Slightly concerned about the 360 version.

[Ranger_]

Just recently you showed a tech demo of Alan Wake on a Quadcore CPU. Now i'm not a tech head or anything but I believe the 360 version has three CPU's. Are there any sacrifices being made visually for the 360 verion? I understand that the 360 is the main developing platform, but one has to wonder. This isn't hindering my anticipation in the slightest bit. I was just wondering.

[satan]

Doesn't the 360 have 6 cores. Don't really know. Not into consoles already. I'm happy with my PC you see. :D

[JmM]

Doesn't the 360 have 6 cores. Don't really know.

Xbox 360 have 3 cores that clock in at 3.2 GHz each.

[Lutschtablette]

Hi

I also wanted to ask how well the game will perform on a Xbox 360 since it only has 3 cores (but 2 Threads per core) and Alan Wake will use 5 threads... I'm wondering how the very huge world can fit into 512 MB Ram that the X360 has.
I just hope they won't cut the physics on the X360.

It would be nice if one of the developers could answer those questions and state where the game will be different to the PC version!

So far

[satan]

Xbox 360 have 3 cores that clock in at 3.2 GHz each.

Thanks for the info. :)

[mixuk]

Having several cores helps, but is not required, since you can run several processes on one thread. In the current plans the PC and 360 versions will be pretty identical.

Also, we stream necessary data to memory when needed, the whole world will not be loaded into memory constantly. It's the same idea that was already in GTA3 for PS2, remember, it only had 32mb.

[Kalle]

Having several cores helps, but is not required, since you can run several processes on one thread. In the current plans the PC and 360 versions will be pretty identical.




It means it's not exact the same? I'm no expert, but I think High End PCs next year are stronger than XBOX 360. And with a stronger machine, more details are possible.

[RGroenen]

"In the current plans the PC and 360 versions will be pretty identical"

One more question. On the 360 the 16:9 screenratio is the standard, on a PC widescreen is not really the standard. How will this be handeld when the game is created, which ratio is leading?


Greetings Roy

[Coak]

I'm not sure, but I think that you can switch from 4:3 to widescreen in the options for a lot of PC games, so it's not a big deal. Gameplay-wise - I don't know, does a wider screen mean a bigger field of view? Cinematics - I think I could stand looking at letterboxed cutscenes.

[Hornet]

Well, before u start to concern about the CPU core count, lets look at the GPU

x360 falls short of being a complete DirectX 10 GPU, it lacks virtualization. And while x360 have unified shader, it lacks the geometry shader introduced in DirectX 10.

So if its true that Alan Wake is a full blown DirextX10, then feature wise they will have to tune down the graphic to something like DirectX9 level, feature wise. In terms of raw power, x360 should still be able to hold up, though not faster than a future flagship DirectX 10 graphic card.

As for the processor, intel quadcore is still a general purpose processor afterall, while x360 system is build specifically for games.

IMO, in terms of raw power, there's nothing to tune down or up for both version. But graphic feature wise, x360 still lacks the key feature of DirectX 10

[Matt S]

I will definitely pick up Alan Wake on the 360....as nice as the PC version will be, I love playing games on my widescreen Tv....for a console, the 360 is pretty darn powerful - processor wise.

This game cannot get here fast enough....

[sidetwo]

So if its true that Alan Wake is a full blown DirextX10, then feature wise they will have to tune down the graphic to something like DirectX9 level, feature wise.

Well the IDF presentation was running off a 7900GTX which is a DX9 card.

[Dmz]

how bad of a drop off in quality could it possibly be from the PC to the 360? I wouldnt care if the PC version looked slightly better then the 360 one as theyre both gonna be beautiful

[noah]

...on a PC widescreen is not really the standard.

According to the new "Games for Windows" standard, widescreen is required just as it is for 360 games. As to what aspect ratio is mandated, I would guess 16:9, and hopefully 16:10 as well.

[MAFIOZO]

Hi

@Satan , Xbox360 CPU have 6 hardware threads - 2 threads per core -.
Remedy guys use 5 threads to run their code.
Also xbox360 GPU is more efficient than other DX9 GPUs because of its DX10 extensions and some other unique features.
The problem with xbox360 , and any console , is the limited ram but with some efficient streaming techniques they can surpass it.
After all Remedy is an AAA developer. So there is not reason for concern :)

More infos:
The game will actually spawn five independent threads: one for rendering, audio, streaming, physics and terrain tessellation. The rendering thread is the same as it would be in any game, simply preparing vertices and data to be sent to the GPU for rendering. The audio thread will obviously be used for all audio in the game, although Remedy indicates that it is far from a CPU intensive thread.

