The illusion of a living breathing city

[villin]

OMG GUYS!! I just figured something out!!

 

when you kill someone in this game, apparently it's all smoke and mirrors! I REPEAT ATTENTION EVERYONE IT'S ALL SMOKE AND MIRRORS!! The people you kill ARE NOT ACTUALLY DEAD!! AFTER THEY DIE I GO ACROSS TOWN and what do i see? I SEE THE DAMN PERSON I JUST KILLED.

 

SO PLEASE!! BOYCOT TIHS GAME!!

 

ITS ALL SMOE AND MIRROS!!!

[johnlee]

 

There are NO CARS, NO PEDS, NO NOTHING outside of this bubble radius and in fact at ANY GIVEN MOMENT Liberty City is 99.99% EMPTYNESS!!!

No it's not an empty city, it is grey space.

 

The map spawns just outside your bubble too.

Well TECHNICALLY only things in your camera view that you physically SEE are being RENDERED by the graphics engine at any given point in time. This is called "culling"... all games including Quake III does this... But cars behind you may not get GRAPHICALLY rendered BUT they still "exists" (if they are within your BUBBLE) that is how you can SLAM on the brakes and get nailed from behind even though you are not looking back... They system has the car in ram even while not rendering them... TAKE IT ONE STEP FURTHER and why not have PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION MATRIX of precalculating events and actions at different parts of the city that are OUTSIDE of your bubble and not only not being rendered graphically but also not being instantiated as objects in system ram but simple these micro and macro level interactions are taken from a probability table and calculated behind the scenes without render or having to spawn them even into ram???

 

 

Edited December 18, 2008 by johnlee

[creat3d22]

 

Well TECHNICALLY only things in your camera view that you physically SEE are being RENDERED by the graphics engine at any given point in time. This is called "culling"... all games including Quake III does this...

 

Ok now I'm getting mad...

 

 

Just kidding, you're still funny.

[Jc84144]

There are NO CARS, NO PEDS, NO NOTHING outside of this bubble radius and in fact at ANY GIVEN MOMENT Liberty City is 99.99% EMPTYNESS!!!

No it's not an empty city, it is grey space.

 

The map spawns just outside your bubble too.

Well TECHNICALLY only things in your camera view that you physically SEE are being RENDERED by the graphics engine at any given point in time. This is called "culling"... all games including Quake III does this...

Not true. Not everything has culling applied. Culling takes up CPU power (as it has to calculate what you can and can't see) so usually large high poly objects will have it applied, while small low poly objects usually don't, as it's faster to just render them than calculate the culling on them.

[CharmingCharlie]

You know some posts on this forum are becoming quite farcical in nature. There was another topic from another poster and they were "bitching" that the RAGE engine had to do unnecessary work to calculate cars he saw through some sort of building. He argued why is Rockstar wasting resources calculating these things we can't even see (neglecting to take into account you can see them from the air).

 

Now we have this poster complaining the entire city isn't being calculated in real time with the interactions of millions of peds and hundreds of thousands of cars being done in real time. Yeah good luck with that and enjoy a game that runs at 1 frame per month. Seriously I think it is becoming a case of Rockstar being "damned if they do and damned if they don't". It seems to me as if PC gamers cannot be pleased in anyway whatsoever.

 

Now as for all this "why do cops forget about you when you leave the bubble", it's called "artistic licence" it is a mechanism they use to make the game playable. You may be used to seeing cars exploding in the movies when their gas tank is hit, or a baddie getting blown through a window with a shot gun blast again "artistic licence" movie directors use these mechanisms to make the film more exciting. The same is true of GTA 4 you can lose the police and they forget about you because that makes the game MORE playable.

 

So here is my suggestion, you have a PC so why don't you make a sandbox game with those features you want. Either put up or shut up.

[Vicetopia]

Seriously I think it is becoming a case of Rockstar being "damned if they do and damned if they don't". It seems to me as if PC gamers cannot be pleased in anyway whatsoever.

Oh relax, it one or two crazy people voicing their insane opinions on the internet.

I'm sure consoles have the same people.

[Jc84144]

It seems to me as if PC gamers cannot be pleased in anyway whatsoever.

Why do you always group all PC gamers with the one or two idiots?

[*MURDOC*]

First of all: No sh*t.

 

 

 

 

And second: There is a game being produced right now with all the features you mentioned, theyve already been working on it for years.

 

 

 

It will be released in 2086.

 

 

edit: I never said you were being sarcastic, I suggest you learn to read.

Edited December 18, 2008 by *MURDOC*

[johnlee]

First of all: No sh*t.

 

 

 

 

And second: There is a game being produced right now with all the features you mentioned, theyve already been working on it for years.

