Rage Held Back By Xbox 360's Limits

[potatopaper]

Rage Held Back By Xbox 360's Limits
Id designer Tim Willits says significant content has been cut to cram game onto 360.
By Daniel Perez, 09/16/2008

During his Austin Game Developers Conference discussion on storytelling and technology, id Software lead designer Tim Willits the developer is cutting back on the amount of content they would have liked to include in their upcoming shooter Rage. The main reason for limiting the game's content is the Xbox 360's limited disc storage, which allows about six to eight GB of data.

"The PC is limitless in the amount of data you can put on it," said Willits. "The PS3 has about 25GB. But the Xbox 360 roughly has 6 to 8 GB of data. We're hoping we can squeeze the game down to two discs for the 360 version."

According to Willits, the game was supposed to feature several wastelands for the player to explore. Because of the limitations of the Xbox 360's media, they had to cut down the wastelands to only two, which are themselves split into multiple instances. These changes have been made across all versions of Rage, not just the 360 port.

"I wouldn't say the overall story was changed in any way in order to fit on the Xbox 360 version," Willits said, "but how the player experiences Rage's story has been altered." Unfortunately, that means the experience has been altered across all platforms. This is one of the first signs we've received of the 360's older DVD media showing its age, but we expect some fans won't be terribly pleased that it's affecting other versions of the game as well.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169963

Blu-Ray sure does suck :rolleyes:

[rand0m]

Oh what the fuck they gimped the other versions ... fuck

[davo canavo]

Why are all developers so fucking worried about putting a game on 2-4 discs? Honestly, are people so lazy that they can't get off their fat ass for five seconds when they get halfway through the game? I mean, for fuck's sake. The only time it would be an issue, is if you were playing an RPG or something and you were just messin' around right around the area where you have to switch the disc. But couldn't the system just make a temporary cache anyway?

[Sepharih]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169963

Blu-Ray sure does suck :rolleyes:

I'm going to reiterate what I said many moons ago with Metal Gear Solid IV:

What the hell can possibly be taking up that much space that it can't be compressed down to a reasonable amount? The current forms of compression that are available, combined with the way developers are building art assets, shouldn't require anything substantially larger than an 8gb disc. Especially if what PS3 developers are saying about the Blu-ray drives read speed is true. After playing Metal Gear Solid IV I can say with fair certainty that there was nothing that would have prevented it from being compressed down to that amount. I can't honestly see how this game could be any different.

It almost makes me believe that Sony is paying off developers to say stuff like this in order to promote Blu-ray. I'm probably wrong, but it's the only reason I can honestly see that makes any sense.

[The_Canadian]

they should use multiple discs PS1 style, one for online and the one for single player instead of stripping the game (and other versions) to fit it on one disc.

[davo canavo]

Apparently, the audio was the issue with MGS4. Seriously. I guess they wanted some good ass sound. It was pretty much just sound and the ridiculous amount of cutscenes.

[Sepharih]

Apparently, the audio was the issue with MGS4. Seriously. I guess they wanted some good ass sound. It was pretty much just sound and the ridiculous amount of cutscenes.

That was actually my guess, audio that is. It still doesn't have to eat up that much memory if you use the right codecs. There's always a noticable drop in quality the more its compressed, but if you just manage your assets right it is an acceptable
Cutscenes shouldn't matter really. They're all rendered in-game, so it's not like there's a ton of HD video on the disc, and again, they can be compressed down to a reasonable amount.

As for multiple discs, its not my area of expertise, but I suppose it might cause a noticable change in production costs since you have to have twice the number of CD's made. Just speculation there though.

[rand0m]

Edit: Btw the PS3's disk drive reads alot slower than standard DVD drives so there is alot of fiddling around with uncompressed data on Blu-Rays to get it off quicker, hence they use up more data than they really should.

I'm going to reiterate what I said many moons ago with Metal Gear Solid IV:

What the hell can possibly be taking up that much space that it can't be compressed down to a reasonable amount? The current forms of compression that are available, combined with the way developers are building art assets, shouldn't require anything substantially larger than an 8gb disc. Especially if what PS3 developers are saying about the Blu-ray drives read speed is true. After playing Metal Gear Solid IV I can say with fair certainty that there was nothing that would have prevented it from being compressed down to that amount. I can't honestly see how this game could be any different.

It almost makes me believe that Sony is paying off developers to say stuff like this in order to promote Blu-ray. I'm probably wrong, but it's the only reason I can honestly see that makes any sense.

Well if you knew anything at all even just about the id Tech 5 engine you would know that:

a) id Tech 5 can hold up to 20GB textures, using their technology like MegaTexture they can get some textures up to 128000x128000 pixels, one of the main appeals to this game engine.

b) Due to constraints Microsoft have made on the Xbox 360's DVD space developers loose up to 2GIG's of space due to anti-piracy and irrelivent features.

c) Compression has not only already been used to its full potential, however the more you compress the more you have to uncompress the data which hinders in-game streaming and load times.

Coming from one of the worlds leading computer gaming development teams, its quite creditable for any complaints they made.

Of course I forsee Mr.SelfDestruct coming in here all high and mighty wanting to spout off the wonders of procedural generating, I've no query with him there however there are probably plenty of good reasons why we are not seeing that form of technology in gaming today, don't ask me what they are, ask the game developers.

[bangarang]

Yes, blu ray does suck. It's so slow, they have to copy the data and put it in two different areas on the CD so the laser doesn't have to travel so far making the loading screens on games in the PS3 faster.

[usefulidiot316]

Edit: Btw the PS3's disk drive reads alot slower than standard DVD drives so there is alot of fiddling around with uncompressed data on Blu-Rays to get it off quicker, hence they use up more data than they really should.

