Fuel's open world would fill '4 Blu-rays'

Upcoming Mad Max-style racer Fuel's game world would fill about four Blu-ray discs if it was developed using traditional methods.

That impressive claim comes from Codemasters executive producer David Brickley, who also revealed to VideoGamer.com that Paradise City, from Criterion's Burnout, only amounts to a "postage stamp" when placed on top of Fuel's open world.

[Hellsvacancy]

How many disks are there going to be on the 360 or pc version

Or are they sayin they "could" put it on 4 blu-rays

Also i hope theres more than just driving, if there isnt your gonna hav 4 disks full of data and all your going to do is drive around - bit repetitive

Can sum1 please explain

[Antan]

They meant it would fill 4 BD dics IF the track data was constructed the "normal" way and not procedurally generated like this is supposed to be.

[marinelife9]

That's going to take a lot of processing power to generate those maps.

[bumnut]

oblivion fit on one dvd and so did stalker, both had huge open worlds.

but what do i know? i only play games i don't develop them

[pixelsword]

...then that would equal about TWENTY DVD's or more if they're talking about dual-layered Blu-Ray discs...

... really; from what Id's saying.

[THC CELL]

dam blu ray best upgrade to there 200 gig Disc quick

[angry_xbot]

4 blu ray = 100 GB
or 2 Dual layer Blu ray discs
Or 1 200GB Blu Ray disc (PS3 compatible).

Aka only possible on/ for the PS3.

Impossible for the 3rd60.

Damn, it sucks to be an xbot, people!

[thereapersson]

Nevermind the size advantage that Blu-Ray offers; there are many idiots out there who will contend that DVD is great for holding everything developers need.

I don't care which console you support; 7 gigabytes of space for CONSOLE games is really the lowest common denominator you can use in this current generation. Seriously, people who don't think that mandating the storage capability of Blu-Ray (or beyond) are ignorant fools, or Blu-Ray-hating fanboys.

PC games are a null point because there are no games that utilize the disc to run games on PC; rather, games are installed to the HDD in UNCOMPRESSED FORM, and the disk is used for fetching redundant data used by the game engine. There would be no way current PC games could run efficiently if they were to be loaded into memory off a disk without installation.

I'm tired of stupid fanboys who can't see common sense for what it is. If anyone agrees with this, feel free to press "agree", and to throw some bubbles my way.

[Drekken]

Common sense on N4G??? Prepare to loose bubbles!

I agree with everything you have said.

[thereapersson]

Bubbles back at ya!

Another thing about procedurally generated worlds, is that they tend to reuse a lot of engine assets to create a dynamic world. Just look at Oblivion for a good example of how a game environment can be expansive, but rather similar in layout and texture/asset placement. People use that game as a disparaging example against Blu-Ray, but what they don't realize is how much of the game engine reuses ingredients in the game to create a world of forests, plains and mountains.

To have a truly different world full of unique levels and environments, data must be linear and therefore individually rendered/generated on a per-level basis. Procedurally generated environs can only go so far before you begin to see redundancy (unless a developer has few assets to work with from the beginning).

On the other hand, we haven't seen the best of what developers have to offer this generation, so my point could be proven wrong when placed in the hands of the right development studio.

[juuken]

Uh-oh, don't preach common sense on N4G dude...bubbles shall be taken. =o

I agree with you too.

[thereapersson]

But because I decided to go and rant against an idiot fanboy who is famous for off-topic trolling (which, I might add, the moderators let him roam free), I was banned (once again) to the Open Zone.

Funny how these things work, eh?

[Sir_Ken_Kutaragi]

Er...erm...Hmm...
No sorry can't do it... ;)

Fuel's open world would fill '67 xBox 360 DVD's' ;-D

(That's better!!!) ;-D

[Drekken]

Someone posted a year 2000 forum post and the argument against the PS2 was EXACTLY what the ps3 is dealing with. History will repeat itself.

Everyone wanted a DC... look what happened to the cheaper DC.

Bubbles for all above me :D

[Killjoy3000]

O M F G

[AznSniper]

If the open world is really that big, then I can tell it is going to be a buggy game because I don't think all the bugs will be found and fixed. But it is still too early to tell, so I'll keep tracking this game to see the progress.

