Yeah, I have serious concerns about this "mega-texturing" tech on consoles. Basically, if the data isn't preloaded on a hard disk (or at least used as a LARGE cache) its going to be streaming like crazy - and constantly accessing the disc.

And if its one thing I know about consoles, its that as they get older the reliability on DVD drives drops - and it takes longer to load anything. Which for a game like Rage, means *mega* texture-dropout issues...

I'm predicting serious texture-dropout differences between anything running off disc (i.e. 360 non-precached) and something hard disk cached (i.e. large install mandatory for the PS3).

...

EDIT - this 2/3 DVD thing is purely a MS licensing issue, and one that can be solved easily - MS simply have to drop the price on production of 2/3 disc games (and they almost certainly will in the long term to compete with BluRay).

It could be $9US for a DVD, and $11US for a BluRay - but 2x DVD could be $15-17US, and three could be nudging $20US (too much). (Figures extrapolated based on my knowledge from the past, rather than based on current pricing BTW...)

By the way, did he really say that he's going to use the 360's hard drive for caching (if available)? If that's true, wouldn't it be the first time that a game takes advantage of the hard drive?

Nope. Some games use the hard drive if they detect that one is attached, Oblivion being one example I believe.

There have been 2 games released for the 360 that can't be played without a hard drive too - Football Manager 2006

and Final Fantasy XI.

(EDIT - This forum doesn't work well in Opera at all!)

@horriblebastard: It makes sense for those MMO and similar games which need lots of data.

Didn't know about Oblivion though, thx for the info.

err... are you warning another mod not to post quotes?!?

Also, Carmack is probably THE 3D engine developer in history of gaming, and known to speak without marketing BS or any other bias other than technical know how, so I have to say his quotes should carry a fair bit more weight than most of the frankly lightweight quotes that get bandied around.  He's also hardly the 'newest' industry guy given he wrote engine for Wolfenstein and Doom...

He's also one of the most vocal regarding HW developers listening to programmers to understand what tech would make programming easier, so his points have additional value from that point of view.

Personally I've found his recent points to be among the most clear and unbiased I've seen about most current consoles - it's also kind of ironic he seems to actually play a Wii more than other consoles with his kids...

Quite interesting, it will be interesting to see how much DVD becomes an issue throughout this gen

ok guys I m pretty sure he farted at 2:20,,,looool

but he's right.

Hmm he seems to have an impartial view of things.

LOL

lool,,did you check it out,,,i m not kidding ,,he really farted XD.