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[Pimpbaa]

According to IGN, San Andreas will be on a dual layered disc. I hope this doesn't cause as many problems as it did for Champions of Norrath. My ps2 is almost brand new and it still had problems reading that disc sometimes.

 

[Brannon]

UH OH.















Well, um... gee.... UH OH. So there.

 

[Wario64]

Wow, genius. Putting the game on dual-layered so those PS2's go crazy in loading areas. Heavy loading = stressed PS2 = broken PS2 = $$$


/me buys HDDloader and HDD




Also, they must be adding a shitload of content for this game. To compare, GTA3 was approximately 1 gb, and Vice City was about 3 gb.

 

[acklame]

from that page...

* Changing hairstyles is possible.
* It purportedly boasts an engine capable of six times the draw distance.
* Only interior transitions cause load times.
* There are cars with hydraulics.
* Appearance alters NPC reactions to the player.
* Cops can latch onto cars.
* Motorcycle cops are now in the game.
* Motorcycles can now do wheelies.
* The game will be packaged on a single, dual-layered DVD.

 

[SolidSnakex]

It's not too surprising considering how much they're adding to it. GT4 is dual layered too (according to Kaz they were still close to going to 2 DVD's).

 

[Pimpbaa]

/me buys HDDloader and HDD

I thought that doesn't work with games on a dual layered disc.

 

[teepo]

from that page...
* It purportedly boasts an engine capable of six times the draw distance.
QUOTE]

i thought my eyes were fooling me in the screenshots but i guess its true now. looks fucking amazing.

 

[Wario64]

I thought that doesn't work with games on a dual layered disc.

According to the website, the only games that are confirmed to not work with the HDDloader are: Biohazard Outbreak, MX 2002, Peter Pan: The Legend of Neverland, and Ratchet & Clank 1

 

[Defensor]

* Cops can latch onto cars.

T-1000!

 

[Pimpbaa]

According to the website, the only games that are confirmed to not work with the HDDloader are: Biohazard Outbreak, MX 2002, Peter Pan: The Legend of Neverland, and Ratchet & Clank 1

Well that's good news. Although I thought someone mentioned on this board that it didn't work with dual layered discs and that it was going to be added in future revisions of the HDDloader program. I guess if it truely didn't work with those type of discs, then Champions of Norrath and Xenosaga would be in that list of incompatible games.

 

[Wario64]

Hmm, I'm not sure. Unless I overlooked it on their site, you can check the faq out at http://www.hdloader.com/cgi-bin/hdloader/site.pl?page=home

I guess we'll know soon since apparantly the HDDloader disc shipped out today (unless they delayed it again)

 

[cvxfreak]

Pretty amazing length. The game's massive size is certainly something. Perhaps the game is more story driven than before.

 

[The Faceless Master]

the bulk of the size of GTA3/VC is all those radio stations...

guess there's more than just rap after all for the game to be that big...

 

[Ranger X]

6 times the draw distance.... wooooo i guess i'm Santa Claus or something. This must be marketing shit....

 

[Yusaku]

The game would need hundreds of hours of music at CD quality to even make a dent in disc space.

 

[ninge]

"The game would need hundreds of hours of music at CD quality to even make a dent in disc space."

wrong. 1 hour of music = roughly 640 meg.

A DVD can hold 9GB - so that's roughly 14 hours of CD quality music if you didn't stick any game code, speech or graphics on the disc...

 

[Solid]

I'd rather take 2 DVDs. But this will be fine I guess.

 

[Suikoguy]

"The game would need hundreds of hours of music at CD quality to even make a dent in disc space."

wrong. 1 hour of music = roughly 640 meg.

A DVD can hold 9GB - so that's roughly 14 hours of CD quality music if you didn't stick any game code, speech or graphics on the disc...

Considering you can use basic compression, you would be wrong.
How many minutes of 192kbs MP3 could you fit on 9gb?

 

[Scalemail Ted]

from that page...

