San Andreas TOO big my ASS! Heard of compression?

[CryptReaperDorian]

Haven't you ever noticed that many people are like "San Andreas is too big for next generation consoles" or people acting like or saying that San Andreas is like the biggest sandbox map up to date? You probably do as you may be one of those people. Now this thread isn't really meant to flame those this is directed to, but this should be made clear. Audio takes up usually 80% of games! Unlike graphics and animations, audio can't be compressed down. Does anybody actually know how big SA is? It's only 13.9 square miles (GTA IV's map is then around 10.5 square miles). True Crime: New York City had a full scale replica of Manhattan which was 24 square miles and it still had what can be said some of the best graphics for PS2. Even then that's pretty tiny. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising has a map of 107.22 square miles, ArmA 2 has a map of about 139 square miles (about 10 times larger than SA), True Crime: Streets of L.A. has a map of 240 square miles, ArmA: Armed Assault has a map of about 248 square miles, and Just Cause has a map of 391 square miles. Now that's just a handful of games that have massive maps. Eight Days (which was cancelled and just recently announced to only be on hold along with The Getaway 3 ) was supposed to have the largest map up to date taking place in eight states, and that itself seemed like it was going to have pretty good graphics.

 

My point is that San Andreas is completely do-able on seventh generation consoles.

 

Just some input.

[K^2]

Your information is partially outdated and partially misinterpreted.

 

First of all, audio used to take up up to 80% of the games rather briefly. GTA San Andreas, which had a ton of audio, used 2GB for audio and 2GB for textures. In GTA IV, textures take up a much bigger fraction.

 

Secondly, your comparison with other games is flawed. True Crime sacrificed detail to fit in extra space. Most notably, it reused a lot of textures to make it work. Similar story goes for other games you mention. Note that most of their land mass is taken up by terrain, which allows for heavy reuse of textures.

 

Yes, map geometry is not a problem. It takes up a relatively tiny portion of space. For comparison, GTA San Andreas maps took less than 10MB of space. A map of IV quality and properly scaled for a state with 3 cities of such size and terrain in between would still fit in about 100MB. But that's just geometry, which never was the problem.

 

And your comment on compression? That's pretty useless. Audio is as compressed as it can be. Textures don't compress well, and if you compress them further than they already are (I'm just guessing, but they are probably stored as DXT) you are going to hurt streaming.

 

So you still run into the problem with disk space. You'd be able to re-use a lot of stuff, but to get the SA feel from a IV generation GTA, you are going to need to at very least double the disk space requirement. So you are looking at a 30GB game. This really isn't a big problem for PS3. It has a lot of HDD space and support for 50GB disks. This isn't too big of a problem for PC either. Of course, a 30GB install from 3 DVDs is not going to be much fun, but c'est la vie. The biggest thorn here is 360, which supports only 9GB and doesn't even come with HDD on all models. You can't do anything significantly bigger than Liberty City on 360. Yeah, you can spread it out, put some fields, mountains, and forests between cities, but the combined urban area could not be increased much. That's just the fact of life.

 

So there are 3 possibilities. First, next GTA might not come out on 360. I find that unlikely. Second, next GTA might be a single city, about the size of Liberty. That is most likely. Third, they might build something like San Andreas, but they will simply take the same urban area as Liberty and spread it between two or more smaller cities with some countryside in between. This is a possibility.

[socal000]

Yeah, we say that becase it's our opinion, for the people who didn't like San andreas to begin with, we say that because it could be put to use for other things that are more useful than a place just to roam around, and like K^2 said, some of your info is a bit outdated.

[CryptReaperDorian]

So lots of my info. is like "last generation"? You still can't rule out the possibility that R* may make another technical outbreak to make compression even further greater and effective. Anyways, I just hope the eigth generation of gaming that Microsoft will update (which they most likely will) their discs to HD DVDs at the very least. If I'm right, isn't Bluray somewhat owned by Sony? However, by next generation we'll probably need some type of super-discs as detail will be even higher yet.

[K^2]

Do you understand anything about compression and information theory? Do you know what entropy has to do with it? Do you know why JPEGs work on frequency space?

 

People who do understand these things have worked long and hard to come up with compression schemes we use today. The only way to reduce the amount of space needed for textures is to switch to procedural generation of textures, and that simply isn't an option for a game that relies on streaming.

 

And no, BD is not owned by Sony. They are just one of the contributers. The board consists of many corporations, and MS could have had BD on the 360 from the start, and they are working on an addon that will support it. But since it is not standard equipment, they will not allow for games on BD. It will be just for movies, as far as I'm aware.

