From the "PS3 can't get a publicity break" file comes news that the system's Blu-ray load times will be slower than the DVD speeds of the Xbox 360. Following our post regarding Resistance: Fall of Man's beefy 22GBs of data, Microsoft's Andre Vrignaud (aka Ozymandias) wrote about why storage capacity isn't as important as drive speed and -- wouldn'tcha know it? -- Blu-ray has bunches of the former and not so much of the latter.
Former Sony employee Mark DeLoura responded with a long, thoughtful response sticking up for the format that fanboys love to hate, talking textures, audio, and even read speed. Naturally, there's some guffawing from the other side of the aisle as Ozymandias takes umbrage with some of DeLoura's claims, notably that textures and other media will take up a sizable chunk of that Blu-ray disc. One area they are in agreement on is that Blu-ray's read speed isn't as fast as the Xbox 360's. Says DeLoura:
"Admittedly, Blu-Ray looks dicey from several non-capacity angles. Blu-Ray movies require a 1.5x Blu-Ray drive, or 54Mbits/second. Sony announced that PS3 uses a 2x BD drive, which is 72Mbits/second or 9MB/second. The Xbox 360 uses a 12x DVD, which should give it about 16MB/second. That is significantly faster for games and will result in shorter load times. And that 12x DVD drive should be a whole lot cheaper. (Note that the PS3 drive will do 8x DVD, and even that is faster than 2x BD.)"
Says Ozymandias in response: "This is pretty much what I've been saying regarding drive speeds. A good example of where we're pretty clearly agreeing."
So, they're in agreement. The PS3 will load slower than the Xbox 360, leading one to question whether bragging about 22GB discs is the most prudent course of action. Let's hope they use the compression technologies touched on in the debate to shrink the data down considerably, even if it obviates a key selling point of the console.
... but wait, it's not all settled. Be sure to read the comments on Ozymandias' last post to get a bunch of great feedback, including this gem on the finer differences between CAV and CLV drives ("a BD25 on PS3 fares better than a DVD9 on the 360"), or Kim Pallister's link back to his own feedback on the fight and the "innovator's dilemma."
[Thanks, Hank; via DigitalBattle]
Grist - Will Resistance: FoM justify the PS3 pricetag? [Joystiq]
Point - Drive Speed More Relevant to Games Than Capacity [Ozymandias]
Counterpoint - On PS3 and Blu-Ray [Mark DeLoura]
Counter-counterpoint - Oddly, We're in Violent Agreement [Ozymandias]
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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Both are biased, and only time will tell when it comes to games. Of course it's up to the dev to come up with ways to bypass any loading time problems
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Having said that, if the game is WORTH waiting for then load times shouldn't be a factor.
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second the 360 has the same feature. devs use the hardrive for caching. if itst here it helps if its not it doesnt. so really if oyu think about it the PS3 hadrive makes no difference.
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a lot of this depends on how devs attack the situation and make the most of things. only time will tell for sure if this makes any real difference.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durabis
"It is claimed to be tough enough to resist screwdriver damage and make scratched optical discs (CDs and DVDs) a thing of the past." Only time will tell, and I hope it works.
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How it'll affect games is yet to be known, as there's no published PS3 games to adequately review. We'll find out more when there's a cross platform game released.
Now mentioning the hard drive is interesting, however that'll cache games ONCE they've been loaded. You still have to initially load the game from disc.
Is it a big deal? Not necessarily. I've waited through load times on the PSP and lived to tell about it.
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The news has gotten kinda too nitpicky lately. Folks are also arguing over the dumbest things IMHO.
Why don't we bitch about the 360's TRAY loading CD-ROM over the SLOT LOADING of the Wii and PS3?
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Games running on PS3 dev kits almost certainly run from the machines hardrive so load times would be very low compared to how they will end up
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But feel free to attack your BD with screw drivers and steel wool and see how well it works after :)
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I expect it to perform like the PSP, those whom have the money will adopt early, then the product will start it's slow decline as the other systems step up to the task. First to last is quite a shift.
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"Constant Linear Velocity (CLV) is a method of writing or reading information from a rotating data disk. CLV means that the read/write head traverses the disk surface at a constant linear rate, which requires an increase in rotational velocity (rpm) as the head moves towards the center, and a decrease in rpm as it moves towards the rim of the disk. This distinguishes the speed control of a compact audio disc (CD) from an LP record. An LP spins at a constant angular velocity (CAV) of 33⅓ rpm. Because the linear distance travelled by the phonograph stylus per revolution of the record decreases as it moves closer to the center of the disk, the data rate increases and the data becomes more compressed."
