DVD9 limits PGR4 (HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT)

Since 6916 Days

(I Believe this warrants its own thread as people will discuss more than just PGR4)

Well, this might as well be the first time this has been openly admitted by a developer. I'm very disappointed to be honest with you.

While we had the supposed problem with the From Software RPG, and while Blue Dragon is multi-disc, it really didn't actually limit the game. But a racing game? oh boy :(

After PGR3's release, the Bizarre Creations (BC) devs said they would not be offering new cities for download because every city in PGR3 took roughly ~1GB

When PGR4 was confirmed to have all old locations x2 I did wonder for a bit how that would work. I didn't comment on it, I thought whatever, they found a way.

Well, this is what Ben of Bizarre Creations had to say when answering a question on whether or not the cities would have the option for day/nigh/overcast lighting as in pretty much all previous PGR's as far as I can remember.

Posted by Ben

You won't see different times of day per city because this involves recreating all the textures again (one for day and one for night). Whilst this wasn't a problem for our dev team, it was a problem fitting all this data onto a single DVD. So we've worked around the problem by providing different lighting models per city. For example, Macau is always in the daytime, but if you play it during a storm everything looks darker and more foreboding. If you play during a blizzard then things are slightly tinged blue and everything seems more frozen. Of course, playing this track in sunshine will make everything appear bright and yellowy. :D

Ben

http://www.bizarrecreations.com/forum/viewtopic.ph...

That sucks really bad.

EDIT: Anyways, here's a nice video which seems to be gameplay.
http://gametrailers.com/player/22649.html

Kind of helps after bad news.

In reply to

(I Believe this warrants its own thread as people will discuss more than just PGR4)

Well, this might as well be the first time this has been openly admitted by a developer.  I'm very disappointed to be honest with you.

While we had the supposed problem with the From Software RPG, and while Blue Dragon is multi-disc, it really didn't actually limit the game.  But a racing game?  oh boy :(

After PGR3's release, the Bizarre Creations (BC) devs said they would not be offering new cities for download because every city in PGR3 took roughly ~1GB

When PGR4 was confirmed to have all old locations x2 I did wonder for a bit how that would work.  I didn't comment on it, I thought whatever, they found a way.

Well, this is what Ben of Bizarre Creations had to say when answering a question on whether or not the cities would have the option for day/nigh/overcast lighting as in pretty much all previous PGR's as far as I can remember.

[quote=Ben]You won't see different times of day per city because this involves recreating all the textures again (one for day and one for night). [b]Whilst this wasn't a problem for our dev team, it was a problem fitting all this data onto a single DVD.[/b] So we've worked around the problem by providing different lighting models per city. For example, Macau is always in the daytime, but if you play it during a storm everything looks darker and more foreboding. If you play during a blizzard then things are slightly tinged blue and everything seems more frozen. Of course, playing this track in sunshine will make everything appear bright and yellowy. :D

Ben

[/quote]

http://www.bizarrecreations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=14802&p=255676#p255676

That sucks really bad.

EDIT:  Anyways, here's a nice video which seems to be gameplay.
http://gametrailers.com/player/22649.html

Kind of helps after bad news.

Eddy186

Since 6740 Days

I really dont care much about racing games but this is bad news. Not as bad as the headline makes it sound.

In reply to

GriftGFX

Since 6794 Days

Whaaat? So there won't be night/day settings for the same cities, AS IN PGR3? That's fucking horrible :(

I'm sure the game will be terrific, but that's pretty disappointing.

In reply to

LEBATO

Since 6916 Days

Posted by Eddy186

I really dont care much about racing games but this is bad news. Not as bad as the headline makes it sound.

Hey dude, it's called advertising! Although to me it really is a huge disappointment.....and to Grift too and all of us who do care!

In reply to

Eddy186

Since 6740 Days

Posted by GriftGFX

Whaaat? So there won't be night/day settings for the same cities, AS IN PGR3? That's fucking horrible :(

I'm sure the game will be terrific, but that's pretty disappointing.

If you read the quote block it says that we wont see different times of the day but then it says they have worked around the problem by providing different lighting models per city.

So, do they mean there will be different daytimes for a city?

Posted by LEBATO

Hey dude, it's called advertising! Although to me it really is a huge disappointment.....and to Grift too and all of us who do care!

Damn that mad dog fits you perfectly or whatever it is.

