Batmobile Abomination

[KazeAizen]

So as many of you have hear a new Arkham game is in the works. The concluding chapter to the highly successful Arkham games. In this new game you allowed to explore the entirety of Gotham for the first time and for this task they have given you one of Batman's signature crime fighting tools. The Batmobile. However it was recently revealed that the Batmobile itself would take up the memory equivalent of a 360 game. What.....the......hell? Is that supposed to impress? It disgusts me. To me that registers a red flag in my head instead of a wow factor. So my fellow escapists the question I pose to you. Are you impressed by this or are you disgusted by it like me? Why either way?

 

[El Luck]

so can you link to wherever you found this info out?

 

[ZCAB]

By all accounts, the batmobile takes up "only" 160mb of space, which isn't nearly the size of a 360 game (which is about 8gb on a single disc).

Link to a Google search with multiple sources for this. [http://goo.gl/uzYRuX]

EDIT: it would be impossible for one PS4 \ X1 game asset to be the size of a whole 360 game, because it would single-handedly fill up their 8 gigs of RAM. Looking through the Google search, I think the comparison may come from there being some (smaller, downloadable) games on the 360 that are as big or smaller than the batmobile's 160mb.

 

[DefunctTheory]

OP was referring to memory size (RAM), not storage space (Disc). Though the wording is really awkward and, well... wrong.

Which is still wrong. It takes up a quarter of the 360's memory, which really isn't that impressive.

EDIT: I assume this is OP's source, which explains the confusion, since its wording is awkward too.

The Arkham Knight batmobile is so detailed it takes up around 160mb of memory alone due to the textures, shaders, and hundreds and thousands of polygons used. With the Xbox 360 only having 512mb of RAM and 256mb of that being dedicated to the CPU, that's more than half a full Xbox 360 before anything else is even added. It?s basically a full Xbox 360 game.

http://n4g.com/news/1467445/batman-arkham-knight-batmobile-takes-up-enough-memory-to-be-a-full-xbox-360-game

EDIT2: Made a technical error. The 360 did not have 'allocated' memory, another thing the n4g.com post got wrong. Corrected.

 

[ZCAB]

RAM increased sixteenfold from PS3\360 to PS4\X1. This means that RAM-wise, 160mb for a single game asset on the current gen (fully modeled, textured and animated) is akin to a 10mb asset on the previous gen. I'm sure there were at least a few characters or objects in previous-gen games with enough detail to reach that 10mb, especially in hardware-pushing PS3-exclusives like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Uncharted 2 and 3.

 

[El Luck]

ok so now that I've actually read the possible link in regards to what you were on about, why is this so disgusting to you?

 

[shrekfan246]

Why does it have to be "impressed" or "disgusted"?

Why can't I be "not caring"?

Seriously, the memory (RAM) of the Xbox 360 and PS3 were pathetic. It doesn't surprise me in the least that a primary "character" model in a game built entirely for systems with 8 GB of RAM would take up something up to a quarter of the 360's RAM.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Considering the amount of RAM in a 360 was pathetic this isn't impressive. Of course if you find that repulsive then you'll probably vomit at this:

Spoiler

RAM increased sixteenfold from PS3\360 to PS4\X1. This means that RAM-wise, 160mb for a single game asset on the current gen (fully modeled, textured and animated) is akin to a 10mb asset on the previous gen. I'm sure there were at least a few characters or objects in previous-gen games with enough detail to reach that 10mb, especially in hardware-pushing PS3-exclusives like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Uncharted 2 and 3.

So basically the batmobile asset size is similar to a high quality asset from a 360 game scaled up in proportion with the hardware increase of this generation? I honestly thought it would be bigger.

 

[ZCAB]

Considering the amount of RAM in a 360 was pathetic this isn't impressive. Of course if you find that repulsive then you'll probably vomit at this:

Spoiler

RAM increased sixteenfold from PS3\360 to PS4\X1. This means that RAM-wise, 160mb for a single game asset on the current gen (fully modeled, textured and animated) is akin to a 10mb asset on the previous gen. I'm sure there were at least a few characters or objects in previous-gen games with enough detail to reach that 10mb, especially in hardware-pushing PS3-exclusives like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Uncharted 2 and 3.

