360 games to continue being single-DVD?

[LocutusX]

I'm just wondering if - for the remainder of it's product life - will 360 games continue to be on a single dual layer DVD, and thus only have access to about 8GB of non-compressed direct-executable gaming content... or are there any plans for certain games to be on multiple DVD's?

For example, I was able to finish Gears of War rather quickly. Now, I wonder if the game was somewhat short because the developer wanted it that way, or was it because they didn't have sufficient space on the disc for the assets that a longer game would require?

 

[RandomFool]

I'm pretty sure if the game requires more space they'll add an extra disc. Why would they handicap themselves like that?

 

[R Nilla]

I'm willing to bet that disc space is not a significant determining factor of how much content a game will have. If anything, time (and money) is probably the biggest limiting factor for how long or complex any given title will be. That, and how difficult (or easy) it is to develop for the system.

I would be very surprised if Gears of War ended abruptly due to disc size, rather than the development team running out of time and trying to meet deadlines.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Umm why can't the disc content be compressed? I'm fairly certain that compression is used when putting the game on the disc.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Blue Dragon will come on 2 discs.

Creating content costs money, that's the limiting factor not disc space.

After Halo's success many 360 FPS games count on multiplayer as the main selling point, with the single-player part getting less attention and development resources.

 

[LocutusX]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Blue Dragon will come on 2 discs.

That is good news.

I actually thought that it might be some Microsoft-initiated requirement that 360 games only be 1 disc.

Anyone know if Mass Effect is 1 disc or 2?

 

[LocutusX]

Originally posted by: BlameCanada
Umm why can't the disc content be compressed? I'm fairly certain that compression is used when putting the game on the disc.

Since the 360 doesn't run games off a "hard drive" like our PCs, I'm assuming that the DVD contains the console equivalent of a "Program Files" folder - i.e. uncompressed, directly-executable content. Anyone here working for MS or another software company, feel free to correct me.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: LocutusX

Originally posted by: BlameCanada
Umm why can't the disc content be compressed? I'm fairly certain that compression is used when putting the game on the disc.

Since the 360 doesn't run games off a "hard drive" like our PCs, I'm assuming that the DVD contains the console equivalent of a "Program Files" folder - i.e. uncompressed, directly-executable content. Anyone here working for MS or another software company, feel free to correct me.

There's no reason stuff can't be compressed. It all gets loaded into memory before being used. That's why you have loading screens.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

I think the producers of the content know how to compress the data in a way where it does fit the 8GB of a regular DVD and if you were to uncompress all of that it would be at least double that. Remember the news story about Sony adding more data and not compressing the information on their Blu-ray discs because the games wouldn't fill the whole thing.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: LocutusX
Since the 360 doesn't run games off a "hard drive" like our PCs, I'm assuming that the DVD contains the console equivalent of a "Program Files" folder - i.e. uncompressed, directly-executable content. Anyone here working for MS or another software company, feel free to correct me.

Like mugs said, that doesn't matter. The executable program file is a tiny part of any game, 90+% of the disc is filled with data files like maps, scripts, sounds, textures, models, movies.

It can also be faster on a modern PC or console to load that data in compressed form to decompress in memory, since the decompression takes less time than reading raw data from the DVD.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: ChAoTiCpInOy
I think the producers of the content know how to compress the data in a way where it does fit the 8GB of a regular DVD and if you were to uncompress all of that it would be at least double that. Remember the news story about Sony adding more data and not compressing the information on their Blu-ray discs because the games wouldn't fill the whole thing.

Sony is forced to do that because of the slow read time of Blu-Ray. They have to duplicate data across the disk. Additionally, the 360 was designed to stream compressed content very efficiently while the PS3 apparently was not. It still uses compressed data but not as efficiently as the 360 does.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: ChAoTiCpInOy
I think the producers of the content know how to compress the data in a way where it does fit the 8GB of a regular DVD and if you were to uncompress all of that it would be at least double that. Remember the news story about Sony adding more data and not compressing the information on their Blu-ray discs because the games wouldn't fill the whole thing.