[bumnut]

it would be almost impossible to test every area

[badz149]

1. they are saying and bragging that they are really making a HUGE open world game.

OR..

2. they wanted to say that current technology allowed more data to be stored in a small space thus DVD9 is just FINE.

what do you guys think? or am I being a little bit too skeptical?

[InMyOpinion]

Hopefully it's a mix of 1 & 2.

[hay]

Wtf? Comparing to one year old game from which they partially rip-off openworld concept? Bravo Codemasters!

They said that procedural generating is more space efficient than existing ways of rendering the game "world".
I don't like codemasters but this sounds impressive.

[ShiftyLookingCow]

I thought Paradise was the trend follower as far as open world gameplay is concerned.

[thor]

If it's a huge world that can be compressed by making things procedurally generated then it'll be very barren and repetitive. Just look at the size of GTA:San Andreas. Most of it was taken up by huge swathes of countryside that looked mostly the same. The "huge open world" will look just like that.

[Fishy Fingers]

"using traditional methods"

What method is that then? No streaming, no compression etc Does he mean methods dev's would be foolish not to incorporate?

Does he go into details? Sorry at work I cant access videogamer for some reason.

[thor]

French studio Asobo, which has spent four years developing new technology that blends satellite data and procedurally generated data together, has come up with a mammoth 5,000 square mile map for drivers to explore.

That's what he's talking about.

[Fishy Fingers]

Cheers Thor. I think he's blowing his own trumpet some what though.

[Ju]

Nah, what "procedural" means, is that instead of storing "pictures" (only), they use a description of the world. Say, instead of using an image of a mountain and a lake, you'd say, "here is a mountain and it has this attributes" and "right beside is a lake this size" etc. Now, you can see, I can describe this in a couple of lines (with not enough detail, in this example), but if I'd attach an image it probably would fill a page. If you can describe it good enough, you'll get the exact same picture stored in less space. Procedural algorithms now a days are so good, that they "compress" the information better then the best (data only) compression algorithms.

Also, the advantage of procedural is that you can change some parameters and you'd get a different result, while the procedure (the original description) remains unchanged. This you can even do time dependent which means it adds a complete new layer of possibilities to it.

[RadientFlux]

Most times when game levels are created randomly it often means boring and uninspired level design, but since Fuel is a racing/combat game it might actually work. It will be interesting to see.

[juuken]

Wow. o_o

[sajj316]

I am impressed then! Algorithms to generate the map is obviously efficient but I wonder how much of that 5,000 square miles is filled with nothingness!

[AbdullaMTR]

So how they fit all 200GB inside a 8.5GB 4 the 360 he's trying to say that there technology allow them to fit all that in 8.5 so the 360 has no limit in storage.......

loool he's talking from his A$$ that why ff13 will fit in 50gb blueray and 5-6 dvd9.

btw there game multi plat.. good games not by using the space good games is how much processing power the game uses and how u build ur game 4 the hardware u use.. i mean u build 200gb game and u use only rsx on the ps3 with out the spu's what's ur game i'll be???

[timmyrulz]

Speaking as an x360 owner, i dont feel like i am missing out on anything due to not having blu ray, i'm more than happy with the games that have been released and what is due it in the next 12 months plus, and having games on multi disc is no big deal, rather that than lose 5 gig everytime i buy a game

[thereapersson]

The fact that MS has mandated a last-generation storage format onto all of its console owners have put them in a false sense of security. Would you be more content if developers had more space to work with, and therefore could create bigger games? Just think about the possibilities if they didn't have to cater to a multiplatform development environment and could combine the space of a Blu-Ray disc with the ease of developing for the 360.

You're effectively limiting yourself by saying "oh, i'm simply content with what is provided on the limited storage format of DVD9, instead of what could be provided on the expansive storage format of Blu-Ray". It's just hard to think about that scenario because of how far we are into this generation, and how long DVD9 has been the minimum (and more or less development standard for multiplatform games).

No fanboyish responses needed; just a simple yes or no will suffice.

[Drekken]

Reaper... what did I tell you about common sense? Well, rationalization falls under the same category with these guys.

[na2ru1]

timmyruls. Do u realise that nowadays, there are games that exist that are not linear? Ever heard of sandbox? Happy to change disc my ars.

