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[StaSeb]

We filmed a bit of the Gamescom-Techdemo. Bad cellphone footage here.
It is not much, but explains a little about how the servers are utilized.

 

[FordGTGuy]

I wrote "server time", not "servers", to reflect exactly that.

Microsoft specifically decided their method of payment and what they are offering so they must see it profitable in order to allow for such server time.

It's not "way less". Look for comparisons about the economics of cloud-based infrastructures compared to traditional data centers. You gain flexibility, and don't need to shoulder up-front costs, but once the load is somewhat predictable, running costs are actually the same. Microsoft subsidizes resources for selected developers, just like they subsidize important games in general. But generally speaking, the costs are not becoming non-trivial at all, which is what I was arguing would be necessary for such use cases to become a standard thing.

All I can say about this is that Azure is on its way to becoming Microsoft's most profitable business, it's actually surpassing estimates on performance.

 

[Bitch Pudding]

I have seen adaptive tesselation on an 8 year old console, so I am hard to impress.

Or maybe I just wasn't as impressed by those effects as others. No jaw-dropping over here. Sorry.

 

[Trup1aya]

It's hardly a marketed brand, it's an internal codename. Every project has a codename.

Nah, it's the product they are selling to developers. It's not marketed to consumers like you or I, because we are not the ones who would be purchasing the service.

So, to summarize: you have no idea about the running costs of these servers, yet still you are confident that I am the one talking "ass", and that readily available general knowledge about running costs of servers and services in a cloud-based paradigm somehow does not apply here. Somehow, Microsoft is a business where different rules apply, and somehow they use some unknown black magic that negates these running costs.

No I have no idea what it costs to run these servers... But that's none of you or my concern... You're concern trolling the cost of this services to developers, despite the fact that it has no effect on the end user what so ever... The cost of the servers is something MS needs to work out between themselves and developers... Gamers just need to play the game.

There is no readily available general knowledge on what this service costs to developers . But the fact that the model is different from enterprise is known. I'll find some links later.

Let me remind us how this all started: I claimed that the approach in Crackdown will be an insular one, because it makes no sense to pay for server infrastructure and service maintenance, unless the game absolutely needs it to be sold, or unless you explicitly want to have a tech demo for what you claimed during console release. If servers and services imply non-trivial development and maintenance costs, it doesn't make sense to use them as pure resources of computation for games. You would just scale the game down and save the money. Things like destruction have obviously been done before, so you can implement them at a scale appropriate to the available hardware.

I know what your claim is... And it's based on a bunch of assumptions of cost that aren't based on real costs associated with thunderhead... You literally have NO IDEA what MS would charge a game company to use these servers in a similar fashion.

Yes destruction has been done before, but never on this scale. So if destruction of this scale is key to the design goals of your game, then scaling destruction to the capabilities of the local hardware is not an option... Doing so means that you aren't making the game you want to make.

No one is arguing the development a game dependent on such a service is trivial. But unless you have some numbers... Who the hell are you to say this is prohibitively expensive?

Nothing that you said counters that claim in any way, unless you really want to claim that Microsoft burdens no relevant costs in running an online infrastructure just for that purpose and available to any game at no relevant cost, or that developing games that do these things involves more development effort. That would be an outlandish claim to anyone who has a faint idea about these issues. Indeed, Microsoft is charging second-party developers even for more conservative use of its infrastructure, so I really don't know on which basis you are trying to argue here. Everything you are writing is consistent with someone who has a defensive reflex against anyone who does not drink the marketing kool aid.

Unfortunately there is really no way to effectively counter a baseless claim... Yes we already know MS charges for the use of their servers... No one is suggesting it's free... No one is saying the cost is irrelevant or negligable... But you have no basis to suggest it's prohibitively expensive either...
All we know is that it's available for developers to purchase, and MS has a better understanding of what developers are willing to pay for online services than you or I...

I mean hell, even in the article that YOU posted the dev was quoted as saying

Microsoft priced it so that it's far more affordable than other hosting options.

