Sure, abundance of resources makes dev's lazy. You don't need to heavily optimize code anymore, because CPU's are fast as hell. And with 50GB+ space on a single disc, who needs compression?
in all fairness though, given today's standard way of creating games and the abundance of tools, would it really make a noticeable difference if you optimized (low level) your game console code? Can you access asm through the API somehow? Does C# even have the asm command? I ask this mostly about the 360, as I am aware that the PS3 has its own share of limitations and bottlenecks, and judging by the amount of buggy games I own on the PS3, I'd say that there's still some talent involved.
I think that if you optimize alittle at a low level it won't matter much, but if you really went crazy with it then you might make some noticable improvement. But you'd have to figure out if it's really worth the investment of resources vs the usual methods.
If you want lack of optimization just check any PC game: the fact that Crysis still cant run at 1080p with full detail with any hardware (not without droping below 60fps) but the kind of expensive highend that costs several times more than a console, shows you just how lazy PC devs are. Just to give you an idea: Crytek optimized their next engine (which is better than the one in Crysis) to run in X360 and PS3. The thing is, the first haa a GPU that sits between a RadeonHD 1xxx and a 2xxx, 3 generations older than the current Cypress. The latter uses a 7900GT, which was already old when the console went on sale, and packs so little power that Fermi could burn with it's idle power input. If MS and Sony were serious on their consoles lasting for 10 years, devs better learn how to work with low resources.
That's what Bluray is all about y'know? With movies the audio track is usually lossless and sometimes it's plain PCM and not even a lossless compression. The video track gets just insane bitrate, to the tune of 40-50 megabits/sec which is overkill for H.264 but why not?
You need to look closer. Don't just swallow what the internet forums say. Gamers frequently jump at the easiest possible culprit when a game is demanding (the optimization coin) instead of trying to understand the complexities. The original two Crysis games still have by far the most complex outdoor environments of any game out there. Nothing comes close. It isn't even just graphics, there is a lot of environmental simulation running too, along with many levels of physical simulation. Basically it is demanding because it not only pushes graphics farther than anything else, but also does more than most games bother to. Don't kid yourself into thinking that the 360 or PS3 could ever run the older games. The new game is just another game that will be developed with the consoles on the forefront of the developers' minds and of course it will run well on them considering that, but there will be costs. Those machines only have a total of 512MB RAM, for one, and GPUs that are slower than some 5 year old PC graphics cards. They are switching to an urban environment for the new game and that will inherently cut down on the scene complexity. Ever play the console versions of Far Cry? That was a good example of working around platform limits. The console versions are similar but they lost most of the open world aspect to the PC game. RAM limitations were probably a good part of that. Smaller maps were required.
Yeah I'm aware of that, since making a downgrade to a PC game so it runs in a console has been the rule since the days of Doom. But you cant deny that Crytek didnt try to squish the hardware, in fact I've played just a handful of PC games that did that. GTA3&PC for the PC were both resource hogs at the time, running slow even with the best components. Halo2PC was incredibly demanding considering it originally ran in a PIII+GF3 Obviously there are reasons why PC devs act like that: hardware has gotten cheaper so nobody demands low profile settings anymore, and even with all the standards we've now, getting around millions of hardware combinations is still a pain in the ass
Oh sure I agree. I think part of it is being on the bleeding edge of software development. They could probably rebuild Crysis 1 from scratch in DX11 and make it run better than the DX9 version simply because a lot of aspects have been streamlined since 2004/5 when they were working on Cryengine 2 tech. It's hard to really know what all of the issues they ran into were. I think it's a bit off for some people to say that Crytek doesn't know how to build a game when they can build a game as impressive and functional as Crysis.
Games presumably could have been bigger, have more and better quality music, possibly more textures as a whole. But it would still be limited by the graphics hardware which generally outputted pretty muddy/blurry graphics due to a tiny texture cache as I recall. One good part would have been games would have all cost alot less. Those N64 Cartridges were expensive.
I was always surprised how Crytek could do all that it does considering its a relatively new studio. I'll just say they should know the limitations of the enviroment they're working on, since not everyone can spend $2K for a new rig. You know its funny: in another thread we are talking about how arcade hardware used to be a showcase of what was to come in PC and consoles. Maybe Crytek should have released an arcade version of Crysis with the hardware necesary to play in ultimate mode. There is a lot of people that didnt get the full experience because their PCs werent up to it. Less text and more voice, better music and long FMVs, that would be a start. I disagree with loading times since at the time 4x drives were already commonplace and a higher buffer would've reduced the time considerably (although not as much as using carts, thats for sure) Dunno if streamming was an option at the time, but then considering the technical prowness of RARE (just check C:BFD) I cant say no to that:nod:
This question keeps reminding me of what would have happened if Nintendo actually released the "Nintendo Playstation" add on for the Super Nintendo. Would Sony have never released their own system? Back on topic, I think the thing that never ceased to amaze me about the early CD-ROM based game systems is how bad the acting was. Sega CD and CD-i are prime examples. The CD-i Zelda series, though having a cult following, was just god awful. Sega CD was bad because it used the Genesis graphics processor. I guess that's why there were no full screen FMV games and the video quality looked like a 10th generation VHS tape? Besides that, the actors on those games were just horrible. It's like they just pulled some random people off the street with no acting background, and decided to throw them in the games to save money on some real actors. The music may have been better (N64 didn't sound too much better than SNES IMO). No matter what medium N64 could have been on, nothing could have stopped the infestation of Pokemon games. I can't imagine if those were on CD (and a bonus Pokemon CD soundtrack included - yuck!)...
I think we owe a lot to the N64. The limitations of the cartridge meant that often cutscenes were rendered in the game engine rather than FMV. I hate FMV. It breaks the immersion and reminds you that the graphics in game a pretty crap. In engine, it maintains the immersion. Also, as music was not a CD audio track, they could sue clever mixing. Music could easily change tempo and instruments to match the situation on screen. Simple example, battles in Zelda 64. Battle music fades in, as the battle begins to engage, 'trumpets' come in and provide some melody. These are ideas that are used a lot more in games today. Rarely do we see FMV now. And If we do, it tends to be of the in game engine with some effects added on top- so much so that it can be hard to tell if it actually is FMV- usually compression artifacts give it away though.
Don't forget the shitty small texture cache is part of why N64 games have low resolution blurry textures. CD-ROM won't get around that.
