LinkinPrime
10-05-2006, 05:48 PM
A new technology is currently being developed that promises (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/10/04/Game_file_sizes_could_soon_be_70_smaller/) to reduce file sizes by 70%. It sounds like a bold claim, but there is proof; a literally small XBLA game that has 19 levels and runs on the Unreal 3 engine, all under the required 50MB.
The technology was announced yesterday at London’s GDC. The relatively unknown company, Allegorithmic (http://www.allegorithmic.com/v2/news.htm), has created two programs (ProFX and MaP Zone 2) which reduce the size of textures. In an interview they said they hope the technology will become standard throughout the industry in the next few years.
So how can this be useful in games? Well, textures take up alot of space, since they are used for almost everthing, and the programs reduce the size of all textures at no loss of quality whatsoever. The XBLA game I mentioned is Roboblitz. The texture size is a mere 280KB, and runs on the Unreal 3 engine just fine, all for under 50MB. In fact, all this was hinted at a few months back, when the guys developing the game had a Q and A (http://www.xboxic.com/news/1313) session with us. They mention “we have a few tricks up our sleeves”. Now we know! There are also some nice screenshots over at the official site (http://www.roboblitz.com/site.html). (Word of warning: the images take some time to appear; dial-up users beware!)
http://files.xboxic.com/xbox-360/roboblitz/roboblitz.jpg
Yet very few people have heard of all this before. Fortunately, bit-tech.net (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/10/04/Game_file_sizes_could_soon_be_70_smaller/) asked that question:
Confused by the fact that I hadn’t heard about this technology before, I spoke to one of the men behind it directly - Dr Sébastien Deguy. He assured me that there were no catches with his system, that if a game contained 1GB of textures he would be able to reduce that to 300MB and lose no quality. When I asked why everyone wasn’t using the program at the moment he explained it was due to people needing to be retrained in learning a new system. He was optimistic however, that soon all games companies will be using their new texture tools.
Training can be an expensive process for a company, and what with the size of Blu-ray and eventually games on HD-DVD, is there really a need? On the flipside, is there really a need for Blu-ray and HD-DVD games when you can get more space with the programs on an ordinary disc? It’s personal choice really. Some may feel they have enough space as it is (especially (http://www.xboxic.com/news/1601)when using Blu-ray), others will jump at the chance to save some room. But, with Blu-ray games still a way off (for us Europeans (http://www.xboxic.com/news/1563) at least), and with MS saying they won’t produce games on HD-DVDs, then this is great. It could mean that FPS’s actually last more than ten hours, and graphics in a multiplayer mode won’t have to be knocked down (I’m looking at you GR:AW (http://wiki.xboxic.com/GRAW)) thanks to the extra space created.
Another benefit of the two programs comes in the way of downloading. The sizes could be far less for demos, and actual games could be downloaded in minutes rather than hours. Perhaps it could spell the end to actually having a game in your hand, with the box and all. Everything could be stored on a Hard Drive. Personally though I don’t think this will happen anytime soon. Broadband speeds still aren’t that great for some countries, like the UK, so it wouldn’t take off as some might hope.
And who says where it stops? It can be applied to almost any area of the gaming world (the what’s-on-the-disc world, at least), such as sounds, levels and so on.
I hope this takes off and developers actually use it. And by use it, I mean increase the space and actually fill it with something. And if you want to play a proper game in a ridiculously small file, I suggest you head here (http://www.theprodukkt.com/). Scroll down a bit and you will see they have a (Beta) game to play. So it is possible folks!
http://www.xboxic.com/news/1741#more-1741
This is definately good news. Hope it actually does pick up.
The technology was announced yesterday at London’s GDC. The relatively unknown company, Allegorithmic (http://www.allegorithmic.com/v2/news.htm), has created two programs (ProFX and MaP Zone 2) which reduce the size of textures. In an interview they said they hope the technology will become standard throughout the industry in the next few years.
So how can this be useful in games? Well, textures take up alot of space, since they are used for almost everthing, and the programs reduce the size of all textures at no loss of quality whatsoever. The XBLA game I mentioned is Roboblitz. The texture size is a mere 280KB, and runs on the Unreal 3 engine just fine, all for under 50MB. In fact, all this was hinted at a few months back, when the guys developing the game had a Q and A (http://www.xboxic.com/news/1313) session with us. They mention “we have a few tricks up our sleeves”. Now we know! There are also some nice screenshots over at the official site (http://www.roboblitz.com/site.html). (Word of warning: the images take some time to appear; dial-up users beware!)
http://files.xboxic.com/xbox-360/roboblitz/roboblitz.jpg
Yet very few people have heard of all this before. Fortunately, bit-tech.net (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/10/04/Game_file_sizes_could_soon_be_70_smaller/) asked that question:
Confused by the fact that I hadn’t heard about this technology before, I spoke to one of the men behind it directly - Dr Sébastien Deguy. He assured me that there were no catches with his system, that if a game contained 1GB of textures he would be able to reduce that to 300MB and lose no quality. When I asked why everyone wasn’t using the program at the moment he explained it was due to people needing to be retrained in learning a new system. He was optimistic however, that soon all games companies will be using their new texture tools.
Training can be an expensive process for a company, and what with the size of Blu-ray and eventually games on HD-DVD, is there really a need? On the flipside, is there really a need for Blu-ray and HD-DVD games when you can get more space with the programs on an ordinary disc? It’s personal choice really. Some may feel they have enough space as it is (especially (http://www.xboxic.com/news/1601)when using Blu-ray), others will jump at the chance to save some room. But, with Blu-ray games still a way off (for us Europeans (http://www.xboxic.com/news/1563) at least), and with MS saying they won’t produce games on HD-DVDs, then this is great. It could mean that FPS’s actually last more than ten hours, and graphics in a multiplayer mode won’t have to be knocked down (I’m looking at you GR:AW (http://wiki.xboxic.com/GRAW)) thanks to the extra space created.
Another benefit of the two programs comes in the way of downloading. The sizes could be far less for demos, and actual games could be downloaded in minutes rather than hours. Perhaps it could spell the end to actually having a game in your hand, with the box and all. Everything could be stored on a Hard Drive. Personally though I don’t think this will happen anytime soon. Broadband speeds still aren’t that great for some countries, like the UK, so it wouldn’t take off as some might hope.
And who says where it stops? It can be applied to almost any area of the gaming world (the what’s-on-the-disc world, at least), such as sounds, levels and so on.
I hope this takes off and developers actually use it. And by use it, I mean increase the space and actually fill it with something. And if you want to play a proper game in a ridiculously small file, I suggest you head here (http://www.theprodukkt.com/). Scroll down a bit and you will see they have a (Beta) game to play. So it is possible folks!
http://www.xboxic.com/news/1741#more-1741
This is definately good news. Hope it actually does pick up.