Their goal here is to get more awesome games, not to nickel-and-dime developers. So because of this, dedicated servers are much more of a realistic option for developers who don't want to make compromises on their player experience, and it opens up a lot more things that we can do in an online game."

We also, know that MS and cloudgine have been developing middleware, which will reduce the costs associated with developing a game designed to work in such an environment.

You just sound like someone who wants to concern troll the tech... And now that it's been demonstrated to be handling it's technical hurdles, you've got to find something else to "worry" about. Unfortunely for you, the cost is not YOUR issue as an end user.

 

[FordGTGuy]

I have seen adaptive tesselation on an 8 year old console, so I am hard to impress.

Or maybe I just wasn't as impressed by those effects as others. No jaw-dropping over here. Sorry.

You get a host console to run the kind of damage shown with 99 players online without dropping a frame and call me back.

 

[leeh]

So you too think that servers and services just pay for themselves with some kind of black magic? These "thousands of servers" didn't just grow on trees to be "at the disposal" of game developers. And every server time used by service A cannot be sold to other customers.

Since they're already making $1BN+ profit on Azure, it's not as much as an issue. When you've got a game like this which is pioneering this technology, you can afford to subsidise running costs due to the potential investment it may gain. This is a drop in the water to their capacity.

 

[geordiemp]

Dude, you obviously haven't played any of the games which use Azure since they have DC selection. They have 2 DC's with sub 30ms for the UK. For example I get 16ms from Europe West. Azure is huge, its a billion dollars division. I feel like people forget that.

And they will prioritise those servers when a million players play crackdown/

Azure is a business for MS and a priority for office etc, remains to be seen if they give that resource a priority to gaming.

We will see.

Dont know what you mean by calling me a dude.

 

[leeh]

And they will prioritise those servers when a million players play crackdown/

Azure is a business for MS and a priority for office etc, remains to be seen if they give that resource a priority to gaming.

We will see

They don't need to prioritise anything, the capacity is sat there waiting to be used. Regarding games: Titanfall, Forza, Halo?

 

[shandy706]

I have seen adaptive tesselation on an 8 year old console, so I am hard to impress.

Or maybe I just wasn't as impressed by those effects as others. No jaw-dropping over here. Sorry.

This comment and your last one about "seeing buildings collapse in other games" proves, or makes one think, you don't know what's going on in this game or what you're talking about.

 

[geordiemp]

They don't need to prioritise anything, the capacity is sat there waiting to be used. Regarding games: Titanfall, Forza, Halo?

They are just normal games with match making and usual, not providing 20 X xb1 power per console using cloud compute or whatever the claim is.

I remain sceptical on how good it would be with many concurrent players, no different to the sceptic in me when watching minecraft holo lens. There is often allot of bluster with the stuff and rightly so.

 

[leeh]

They are just normal games with match making and usual, not providing 20 X xb1 power per console using cloud compute or whatever the claim is

No-one has quoted 20x power. I've done some maths to show how much little the server utilisation would be.

From the tech walkthrough above (awesome video btw!), it brings up more boxes online depending on the load of the session, so if nothings going on, they'll only be 1 server being used.

Working out server utilisation for Crackdown based on 20,000 players:

Concurrent Players = 20,000
Average Players Per Game = 3
Average Servers Used Per Game = 3
Servers MS have as of 2013 = 1,000,000 (Probably gone up 30-70% since 2013)
Average VM's/Containers on each server = 4 (This is probably really low, for example I used to have hundreds of containers on a single host)

Servers used = (20000/3) * 3 = 20,000
Percentage of Servers Utilised = 20,000/(1,000,000 * 4) = %0.5

See, it's practically nothing and that's some high concurrent players & server averages.

 

[Bitch Pudding]

This comment and your last one about "seeing buildings collapse in other games" proves, or makes one think, you don't know what's going on in this game or what you're talking about.

I just believe what I see. I saw buildungs collapsing at a constant frame rate and I have seen that before - on much older consoles. Hence, this "prooves" (!) nothing for me. I'll eat crow soon enough if DF or someone else says I am wrong, based on some technical reviews. But until then it remains PR talk. No more, no less.