In an article in GameDeveloper on streaming worlds, GD talked about how data on the outer ring of a DVD would be faster as opposed to putting it in the inner rings. The game they used as an example was Gun. The developers put heavily used textures, sounds, and animations on the outer ring so they could load them faster while they put less used assets in the inner rings.
Blu-Ray seems to alleviate this issue since everything is read at a constant rate.
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Aneyoen with any knowlegde abut HARDCORE hardware knows the 360 is 75 tiems stronger thaen teh lollerbox POS3. ILL NEVAR EVER PLAY A GAME RELEASED ON A SONNEY CONSOEL BECUASE I AHET TEHM. STUPID NOOBS FFS OMG.
OMG THE PSHIT iS USELESS TRJOAN MOVIES MACHINE WITH NO 1080P. SONEY LIES AGAIN AS AØLLWAYS STUPID I HAET THEM DIE.
BLU-REY IS PROPITARTY!!11
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No Guitar Hero for X360 > FACT
PlayStation 3 is the best console with best brand, franchises and technology > FACT
Sorry USA Microshit Fanboys but Sony Japan ownz and Bill gates Peter Mooer blame you gay fanboy gaga
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With that said, This shouldnt be a big deal, i dont think there really will be 22GB games in the long run, the developers will get smart (if they havent already) and use texture compression and other technologies. Its just Sony's bad marketing that is trying to actually make people think that a 22GB game is actually a BETTER game than a 4-8GB game. Dont listen to Sony, they are just trying to justify the need for BluRay out of one side of their mouth, while saying you will have a great gaming experience out of the other. Sometimes the two dont mix.
I really think Sony should have taken the Nintendo stance on their hardware. Just kept their mouths shut, and talked about the games...talked about the media (movies, etc) that will be available on BluRay....talked about their online service....but stop talking about hardware specs, etc. It doesnt work. hardware is too confusing and it makes it too easy for a marketing person to screw up (as we see now) and make themselves look like liers or idiots...
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p.s the 360 devs cannot program games to cache onto the HDD because not every 360 systems comes with a HDD!!
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There is a difference between cached space and storage space.
And even if you have cache enough, you still need to read data from the disc to the drive when you want it cached.
Please correct me if I'm wrong
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I've taken the stance that we'll see what happens, but I'm not looking forward to the load times on games like GTA4; San Andreas already has abominal load times. Developers need to make big strides in background loading and game streaming if they want their games to be playable.
Anyway, I doubt it'd be neccesary to load more than 500MB to start a game up. If a game needs to cache more than that, there's something seriously wrong.
Oh, and, "PlayStation 3 is the best console with best brand, franchises and technology > FACT"
- I disagree on points one and two, and I have yet to be convinced on point three.
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And now food for thought.
15GB * 1024MB/GB = 15360MB of data
15360MB / 9MB/s / 60s/min ~= 28min
Great, 30 minute install times if that space is REALLY being used for textures, levels and game code.
I think it's mostly pre-rendered movies if you ask me ;)
I hope games that use that much of a BD-ROM are few and far in between. There are some games that have an excuse for that much FMV, but frankly, most don't.
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"Wait a second wasn't Gran Turismo HD demo'ed at E3 with super fast loading times!!!!According to Kazunori Yamauchi the loading times are faster due in part of the blu-ray drive and the HDD. Also BD are made with a hard-coating that will protect it from damage.
p.s the 360 devs cannot program games to cache onto the HDD because not every 360 systems comes with a HDD!!"
These facts are right, and anyone who says otherwise is a dee dee dee. At least someone has some common sense and knoweledge around here. Give this man a star.
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If a game goes a couple of gigs over I dont see why it cant be installed on the Hard drive or the Xbox live part of the game (which can only be used by people who are online anyway) could be downloaded on to the HD through the original disc to save a bit of space.
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BHUAHUANAUHAUHAUHAUA
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Anyways, both 360 and PS3 are going to have brutal load times in many games. PS3's bluray has CLV, but is about as slow as the slowest 360 read rate.
Both systems will have problems with load times and streaming, as the processing and RAM have improved much more over the previous generation than the disk read speed.
