DVD9 enough for next gen?

KDR_11k

Okay, since there was an article on Slashdot about that I thought maybe I should ask around where people actually know about that kind of stuff:

Will Microsoft's choice to limit the XBox 360 to normal DVDs hurt games?

This article claims that, considering the current games fit on the DVD and there's still some space left (less than would be needed if relative growth was identical to last generation), there wont be any issues with future games.

Some people (who aren't professional developers) claim the whole procedural generation stuff will keep the filesize down (citing demos like kkrieger, the 96KB FPS), while other simply insist that the better hardware can handle better compression or that better code will yield smaller games.

There's also the position that games are still constrained because layer switching is slow and troublesome so it's better to fill only one layer with data. And that layer is already full these days.

Personally I think it's not enough, there have been reports of current gen games cutting material to fit within the medium and since I don't think anyone will seriously use procedurals to replace hand-painted textures or similar things there will be even more space issues next gen.

Anyone got experience with disc limits?

arshlevon

i had no problem playing ff7 on the PS and it was 3 or 4 disks. i had no problem playing resident evil 4 for the gamecube and it was 2 disks. if i like the game and want to play it the convience of having it on one disk really dosent matter at all. and with the xbox 360s hard drive there is no reason it couldnt load a bunch of content to the HD.if for some reason games i want to play start coming out on xbox 360 the size of the media will never even cross my mind when i am making the decision to buy the console.

doc rob

KDR, you're right, the procedural stuff is an extremely limited-case solution.

Arsh, the 'core system' doesn't have a hard drive so developers have to assume that players won't have one.

I've heard some developers are already planning to put their 360 games on multiple DVDs.

Neo_God

I'm with arsh on this one.

For counsels. I have no qualms switching discs. I just dislike it when PC games have 6 install discs. Which is why I usually buy games on DVD.

Asthane

Have to agree with Arsh. For me, the number of discs a game has (on a console) is a non-issue.

Though on the other hand, it seems silly to claim that the extra space will never be needed. We've already seen 2-DVD games (Star Ocean 3 on the PS2), and the assets weren't expected to run at HD resolutions. Added CPU power means compression will make up for some of it, and only time will tell, but I imagine we'll be seeing multi-disc games for the 360 some time in the future.

EarthQuake

Yeah but what about multiplayer games where you need to have all the maps and data loaded to play on any given server at any given time. Are you saying you wouldnt mind swaping out discs because server ** is running map ****.... Its fine for single player only games tho.

Rick Stirling

You cannot always switch discs. It's ok for a game with levels, where you start in one place and never go back there. It is not fine for single player games.

I know of several developers, working on several games that have already had to downsize the game to get it to fit.

The article is wrong is one MAJOR assumption - it was looking at the size of games on the Xbox over 4 years, and then trying to compare that to the 360. The Xbox is not a next gen console. Thats like comparing the Playstation to the Playstation 2 and saying not all games filled the PS1 CD, so all games should fit on the PS2 DVD.

Remember kids, people see next gen consoles, and want next gen graphics. These have bigger textures (going from 256x256 up to 1024x1024 (16 times more, not 4 times more)), and even with compression these don't fit. Now add in the bump/normal maps and the spec maps on every texture, and you start running out of space.

Then people want next gen audio, 5.1 channel surround sound. Everythign starts to add up.

The dual layer will help, but it is only doubling the size of the disc. Switching layers takes time, and can't be done during gameplay, so you need to pause.

Microsoft may have dropped the ball with only a standard DVD in the 360. Why have they already announced an HD - drive? Is this for HD-DVDs only, or will it be for games? Will games be available on a single HD disc, and multiple DVDs? Will they have to be installed ont he hard disk, making users of the core system the poor relation who will either have to buy the HD drive or the hard disk, or both?

Don't get me wrong, I love the 360 - the decision to leave out the HD ready optical storage made a lot of sense in the areas of timing (to get the 360 to market), and for keeping the cost down.

JKim3

It's actually linear games with little to no backtracking that multiple discs are fine for. If, for example, GTA:SA was 2 discs, with half of the world on one disc and the other half on another, it would be annoying as hell when you would be roaming around the world. Of course, there are options to prevent frequent disc swapping, but they would probably limit the free-roaming of the game.

Whoops. Rick posted while I was typing.

CheapAlert

Easy solution: don't be redundant with game resources

GTA:VC was quite packed. The whole game on one cd, and the radio soundtrack on the other. (PC ver of course. DVD games didn't kick off in popularity until the year after)

KDR_11k

I don't know what you mean with "being redundant with game ressources" unless you mean the fact that you have the base data (player, menu, some items, etc) on all discs of a multi-disc game. Or do you mean things like three different looks for NPCs?

hawken

sell it all, get a DS.

I wonder if the rev will use holographic memory!!