Schappert: 360 has the power to run MGS4

Yes David: people like you. People who spout absolute technical nonsense at others to support your argument/bias when, in fact, it’s vacuous waffle.

“The only thing it could be is the audio, video and texture files”

Um. Yes. Because things like normals, specular, navmeshes and thousands of other things you clearly have no notion of simply don’t exist so can’t possibly need space on the storage medium!

I don’t need to go into ANY detail on MGS4 because the bigger picture is that your claims against ONE GAME don’t actually apply to ANY game.

This isn’t even about MGS4. It’s about morons who blather on the internet making up (what they think) are sound technical statement when they’re absolute bullshit.

ALL DATA IS COMPRESSED

You clearly have no understanding of why this is necessary or has been common practice for decades because you’re too invested in blathering on about why Blu Ray isn’t important to actually have any sort of bead on the most basic understanding of data processing.

You’re the one that’s made the fantastical claims David. You show me how YOUR claims are factual. I’ve already asked this of you so, before you get all uppity, let’s see you respond to my questions first instead of expecting someone like me to believe the ravings of some internet fanboy.

“Anyway I’m a bit tired of you now your not worth my time.”

Sure. You do that.

Oh – here’s some fun for the observers: go and find out how much data 9 hours of uncompressed (remember: NOTHING IS COMPRESSED!!!!) 5 channel PCM audio data amounts to.

After that, add roughly 5,000 (I’m being very conservative here) 2 second foley effects (because footsteps, guns firing, explosions: they’re all sound too!) in the same format.

Don’t forget that everything needs to be covered in 5 channels!

If you can’t be bothered to do that, just go around the internet making bullshit claims about data on storage mediums and hope there’s nobody around that might ask you to back up your silly statements. And when you get backed into a corner just scamper away saying how you’re “tired” of the person asking the questions and act indignant.

Oh, and another thing David won’t have factored will be LODding – which, by necessity, will duplicate much visual data 2 or possibly 3 times over.

@David
You said yourself that the Bluray drive is a bit slow – though the issue is more seek speed. So why would they have all the textures uncompressed and make the problem worse? Think about it.

Your main point that the 360 is capable of doing the game is fine – dressing up your argument with nonsense detracts from that.

One final point – you made the “uncompressed” claim in the first place so I would say the onus is on you to back it up.

Alternatively … http://ps3.qj.net/Hideo-Kojima-Blu-ray-doesn-t-have-enough-space-for-Metal-Gear-Solid-4/pg/49/aid/114921

“In an interview, Kojima explained that his team had to compress many elements of Metal Gear Solid 4 to make it fit in the disc. While they managed to squeeze the game into Blu-ray, Kojima said the quality could have been better if there was more capacity to work with.”

Took me a couple of mins… but assuming it used the maximum bitrate available, 9 hours of 8 channel LPCM would take up:

6.144 Mbps * 60 * 60 * 9 = 199065 Mb / 8 = 24.88GB.

Given the actual size of the data on the MGS4 disc (30GB) I don’t think this is the case.

Leaving everything uncompressed would be pointless because you’d never fit everything you needed into memory, meaning you’d have to then compress it during loading. Pointless.

I seem to remember there was some talk of PS3 games including the same assets multiple times on a disc in order to reduce Blu-Ray seek times, though. Is there any truth in that?

@DrDamn:

Doubling the data on the BD is one way of helping with the slow read speed but installs are also another. Thats why MGS4 has so many of them its to help with the reading speed of the Blu-Ray.

Anyway I still think the game is easily possible on the 360 especially now that is has the HDD game install feature coming with the NXE.

OK good, Psychtext. So that’s roughly half the entire capacity gone just for cutscene audio.

Now, how about the 5,000 foley effects (for what it’s worth, 10,000 audio effects are pretty standard for a typical game today)

And then hazard a guess, to the closest 10,000, how many unique graphical assets there are in the game (assets, by the way, are more than just geometry and textures – but for the sake of David, we’ll just assume minor things like collision maps and lightmaps and animation data don’t matter as games like MGS don’t have lighting, collision or animation) and multiply that with another guess as to how much data (uncompressed!) each one takes to store (character faces will generally have a much higher definition and subsequent filesize than, for example, the underside of a boot – but, again, we’ll let that slide). Then double the outcome of the guess to cover 3 levels of graphical LODding and let me know what you come out with.

Oh, don’t forget some game code needs to go in there somewhere to. For both MGS and MGO. Let’s not forget too that MGO will have plenty of its own unique audio and visual assets too! All uncompressed, mind you.

Are you asking me? I wasn’t arguing with you.

Oh… and just because I have the info at hand:

MGS4 ISO (inc padding / duplication): 46.6GB
MGS4 Data Size (inc audio): 29.9GB (2.7GB of that for MGO)
MGS4 Audio: 5.1ch Dolby Digital (1/4 of data on disc)

So it does duplicate data on the disc ?

Blerk makes an astoundingly practical observation that I alluded to a while back:

“Leaving everything uncompressed would be pointless because you’d never fit everything you needed into memory, meaning you’d have to then compress it during loading. Pointless.”

