MikeB said: @ Ascended_Saiyan3 3. That's not the correct question. Why are there so many games WITHOUT mandatory installs? That should be the question for you. "The proof is in the results." Agreed, to understand Blu-Ray you should look at the best results and not the worst results. Looking at the best results so far, games which required no mandatory installs such as Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, Killzone 2 and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune should provide much insight. Interestingly they are also some of the technically most impressive PS3 games around. It seems games like Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2 may further optimise this trend. When looking at the worst results, you are mostly judging issues originating from former usage of more legacy technology. Blu-Ray being relatively new, requires different approaches to take the best advantage of. Like a single or double, etc threaded gaming engine cannot be expected the get the most out of the Cell processor. Not counting the mostly OS dedicated threads, PS3 gaming engines should at least be spread over 7 threads and this is only the first step on the long road for achieving optimal performance from the Cell eventually. However IMO the PS3 Blu-Ray drive load speed is not remarkably fast for the provided storage space (but sufficient still, all the data on a 25 GB disc can be streamed in less than a hour), as for example, however with regard to average seektimes and loadtimes faster than the 360's DVD drive. The default harddrive in the PS3 is a lot faster and should be taken advantage of in terms of Blu-Ray streaming (/data caching) and can be taken advantage of in terms of pre-installed data as well. This would IMO make sense for often used files. So, IMO mandatory harddrive installs can be a pro as you can achieve better results. However regarding many 3rd party games it's just used as a quick and dirty workaround to make up for the technology differences between DVD and Blu-Ray disc.

Seektimes are faster on CAV.

 

@ Fumanchu

For a 3rd party source, read the earlier link. I will highlight the relevant part.

"From my own personal experience testing a Sony BD-RE drive (actually uses a Panasonic drive mechanism) and a Hitachi-LG drive of similar specs, for similar sized data sets the BD drive typically has almost the same if not significantly faster random seek times. That's generally because data sets between 4-8GB span the entire disc for for DVD-ROM while only covering a third of a BD-ROM, so on average a BD-ROM is going to have seek times in the range 50-100ms with a worst case scenario of around 200-230ms. The DVD-ROM drive will average between 110-150ms with a worst case scenario of around 170-230ms.

Of course once you start getting into larger data sets that that Blu-Ray can handle the average and worst case scenarios (which is an entire disc sweep which takes around 350-400ms) will eclipse the worst case conditions on a DVD-ROM. That being said, even with 23+GB of data with a 100 randomly generate seek sectors I still get around 100ms on average. Besides, if you find the need to randomly jump around to random sectors greater than 4GB in span, then your title has bigger issues than the capabilities of the drive."

The PS3 Blu-Ray drive only performs significantly worse with regard to seektimes in worst case scenarios as there is more data on disc (which would however imply bad design from the developer).

However it's worth noting that when the PS3 uses higher quality assets, like high quality 7.1 streamed audio and better quality textures, this covers more space on the Blu-Ray disc, this thus both impacting load- and seektimes.

But by the nature of games they are randomly accessed. How do you control the 4GB span with a game like GTA or Oblivion with open worlds that anyone can traverse on a whim?

The better quality textures and assets carry a slower seek time which renders in frame rate issues and then you try to counter this with a pain in the ass mandatory install. This doesn't fit the mould of non 'legacy' technology.

Ascended_Saiyan3 said: NJ5 said: Ascended_Saiyan3 said: NJ5 said: Regarding point 3, I think what Squilliam is saying is that no 360 game requires a mandatory install, while plenty of PS3 games do, so 360's drive is at least not worse than the PS3's. I don't think he's saying that it's necessarily better.   If you see my post on this page (3), Halo 3 uses the HDD (if present). That increases the speed of data delivery. How much you wanna bet that this wasn't a one time implementation? ;)   Uses the HDD if present = non-mandatory installation.   Hello. you CAN'T have a mandatory installation if NO HDD exists, of course. You CAN have mandatory installations IF a HDD exists in EVERY console. We are talking about things that WOULD LEAD to the end result.

