[HN Gopher] Zen of Streaming: Building and Loading 'Ghost of Tsu...
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Zen of Streaming: Building and Loading 'Ghost of Tsushima' [video]
Author : danso
Score : 73 points
Date : 2021-09-28 15:13 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| ArtWomb wrote:
| Used to think it was the PS5's SSD that was the game-changer.
| Allowing for in-engine cut sequences seamlessly meshing into
| gameplay. But now I think it may be the 10 Teraflops Navi GPU
| that devs will seek to unleash ;)
| smoldesu wrote:
| Meh, I think this console generation is actually going to be
| pretty boring in that respect. Simply put, the concept of
| "optimization" doesn't really exist in a traditional sense for
| these consoles anymore. Both Sony and Microsoft have PC
| versions of their games (and exclusives), they just _target_
| the PS5 or Xbox Series X and edit some ini files before
| shipping it out. It 's not like the PS3, where we have some
| incredibly esoteric/powerful GPU that took decades to learn, or
| the N64 where there was an all-new graphics paradigm to learn.
| Now more than ever, your console is just a less-robust PC: even
| the Nintendo Switch uses relatively standardized hardware.
|
| I think the _real_ thing to be looking out for is how
| developers utilize the crazy overhead they have. _The Touryst_
| leverages newer consoles to perform 6k /8k supersampled
| antialiasing without dropping a frame. Minecraft with shaders
| is finally just... viable. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised of
| Sony introduced some emulation layer to play PC games (a-la
| Proton) if their competition with Microsoft _really_ starts
| heating up. Really, the hardware is the least interesting part
| of this console generation. Building a robust software
| experience on them, however, is where things get interesting
| (at least to me).
| mikepurvis wrote:
| A common complaint, but look at how titles like Horizon,
| Death Stranding, or Red Dead 2 play on PC vs on PS4 launch
| hardware that is now almost _eight_ years old. Would you be
| playing those titles at 1080p on a GTX 700-series, a GPU that
| came out the same year and retailed new for nearly the cost
| of a PS4?
|
| If anything, I think these kinds of comparisons underscore
| that even in a world where consoles are using mostly PC-
| originated components and architectures, there are still
| massive wins to be had when a developer can put their effort
| into targeting a single hardware platform (or a small number
| of them, eg pro and non-pro) rather than chasing a million
| interop issues across the infinity of permutations of in-the-
| wild PC hardware.
| danso wrote:
| Ghost of Tsushima is the only PS4 game I've ever platinumed
| (gotten all the achievements for), despite it having a combat
| system that becomes extremely repetitive and trivially easy
| halfway into the game. That, combined with its trite samurai
| story/themes, should've been enough to make me bounce.
|
| But the nearly non-existent load times really is GoT's killer
| feature, because it allows you to goof around and experiment,
| die, and get right back into the action without feeling
| frustrated.
|
| What's even more amazing to me is that it's not just "instant
| revives", but _actual_ "fast travel". I'm not a huge fan of open
| world games either, but GoT makes it easy by letting you fast
| travel across the continent in seconds. Conceptually, instant
| loading of localized action sequences seems doable. But instantly
| loading of entirely different environments on demand, from an old
| fashioned HDD, feels like black magic.
| imbnwa wrote:
| Even on Lethal difficulty the combat can be mastered, but for
| me it was too easy to exploit archery since most of the time
| there aren't any straight up ambushes in the game and you can
| see all the world encounters twenty - thirty yards away.
|
| God of War got it right in making the world encounters
| primarily ambushes and not allowing one-shot ranged combat. The
| bandits in GoT should've been primarily ambushes with only the
| Mongol patrols been spottable from a distance.
| paisawalla wrote:
| Great insight! I'll add the Hitman series of games, which have
| low load times as well. It's a sandbox style of game where you
| need to spend time exploring and iterating on your course of
| action to get the full experience. Without fast loading, it
| would quickly go from fun to unbearable.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| I second everything you said. I was pleasantly surprised (and
| dumbfounded) when I discovered the quick load-times. After
| playing many of the Assassin's Creed games, I expected the
| usual die-and-wait-5-minutes for the world to load, but Ghost
| of Tsushima continues to impress me in many ways. I'm also one
| to get easily bored by repetitive combat, but for some reason
| this game's fun-factor makes it very tolerable.
|
| My only issue is sometimes after completing a mission, there's
| what appears to be an abnormally long cut scene of the
| character sitting or standing next to his horse. This is a very
| minor thing though. Everything else with this game is
| exceptionally well done.
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