AfterDawn: Tech news

At one point, LA Noire was six-discs for Xbox 360

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 17 May 2011 11:49 User comments (23)

At one point, LA Noire was six-discs for Xbox 360 Developer Team Bondi has confirmed that at one point, the blockbuster title LA Noire filled six DVDs for the Xbox 360.
Says the Team:

We've always been called stupidly ambitious ... we make very big games.

It's the biggest map that we've done and that Rockstar have done, so there's a lot of detail in there, and also a lot of actor's performances - 21 hours worth.


As new buyers will see, the team was able to use enhanced compression tech, bringing the game to a robust three DVDs.

It was a struggle, however: "It took a lot of effort to get down to three discs."

On the other hand, Sony's version fits easily on one 50GB Blu-ray disc, with zero compression issues.

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23 user comments

117.5.2011 12:23

Yay Blu-Ray!

217.5.2011 12:40

Data that fills six dual-layer DVDs would require (slight) compression to fit on a dual-layer Blu-Ray, though. If the last DVD was less than half-full it would (barely) fit on a single Blu-Ray.

9GB*6 = 54GB

317.5.2011 12:43

Originally posted by Pop_Smith:
Data that fills six dual-layer DVDs would require (slight) compression to fit on a dual-layer Blu-Ray, though. If the last DVD was less than half-full it would (barely) fit on a single Blu-Ray.

9GB*6 = 54GB
DVD DL is 8.5GB

8.5GB * 6 = 51GB

So we can assume that if it fit on a Blu-Ray without compression, the last DVD wasn't filled.

417.5.2011 12:46

Originally posted by core2kid:

DVD DL is 8.5GB

8.5GB * 6 = 51GB

So we can assume that if it fit on a Blu-Ray without compression, the last DVD wasn't filled.
Ah, you're right. I keep thinking that a dual-layer DVD is 9.4GB because a SL is 4.7GB.

517.5.2011 13:06

Originally posted by core2kid:
Originally posted by Pop_Smith:
Data that fills six dual-layer DVDs would require (slight) compression to fit on a dual-layer Blu-Ray, though. If the last DVD was less than half-full it would (barely) fit on a single Blu-Ray.

9GB*6 = 54GB
DVD DL is 8.5GB

8.5GB * 6 = 51GB

So we can assume that if it fit on a Blu-Ray without compression, the last DVD wasn't filled.
If you really want to be accurate you would also have to factor in the amount of security data that would be on every single 360 disc that would take away from the total amount. With the newest information I came across the security data went from like 1.xx gbs down to a few hundred megs gaining roughly about a gig supposedly ~

Source

Quote:
A “highly placed” development source close to Digital Foundry has said that the “updated Xbox 360 disc format,” being tested by Microsoft will add 1GB storage for the console’s game discs.

The maximum space for game data on 360-discs currently stands at 6.8GB with 1GB of the 7.95GB dual layer DVD alloted to anti-piracy and other security measures. Digital Foundry believes the video partition has “either been drastically reduced or omitted completely in the new format Microsoft is looking to roll-out.”

Those who are accepted into the beta of the preview program are getting Halo: Reach as a test disc-reward, and will obviously contain whatever format Microsoft is testing. Since users’ Xbox 360 DVD drive could be from either Samsung, Hitachi, Benq or Liteon depending on the model’s year – it’s no wonder the firm is looking for “multiple thousands” of testers.

Reach itself took up 6.6GB of disc space, so DF believes “ether padding or additional content will have been added to this new edition,” or data is being allocated to areas of the disc “the video partition would have previously occupied.”

Developers would appreciate the extra 14-15 percent disc room, obviously, but it might also be a way for Microsoft to implement new anti-piracy measures.

“MS will introduce XBG3 – this will add more AP checks, CVI (content integerity) checks, increase the disc size and adds a new layer for protection issues – all in the 20500 sdk,” said Xbox 360 DVD firmware hacker “Commodore4eva”, before adding “bring it on.”

Likely someone will spill the beans soon once the discs start rolling out to users.
So if you re-do the math pre-new disc format you it would probably need more discs and post-new disc would probably be close to the same of your original estimation.
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 17 May 2011 @ 1:07

617.5.2011 14:12

Yikes! 6 discs! Good job on the compression job then i guess, but i wonder what was lost, removed, or toned down graphically to make them fit on 3.

717.5.2011 17:08

And that's why Blu-Ray is awesome :)

Multi-disc games shouldn't exist with technology these days but no, Microsoft decides to use DVDs for their games.