 

 

 

It will be released in 2086.

I wasn't being sarcastic

 

 

Basically and what I am saying is that our interactions and changes in the game do not "stick" and are forgotten and erased and recycled VERY soon after.. What is the point of a sandbox environment if the sand doesn't keep its shape and doesn't remember our changes? What if every time you built a sand castle and it disappears the moment you look away from it? In the END how does GTAIV differ CATEGORICALLY from any other game? How is it in any way a living breathing city when the interactions are not even saved and nothing you do matters one way or another outside of your 100ft bubble and 30 second memory span of the game?

 

And I repeat : Why is there no system of caching interactions with peds/cops/cars and having them being saved to a cache file on the HDD when they leave our "bubble" and dematerialized and bring back those attributes and changes and our history of interactions the next time we meet inside the "bubble" are they are "rematerialized"? This would solve two things:

 

1. It would emulate a "real city" from a functional (instead of atomic) level and increase the REALISM because it is simulating a embodied city reather than a simple smokes and mirrors sytem

 

2. Since cars, peds, actions are still taken offscreen and recycled once they exit our personal bubble and only the changed attributes are "remembered" and cached to a file on the harddrive to be "reapplied" the next time these generic NPC's are spawned according to when the system calculates/predicts we SHOULD meet again, then this totally resolved the memory and cpu cycle issue of rendering, spawning and doing atomic calculations on each of the things in the city...

 

Conclusion: Implementation of a system like I mentioned above will not take significantly more cpu cycles or ram usage and will only result in a margin performance hit but increase the "alive immersing factor" by orders of magnitude... NPCs, Cars and other objects are still being recycled and erased from Ram and CPU once they leave our boundary, but the different is the changes (like a dented car, or a hurt ped) are saved and cached to a file in the hdd and reinstatnitated the moment we came back into contact with said NPC/Car/Cop and the changes and attributes are reapplied to the generic NPC being spawned to make them "who they were when we last saw them"

 

This method is STILL an emulating system, but a much better one that increases the REALISM by orders of magnitude while only taking a very marginal performance hit on modern systems.

[Zaphat]

Well, mr. Topicstarter, how do you know? Did you check someplace else, where you weren't present? How?

What if the game consumes so much CPU, because Star Junction is always full?

 

As a matter of fact, how do you know if your real world is different from a GTA style bubble?

E.g. I always get my emails, when I am around my computer, strange enough...

Edited December 18, 2008 by Zaphat

[Stewerd]

This thrend was really dumb.

 

Who the hell cares what happens in the island miles away?! If you cant see it, who cares if its nothing there?!

 

YEAH GAMES SHOULD NOT BE AN ILLUSION IT SHOULD HAPPEN FOR REAL!

 

 

Oh my god.

[Jc84144]

This dude is talking bullsh*t.

 

This game never claimed to do this. And I think you will find no games do it, it's just not feasible. Maybe in the next generation of games, or maybe the generation after that.

 

If you want a real "living and breathing city" take a walk.

[Zaphat]

If you want a real "living and breathing city" take a walk.

No, that wouldn't work, I always take my bubble with me, no matter how fast I run! If anyone could get rid of his bubble, pls. tell me the cheat and if it works on a landline as well...

[Stigern]

no sh*t sherlock

+1

[pLaTaNo]

LOL this thread made me laugh. What do you expect from GTA IV? Being ultra realistic and all? Dude, its a FREAKIN GAME. The game is ment to be fictional. If you want "liberty City" to be very real and have the things that you said on your post for this thread, then please, do us all a favor and make a mod for it. That is, if you can mod.

[johnlee]

LOL this thread made me laugh. What do you expect from GTA IV? Being ultra realistic and all? Dude, its a FREAKIN GAME. The game is ment to be fictional. If you want "liberty City" to be very real and have the things that you said on your post for this thread, then please, do us all a favor and make a mod for it. That is, if you can mod.

Even simple changes could make a BIG difference in realism..

 

I am NOTTTT suggesting we actually render the cop at the cop station, render him putting on a uniform miles away and driving from the station all the way to our location, BUTTTT we could represent and simulate this from a FUNCTIONAL (rather than atomic) level and increase the realism, embodiemnt, and immserive factor by orders of magnitude!

