rec.autos.simulators

GTA3 - my take

Ian

GTA3 - my take

by Ian » Mon, 10 Jun 2002 18:33:04

That's probably the most sensible thing that's been said in this thread :)

--

Ian P
<email invalid due to spam>


ph7

GTA3 - my take

by ph7 » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 02:35:59


2, Thief 3, Hitman 2, Tomb Raider 6 (begrudgingly anyway), NOLF 2, Gothic 2,
Arx Fatalis, IGI 2, Neverwinter Nights, SimCity 4, Simsville, etc. Lots of
variety in these games...variety consoles can't even BEGIN to touch.

Variety? Let me see: we have two and a half #1s, five #2s, one #3, one #4,
and one #6. Yup, variety it is!

You should well enjoy Crash Bandicoot 3 - it has a number in it...
LOL

--
Ph7

Don't mind your makeup,
Make your mind up!
(Frank Zappa)

Joe

GTA3 - my take

by Joe » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 03:34:45




> > Uh, hardly. I'm looking forward to quite a few upcoming PC titles: Deus
Ex
> 2, Thief 3, Hitman 2, Tomb Raider 6 (begrudgingly anyway), NOLF 2, Gothic
2,
> Arx Fatalis, IGI 2, Neverwinter Nights, SimCity 4, Simsville, etc. Lots of
> variety in these games...variety consoles can't even BEGIN to touch.

> Variety? Let me see: we have two and a half #1s, five #2s, one #3, one #4,
> and one #6. Yup, variety it is!

> You should well enjoy Crash Bandicoot 3 - it has a number in it...
> LOL

LOL!!
Eep hasn't played many console games.
PC games market is muddled with sequels after sequels and pure classics like
Planescape Torment are very few and far between.  Oh and Eep hasn't played
that either.  He's missing out on all the best games PC has to offer, but he
thinks he's qualified to defend pc games.  Idiocy.

What's he gonna do when his parents pass away and unable to support himself
financially?  he's too stupid to be a game developer, too close-minded to be
a researcher, too uncreative to be an artist, too unfit to be a labor
worker, too unfocused to be a writer, too clumsy to be a criminal, too
unfriendly to be a beggar, and too boring to be a celebrity.  He's human
garbage.

Nick

GTA3 - my take

by Nick » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 04:13:19

I am not going to argue with you at all, you are on my side anyway. BTW I
hope by 'individual blades of grass' you don't mean that pathetic Halo
effect which blurs into obscurity at about 10 feet from the camera :-)
Nick

GTA3 - my take

by Nick » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 04:17:30

Feel free to miss the point entirely... The graphics unit is mated up to vu1
(one of the powerful vector processor units) which does all the effects you
mention, except you have to write them yourself instead of the graphics
board doing them entirely. Remember when writing a 3D engine involved huge
amounts of complex math and structures to hold matrices which you had to do
yourself? Now you just say 'here you go OpenGL, draw me a triangle'. The
first one is a PS2, the second is a PC. I feel inclined to say PS2
programmers are better than PC programmers, even though I am a PC
developer....




> > Your arguments are flawed.

> Of course - it's Eep.  Unfortunately, your arguments are not exactly
> spotless either, and demonstrate you have a lack of understanding of both
> the PS2 and PC's architecture.

> > The PS2 graphics chip has a huge bus (2,560 bits) running to a simple
4Mb
> > cache. The PC has a tiny bus (which was 'upgraded' minimally to the AGP
> > standard), running to 64Mb/128Mb Video RAM. What is the difference, you
> > might ask. Well, here is an analogy I read somewhere which sounds really
> > weird, but illustrates the principle perfectly:

> Since when is bus speed (and internal only at that) the sole measure of
> graphics power?  Yes, the PS2 has a very wide graphics bus to a _very_
small
> segment of internal ram, which is one of the reasons many games for it
> display washed out, blurry textures.  You may hold the systems graphics
> prowess in high regard, but the fact is in most games available for the
> console, I'm not seeing this wizardry translate itself onto the screen.

> It's also interesting you would lament the PC's "brute force" approach,
when
> the PS2's graphics unit is the very definition of "brute force".  Frankly,
> the PS2's graphics synthesizer is an incredibly _dumb_ chip.  No
mipmapping.
> No anti-aliasing.  No multitexturing (!).  Cripes, it takes two passes
just
> to apply bilinear filtering!  It's like an incredibly fast Voodoo1 in many
> aspects, the very definition of "brute force".  Techniques that other
> consoles and PC graphics cards can do in one pass require several on the
PS2
> as the underlying feature set of the graphics chip is so feeble, assuming
> the techniques can be accomplished with multipass rendering at all (Dot3
> bumpmapping anyone)?