Edited November 1, 2009 by K^2

[RomanViking]

Just backing up what K^2 already posted:

 

Example:

True Crime has a massive area to explore, the thing is it's very very repetitive. As you drive you'll see the exact same house model repeated hundreds of times. They created maybe 50 buildings, some road pieces, and street clutter such as telephone poles, and used it to "arrange" 200 miles of Los Angeles.

 

Another point; it's not actually 100,000 buildings worth of data, it's more like 50 buildings worth of data, and as you travel the buildings are "moved around".

 

They have the locations of every building recorded, but it's consisting of those core 50 buildings.

 

Rockstar Games create their worlds much more honestly. They model out every part individually. The engine doesn't just load house model 1, model 7, model 3, and place it in front of you as you travel, repeating over and over hundreds of times.

 

They actually put effort in and model every building individually.

 

As a result the world is only a fraction the size of those other games, but no two areas look the same.

[Wenis IV]

If they think its too big, tell them to play Just Cause. That'll teach them

[CryptReaperDorian]

While these "small maps" like GTA games are just that, I usually find them to be the perfect size for roaming around. Larger maps can just to be too tedious especially if it's all unlocked from the beginning or it's all one island.

 

@RomanViking: I definately noticed that True Crime (mostly in TC: SoLA) is all repetitive enviroments. The thing is that usually making a map larger decreases quality. I think I even noticed how GTA SA started looking a bit old from GTA VC and how many bugs it suffered from.

 

@K^2: Obviously I don't know as much about this stuff as you do. How about height limits though? Does elevation/depth take up quite a bit of textures or disc space? I remember GTA SA was actually quite massive with the high elevation and the depth of the water. That there can make the map way larger than it is at land mass.

[K^2]

The penalty for building higher tends to be very small. First of all, the surface area doesn't grow as dramatically. More importantly, your tallest objects, be they buildings or mountains, will have rather repetitive textures. So doubling the height of a particular building won't change the size of textures you need for that building. There is, however, some overhead for simply allowing player to look at your city from greater height - but only up to a point.

 

There are several things you need to keep in mind. First of all, there is a fine balance between memory overhead and GPU overhead. You can use fewer textures by diversifying geometry, but that means more polygons to render. And vice versa, you can reduce polygon count by using textures to fake geometry. Later is especially true of LOD. Distant buildings have to consist of just a few boxes with a texture showing architecture. Otherwise, there will be too many polygons to render. Pretty much every building has to have its own texture for this, or it will look like crap. On the plus side, these don't need to be extremely detailed. On the negative side, if you want distant objects to appear natural, you are going to use mip-mapping and anisotropic filtering. That significantly increases memory overhead from LOD textures, both in RAM and on the disk.

 

Why does it matter? Well, the higher you go, the more of your city you see at once. That means distant objects need to be rendered in better detail than they would be if you were looking from ground level. A good LOD system can help you reduce problems you'd get from that, but you are still going to need better quality LOD textures.

[Ryder 556]

Do you understand anything about compression and information theory? Do you know what entropy has to do with it?

I don't think he does. R* have came out and said that GTA IV was a lot harder to get working on the 360 for 2 reasons.

1. Disk space. They had a f*ck tonne of problems with that

2. No HDD on every model. Self Explanatory.

 

Sure they had problems with the PS3's tech but which third party dev doesn't. Honestly. Once Sony came and fixed up the issues in January R* were off on a headstart to PS3 glory(Agent, maybe the GTA game after GTA NeXt)

 

 

 

Does elevation/depth take up quite a bit of textures or disc space? I remember GTA SA was actually quite massive with the high elevation and the depth of the water. That there can make the map way larger than it is at land mass.

 

Can I answer this one K^2?

 

The answer is no. Like K^2 said the whole SA map file(pretty big right?) is only 9.3 MB. As big as 2 or 3 songs. Not that much space. Models don't take up that much space. Textures on the other hand take up a sh*t tonne of space. You ever mod a PC version of GTA? Take a look at weapon mods. I'll use grim's guns as an example cause he is a godly weapon modder.

 

His Heat seeking RPG mod for SA(biggest file of his I have ATM) is only 73 KB for the .dff file(the model) But an astonishing 1.08MB for the .txd(texture). That's one hell of a difference.

 

So no. Seeing as the height is also represented by the model it's not gonna take up that much space unless the texture is realistic.

 

[laravia18]

I want to see another game as big as San Andreas but a completely different theme. I love the size of the game. For me, it makes for endless fun. That is one of the few GTA games that I still pickup and play after beating the game a few times. Whenever I am bored I get the game out and just go around town.

