On Next-Gen Consoles And Technical Innovation 35
Thanks to GamesRadar for reprinting an Edge feature discussing likely technical innovations which the next generation of videogame consoles may introduce. The piece discusses the impact of massively parallel computing on consoles, noting it's "...been plagued by a lack of good development tools, and with most developers taking three years even to get familiar with PlayStation 2's brace of vector units, this must be a real worry." It goes on to discuss graphical effects, from post-scene processing ("allows subtle ways of changing the look of the game in terms of brightness or colour saturation") to depth of field ("The biggest question remains whether developers will find any useful in-game applications for such technology.")
Appalling article (Score:5, Insightful)
The author demonstrates a complete lack of understanding about consoles, and many of the techniques he talks about are possible and in use on current-generation consoles.
The concept that until the PS2, consoles had merely been a subset of the wider PC industry is laughable.
No, it seems to me that basically after the recent editorial walkout at EDGE they had a guy with practically no technical knowledge about consoles who happened to know a guy who worked at Climax, and they were desperate for content, so he wrote this bullshit article.
Of course, as with all EDGE articles, they never identify the authour, which in his case, is probably good for him.
Re:Appalling article (Score:3, Insightful)
In defence of the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the Xbox/GC as the last of the monolithic designs where clockspeed was the answer to everything, and PS2 and future consoles as multiprocessor dsp farms where memory bandwidth is the answer to everything makes a lot of sense to me.
As for the techniques mentioned being possible with current consoles, that's true - but only in the same way that the last of the Nintendo games ventured into 3-D - It's possible by clever programming pusing the envelope, but it's not what the next-gen N64 machine was designed from ther ground up to be capable of.
Re:In defence of the article (Score:5, Insightful)
What?
I've read this paragraph over six times and the only way I can make it make sense to my tiny mind if be replaceing "Nintendo" with "Super Nintendo" and "N64" with "Super Nintendo".
Nintendo ventured into 3d games late in the SNES lifecycle (Starfox) and the N64 was designed from the ground-up to be 3d. That's why all of the launch titles were 3d and the controller came with an analogue stick and the logo is a 3d cube carved to look like N's.
Re:In defence of the article (Score:2)
Re:In defence of the article (Score:3, Informative)
Actually it's designed that way on purpose. Once you say it, it's out there, can't change the past. That's why they gave you a little button marked 'preview'.
Re:In defence of the article (Score:4, Informative)
Re:In defence of the article (Score:2)
Console systems from the NES forwards have always had mediocre CPUs with graphics coprocessors to handle the majority of graphical work. It's really only been comparitively recently that PCs have started doing the same thing.
The PS2 isn't that much more coprocessor heavy than a current PC - although it does have two extra vector units, it lacks the GPU T&L 'coprocessor' of modern PCs.
The Sega Saturn was a dual processor machine, the PS2 was hardly unprecedented in the console world in having mor
Re:In defence of the article (Score:2)
The Saturn is an oddity. Is the
Re:In defence of the article (Score:1)
Re:In defence of the article (Score:1, Informative)
Only if your definition of "all consoles" is "Nintendo consoles."
Sega Genesis: 68000 + Z80 (see here [gamefaqs.com]) The 32X bolted another processor on the top, etc.
Atari Jaguar: 5 processors in 3 chips, including a 68000 (see here [gamefaqs.com]
Sega Saturn: Dual SH2 main processors + SH1 + 2 graphics chips, etc. (Counted as 8 processors here/a) [gamefaqs.com]
The PS2'
Re:Appalling article (Score:5, Insightful)
The console has always diverged from the general purpose computer... Far more in the early days than now, when the computer vs console wars were described as "a brain without a spine versus a spine without a brain." Ask an emulation programmer some day how similar the architectures are. I hate to use the words "kids these days," but sometimes I wonder if gaming magazines are still hiring straight out of high school, with people who are still totally clueless about what happened just a few years ago.
He doesn't help his case any about saying that videogames are all about visuals. There have been many stunningly beautiful games that played terribly and faded into the anals of history. This, of course, leads to the total lack of discussion about the gameplay potential for the graphics tricks that he mentions. Wide dynamic range lighting means that when someone shines a bright light source at the player, the player cannot see what is happening near that light. It also means that you must get close to dark alleys to see what is in them, etc, etc. Depth of field allows you to mask things you don't want the player to see just yet, like pop-in or enemies that will come into play later.
While it is an interesting article from the standpoint of looking to future directions the graphics aspect of programming a game will take, it is badly marred by these inaccurate, sweeping generalizations. Honestly, if I didn't know any better, I'd doubt this guy had enjoyed playing a game in a long time.
Graphics and story (Score:5, Interesting)
This was discussed here on Slashdot a week or so ago, and fortunately the statement is only partially correct. I see nothing wrong in game makers creating cool graphics, it's not like when a new game comes out to my playstation 2, I have to get the latest geforce card to get maxfps. By all means, the game makers SHOULD make use of the capabilities that lie in the graphics card.
However, there are fortunately still games that rely on a great story. Finaly Fantasy would have been half the game it is if it weren't for the story. Gameplay and challenges are also important parts of a game. That statement is nothing more than BS, like most of the article.
Re:Graphics and story (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps due to a luxury of huge budgets and big talent, Final Fantasy games tend, on average, to be very well-rounded: graphics, story, music, characters, etc. I say "on average", because I had a lot of trouble connecting with FF8's characters, for example, but the games are generally top-notch otherwise.
