoles also dramatically reduces the amount of space they take up, and will reduce the need for so many discs. Reducing texture sizes doesn't automatically mean there will be a huge drop in visual quality for the consoles. Consoles will be running at the lower 720p (as well as having to support Standard Def) instead of 2560x1600 which the high-end PC's the game is also designed to run on, will be using. 720p is already 1/4 the resolution of 1600p, so a proportional reduction in clarity is expected, and could be done with lower res textures.

You may want to research id Tech 5 a little more before saying all this. Yes, it takes up a lot of space.. it's because they use "megatextures" which take up a lot of storage space BUT can be streamed from the disc in an efficient manner, which means they don't take up that much memory capacity.

Saying that id is having problems late into production with their game is madness... the way their engine works take up a lot of space, it's not necessarily a problem. Games will always be taking up increasing amounts of storage space. But id has had the game running smoothly on PC, Mac, 360 and PS3 for over a year now, since they're developing for all platforms in-house and simultaneously.

They also realized early on that the game would need to be split into multiple DVD's, so the game was designed around it in such a way that you won't need to go back to the first disc. I think the problem is they just ran out of space to get everything on two discs and they don't want to use a third, since that would break up the game in an unsuitable fashion. There is a whole interview with Carmack talking about this :)

So instead of breaking up the game in an odd way, they probably just downsized the textures a bit to get everything to fit on two discs.