> So of course the internal bus bandwidth is fantastic, it *has* to be as
the
> PS2 has to resort to such "brute-force" tactics.  Nothing is free here,
the
> PS2 takes a different approach that will help in some cases, but be a
> detriment in others.  No doubt you chose to focus on the very wide
internal
> bus, but that speed absolutely plummets when it has to go outside the chip
> for streaming textures, which it has to do considering how small that
> internal memory bank is.  Graphics prowess is dependent on many factors,
> including the capabilities of the graphics chip themselves, the bandwidth
> that connects the components, and even the CPU to keep the frame rate high
> when you have to process AI from many enemies (and AI that is expected to
be
> more and more complex by a more demanding *** public).   While it's
hard
> to directly compare titles on both platforms, the PC versions of two
> PS2-originated games (GTA3 and Starfighter), the PC versions are
undoubtedly
> smoother and with superior graphics, although they're limited by the PS2's
> source art.

> It serves no purpose to just mimic Eep's zealotry with some of your own.

Nick

GTA3 - my take

by Nick » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 04:19:09


I have both, I am just trying to stop Eep2 refusing to believe consoles can
do *anything*, so my points are naturally console sided.

What a game! I am still coming down from the high I got after that one....
<g>

Nick

GTA3 - my take

by Nick » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 04:20:44


Perfectly said - I reiterate that I am trying to get people to realise this,
so my arguments are naturally pro-console as I am arguing against a bunch of
PC people. But that is a good way to end this once and for all...

Haqsa

GTA3 - my take

by Haqsa » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:50:34

Nope, not that one.  Although you gotta figure that at the typical
console resolution of 640x480 just about everything blurs into obscurity
pretty quickly.  What I was referring to was in a demo I played of some
BMX game on the Xbox, and it had honest-to-God individual blades of
grass on the lawns.  The bike sunk into them, and they did not fade out
with distance.  They are done as a pixel shader effect, therefore
apparently not requiring the overhead that polygons or sprites would
require.  The same effect is being used to add fur to animals in some
other games.


Nitz Wals

GTA3 - my take

by Nitz Wals » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 08:07:28


Your defended your "point" with misleading information.  To object to such
correction on the misinformation you posted reeks of purposeful diversion.
Sorry, your post, and all the ignorance contained within, stands.

No, it doesn't.  The PS2's vector processors can not entirely compensate for
the faults of the GS, as any PS2 developer will tell you.

The point was, you lament the PC's "brute force" approach, when that is
exactly the approach the PS2 takes - incredibly brain-dead graphics chip,
with the hopes that certain ingenious developers will be able to get around
its limitations (and some cannot be gotten around, no matter how ingenious
the developer is).

It's interesting to hear of how wonderfully flexible the PS2's hardware is,
and all the "potential" there is, but it never seems to be translated onto
the screen.  Xbox and Gamecube have presented games in their first
generation which are obviously graphically superior to anything the PS2 has
put out, the "incredible" flexibility of the vector processors
notwithstanding.

What, in visual basic?  If you truly had any understanding of how games are
developed, you wouldn't embarrass yourself with these last two posts.

Joe

GTA3 - my take

by Joe » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 07:55:22






> >> > Uh, hardly. I'm looking forward to quite a few upcoming PC titles:
Deus
> >Ex
> >> 2, Thief 3, Hitman 2, Tomb Raider 6 (begrudgingly anyway), NOLF 2,
Gothic
> >2,
> >> Arx Fatalis, IGI 2, Neverwinter Nights, SimCity 4, Simsville, etc. Lots
of
> >> variety in these games...variety consoles can't even BEGIN to touch.

> >> Variety? Let me see: we have two and a half #1s, five #2s, one #3, one
#4,
> >> and one #6. Yup, variety it is!

> >> You should well enjoy Crash Bandicoot 3 - it has a number in it...
> >> LOL

> >LOL!!
> >Eep hasn't played many console games.
> >PC games market is muddled with sequels after sequels and pure classics
like

> Is console market much different from that? What were the most awaited
> PS2 games? GT3, GTA3, MGS2 (aka MG5), SH2, Tekken4/5, VF4 etc. Any
> non-sequels there?

I suppose you're right about that.  I stand corrected.
Eep2

GTA3 - my take

by Eep2 » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 08:20:52

Hence, "upcoming" titles, zippy. These are tried and proven series (the sequels, of course), for the most part. Crash Bandicot et al is yet another mindless platformer.



> > Uh, hardly. I'm looking forward to quite a few upcoming PC titles: Deus Ex
> 2, Thief 3, Hitman 2, Tomb Raider 6 (begrudgingly anyway), NOLF 2, Gothic 2,
> Arx Fatalis, IGI 2, Neverwinter Nights, SimCity 4, Simsville, etc. Lots of
> variety in these games...variety consoles can't even BEGIN to touch.

