PS3 Oblivion Seeing Double To Counteract Blu-Ray

In the newest February 2007 issue of EGM an interesting tidbit is hidden in the middle of a story about Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD. Specifically, it comes from Todd Howard, talking about the PlayStation 3 version of Oblivion.

Howard notes: "Drive speed matters more to me [than capacity], and Blu-ray is slower", with EGM revealing that "the PS3 Oblivion team compensated for the slower drive by duplicating data across the Blu-ray disc, making it faster to find and load."

[bung tickler]

dumbest attempt to put a positive spin on blu-g@y ever...

[grifter024]

"I'm getting twice the game with my future Oblivion for PS3 purchase. Advantage: Sony!" How are you getting twice the game???? Is there more game in oblivion then im led to beleive???? Ive only played half the game???? I dont understand weird... but then again most people on this forum dont really listen to you so whatever.. just wait to get your ps3.. okkk buddy.

[DJ]

He's just quoting the author of the article. No reason to start up crap.

This is probably one of the most clever tricks I've seen yet. I wonder if other devs are going to start copying this method considering there's plenty of space on Blu-ray for this.

[BIadestarX]

WHAT! WTF! "This is probably one of the most clever tricks I've seen yet." That's nice spin! But something hind the back of you head made you say this, "I wonder if other devs are going to start copying this method considering there's plenty of space on Blu-ray for this.". Now ask yourself this questions. What's the point of having the extra space if developers have to resolve to fill the disk with crap that they wouldn't have to do if the blu-ray drive wouldn't be so slow. This is extra work for the developers. This is redundant! " I wonder if other devs are going to start copying this method considering there's plenty of space on Blu-ray for this. " Well, only for the PS3 since obviously they will not have a choice. For once DJ admit that Sony screw up on this one. Even the Idea that developers have to place the content multiple times to compensate blu-ray broken speed sounds bad enough.

[Genki]

but Blu-Ray, no matter how you cut it, is a good thing, and this supplements that claim. Remember, load times on the 360 version of Oblivion were atrocious, and that was on a DVD, so you saying that it's pointless is just hypocritical.

"What's the point of having the extra space if developers have to resolve to fill the disk with crap that they wouldn't have to do if the blu-ray drive wouldn't be so slow."

And you would accuse him of a spin? This is the first I've ever heard of this technique being used, so this isn't NECESSARY, as you would just love for it to be, to add ammunition to your anti-Sony campaign. It's a compromise, and you can spin it any way you want to, but regardless, load times on this title WILL be faster than the 360 version. You conveniently failed to mention that fact though.

"Well, only for the PS3 since obviously they will not have a choice."

Again, you counter a supposed spin with one of your own. ONCE AGAIN, considering this is most likely the first time anyone has heard of this technique, you CANNOT say that developers will not have a choice. There's always the option of HDD installation, and besides, not everybody will develop a game the same way as Bethesda, which is also probably why there aren't any games with load times as slow as Oblivion's.

I'll be the first one to admit that the inclusion of a slow optical drive was a pretty big mistake on Sony's part, but then you must also admit that the option to do something like this is a good thing as well. After all, this game fit on a DVD anyway, so even if this was used on a single layer BD, that leaves at least 6 GB of additional space IF they needed to use it. And you would accuse him of a spin? There's two sides to that coin.

[DJ]

to put into system RAM. But I played Resistance and that game had absolutely no load-time issues, despite the enormous levels and tons of things going on.

Different devs have different requirements, that's all. That, and Oblivion was originally built with PC architecture (and no disc loading) in mind.

Edit: Thanks Genki.

[BIadestarX]

DJ, duhh you didn't notice that on resistance becase they are doing something similar to work arround the drive being slow issue.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006...

If you short term memory fanboys are able to remember you would know that "There are still padding files, but they're a relatively meager 420MB per region." what do you think these padding files were? They did the same.