So basically the batmobile asset size is similar to a high quality asset from a 360 game scaled up in proportion with the hardware increase of this generation? I honestly thought it would be bigger.

While I don't have a truly solid indication, my reasoning is that because these are the assets with the most screen time (therefore, detail and variety in animation), 10mb doesn't seem like an outlandish size. On a 360, it would be 1\50th of the total system RAM and less than 1/700th of the space on the game disc.

When looking strictly at RAM (which is the comparison that the OP is about), the 160mb for the Batmobile is in direct proportion to this.

That said, other aspects of the current-gen consoles haven't been improved as much compared to the previous one as the amount of RAM, so a 160mb asset could still be very big compared to those. It definitely does take up a bigger percentage of the available disc space (which is still the same as the PS3), but that could be helped by some compression trickery.

 

[Foolery]

Wouldn't annoy me as much on PC, if data caps weren't still a thing here in Canada. For example, a 10 hour game like the latest Wolfenstein, was 50 gigs, because it was basically a console port stuck with the flaws of the id Tech 5 engine. The game is massive because the texture files are huge. I find mega-textures add very little visually, and there are other engines that are more size efficient which produce similar, if not better, results.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

[quote="KazeAizen" post="9.858215.21275657"However it was recently revealed that the Batmobile itself would take up the memory equivalent of a 360 game.[/quote]

That's 160 MB, not that big a deal.

 

[LaoJim]

Or put another way it takes up approximately 40,000 times more space than the whole of Pitfall on the Atari 2600.

Next gen comes, things get bigger.

Given that Arkham Origins had very little in the way of new features, at least it seems it they are putting some work into Knight.

(I know: different developers...)

 

[prowll]

I'm confused why an emotional response is necessary at all. It is what it is.

Is it a good part of the game? Is it intrinsically fun to play with? Does it work well? THEN WHO CARES HOW MUCH MEMORY IT TAKES?????

 

[Stabinbac]

I bought a better car, and it accelerates faster. What an abomination...

I bought better food, and it tastes better. What an abomination...

I hired a better contractor, and they used better materials in my house. What an abomination...

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I can see how someone might be worried that they are adding gee-whiz graphics to make up for bad gameplay, but an 'abomination', don't you think that is a little melodramatic?

But anyway, who cares? As long as the gameplay is solid they can make the Batmobile be the equivalent of 4 Xbox 360 games for all I care, assuming the game still runs right.

 

[Gabanuka]

Wait. You're complaining because something is MORE detailed and complex...

Jesus Christ, this is why the industry is so shit these days. Like those people who argue that 30 FPS is 'more cinematic'.

 

[TheYellowManalishi]

I'm rather indifferent, honestly, as others have said, the devs have a lot more resources to work with, so of course assets are going to take up more memory, especially high-profile ones like the batmobile which are presumably going to be used a lot in the various trailers and advertisements for the game. If it was something like a trash can in a back alley on the arse-end of the map I could see your point, but there's really nothing "abominable" about creating high quality assets for an integral part of the game.

On the broader spectrum however, I agree with Dead Century about the increasing size of game downloads. After all, I live in Australia, and I usually get a download speed of around 400k. It's becoming very frustrating having to wait 2-3 days for every damned game to download before I can play it.

So, yeah, I'm a little annoyed, but it's really not an issue.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Ok so the RAM in the 360 was shit. I'm not upset anymore than I was unimpressed with the 360's 'capabilities' when it was first released. I give dev's credit for their later ways of getting around its limitations.
High memory usage? Good, hope its because its worth playing and not riddled with memory leakage and poor optimization.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Sounds like an incredible waste of resources to me. I'd have much rather them spent all that effort into making the Batmobile sections fun to play rather than making the Batmobile look pretty.