By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
makingmusic476 on 23 April 2008
Edit Thread
thekitchensink said:
thekitchensink said:
I have absolutely no respect for kombo now (I'd never heard of them before). They took his words completely out of context, and made it seem like he was badmouthing the 360 when he was absolutely not. -100 respect points.

Now, about the GTA V comment, it can be taken a few ways. Sure, it may require more than a DVD can handle. But what about all the GTAIV 'expansions/episodes' that will come in between? Those will take up the dev. time for the next few years, meaning that, at the earliest, a properly-done GTAV would be out in about four years.

By that time, I'd say it's foolish to think Microsoft would not have come up with some kind of storage solution (being that this guy already knows some things they could easily do now, and lots of devs are complaining about it). Hell, I can think of something they can do right off the top of my head: If the game is bigger than a DVD, the 360 version can come with an uncopiable Flash drive containing a nice extra chunk of the game. They put the disc in the DVD drive, plug the Flash into USB, and they can EITHER install it to a hard drive or run it from there. If the USB wasn't inserted, the player would only be able to drive around the city (maybe toss in some multiplayer), and all the other data wouldn't be available. There are tons of things that could happen in the next four or so years between now and the full-on GTAV.


One other thing I have to wonder is exactly how much space they are expecting to need with GTAV. On the PS3, GTAIV has a mandatory 4gb install. Assuming that the entire game is installed to the drive, and the disc is used as a key in order to play it, that would be less than half of a DVD-9. As someone with infinitely more experience than me, I'm sure Houser knows what he's talking about. But if they were truly pushing the limits of DVD with IV, shouldn't the game take up closer to 8.5-9 gigabytes?

 

No response to this?

 

 


Well, even in context Dan Houser's words certainly don't paint a pretty picture.

From 1UP:

UP: Let's talk about the hardware issues. Back when GTA4 was delayed, PS3 technical hurdles were cited as a contributing factor. I take it those have been ironed out.

SH: I don't know what anybody's said on that stuff. I didn't say anything, and I stay out of it.... Both machines are absolutely fantastic, but they both come with strengths and weaknesses. The strength of the 360 is a very, very accessible, familiar, effective environment to work in. You're making the game from the get-go, everyone understands its PC environment -- boom, off we go. It's pretty good. One of the problems with the 360, and it affects games like Grand Theft Auto if you think about how much content we put in the actual machine, is the fact that they don't have a significantly larger storage medium than the previous systems. It's a slightly bigger DVD disc.

1UP: Plus, you're not guaranteed a hard drive in every system.

SH: That's a complicated one. I met with a bunch of the senior fellows from [Microsoft]. I said, that's kind of complicated.... The upshot of the technical challenges we've experienced on either the 360 or on the PS3 is [that] both companies stepped up to the plate and have supported us in a way that was beyond even my greedy expectations. They've been amazing. I think that the 360 is going to have to get 'round this issue we're talking about. I can think of various ways they can do it. Hopefully, they're going to adopt one of those in the next year or so, because it's going to become more of an issue. If we're filling up the disc right now, where are we going? It's not like our games are going to get any smaller. I think that issue's on the table with a bunch of games right now. I'm sure they'll come through with an intelligent solution.

Also, the entire game is installed on the ps3? Are you serious?

First, the ps3 simply does not have enough storage space to make full installs feasible. When data is installed on an HDD, it is decompressed, often fully (as decompressing on the fly would eat into CPU cycles, thus hindering game performance). As such, the 4gb of data installed on the ps3 would take up significantly less space on the actual disc than it does on the HDD, and any game of a reasonable size (5gbs and up on the disc) would significantly eat into the ps3's available storage space if they were fully installed.

Installs are common on the ps3 version of multiplats simply because the ps3's Blu-Ray drive has a slightly lower read speed compared to the 360's DVD player. As such, the installs are done to help decrease loading. However, on ps3 exclusives developers can just have all the textures, etc. uncompressed straight on the disc, and allow them to be streamed directly from the disc when needed, ala Uncharted (stunning textures, no install, no loading whatsoever).

Secondly, while a DVD-9 has 8.5gbs of available storage space (9.0 in a base-10 system), MS requires that a certain amount of space be partitioned off on a 360 disc for security reasons. Because of this, 360 discs only have around 6.8gbs of available space (7.2 in a base-10 system) for developers to use. The 360 version of GTAIV has already been pirated, and the ISO takes up 6.4gbs of space. That shows that 1. GTAIV is larger than 4gb, and 2. R* is in fact dangerously close to running out of space, as they themselves said.

Third, are we even sure the data takes up 4GB of space? I seem to recall a mock GTAIV review being the first to mention that number. R* said the install only takes 5 minutes, while DMC4's 5 GB install took 25 minutes.