* Changing hairstyles is possible.
* It purportedly boasts an engine capable of six times the draw distance.
* Only interior transitions cause load times.
* There are cars with hydraulics.
* Appearance alters NPC reactions to the player.
* Cops can latch onto cars.
* Motorcycle cops are now in the game.
* Motorcycles can now do wheelies.
* The game will be packaged on a single, dual-layered DVD.

Oh Nos!!! the FABLE killer!!!!11

 

[ninge]

I guess your defination of CD quality differs from everyone else's.

MP3 is nowhere near CD quality. In fact - any kind of compression would result in the audio no longer being CD quality as all audio compression is lossy. My point stands.

Now if he had said you could fit 100's of hours of compressed audio on there i would have agreed.. but he specifically stated CD quality.

Also to my knowledge no PS2 game uses MP3 compression for it's audio - The IOP simply isn't fast enough to decompress it and transfering it to main RAM to decompress the stream and then back to audio ram is too much of a drain on the system for it to be worthwile. I'd be very surprised if any PS2 game used anything other than redbook audio, dolby digital or ADPCM.

 

[Scalemail Ted]

I guess your defination of CD quality differs from everyone else's.

MP3 is nowhere near CD quality. In fact - any kind of compression would result in the audio no longer being CD quality as all audio compression is lossy. My point stands.

Now if he had said you could fit 100's of hours of compressed audio on there i would have agreed.. but he specifically stated CD quality.

http://www.lincomatic.com/mp3/mp3quality.html

 

[Gattsu25]

audiophiles annoy me

 

[Kys]

I guess your defination of CD quality differs from everyone else's.

MP3 is nowhere near CD quality. In fact - any kind of compression would result in the audio no longer being CD quality as all audio compression is lossy. My point stands.

never used FLAC, Monkey's Audio, or any of the many other types of lossless codecs before i presume?

as for mp3s being nowhere near cd quality...i highly doubt you, or the vast majority of the human population, save perhaps a select few would be able to tell the difference between a good mp3 rip (ie. lame 3.90.3 --ape) and the original cd.

 

[ninge]

I use lame to rip all my CDs to my mp3 player (i have a 20gig HD player in my car - avoids getting my CDs nicked) and also to listen to at work - and it's incredibly easy to tell the difference!

Mp3 totally mangles the top and bottom end of the sound and a lot of tunes exhibit quite a high-pitch whine in the background. Still, I'd rather have that than have to carry around 600 CDs

CD quality audio always was and always will be 16bit 44khz stereo. I'm no audiophile but i do spend most of my working day right now dealing with sound data for PS2 games and the difference between that and even ADPCM is noticable even in a bustling studio on crappy speakers. People should learn not to throw terms around without understanding what they actually mean - sure you can fit 100s of hours of compressed audio on a disc - but you can not fit that much CD quality audio. Thems the facts.

 

[bjork]

Cars in GTA3 had hydraulics... VC too.

Motorcycles in VC did wheelies as well.

I wonder if they control differently or automatically hold a wheelie stand or something.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

audiophiles annoy me

 

[Dylx]

Motorcycles can now do wheelies

I could have sworn i was doing wheelies along with catwalks with motocycles in gta:VC maybe im crazy!

 

[acklame]

I could have sworn i was doing wheelies along with catwalks with motocycles in gta:VC maybe im crazy!

That's a typo on IGN's part. It's supposed to be bikes that can do wheelies.

 

[Wellington]

You can also now steal cars in GTA:SA. This is gonna rule.

 

[Bog]

audiophiles annoy me

 

[Bishman]

I can't wait for GTA: SA. Must start saving cash.

 

[neptunes]

I think they meant Bi-cycles

 

[evil ways]

Yes it's bicycles, in the news scans there's a pic of CJ doing a wheelie on a BMX looking bike.

 

[kaching]

According to IGN, San Andreas will be on a dual layered disc. I hope this doesn't cause as many problems as it did for Champions of Norrath. My ps2 is almost brand new and it still had problems reading that disc sometimes.