In reply to

GriftGFX

Since 6794 Days

Yeah I think that qualifies as being a pretty big deal. On one hand, it will be great to have a greatly increased number of environments.. but on the other, I loved being able to hop into an event in NYC or Vegas for a night race. I sort of hope NYC and Vegas take place at night, but I doubt they both do :/

So, do they mean there will be different daytimes for a city?

Just sounds like the light model for the different weather conditions effects the overall look / feel of the environment. Nice, but it would be even nicer if we could have it rain at night too.

In reply to

GrimThorne

Since 6666 Days

Posted by LEBATO

(I Believe this warrants its own thread as people will discuss more than just PGR4)

Well, this might as well be the first time this has been openly admitted by a developer. I'm very disappointed to be honest with you.

While we had the supposed problem with the From Software RPG, and while Blue Dragon is multi-disc, it really didn't actually limit the game. But a racing game? oh boy :(

After PGR3's release, the Bizarre Creations (BC) devs said they would not be offering new cities for download because every city in PGR3 took roughly ~1GB

When PGR4 was confirmed to have all old locations x2 I did wonder for a bit how that would work. I didn't comment on it, I thought whatever, they found a way.

Well, this is what Ben of Bizarre Creations had to say when answering a question on whether or not the cities would have the option for day/nigh/overcast lighting as in pretty much all previous PGR's as far as I can remember.

http://www.bizarrecreations.com/forum/viewtopic.ph...

That sucks really bad.

EDIT: Anyways, here's a nice video which seems to be gameplay.
http://gametrailers.com/player/22649.html

Kind of helps after bad news.

Hey Lebato.............ever hear about Procedural Textures? Developers will begin to catch on eventually but it's still early in the new generation.

Read this-

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/11/09/Procedur...

The tools ALREADY EXIST. Bizarre could be doing this RIGHT NOW if they wanted. They could replace up to 480MBs of textures with just 3MBs of procedural data. Not to mention that the data on the disc would acess even faster with so little data to read. The 360's Xenos API supports this 100%.

And ProFX is not even the only tool set provider doing procedural textures. There are several companies creating tool sets now. This article was written back in November, the tools are even better now.

And anyone thinking that procedural textures will produce downgraded graphics, think again-

http://www.bit-tech.net/content_images/2006/11/Pro...

Give developers time to catch up with the 360's API. We haven't seen what the console is capable of yet. Developers are still using conventional means, that will change in the future.

In reply to

[quote=LEBATO](I Believe this warrants its own thread as people will discuss more than just PGR4)

Well, this might as well be the first time this has been openly admitted by a developer.  I'm very disappointed to be honest with you.

While we had the supposed problem with the From Software RPG, and while Blue Dragon is multi-disc, it really didn't actually limit the game.  But a racing game?  oh boy :(

After PGR3's release, the Bizarre Creations (BC) devs said they would not be offering new cities for download because every city in PGR3 took roughly ~1GB

When PGR4 was confirmed to have all old locations x2 I did wonder for a bit how that would work.  I didn't comment on it, I thought whatever, they found a way.

Well, this is what Ben of Bizarre Creations had to say when answering a question on whether or not the cities would have the option for day/nigh/overcast lighting as in pretty much all previous PGR's as far as I can remember.

http://www.bizarrecreations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=14802&p=255676#p255676

That sucks really bad.

EDIT:  Anyways, here's a nice video which seems to be gameplay.
http://gametrailers.com/player/22649.html

Kind of helps after bad news.[/quote]

Hey Lebato.............ever hear about Procedural Textures? Developers will begin to catch on eventually but it's still early in the new generation.

Read this-

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/11/09/Procedural_Textures_Future_Gam/1

The tools ALREADY EXIST. Bizarre could be doing this RIGHT NOW if they wanted. They could replace up to 480MBs of textures with just 3MBs of procedural data.  Not to mention that the data on the disc would acess even faster with so little data to read.  The 360's Xenos API supports this 100%.

And ProFX is not even the only tool set provider doing procedural textures. There are several companies creating tool sets now.   This article was written back in November, the tools are even better now.

And anyone thinking that procedural textures will produce downgraded graphics, think again-

http://www.bit-tech.net/content_images/2006/11/Procedural_Textures_Future_Gam/06.jpg

Give developers time to catch up with the 360's API.  We haven't seen what the console is capable of yet. Developers are still using conventional means, that will change in the future.

LEBATO

Since 6916 Days

Yeah, I've heard of it. Actually, I played that FPS in the KB range with pretty damn good graphics. But really, that doesn't change the fact about PGR4 and well......who knows when developers will really start to use that technology, I wouldn't know. One thing though, I highly doubt it's just as easy "wanting" to do it. Bizarre is not doing it for a good reason, not simply because they don't want to.