817.5.2011 18:11

I wonder how much the game will cost if it actually comes in six discs ??

917.5.2011 18:22

Originally posted by CJ007:
I wonder how much the game will cost if it actually comes in six discs ??
The game came out today (on 3 discs), but in theory the game would/should still be the same price to us consumers...it's the dev/publisher/whatever that would take the hit on their profits because it's standard practice for MS to charge for each additional disc.
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 17 May 2011 @ 6:23

1017.5.2011 20:06

Originally posted by Oner:
Originally posted by CJ007:
I wonder how much the game will cost if it actually comes in six discs ??
The game came out today (on 3 discs), but in theory the game would/should still be the same price to us consumers...it's the dev/publisher/whatever that would take the hit on their profits because it's standard practice for MS to charge for each additional disc.

Microsoft also has per-disc licensing costs to developers, which means they lose even more. id complained about that regarding RAGE, saying it could adversely affect the 360 version (e.g. leaving stuff out, using lower-rez textures, etc. to fit on fewer discs).

1117.5.2011 23:03

At this point, Microsoft would love to go BluRay, but they really can't...too many consoles already in the wild. It is an outdated platform that they keep pushing, and people keep buying it, so companies keep making games for it. At some point it is going to reach the point where the Wii is now...where some developers don't want to waste time with it because it does not have the capabilities that they need to do what they want. Hopefully the 720 will be out by then and it will have bluray or better.

1218.5.2011 01:27

Wow that's a lot for one game. I hope they didn't have to cut any content to make it available for both platforms.

1318.5.2011 15:54

3 discs?
So what?
As PCs prove Bl;u-ray is simply not needed for great gaming, the truth is they fill the games with 1080po cut scenes and take up the space with that, largely.

I just don't care.

Nobody is moving to Blu-ray because it is in a niche all of its own, PS3 and a niche of movie releases.

DVD will continue to be used because it is usable everywhere (with Blu-ray being present on a miniscule amount of PCs) and it is so cheap it is almost free, Xbox 360 numbers are huge and all guarantee large DVD take-up it just requires a little thought in packaging the game, so really, who cares if they use multiple discs?

1419.5.2011 00:26

PC games can get away with lots of disks because you can install the game and put most of the disks away. In most cases, you can fire up Daemon Tools and put all the disks away. Plus, you don't have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft for every additional disk.

The 360 is another story...a lot of users don't have hard drives at all, let alone drives with 50GB+ of free space...Microsoft blocks you from using anything but tiny, outdated drives that cost way too much, so 50GB (or even 25GB) is a lot to ask for one game.

Swapping 3 disks around is a pain in the A55...and this article shows that the disk issue is now forcing developers to over compress things...soon they will just start cutting them back. Bluray is not a niche anymore...it is only a matter of time before we are looking at DVD+R disks like we currently look at CD-R disks. It may suck, but it is a fact...even linux has bluray capabilities now (you have to add it yourself because of licensing issues, but you can do it). Bluray is the next optical media standard...HD-DVD is long dead and there isn't anything else to compete.

Oh, as for all the devices that support DVD and not bluray, most of those will be dead or replaced within about 2 years...you can get a laptop with a bluray drive for under $700...and that price should be under $400 within a year. You can get a bluray burner for your PC for $80, and you can get a stack of 20 Verbatim 25GB disks for $25 shipped...that is only $3 more than the cost of 20 Verbatim 8.5GB DVD+R disks shipped. This isn't an expensive niche tech anymore; it is actually cheaper per GB.

1519.5.2011 03:31

saying that dvd is here to stay is just plain stupid... Most of the PC games are downloadable i dont have a idea why they dont use BD yet, but when was the last time any of us tech guys have watch a movie on DVD? it just doesn't make sense if a higher quality is available you choose a weaker one. Even streaming now is high def. DVD have been dead to me for years i have had my HDTV for over 5 years and i dont believe that anyone that come to this site cant afford HD...

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 19 May 2011 @ 3:32

1619.5.2011 08:26

Another reason to keep your JTAG working as long as possible and forget about playing on LIVE with copied games.

1719.5.2011 15:39

i1der

DVD may be 'dead' to you but I assure you out in the wider world it is all most use when it comes to films on disc or games on disc or data on PC.

Blu-ray has the PS3 gang and a small niche amongst movie fans (according to NPD in the largest most mature market, the USA, it's barely 20% of the new release movie market) and an even tinnier number of PC users.
It is - by far- the miror player in the equation.

