MikeB said: NJ5 said: I just remembered this: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/15/heavenly-sword-packed-with-10-gb-of-sound-data/ "Heavenly Sword packed with 10 GB of sound data" Now keep in mind how short Heavenly Sword was, and you can start seeing just how much space uncompressed audio takes up. Take into account: "That sizable number includes approximately three and a half hours of music, sound effects and 4,500 lines of dialog. "There's an hour and a half's worth of cut scenes in eleven languages," said SCEE's Garry Taylor."

That doesn't change the fact that simply using uncompressed audio is going to take up a big portion of the space of your game.
Many games have multiple languages in one disc, if they used lossless compression or lossy compression with excellent bitrates, no one would be able to notice any difference in quality, and games would be much smaller.

However, as I said above, now that Blu-Ray is a given on the PS3, there's no reason to optimize for space if you don't need it for other game data. I'm not criticizing the developers for using uncompressed audio. Just please don't tell me that your game has 50 GB of data as if it was a big deal, because I can clearly see what's behind most of those claims.

 

NJ5 said: I just remembered this: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/15/heavenly-sword-packed-with-10-gb-of-sound-data/ "Heavenly Sword packed with 10 GB of sound data" Now keep in mind how short Heavenly Sword was, and you can start seeing just how much space uncompressed audio takes up.

 The eleven languages included has a whole lot to do with that, you know. I think Resistance only came in English, though I'd have to toss it in again to be sure.

NJ5 said: MikeB said: NJ5 said: I just remembered this: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/15/heavenly-sword-packed-with-10-gb-of-sound-data/ "Heavenly Sword packed with 10 GB of sound data" Now keep in mind how short Heavenly Sword was, and you can start seeing just how much space uncompressed audio takes up. Take into account: "That sizable number includes approximately three and a half hours of music, sound effects and 4,500 lines of dialog. "There's an hour and a half's worth of cut scenes in eleven languages," said SCEE's Garry Taylor." That doesn't change the fact that simply using uncompressed audio is going to take up a big portion of the space of your game. Many games have multiple languages in one disc, if they used lossless compression or lossy compression with excellent bitrates, no one would be able to notice any difference in quality, and games would be much smaller. However, as I said above, now that Blu-Ray is a given on the PS3, there's no reason to optimize for space if you don't need it for other game data. I'm not criticizing the developers here for using uncompressed audio, I'm just trying to give some information on the reasons for this kind of space usage.

Yes, lossless 7.1 quality audio eats up GBs of storage, but so does high quality graphics. I don't think audio quality is irrelevant, a large chunk of the PS3 userbase already owns 7.1 audio setups.

Some 360 games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odessey lacking lossless 7.1 audio already span many DVDs, note these games are linear, for non linear games devs are far more likely to make sacrifices (like for GTA IV) instead of spanning games onto more discs.

PS3 and 360 game data (code) is usually compressed at a 2:1 compression ratio, on the PS3 this makes abosulte sense as the Cell is able to decode compressed files faster than they can be read from disc. Some claimed Motorstorm files weren't compressed, but that's misinformation. The lenghty load times were due to the game loading each level's data in one go, the game did not support streaming except for 7.1 quality audio and of course the tracks are pretty huge with multiple routes for each track.

^I think that Resistance changed the language based on the system's settings.

Of course, if the statement is true, and the game is using 50gb of data we can assume that it's being taken up for various different things.

- 7.1 uncompressed lossless audio, multiple languages
- Texture files
- Data duplication to reduce loading times
- The game will be twice as large as a normal game as it includes a SP campaign, an MP campaign and a huge 'n' extensive online mode.

All of these things suggest that the game will be technically good. But this suggests nowhere that the game will be fun to play. Given Insomniacs track record, it's safe to assume that the game will be good. But I'm sure that they would be able to make just a fun a game on a DVD.