> Variety? Let me see: we have two and a half #1s, five #2s, one #3, one #4,
> and one #6. Yup, variety it is!

> You should well enjoy Crash Bandicoot 3 - it has a number in it...
> LOL

Eldre

GTA3 - my take

by Eldre » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 09:24:47



>> England 1 Argentina 0! Yyyyeeeessssss! :-D

>What a game! I am still coming down from the high I got after that one....
><g>

I'm happy with the Red Wings/Hurricanes game from last night.  I could use your
exact same statment to describe THAT one...<g>

Eldred
--
Homepage - http://www.racesimcentral.net/~epickett
Thanks to those of you who made a donation for *** cancer research.  The
walkathon is over, but donations are still being accepted.  Details on my
webpage.

Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

Eep2

GTA3 - my take

by Eep2 » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 12:25:19

Hey, consoles can do stuff! They make great, er, doorjams, for instance. ;) They also explode in lots of pieces nicely when dropped from high places. <snicker>



> > It all boils down to this: if all you want to do is play the type of
> > games at which consoles excel - arcadey ones, basically - then it's
> > silly buying a PC costing five times as much. But if you want ot be
> > able to do other things, including non-gamey ones, then you'll need a
> > computer anyway, and if a big range of games is something you need
> > it'll be a PC. Simple, really.

> I have both, I am just trying to stop Eep2 refusing to believe consoles can
> do *anything*, so my points are naturally console sided.

ph7

GTA3 - my take

by ph7 » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:44:29





> > > Uh, hardly. I'm looking forward to quite a few upcoming PC titles:
Deus
> Ex
> > 2, Thief 3, Hitman 2, Tomb Raider 6 (begrudgingly anyway), NOLF 2,
Gothic
> 2,
> > Arx Fatalis, IGI 2, Neverwinter Nights, SimCity 4, Simsville, etc. Lots
of
> > variety in these games...variety consoles can't even BEGIN to touch.

> > Variety? Let me see: we have two and a half #1s, five #2s, one #3, one
#4,
> > and one #6. Yup, variety it is!

> > You should well enjoy Crash Bandicoot 3 - it has a number in it...
> > LOL

> LOL!!
> Eep hasn't played many console games.
> PC games market is muddled with sequels after sequels and pure classics
like
> Planescape Torment are very few and far between.  Oh and Eep hasn't played
> that either.  He's missing out on all the best games PC has to offer, but
he
> thinks he's qualified to defend pc games.  Idiocy.

> What's he gonna do when his parents pass away and unable to support
himself
> financially?  he's too stupid to be a game developer, too close-minded to
be
> a researcher, too uncreative to be an artist, too unfit to be a labor
> worker, too unfocused to be a writer, too clumsy to be a criminal, too
> unfriendly to be a beggar, and too boring to be a celebrity.  He's human
> garbage.

LOL.
Sorry Eep, even if this isn't true, it's still very funny (if you think
relatively, that is...) !!!
But he can excel at QA ! Although with some of the attitude he's been
presenting, only for a very short while...

Planescape Torment ??? This isn't a game! How can it be? It's Isometric !!!
;-)

--
Ph7

Don't mind your makeup,
Make your mind up!
(Frank Zappa)

ph7

GTA3 - my take

by ph7 » Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:46:29








> > >> > Uh, hardly. I'm looking forward to quite a few upcoming PC titles:
> Deus
> > >Ex
> > >> 2, Thief 3, Hitman 2, Tomb Raider 6 (begrudgingly anyway), NOLF 2,
> Gothic
> > >2,
> > >> Arx Fatalis, IGI 2, Neverwinter Nights, SimCity 4, Simsville, etc.
Lots
> of
> > >> variety in these games...variety consoles can't even BEGIN to touch.

> > >> Variety? Let me see: we have two and a half #1s, five #2s, one #3,
one
> #4,
> > >> and one #6. Yup, variety it is!

> > >> You should well enjoy Crash Bandicoot 3 - it has a number in it...
> > >> LOL

> > >LOL!!
> > >Eep hasn't played many console games.
> > >PC games market is muddled with sequels after sequels and pure classics
> like

> > Is console market much different from that? What were the most awaited
> > PS2 games? GT3, GTA3, MGS2 (aka MG5), SH2, Tekken4/5, VF4 etc. Any
> > non-sequels there?

> I suppose you're right about that.  I stand corrected.

Of course he is. Nobody's saying that consoles is the 1st place to for
originality in games. Even my example was intentionally a sequel. But saying
"variety" and giving all those sequel numbers... Sorry, couldn't resist the
temptation...

--
Ph7

Don't mind your makeup,
Make your mind up!
(Frank Zappa)


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