How Game File Sizes Will Be Reduced Up To 70%

[cliffbo]

How Game File Sizes Will Be Reduced Up To 70%
Bit-tech.net has a preview up of new technology called Allegorithmic demonstrated at GDC London which promises to reduce texture file sizes by 70%. Don't believe it? Well you will when you download RoboBlitz from Xbox Live Arcade "soon". In case you didn't know, RoboBlitz is a full featured 19 level XBLA title that runs on Unreal Engine 3 and clocks in at under 50MB. The real kicker - the entire texture set for the game totals up to under 300 Kilobytes. Check out screens of the game to be amazed, and check out the full preview of this awesome technology at bit-tech.net:

just read this i know it`s not directly ps3 related but i wondered if anyone has any thoughts on this as the response seems to be the usual we don`t need blu-ray in ps3 argument.

http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18791

[Coded-Dude]

how does this compression affect real games with intensive battles/graphics
(an arcade game does not impress me......yet)

[nwo504]

another lame excuse. if data sizes were to get smaller they (some developers) would probably add MORE textures on the BD. 25gb>9Gb

[LiquidEagle]

Also, don't confuse reducing the texture file size with reducing the game file size

It reduces the Texture file size by up to 70%, but there's more to a game than textures

[xbdestroya]

I think the whole argument that compression technology will greatly extend the usefulness of DVD-9 is honestly a very good one. How can it be denied?

For BD to prove a true factor this gen in gaming, beyond the quieter drive operation, then PS devs are truly going to have to create games that would simply be impossible on DVD-9 with compression. That's going to mean that someone puts down the money for some massive, massive games.

Now, Resistance uses 22GB... but is this such a game? We won't really be able to judge until we see it in action. They have attributed the size to level design and scale though, so indeed it makes me hopeful. But we just have to wait and see. I can't help but think that they could have compressed things below 22GB if they really had wanted to.

[LiquidEagle]

Yeah that's true xbd, I think most developers right now are really stretching their legs while they still use some old technology they had from PS2 development (stuff there aren't tools for yet on PS3, though I can't give any examples I'm sure there's some of that happening). Once we get into PS3's second year of operation I think devs are going really zero in on making things as efficient as possible since they'll be using all current technology. Just a guess though, I might be wrong and there may actually be current technology available for all different areas of development.

[OmniStalgic]

Why does this compression only apply to 360? Doesn't that mean if 360 could have twice as much textures then PS3 could have 4 or 5 times as much? Siraris posted this in another thread-and I don't see how this wouldn't benefit ALL systems equally let alone if this works as good as it sounds. The "Learning curve" may have more to it than what's being shared right now.

We have only seen I think the first level of Resistance-but just look how big the worlds are and the number of enemies/allies/effects on screen at once! We can't judge untill the final product is shipped-but I think Resistance will be the "wake-up" game for a lot of devs...

[Carn]

haha

I remember these same issues when cool scene demos came out clocking at 2K on my C64 :P

[makeitlookreal]

For the PS3 having smaller texture files (is this some kind of compression?) will be nice, but is not as important with the large storage space Blu-ray provides.

What is important is if these compressed textures are natively supported by the GPU. For example, DXT textures are compressed and are fed into the GPU compressed, and the GPU actually works natively on the compressed textures. This means you can get more textures into your RAM with DXT and you do NOT have to decompress them before you feed them to the GPU.

If this new method is NOT natively supported by the GPU then it just means the textures will have to be expanded in the RAM, take up a normal sized footprint, and there will be no benefit at all when it comes to graphical quality in a game.

I realize that this technology could be very beneficial to those with a 360 due to the limited capacity of a DVD. However, I'm trying to figure out if it could enhance the quality of texturing in a PS3 game.

EDIT: now that I think about this I think Allgerithmic is actually a form of procedual texturing. This is not compression in the normal sense of DXT at all.

[Domination]

just read this i know it`s not directly ps3 related but i wondered if anyone has any thoughts on this as the response seems to be the usual we don`t need blu-ray in ps3 argument.

http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18791

I ran across this, too, but the site was too slow at the time to really discuss it. This very well could work, but I'm wondering if this software is limited to particular tasks or the size of the file it is trying to compress. If none apply, I can definitely see the advantage here.

[venomv]

The problem is one of the biggest chunks is audio, which is one reason I think Resistance is so huge, it will have every language supported on one disk, which I think is great for devs/publishers. So this would help some games....and other will still have trouble with only one DVD.

[Domination]

Why does this compression only apply to 360? Doesn't that mean if 360 could have twice as much textures then PS3 could have 4 or 5 times as much? Siraris posted this in another thread-and I don't see how this wouldn't benefit ALL systems equally let alone if this works as good as it sounds. The "Learning curve" may have more to it than what's being shared right now.

We have only seen I think the first level of Resistance-but just look how big the worlds are and the number of enemies/allies/effects on screen at once! We can't judge untill the final product is shipped-but I think Resistance will be the "wake-up" game for a lot of devs...

It doesn't. But seeing how Microsoft's console is already out and in need of a compression solution, it was mentioned. My understanding is Microsoft using a compression solution of their own and now necessarity this one. Thus making this compression a third party solution to developers of all sizes. So in that instance, you are absolutely right.

[OmniStalgic]

Tks man...I thought I was the only 1 there for a second..lol

[lips]

I certainly hope so.

edit: I nearly went on a rant. rofl.

[GodMachine_Iridius_Dio]

They're using procedural textures (mentioned somewhere a looooong time ago) - It's nothing new, but still, good find.


Dio

PS: In no way is this only 360 related, nor is it a technique owned by one specific company, maybe this implementation is, but the concept and technique is not.

[xbdestroya]

Ah well there we go then, that would certainly explain it.

[DC_613]

Looks like they done it with many a 360 game already lol........... NEEDS MORE BROWN AND SHADES OF GRAY!!!! GOW is a fine example lol looks like pretty muck.

[GodMachine_Iridius_Dio]

Here it is, by the way...

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/10391/...turing-System/

[ddaryl]

Excellent news, Reduced texture sizes means they can stream in more textures and games will have more detail and still end up being 10GB + in size.

All this means is developers will be able to fit a heluva a lot more on a bluray disc. It'll help Xbox 360 keep pace, but it still opens up even more possibilities for bluray based PS3 games.

[xbdestroya]

Well, since we're talking about procedurally generated textures, we are definitely talking about something for which Blu-ray would be massive overkill. Keep in mind this game here we're discussing is under 50MB.

Granted, Cell should be great for procedural generation, so if you want to talk about PS3 and this technology, best to talk about Cell I think... rather than in terms of Blu-ray.