[Genki]

as much as you like to slander people for giving what you call misinformation and lack of proof, YOU PROVE that those padding files are duplicate assets.

Until then, your bold statement is merely assumption, don't be a hypocrite. Again, aren't you the one accusing him of spinning information? Give your anti-Sony campaign a rest, and just speak sensibly. If you don't know, don't pass your assumptions off as fact.

[InMyOpinion]

Where did it say it will load faster on blu-ray? I read it like they use this technique to get to the same load times as on the 360. It would be nice for Ps3 owners if it loaded faster though. I wish they had optimized the 360 versions load times as well.

[Genki]

I suppose it didn't state that exactly, but for all intents and purposes, I was pleading a case for Blu-Ray in that it is not worthless. Note that even if they doubled the entire game(which apparently isn't necessary, according to ArsTechnica), a single layer BD would still have an additional 6 GB of space.

I would hypothesize though that this technique could potentially speed up load times past the 360 version, but again, just speculation on my part.

[Kratos12]

Actually since Oblivion is about 7GB the blue ray will still have around 14GB if they duplicate the data. Also with 50 gb and 200 gb blue rays discs in the near future this certainly wont be an issue.

[Marty8370]

Blu-Ray is a very nice technology, however, some have questionned the speed of the drive used in the PS3. Not that I have a problem with that, but I think a proper comparison would be good to educate people on this board.

1X Blu-ray = 4.5 MBps

1X DVD = 1.32 MBps

That would be nice like that. But most people don't know that DVD use a variable transfer rate and that the number they use on the box or in the specs is actually the maximum speed that is almost never reached. Blu-Ray use a constant rate.

A simple analysis of the NEC 16X DVD drive that I have in my computer gave me those numbers :

Start speed : 6.73X
End speed : 15.54X
Average speed : 11.60X = 15.31 MBps

Transposed to the 12X DVD drive give those numbers (when I compared to what some people got, pretty much the same) :

Start speed : 5.05X
End speed : 11.66X
Average speed : 8.7X = 11.484 MBps

Now that give an average that is still higher than the 9MBps transfer rate the PS3 BD drive is capable of. But there is still another little problem.

When reading dual-layer disc, the peak reading speed drop to around 8X, not the full 12X. (Not exactly sure how much it drops because I can't run drive test on a 360 because I don't have one, but it does drop so to give it the benifit of the doubt, I'll give numbers for both 8X and 10X) And we know that next-gen games will, for the vast majority, use double layer DVD discs. Blu-ray don't suffer any penalties for reading dual-layers discs.

So based on this, with a DVD9 game this is what we get :

8X
Start speed : 3.37X
End speed : 7.77X
Average speed : 5.8X = 7.656 MBps

10X
Start speed : 4.21X
End speed : 9.71X
Average speed : 7.25X = 9.57 MBps

Ah ! Now we get something that is more representative. While in some situations the BD drive is indeed slower than the 12X DVD drive, in reality, it compares quite well to it. Both have advantages in different situations, but the 2X BD Drive isn't as slow as some want it to look like.

[achira]

yep, thats right! i hope the loading times are fast, with this little trick. i will buy this game again, if all the errors disappear. (the pc version had some bugs).

[BIadestarX]

Stop twisting what's already know as fact. Freaken Sony fanboys.

"Blu-Ray might have its perks, but loading times aren't one of them. Compared to the 360's 12x DVD drive, transferring speeds at 16MB/second, the PS3's Blu-Ray drive limps along at 2x speed, transferring at 9MB/second."

Link to support this fact:
http://www.kotaku.com/gamin...
Bottom line (without all the fanboy trash you wrote) PS3 drive max "speed transferring at 9MB/second.", XBox "360's 12x DVD drive, transferring speeds at 16MB/second". For those idiots that can't count up to 20. 16MB > 9MB, and 16 is 2x 9. So, xbox 360 drive is 2x faster than the PS3 drive. Sony gave developers more room to store data and less speed to move it. wow, what a trade of. Since the 360 drive is fast enough developers don't have to resort to these work-arounds.

