2007-07-28 06:40:33 DVD9 limits PGR4 (HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT)

(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.

2007-07-28 07:02:23

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

2007-07-28 07:03:51

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.

2007-07-28 07:09:57 In reply to Eddy186 (2007-07-28 07:02:23)

2007-07-28 07:11:17 In reply to GriftGFX (2007-07-28 07:03:51)

2007-07-28 07:12:46

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 :/

2007-07-28 07:17:42 In reply to LEBATO (2007-07-28 06:40:33)

2007-07-28 08:15:35

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.

2007-07-28 08:34:49

Time to incorperate the tessellation unit.

2007-07-28 08:57:05 In reply to LEBATO (2007-07-28 08:15:35)

2007-07-28 09:04:47 In reply to GrimThorne (2007-07-28 08:57:05)

2007-07-28 09:35:22 In reply to Eddy186 (2007-07-28 09:04:47)

2007-07-28 10:10:24

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.

2007-07-28 10:49:24

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.

2007-07-28 11:11:00 In reply to Eddy186 (2007-07-28 07:02:23)

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.

2007-07-28 11:26:39 In reply to joe_h (2007-07-28 10:10:24)

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

2007-07-28 13:18:12 In reply to GrimThorne (2007-07-28 07:17:42)

2007-07-28 13:21:42

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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2007-07-28 14:49:19

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

2007-07-28 15:41:10

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.

2007-07-28 15:58:33

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

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2007-07-28 15:59:20

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

2007-07-28 16:16:04

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.

2007-07-28 16:29:20

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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2007-07-28 16:55:49

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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