In reply to

krash101

Since 6522 Days

Time to incorperate the tessellation unit.

In reply to

GrimThorne

Since 6666 Days

Posted by LEBATO

Bizarre is not doing it for a good reason, not simply because they don't want to.

True, they most definitely have their own reasons. But what's going to be the alternative for gaming, to continue mega-texturing? Large scale texturing isn't a solution for the future either because resolution rates are always rising.

And the tasks of building and utilizing large material systems won't help developers create games in a more timely and cost effective manner either.

In reply to

Eddy186

Since 6740 Days

Posted by GrimThorne

True, they most definitely have their own reasons. But what's going to be the alternative for gaming, to continue mega-texturing? Large scale texturing isn't a solution for the future either because resolution rates are always rising.

And the tasks of building and utilizing large material systems won't help developers create games in a more timely and cost effective manner either.

Im sure publishers would'nt want Procedural texturing for the whole game. Maybe a chunk of a game as you mentioned would be ok but no way for the whole game.

There has to be problems with it as Lebato suggested.

In reply to

GrimThorne

Since 6666 Days

Posted by Eddy186

Im sure publishers would'nt want Procedural texturing for the whole game. Maybe a chunk of a game as you mentioned would be ok but no way for the whole game.

There has to be problems with it as Lebato suggested.

I only mentioned texturing data, not the whole game.

The only problems there would be is with the graphics pipeline and we know the 360's Xenos has 48 shader pipelines and CPU vector units that were designed specifically to run applications that can exploit data parallelism.

The 360 was designed with prodedural rendering and texturing in mind. That's the entire basis for it's unified memory and architecture.

So, what could possibly be the problem? This right up the 360's alley.

In reply to

joe_h

Since 6426 Days

Actually, this is not bad news for the 360. It's only bad news for Bizarre because it shows they have no clue what they're doing. Maybe they should consult Bioware. Mass Effect will absolutely obliterate PGR4 in terms of scale and size, has enormous amounts of dialogue and music, and it fits on one DVD. So will GTA4. So will Halo 3. So did Oblivion. What do all these games have in common? They dwarf PGR4 in terms of scale, size, dialogue, score, etc. So did Forza 2. No racing game has any business whatsoever having these kinds of limitations.

Ever heard of XNA or Procedural Texturing Bizzare? Good grief.

In reply to

INDIGO

Since 7496 Days

Procedural textures can't really be used when you are recreating an actual place to such a degree of accuracy in which you need to use specific textures to recreate a particular building, over and over on down the block.

However if the lighting was up to snuff, I hardly see why you'd need multiple copies of the same texture for different lighting conditions. Maybe in the next next-gen it won't be such an issue.

In reply to

newbielives

Since 6733 Days

It doesn't matter if you care about racing or PGR4, its the fact DVD9 is already limiting game content from Developers. This is a bad sign for all gamers including PS3 owners because unless the game is exclusive, game developers won't be offensive to MS and give 360 owners a inferior version meaning everyone will be stuck with a game that is limited by DVD9.

Posted by Eddy186

I really dont care much about racing games but this is bad news. Not as bad as the headline makes it sound.

In reply to

newbielives

Since 6733 Days

Lol look at the reuse of textures in Oblivion, the graphics can't even compare with PGR3 on a photo realistic scale where every wall is different, every building is different.

Bizarre actually modeled the entire city so you could create your own courses and literally go anywhere like GTA.

Halo3 massive repeat of textures.

GTA4, why do you think the scale of this game won't be on the sacle of past GTA games. DVD9 limitation.

Mass Effect, can't judge yet, game is not released, and no prior prequal to based an opinion on.

Forza 2? Its a freaking track where they only have to model what is visable, each track is miniscule compared to a city in PGR3

Posted by joe_h

Actually, this is not bad news for the 360. It's only bad news for Bizarre because it shows they have no clue what they're doing. Maybe they should consult Bioware. Mass Effect will absolutely obliterate PGR4 in terms of scale and size, has enormous amounts of dialogue and music, and it fits on one DVD. So will GTA4. So will Halo 3. So did Oblivion. What do all these games have in common? They dwarf PGR4 in terms of scale, size, dialogue, score, etc. So did Forza 2. No racing game has any business whatsoever having these kinds of limitations.

Ever heard of XNA or Procedural Texturing Bizzare? Good grief.

In reply to

Lol look at the reuse of textures in Oblivion, the graphics can't even compare with PGR3 on a photo realistic scale where every wall is different, every building is different.