 

I am not sure if it will work since the Xbox only uses DVD still but since computers have dual-layer and blu-ray and the PS3 has blu-ray, they both can hold more information.

[markjaysongalang]

I wanna see San Andreas again in GTA V, with better graphics, around 1 TB, that needs (OMG!) 320 GB NVIDIA 9999GTX+ (wow! that's for the next generation, Year 3010)

Joke!

 

Well I wanna see San Andreas in Realistic graphics like GTA IV.

 

 

 

[visionist]

Come on realisticially even IVs graphics aren't THAT good. Alot of the textures are downright crap compared to their real life counterparts. Buildings have nowhere near the surface detail they should to look realistic and cars are even worse.

 

High standards are awesome

[ScotchMouth]

Very interesting thread! Thanks to all those that share their knowledge

[marexx]

Double the diskspace for next gen san andreas? Oh please, Country side dosent really take up that much disk space becouse its allmost empty

 

[Algonquin Assassin]

To be honest I would rather a map the size of Vice City, with the majority of the buildings enterable, and way more details than GTA IV.

[marexx]

Yes i agree i would like to see vice city again, But then again i also would like to see London and San Andreas done.

[mkey82]

Come on realisticially even IVs graphics aren't THAT good.

You sir are my new GTAF hero!

[supermortalhuman]

I can't think of a better looking game than GTA IV. There might be some which look better in certain effects or instances, but nothing compares to GTA's graphically and visually stunning display of a full city and being able to actually go and see every part of it. I mean, even HL2 Episode 2 looks a lot better frame per frame, but it would look like sh*t if they tried to use that engine for an open world game

 

See how I mean that though? Like, IV looks like a damn pixar movie, and it is amazing, that they did that, on such a scale.

 

I Can't name a game with damage like that either

[Osric]

I think if they do return to San Andreas, they should only use one city, preferrably Las Venturas, since it had the most potential, yet it was the least used of all the cities in SA.

[Jcpo]

Haven't you ever noticed that many people are like "San Andreas is too big for next generation consoles" or people acting like or saying that San Andreas is like the biggest sandbox map up to date? You probably do as you may be one of those people. Now this thread isn't really meant to flame those this is directed to, but this should be made clear. Audio takes up usually 80% of games! Unlike graphics and animations, audio can't be compressed down. Does anybody actually know how big SA is? It's only 13.9 square miles (GTA IV's map is then around 10.5 square miles). True Crime: New York City had a full scale replica of Manhattan which was 24 square miles and it still had what can be said some of the best graphics for PS2. Even then that's pretty tiny. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising has a map of 107.22 square miles, ArmA 2 has a map of about 139 square miles (about 10 times larger than SA), True Crime: Streets of L.A. has a map of 240 square miles, ArmA: Armed Assault has a map of about 248 square miles, and Just Cause has a map of 391 square miles. Now that's just a handful of games that have massive maps. Eight Days (which was cancelled and just recently announced to only be on hold along with The Getaway 3 ) was supposed to have the largest map up to date taking place in eight states, and that itself seemed like it was going to have pretty good graphics.

 

My point is that San Andreas is completely do-able on seventh generation consoles.

 

Just some input.

If you want sh*tty graphics and a huge map without any loveliness lets make SA again.

 

I really do not like S.A. did you see this ugly map that is a squarre with 3 or 4 rivers inside, oh yeah it's really cool driving through the forest etc... But I do not think that it corespond with GTA's atmospher.

Look at all GTA they were Island with a city on ( not for the PS1 one but it's the same ) SA is the only one that is not a city and it's not GTA for me.

S.A does not match with reality, once you leave a city it's directly desertic places, it would be better if there was house everywhere on SA map except on the desert of LV.

 

S.A. does not have any atomspher yet it's impersonal it's just a map with a guy that kill ppl it's not like VC or LC where there is something that make the game a personality and this come from the fact that it's not just a place it's a city with his own personality and specifications. S.A must not be a couple of city because each city should have his personality, there is a little with the police cars that change when you change city but that's all, you can put all 3 SA cities together it would be the same because it's impersonal. Let's try puting VC and LC together you will see that it's not the same atmospher, in S.A. we don't see it.

 

So IMO if there is another S.A it must be like in GTA 1, only one city and it must be a city like LC that is reproduced as real as possible and without all this stuff that there is in S.A like those milions three that once you gone through 1 time you know it by heart.

 

Hope you'll see what I mean.