SamuelRSmith said: ^I think that Resistance changed the language based on the system's settings. Of course, if the statement is true, and the game is using 50gb of data we can assume that it's being taken up for various different things. - 7.1 uncompressed lossless audio, multiple languages - Texture files - Data duplication to reduce loading times - The game will be twice as large as a normal game as it includes a SP campaign, an MP campaign and a huge 'n' extensive online mode. All of these things suggest that the game will be technically good. But this suggests nowhere that the game will be fun to play. Given Insomniacs track record, it's safe to assume that the game will be good. But I'm sure that they would be able to make just a fun a game on a DVD.

 People keep bring up data duplication... I have trouble labeling that as anything other than a troll to rag on the PS3's supposedly (and I do mean supposedly there - except for on the innermost track of the disc, the 360 loses all throughput advantage when it's using dual-layer DVDs thanks largely to the differences between CAV and CLV optical drives) lackluster data bandwidth from the Blu-ray drive. Data duplication on the first Resistance totaled less than 150mb.

@ NJ5

Sure there is. With regard to graphics and audio you usually can't make files smaller without loosing data and thus quality. On the PS3 there's less reason to sacrifice on quality.

Game code can be compressed up to about a 2:1 ratio, an ultra fast processor like the Cell cannot improve this ratio only improve decompression time. If you understand how data compression works it's not like a lower quality vs a higher quality JPEG, for game data there cannot be any data loss or you'll end up with a broken game engine.

Data compression works something like this. a=Sony Playstation 3 b= Microsoft XBox 360 c= Nintendo Wii d=rocks! e=sucks!

A compressed message (a lot less data):
adaebdbecdce

Uncompressed message:
Sony Playstation 3 rocks! Sony Playstation 3 sucks! Microsoft XBox 360 rocks! Microsoft XBox 360 sucks! Nintendo Wii rocks! Nintendo Wii sucks!

The better a the compression algorithm can predict what the code looks like the better the compression. For instance if the algoritm does not recognize 'Sega Dreamcast' there's no compression for this. For example:

adaebdbecdce'Sega Dreamcast'd'Sega Dreamcast'e

Deviation59 said: SamuelRSmith said: ^I think that Resistance changed the language based on the system's settings. Of course, if the statement is true, and the game is using 50gb of data we can assume that it's being taken up for various different things. - 7.1 uncompressed lossless audio, multiple languages - Texture files - Data duplication to reduce loading times - The game will be twice as large as a normal game as it includes a SP campaign, an MP campaign and a huge 'n' extensive online mode. All of these things suggest that the game will be technically good. But this suggests nowhere that the game will be fun to play. Given Insomniacs track record, it's safe to assume that the game will be good. But I'm sure that they would be able to make just a fun a game on a DVD. People keep bring up data duplication... I have trouble labeling that as anything other than a troll to rag on the PS3's supposedly (and I do mean supposedly there - except for on the innermost track of the disc, the 360 loses all throughput advantage when it's using dual-layer DVDs thanks largely to the differences between CAV and CLV optical drives) lackluster data bandwidth from the Blu-ray drive. Data duplication on the first Resistance totaled less than 150mb.

Sometimes data duplication makes sense for console games (if large parts of the disc would otherwise be left unused), on a PC the game is usually installed on the harddrive thus there's little benefit. On the 360 data duplication makes the most sense (compared to PS3 and PC) due to the lack of a default harddrive and thus DVD load / seek times are very important (i.e. Mass Effect's hugely delayed texture popups). On the PS3 you can stream a lot of data to harddrive during gameplay. (i.e. Uncharted, no harddrive install, no in-game loading times despite  the great varierty)

Most data duplication FUD was started due to comments from an Oblvion dev, but the same tactic was used for the 360 game. The first comment received lots of US media coverage, the later clarification was largely ignored by the media.

