It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFXI

[WishMaster3K]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFXI

Zap, i tried outspamming BRP once, just. . . don't try. He's a forum Troll Master. You'll just hurt yourself. Join him in his spammage, but don't take his sarcasm too seriously. I mean, the man doesn't even know what Yaoi is, How can you take someone like that seriously!?

[Macht]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

Zaptruder, PS3's scalability is due purely to the CBE (Cell Broadband Engine). The CBE is nothing like the Processors you find in XBox 360. It's extreemly flexible because no matter what device or system the CBE is on every SPE is programmable to assign it tasks and functions to carry out this includes handling graphics.

Because of this the PS3s limit for graphics is how many SPEs it can get ahold of from other systems to use as well as it's own. So a device that's setup to do nothing but provide more SPEs for a device like the PS3 to use would basically be increasing it's capabilities sound and graphic wise as well. This scalability is not PS3 specific but specific to the CBE itself, so the view I'm taking is along the areas that PS3 sites do not particulary focus on.

The CBE in the PS3 basically won't be any different then a CBE in a TV or any computers that come out with it (With the exception of how many SPEs each CBE can have going from 2 up to I think it was 38 in a single device). The SPEs allow for them to be programmed to handled various graphic aspects, 1 SPE could handle TnL while another handles the models state (injured, exhausted, energetic, etc..). With each SPE the system can get ahold of the more details to graphics it can put in, this means graphic wise the PS3 is scalable.

It is also scalable because nearly everything to how the CBE works is all programmed, so any graphic limitations are either low number of SPEs that the PS3 can access or limitations to the programming itself. Limitations to the hardware are far less in the PS3 then the XBox has.

[Manatra]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

Zaptruder, PS3's scalability is due purely to the CBE (Cell Broadband Engine). The CBE is nothing like the Processors you find in XBox 360. It's extreemly flexible because no matter what device or system the CBE is on every SPE is programmable to assign it tasks and functions to carry out this includes handling graphics.

Because of this the PS3s limit for graphics is how many SPEs it can get ahold of from other systems to use as well as it's own. So a device that's setup to do nothing but provide more SPEs for a device like the PS3 to use would basically be increasing it's capabilities sound and graphic wise as well. This scalability is not PS3 specific but specific to the CBE itself, so the view I'm taking is along the areas that PS3 sites do not particulary focus on.

The CBE in the PS3 basically won't be any different then a CBE in a TV or any computers that come out with it (With the exception of how many SPEs each CBE can have going from 2 up to I think it was 38 in a single device). The SPEs allow for them to be programmed to handled various graphic aspects, 1 SPE could handle TnL while another handles the models state (injured, exhausted, energetic, etc..). With each SPE the system can get ahold of the more details to graphics it can put in, this means graphic wise the PS3 is scalable.

It is also scalable because nearly everything to how the CBE works is all programmed, so any graphic limitations are either low number of SPEs that the PS3 can access or limitations to the programming itself. Limitations to the hardware are far less in the PS3 then the XBox has.

The amount of Cell Processors (Cores, CBE, whatever you want to call them) that come inside the PS3 is what will be used for computing graphics in the PS3 from now until the end of time provided there isn't a huge breakthrough in how much data can be transferred and the speed at which it can be transferred. So in short, you cannot just attach a device to the PS3 and have the PS3 suddenly be able to offload physics calculations to that device... maybe turn the device into a modem or something, but nothing that will actually impact the graphics of the PS3 due to bandwidth and speed limitations.

As well what will be limiting the graphics on the PS3 is that it uses a videocard (the RSX by nVidia) just like every other console, and that is what's going to limit its graphics more than anything considering the graphics card is not that much far ahead of what we currently have available on PCs (at the time of its release, the RSX will probably be about 6-12 months ahead of PC video cards).

So no, the graphics in the PS3 are not scalable, short of how efficient the game developers can make their graphics engines.

[Macht]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

Actually that is part of the CBEs design, it's Rambus Flex I/O allows it to off load data to be processed to other devices that also have a CBE on the network. This means that the PS3s initial 7 SPEs is not it's limit, if you get a laptop with a CBE and with say 24 SPEs the PS3 can use those extra 24 SPEs through the network to do the phisical calculations for it (Provided that the program tells the CBEs to work this way).

In the CBEs world it's limitations are only that of the programmers in many cases. Otherwise you can create and develope various abilities for the graphics end and program the SPEs to carry out what's needed in the calculations.

[Manatra]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

Actually that is part of the CBEs design, it's Rambus Flex I/O allows it to off load data to be processed to other devices that also have a CBE on the network. This means that the PS3s initial 7 SPEs is not it's limit, if you get a laptop with a CBE and with say 24 SPEs the PS3 can use those extra 24 SPEs through the network to do the phisical calculations for it (Provided that the program tells the CBEs to work this way).

In the CBEs world it's limitations are only that of the programmers in many cases. Otherwise you can create and develope various abilities for the graphics end and program the SPEs to carry out what's needed in the calculations.