Yeh well im sure you'd be happy with DLCs that compensates the lack of content in the actual game, which u have to pay extra for.

[VF34EJ25]

Hmmmm interesting. So 4 Blu-rays huh?

It's okay, they could fit it into one DVD9. All they have to do is "re-imagine" it down to 1 level instead of 12. Because they don't need to "cut" any content, just re-do the whole game.

[S1nnerman]

This left me so confused ... if you're going to brag, atleast do it in a way people can understand! Pah!

[timmyrulz]

I agree with what you have to say in principle, however the cost to create games that will fill a blu ray is just not economically viable for anyone, eg gta4 cost 100 million dollars to create and that managed to fit on one DVD9, so imagine the cost if it was to fill a whole blu ray disk? the price of games to buy would increase some what which is no good for anyone, the money it would take to create the games would have to be spread futher therefore reducing the quality of the game (not every dev studio but you can guarentee a vast majority) and at the moment they arent enough owners of next gen consoles so only a handful of games would actually make money which also is no good for anyone. It would be better if blu ray was to be like an external drive to add on, that way both the consumer and the dev get the choice

[thereapersson]

But games are the same price in this generation regardless of what format they are on. Blu-Ray or 360 DVD9 format, they all cost 59.99. This increase in price is hardly justified with the content that most games are delivering nowadays; I just had to provide an arguement against your point where you state that developing for Blu-Ray will increase the cost for games.

If anything, it would decrease because the amount of time developers have to spend working on methods of data compression and other "squeeze" techniques that they have to figure out now when trying to fit games on a DVD9-ROM wouldn't be as prominent in the development process. They can spend more resources on other aspects of the software because they are not worried about coming up with extensive compression algorithms or other processes to fit the data onto the disk. It's not about "choice", which just confuses people, despite the fact that they can "choose" which method they play games with. It MUST be about mandating a software standard so every developer can coordinate their efforts to the best of their ability, along with having all the same assets to develop with (if they are multiplatform).

I just believe that if DVD9 would have been abandoned for these new consoles, I know for a fact that we would be seeing a lot less "superior development" arguments nowadays than we do now.

[dale1]

bluray is cheaper per gb than dvd,proven point with rage one blu ray versus 3 dvds now compressed to two dvds as of royalties MS wants per disc also quality of game overall is affected.As of codemasters statement need four blurays but we can squeeze it on one bluray, one dvd,what? sounds like a bit of hype if this gets on to one dvd

[FwanK]

DIRT? MAD MAX? OPEN WORLD?

AM IN!!!

[Wotbot]

my God!!

Imagine how much PS3 installing would be required???

I need a new hard drive.

[sit down droid]

LOL YOU R LOOKING AT A 50GB INSTALATION AND ABOUT 10 HOURS OF WAITING

[xg-ei8ht]

They are talking about no compression whatsoever. And of course without compression the game's textures etc, would look better.

How much better i think is the question.

So they are saying x4 blu-rays. So with x4 compression it would fit onto 1 blu-ray.

Imagine compression to fit on dvd. I don't think it's possible.

procedural generation is suited towards a multiple processors, namely cell and spu's.

I've seen ibm doing a similar thing using procedural based satellite data. that was running on spu's. Math crunchers. I think the future of ps3 is secured. can you say the same about 360, that's why in 1.5 - 2 years the 720 will be out.

[mfwahwah]

Doesn't sound appealing at all. I don't mind some large spaces to explore, but I won't have nearly the free time required to explore this game. It would be a lot more fun for me to have a smaller map that has a lot of recognizable areas.

Burnout Paradise is (coincidentally) a good example.

[FPS_Dev]

Daggerfall covered 161,600 square kilometers, so by this guy's logic, it would have required:

161,600 km^2 = 62,394 miles^2 = 12 x 5000 miles^2 = 48 Blu-rays

Since it also had 15,000 towns, villages, and dungeons, as well as 750,000 NPCs, which Fuel appears to be scant on (and all of which require more polygons per unit area than terrain), you might have to double that estimate. Therefore, Daggerfall was 12-24 times as much fun as this game, and shipped 12 years ago.

Then again, if you consider games with completely-random terrain (Civilization and Spore, I understand), you could say they would have required a nearly infinite number of Blu-Rays if developed using standard means--thus, this story begins to look irrelevant...