[Genki]

It's amazing, that as much as you get on people for not posting the truth, you post just as much, if not more, BS yourself. What are you trying to get at? Lies and slanted truths ARE NOT THE TRUTH.

Simple:

360 DVD drive MAX SPEED is 16MB, and that max speed is rarely reached, when the laser is reading on the edge of the disc, otherwise, it can be ANYWHERE from 8MB-16MB

PS3 BD drive has a CONSTANT read speed of 9MB, as it's CLV, ad the 360's drive is CAV, hence the variance in speed.

"Bladestar's argument about 12x DVD's max speed is worthless because not only is 12x the theoretical max speed, the outer 600MB of space on a 360 DVD is blocked off due to security purposes. It couldn't reach that speed if it wanted to. Worse yet, it's dual layer so half the data is only read at a theoretical max of 8x speed."

-Quoted for truth

Now that the truth has been put out there, this DOES IN FACT mean that you can expect the 360 to read faster than the PS3 MOST of the time, but you can also consider that to usually be a negligible difference, as that 16MB is rarely ever reached.

360 reads faster for the most part, but it's not as drastic as you would like for it to be. Quit accusing people of doing the same thing that you yourself do, you are one of the biggest hypocrites on this site, and you either don't realize it or try to hide it.

[THAMMER1]

I think the DEV. looked at the Blu Ray drive and found a way for it to work out for the game that they are making.

Blu ray has its positives and it negatives, just like DVD9's that have been compressed. The bottom line is PS3 owners do not have to worry about retarded long load times because the DEV. took the care to make the best out of what they have.

The PS3 is here and they need to sell a game, so they do what they can to make it enjoyable.

[gnothe1]

its right there in your face that they had to basically duplicate the game(copy the game on the disc twice)to make up for the slow load time an you try to make it seem like its no big deal!!then you talk about loading the game to your HDD!! why should you have to do that!! your HDD WAS SUPPOSED to be for all YOUR CONTENT!!music, game demos,pictures ect.no matter how you guys spin it!! blue ray is a good movie format but its just not the best for games an you know it!!you guy say that once games get bigger an longer they will not be able to be played on xbox(dvd9)but at the same time games getting bigger an longer WILL require you to install half the game on the HDD!!

[kornbeaner]

to spare i can set aside about 20 for my games no biggie.

[shikwan]

You PS3 fanboys are sooooo distressed from daily negative news about your PS3 (which most of you don't even OWN yet), that you start looking at negative stories as something positive.

Give it up. Your delusional. They state because of the sucky load times-they had to duplicate the data-effectively canceling any benefits of extra storage space. The question you should be asking is; WHY don't PS3 devs give you an OPTION to install part of the game on the hdd-since PS3s have hdds across the board?! I guess there's no benefit to having EITHER version of the PS3. Sucks to be Sony.

[THAMMER1]

It seems like PS3 fan boys have no clue. But this article is about what the dev. did tomake the game run at a smooth pace.

[FeralPhoenix]

but I think Bethesda decided that this was a better method to use to compensate for the slow BD drive in the PS3, Oblivion has alot of content(still fit on DVD9) the good news is that Blu-ray has alot of space.....but I don't care how you spin it doesn't sound good when a dev says that:

"the PS3 Oblivion team compensated for the slower drive by duplicating data across the Blu-ray disc, making it faster to find and load."

This could be or probably is a isolated case, but if I'm Sony I would hope that other dev's don't want to(have to) try something similar just to get faster load times.....thus making the space advantage, uhm well not the advantage Sony claimed it to be. BTW, I don't think loading the games to the HDD is the best way to go about it either, IMO.

As for now I will assume that the BD drive speed while slow is not something that will hender games in any significat way....so again this is probably just 1 isolated game.