 

[Javin98]

This again?

This point of view states that, for some reason between now and Retail, they might stop using cloud computing for destruction.

From what I can tell it seems it was bumped because while a lot of Microsoft's marketing about the cloud before the One hit still looks to be mostly bullshit some people were wrong when they said that the cloud will do nothing. Sure it still looks like Microsoft over-promised, but a few things they mentioned(based on footage of a game still in development) are being delivered so eat that crow ye of little faith.

I'm sorry I didn't read the whole thread, but did anyone say that the cloud will do nothing? I believe that there will be benefits using the cloud, but I assumed that we were referring to Microsoft's ridiculous statements like "If you factor in da power of da cloud, the XB1 is the strongest console" and "With the cloud, the XB1 is 3 times as powerful" as bullshit marketing and they are. I was referring to those statements as bullshit marketing. Still, I don't think this was worthy of a bump.

 

[Trup1aya]

I just believe what I see. I saw buildungs collapsing at a constant frame rate and I have seen that before - on much older consoles. Hence, this "prooves" (!) nothing for me. I'll eat crow soon enough if DF or someone else says I am wrong, based on some technical reviews. But until then it remains PR talk. No more, no less.

You've never seen building collapsing in this manner, at this scale, in realtime on any console. Never...Let alone with a constant frame rate...

If I'm wrong, what game has done this?

and why do you need DF to tell you what's technically impressive... You can't look at that gif and recognize that it hasn't been done before in realtime without someone spelling it out for you?

 

[Alx]

We filmed a bit of the Gamescom-Techdemo. Bad cellphone footage here.
It is not much, but explains a little about how the servers are utilized.

Thanks, that was interesting.

 

[justgames7604]

I just believe what I see. I saw buildungs collapsing at a constant frame rate and I have seen that before - on much older consoles. Hence, this "prooves" (!) nothing for me. I'll eat crow soon enough if DF or someone else says I am wrong, based on some technical reviews. But until then it remains PR talk. No more, no less.

I've splashed water on my face how is that any different than a tsunami?

 

[c0de]

I just believe what I see.

You are the customer every company wants!

 

[FZZ]

I still stand by my PS5 comment

 

[Briarios]

You've never seen building collapsing in this manner, at this scale, in realtime on any console. Never...Let alone with a constant frame rate...

If I'm wrong, what game has done this?

and why do you need DF to tell you what's technically impressive... You can't look at that gif and recognize that it hasn't been done before in realtime without someone spelling it out for you?

To be fair, we still haven't seen it ... Pre-alpha demo build is great, but let's see how it runs when it's actually in the game. We've all been burned so many times by companies showing one thing and delivering something else. Judgement on how well this works needs to be withheld until people have the games in their hands and are playing it.

 

[driver116]

You've never seen building collapsing in this manner, at this scale, in realtime on any console. Never...Let alone with a constant frame rate...

If I'm wrong, what game has done this?

and why do you need DF to tell you what's technically impressive... You can't look at that gif and recognize that it hasn't been done before in realtime without someone spelling it out for you?

It fairly simple building geometry and cel-shading. This type of destruction was actually done years-ago (geo-mod).

 

[justgames7604]

It fairly simple building geometry and cel-shading. This type of destruction was actually done years-ago (geo-mod).

Not sure if serious, like cool it's on a much smaller scale. It has 1/1000 of the pieces at best and none of the pieces deform. Also a large amount is pre-calculated

 

[driver116]

Not sure if serious, like cool it's on a much smaller scale. It has 1/1000 of the pieces at best and none of the pieces deform. Also a large amount is pre-calculated

I thought he meant the destruction in general. Of course this will be a step up on scale, with the stronger GPU and more RAM. But then again, the graphics are fairly simple too - making it more manageable to hold a steady frame rate.

 

[gamechanger87]

Pick the orb up off the floor?