Final Fantasy X really bridged the movie and game industries, and the depth of its story rivaled even that of most novels. I could wish the story were a bit less linear, but what they made was so impressive that I soon didn't mind while playing.
Re:Graphics and story (Score:3, Insightful)
I have played FFX for more hours than I like to remember, and it's IMHO the greatest game ever created, mostly because, as you say, of the fantastic story. The authors of the article on topic here claimed that all games are about is graphics, and I very strongly disagree with that. It is an important factor, but would you really play a game that had no
Re:Graphics and story (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously. Gamers appriciate when chances are taken, and risks are made. FFX was a huge risk for a lot of reasons. The game was a radical departure from pretty much everything else out there. Instead of a big global world-spanning adventure, they did something that felt much more compact and personal.
And games are much more than graphics. The graphics are merely a tool, something to be used in order to create something special.
Re:Graphics and story (Score:4, Insightful)
While not true of all recent games, there has been a trend to less gameplay, more cut scenes. I'd argue that Square has been one of the companies leading that trend, and that FFX was just a simple case of following that formula.
Then again, I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of Square... They make good games, but I really think they are by far the most over rated developers in the business.
Re:Graphics and story (Score:1)
Like 7 or 8, it's not the type of game I'm going to go back and play through again in a couple years. As opposed to 6 which I do give another playthrough to about once a year (I don't give 7 another playthrough because the graphics look like shit compared to how I remember them, cartoons/sprites hold up better over time, and there isn't enough of a story/character attachment there to overcome that).
It was fun once, but really... it w
Re:Graphics and story (Score:2)
I mean, what's the chance we'll ever see a game story that makes real, non-obvious social points, a necessary for great literature? A game that doesn't lead dramatic scenes with sappy music? A game with a story an English major (such as myself) wouldn't be embarassed as hell to be seen playing?
The answer: slim to none, if the game costs as much to make as a Final Fantasy game since VII.
Not tha
Re:Graphics and story (Score:2)
Future? (Score:4, Interesting)
Things that are normal in 3d software now but are missing in hardware rendering are things like decent refraction, area lights, global illumination, caustics, raytracing. We can expect to see at least some of those implemented in hardware somewhere in the future.
Re:Future? (Score:1)
I fear that the future of videogames are doomed by the very same things.
Re:Future? (Score:1)
Good points, but I'm not sure I agree with you on everything. First, you can implement refraction and reflection with current generation (as least current for the PC world) texture mapping techniques. See sphere maps for an example. What we might see is more native support for them.
Raytracing is a technique, not an effect, an
I don't like that article... (Score:2)
DVD-storage made it easier to make games more data-big.
That's a minor thing. The major thing, however..is that they were able to make games even more intense.
Starting with games such as Dynasty Warriors, games were able to put more enemies and more objects onto the screen than ever before. This allowed a lot of new types of game play that we never had before. As well, the processor could handle higher AI priority for
Re:I don't like that article... (Score:1)
A very decent wireless controller (i.e. the WaveBird). I hope they become standard in the next generation of consoles.
graphics, graphics, graphics.... aggh! (Score:3, Insightful)
ABILITY TO SEE SOMETHING ELSE OTHER THAN IMPROVED GRAPHICS!!
Aggh this drives me mad! Please, please I don't care if it looks good, you only bother with it because pretty pictures market well.
[/semi-troll]
Ok maybe it is a troll but would you still mod down if it's an important point to make?
Most wanted innovation in gaming (Score:5, Insightful)
In hindsight, PlayStation2 marked the transition.
*cough* The Dreamcast blew away the PS2 in graphics and innovation (at least in the beginning) so other than the use of DVDs to hold data and built in DVD player, the PS2 was nothing more than a modified PS1.
Second of all, the article misses the most important factor to note in modern games. Load times.
Ever since the PS1 load times in games have annoyed the hell out of gamers. The Dreamcast and the PS2 both outright failed to solve the issue, the Gamecube resorted to mini-discs, and the Xbox fell back on precaching large portions of the game at a time. What I really want to see (or not see) is a decrease or a removal of load times in games. Being forced to stare at a "Loading" screen is no fun. It takes me out of the game. That said, get rid of the things. I won't even pick up Final Fantasy Anthology or Chronicals because I'd rather play my SNES originals just to avoid load times.
Re:Most wanted innovation in gaming (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Most wanted innovation in gaming (Score:3, Insightful)
The only other times the game is obviously loading is when you are on the elevators. The cut scene of going up/down the elevators is there to hide the "Now Loading" screen.
Overall, though, Metroid Prime is a fine example of how one can mask load times on disk based
Re:Most wanted innovation in gaming (Score:2)
No it's not. The cut scene is there because every other Metroid game (except Metroid 2) seperated the different sections of the world by elevators.
Granted, the game is loading during the cutscenses (you can tell by the sounds from the disc drive), but they probably could've avoided the cutscenes if they really wanted to. You'll notice that there aren't many major major rooms in the game that aren't seperated by fairly
Re:Most wanted innovation in gaming (Score:1)
Clue meter-- low (Score:2)
Um. He makes it sound like the XBOX suffered by using Intel. Seeing as how the XBOX is arguably the most graphically imrpessive system out this generation, I don't think he has a very strong leg to stand on here. It's not the processor that's doing the grap
Re:Clue meter-- low (Score:2, Interesting)