| MikeB said: Naughty Dog was recently caught stating: "We have no limits" on the PS3 http://www.ripten.com/2010/12/18/naughty-dog-we-have-no-limits-on-the-ps3/ I think this requires some clarification. My take: With regard to game world complexity the Cell's processing capabilities, the PSN and Blu-Ray's capacity provide an amazing amount of freedom to developers. However there certainly are hardware limitations on any console. For the PS3 for example the amount of memory is a limitation which cannot be upgraded upon, but that's a moving target (as are the amount leftover resources to tap into on the RSX and Cell processor) as the top developers on consoles turn to ever more efficient development approaches, code optimisations and better streaming methods from high capacity Blu-Ray discs and harddrives. The Neo Geo and Amiga had tiny memory requirements compared to PC games of their time despite providing vastly superior visuals and audio, this was due to smart coding practises as well as due to the hardware designs which allowed data to stream around quickly as well as other technical advantages. |
Having just returned from my holiday I see Naughty Dog provided some clarifications to Edge Magazine:
"We have to be uncomfortable. Three weeks before shipping Uncharted 2, we couldn't even fit the game in memory. The day we have no solution to that, that's going to be a real problem."
Balestra uses the analogy that of PS3's "six-lane freeway" of SPUs, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune used two. Uncharted 2 used all six, but at 'street cars' level of performance. Uncharted 3? Guess what... That's 'more like Formula One'.
"We're at full speed, optimising code specifically for the SPUs," explained Balestra. "It's a great resource because [SPUs] are extremely fast, and if you optimise they get faster than you ever thought they could be. That's where the quality of our images comes from."
