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Forums - Microsoft - 360 DVD data limit is 6.8 GB

Bitmap Frogs on 01 May 2009
Ssliasil said:
Blu-Ray...i win.

 

What's that, Mike's sockpuppet?





Current-gen game collection uploaded on the profile, full of win and good games; also most of my PC games. Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts 1982-2008 (Requiescat In Pace).

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MikeB on 01 May 2009
MikeB said:
@ crumas2

I find it amusing that some people are arguing that seek times are not important for games stored on optical discs. DVD and Blu-Ray are *primarily* designed to stream data, i.e. - music and movies when are for the *most* part read in a linear fashion. That's why those formats use a large spiral track instead of the concentric tracks and sectors employed by hard drives and diskettes. Hard drives and diskettes are designed for random access, i.e. - programs and separate data files read in a NON-linear fashion.

So what does this tell us? That seek times are VERY important when playing a game that is stored primarily on a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, because the data will to a large degree NOT be accessed in a linear fashion. This is why Oblivion on a DVD has one copy of each data file but on Blu-Ray has several copies of each file placed strategically on the disc... according to Bethesda, the random access times on Blu-Ray were NOT SUFFICIENT to provide acceptable performance:


Sorry with all the trolling I overlooked your actual input.

Of course seektimes and layer switch times are important, like I said so within this thread and commented on to the best of my ability.

Regarding the Bethesda comment:

"Bethesda's Pete Hines also commented that recent reports of data duplication on the PS3 Oblivion disc have been exaggerated, and this technique isn't different from the similar strategy that was employed in the creation of the Xbox 360 game last year."

http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com/ps3/previews/the-elder-scrolls-iv--oblivion-68e797.html

But this strategy IMO makes more sense on Blu-Ray as you have lots of available space to take advantage of.

MikeB wrote:

Copying data layer by layer will yield different results compared to how game data is being read from a dual layer disc during a game. (layer switching)

I recoverd from yesterday, so back on topic.

Of course Microsoft's PR was rather misleading and proper documentation of the various used drives are hard to find. I came across one interesting article from a lead 360 developer, one who designed a 360 exclusive game. Some quotes:

"Some consoles only have a DVD for reading data. How fast we can read data depends on data layout and the quality of the media. Every time we switch layers to read from, it will cost us about 100 ms."

"It is almost always a good idea to duplicate data if it helps to avoid seeks."

Of course with most top 360 titles already hitting the 6.8 GB limit and developers will try to continue to provide more varierty and better quality assets, data duplication on the 360 becomes less of an option.

The full article can be read here:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1769/streaming_for_next_generation_games.php

 



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

nightsurge on 01 May 2009

Quoting yourself again to continue a topic that ended ages ago and now is only serving to show your true intentions. I'll give it to you, you sure are persistent (unfortunately not a good trait if you use it wrong, like you are).



MikeB on 01 May 2009

@ nightsurge

Isn't time for you to try to add something constructive to this thead as well? Reading back your comments as good as everything was off topic and you added nothing to this technical discussion.

I quoted cruma2's and my comments to provide proper context with regard to what I provide additional data. This thread is quite large with several off topic side-discussions, like those of yours.

I think it's always nice to add some additional developer sources to put more weight on provided information.



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

slowmo on 01 May 2009

You were right Ausfalcon



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nightsurge on 01 May 2009
MikeB said:

@ nightsurge

Isn't time for you to try to add something constructive to this thead as well? Reading back your comments as good as everything was off topic and you added nothing to this technical discussion.

I quoted cruma2's and my comments to provide proper context with regard to what I provide additional data. This thread is quite large with several off topic side-discussions, like those of yours.

I think it's always nice to add some additional developer sources to put more weight on provided information.

Then edit your posts instead of quoting yourself to add a few new links you are desperately searching for that still don't really apply to the issues we were most recently discussing.  As far as "off topic side-discussions", your original post was about the 6.8GB limit and was resolved about 10+ pages ago.  Since then you have done nothing but incite these side-discussions with your continuous onslaught of misinformation and pointless "data".  You just quoted and responded to one of those side-discussions.

If you are being so picky, start a new thread.



Guiding Light on 01 May 2009

Oh look MikeB pretending to be ignorant again, what you lack in knowledge you make up for 10 fold in being persistently irritating and determined. Sadly these qualityies on their own don't make a person correct...or to my mind, likeable. I pity your family if you talk like this in a "discussion"...