1819.5.2011 18:00

DVD certainly isn't obsolete or dead in any form but Blu-Ray over the years should become more popular and cheaper too (unless something better than Blu-Ray is created).

Blu-Ray is just plain better but obviously DVD is far more popular and cheaper but it is quite silly to say that DVD will continue beyond Blu-Ray.

Also, I'd like to believe as technology gets better, games will become larger in file and if Microsoft continues to use DVD for their next console, then multiple discs might be seen as a 'normal' thing for the next Xbox.

Sure, a handful of games might not seem like much but if DVD is continually being used for video games, then I'm sure that overtime it will become very impractical to use.

1919.5.2011 21:04

kikzm33z

I have a blu-ray movie player, I have a blu-ray ROM drive in my HTPC and I have a blu-ray burner in my main desktop.

But frankly I think people are delusional if they really think Blu-ray is going to do anything but remain as a minority niche in all the markets it is in
(movies, games and PC.....and what's that we hear about Nintendo's next console not using blu-ray?).

The rate of growth is way too slow.
I fully expect DVD to be around long after Blu-ray's backers have given up pretending Blu-ray is going to take over anything.

Digital distribution will be the thing, everyone knows it's a case of when not if.
When 'the cloud' has pretty much everything you could want to view/play cheaply people will stop worrying about cluttering their house with physical copies.
The net infrastructure is improving every year (in the UK 'up to 40mbps' is becoming ever more widely available) and we're easily there for on-demand streaming (as Sky Anytime+ is demonstrating in the UK as we speak).

.....and this is with it in its infancy.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 19 May 2011 @ 9:05

2020.5.2011 04:07

Originally posted by Interestx:
3 discs?
So what?
As PCs prove Bl;u-ray is simply not needed for great gaming, the truth is they fill the games with 1080po cut scenes and take up the space with that, largely.

I just don't care.

Nobody is moving to Blu-ray because it is in a niche all of its own, PS3 and a niche of movie releases.

DVD will continue to be used because it is usable everywhere (with Blu-ray being present on a miniscule amount of PCs) and it is so cheap it is almost free, Xbox 360 numbers are huge and all guarantee large DVD take-up it just requires a little thought in packaging the game, so really, who cares if they use multiple discs?

PC hasn't moved to Blu-Ray just yet, but when the PC App makers start to move onto it I think Autodesk have started their move, but the problem with PC is that some stuff is also coming on USB drives as well like virus checkers.

You can pick up 12x Blu-ray burners extremely cheap, and all brand name PCs have Blu-Ray support on them now.

It's just a case of Game devs deciding if Blu-Ray is better or going the download route.

Many PC games released on DVD are just steam installs these days but then again most PC game installs aren't much larger than a DVD or 2 anyway so you'd only need a single larger blu-ray.
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 20 May 2011 @ 4:12

2120.5.2011 06:39

Originally posted by Interestx:
kikzm33z

I have a blu-ray movie player, I have a blu-ray ROM drive in my HTPC and I have a blu-ray burner in my main desktop.

But frankly I think people are delusional if they really think Blu-ray is going to do anything but remain as a minority niche in all the markets it is in
(movies, games and PC.....and what's that we hear about Nintendo's next console not using blu-ray?).

The rate of growth is way too slow.
I fully expect DVD to be around long after Blu-ray's backers have given up pretending Blu-ray is going to take over anything.

Digital distribution will be the thing, everyone knows it's a case of when not if.
When 'the cloud' has pretty much everything you could want to view/play cheaply people will stop worrying about cluttering their house with physical copies.
The net infrastructure is improving every year (in the UK 'up to 40mbps' is becoming ever more widely available) and we're easily there for on-demand streaming (as Sky Anytime+ is demonstrating in the UK as we speak).

.....and this is with it in its infancy.
Digital distribution sure will take over some time, but I still believe that if next gen consoles wants better quality games on one disc, then Blu-Ray is the way forward.

I also believe that many consumers will prefer physical copies of films rather than digital copies because there's more of a 'protection' about it but that's all debatable and I don't want to get into that but still, I think the majority would prefer physical copies over digital copies whether it does take up space or not.

2220.5.2011 10:07

I have the game and installed it on my Xbox. Only the first disc installed and the game runs fine. I'm not sure when I'll need the other 2 discs but guess it will ask for them when I do?

I like to install my games on the Hard Drive and play from there which I'm doing with this game.

2322.5.2011 03:21

JohnnyG77

It's the smart way to do it, it is not only the quietest way to play games but it also gives the console a much easier life.

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