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[Dr_Cogent]

One thing I think the PS3 will have going for it, and this is purely technical speculation on my part, is Blu-Ray. Since Blu-Ray needs gobs of bandwidth to support HD video, we should see better loading times on the PS3 since the drive surely has to have higher data transfer rates than the Xbox 360.

Am I going wrong here people? Can anyone prove otherwise?

 

[----]

How much cache and how many RPM's is the Xbox 360 HDD?


I put a 7,200 RPM HDD with an 8MB cache in my Xbox and it made a huge difference to the speed in which games loaded. I've had a lot of trouble with the default Xbox HDD's and I've found that off the shelf drives work a lot better. There's also a huge difference between playing my games off of the HDD and off of a DVD, but that is probably because the DVD speed in the Xbox is so slow.

 

[mrklaw]

One thing I think the PS3 will have going for it, and this is purely technical speculation on my part, is Blu-Ray. Since Blu-Ray needs gobs of bandwidth to support HD video, we should see better loading times on the PS3 since the drive surely has to have higher data transfer rates than the Xbox 360.

Am I going wrong here people? Can anyone prove otherwise?

BR Video has about 3x the transfer rate of DVD video... But the DVD in X360 is 12x faster than DVD video, so its 4x faster than BR video... But the BR drive in PS3 might be 2x (still half the speed of X360), or maybe at a push, 4x (same speed as a 12xDVD)

So maybe initial games on PS3 will actually come on DVD to load quicker. Kinda dumb really.

 

[greenhouse]

I noticed that too, but what I thought was that 452.73meg for a two minute demo is pretty hefty.

 

[Open Source]

Zillions of people put up with the horrendous PS2 load times. Molehill ---> mountain.

 

[dark10x]

Zillions of people put up with the horrendous PS2 load times. Molehill ---> mountain.

What kind of statement is that?

Load times can rear their head on ALL of the current platforms (and often do). PS2 is the slowest, obviously, but there are plenty of titles on the machine that have virtually no loading. No different on XBOX, where you have games ruined by constant loading.

It's not as if there are really any consoles games taking 70 seconds to load either (and I don't expect that on 360, as this is just a demonstration).

You can't just say one platform, on the whole, has terrible loading.

You can't leave out the PC either, as even high-end machines are stuck waiting for a very long time with certain games.

 

[----]

I personally found Knights of the Old Republic's loading times completely unacceptable off of the DVD, but if you put the game on your HDD the game was much more playable. I would say that the difference in loading times drastically improved the quality of my experience with the game. I don't think it's a molehill, I think it's actually a really big deal. This is one of Shigeru Miyamoto's biggest concerns with game development. Also it's not just about how long the load times are but how frequently they occur. In KotOR and a lot of RPGs the loading screens are very frequent. Half the reason why I hated the old Resident Evil series is because that damn door opening loading screen drove me nuts. Seriously I could not play those games.

 

[Fafalada]

It's not as if there are really any consoles games taking 70 seconds to load either

Wanna bet?

You can't leave out the PC either, as even high-end machines are stuck waiting for a very long time with certain games.

Oh PC games tend to have the worst load times of all platforms, but since the recommended solution is always "buy a more expensive machine" it apparently works out.

 

[dark10x]

Also it's not just about how long the load times are but how frequently they occur.

Yes, that's important.

GTA on PS2 had very lengthy startup times, for example, but once you entered the game world, you would rarely find yourself bothered by any loading.

Fable on XBOX, however, hit you with loading screens CONSTANTLY. Each area was extremely tiny and divided by a load screen. Totally ruined the flow of the game.

Wanna bet?

No I don't, as you obviously know of one. What are you thinking of?

 

[Pimpwerx]

What kind of statement is that?

Load times can rear their head on ALL of the current platforms (and often do). PS2 is the slowest, obviously, but there are plenty of titles on the machine that have virtually no loading. No different on XBOX, where you have games ruined by constant loading.

It's not as if there are really any consoles games taking 70 seconds to load either (and I don't expect that on 360, as this is just a demonstration).

You can't just say one platform, on the whole, has terrible loading.

You can't leave out the PC either, as even high-end machines are stuck waiting for a very long time with certain games.

I think he means that load times aren't an issue. Load times have been a problem with the PS1 and PS2, the two most successful systems to date. So, complaints about loading are really insignificant. I've said this in the past too. It's like the HDD bitching is pretty insignificant. People just like to make big issues out of peanuts. PEACE.

 

[Open Source]

If you're stupid about how and when you load (see: Battlefield 2), it can be annoying. If you're smart about it, you can deal with the Xbox 360's load times, just as brave, pioneering developers have dealt with far slower read speeds on other platforms.

 

[Nanta]

a steady 1070kb/s on the download...wow

A steady 1890kb/s for me

 

[Legal Step]

we need more threads like this until november or whatever...

 

[Yusaku]

Hay guys, every PC game I have is on a HD, and has plenty of load times. In fact, my PC games usually have much longer load times than any console game I have. I have to stare at "Now Loading" every 10 minutes in HL2, and BF2 has plenty of loadtimes, as well.

Why do people think console + HD = NO LOADING EVAR!!!

 

[Legal Step]

Is there any gameplay in that thing or just FMV Realtime CG crap?

 

[element]

Why do people think console + HD = NO LOADING EVAR!!!

Because a developer has better control over what data is being processed and can profile to make their game without loading, if they want to do so (time, effort, toolset).

It would be difficult on PC games, because people have different speed RAM, different speed processors, different speed HDDs, and all types of other hardware issues.