[mkey82]

 

I really do not like S.A. did you see this ugly map that is a squarre with 3 or 4 rivers inside,

 

 

Look at all GTA they were Island with a city on ( not for the PS1 one but it's the same )

 

 

SA is the only one that is not a city and it's not GTA for me.

You are new to the series or what? Play the games first, spout crap later.

[Jcpo]

 

I really do not like S.A. did you see this ugly map that is a squarre with 3 or 4 rivers inside,

 

 

Look at all GTA they were Island with a city on ( not for the PS1 one but it's the same )

 

 

SA is the only one that is not a city and it's not GTA for me.

You are new to the series or what? Play the games first, spout crap later.

What do you mean ? I play GTA since GTA III and finished all of them ( not advance & chinatown ), what is the problem in the fact that I do not like GTA SA's environment ?

 

Maybe you do not understand what I mean, I played GTA SA, much time but I can't play GTA S.A. too long, it's boring ( SAMP is right ). Conversely I play GTA IV nearly each day from the day it was realeased and I'm still having fun

Edited November 3, 2009 by Jcpo

[K^2]

You are new to the series or what?

What do you mean ? I play GTA since GTA III...

That would be a 'yes'. But regardless...

 

 

I really do not like S.A. did you see this ugly map that is a squarre with 3 or 4 rivers inside, oh yeah it's really cool driving through the forest etc... But I do not think that it corespond with GTA's atmospher.

Look at all GTA they were Island with a city on ( not for the PS1 one but it's the same ) SA is the only one that is not a city and it's not GTA for me.

So you didn't notice the fact that each of the cities exceeds in complexity GTA III's LC? Instead, you take the shape of the overall map as the guide line? You enjoy III/Vice for the city, and yet you are comparing the blank areas of SA with them? What's wrong with you? You like cities? Stick to them.

 

San Andreas gave you freedom to enjoy the game any way you like it. IV stuck you into a city, bound you to the ground, and led you by the hand the whole way. If you seriously prefer that, you have problems.

 

GTA IV brought many innovations into the mix, and it is understandable why some people like it more than SA. But it is also a test-platform with limited access to its features. Most people confuse their preference for the innovations with the overall sandbox design. You must be able to draw the line. Taking IV into direction of SA does not mean a change in atmosphere. It is simply an opportunity to create several cities with some variation to the atmosphere, to allow a player a choice of the city they like best, but also to open up some space for people who prefer countryside. If SA is done (properly) in IV canon, you have to be completely dysfunctional not to enjoy it as much.

[Jcpo]

 

So you didn't notice the fact that each of the cities exceeds in complexity GTA III's LC? Instead, you take the shape of the overall map as the guide line? You enjoy III/Vice for the city, and yet you are comparing the blank areas of SA with them? What's wrong with you? You like cities? Stick to them.

 

=> The cities of SA are cool yeah but they don't reflect an image, they don't give us the feeling of being in Las Vegas, Los Angeles or San Francisco they only seem to be.

 

 

San Andreas gave you freedom to enjoy the game any way you like it. IV stuck you into a city, bound you to the ground, and led you by the hand the whole way. If you seriously prefer that, you have problems.

 

=> I agree with you in this point I jumped from chilliad, I rode through pines but S.A. is full of cool things that you don't enjoy anymore after 1hour ; In IV's LC you never know the city as enough as you want ; you're driving through and always finding new things to do... There is always something happenning to you and you never don't know what to do, you just drive without thinking about what you're going to do and then you'll see what's going through your mind.

SA is a playground where you act, LC is a place that act on you.

 

 

GTA IV brought many innovations into the mix, and it is understandable why some people like it more than SA. But it is also a test-platform with limited access to its features. Most people confuse their preference for the innovations with the overall sandbox design. You must be able to draw the line. Taking IV into direction of SA does not mean a change in atmosphere. It is simply an opportunity to create several cities with some variation to the atmosphere, to allow a player a choice of the city they like best, but also to open up some space for people who prefer countryside. If SA is done (properly) in IV canon, you have to be completely dysfunctional not to enjoy it as much.

 

=> Maybe you're right but I'm still thinking that they must concentrate on a city as they did for NYC ; to make the game they took many photos of NYC, they would like to reproduce the atmosphere of the city that they know, where they live and they have done it, it's perfectly NYC.

 

So for sure they will redo it for the next GTA and don't atemp to be in the same SA you know.

[EduardKoeleJuck]

I think if they do return to San Andreas, they should only use one city, preferrably Las Venturas, since it had the most potential, yet it was the least used of all the cities in SA.

Los Santos ftw! I mean, Los Angeles has so much different 'hoods, like Beverly Hills, South Central etc.