The streaming thread will be used to stream data off of the DVD or hard disk as well as decompress the data on the fly. Remedy's goal here is to have a completely seamless transition as you move from one area to the next in Alan Wake's 36 square mile environment, without loading screens/pauses. With Alan Wake being developed simultaneously for both the Xbox 360 and the PC, efficiency is quite high as developing for a console forces a developer to be much more focused than on a PC since you are given limited resources on a console. Markus admitted that being a PC-only developer can easily lead to laziness, and developing for the 360 has improved the efficiency of Alan Wake tremendously. With that said, Markus expects the visual and gameplay experience to be identical on the Xbox 360 and the PC when Alan Wake ships, hopefully without any in-game load screens.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2841&p=2

[logic]

The only thing I don't wanna see is major lag and screen tearing. If it don't look as good as PC that's not a concern cause that's most games out there.

[MAFIOZO]

The only thing I don't wanna see is major lag and screen tearing. If it don't look as good as PC that's not a concern cause that's most games out there.
Personally i have faced far more tearing problems and inferior graphics with my 1500euros pc than with my 300euros xbox360. So i cant complain about this. :cool:

[Blimp]

Seems like there will be no end to upgrading the all money consuming PC. If you want to play this game "The way it's meant to be played", it will probably cost you a LOT of money, new cpu, new graphics card, more ram and let us not forget, windows vista from microshaft (not a spelling mistake)

[Morry]

Though when you think of it, once Directx10 hits, many more games will be utilising its technology, so your PC will become obsolete without an upgrade anyway.

[writersblock]

I have some concerns about the 360 version as well. When I played Oblivion the 360 ended up crashing and I had to get it repaired. I've a little leary about Gears of War blowing up my 360. If what I read is true then Alan Wake is going to be one of the first titles to really tap into the 360's power. I just wonder if the little 360 will be able to handle it or will I be having another repair again.

Things I'm concerned with the most are these:

will the framerate issue that has plagued most 360 games cause developers to cut out some of the cool lighting effects that create the ambience. Giving the 360 users less on the side of lighting.

Then again maybe the developers can use an extra thread from the 360 to help chug things along with the framerates and give us the framerate we so desperately want at a "locked 30 fps".

I just hope the remedy team knows what corners to cut to keep the pc experience and the 360 one fairly equal without blowing up my xbox360 in the process.

[dejay]

So on the one hand you're saying that you want them to give you the graphical brilliance on the 360 that has already been demonstrated on a quad core PC but on the other hand you're saying that you don't want them to push the power of the 360. That's quite a quandary.

I think your 360, like my own, was always going to need repairs regardless of what game was running on it. There were a large bunch of them that didn't do to well in the reliability department. I guess if you stick to frogger and pacman your console shouldn't break down again :D

[sylonious]

IMO, in terms of raw power, there's nothing to tune down or up for both version. But graphic feature wise, x360 still lacks the key feature of DirectX 10

Well, I thought Microsoft was making GPU software updates (http://letskilldave.com/archive/2006/09/11/Gamefest-2006-Content-available_2100_.aspx) that would in some way address this.

[Morry]

“Xbox360 cannot run DX10. The Xbox360 has unique features including memory export that can enable DX10-class functionality such as stream-out. From what we’re hearing, Crysis will support DX9 with some sort of use for DX10 features. It’s likely that those DX10 visuals can be replicated on the Xbox360, but it can’t be properly called DX10.”
Software upgrades never achieve too much noticeable improvement. Probably the best example are video card drivers. In some games, they can improve performance by 10% but the underlying foundations of the engine and hardware cannot be changed.

[moonfly]

Xbox 360 have 3 cores that clock in at 3.2 GHz each.

it has 3 dual core processors

[moonfly]

how bad of a drop off in quality could it possibly be from the PC to the 360? I wouldnt care if the PC version looked slightly better then the 360 one as theyre both gonna be beautiful

well so far i havent seen any pc games looking as good as say Gears of War or COD3. I dont think the 360 will have any trouble looking or running as good as the pc version