 

How? We need not render or spawn the cop or car from the station and waste cpu/ram at all! The game intelligently calculates how long it SHOULD take the cop to arrive based on the time of day, the distance from the station, the current traffic levels, weather (if it is rainy or foggy he will be "predicted" to go slower) etc and the cops shows up in a REALISTIC time frame and all this is calculated from precached probability lookup tables without ahving to waste ram or cpu cycles by actually rendering him or spawning his character and car objects into Ram. SO again the cop will still materialed in much the same way outside the bubble compared to how it is done right now, but because of behind the scenes calculations of predicting /estimating how long it SHOULD take we give him a realistic time or arrival that is calculated on the fly based on current player location, level of crime as reported by peds calling it in, the traffic, the weather system, etc.... This could EASILY by done and will not tax the system but increase realism by a ton!

 

something like COP_ArrivalTime = LevelofStars * (PlayerDistanceFromClosestsCopStation + TrafficCongestionCoefficent + BadWeatherCoefficent - NumberofPedsReportingIncident)

 

 

This would take a whole millisecond or two and only a couple of dozen cpu cycles at most...

 

instead of right now where it is the equalivent of COP_ArrivalTime = as soon as you can spawn one

 

[Gyusz81]

yes this has always been with GTA this is why what rockstar says is a lie. You dont need to have gigabytes of system ram and gygabytes of vid mem to play this game

 

Consoles, PS3 and XBOX have 512 where the cpu and the gpu together use this amoun of ram.

 

So 1.5 GB that is necessary for the PC??? How come all the info is squezed into 512 in case of consoles?????

 

Well there you have ... it is just steeling money from players by sameless spineless developiong companies

 

 

Where as u should care about the gaming industrie they say...welll i have news for you it is economics and not feelings you give me quality i give you money but if you give mee sh*t and make me intentionally by new hardware cause you have deals in the background then go where you beling Rockstar

[PacMaan]

Funniest thread evAr

[johnlee]

 

yes this has always been with GTA this is why what rockstar says is a lie. You dont need to have gigabytes of system ram and gygabytes of vid mem to play this game

 

Consoles, PS3 and XBOX have 512 where the cpu and the gpu together use this amoun of ram.

 

So 1.5 GB that is necessary for the PC??? How come all the info is squezed into 512 in case of consoles?????

 

Well there you have ... it is just steeling money from players by sameless spineless developiong companies

 

 

Where as u should care about the gaming industrie they say...welll i have news for you it is economics and not feelings you give me quality i give you money but if you give mee sh*t and make me intentionally by new hardware cause you have deals in the background then go where you beling Rockstar

I agree, and why is it that the XBOX360 version is "ONLY" 6GB in size (the DVD-9 capacity is technically closer to 8.5GB but Rockstar didn't max out the capacity and the GTAIV on 360 is only 6.5GB) when the PC version is closer to 15GB and needs another 25GB to install and play on harddrive?

 

The funny thing is the graphics on the 360 is BETTER/Sharper than on the PC, (so no lame excuse of including HD higher res textures that causes such a big filesize in the game on the pc platform compared to 360..) and runs at a much smoother and faster frames per second!

 

Why do I need MORE harddrive space, and MORE CPU power, and MORE GPU speed and MORE RAM just to play a game that looks worse and slower than the 360 counterpart that uses LESS HDD (actually it doesn't even need a HDD), LESS CPU, LESS GPU, LESS RAM???!!!!??

 

Now the really funny thing is Rockstar CLAIMS to have "future proofed" this game... Oh is THAT RIGHT????

 

Is that why I recently discovered that the PC version of GTAIV has a built in 20ft cap on rendering peds and drivers in CARS??? Even on the most power system today with all settings maxed out in the PC version of GTAIV peds and drivers in cars don't appear until you are as close as 20 feet away from them!!!! And there seems to be no way around this!!!

 

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385426

 

 

SEE VIDEO EXAMPLE HERE: -> http://blip.tv/file/1591319

 

============

 

So let me get this right, the PC version is permanently HANDICAPPED (see : http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385426) for NO REASON AT ALL!!! and it has worse graphics at worse framerates YET needs exponentially more RAM, is more than twice as large in size as the 360 version, more harddrive space, more CPU and GPU cycles and they said they have made it future proof??? How is it future proof? The way I see it the 20ft ped-in-car-cap will still exists in 2088, except by then the activations servers for Live and Rockstar Social Club would have went offline and there would be no more support from R*, MS, or Sony the Securom makers so what is a quantum computer to do???