Champions of Norrath on dual-layer disc was apparently a very last minute decision by SOE. It wasn't adequately tested. Assuming a little more forethough with GTA:SA and I wouldn't necessarily expect the same problems.

 

[Takuan]

How 'bout letting you finally swim in the water, at least for a limited amount of time?

 

[Ranger X]

I don't know if you're just pointing this out or if it's a real question but yes you will be able to swim in the new GTA...

 

[Minotauro]

How 'bout letting you finally swim in the water, at least for a limited amount of time?

Swimming was added because Rockstar knew about the constant request and was tired of being told it couldn’t be done. Now when you drive off a bridge, you will not drown. But that being said, it is not a swimming game. The way swimming will work is this: When your car hits the water you have two choices. The first is to climb out the window of the car. If you choose not to get out, you will sink with the car, and you will have a certain amount of stamina which you can build up. There are some missions that have swimming in them, but this won’t be a swimming action adventure game. The feature is there for playability.

 

[Bishman]

Hear this Nintendo? You better go DVDs next round.

 

[FightyF]

As far as mp3s go, there is a huge difference between CD quality and the usual mp3. But like it was mentioned you can get better and better as far as quality goes...but it doesn't matter.

With a game like this, I don't expect the devs using precious processing power on decoding mp3s, it's far simpler to stream the audio from the disc. This is my somewhat uneducated guess at developing PS2 games.

This is a good decision. Putting it on 2 DVDs...you'd have to replicate a lot of data...just seems so inefficient.

 

[Takuan]

Swimming was added because Rockstar knew about the constant request and was tired of being told it couldn’t be done. Now when you drive off a bridge, you will not drown. But that being said, it is not a swimming game. The way swimming will work is this: When your car hits the water you have two choices. The first is to climb out the window of the car. If you choose not to get out, you will sink with the car, and you will have a certain amount of stamina which you can build up. There are some missions that have swimming in them, but this won’t be a swimming action adventure game. The feature is there for playability.

:rock.

 

[LittleTokyo]

from that page...

* Changing hairstyles is possible.
* It purportedly boasts an engine capable of six times the draw distance.
* Only interior transitions cause load times.
* There are cars with hydraulics.
* Appearance alters NPC reactions to the player.
* Cops can latch onto cars.
* Motorcycle cops are now in the game.
* Motorcycles can now do wheelies.
* The game will be packaged on a single, dual-layered DVD.

Sweet, now I can struggle to control a character with a personalized hairstyle. Thanks Rockstar! Don't fix the broken control, just let me do wheelies and it's all good! SWEET!

 

[evil ways]

Sweet, now I can struggle to control a character with a personalized hairstyle. Thanks Rockstar! Don't fix the broken control, just let me do wheelies and it's all good! SWEET!

I don't see anything wrong with the control, now the lock on feature for shooting and the fighting, that's something they should fix, but as far as moving the character, running, and driving, the controls are more than fine.

 

[acklame]

Sweet, now I can struggle to control a character with a personalized hairstyle. Thanks Rockstar! Don't fix the broken control, just let me do wheelies and it's all good! SWEET!

who said that they aren't improving the control? that list is mainly new information since the last batch of info that came out with GameInformer, which said that they are giving the targeting and camera system an overhaul.

 

[Littleberu]

I don't see anything wrong with the control, now the lock on feature for shooting and the fighting, that's something they should fix, but as far as moving the character, running, and driving, the controls are more than fine.

And they are fixing the lock-on aiming for shooting.

 

[Squeak]

MP3 is nowhere near CD quality. In fact - any kind of compression would result in the audio no longer being CD quality as all audio compression is lossy.

Wrong, some formats use Huffman compression or delta compression, which is loss less.
Of course even quantizing audio to bits or bytes could be seen as a form of lossy compression, but then again so could any kind of analog recording.