Assassin's Creed DVD Space Issues Fixed Posted by XanTium | October 22 13:12 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From kotaku.com.au: [QUOTE] During the Assassin's Creed demo down at the Australian Maritime Museum today, creative director Patrice Desilets commented on remarks he made two weeks ago on cramming all the game's data onto the Xbox 360's puny DVD format, and into the PS3's questionable memory density. According to Desilets, his boss called him the day after the comments were made and they exchanged a few words. All Desilets was willing to say today on the Xbox 360 issue was: "There's no problem anymore. It's gone." [/QUOTE] Full Story: kotaku.com.au

If you read a little deeper, the guy was talking about fitting 5 languages on to 1 DVD.

Thats a hard thing to do when you add in game text audio, video and all that fun stuff.

It can be as other companies have shown but its tough to.

This has the abality to get blown out of proporation.

To sum it up, the game will easily fit on to a DVD-9 but fitting 5 full language version is causing them a few problems but they are getting it worked out.

Ya, it's called compression.

Or maybe if they didn't try to cram in all this prerendered video, with todays grafics its no problem to render everything realtime.

Agreed, I for one prefer using in game engine for the cut scenes the pre-rendered stuff just takes away for me personal the feel of the game.

OR MAYBE A FLIP DVD, LIKE OLD DAYS....

or localised versions?

1 language per disk x 5

Sounds to me like MS exchanged a few words with his boss to get him silenced.

They probably just took a few levels off the game and change the story a bit to match the smaller game.

yes.... because THATS the most logical way to go about it....

I agree with the 1 language per disc, i dont plan on playing it in every language, so why give it to me that way?

Actually yes it is. It would save time and money.

If they take it down to only one language per region then they would have to make a new master copy for each language and market each differently.

To save time and money it would have been easier to just cut a few levels and be done with it. I am sure they also cut the same levels out of the PS3 version to make each version the same.

Compression can only do so much.

You cant really compress text, audio you can only compress so much and if they are doing fully localized audio thats still alot of files and space needed for all 5 languages.

I dount they will cut lavels from the game, too much work to fix the story and re-test the game, too much risk there.

Its possible they might cut the level of localized content or could generate more than one localized version.
They have options open to them which does not mean cutting game content.

I am sure they have a solution, the guy said it was a challenge, he did not say it was impossible.

sure, it'd be EASIER to cut levels, but that is not what we wanna hear.

if all 5 languages are on one dvd it gives you the option to buy the game from some cheaper asian store.

And you guys see why MS says "no comment" to everything...

Because this poor guy was actually honest with us consumers and probably got reamed for it..

They will not be cutting any levels..
If anything they will make 2 master copies one thats multi 3 and another that's multi 2, company's have done this before.
And it makes it alot more easier then cutting levels and then re-working the story around them levels, and then testing again to make sure everything works ok..

The problem probably isn't with the US version so much as it is the European release. European releases typically have at least 3 languages. The problem isn't so much the space of DVD-9 as it is the expectations when you have a really large format to work with and a much smaller one. If the game was designed strictly for the Xbox then it wouldn't have even crossed the devs minds that there wasn't enough space.

guess you never heard of h264/aac compression for video and audio. and it can still be all that hd bliss just smaller file sizes on both audio and video. i have some h264 videos with 3 audio tracks and 20 minuts long and there only 50 megs and still look hd qualty. as for text its small anyways but could be compressed if your so inclined to do so. fitting all languages on a game is retarted anyways you make diffrent copys for eatch region its always been done that way. the companys is just trying to cut corners.

Did you just say you can't compress text? *cough*bullshit*cough*
because text actually compresses VERY well.

Maybe you meant that the amount of space that the text actually takes up is inconsequential.

Sounds like he was telling the straitest truth then got threatened into "being careful".

Probably especially about describing the new corners cut by whatever the 'fix' is.

If you un-pretty the words that people who stand to make money off the game carefully use to describe the situation, and look for clues and trends all games are having, it comes down to it's going to be uglier, shorter, or worse language options. Most likely one of the two former.

Any way you look at it, if you notice what's coming out across the board for 360, DVD size IS limiting and DOES mean each game HAS TO cut some corner. All the decent games actually are literally CRAMMED on the disks. Making a game that looks as good as 360 possibly can... forces it to be short. Making a reasonably long game... requires simpler and uglier graphics even with compression. Don't believe me? Find a long 360 game that's not sports, uses a single disk, and looks as detailed as the best. (Sports games achieve length + graphics by using the same small environments over and over or for long times.)