[scriptkiddie]

I thought that blu-ray was so great for gamming. We would have better graphics and longer games because of all the space. but we were lied to, The extra space has to be used to duplicate the game because of the slow load times.

I guess we know know the truth ... sony put blu-ray into the ps3 as a trojan horse in their format war, and made a game machine second to a blu-ray movie player.

they knew their sonybots would still buy it no matter how bad the machine was.

thanks microsoft for choosing gamming first.

[grifter024]

Dude you know they were going to start something the moment you saw the headline. lol I wasnt really complaining just wondering why he put that in there. I read the article and didnt find anything that really stoodout. I wouldnt gripe about this game because hell I still play it its a really good game, but seeing as how the ps3 isnt taking advantage of the hardvvare it has really shows us something. Developers have to start taking advantage of their br capacity,before its just a waste of space.

[nice_cuppa]

didnt i hear the same thing about rfom...?
i would go as far as to assume all ps3 games do this.

i await data reads on ps3 games to see if duplication is indeed the norm on blu ray games.

[sjappie]

It's hilarious to see that the ps3 fans seem to think this is a good thing. You guys are in denial, and making complete fools out of yourselves. If sony raped your mother you people would say she needed to get laid anyways. Retards!

[AudioRage]

16 = 2 x 8

" For those idiots that can't count up to 20. 16MB > 9MB, and 16 is 2x 9."

Im not arguing against your point man, but this is one F***ed up statement.lol

[BIadestarX]

"and 16 is 2x 9" how else would you say that the XBox 360 drive(16mb) is 2 times faster than the PS3(9mb) drive. Only an idiot would suggest that I meant the number 9 multiplied by 2 is equal to 16 and not 18. Sorry I didnt say 1.8989847x faster.

[calderra]

It's a good thing that BluRay has all that extra room, because developers are going to HAVE to put 2-3 copies of the game on there in order to make up for the slow drive speed!

Hilarity. Anyone who things this is a "good" thing for BluRay needs to get off their knees and out of Sony's pants.

When the system costs $600 and is supposed to be so incredibly powerful that 360 is supposed to be blown away, bits like this have to make you wonder.

Remember back when all the 360 fans said that the BluRay's read speed was a bottleneck? Confirmed.

And remember when they said that Cell's mismatched cores would be hard to develop for? Confirmed.

And remember when they said that PS3's RAM issues would result in an inability to compete in terms of high-res textures, and now all of PS3's games have had worse textures than their 360 counterparts?

And remember when they said 360's scaler chip meant it was more capable of 1080p than PS3 was, and now ALL 360 games can be upconverted to 1080p while PS3's lack of a scaler chip is keeping all of its titles in 720p- or worse- 480p, thus making the 360 the ONLY next-gen console to display 1080p (regardless of conversion or no) right now?

And remember when they said the PS3 really WASN'T capable of 1080p because it wasn't any more powerful, and that it was in the same boat as 360, with 720p being the sweet spot? And ya know how lately basically ALL developers have been saying that 720p is the only way to go on PS3?

There's a slight pattern here.

[DJ]

"remember when they said 360's scaler chip meant it was more capable of 1080p than PS3 was, and now ALL 360 games can be upconverted to 1080p while PS3's lack of a scaler chip is keeping all of its titles in 720p- or worse- 480p, thus making the 360 the ONLY next-gen console to display 1080p (regardless of conversion or no) right now? "

Then why the hell are people playing Playstation 3 games in Native 1080p (like real, actual people) while all 360 titles are native 720p/1080i and Upscaled to 1080p? You got a lot of explaining to do because we have yet to see a single native 1080p 360 title. And don't bother showing box art; we already know that it signifies upscaling, not native rendering.

With 300,000 Playstation 3 owners playing the GT:HD demo, which runs at native 1080p, I don't know what the hell you were thinking with that statement.

[shikwan]

more on the way! (Though Splinter Cell doesn't say so on the box, Ubisoft already confirmed that it does!)

