Originally posted by Peach
There is still room for graphics to improve, as nice as they are now. Photorealism still has yet to be reached.However, since when is graphics the only improvement that can be made?
what other improvements can be made?
read speed should be improved, but even though right now you got more games running from the harddrive (which obviously improves speed a bit) it still isn't instantaneous, and sometimes have problem with textures and what-not loading in the background... and from what I heard, new HDDs while a bit faster, still don't offer that much of a difference.
besides graphics which really isn't all noticeable yet, so it's moot point, the only difference/improvements is motion control/cameras which is happening right now with current hardware... and even that still feels like a gimmick.
I really don't see the need for a new gen of console gaming (maybe better 720p Wii graphics). The only improvement they have is better graphics.
Yeah, besides graphics, all console manufacturers should focus on the read speed.
Games which take a huge chunk of space tend to load slower.. I expect the next-gen consoles to have improved read speeds.
It wouldn't hurt to add some sort of hydraulic cooling to prevent overheating problems, like those implemented in some PC hardware.
And Micro$oft should make a better built console... for the love of Zeus, please NO MORE RRoDs!
I don't really care about the controller, since I prefer it the way it is, none of these motion-thingamajinx.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
The biggest thing to eliminate in games and all interfaces, to my mind, is ANY waiting. Download times, disc read times, lag... all of these things need to go.One of the most irritating things I find about PCs is that as hard drives and memory gets faster, the programmes grow in relative complexity so they never seem to egt faster at all. As for consoles, games on optical discs now read SLOWER thn games were loading ten or fifteen years ago- and now they are messing around with hard drive installations and tyhey are still slow! Gaaaah!
I mean, I started gaming on an Atari 2600 and the games loaded close to instantaneously (though those cartridges were insanely prciey at the time, considering how much game you got out of them. My brother outlayed what would today be more than a hundred dollars on a game he finished in 30 minutes), and almost immediately after that- in the Spectrum/Commodore game days- we regressed back to games taking up to five minutes to load, and sometimes not even being done then in multiload games. I hated it then and I would never have believed that we would still not be back to instant speed almost three decades on.
I do agree that the major thing to push is load times but it's unrealistic to think that major release games can have instantlous load times.
I don't think so. DS games already load in very short times and that's outdated technology. It is just a matter of the ratio of the technology to the data and as technology gets more powerful and data becomes more efficient, this should become very possible.
It's also a matter of effort. One of the reasons for the N64 staying with cartridges is because Miyamoto loathes waiting times, and Nintendo refused to go optical until they could minimise the load times.
And indeed, the Gamecube and Wii are much faster loaders, relative to the data involved, than their rivals. It's still too long, but they are specifically making an effort.
If the game is coming from DVD's, then I think they're will always be load times. They only thing that I could think of to stop load times is if developers mask them somehow.
If from an HDD, then I could see load times being significantly reduced but it would still have them. Even with server's with SCSI HDD's, there is still some loading involved.
I have a very fast PC, so waiting/loading times are usually minimal(except for installation, of course).
I don't really mind waiting all that much anyway. For example, a DotA game may take up to several minutes to set up and get going, but I don't mind it all since I'm usually looking at some quality time ahead.
Waiting is the enemy of good entertainment. Everything can be improved by being faster, and not even the fastest PC can get close to the point where you can actually call loading times 'minimal'.
They are most certainly the part of computing that has shown the least improvement in the last two decades.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Waiting is the enemy of good entertainment. Everything can be improved by being faster, and not even the fastest PC can get close to the point where you can actually call loading times 'minimal'.They are most certainly the part of computing that has shown the least improvement in the last two decades.
For example, loading screens in RE5 on my PC take no longer than 2 seconds. If that's not minimal then I don't know what the hell is.
Another example, if a game doesn't have bullshit unskippable intro/splash screens(*cough*EA*cough*), it usually takes about 30 seconds from clicking the shortcut to playing the game.
Out of interest and boredom, I've timed how long it takes for some of my games to start up(from clicking the shortcut icon to starting a gaming session):
HoMM 3 — 7 seconds
GalCiv 2 — 18 seconds
Sins of a Solar Empire — 41 seconds
Warcraft 3 — 25 seconds(Connecting to b.net would obviously take longer, but that is to be expected)
Resident Evil 5 — 40 seconds
Devil May Cry 4 — 37 seconds
SupCom: Forged Alliance — 26 seconds
Demigod — 54 seconds
Mass Effect — 55 seconds (approx. 20 seconds wasted on unskippable logos. Get bent, EA, get bent)
Star Wars: Empire at War — 32 seconds(approx. 10 seconds wasted on an unskippable logo)
HoMM 5 — 35 seconds
Street Fighter 4 — 35 seconds
Civ 4 — 45 seconds
World of Warcraft — 26 seconds(depends on the state of the server and your connection. Can vary wildly, especially when server queues are involved).