Now remember children, "daddy is ALWAYS right!"...Repeat after me kids....

What developer would be so stupid as to have assets that are needed in a linear fashion placed on different layers. Who gives a fuck if it takes 100ms to switch layers, why the hell would you want to do that extremely quickly given a 3GB at least capacity on each layer? There's a good 3GB of data available on each layer in a linear fashion, that's enough for any game at any given point. And don't you dare come back with some non specific, taken out of context quote to "disprove" this...Oh no, we know you will already don't we.

Oh also, haven't you heard of CACHING for in a streaming environment, which is the only what you say could possibly be relevent...don't tell me..."In future massive worlds where only the PS3 could handle it"!!!!

Puuuhhhhh-Lease!!!!


God you know no limits do you.

Can't you just bow down to the social norms and fit in?

The only job you're going to get with Sony is replace their whole PR department you could talk shit for the whole company.



MikeB on 01 May 2009
MikeB said:
MikeB said:
@ crumas2

I find it amusing that some people are arguing that seek times are not important for games stored on optical discs. DVD and Blu-Ray are *primarily* designed to stream data, i.e. - music and movies when are for the *most* part read in a linear fashion. That's why those formats use a large spiral track instead of the concentric tracks and sectors employed by hard drives and diskettes. Hard drives and diskettes are designed for random access, i.e. - programs and separate data files read in a NON-linear fashion.

So what does this tell us? That seek times are VERY important when playing a game that is stored primarily on a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, because the data will to a large degree NOT be accessed in a linear fashion. This is why Oblivion on a DVD has one copy of each data file but on Blu-Ray has several copies of each file placed strategically on the disc... according to Bethesda, the random access times on Blu-Ray were NOT SUFFICIENT to provide acceptable performance:


Sorry with all the trolling I overlooked your actual input.

Of course seektimes and layer switch times are important, like I said so within this thread and commented on to the best of my ability.

Regarding the Bethesda comment:

"Bethesda's Pete Hines also commented that recent reports of data duplication on the PS3 Oblivion disc have been exaggerated, and this technique isn't different from the similar strategy that was employed in the creation of the Xbox 360 game last year."

http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com/ps3/previews/the-elder-scrolls-iv--oblivion-68e797.html

But this strategy IMO makes more sense on Blu-Ray as you have lots of available space to take advantage of.

MikeB wrote:

Copying data layer by layer will yield different results compared to how game data is being read from a dual layer disc during a game. (layer switching)

I recoverd from yesterday, so back on topic.

Of course Microsoft's PR was rather misleading and proper documentation of the various used drives are hard to find. I came across one interesting article from a lead 360 developer, one who designed a 360 exclusive game. Some quotes:

"Some consoles only have a DVD for reading data. How fast we can read data depends on data layout and the quality of the media. Every time we switch layers to read from, it will cost us about 100 ms."

"It is almost always a good idea to duplicate data if it helps to avoid seeks."

Of course with most top 360 titles already hitting the 6.8 GB limit and developers will try to continue to provide more varierty and better quality assets, data duplication on the 360 becomes less of an option.

The full article can be read here:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1769/streaming_for_next_generation_games.php

 

Someone emailed me a Russian article, it states (translated, chief programmer of Ukrainian studio Deep Of shadows):

With regard to random seek times (equal data size):

Harddrive: 7-20ms

XBox 360 drive: 110-150ms

PS3 Blu-Ray: 50-100ms

--

XBox 360 Layer Switch time: 75ms

--

(Babelfish) "Load with DVD - example * the average speed - 12 MB/s * seek of 120ms = of 12*0.12 = of 1.44 MB/s is lost * seek+layer of change (200ms) = of 2.4MB/s is lost * Spin up - 2sek = of 24MB/s is lost * 3 seek for reading 0.5 MB: the speed: 7.68Mb/s"



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

NJ5 on 01 May 2009

@MikeB: Sorry to interrupt your self-quoting but aren't those seek times very different from what we've seen before?

And again, why do so many multi-plat PS3 games require installation where the 360 versions don't? If the PS3's BD drive performance was so great in comparison to the 360, why would that happen?



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

nightsurge on 01 May 2009

^More quoting himself to include information without solid sources on a topic that even by MikeB's words is a "side-discussion" of the original post and should be discontinued, yet he continues on.... Why?

Do you know the definition of cease and desist? If so, please do it now. As others have said, we will never take a word from you seriously ever again.