How does porting to a different platform work?

lkraan

With all these games that are released for different platforms I was wondering how this works from a art point of view and what is involved.

For instance GTA SA is released for PS2 but will also be released for PC and XBox.
Do you first create the higher res models and textures for the PC release and then chop off polys for the XBox version and chop off some more for the PS2 version?

Rick Stirling

It depends. Sometimes you dont know there will be another version.

On spooks we built all the characters at around 2k polygons, and all the texture maps at around 1024X1024. We downsampled the textures for the PS2, but the polycounts didnt change.

On Fightbox we downsampled the textures and took the polycounts down from 10K per model to about 4-5k.

FatAssasin

Sometimes companies don't do anything different for the other platforms, which is sad. At two developers I worked at we simply created the game for the PS2 and then ported the assets over to the XBox and Gamcube. Oh wait, we did use bigger textures for the XBox, but that was it, no bump or normal mapping or higher poly models.

Sometimes an entirelly different company will take over the port, like with Doom 3 and Tron 2: Killer App. To me, that seems like the best way to go so that each company can just concentrate on creating the best game possible for the particular machine it's going to be run on.

avalean

If its not being ported down the change is very minimal and like FA said, when the box can handle something more its often done with little effort.

Ive always thought of the original game like a live concert and ports like watching it on tape.