They float. That's kind of the point

 

[Cthulhu_Steev]

Since they're already making $1BN+ profit on Azure, it's not as much as an issue. When you've got a game like this which is pioneering this technology, you can afford to subsidise running costs due to the potential investment it may gain. This is a drop in the water to their capacity.

MS cheaped-out on the local silicon, so why do you think they're going to pull out the unlimited warchest to supply all users with this extra compute at zero cost to the players?

 

[leeh]

MS cheaped-out on the local silicon, so why do you think they're going to pull out the unlimited warchest to supply all users with this extra compute at zero cost to the players?

I don't think investing 3 Billion for a chip which had the highest amount of transistors in a single chip at the time is cheaping out. They just fell unlucky, and had the wrong requirements from the business (media, TV etc).

 

[Kosma]

 

[Noobcraft]

Baked destruction. The building and all the pieces fall into the same places every time. It's not even close.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 had better destruction than BF4 lol.

 

[leeh]

BF gif

Pre-calculated and scripted. Crackdown is essentially the same thing, but the destruction is worked out dynamically by a series of servers rather than following a script built into the game.

GPU's can draw that on the screen no problem, it's the calculation of the physics on the CPU which would exceed the frame rendering time astronomically.

 

[Shia_Labeouf]

Battlefield gif

But isn't that a set piece? I think the point being made is that you can do it to pretty much anything.

 

[justgames7604]

I thought he meant the destruction in general. Of course this will be a step up on scale, with the stronger GPU and more RAM. But then again, the graphics are fairly simple too - making it more manageable to hold a steady frame rate.

Of course that gpu bump allowing for physics calcs to go from under a 100 pieces that don't deform to tens of thousands of pieces complete with deformation, particle effects much larger and also a clear step up in visuals.

Also allows for pre-scripted destruction to change into dynamically calculated destruction.

 

[Kosma]

I know, I know.

But for most people it doesn't matter if it's real time or baked in, they look and say "ooh pretty".

Now if there were a lot of in-game examples of the cloud doing shit we wouldn't have to have this discussion, but fact is, two years in, it's all been PR talk and smoke and mirrors.

 

[gamechanger87]

It fairly simple building geometry and cel-shading. This type of destruction was actually done years-ago (geo-mod).

It's scripted destruction with prebaked animations. I think a lot of people really don't understand what crackdown is doing. They are comparing it to games with prebaked animations and destruction.

A lot of you should really look into what is being done and why it's complex before you post again.

 

[Alx]

I know, I know.

But for most people it doesn't matter if it's real time or baked in, they look and say "ooh pretty".

Now if there were a lot of in-game examples of the cloud doing shit we wouldn't have to have this discussion, but fact is, two years in, it's all been PR talk and smoke and mirrors.

Destruction is more than a visual effect though, if you want to trigger buildings collapsing on each other for example, you need a real physics simulation, not a pre-baked animation. So that the building will fall in a different direction depending on which part of it you destroy first.

 

[Klart]

SEGA blue skies! No cloud in sight!

 

[shinnn]

We filmed a bit of the Gamescom-Techdemo. Bad cellphone footage here.
It is not much, but explains a little about how the servers are utilized.

WOW

 

[gamechanger87]

We filmed a bit of the Gamescom-Techdemo. Bad cellphone footage here.
It is not much, but explains a little about how the servers are utilized.

Great stuff. Wish there was more.

 

[jem0208]

I know, I know.

But for most people it doesn't matter if it's real time or baked in, they look and say "ooh pretty".

Now if there were a lot of in-game examples of the cloud doing shit we wouldn't have to have this discussion, but fact is, two years in, it's all been PR talk and smoke and mirrors.

It's not purely a visual effect in Crackdown though.

 

[Dabanton]

We filmed a bit of the Gamescom-Techdemo. Bad cellphone footage here.
It is not much, but explains a little about how the servers are utilized.

Saw this posted in another thread.

Very interesting stuff. Would love to see what a truck or car thrown into one of those buildings would do.