It's a non-mandatory installation so my point still stands that just because certain games have 360 optional installations, that doesn't make 360's drive performance look worse than the PS3's.

 

Fumanchu said: But by the nature of games they are randomly accessed. How do you control the 4GB span with a game like GTA or Oblivion with open worlds that anyone can traverse on a whim? The better quality textures and assets carry a slower seek time which renders in frame rate issues and then you try to counter this with a pain in the ass mandatory install. This doesn't fit the mould of non 'legacy' technology.

Going beyond 6.8 GBs on the 360 requires additional discs. Obviously Blu-Ray's worst case scenario seektimes are far far far faster than changing discs!

Often used files, can be stored on the PS3's default harddrive. Also like data is often duplicated on DVDs (so you don't have to swap discs all of the time to load a re-used file), you can also make use of data duplication on a Blu-Ray disc (so you'll have less lens movement, reducing seektimes).

If you have a 20 GB game on a 25 GB capacity disc, this may make much sense if you're very technically ambitious. Why let that 5 GB go to waste if you can reduce seektimes, even only by a little through data duplication?

But in a real world sense that doesn't change the fact that developers are forced into either;

1. Copying assets multiple times on different areas of the disk to limit the random access requirements.

2. Impose mandatory installs.

To make something run the same on the 'old' technology.

Fumanchu said: But in a real world sense that doesn't change the fact that developers are forced into either; 1. Copying assets multiple times on different areas of the disk to limited the random access requirements. 2. Impose mandatory installs.

 

No, all of that is optional for the developer. In any case the situation in general is better for optimsed PS3 games vs 360 optimised games when talking about dealing with equal assets.

MikeB said: Fumanchu said: But in a real world sense that doesn't change the fact that developers are forced into either; 1. Copying assets multiple times on different areas of the disk to limited the random access requirements. 2. Impose mandatory installs.   No, all of that is optional for the developer. In any case the situation in general is better for optimsed PS3 games vs 360 optimised games when talking about dealing with equal assets.

Its also optional for PS3/Xbox 360 games to use buttons to play the games, but they generally do that anyway.

Take the simplist explanation. If they could release the game on the PS3 and Xbox 360 without mandatory installations on the former they simply would. The fact that they exist means that the game either couldn't run or the loading times would be unacceptably long.

 

Squilliam said: Ascended_Saiyan3 said: NJ5 said: Ascended_Saiyan3 said: NJ5 said: Regarding point 3, I think what Squilliam is saying is that no 360 game requires a mandatory install, while plenty of PS3 games do, so 360's drive is at least not worse than the PS3's. I don't think he's saying that it's necessarily better.   If you see my post on this page (3), Halo 3 uses the HDD (if present). That increases the speed of data delivery. How much you wanna bet that this wasn't a one time implementation? ;)   Uses the HDD if present = non-mandatory installation.   Hello.  you CAN'T have a mandatory installation if NO HDD exists, of course.  You CAN have mandatory installations IF a HDD exists in EVERY console.  We are talking about things that WOULD LEAD to the end result.   Mandatory installations are a negative for a game, its not exactly a positive marketing bullet point. Developers would prefer not to use them.

It may not be a positive MARKETING bullet point (due to the X360 fans turning it into a negative marketing bulle tpoint).  However, make no mistake, it's DEFINITELY a postive for the game itself.  Lower load times and better performance are POSITIVES...not negatives.  Obviously, SOME developers WOULD prefer to use them.  They have the option to set up a better streaming engine.  Naughty Dog said it only takes about 3 days to do so and is essential.  Look at their results.

 

@ Squilliam

That's a wrong assumption, the games I mentioned above are technically far beyond the multi-platform games you are referring to.

It has to do with legacy technology and focus. To re-optimise the games similarly as those other first party games takes time and effort (thus money, both in terms of extra work as well as potential loss in sales if delayed).

Thus it's sometimes decided to take the easy route (installs) or optimise no more than is strictly required to still provide an acceptable experience for the end user.