 

How is it "future proof" when it has already been proven by millions of gamers that the same GTAIV game runs perfectly well on a vastly inferior system with better graphics and better framerates than the top of the line pcs can do today??? This game is over 6 months old, it is already "aged" in the gaming world, it played just fine on a console system that was realized back in 2005 and they do a half ass sloppy port to PC and put a crap load of DRM and rootkits on the game and slap it with a hefty price tag plus ridiculous going through hoops and it runs slower and looks suckier even on state of the art PC that is 100X more powerful than xbox and they have the audacity to call these optimizations "future proof"

 

Maybe in the future all our games will render peds in cars at 2ft radius at the rate this is going???? A game that was released well over half a year ago that has already been proven by millions to run perfectly well on a far inferior console system released way back in 2005 now comes out on the pc and runs slower, with poorer graphics even on the most state of the art computer systems that overpower any next-gen console by orders of magnitude now needs more ram, more cpu, more gpu and more hdd on even so renders slower and poorer than ever before! This is progress???? This is future proof???? Maybe if I code a FPS that looks like crap with graphics worse than the original Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy and is so horribly unoptimized and ridden with bugs and crap that it runs 1fps on a hypothetically NSA quantum computer I could sell it for $500 million bucks because it is FUTURE PROOF????

Edited December 18, 2008 by johnlee

[Gyusz81]

 

yes this has always been with GTA this is why what rockstar says is a lie. You dont need to have gigabytes of system ram and gygabytes of vid mem to play this game

 

Consoles, PS3 and XBOX have 512 where the cpu and the gpu together use this amoun of ram.

 

So 1.5 GB that is necessary for the PC??? How come all the info is squezed into 512 in case of consoles?????

 

Well there you have ... it is just steeling money from players by sameless spineless developiong companies

 

 

Where as u should care about the gaming industrie they say...welll i have news for you it is economics and not feelings you give me quality i give you money but if you give mee sh*t and make me intentionally by new hardware cause you have deals in the background then go where you beling Rockstar

I agree, and why is it that the XBOX360 version is "ONLY" 6GB in size (the DVD-9 capacity is technically closer to 8.5GB but Rockstar didn't max out the capacity and the GTAIV on 360 is only 6.5GB) when the PC version is closer to 15GB and needs another 25GB to install and play on harddrive?

 

The funny thing is the graphics on the 360 is BETTER/Sharper than on the PC, (so no lame excuse of including HD higher res textures that causes such a big filesize in the game on the pc platform compared to 360..) and runs at a much smoother and faster frames per second!

 

Why do I need MORE harddrive space, and MORE CPU power, and MORE GPU speed and MORE RAM just to play a game that looks worse and slower than the 360 counterpart that uses LESS HDD (actually it doesn't even need a HDD), LESS CPU, LESS GPU, LESS RAM???!!!!??

 

Now the really funny thing is Rockstar CLAIMS to have "future proofed" this game... Oh is THAT RIGHT????

 

Is that why I recently discovered that the PC version of GTAIV has a built in 20ft cap on rendering peds and drivers in CARS??? Even on the most power system today with all settings maxed out in the PC version of GTAIV peds and drivers in cars don't appear until you are as close as 20 feet away from them!!!! And there seems to be no way around this!!!

 

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385426

 

 

SEE VIDEO EXAMPLE HERE: -> http://blip.tv/file/1591319

 

============

 

So let me get this right, the PC version is permanently HANDICAPPED (see : http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=385426) for NO REASON AT ALL!!! and it has worse graphics at worse framerates YET needs exponentially more RAM, is more than twice as large in size as the 360 version, more harddrive space, more CPU and GPU cycles and they said they have made it future proof??? How is it future proof? The way I see it the 20ft ped-in-car-cap will still exists in 2088, except by then the activations servers for Live and Rockstar Social Club would have went offline and there would be no more support from R*, MS, or Sony the Securom makers so what is a quantum computer to do???

 

How is it "future proof" when it has already been proven by millions of gamers that the same GTAIV game runs perfectly well on a vastly inferior system with better graphics and better framerates than the top of the line pcs can do today???

well you raped it up very good, this is piracy as well...which is discusting just as discusting it is to use a game and dont pay for it...

[creat3d22]

 

Basically and what I am saying is that our interactions and changes in the game do not "stick" and are forgotten and erased and recycled VERY soon after..

 

NO sh*t!

 

 

 

The funny thing is the graphics on the 360 is BETTER/Sharper than on the PC, (so no lame excuse of including HD higher res textures that causes such a big filesize in the game on the pc platform compared to 360..) and runs at a much smoother and faster frames per second!

What? On your system, maybe...

 

And about your suggestion of calculating probabilities, etc... to simulate stuff outside the "bubble"... would it really matter much? Gameplay wise.

[Stryder2k]

Did you ever thought about why Multiplayer games need more performance than singleplayer?

Because more "Bubbles" have to be rendered and the data has to be exchanged somehow. (Not everything, but more than in singleplayer mode)

 

2nd thing: Take a heli and fligh around, you will see the lights of the cars but not only where you are, but most probably the "bubble" is only larger...