As for doubling up data to combat seek times or to use installs – yes, those are two solutions.

A more sensible method (and one commonly practiced – or should be – for all disc-based media) is to lay the data out intelligently on the disc. For example, putting all the assets for level 1 of a game in the same physical area of the disc will alleviate seek times compared to having all visual assets at one end of the disc and all audio assets at another. Streaming data (Such as FMV that isn’t so dependent on data transfer rates) make more sense to be placed as far out from the center of the disc as possible. It’s usually only sought once per lengthy play session and the data will naturally be read sequentially. You put your most fragmented data closest to the center of the disk where seek times will be less conspicuous due because you’re covering a smaller physical area.

It makes most sense to use as many of these measures as possible. Usage of one doesn’t necessarily exclude usage of another.

“So it does duplicate data on the disc ?”

You don’t know the answer??!?

David, I’m shocked. You spoke as though you were an authority on how MGS4 data was dealt with on a Blu Ray.

And looking at Psychotext’s figures – are you still going to claim the data wasn’t compressed????

I wasn’t though you just took it that way.

Edit: If the game doubles up on data then why did kojima say that he needed more space.

:/ call me confused but if the games total size is onl 29gbs his statement doesn’t make sense.

He really did need more space if he wanted to use uncompressed audio as he originally spoke about.

(On an related note, the amount of people that still think MGS4 uses uncompressed audio is staggering)

“The only thing it could be is the Audio, video and Texture files”

Yup, David. You’re right. That’s in no way presented as an authoritative statement.

You’ve proven your point Shatner. At this stage you’re just being malicious.

Thats actually good to know

so if the total size is 29gbs then basically a maximum of 3 to 4 dvd 9gb discs

Yup.

Shatner takes no prisoners.

Shatner talks in the third person.

LOL David!

Tell me: how much data can you fit onto a DVD9 for use with a 360.

The bit in italics is important.

Oh no… what have you done David? What have you done?

Medic!

Ho ho. Facts are fun. Bullshit faux ‘knowledge’ is merely funny.

Anyway, I’m surprised. I thought David was tired with me.

Just out of interest David, is your surname “Hayter”?

C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!!

:/ what exactly was it that I said wrong. dvd9 can hold up to 8.5gbs but in general 7.5gbs. I was just suprised of the actual size of the game stated by Psycho.

Before Shatner jumps all over you… the usable data space on a 360 dual layer DVD is 6.8GB.

If Konami do decide to port MGS4 to the x360, they can easily negotiate a licensing deal with Microsoft and release it on 5 disks, one for each act, which seems somehow convenient, as the game already requires an installation between acts and that could be substituted by a disk swap.

Now, can we drop it please?

Shatner makes me lose faith in the human race.

I wonder how they’d handle the packaging on a five-disc game?

Hopefully without any scratched disks Blerk

probably something simaler to the lost odyssey dvd case

I still say it’s probably not happening anyway. Maybe for MGS4: AddedName.

As for packaging, there’s some quite good multidisc DVD packs out there. But expect MS to splash out and go for a 2x holder with 3x cardboard sleeves.

Psycho, you’re such a DVD9 spoilsport.

All those DVDs and all those additional fees that the publisher will have to pay Microsoft for (ID didn’t seem too thrilled about it). It’s clearly a ‘no brainer’ !!

Hunam, a preference for facts over nonsense is actually a good thing and the human race, as a whole, has done quite well of it.

I’m sure Microsoft would quite happily bow down and waive those fees if they got “PS£LOL” bragging rights out of it.

iD only bitched about them to try and generate the same effect. And it’ll probably work.

Well, if you represent the people in the know, then I’d rather be thick than treat other people the way you feel is acceptable because you know a little more.

Hmm. Platform holders make their money from third party software through the per-unit licence fee they collect from the publisher.

I’d have thought that the greater the potential revenue due to units manufactured the less likely they are to waive the fee.

I know bragging rights are the most precious commodity on the internet, but in business I think they prefer $$$

Hunam, I know a lot more. And if some twerp is going to spew bullshit at me and call me names when I know he’s talking complete gibberish and acting like a clown then I’ll treat him like a gibbering clown.

If I’m wrong about something I’ll apologise. Which is more than our friend David has managed to do.

I’m firm but fair. I don’t see why I should treat rude, idiotic, ignorant fanboys with any respect.

I make no apologies for being right.

Per unit licence fee… not per disc though. Plus there’s still some confusion over whether id had the right end of the stick because they’ve since said they were wrong about it and retracted their comments.

They’re obviously not going to waive the standard licence fee (as you say, it’s how they make money). But if this extra fee per disc exists, they’d be sure enough to ignore that.

@shatner:I called you names ? your first reply to me pretty much called me everything under the son.

why should I apologise to you when you’re the one with the problem not me.

Psyhcotext, I specified the licence fee (which is built upon a number of factors releating to distribution and manufacturing costs – such as number of discs (it costs more to manufacture a 5 disc game than it does a 1 disc game)) on a per-unit basis because the fee is paid up front based on the order the publisher gives the manufacturer (Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony) and not based on how many units are sold on the market.