And compression itself is not lossless either, or lossless is a misleading word. If it's a lot of compression the quality WILL degrade considerably. Even with a so-called "lossless codec". And regaining any usable amount of space takes a LOT of compression. It's like trying to stuff twice as many beans into the same jar. It won't fit no matter what you do unless you cut huge chunks out everywhere. The best you can do is cut them them to fit like airtight puzzle pieces but even then, when you decompress them out of the jar, they still look a lot crappier and less like the real thing.

While a lot of fans like to fantasize that the company found some magical way to solve space issues without glaring sacrifice, the fact is, no such creature exists. The fact is there was probably no other way to cram the game onto the disk than either:

Cutting content: Making the game fit by making it shorter, while keeping the graphics top-notch

Shrinking the video files: Tons of extreme compression, saving just enough space to fit all the original bells and whistles in.

Switching to text-only translations for certain countries, which sucks if you're those countries because the game loses immersion for them. (unless it's a JRPG which traditionally has that feel anyway.)

The truth is, it's a pity 360 won't let HD-DvD versions of any game come out, even though it makes all units omni-game, which is a good thing in its own way. The price is that nothing can come out with length, graphics that truly use a lot of the 360's potential, AND omni audio translation all in one.

Actually I have yet to see a game using a reasonable Video codec. On the PC they are using mainly bink video, and it sucks ass. I played Stranglehold lately on PC and it installs 12GB including >3GB Vids and they look craptastic and block like hell. If they did it ingame, I could actually enjoy the cutscenes.
The Xbox (1 and 360) are better, as they often use WMV for compression. Not that thats a good codec, but a lot better than bink. I have no Idea, what they are using on the PS3 though. (anyone?)


Perhaps you have no Idea what HD Video is about. Are you sure youre not refering to something like the videos Gametrailers.com calls HD? If you really think 150 MB/hour is enough for HD content, ... well I don't want to be rude.
And yes, I know h264/aac/fancy stuff.

Yup, sounds like he was told to shut it.

plain text can be compressed but games use various methods to get the game text in the system to be displayed in game.

OK we are not talking gigs here but text for all languages does add up, and if your say rendering some of that as artwork, or using a special font or needing to call it from a seprate file of hardcoding it in to the exe then you have to also look at that.

I was speaking of context of compression for game elements not compression in general.

I think the devs would have known well in advance what the total space requirements would be and if they "should" be able to get all the stuff in to place or not on a single disk, the problem is not making it fit, its getting it to fit in the right way without causing game performance issues as different areas of a DVD will read at faster or slower speeds.

what about the ps3 version?? Was that a lie too or are they really having problems stil

/irony
ZOMG!

Master DVD dics are sooooooooooo pricey!

I couldnt imagine making cheap "give it for free" ads discs! Like everybody is doing today! Matrix!

And those prices!

DVD technology is *so new* and *advanced* and costly that pressing low volumes of discs like few thousands in some small shops is inconceivable!
/irony

Stop spreading FUD if youy dont know what you are talking about.
And use google - check how much pressing some small volume of dics would cost you.
Then you your head and imagine how much lower would be it per disc if you pressed 100.000 in specialised factory.
Doh.

Have you played any games recently! Cutting levels would not be easy, nor would it be an efficient use of resources as claiming a game takes X hours to complete is a selling point for some.

Here I am referring to all the dependencies that later sections of a game have from the earlier ones, Items, story sequences, etc.

Besides removing a level will save very little room unless it is the only place in the game where certain models and textures are used

we dont care about the ps3 version

we all know there are some memory issues with the ps3 and they will workaround it like every other dev but im sure they will workaround the 360 issues also.

It was pretty stupid/irresponsible to mention the limitations for both consoles in the first place and now he is paying for it.

Assasins creed wll fit in the ps3's ram and 360's dvd. And the end user will not give a shit once the game is out

Wow, I would have thought the disc's were already pressed and ready to ship to retail stores this close to release date.

Good to know the problem has been fixed, although I fear at what cost.

I highly doubt that they would of jeopardized their games' standing in the eyes of the community to fix a space issue with the disc. They want AC to succeed so by hacking game content and overall dimishing the experience for the user they would be shooting themselves in the foot big time.

aka shitification

Cut scene videos saves a lot of loading time, development and space if you need to do unique visuals that won't be reused in the game.

For example, you don't want to load a whole new level just for showing the bad guy doing something far away and then cutting directly back to the current level of the game. It's a pretty common storytelling device.

With that said, fuck MS for not making the HD standard and using the first disc as install, last time i checked two DVDs still are a lot cheaper then one blu-ray.

Not really. They'll just bullshit and get people to buy it anyway. If you think great games don't get screwed by bad formats and sold anyway through marketing, or that there was a minor solution, you're living in sugar-coated cuckoo land.

Like I said earlier, to have saved any significant amount of space they had to make some big sacrifice. (And most folks likely won't know what it is until they've bought the game and played it)