How will the next consoles change open world games?

futurefields

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2012
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With the increase in memory available will the consoles be able to generate open-world environments with greater persistence?

What I mean is, for example, when you play Saints Row: The Third, sometimes all you have to do is turn around, and then turn around again, and a car you saw will be switched to a different car.

Or in GTA4, you can tear up a street, wreck some cars, but then when you drive around the block and come back its all back to normal.

Or you might see a rare car you like, but you arent able to get to it right away because you are on foot and not near a car. But by the time you get to a car, that rare car is vanished. Not just gone from view, but gone from the games memory system.

IMO this is one of the greater things that contributes to a lack of immersion. I always thought it was due to lack of memory in the consoles and everything being used for pure graphics.

Will this be something they are able to address with the next-gen consoles? I would like to see much more persistence in my open-world environments.
 

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
Doubt it will change. Memory will be gobbled up with bigger textures and better graphics but the ever important game play will pretty much remain the same.

Besides some of what you are asking isn't possible even with only 8 GB, eg: to persist an entire city.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
I don't think they yet have enough memory resources to do that. You'll see probably a bit more of your work remain. Like if you smash a car and walk away and leave it. It may remain longer in the spot you left it. Eventually though it will have to be reset as you do other things that are also loaded into memory. It's a lot to keep track of and calculate. Especially if GTA V lives up to the talk about the large world to explore. Having such a huge world and so much going on at once, they would have to instance certain things so that when you are there things randomize and are active, but when you are not there stuff kind of stops. In the future this may be cut back, but I don't think they could do realtime calculations for the entire city. Not quite yet.
 
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Zeze

Lifer
Mar 4, 2011
11,395
1,181
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I remember Doom II and the amazing field of corpses lying around after my massacre. It's eerily satisfying when you come back to the same room after 10-15 mins of fetching the skull key.

No other game has persistent corpses in that amount since 20+ years ago.

Quite a shame.
 

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
I remember Doom II and the amazing field of corpses lying around after my massacre. It's eerily satisfying when you come back to the same room after 10-15 mins of fetching the skull key.

No other game has persistent corpses in that amount since 20+ years ago.

Quite a shame.

Rag doll physics and unique positions per instance and million vertex models pretty much put an end to that.
 

Sulaco

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2003
3,825
44
91
I remember Doom II and the amazing field of corpses lying around after my massacre. It's eerily satisfying when you come back to the same room after 10-15 mins of fetching the skull key.

No other game has persistent corpses in that amount since 20+ years ago.

Quite a shame.

That's because they were just a small, unremarkable blob of pixles, not polygons. Big difference.
 

Mushkins

Golden Member
Feb 11, 2013
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The persistence *can* be a little better, but its up to the developers to decide whether or not they want to use those resources for that persistence or for something else (fancier textures, more objects on screen at once, etc). Frankly, i've been waiting for Rockstar to change up the car generation algorithm since GTA3. Drive a sports car, and 90% of the other cars on the road are sports cars! Drive a shitty sedan, get nothing but shitty sedans! Definitely done so there's less active car models in memory, though it at least had the gameplay benefit of letting you grab a similar car quick when you inevitably trash yours.

It always made the "steal an ice cream truck" and similar missions very frustrating though because if you werent driving the *right* category of car you just wouldn't ever see the car you need unless it's a permanently parked one in a specific location.
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
It probably will become a reality eventually though not anytime soon. Game developers work under tight hardware constraints, even on the PC. 8GB is becoming the norm on that platform but the majority of gamers still have less than that. Maybe when streaming comes into play and you have powerful nodes managing games. Then latency becomes an issue.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
86
It probably will become a reality eventually though not anytime soon. Game developers work under tight hardware constraints, even on the PC. 8GB is becoming the norm on that platform but the majority of gamers still have less than that. Maybe when streaming comes into play and you have powerful nodes managing games. Then latency becomes an issue.

Doesn't even have to be powerful nodes. A reference map could have it's state saved on a server that you are connected to. Your console / PC would just render what is there when you are in that area.
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
Doesn't even have to be powerful nodes. A reference map could have it's state saved on a server that you are connected to. Your console / PC would just render what is there when you are in that area.

Ah, true. There's always a work around.
 

KaOTiK

Lifer
Feb 5, 2001
10,877
8
81
One thing to remember for everyone that keeps saying 8GB. The current consoles while having that much ram will not have that much for games. The X1 has 5GB of its 8GB available for games with the rest dedicated for system use. The PS4 is rumored to have 7GB available for games of its 8GB.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
86
Ah, true. There's always a work around.

The only problem with that solution is you have to be connected to the server in order for it to work. Either you get no offline mode, or the "gimped" experience we are getting now.

Sadly, I wish they would make advances in AI rather than graphics. If my enemies could actually think and adapt to my strategies, I would be much happier than if they look a bit better or I can see a bit farther.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
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One thing to remember for everyone that keeps saying 8GB. The current consoles while having that much ram will not have that much for games. The X1 has 5GB of its 8GB available for games with the rest dedicated for system use. The PS4 is rumored to have 7GB available for games of its 8GB.

I remember hearing the PS4 would use a bit over 1.5GB for the OS and stuff, so closer to 6GB available.