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it all boils down to the development teams and some smart programming. BUT, out of the gate, the 360 does have the advantage.
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Uh oh. Someone better get over to the guys at Bethesda and tell them to stop development on that 360 game they released 6 months ago because they won't have been able to cache.
Fanboy ramblings are fun.
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Are you over 12?
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Being a developer fanboy makes life so much easier.
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More anti-PS3 FUD, nothing to see here...
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While this is an interesting topic and some people are providing some thoughtful insight, I think the main point is being missed.
Will longer load times deter people from buying a PS3 or 360?
Of course not. If that was the case, the PS2 and XBox would have never pushed any units. In fact, over their lifespans, developers found ways to decrease loadtimes for said systems.
The only outcome of slower loadtimes for the 360 and PS3 is more bitching by people when they boot up or wait fo the next level to load. Otherwise I feel that the overall impact will be minimal and not affect sales in the least bit.
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If a game requires filling 512MB of cache to start playing, the 9MB/s system takes nearly 57 seconds versus 32 seconds on the 16MB/s system (if both can keep that read speed).
The difference is still noticeable when 128MB is being loaded: 14 seconds versus 8 seconds.
So unless developers create advanced background loading schemes, and only use them on the PS3, the BluRay drive's read speed WILL be a factor.
Now, in two years when Sony releases the PS3.1, which they have said they want to do, you won't have such a problem because they might be putting in a 4x BluRay drive.
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Load times do not discourage buyers, as long as lil Jonny cries for a PS3 game he'll get it.
Its all flame bait people. It keeps Joystiq's cash flow moving. I don't blame them, I would do the same if I owned a game blog too.
My belief is, the war is going to end like this.
PS3 = 50 million systems sold
X360 = 40 million systems sold
Wii = 35 million systems sold
Reason the PS3 will sell more is because they have tremendous leverage in the subconcious of the public. Grandpa and Grandma used to say does lil Bobby want a Nintendo for christmas? not they say, Does lil Bobby want that Playstation thing for Christmas? It has been embedded in our culture here in america.
In HTML it would be:
(American Culture)
(embed)
Playstation
(/embed)
(/American Culture)
()= *not sure if it will show up if I use .
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And now food for thought.
15GB * 1024MB/GB = 15360MB of data
15360MB / 9MB/s / 60s/min ~= 28min
Great, 30 minute install times if that space is REALLY being used for textures, levels and game code.
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As someone else already stated;
22GB of data for a game does not mean that ALL 22GB needs to be loaded at that very second to play. They are likely textures, media (music) and CG scenes that will only be loaded at specific times.
So get the inaccurate conversion talk out of here.
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The PS3 has yet to be seen as a final console. The devkits (I've said this before) are IBM PCs SIMULATING a console environment. This damn thing isn't even out yet and you guys are arguing about how great it is?
It was the same thing for the 360 last year, but at least their final devkits were consoles, not simulation environments.
Both Sony and Microsoft have touted their great graphics with pre-rendered CG BS. MS Fanboys had the Madden 06 McNabb/Strahan/TO preview from last year's draft and GRAW from E3 05. Sony Fanboys have the Killzone PS3 vid that disappeared this year, upscaled GT 4 with no dirt-particle FX, Goddess of War, and a bunch of other PS3 demos at E3 with plasma TVs' sharpness settings cranked to 200%.
The next gen DVD wars are a bunch of crap anyway. It's just two companies trying to find a way to get more money from the consumer. They're just pissed because DVDs are so damned cheap now.
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Also, the outter edge of the disc is what is filled up last, which means its only filled if the data completely fills the disc.
So, we can only get 16 MBps transfer speed if
A) the DVD is full and
B) we are reading data on the very edge of the disc
Lets assume the disc is full. Based on my calculations, your average read speed will be around 13.5 MBps. This means that load times on the xbox 360 will be at about ~66% of those on the PS3. So, 6 seconds vs 9 seconds. 1 minute vs 1:30. Etc.
Of course, this argument assumes the disc is full, which means MS should have gone with a larger disc. Yet if the disc is not fully used, the transfer rate advatage decreases further.
Anyway, it is really a complete fallacy to say that that DVD 12x is twice as fast as BD 2x, as this is only true in the most extreme circumstances. A disclaimer is required.
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P.S. If you want to see my calculations, I will show them. Otherwise i'd rather not, it got a little confusing :)
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