No, it's limitations are the wires that transmit the data. If you get a wire than can transfer 20 gigabytes a second (the RSX's maximum theoretical bandwidth), then I'll say it may be possible to scale the PS3s graphics through exterior devices.

Except, not only do you need the bandwidth, you need the latency. These devices would be connected to the PS3 externally. Unlike the devices on the motherboard which are located inches from the CPUs, these devices would be located feet away, vastly increasing the time it takes for information to be delivered/received.

And even if you managed to somehow solve the latency and bandwidth issues and were able to add Cell Processors to the PS3, it would not do much, you'd start hitting bottlenecks in other places quite quickly (especially with the videocard, as I said, the RSX is not as far ahead of the current generation of videocards as Sony wants people to think).

[Macht]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

Heh, well anyway instead of continue the debate with the CBE. The point of the original discussion was that the XBox 360 will be the one with the lower GPU weather or not that the PS3 with the CBE technology is scalable.

If you want to continue the debate with the CBE I'll need more time to re-read info again so I'm not lying about it. I can see it's direction venturing to a location I don't remember to much about at the moment I'll have to go reading through those damn like 68-70 pages of information on it again

The pain about it is that when it comes to describing specifics on how they are going to have multiple chips link with eacher via network. They mention bits about the Flex I/O doing it and having a theoretical 76.8GB/s (6 "lanes" 12.8 GB/s outbound and 11 GB/s inbound). I'll re-read it again see if I'm not just forgetting something.

[Aeni]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFXI

The only hitch to this is I feel they may just scrap the graphical update and make another FF MMO instead.

http://www.playonline.com/fe/

It is coming out I believe, but not sure as public beta or an official release. 2/23/2006 is the pegged date but that could change before long.

Anyway, I feel FFXI will continue to evolve with every new expansion. I believe Arhat will be the major expansion, almost a re-release of the game, due to the new job classes as well as additional zones and more mission (and further expanding the central storyline) If the level cap is raised, then that might mean big changes to all current job classes, because as we all know, there was much controversy about raising the level cap and alienating job classes and removing their uniqueness.

Only time will tell just how much FFXI will be evolving, but for now, I think anyone who is believing that the evolution will take a major step forward with the Xbox 360 should have their head examined.

[Zaptruder]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFXI

Macht, manatra pretty much said what I didn't articulate.

To further add; the extremely quick updates required in graphical changes, the relatively large bandwidth it requires to transport around even just screenbuffers (the actual final rendered image in a 2D picture form (like jpeg or bmp, etc) in 720P resoultion can be taxing for most home networks, much more so with internet broadband networks.
It's really sitting on the knife's edge of practical feasibility... and I think... given the additional difficulty in coding something like that (transporting data and calculations over network, that requires very little latency) versus how many are likely to benefit from it, my gut says, its unlikely that we'll ever see the PS3 graphics benefit from the scalability of the CBE.
That said though, the PS3 does have a pretty decent graphics processor to go along with the CELL chip; so most of the actual graphics work can/will be handled by that, despite the CELL's ability to also handle graphics (not necessarily its strengths tho).

In reality, the PS3 will benefit markedly in how the CELL and RSX (the graphics chip) interact with each other, compared to the X360. It'll basically allow each other to share data from the memory transperantly... I mean, for example, the CELL who's strengths resides in AI and physics calculations can take the verticies that comprise a body of water, and apply calculations to them, while the RSX can take that updated data and then render the actual apperance of the water.
The point is then that you can get bodies in the water been accurately moved around in accordance with the appearance of the water, where as previously without that kind of interaction, the GPU might have tried to approximate a water motion, relatively inaccurately, while the CPU ran a 'simpler' (in terms of amount of items it was calculating on) simulation on the actual objects themselves and moved the items in accordance with that simulation.

Probably not the best example... but yeah, PS3 unlikely to have scalable graphics, but it'll have very kickass graphics nonetheless, that advance the motion and animation of those graphics in step with the actual appearance of the graphics themselves...

[TheGrandMom]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFXI

No I said another FF MMO. Fantasy Earth isn't FF.

[Manatra]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

Anyway, I feel FFXI will continue to evolve with every new expansion. I believe Arhat will be the major expansion,

That was said about CoP Turns out it was a mission pack.

Only time will tell just how much FFXI will be evolving, but for now, I think anyone who is believing that the evolution will take a major step forward with the Xbox 360 should have their head examined.

This will probably be the last expansion for FFXI due to the hard drive space available on the PS2 (I forget how much this is, but isn't it like 12 GB?), AND the hard drive space available on the Xbox360.

They have said they are developing a new Final Fantasy MMORPG, so expect to see major announcements related to that after the next expansion.

[Ockman]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

This will probably be the last expansion for FFXI due to the hard drive space available on the PS2 (I forget how much this is, but isn't it like 12 GB?), AND the hard drive space available on the Xbox360.