What Sony did was add "filler" in the disc so that content was spaced where they wanted it. They then went on to use the filler in totaling the image size which was around 30 gigs iirc, where in real life the game would have occupied 6-8 gigs (if that).

 

[mlm]

The ceiling on a 360 disc is apparently 7GB, BTW.

Originally posted by: R Nilla

I'm willing to bet that disc space is not a significant determining factor of how much content a game will have. If anything, time (and money) is probably the biggest limiting factor for how long or complex any given title will be. That, and how difficult (or easy) it is to develop for the system.

I believe the makers for GTA said that the limitations of DVD held them back from everything they wanted to do with GTA3.

Originally posted by: BlameCanada
What Sony did was add "filler" in the disc so that content was spaced where they wanted it. They then went on to use the filler in totaling the image size which was around 30 gigs iirc, where in real life the game would have occupied 6-8 gigs (if that).

Try again:

Beyond3D

Padding file size = 32MB.
Total padding = 1.9GB.
Total FMV = 7GB.
Audio = 2.24GB. (605MB for music and English language only)
Game Assets = 6.12GB.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: mlm

Originally posted by: BlameCanada
What Sony did was add "filler" in the disc so that content was spaced where they wanted it. They then went on to use the filler in totaling the image size which was around 30 gigs iirc, where in real life the game would have occupied 6-8 gigs (if that).

Try again:

Beyond3D

Padding file size = 32MB.
Total padding = 1.9GB.
Total FMV = 7GB.
Audio = 2.24GB. (605MB for music and English language only)
Game Assets = 6.12GB.

So the game was 15.36 gigs, I'm willing to bet that can go onto a DVD-9 if it had to, especially considering the 7 gigs of FMV. Gears of War looks better and fits onto a standard DVD, so all the BR did was all Insomniac to be sloppy.

 

[Dacalo]

Originally posted by: BlameCanada

So the game was 15.36 gigs, I'm willing to bet that can go onto a DVD-9 if it had to, especially considering the 7 gigs of FMV. Gears of War looks better and fits onto a standard DVD, so all the BR did was all Insomniac to be sloppy.

I don't think comparing a launch title to a title released a year later is fair comparison.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: Dacalo

Originally posted by: BlameCanada

So the game was 15.36 gigs, I'm willing to bet that can go onto a DVD-9 if it had to, especially considering the 7 gigs of FMV. Gears of War looks better and fits onto a standard DVD, so all the BR did was all Insomniac to be sloppy.

I don't think comparing a launch title to a title released a year later is fair comparison.

I'm comparing what's out at the moment. Sony decided they were going to launch later, so they put themselves in a position to go up against a 1 year old platform. When the PS3 is a year old the 360 will be 2 years old. Do I care how old each console is? No, I just look at whats on the market.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: BlameCanada

Originally posted by: mlm

Originally posted by: BlameCanada
What Sony did was add "filler" in the disc so that content was spaced where they wanted it. They then went on to use the filler in totaling the image size which was around 30 gigs iirc, where in real life the game would have occupied 6-8 gigs (if that).

Try again:

Beyond3D

Padding file size = 32MB.
Total padding = 1.9GB.
Total FMV = 7GB.
Audio = 2.24GB. (605MB for music and English language only)
Game Assets = 6.12GB.

So the game was 15.36 gigs, I'm willing to bet that can go onto a DVD-9 if it had to, especially considering the 7 gigs of FMV. Gears of War looks better and fits onto a standard DVD, so all the BR did was all Insomniac to be sloppy.

They're not being sloppy, they're just not compressing FMVs, sound, textures as much as they'd have to on a DVD. If they didn't use FMVs for the in-game videos (which I think they do, even though it looks very close to the actual in-game graphics), they would have just had the "cinemas" run directly from the engine, likely using a lot less space. Sure, they could have gotten in onto a DVD with either compression or other means. If they have all of that space, they may as well use it and do less compression (and I don't just mean of the data, but as in having higher quality sound/textures/video/etc).

GoW only looks better because it uses the Unreal Engine 3 (which is actually limited by small storage spaces due to the technology it uses...I think it has something to do with streaming everything)...BR discs/DVD discs have nothing to do with it.

I don't know what this "sloppy" thing is.