 

To much philosophy for me.

Be happy and play the game

[FullMetal]

I haven't read the complete first post... I stopped at the bubble bullsh*t.

 

Seriously, have you ever played any previous GTA? It has always been like this since GTAIII... under which rock have you been sleeping man?

 

Seriously... wake the f*ck up. Do you really think they're going to make a game that is IMPOSSIBLE to play at any decent PC? If we'd have to render/load each vehicle, each pedestrian, each action that happened in the COMPLETE city at the same time... well, computers that can run that are yet to be invented.

[Gyusz81]

 

I haven't read the complete first post... I stopped at the bubble bullsh*t.

 

Seriously, have you ever played any previous GTA? It has always been like this since GTAIII... under which rock have you been sleeping man?

 

Seriously... wake the f*ck up. Do you really think they're going to make a game that is IMPOSSIBLE to play at any decent PC? If we'd have to render/load each vehicle, each pedestrian, each action that happened in the COMPLETE city at the same time... well, computers that can run that are yet to be invented.

we had enough of these comments, can you just add your comments intelligently without bitching others. he pointed out something and that is it... WHTA IS THE BIG DEAL?????

Edited December 18, 2008 by Gyusz81

[Weses]

It's a video game. As simple as that. PC's and consoles today wouldn't be able to handle remembering every single thing we do. If they did, it would be a little too real and we would really regret doing something that we weren't supposed to do as if it were real life, but it's not. In the future it may be possible, but for now you're going to have to suffer with the occasional building popping up when you turn around.

[SFkilla]

It is true that you guys are a little hard...

This guy got a point... i'm a coder and developed a few apps, coding can be done so that it doesn't consume more in many cases, its just more complex to do and possible. I'm not saying i can do it, but it will happen.

 

If developers were using their brain a little bit more instead of counting on the power of their machine, then games from today would be 10 times better and more advanced. Look at Gran Turismo 3 on playstation 2, the ps2 is a little machine with a very small processor (less then 300mhs i think) but the team that developed GT3 at the time, really did a great job of coding (using their brains), if deves from now could do the same, we would all be playing GTA real life on a computer from 5 years ago.

 

I have to admit i had quite a few laughs after some replies to this topic, but honestly guys, grow up a little.

I am the founder of a forum that has more then 60000 members and i never have this kind of unrespectful behaviour.

Edited December 18, 2008 by SFkilla

[Vicetopia]

I am the founder of a forum that has more then 60000 members and i never have this kind of unrespectful behaviour.

No one cares.

[jonz13]

I've found a game where everything is processed and rendered even 1000 miles away..

I call it life.

[bidji]

my 2cts worth of posting:

while the first post started as a pretty retarded one (no offense, johnlee), the updates brought some interesting ideas.

however... I think you're just sort of missing the point. point being that GTA4 is an adventure/action game set in what is the most realistic representation of a city in a video game to date, not a realistic simulation of a city where you happen to be able to mess around with stuff. that would be an interesting game, but I don't think gaming PCs or latest gen consoles are going to be able to run that with the level of detail you find in the game for some years. might not be that far away, PCs get more powerful at an alarming (yet not very surprising) rate, so you never know... but building a game like you're suggesting in your first post wouldn't be future proof. it would be more like suicide (or just plain stupid, if you like).

now, regarding the 20/30ft cap for displaying npc in cars... well, hardcoding the cap into the game's engine's not really future proof, I'll give you that. but seeing has it doesn't really worsen the gameplay... and given the crazy amount of mostly useless polygons the engine would have to generate, handle the physics for and what have you not, I think it's a rather smart trick from the coders (not the the hardcoding part). and efficient game engines are mostly about tricks, or at least that's my understanding of the matter.

 

edit: that post kind of reminded me of a guy on some gaming forum back when DooM 3 was released, that went on ranting about how crappy a game D3 was 'cos when he used the noclip code and went through a wall, there was nothing behind it and iD were so lame not to have modeled every last little closet in every level of the game. now that guy was really a retard and the thread was mostly hilarious. the thing is... some guys should remember those are games. as in not real life. there are limitations, deal with it. most of them a pretty reasonable, anyway.

Edited December 18, 2008 by bidji

[The0]

ARE YOU SERIOUS? THEY MADE IT ALL UP??!? THAT'S FUNNY I THOUGHT THERE WAS AN ACTUAL CITY INSIDE THIS HERE MONITOR-BOX!

 

Seriously, this is the dumbest thread I've ever read. I admire the TC's enthusiasm, however. He typed this thread like he just woke up from the Matrix and was trying to preach the truth to the blind, ignorant masses that none of it was real.