I recorded the loading times with a chronometer(milliseconds are rounded up). Some of these games load faster than it takes for me to have a good yawn, scratch my balls and have a stretch. I fully expect to have even faster loading times with Windows 7, since Vista isn't exactly known for its speed.
While there's obviously room for improvement, loading times would be at the very bottom of my "What's Wrong With Today's Video Games" list.
30 seconds is still quite a while compared to one or two seconds. I am amazed you are quoting load times of over half a minute for some games and you consider that acceptable. And the load times often continue inside the game itself, so we cannot just count the starting loading time. RTS and FPS games tend to have elongated level load times. You've also included a lot of pretty old games on your list. 25 seconds for Warcraft III, are you kidding? For a game that old? You can get Guild Wars running in half thst time if you type your password in quickly- one of the best things about GW is how fast fast it loads and how fast it quits (which is another matter- a number of PC games take an irritatingly long time to turn off, let alone on).
And meanwhile, what proportion of people have access to the fastest PCs anyway? Very few. The majority of people are having to deal with much longer times than that.
Fine if you don't think it is a problem... but that's not an opinion I have any respect for as it is so clearly a technological issue that a. people are trying to get to grips with and b. still aren't. Gaming in general is still slow and inefficient. Very disappointing to find people accepting of that. Once you experience games loading exceptionally quickly- like running something like GW or playing on a DS- the comparison to the slow and bloated games on other systems becomes very clear. People should never be tolerant of mediocrity, which is what we have.
Load times are just not that important for me. Anything under a minute to start the game is fine for me. Quickloading a save is the only time I do care and 15 seconds for that is perfectly fine for me.
On a side note, I would think console load times would be less than PC's (unless they have SSD or a Raptor) because the system is much more streamlined and generally serves a single purpose of playing games while PC HDD's are generally much more bigger, usually heavily fragmentated and have much more programs and resource heavy OS.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
30 seconds is still quite a while compared to one or two seconds. I am amazed you are quoting load times of over half a minute for some games and you consider that acceptable. And the load times often continue inside the game itself, so we cannot just count the starting loading time. RTS and FPS games tend to have elongated level load times. You've also included a lot of pretty old games on your list. 25 seconds for Warcraft III, are you kidding? For a game that old? You can get Guild Wars running in half thst time if you type your password in quickly- one of the best things about GW is how fast fast it loads and how fast it quits (which is another matter- a number of PC games take an irritatingly long time to turn off, let alone on).And meanwhile, what proportion of people have access to the fastest PCs anyway? Very few. The majority of people are having to deal with much longer times than that.
Fine if you don't think it is a problem... but that's not an opinion I have any respect for as it is so clearly a technological issue that a. people are trying to get to grips with and b. still aren't. Gaming in general is still slow and inefficient. Very disappointing to find people accepting of that. Once you experience games loading exceptionally quickly- like running something like GW or playing on a DS- the comparison to the slow and bloated games on other systems becomes very clear. People should never be tolerant of mediocrity, which is what we have.
I'm amazed how you find that unacceptable, to be perfectly honest. The bulk of the loading time is the initial start-up time, after that loading times in the game itself are usually trivial. How long does it take for a turn to rotate in Civ4, HoMM3, or GalCiv 2? Well... nope, can't even hit my chronometer this fast. Likely under half a second. Loading screen in RE5? 1.53 seconds. Damn, I almost grew old there! Phew!
As I said earlier, HoMM 3 starts in 7 seconds, but I don't find games that take longer to start to be somehow unacceptable after that. Oh sure, they could really do away with those unskippable logo flashes, but that's still a problem so trivial that calling it trivial is offense to all things trivial.
To be frank, I'm disappointed by some things too. Like grown people having patience of a child. This 'respect' thing goes both ways.
I don't think that not liking ridiculous load times is having the 'patience of a child'.
For a game that old? You can get Guild Wars running in half thst time if you type your password in quickly- one of the best things about GW is how fast fast it loads and how fast it quits (which is another matter- a number of PC games take an irritatingly long time to turn off, let alone on).
Hee, I just tried this. Even with my spotty wireless connection and long password that generally takes two attempts to type in correctly, I was still in the game about 10 seconds after clicking the icon.
Originally posted by Smasandian
I don't have a problem with loading. My problems with games are bugs and uneven difficulty.With the advanced SSD's coming out, loading times should decrease. But with more and more advanced graphics, bigger games, I think loading times will always happen.
QFT
Bugs and uneven difficulty make for a much bigger problem than loading times IMO. I'd take a 10-25 seconds wait to a game-killer bug, or atrocious level design or control mechanics
though continuous loading time in between game (such as loading a room or a level) is unacceptable, and it shows poor handling by developers