It makes me wonder just how much stuff they cut but we don't know about. We know about osme of the stuff because it was pulled after being announced
- Youtube uploads
- Headtracking was only in limited form
Then you have all the weather effects that were impacted heavily by the PS3's limitations. I certainly wonder if something like the Course Maker was limited due to the PS3's ram issues. We know that the game was supposed to have point to point races, but those were dropped without explanation.
Well, weather effects at the first place - and by that I don't mean actual implementation on per-track basis, but I think we both think about on-track wet-areas, progressive drying of racing line, etc (as in F1 Codemasters games for instance).
Also this. Suzuka is "Open Field Track" - I see Nurb and LeMans as "Tunnel Tracks" for instance - where you actually have all in-race dynamics and real-time assets within the same area (bridge section on Suzuka for instance) in the same time (on the "Tunnel" tracks there is no real-time *load* of assets and dynamics, things can be very *scaled* during actual gameplay).
So, I think how RAM was a great obstacle to have day/night dynamics on many of tracks, because they're not "Tunnel Tracks". Maybe I am not easy to understand, but
this iRacing video of Daytona Night Race explains better: Daytona Road is big "Open Field Track" where you can *see* all on-track assets and dynamics in the real-time during your play. I think load on RAM is drastic for such occasions, especially if day/night change would occur on such "open" field.
The "moving clouds" footage for the NSX video provides great optimism towards possible next-gen GT engine. If the current engine delivered 60fps/1240x1080p in real-time with everything that is going on during the race - 16 cars on track with scalable physics engine (up to 360Hz) and full-presence (no CPU "shadowing") of 15+1 vehicle AI, real-time HDR, real-time effects of flames and brakes, real-time particle effects (including progressive dirt accumulation on vehicles), real-time smoke, daytime/weather engine with full-HDR properties, real-time ambiance lighting with lens-flaring for both vehicles and surroundings, animated rain with physics properties, animated drivers, movable objects in cockpits, progressively animated vehicles (aerodynamic parts, suspensions and real-time crumble damage, wipers and aerodynamically influenced parts such as antennas, visible progressive dirt accumulation/removal on tyres), on-tracks physics (side-track objects with own physical properties, real-time wind simulation, real-time skid marks..), pit-crew AI, real-time vehicle properties (mechanical damage, tyre and fuel), real-time track properties that influence vehicles and weather-engine (temperature, air humidity, track temperature, surface humidity..), real-time weather properties with own sub-engine (rain changes into light snow for instance on SSR7 track or clear weather changes to light snow and to blizzard on Chamonix..), ambiance effects (fireworks, etc.), real-time background saving of all race-data, parallel sub-engine for FFB HID devices, 7.1 PCM audio with real-time point-to-object spatiality, etc.) - and all that with 256+256 of RAM - I think we can safely guess how 3GB of GDDR5 (as leaks are reporting) will result with crazy complexity of dynamics.
There's a reason why Polyphony has skipped their second game on PS3.