 

[gamechanger87]

Much longer version. Everyone saying this can't be done should take a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFWIpAPvF-Q&feature=youtu.be

 

[FordGTGuy]

They are just normal games with match making and usual, not providing 20 X xb1 power per console using cloud compute or whatever the claim is.

I remain sceptical on how good it would be with many concurrent players, no different to the sceptic in me when watching minecraft holo lens. There is often allot of bluster with the stuff and rightly so.

It's not 20x per console, it's 20x the power of a Xbox One available per session in server computational power.

This shows a complete misunderstanding of the discussion and the topic.

That's a pre-scripted even that happens the same way every time, no matter how many times you do it, it will create the same amount of smoke with the same amount of particles.

There is no real-time physics modeling being done so it's a much lower cost of just rendering the particles and smoke.

In Crackdown you have to maintain a solid framerate while at random 99 people could be destroying 99 unique buildings in the same session.

 

[Rembrandt]

Incredibly, you appear to have no problem remembering and accessing quotes from ask those posters who have expressed doubts about the claims MS have made about the cloud.

It's incredible I have access to the first page of this thread?

This thread is embarrassing.

Much longer version. Everyone saying this can't be done should take a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFWIpAPvF-Q&feature=youtu.be

Insane.

 

[gamechanger87]

MS cheaped-out on the local silicon, so why do you think they're going to pull out the unlimited warchest to supply all users with this extra compute at zero cost to the players?

Local silicon could never do this type of work and be in an acceptable price point. Watch the video I just posted and get back to us.

 

[nekkid]

I knew someone would be naïve enough to post this as an example. It's entirely scripted, and the collapsed geometry is always exactly the same. How, in any way, shape or form is this comparable to the Crackdown demo?

 

[FacelessSamurai]

Crackdown is definitely proving that the cloud is real, and when you look at the reveal video or that cellphone footage that was posted with all the explanations, I mean, I just don't know how people can say it's isn't real or that It's all smokes and mirrors. I've yet to see something else on this scale, really impressive stuff!

 

[StudioTan]

We filmed a bit of the Gamescom-Techdemo. Bad cellphone footage here.
It is not much, but explains a little about how the servers are utilized.

This is brilliant stuff. He even shows how each building is being calculated by a different server and as the pieces start to fall into a zone being calculated by a different server they move their calculations over to the server.

It also shows one of the ways they deal with latency as some initial calculations are done locally and then get assistance from the cloud as they surpass the ability of the local machine.

Great stuff.

 

[WoolyNinja]

Its funny but is it just me or did the part that actually says Microsoft Cloud get cut from this video? https://youtu.be/VYX0EuIm_Nc

At the 14:25 mark

 

[fin]

Much longer version. Everyone saying this can't be done should take a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFWIpAPvF-Q&feature=youtu.be

BOOM.

Can't wait till this tech is common in games. Must be a real bitch to realistically build all those buildings though. Love to see Battlefield or maybe even a new Black using this tech.

Wonder what the cloud will be used for next? Any kind of number crunching or compute cycles, looks like it's really good for Physics. Off-loading AI of 1000s of agents should also be possible too. Halo Wars 2 with 1000s of characters please...

 

[Trup1aya]

Lol so your just gonna post a clip from a scripted sequence, when this whole discussion is about physics calculations in real-time...

Man this site is fucking HILARIOUS at times...

I know, I know.

But for most people it doesn't matter if it's real time or baked in, they look and say "ooh pretty".

Now if there were a lot of in-game examples of the cloud doing shit we wouldn't have to have this discussion, but fact is, two years in, it's all been PR talk and smoke and mirrors.

The problem is, there are real-time examples in this very thread, and people are still claiming its smoke and mirrors...

I mean, damn what more do you need?

 

[shinnn]

 

[driver116]

It's scripted destruction with prebaked animations. I think a lot of people really don't understand what crackdown is doing. They are comparing it to games with prebaked animations and destruction.

A lot of you should really look into what is being done and why it's complex before you post again.

What is? I don't see any difference between this and what Guerrilla did, except for the scale and debris count. Hence, what I said in the follow up post you missed.