naughty99 wrote...
Leinadi wrote...
sympathy4sarenreturns wrote...
Something to keep in mind is that it is almost 100% going to be next gen. Things will be capable not capable before.
Translation: Everything regarding the RPG-side will be simplified, but we will get better graphics and physics systems instead.
The PC versions of multiplatform games can already scale up or down graphics, textures, lighting, AA, AF, etc., according to the capabilities of your GPU. I don't think we will necessarily see huge advances in graphics for the PC version merely because the console hardware has a better GPU.
What will likely have a more direct impact for Fallout 4 is the increased RAM and more powerful CPU allowing for more stats and persistent data to be tracked, greater interactivity with the game world, more open levels with more actors onscreen at once. These kinds of features are integrated into the game engine and not easily scalable down for consoles.
The previous Bethesda games track a ton of persistent data about the game world, the status of hundreds of quests, reputation in each region, the player's actions and relationships with thousands of NPCs and hundreds of NPC factions during each playthrough, etc., and they are already up against the limitations of of 256MB RAM in the PS3 hardware. This affects the PC version of the game because there are many features of the engine that cannot be easily scaled up from the console version. Hopefully the next generation of console hardware will free up future BGS sandbox RPGs to allow even more stats and persistent data to be tracked, greater interactivity with the world and more believable simulation and A.I. game systems.
I just have to point out, at most, all of those "stats" you're tracking are contained in 32 bit integers. Giving you around 262,000 "Stats" you can track in a single Megabyte. More if you architecture has a bool as 1 byte, since a bool is what's used for most quest tracking.
A good programmer will use a short instead of an int for "stats" since they won't ever approach values in the billions.
Further, little of that reputation will be tracked individually, if any. Most of it is being tracked through some global pool, even for the area. Especially in a Bethesda game where you'll be called "Hero" in one sentence and in the next the NPC acts like they've never seen you before.
You're right about having more entities on screen at any one time, but as far as interactivity goes, again, it's a Bethesda game. Bethesda doesn't do interactivity, you can't significantly influence anything in a Bethesda game. That would require doing something other than wasting time rendering every fork and spoon, and since Bethesda can't even be bothered implementing the effects of statistics, it's highly unlikely they're going to implement interactivity.
The issue with the PS3 is that it's 256MB
shared memory, which means the GPU and the CPU are in contention for the memory pool. Something that will occur again with the PS4 since from what I've read it's using a SOC design. Meaning the GPU is on the CPU die, and they'll share memory.
Bethesda games do not simulate anything. Simulation involves a base model with finite constraints. In a simulation, for example: You start out with a base pool of 20 cows, the cows can reproduce and increase their numbers, or be slaughtered and disappear.
Bethesda games make things pop out of the air in video-game style. Further, Bethesda games make no effort to try to model NPC behavior, people don't react significantly to anything you've done, primarily because most of it's target market would hate a real RPG mechanic where you can actually lock yourself out of something. Even if they implement a way to make people mad at you, they implement a super-easy way to fix it (See Fallout 3's giving away water for reputation).
All of these things are concious decisions by the Developers. New hardware isn't going to improve any of it, because it's working as designed, and Bethesda has no desire to implement anything that would interfere with their "You're the best at everything and everyone loves you for it" model.
Retour en haut