Deviation59 said: SamuelRSmith said: ^I think that Resistance changed the language based on the system's settings. Of course, if the statement is true, and the game is using 50gb of data we can assume that it's being taken up for various different things. - 7.1 uncompressed lossless audio, multiple languages - Texture files - Data duplication to reduce loading times - The game will be twice as large as a normal game as it includes a SP campaign, an MP campaign and a huge 'n' extensive online mode. All of these things suggest that the game will be technically good. But this suggests nowhere that the game will be fun to play. Given Insomniacs track record, it's safe to assume that the game will be good. But I'm sure that they would be able to make just a fun a game on a DVD.  People keep bring up data duplication... I have trouble labeling that as anything other than a troll to rag on the PS3's supposedly (and I do mean supposedly there - except for on the innermost track of the disc, the 360 loses all throughput advantage when it's using dual-layer DVDs thanks largely to the differences between CAV and CLV optical drives) lackluster data bandwidth from the Blu-ray drive. Data duplication on the first Resistance totaled less than 150mb.

 The load times in the first Resistance were terrible, and this game is going to be much longer, with more unique textures and such. The data duplication on this game will (probably) be much more than Resistances'.

And, besides, that was just one of my points.

MikeB said: @ NJ5 there's no reason to optimize for space if you don't need it for other game data. Sure there is. With regard to graphics and audio you usually can't make files smaller without loosing data and thus quality. On the PS3 there's less reason to sacrifice on quality. Game code can be compressed up to about a 2:1 ratio, an ultra fast processor like the Cell cannot improve this ratio only improve decompression time. If you understand how data compression works it's not like a lower quality vs a higher quality JPEG, for game data there cannot be any data loss or you'll end up with a broken game engine.

You completely misunderstand what "optimizing for space is". Your post has actually repeated and helped proving precisely what I said.

My point is that when you have the available space on the Blu-Ray disc and you're not space constrained, you might as well use it without worrying, and not waste time and resources (i.e. expensive manpower) on optimizing for space where it doesn't negatively affect other aspects of the game. If you ARE space constrained and you're using uncompressed audio, one of the easiest ways to save space is to compress it with a lossless codec such as FLAC. As you said, the Cell is good for decompressing data so it should be extremely easy to fit that into the engine without performance loss. If that's not enough, you can even use lossy audio compression at high bitrates, which no one except someone with a perfect ear will be able to distinguish from lossless audio.

^ All of this post would not be needed if you understood what optimizing for space refers to.

 

NJ5 said: MikeB said: @ NJ5 there's no reason to optimize for space if you don't need it for other game data. Sure there is. With regard to graphics and audio you usually can't make files smaller without loosing data and thus quality. On the PS3 there's less reason to sacrifice on quality. Game code can be compressed up to about a 2:1 ratio, an ultra fast processor like the Cell cannot improve this ratio only improve decompression time. If you understand how data compression works it's not like a lower quality vs a higher quality JPEG, for game data there cannot be any data loss or you'll end up with a broken game engine. Data compression works something like this. a=Sony Playstation 3 b= Microsoft XBox 360 c= Nintendo Wii d=rocks! e=sucks! A compressed message (a lot less data): adaebdbecdce Uncompressed message: Sony Playstation 3 rocks! Sony Playstation 3 sucks! Microsoft XBox 360 rocks! Microsoft XBox 360 sucks! Nintendo Wii rocks! Nintendo Wii sucks! The better a the compression algorithm can predict what the code looks like the better the compression. For instance if the algoritm does not recognize 'Sega Dreamcast' there's no compression for this. For example: adaebdbecdce'Sega Dreamcast'd'Sega Dreamcast'e You completely misunderstand what "optimizing for space is". Your post has actually repeated and helped proving precisely what I said. My point is that when you have the available space on the Blu-Ray disc and you're not space constrained, you might as well use it without worrying, without wasting time on optimizing for space where it doesn't negatively affect other aspects of the game.

 

I think you claimed that before. I agree, on the 360 devs are more likely to make storage related sacrifices and try to do workaround approaches. I come from an Amiga background where the bulk of games (and some demoscene demos) had to be stored on 1 MB game discs. I understand well the used methods to get the most out of limited storage space availability.