Digital Foundry have put up a huge interview with Crytek, the developers behind first person suit-em-up Crysis 2. It’s a great read (as with all DF’s stuff) and well worth digesting over a nice cup of tea.
For the attention span deficient though, sites have cherry picking quotes all weekend- and rightly so, there’s some juicy little soundbytes in there that highlight some of the difficulties developers have with the current generation of consoles.
[drop]”GPU side, when programmed properly, they are fairly similar,” say the developers when asked about PS3 and Xbox 360. “We just have to be conscious of the clear handicap on PS3 RSX in terms of vertex processing, but other than that, on fragment processing side they are relatively similar.”“Both have their strengths but such differences become irrelevant in the long run, especially when compared to PC platforms,” says principal graphics engineer Tiago Sousa.
“My finger-pointing at Microsoft/Sony would really be on the memory side,” he said. “It’s way too low, and the biggest crippling factor from a visual perspective. I would really like to see next-gen console platforms with a minimum of 8GB.”
There’s lots in there, of particular interest to anyone keen on how developers squeeze the best out of what are now relatively underpowered consoles in respect to PC tech.
Interestingly, neither the PS3 nor 360 version runs at ‘true 720p’.
“The 1152 x 720 resolution on 360 simply allows you to maximize eDRAM usage on a deferred lighting engine without having to resort to tiled rendering,” said Sousa.
“On the PS3, due to the extremely limited system memory we resorted to downloading memory into video memory. We bumped into severe video memory limitations, so it was a good compromise to save a big chunk of video memory for other usages.”
“I think we already tapped a large part of the consoles’ resources and hardware potential. But there is still quite some potential to push it further.”
nolgan
crytek is saved to uncherted2 / 3 and Killzone 2 / 3 not out on PC, if not … would leave on pc crysis2
like shit
UNCHARTED2 multiplayer / 2 or killzone 2 / 3
a gtx580 with 2 gb of ram uf uf .. fuck me
squashme
why dont you make sense of what your saying before you post because I think no one can understand what your saying because I CANT
Daywalker
We understood your point in the first comment, there’s no need for 5 more. also try to string words together as writing phases then leaving gaps is horrible to try to decipher.
you did make a good point originally though.
Mike
Now you’re just starting to spam. Put what you want to say in one post instead of multiple posts.
Also you don’t
Need to
Post like
This.
It’s annoying and making it hard to understand what you’re trying to convey.
RadicalMave07
it looks like he does not know english very well,maybe he does not know what spamming means.
@nolgan,could you please not post the same comments over and over again,one comment per idea.
The Lone Steven
I would like to see what developers could do with 8gb of RAM. I think they tried to port it from the PC version but found out that there weren’t enough memory. Other game developers do try to get the best out of each console. I wonder if Crytek had any experience with creating console games? If not then that is probably why.
DRCD1
Ok. Soo… I always thought the CPU was the way to go when it comes to graphics. Infact, CGI-wise, until very recently, CPU was winning the CPU/GPU wars (I just love reading 3DWorldMagazine), but now I think it’s pretty much a tie. However, while I understand that on the X360 the GPU is probably stronger, on the PS3 the CPU is more powerful, or so I’ve heard, because of the SPUs. So why won’t they completely rewrite their code to take the most out of the SPUs? I’m not talking about Crytek, but all those companys who release the game on the PS3 a year later after the XBox360. Wouldn’t that give them time?
squashme
I think its a case of being bothered to rewrite to get the most out of PS3 most devs just cant be bothered simple fact
Deathbrin
Weren’t nVIDIA wiping the floor with Intel’s CPU-based solutions, or something?
Sympozium
Well even if there is limited memory theres still been some pretty good games, but I guess the next consoles would have to focus on that especally Nintendos next console if its actually next generation.
plutoniumdragon
So both consoles are badly dated compared to the PC, where’s the news in that?
TSBonyman
They did very well, considering they had different architectures to cater for. Crysis 2 is visually impressive and i’m quite liking the gameplay.
nofi
Yep, Crysis 2 is a great game.
rht992
Unfortunatly its another great game on my “wait till its cheaper list” tooo many games and not enough money.
SilverCider
I’m with you on that too! Money and time seem to be an issue recently! :(
rht992
missing this, Mass effect, dead space and motorstorm. OUCH!
fatjohnson
It’s probably for the best you’ve no choice but to wait, the campaign AI is incedibly bad, it’s super easy on Superhuman difficulty, and the multiplayer is a huge mess of “can’t-see-shit-too-many-post-processing-effects-when-I-turn-quickly”itis.
TotalHitman
Some people have some horrible grammer here. But anyway, Crytek, are you sure you tried your best on the PS3. Are you really sure?
rht992
For a first time development they sure did pretty well. Its a bit unfair to compare them to Killzone or uncharted since they have had a long time working on the PS3 with sony’s full support. Crytek are just begining and they are sure to show us something even more amazing next time
OneShotWook
Not sure who fried my brain more Nolgan or the Crytek I.T boy,eitherway thanks for the lolz.
SpikeyMikey23
Nolgan’s comments are full of win. Please let him write an article for TSA =D
Foxhound_Solid
Still havent got round to getting Crysis, not in a rush for it at all…..