Now...STFU!

[kewlkat007]

well this is what I got out this one. Twisting the HEADLINES again.

http://www.gwn.com/news/sto...

[FFVIIFan]

But how much slower? If I had to wait an extra 5-10 seconds, then it really wouldn't matter to me. I don't think this is good or bad. It's just dealing with the nature of the beast. It's like coding on C++ or Java. You can do the same things on both but the code is different. (It's not a perfect example, but you get the idea). If Blu-Ray has the space, use it to make it load faster. I'd rather see more gameplay, but duplicate select data doesn't take up that much space. Some people need to read it again. There isn't two copies of the game, just duplicated data. Like they're really going to put in the code for the title screen twice? They probable just duplicated the code for the more strenious bits of the game.

Once again though, bad? No. Good, not that either. Just the nature of the machine.

[DJ]

Even I didn't know that secondary layers were read at a slower rate on dual-layer DVDs. What that means is that overall, 2x Blu-ray drives are actually faster than 12x DVD drives.

Couple that with the huge amount of space that Blu-ray has and it looks like Sony made a really good choice.

P.S. Bladestar needs to stop quoting Kotaku as 'evidence' because the truth is that Kotaku is not a reliable news source. They usually just copy information that They find on the internet, usually on some random site that got their information from another site, etc.

Bladestar's argument about 12x DVD's max speed is worthless because not only is 12x the theoretical max speed, the outer 600MB of space on a 360 DVD is blocked off due to security purposes. It couldn't reach that speed if it wanted to. Worse yet, it's dual layer so half the data is only read at a theoretical max of 8x speed.

PS3's Blu-ray drive wins in overall speed and storage.

[scriptkiddie]

you are correct my good man, this is why they bneed to duplicate data on the blu-ray disk because it is so slow.....

you really need to get your head out of sony's behind.

[Gears]

See Sony Fanboys it is A MOVIE PLAYER FIRST GAME MACHINE SECOND, HAHAHAHA, What a joke, and you pay $600 for that my god you guys must be MORONS.

[testerg35]

No matter what negative thing a developer says about the PS3, Sony fanboys says:

"This is probably one of the most clever tricks I've seen yet. I wonder if other devs are going to start copying this method considering there's plenty of space on Blu-ray for this"

"to spare i can set aside about 20 for my games no biggie."

[Raist]

What people often forget is that a 2X blu ray drive has a constant bandwith of 9MB/s.

The 360 has a 12X drive (16MB/s). This is MAX speed. But the AVERAGE read speed for a 12X drive is in fact 8x, that's 12MB/s. So the difference isn't THAT huge.
Plus, the size limit on 360 DVD's is 7GB only.

Considering that developpers can take advantage of the hard disk, i doubt there will be any differences in most multi games. They don't use swap files on the 360 since many users don't have a HDD.

[DJ]

to this day I still wonder why Microsoft took the hard drive out instead of putting it in as standard. I mean, that was one of the best features of the Xbox. Maybe even the Best feature outside of Live.

O well, at least PS3 devs get to benefit from standard inclusion of an HDD.

[Zinswin]

This is about the best argument I've been for BR and gaming. And the only one so far that would have the chance to sway my opinion on the subject. Not enough to spend the extra dough, though...

[The Snake]

"You got a lot of explaining to do because we have yet to see a single native 1080p 360 title. And don't bother showing box art; we already know that it signifies upscaling, not native rendering."

If box art signified scaling rather than rendering then my old 1080i only HDTV would not have been able to play Burnout Revenge or Far Cry Instincts Predator, which are both listed as 720p only on the box. For some reason the worked just fine and quite beautifully I may add.

How do you explain that? Oh wait a minute, you wasted all your bubbles spewing misinformation. Find me elsewhere and explain yourself.

PS Now that you have been proven wrong about this issue, take a look at the Lost Planet box art. 1080p. Yes. 1080p.