David, you’re full of it. You’ve been shown to be full of bullshit (not just from me but from others) and now you’re going to whimper around trying to act like some mauled victim. You tried to distract from the fact that you were wrong by making snide remarks at me from your very first response.

I see people like you feeding misinformation everywhere because your bias and favouritism eclipse your ability to think or reason or pay any attention to FACTS that don’t support your little agenda.

There’s a huge gulf of understanding between how things are and how people THINK things are because of people like you spreading nonsensical biased ramblings around and acting like you know things when you’re just making up stuff as you go along.

People like you do damage to this culture. I admire your passion but the way you express it is pathetic.

But, I’m sure you’ll go around spewing more made-up bullshit when it suits you and then shrug your shoulders and act like you’re a victim the next time you’re found out about it.

I don’t respect liars or people that deliberately spread misinformation. I can’t say I care for people that DO respect such characteristics either.

Try bullshitting less in future and I’m sure you’ll find me a perfectly agreeable person.

I’m not entirely sure if this has run in from other comments on this site, but Shatner, you threw the first punch in the thread.

Shatner: Why would the publisher use Microsoft for manufacture? This isn’t high end tech, and there are numerous duplication houses quite capable of handing 360 games. The cost to manufacture would obviously be higher for a multiple disc game, but it has nothing to do with the licence fee (unless, as previously discussed Microsoft charges more if you make use of multiple discs).

I must admit that I’ve never had any involvement with this sort of thing though so I’m only going by what I’ve been told.

I corrected misinformation. I’m offended by clowns that deliberately spread misinformation.

People who try to lie are the ones I regard as initial offenders.

You see it your way because it suits you. I like manners too. But I’m not going to be polite to someone that being insulting and offensive to me in the first place.

“Throwing the first punch” is also a needlessly melodramatic term. Let’s NOT try to inject any unnecessary drama into this Hunam.

Psychotext – all console games are manufactured by the platform holder, not the publisher – that’s how it’s worked since the start of consoles. There’s very few exceptions. If I recall correctly, in the mid 90′s Sony granted EA the means to manufacture their own PS1 games at their own European pressing plants. This is probably how the legendary episode of South Park ended up as a file on copies of NHL PSX

At the end of development a publisher submits their code and production materials to the platform holder (M/N/S) along with all documentation, video playthroughs etc etc. M/N/Ss will check and approve all the materials (game testing/bug testing/standards checking – to make sure it looks on on a 14″ screen) and then THEY will manufacture it based on the quantities ordered by the publisher.

If all publishers could manufacture their own retail units then they would. But then the console manufacturer would lose most of its control over the software revenue.

In the period running up to holiday season, the manufacturing schedules get very very full indeed. A publisher can have massive problems if they miss their manufacturing slot for their game (maybe it failed standards checking and needs to be resubmitted – costing around 2 weeks time). If they miss their manufacturing slot and there’s no space available for months the game won’t be manufactured.

In development, summertime is actually hugely busy. That’s when many Xmas games are going through crunch time because they need to be submitted around September or October time ready for the holiday season. Thanksgiving is typically the most significant retail holiday season in the west.

You may remember, years back, that Nintendo got very very pissy at Codemasters in the US when they manufactured their own cartridges to run on the NES console. They tried to get the practice stopped as these were not ‘officially licenced’ product that was running on their machines.

Learn something new every day. Thanks.

So I wonder if this really is just the inherent cost of manufacture increasing for multiple discs or there is some sort of penalty to discourage multiple disc usage.

Hunam +1

Pat – any chance of an ignore button? I’d rather not read malicious badgering and harassment on a site of this calibre. It’d be nice to think he was just pissing in the wind rather than fuelling his own self-important wankathon. I couldn’t give a fuck who’s right here – there’s no call for Shatner’s treatment of David. It’s just fucking wrong.

So 360 is better than PS3? Right?

““Throwing the first punch” is also a needlessly melodramatic term. Let’s NOT try to inject any unnecessary drama into this Hunam”

Really, this is what you are going with?

All we need is to get Pud in here and the party can really start!

No problem Psyhco, always happy to inform when I can.

Whilst I don’t know the specifics of M/N/S’s manufacturing costs, it’s not unreasonable to assume that a multi-disc game costs more to manufacture (and box) than a single disc game.

I can’t imagine any reason why M/N/S wouldn’t pass that cost onto the publisher.

BraveArse:
I could say there’s no call for ignorant people spreading misinformation and lies. In fact, there’s many calls for precisely the opposite. There’s certainly no call for liars to get offensive and aggressive when their lies and ignorance get shown to be lies and ignorance rather than the universal truths they would like their ramblings to be regarded as. Yet that’s precisely what’s happened here.

Get on your high horses about the sanctity of being polite to liars and bullshitters. I don’t really care. It’s not like they’re an endangered species is it?

Internet morals, so funny

“Really, this is what you are going with?”

Yeah. I find it’s better than evading anything that gets said by using rhetorical questions.