What does more disc space mean for Madden?

[Broncos86]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sandbox

maybe, though it's varied from year to year Madden 08: 5.8 Gigabytes Madden 09: 6.5 GB Madden 10: 5.6 GB Madden 11: 5.23 GB They could, however it would likely just be more video and audio, not really anything gameplay related. Freeing up an extra GB is a big deal; for RPGs and open world games. Games like mass effect or GTA, but probably not so much for sports titles.

There are two sides to the storage with Madden. First, the extra space could be used for textures such as improved crowds, side line items and players, etc. However! You still have to load those new textures into RAM. And if the RAM is already being fully utilized, then those new textures really don't have anywhere to go (unless we want to suffer even more loading lag during games). If the above numbers are true in regards to how much disc space Madden has used in the past, then it's highly possible that the devs have run into this already, and are making hard choices on what gets in and what doesn't.

Do we go for larger, higher resolution textures on fewer models? More models, but lower resolution?

[canes21]

What does this mean?

An all new career mode. Start off as a position coach. Then progress and turn into a coordinator. After that you become a head coach and then possibly apart of the front office or even a GM. Also, you can be a part of the marketing team, a vendor, a ticket guy, or even a commentator for your team. And the biggest addition never seen in Madden before... the ability to buy houses, have a family, drive to your job, etc. Thats right, Maxis, the creators of the Sims, has decided to help build Madden's all new career mode. Don't want to be a part of the franchise at all and only go to one game a season while watching the rest on TV? Don't worry, you have unlimited possibilities with your life in this mode. Rockstar has also decided to help out too. You can be a criminal, a modern day Cole Phelps, or the average Joe. The choice is yours. Madden NFL: True to Life.

[xblake16x]

Quote: Originally Posted by canes21

What does this mean? An all new career mode. Start off as a position coach. Then progress and turn into a coordinator. After that you become a head coach and then possibly apart of the front office or even a GM. Also, you can be a part of the marketing team, a vendor, a ticket guy, or even a commentator for your team. And the biggest addition never seen in Madden before... the ability to buy houses, have a family, drive to your job, etc. Thats right, Maxis, the creators of the Sims, has decided to help build Madden's all new career mode. Don't want to be a part of the franchise at all and only go to one game a season while watching the rest on TV? Don't worry, you have unlimited possibilities with your life in this mode. Rockstar has also decided to help out too. You can be a criminal, a modern day Maurice Clarett, or the average Joe Montana. The choice is yours. Madden NFL: True to Life.

fixed it for ya

[Matt Diesel]

One of the benefits could be more lines of commentary. Since the commentary audio is called on a need basis and doesnt need to exist in RAM (only the function that calls it), its one of the things you can add more of on the disk and actually use with the processing resources the 360 has already.

[berad88]

You guys also have to remember that developers are constantly finding new ways to do more with less, especially when it comes to RAM. Just because they can't do something today does not mean they will not find some sort of programming trick to make it work next year but don't expect any massive miracles. Developers are in a constant battle with RAM.
It seems like a terrible design decision to put so little RAM in the 360 and ps3 when compared to a pc.
RAM is especially brutal in sports games because everything is always happening in one location (the football stadium for example) and everything on and off camera has to be accounted for on every play. This is the reason why the sidelines look so boring compared to real life.

[dougdeuce]

O

Quote: Originally Posted by Matt Diesel

One of the benefits could be more lines of commentary. Since the commentary audio is called on a need basis and doesnt need to exist in RAM (only the function that calls it), its one of the things you can add more of on the disk and actually use with the processing resources the 360 has already.

I would be a happy camper if they used this space to beef up commentary. Imagine all the possibilities...

[Broncos86]

Quote: Originally Posted by berad88

It seems like a terrible design decision to put so little RAM in the 360 and ps3 when compared to a pc. RAM is especially brutal in sports games because everything is always happening in one location (the football stadium for example) and everything on and off camera has to be accounted for on every play. This is the reason why the sidelines look so boring compared to real life.

The Xbox 360 is over 5 years old now. I don't know many 5 year old PCs that are performing as well as the 360. That being said, sports games can cheat on which assets to load. Unlike a game like Assassin's Creed, the Madden devs don't have to worry about anything other than the stadium, players, etc. They can control camera angles, so they can cheat on certain textures (the crowd in the far distance, for example). Additionally, not every asset off camera has to be accounted for. An example would be the coach, who isn't really loaded until a cut scene plays.

The RAM on the 360 alone would be one consideration if the PS3's RAM wasn't so different. The PS3's RAM is allocated 256MB dedicated to the CPU, 256MB dedicated to the GPU. Additionally, the PS3's RAM performance trails far behind the 360s, in terms of bandwidth. So when it comes to RAM considerations, the dev team needs to either develop so that both can handle the same assets, or they have to alter the PS3 version to handle assets differently. If it comes down to longer load times, that could be one thing. But not being able to show grass stains and helmet scuffs on the PS3 version could be a game changer.

[berad88]

Quote: Originally Posted by Broncos86

The Xbox 360 is over 5 years old now. I don't know many 5 year old PCs that are performing as well as the 360. That being said, sports games can cheat on which assets to load. Unlike a game like Assassin's Creed, the Madden devs don't have to worry about anything other than the stadium, players, etc. They can control camera angles, so they can cheat on certain textures (the crowd in the far distance, for example). Additionally, not every asset off camera has to be accounted for. An example would be the coach, who isn't really loaded until a cut scene plays. The RAM on the 360 alone would be one consideration if the PS3's RAM wasn't so different. The PS3's RAM is allocated 256MB dedicated to the CPU, 256MB dedicated to the GPU. Additionally, the PS3's RAM performance trails far behind the 360s, in terms of bandwidth. So when it comes to RAM considerations, the dev team needs to either develop so that both can handle the same assets, or they have to alter the PS3 version to handle assets differently. If it comes down to longer load times, that could be one thing. But not being able to show grass stains and helmet scuffs on the PS3 version could be a game changer.

Stuff like the coach and anything that happens in a cut scene I did not mean when I said everything has to be accounted for. The cut scenes are the cheat to make the sidelines appear to be more busy. I ment everything that happens during a play.
I never played assasins creed so I have no idea how that compares.

The main point I was trying to make is the more stuff happening on screen at one time the more work the RAM will need to do. Where football takes place in one location and in an action game the location and scenes frequently change so the game does not have to have that all on screen at once. Just enough to fill your field of vision, if that makes sense.