RR7 has 5GB install

Abooie · 31 Oct 2006 at 14:52

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/742/742347p1.html

Famitsu PS2 quizzed Teramoto on one area that's on everyone's mind right now: hard disk support. Ridge Racer 7 makes extensive use of the PS3's hard disk. In addition to saving your game and saving future download contents, the hard disk is used for speeding up gameplay. The game does a hard disk install to the tune of five gigabytes.

I have to say I'm actually not that surprised. The use of a very slow 2 speed blu ray drive and less use of compression would have meant very very long load times. Thus Sony stipulated a hard drive as mandatory for caching.

However I'm quite shocked at quite how much space a game like RR7 takes up. On the lower priced sku that's a quarter of the hard drive space gone and we don't know how much the OS etc will take up though we could guess it's not going to be that different to the 7GB MS takes. With the download model for GTHD I could see the whole 20GB full with just 2 launch games. Quite something. At least we now know why the TGS demo of RR7 and other games demonstrated such quick load times!

Also, one thing I got a console for was to get away from the 20 min install to play games.

cheets64 · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:02

Hmm, so what happens when you have 4 games and they all take up 5GB and you want to play another game.

Seems like a lot of messing around to play a game.

PiKe · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:07

The MS OS doesnt take 7GB at all, theres portions of the HDD reserved for caching and the like.

Nismo · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:14

PiKe said:
The MS OS doesnt take 7GB at all, theres portions of the HDD reserved for caching and the like.

Cant be the OS on the HDD seeing as you can run the 360 without one

Is this the first console game that needs to be installed?

The Running Man · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:14

cheets64 said:
Hmm, so what happens when you have 4 games and they all take up 5GB and you want to play another game.

Seems like a lot of messing around to play a game.

HMmm... isnt PS3 60GB hard drive?

Harddrive> POPUP

Abooie · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:14

PiKe said:
The MS OS doesnt take 7GB at all, theres portions of the HDD reserved for caching and the like.

Aye. I was just using this 7GB figure to speculate how much space the PS3 may reserve.

Wrathamon · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:19

Nismo said:
Cant be the OS on the HDD seeing as you can run the 360 without one

Indeed, the 360 holds it's firmware in flash memory.

The 7GB reserved on the HD is as others said for caching, as well as the original xbox emulation - which needs a 4GB space to mimic the cache space allocated on the original xbox HD.

What the PS3 will allocate is an unknown. It's also somewhat confusing as to how it will handle PS1/2 backwards compatiblity as well. Originally meant to be done by software emulation there has been reports that they are having to incorporate the latest PS2 chipset (from the slimline PS2) into the hardware design as software emulation wasn't up to the job....

Dark_Angel · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:28

Nickg said:
HMmm... isnt PS3 60GB hard drive?

Harddrive> POPUP

The cheaper model has a 20GB drive, the more exspensive model has a 60GB drive. Still, 5GB out of 60 will run out pretty quick. After this month I will have around 12 - 13 games for my 360. That will be all of the 60GB hard drive done for. I will however assume that not all of the installs are that large. Some may only be a few gigs, while some I suppose could be far larger.

Going slightly on to the topic of emulation, I do think that having the "old" chipset built in to the console is often the best idea. The 360's xbox 1 emulation is so slow in coming. I want to play MGS2 thru my 360, yet it looks like I will have to soldier thru it on my xbox 1, without it having AA and AF and so on.

punky_munky · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:28

That sounds like a lot of hard drive space for one game. Even a 60GB model will fill up super quick what with all the downloadable content that's on offer. Hopefully this is just a side affect of it being a launch title otherwise the PS3 is going to become pretty unusable quite quickly.

Abooie · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:31

Reading some other forums it would appear the 'install' is optional. If you do install your load times are 2/3 seconds without they're about 15 seconds.

MoNkeE · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:32

Will the installation be permenant, or removed after playing the game is finished?

-RaZ

Whappers · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:42

To be honest, I can see myself going with the 20GB version as wireless built in isn't a neccessity for myself. Does anyone know if you'll be able to use any SATA HDD? I would love to stick a 10,000rpm Western Digital 150GB Raptor SATA drive in

Imagine the speed :eek:

Manlove is my forte · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:42

I understand other games like Genji and oblivion will use an install.

I would assume most games will require an install. Also we do not know how much of the Hard disks will be usable out of the package. You might see a 360 type of unuseable space. You might not.

Personally I think having to install a game is a bit off. If I wanted to install something I would buy a PC. Consoles should be a quick insert disk and play.

Caching is the way forward I hope this is possible otherwise there is a massive space constraint on the PS3.

It has not been stated how the HDD is implemented, but I think it is safe to assume it will be a proprietary connection and disk format.

cheets64 · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:45

smcshaw said:
Reading some other forums it would appear the 'install' is optional. If you do install your load times are 2/3 seconds without they're about 15 seconds.

Thats a very stupid thing to offer a customer, "you can have your PS3 uber fast or slow"

Very strange thinking from Sony.

dirtydog · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:58

smcshaw said:
Also, one thing I got a console for was to get away from the 20 min install to play games.

Indeed, sounds crap to be honest. The idea of caching to the HDD to speed up load times or game smoothness is good, but 5gig's worth? :eek:

That's ridiculous.

dirtydog · 31 Oct 2006 at 15:59

cheets64 said:
Thats a very stupid thing to offer a customer, "you can have your PS3 uber fast or slow"

Very strange thinking from Sony.

Yep it should be the exact same game experience for everyone. Otherwise you can be sure lazy devs will make it run like crap unless you 'install' it :mad:

Dark_Angel · 31 Oct 2006 at 16:04

dirtydog said:
Yep it should be the exact same game experience for everyone. Otherwise you can be sure lazy devs will make it run like crap unless you 'install' it

Nail on the head I am afraid. It seems that this install feature could well become even a blessing or a curse for the PS3.

For good developers (read, not the lazy EA) it will be a nice option to give to people to speed up load times of their fav games. For others, it will be a choice of:

Option A: we know gaming is thirsty work, so we have thoughtfully made the load times 5 minutes long so you can regularly get a drink.

Option B: We know some of you out there want right in the action, so after a 20 minute install, you can enjoy gaming as it's meant to be played!

Perhaps a bit OTT but still, I have similar fears of the Wii Remote. Some developers I just don't trust. I can imagine you moving it the left, and it will move right, or pause the game or something silly.

Whappers · 31 Oct 2006 at 17:55

Does anyone know if you'll be able to use any SATA HDD? I would love to stick a 10,000rpm Western Digital 150GB Raptor SATA drive in

Abooie · 31 Oct 2006 at 18:18

'm pretty sure the hard drive is non-removable. Unlike the 360 which lets you stick the hard drive on the side the PS3's harddrive is internal.

If you're prepated to invalidate the warranty and open it up you *may* be able to swap hard drives but this has yet to be proven.

DaveyD · 31 Oct 2006 at 18:47

Sony have said the PS3 HDD is upgradable. 5GB does sound a lot, but I guess if it's for caching, and doesn't actually take up 5GB per game, it'll be okay. Maybe that's because of the Blu-Ray space and low transfer rate? Dunno.