MikeB said: Nah, they may do this for Killzone 3 if that battle takes place on eartch. The Helgan planet isn't earth, it's a windy planet (with lots of flags as indicators), the environments are impressive and highly destructable. No way having a couple of SpeedTrees in there is more demanding than blowing up bridges and walls into thousands of pieces. They've got plenty of spare CPU time, they are usually using just 2 SPUs, only for the most hectic parts of the game they use all 6 SPUs up to 60% SPU time. There's no major issue with regard to SpeedTree on the PS3 compared to the 360. The improved PS3 port of the 360's game of the year 2006 Oblivion is testiment of that.

Don't underestimate trees. Explosions require intensive calculations every now in a while but as far as GPU goes, they are not the most demanding thing to draw. Trees require a lot of power to draw and are always there. Even if you are just standing still looking at a tree, that is a constant power requirement. Also, again, speedtree can't just be plugged in there, Killzone 2's engine is too specialized for that. They are using one third party utility but that was optimized for killzone 2. speedtree doesn't work the same way and would conflict with Killzone's engine.

The more they use the SPEs, the more power it required to sync them. In fact, that is one of the most demanding things on the PPE. If they tried to use all the SPEs all the time, they would hit a bottleneck. It's not "We have extra power left, it's cool, lets leave it there unused despite the fact that this is Sony's showcase to the world." It's a technical limitation.

Is Oblivion running on Killzone 2's engine? No. 

[quote] I think the majority of your Killzone 2 screens are old. Could be wrong, but I remember seeing those quite a long time ago.[quote]

Again, those are the only 2 screens with organic matter that I was able to find. They were posted on 12/08 on IGN, wheher or not thet are old is a mystry to me. If you have one, please post it, as this is something that I asked for a long time ago.

 

jetrii, amazing thread. I played the Demo for Killzone 2 yesterday and it was AMAZING. It was very action-packed and had great graphcis even for a demo.

This article explains alot. Never thought of the round edges vs straight edges, that's something good I learned. Thanks.

PS- I guess games like Uncharted really are a pain to make?

That was a good read, very interesting. I like it when people have something to say other than "KILZNE 2 IS BETTER GRFX THAN CRISIS!!". I really hope you'll revisit this topic in a month or so when the game comes out and you can see more of it first hand.

Also, I've never played GeOW but from your programmers perspective how do the physics stack up against one another? Seeing as how you worked in physics I bet you could write a paper or two on the topic. If you have already somewhere in this topic, disregard, I'm about to go read the rest of the topic (only read the first few pages thus far).

Pete_Beast said: jetrii, amazing thread. I played the Demo for Killzone 2 yesterday and it was AMAZING. It was very action-packed and had great graphcis even for a demo. This article explains alot. Never thought of the round edges vs straight edges, that's something good I learned. Thanks. PS- I guess games like Uncharted really are a pain to make?

 

Thank you, I am glad you enjoted it. And yes, Uncharted took a lot of effort to develop. I am really looking forward to Uncharted 2. Sony has great first paty studios.

Both games and engines are capable of very advanced physics, killzone 2 just makes better, more frequent, and more intense use of it. Both engines have amazing physics capabilities, however, I think Killzone 2 has the edge. Would be interesting if both developers tried to make a game that highlited physics, I was especially impressed with the water shown by Epic.

Also, if I were to program those physics in the same manner that I program here, the games would run at 0.3 FPS lol. In simulation 43.386 is a LOT different than 43.3888332352034785723457098204987357.

@MikeB

Take a look at this. Although they don't use the same rendering methods used by Killzone, I think it will help illustrate how intensive trees can be.

@ jetrii

It doesn't matter if there are peaks in terms of processing or that you are constantly hogging the system, the peak potential stays the same.

Killzone 2 was designed to be able to handle destructability with 32 players all throwing grenades simulateneously. That's very different from Gears of War 2 which only allows up to 10 players within much more simplistic settings.

@ jetrii

No and yes.

You misrepresent what the Killzone 2 developers stated. They stated they have more than enough CPU time left to add many new SPU systems. And no you don't just decide to leave CPU time unused, but these additional systems have to be developed for the SPUs first.

If you are really a programmer you understand the amount of work involved, especially as it makes great sense to completely redesign legacy game engine code with the SPUs in mind (in effect allowing it also to perform better on all other CPUs out there, as a side effect).

MikeB said: It doesn't matter if there are peak in terms of processing or that you are constantly hogging the system, the peak potential stays the same. Killzone 2 was designed to be able to handle destructability with 32 players all throwing grenades simulateneously. That's very different from Gears of War 2 which only allows up to 10 players within much more simplistic settings.

 

The peak does not stay the same because a scene's peak greatly differs depending on what is in it. if the bandwidth goes to hell, it doesn't matter if you have 99% unsused CPU power, the system has reached its peak. Level design takes a lot of work because of this, you can't have a level that will cause the system to reach its peak before another level in the same conditions because that will cause FPS drops.

The Unreal Engine can be used for so much more than GearsII, gears 2 is just a more intimate battle than Killzone 2. Fewer people up close vs 32 people in a fubar battlefield. No game uses 100% of the system because there always has to be free resources in case there is a spike (everyone decides to run together and use grenades.)

Even if a game has plenty of unsused power, everything you add into a game is a double edged blade. Have to consider how much performance it requires now and the max performance it can require. Trees require moderate performance now and a lot of performance in intense situations. Again, I am just using trees as an example.

EDIT: Also, I've seen their presentations and slides, what they can add is not as much as you think. There are always bottlenecks to be considered. I am heading out to buy a SSD for my new netbook, I will be back in an hour or so. If you genuinely want to have a discussion speficially on this, feel free to send me a message so It doesn't get lost in all the posts.

I love my Gears of War 2 game. The textures are super good and really cover up the flatness of stuff around you, and make it look good if you are just playing and shooting. I like it.

In Killzone stuff is much less flat. Much harder to see where to take cover and stuff. Gears is better for gaming, because it is more game-ish.

^^well KZ2 is supposed to be realsitic

when will this guy get it through this his thick skull ,helgan is the arse hole of the universe and the original hegan settlers took sick, and only mutated settlers survived and he says look mum no trees, so gGuerilla must have had problems with trees and since gears has some it is more advanced ,and the only way kz2 looks as good is there decision to make helgan look like hegan,if it was vekta you might have a point so until Guerrilla or someone else uses this engine or a version of with trees and other flora its all supposition