And you have to take into account, they also will be using that ram for graphics as well.
 

KaOTiK

Lifer
Feb 5, 2001
10,877
8
81
I remember hearing the PS4 would use a bit over 1.5GB for the OS and stuff, so closer to 6GB available.

And you have to take into account, they also will be using that ram for graphics as well.

There is no official word on the PS4's usage. Though the Killzone devs did state back in Feb that the game was only using 3GB at the time. To make sense of that, the PS4 double its ram to 8GB just a few days before the Feb unveiling, so them only having the game run on 3GB meant that 1GB was for the OS. It is possibly it might use a bit more like 1.5GB now.

What do you mean by "And you have to take into account, they also will be using that ram for graphics as well"?
 

Tom

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
13,293
1
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I doubt memory has anythnig to do with it. Games like Sim City have persistent worlds.

I think its more about gameplay, they figure you want lots of cars, not once you crash them all you gotta walk.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
86
There is no official word on the PS4's usage. Though the Killzone devs did state back in Feb that the game was only using 3GB at the time. To make sense of that, the PS4 double its ram to 8GB just a few days before the Feb unveiling, so them only having the game run on 3GB meant that 1GB was for the OS. It is possibly it might use a bit more like 1.5GB now.
Yeah, this was just an estimation I heard. I can see them increasing the footprint (to increase performance) after they doubled the RAM though.

What do you mean by "And you have to take into account, they also will be using that ram for graphics as well"?

I mean that storing the persistence of the city's objects would be more of a system RAM function, not a video RAM function. And since both consoles are sharing that RAM, a lot will be used up for rendering what is on screen, not what is not being seen across town (using GTA V as an example). We are not close to the point of saving the state of an entire city yet. I would guess a clever developer could work a map type collection that held all objects and their locations, but that wouldn't scale well.
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
40,730
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I doubt memory has anythnig to do with it. Games like Sim City have persistent worlds.

I think its more about gameplay, they figure you want lots of cars, not once you crash them all you gotta walk.

I was thinking the same thing -- at least some developers have probably tried the ruined city approach in the past and found it was less fun to run out of cars, people, buildings after you've smashed them all.

It might be nice to have the choice though. Does your city reset every time, or become littered with wrecks and bodies that only get cleared away slowly by tow trucks and ambulances?
 

futurefields

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2012
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There has to be a better alternative to the current systen where all you do is turn around and then a car is gone. Doesnt have yo mean fully destructible environs

Imo its the #1 immersion breaker in GTA
 

blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
8,548
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Game world size is a RAM issue. The next generation consoles have more RAM. I'm sure there will be trolling from some PC-centric gamers that nothing will change, but with more RAM the gameworlds will definitely be bigger and better.

Initially only a very few games will be true next gen games, if anything is being cross platformed with PS3 and the 360 it will only offer better framerates on next gen consoles. Look for games like Titan's Fall and Killzone - these will be prime examples of the benefits of added RAM. They are designed from the ground up to take advantage of it. And you won't have any of the continual load in and limited viewing distance nonsense that the prior gen had.
 
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coldmeat

Diamond Member
Jul 10, 2007
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It always made the "steal an ice cream truck" and similar missions very frustrating though because if you werent driving the *right* category of car you just wouldn't ever see the car you need unless it's a permanently parked one in a specific location.

The best way to deal with this that I've found it to just jack whatever can is most similar to the one you want. Stealing a pickup will spawn box vans, then driving the box van spawns delivery vans, and then delivery vans spawn ice cream trucks, etc.
 

Midwayman

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2000
5,723
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One thing to remember for everyone that keeps saying 8GB. The current consoles while having that much ram will not have that much for games. The X1 has 5GB of its 8GB available for games with the rest dedicated for system use. The PS4 is rumored to have 7GB available for games of its 8GB.

PC games run fine in 4gb and that's with a larger OS. No matter the amount left after the OS, its still a quantum leap in memory compared to last gen. Heck, Its probably the single biggest difference.
 

tential

Diamond Member
May 13, 2008
7,348
642
121
Trailer for GTA 5 looked amazing. Looks like the world is a ton more immersive. I think GTA 6 will be where we really see it all come together with new gen consoles. Games coming out aren't exactly "next gen". They're "almost next gen" to me. Give developers more time with a console before we truly see next gen games.
 

Bman123

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2008
3,221
1
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Trailer for GTA 5 looked amazing. Looks like the world is a ton more immersive. I think GTA 6 will be where we really see it all come together with new gen consoles. Games coming out aren't exactly "next gen". They're "almost next gen" to me. Give developers more time with a console before we truly see next gen games.

That right there is the reason I'm not buying a next gen system when they come out. I will stick with my PS3. I'll buy GTA5 and BF4 and play it for another year before I even consider getting the new system.
 

Carfax83

Diamond Member
Nov 1, 2010
6,841
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Look for games like Titan's Fall and Killzone - these will be prime examples of the benefits of added RAM. They are designed from the ground up to take advantage of it. And you won't have any of the continual load in and limited viewing distance nonsense that the prior gen had.

Titan's Fall will be on 360. But the Witcher 3 will be on next gen consoles and PC only, plus it's rumored to use a 64 bit engine so it will definitely leverage the 8GB of memory that the new consoles will have.