Well if you knew anything at all even just about the id Tech 5 engine you would know that:

a) id Tech 5 can hold up to 20GB textures, using their technology like MegaTexture they can get some textures up to 128000x128000 pixels, one of the main appeals to this game engine.

b) Due to constraints Microsoft have made on the Xbox 360's DVD space developers loose up to 2GIG's of space due to anti-piracy and irrelivent features.

c) Compression has not only already been used to its full potential, however the more you compress the more you have to uncompress the data which hinders in-game streaming and load times.

I guess that's true, depending on what a normal DVD drive is. The 360s DVD drive, if that's what you're talking about, actually runs at a 12x speed, which is 2x as fast as the PS3s 2x speed BluRay drive. And to get something off a disk faster, it has to be compressed so it would read the smaller file faster. But a lot of PS3 games end up being installed on the harddrive anyway so they can be loaded without having to wait for the BluRay drive. And mega texturing makes it possible to take a 20GB texture and put it onto a 256MB video card, because without it, you would need a card that could hold the 20GB ground texture, plus all the other textures, plus all the lighting and mapping and other GPU cache data. I'm not sure about the compression rate on textures, but I'm sure a 20GB megatexture could fit on a CD. And compression will never be used to its full potential. There is always a way to compress something further, the most recent example is H264 compression and lossless audio compression. I remember a couple years ago, a guy wrote an entire video game, a pretty decent game, and compressed it enough to use less than 1MB.

That being said, I can't see anything in any video game that would ever make it take up more than 5 or 10 GB. I remember installing games on my computer just a couple years ago that used 5 CDs, which is about 3.5GB, and now, 2 years later, those same games with slightly better graphics require disks with at least 3x that? Are the games getting bigger, or are developers just getting lazier? Maybe it's just proof that everyone has to bitch about something.

[Manley]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169971 lulz ?

[Thomson]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169971 lulz ?


well done.

either the OP or the original writer of that blog failed to mention that only the Xbox will miss out. the PS3 and the PC will still be getting the full versions.

just typical fanboy dishonetsy

[rand0m]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169971 lulz ?

<rattle rattle rattle>

(the sound of microsoft yanking on Id Softwares chain)

[Manley]

"We feel the 360 is a great platform and will provide a fantastic Rage experience."

You can't help but feel bill gates was on video call with the guy who said this. Showing his family on thier knees, ready to be executed.

[appleb]

well done.

either the OP or the original writer of that blog failed to mention that only the Xbox will miss out. the PS3 and the PC will still be getting the full versions.

just typical fanboy dishonetsy

From the original post and the response on the 1up page, it appears the following is true:

1) The storyline was changed to fit on the 360 dvd
2) No content was removed.

However, the fact they had to change the storyline because of one console's limitations is unsettling. How is cutting several wastelands for the player to explore down to two wastelands, not considered removed content?

Obviously the PS3/PC version is impacted by this, otherwise the developer would not have brought this up in the first place.

"We feel the 360 is a great platform and will provide a fantastic Rage experience."

The 360 provides the fantastic Rage experience when your 360 goes RROD.

[rand0m]

From the original post and the response on the 1up page, it appears the following is true:

1) The storyline was changed to fit on the 360 dvd
2) No content was removed.

However, the fact they had to change the storyline because of one console's limitations is unsettling. How is cutting several wastelands for the player to explore down to two wastelands, not considered removed content?

Obviously the PS3/PC version is impacted by this, otherwise the developer would not have brought this up in the first place.

Rage Will Look Worse on 360 Due to Compression; Doom 4 and Rage Not Likely for Digital Distribution (http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=53976)

Update: In an interview with Shacknews, id's John Carmack reiterated that the Xbox 360 version of Rage will look worse than the PlayStation 3 version.

Carmack said that the uncompressed build of Rage encompasses a terrabyte of data, and that id will need to use a "different type of compression" to fit the game on two dual-layer Xbox 360 DVDs.

When asked whether the difference will be significant, Carmack noted that "hero shots" should look similar, but that Xbox 360 players might find a rock that is more blurry when exploring the periphery of Rage's world.

Original story: id's post-apocalyptic open-world shooter Rage (PC, PS3, 360, Mac) will look worse on Xbox 360 due to the compression needed to fit the game's assets on two DVDs, programmer John Carmack revealed at tonight's QuakeCon keynote.

According to Carmack, the royalty fees to include a third disc in the Xbox 360 version would be so high that it simply isn't a feasible solution, with the programmer hoping for Microsoft to make a concession. He stressed that the issue is merely a storage problem and has nothing to do with the power of the Xbox 360 hardware, while adding that the PlayStation 3's Blu-ray format is Sony's one leg up on the competition.

[Manley]

The 360 provides the fantastic Rage experience when your 360 goes RROD.

Go soil yourself.

[The_Canadian]

Yes, blu ray does suck. It's so slow, they have to copy the data and put it in two different areas on the CD so the laser doesn't have to travel so far making the loading screens on games in the PS3 faster.
Who told you that, digitalqu33r?

[VOLKL 511]

ouuuchh.... why wont they put it on blu ray for pc? because not everyone has a bluray player?

[rand0m]

ouuuchh.... why wont they put it on blu ray for pc?

Who the fuck has a Blu-Ray drive for the PC?

[bangarang]

Who told you that, digitalqu33r?

your mom...

[mesaywee3]

Who the fuck has a Blu-Ray drive for the PC?

Lawlz I do

[appleb]

ouuuchh.... why wont they put it on blu ray for pc? because not everyone has a bluray player?

Most pc games just install to the hard drive anyway. Or you download and run off daemon tools.

[The_Canadian]

Blu ray on the PC? For fucks sake, games are still being released as 10 CDs