Bizarre actually modeled the entire city so you could create your own courses and literally go anywhere like GTA.

Halo3 massive repeat of textures.

GTA4, why do you think the scale of this game won't be on the sacle of past GTA games. DVD9 limitation.

Mass Effect, can't judge yet, game is not released, and no prior prequal to based an opinion on.

Forza 2? Its a freaking track where they only have to model what is visable, each track is miniscule compared to a city in PGR3

[quote=joe_h]Actually, this is not bad news for the 360. It's only bad news for Bizarre because it shows they have no clue what they're doing. Maybe they should consult Bioware. Mass Effect will absolutely obliterate PGR4 in terms of scale and size, has enormous amounts of dialogue and music, and it fits on one DVD. So will GTA4. So will Halo 3.  So did Oblivion. What do all these games have in common? They dwarf PGR4 in terms of scale, size, dialogue, score, etc.  So did Forza 2. No racing game has any business whatsoever having these kinds of limitations.

Ever heard of XNA or Procedural Texturing Bizzare? Good grief.[/quote]

GriftGFX

Since 6794 Days

Posted by GrimThorne

Hey Lebato.............ever hear about Procedural Textures? Developers will begin to catch on eventually but it's still early in the new generation.

Procedural textures aren't the magical solution that everyone seems to think they are, and they're never going to replace hand painted textures completely.

Procedural textures can't really be used when you are recreating an actual place to such a degree of accuracy in which you need to use specific textures to recreate a particular building, over and over on down the block.

Exactly -- and there are other potential drawbacks, like having to render them into memory if there's no space for storage, which could be processor intensive. They're not magic.

In reply to

alimokrane

Since 6724 Days

I am not much of a racer fan but I can see this as being a huge disappointment for the fans. Ouch. I hope they can find a way to work around it cauz this really sucks.

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Jin187

Since 6538 Days

Well if it saves me £130 on a 360/HDDVD drive, then so be it. I'm just glad FM3 will never be affected by the DVD9.

EDIT: Infact, if they created a 'real' lighting model like the one found in oblivion (Swithes from day, to sunset to night in realtime) they wouldnt need to recreate the textures twice or does oblivion use the same trick? But that would me oblivion has 3 sets of textureson the DVD9 and its only 6.5gb

In reply to

Anthony86

Since 6109 Days

Well let's be hounest, the the smaller capacity of current DVD disc's(even dual-layerd) had to become a serious limitation one day. That was already predicted even before the console was actually launched. The thing is, the 360 simply launched at a time when the next gen format drives where to expensive to integrate and the production of them was still way from perfect. But offcourse Microsoft also made the ''brilliant'' choice of not making a the inclusion of a hard drive standard for all the 360 consoles, witch as a result means that developers can't really use the hard drive for running games.

In reply to

Jollipop

Since 6677 Days

It was bound to happen at some point, i don't consider night and day to be such a big deal to be honest, but thats just me.

Although it might be hard to live without the sun :S

In reply to

Marumaro for the WIN !!

SimonM7

Since 6817 Days

There aren't enough O's and U's in the world for the ouch I'd like to type. This is seriously depressing. :(

In reply to

RAZurrection

Since 6667 Days

No big deal, they could have phased out the PGR3 cities, but i'd rather have them TBH, this game is huge as it is.

In reply to

Inflatable

Since 7432 Days

What I wonder is how are they gonna solve this problem with the next-gen of consoles? Will the next Xbox have a HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive, or will they go the PC way of having a big harddrive and installing games on that? Personally I would like the PC option because it gets rid of the loadingtime problems aswell, optical drives are just to slow..

I don't think PGR4 is a worse game because of it btw.. Dont forget they are giving us all the PGR3 cities + 5 new ones, that's twice the ammount of locations as in PGR3, so no wonder it requires a lot of storingspace.. Plus added weathereffects with rain&snow, that all outweighs the lack of true day&night races on each location I guess..

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http://www.cyberwarriors.nl
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n3ro

Since 6490 Days

This is Microsofts fault. WHYYYY DON'T THEY CHANGE TO HDDVD IN THE 360 ?!?!??!??!!?!?

Instead of selling a external HDDVD they could have it intergrated and keep the price. I don't give a sh*t about pricedrops. It's the gaming that's important. That's why PS3 is going to defeat XBOX 360 next year and the year after until another next-gen consoles gets released. Then probably discs will have 300 GB space but Microsoft will stick with intergrated HDDVD. Idiots !! =/

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