I don't wanna think about that right now. But as far as PS2 hard drive space goes, it's a 40 gig hard drive, and it's the only game that using the hard drive entirely in the states, so I wouldn't worry about running out of space with that.

About xbox 360, the hard drive has about 12gb free when you open the system. According to the horrid IGN article, the guy does have 1 good bit of information, and says that the ffxi beta takes about 5 (or was it 6?)gb of space. Having seen the packaging of the japanese ffxi 360 beta myself, I know that the zilart and promathia are infact included in the beta. So it's likely that, the 5-6gb mentioned covers the entire game up to this point! Another expansion couldn't be more than 1-2gb, so there's still room for more beyond TOAU, for expansions, even on the xbox 360.

[Manatra]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

I don't wanna think about that right now. But as far as PS2 hard drive space goes, it's a 40 gig hard drive, and it's the only game that using the hard drive entirely in the states, so I wouldn't worry about running out of space with that.

About xbox 360, the hard drive has about 12gb free when you open the system. According to the horrid IGN article, the guy does have 1 good bit of information, and says that the ffxi beta takes about 5 (or was it 6?)gb of space. Having seen the packaging of the japanese ffxi 360 beta myself, I know that the zilart and promathia are infact included in the beta. So it's likely that, the 5-6gb mentioned covers the entire game up to this point! Another expansion couldn't be more than 1-2gb, so there's still room for more beyond TOAU, for expansions, even on the xbox 360.

Promathia was about 3 GB. FFXI with RoZ and CoP takes just over 6.5 GB (just need to check your Squaresoft folder that FFXI is installed in for the size, since they copy the same stuff for PS2, PC, and will for the 360). So TOAU will probably be 3GB as well... there might be room for more, but I don't think it would be enough for an expansion as Squaresoft has to leave some room for other stuff :p

[Zaptruder]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFXI

Here's what the developer has to say about X360...

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pa...=2&cId=3145765

1UP: Hmm, now I wonder what the new avatar will be. I only recently got Fenrir, myself. Can you explain a little bit about how the 360 version will work with Xbox Live? You guys recently clarified that gamers will only need to have Xbox Live Silver (and not XBL Gold, which you have to pay for) in order to play FFXI on 360, but what is the interface like? Do you still have to navigate past XBL in order to get to PlayOnline?

HT: For the Xbox 360, it requires the game disc. When you put in the FFXI disc, turn on the power, it starts up and the first thing you see is the PlayOnline viewer. And if you want to switch to Xbox Live, there's a button on the controller that allows you to jump to it, but if you're still at the PlayOnline point you can begin the game. To clarify, you do install the game to the Hard Drive, like every other version of XI, but the Xbox 360 requires that you have the disc actually in the system as part of the certification process, probably for piracy reasons.

1UP: Interesting. Lastly, what do you think of the Xbox 360 hardware? Does it let you do things unique to the 360 version, or will the game always be designed around the lowest common denominator, e.g. the PS2 version?

HT: I love the Xbox 360 because it does what you can only do with a computer for a lot more money, at least on XI. You're getting at whether you have to keep the coding for the lowest common denominator for PS2. What I prefer to think of as more important phrasing is that we are not using the 360 to its full potential, and what we meant to do is add something as completely as powerful as the Windows version but on a different platform...although it is sad to not use the machine to its full potential, with the time it would take to accomplish this, the company would already be on to investing in its next major online game. But I would definitely consider using a machine like the 360 with that power as the base platform for the next online multiplayer game.

Basically he's saying what I've said; they can't take full advantage of the X360, and it is a shame, and the reason is because of financial/feasibility reasons.
In his perspective, that's understandable... but in the perspective of the X360 fan, it is very disappointing, to not have your brand new machine taken proper advantage of.
To the developer then, the X360 is mainly a low cost high performance PC. A shame really.

[valru]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

To WoW Players: If you say that FFXI takes forever to install, try installing WoW from the discs it takes a 1 hour+ to install off the 4 cds(slow ass installer even with a dvdrom drive that has x56 cd read). FFXI with 7 cd's inc.CoP+NA release, EQ2 2DVDs, SWG 5cd's,and CoD2 6cds; each install in less than 40mins. Then the blizzard patcher(which most use, even though bt is extremly slow), even Pol's patcher is faster.

[Manatra]

Re: It is true, can't spell ignorant without IGN, IGN shows their ignorance about FFX

To WoW Players: If you say that FFXI takes forever to install, try installing WoW from the discs it takes a 1 hour+ to install off the 4 cds(slow ass installer even with a dvdrom drive that has x56 cd read). FFXI with 7 cd's inc.CoP+NA release, EQ2 2DVDs, SWG 5cd's,and CoD2 6cds; each install in less than 40mins. Then the blizzard patcher(which most use, even though bt is extremly slow), even Pol's patcher is faster.

Eh? The first four discs of FFXI on the PC version only take about 10 minutes to install, same amount of time that it takes the 4 discs of WoW to install.

Maybe your computer just... hmm isn't up to speed? :p