 

What R* SHOULD do, is take the LA map from Midnight Club LA, modify it a bit, and done! They already said it's possible, it's the same engine, so...

[K^2]

 

he cities of SA are cool yeah but they don't reflect an image, they don't give us the feeling of being in Las Vegas, Los Angeles or San Francisco they only seem to be.

And the III's LC or Vice did give you that feeling?

 

I think you are confusing engine capabilities with design flaws. You can't compare across engine and platform generation gap like that. IV's Liberty feels so much more alive because of the tech behind it. I mean, yes, artists put a lot of work into it too, but they wouldn't be able to make it into the game without the capabilities of the new engine. On the GTA III's engine, that was simply not possible. Vice City is probably the best they were able to do with it. And yes, compared to Vice, the atmosphere of SA is a bit of a step back, but in terms of finding new things to explore, LS or SF alone have both III and Vice beat.

 

SA on IV's engine is not going to be the same SA you saw on III's engine. You'll see the same qualitative step up as from III's LC to IV's LC in each of the cities.

[Jcpo]

he cities of SA are cool yeah but they don't reflect an image, they don't give us the feeling of being in Las Vegas, Los Angeles or San Francisco they only seem to be.

And the III's LC or Vice did give you that feeling?

 

I think you are confusing engine capabilities with design flaws. You can't compare across engine and platform generation gap like that. IV's Liberty feels so much more alive because of the tech behind it. I mean, yes, artists put a lot of work into it too, but they wouldn't be able to make it into the game without the capabilities of the new engine. On the GTA III's engine, that was simply not possible. Vice City is probably the best they were able to do with it. And yes, compared to Vice, the atmosphere of SA is a bit of a step back, but in terms of finding new things to explore, LS or SF alone have both III and Vice beat.

 

SA on IV's engine is not going to be the same SA you saw on III's engine. You'll see the same qualitative step up as from III's LC to IV's LC in each of the cities.

Yes we are done but if you want to compare with the same engine, I prefer LCS & VCS than S.A. That's it. In SA you are a ghetto gangsta, in other GTAs you are a criminal. That make the total difference, GTA III is the Parain, GTA VC is Scareface, GTA S.A. is a playground for child that want to be a gangster !

[K^2]

Oh, yeah. I disliked the whole "gangsta" theme of SA as well. Plus CJ was a terrible character, and the story line was one of the worst...

 

There are plenty of things wrong with San Andreas. It's just that none of them have to do with map size or multi-city design.

[mkey82]

It's just that none of them have to do with map size or multi-city design.

This.

 

 

If you want sh*tty graphics and a huge map without any loveliness lets make SA again.

What the hell are you talking about here? SA graphics is on par with GTA3 games, same engine, same "gen".

 

 

I really do not like S.A. did you see this ugly map that is a squarre with 3 or 4 rivers inside,

ALL GTA maps are square Yeah, go figure. You have some land, some seas and that's that. Square.

 

 

oh yeah it's really cool driving through the forest etc... But I do not think that it corespond with GTA's atmospher.

Don't drive through the forest, then? Fly yourself or take an airplane.

 

 

Look at all GTA they were Island with a city on ( not for the PS1 one but it's the same ) SA is the only one that is not a city and it's not GTA for me.

You are utterly deluded. Do you even know the definition of the word "island"? A piece of terrain surrounded from all sides with water. Yeah, SA has that.

 

 

S.A does not match with reality, once you leave a city it's directly desertic places, it would be better if there was house everywhere on SA map except on the desert of LV.

What the hell are you talking about? You had safehouses all over the place

 

 

S.A. does not have any atomspher yet it's impersonal it's just a map with a guy that kill ppl it's not like VC or LC where there is something that make the game a personality and this come from the fact that it's not just a place it's a city with his own personality and specifications. S.A must not be a couple of city because each city should have his personality, there is a little with the police cars that change when you change city but that's all, you can put all 3 SA cities together it would be the same because it's impersonal. Let's try puting VC and LC together you will see that it's not the same atmospher, in S.A. we don't see it.

Nah, you haven't played SA. There are no distinctive features between towns? None whatsoever? lol Like the hood in LS, the flashy tall buildings in LV or the hillside setting of SF? What are you talking about?

 

 

So IMO if there is another S.A it must be like in GTA 1, only one city and it must be a city like LC that is reproduced as real as possible and without all this stuff that there is in S.A like those milions three that once you gone through 1 time you know it by heart.

What? So trees are unreal? Riiiiiight. It seems GTAIV redefined the term "realistic".