John-ShepardWhile Bioshock 2 was better in terms of stability, the PlayStation 3 version of the first Bioshock did suffer from some drawbacks.
But now that the revered franchise is back in the hands of original designer, Irrational Games, we've been assuming they'd correctly optimize the ultra-promising Bioshock Infinite for Sony's machine. Thankfully, it seems we were right about that assumption: check out the reply made by Irrational Technical Director Chris Kline at the developer's official forums . The whole thing is extraordinarily encouraging for PS3 owners and Kline's first clarification is the most important of all; Infinite won't be a port, as the team is developing all three versions simultaneously in-house. Here's more elaboration:
"We all know that the PS3 is a powerful but unique console with its own strengths and challenges. But compared to the PC, the Xbox 360 is challenging too. So instead of declaring a "lead platform" and porting the game to the others, we've instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3. This means implementing a task-oriented task processor that assumes a NUMA (non-uniform memory access) design that mimics the PPU/SPU split of the PS3. Writing code this way is more difficult for us, but has a key advantage: it's both optimal for the PS3 *and* gives speed improvements on other platforms due to increased cache coherence and more efficient use of multiple processing units."
He goes on talk a bit about what we've heard before, including the switch to a "deferred lighting scheme." He also says they're "constantly testing our code on the PS3" and all their programmers have both PS3 and 360 dev kits at their desks. And check this out-
"To make sure we find and fix problems as quickly as possible, we have a "continuous integration automated build system" that rebuilds the PS3 version and runs basic tests on it every time a programmer or artist makes a change to the game. It even emails them right away if they break something. In addition, we've also built tools that allow artists and designers to instantly check whether or not their levels will fit in memory on all three platforms, without ever leaving the editor."
These days, there are few visible differences between most multiplatform efforts but even so, why can't all developers do what Irrational is doing? We love these guys. "A" for effort, at the very least, but we're definitely expecting Bioshock Infinite to be one of next year's best.
Related Game(s): Bioshock Infinite
i am so looking forward to this game. the fact that they are making it harder on them selves says a lot about them. i have seem the gameplay footage they put out of this game and it looks amazing. cant wait to play it.
So glad to hear this. While I really enjoyed the first Bioshock, aand the PS3 port *usually* didn't have problems, it became a major issue when, during a Big Daddy fight, the game just decided to massively lag. Haven't played the second yet, so I can't say, but glad to hear the 3rd is getting equal treatment.
The second was not much to miss, really. It was just "more of the same" without the excellent storytelling "eagerness" that made the first so endlessly appealing.
However, with Irrational back behind the steering wheel I expect Infinite to be everything that the first was, and more!
That's great, it sounds like they got their S together. But wait a second. I don't quite get that first paragraph. I'm playing Bio2 now and it is significantly crappier than Bio1. Am I the only one who thinks this? I see bad textures everywhere, and the thing can't even render all the dead bodies so it turns them into lockboxes.
…what? No, I don't think you'll find such a description in Bioshock 2 PS3 reviews.
I think most all the PS3/360 scores for Bio2 are identical, and 9s are most common in the graphics and overall department.
Then I'm on Mars, because I'm playing them back to back and the first one I had no issues with, in Bioshock 2 I'm seeing PS1 quality textures on electrical panels, fuzzy pools of water, that lockbox thing, wall textures that only partially load. *head scratch*
Really? I…don't remember that at all. Bioshock 2 ruled and looked great. Even IGN gave the PS3 version a 9 in graphics.
I'll have to pop the first one back in again and look at it. Maybe the experience wowed me so much that I expected some spectacular change in part 2.
I got that as well world, its not just you :S
World,
The graphics in Bioshock 2 suffered significantly because of the MP aspect, argue all you want but Bioshock is graphically superior to the second installment. As for Infinite, it will be amazing is so many ways its ridiculous.
I knew I wasn't crazy. I just have a discerning eye I guess.
No, I have to agree with World here. While the game is larger and brighter, it comes with the trade-off of abysmal texture work. That's the only graphical complaint I've found so far though. Although, not to the extent that you seem to be describing…
Peace.
You arent the only one. I played through the original on the 360 and a year later on the PS3 and thought it looked better and ran smoother on the PS3. B2 looked bad in places, though. I dont know about any other platforms, but to me it took a step backwards.
"but we're definitely expecting Bioshock Infinite to be one of next year's best."
i thought this wasnt due out til 2012? its still 2010 for another month 😉
Last edited by frylock25 on 11/21/2010 11:02:28 PM
In another thread linked to the one above, they go in even deeper detail on their optimizing the US3 engine to suit their own wants & needs for Bioshock3….
Hi folks!
I'm the Technical Director here at Irrational, so I thought I'd just jump right in and give you a little more insight into the engine changes we've been making for BioShock Infinite.
Over the last few years we've been put together an world-class team of engineers with a single goal: do whatever it takes to bring the Columbia and the amazing world of BioShock Infinite to life.
We're talking about a world where entire buildings are moving around in the sky, you're fighting AIs at 90mph on Sky-Lines as you dangle high above the earth, and racing through vicious weather to rescue Elizabeth while battling your way through hordes of enemies determined to stop you at any cost.
Right from the outset we realized that this was going to be a monumental undertaking on the tech side, but decided it was a challenge that we simply had to take on in order to give gamers the kind of quality experience they've come to expect from Irrational Games and BioShock.
We started out by taking a look at the original BioShock engine, and very quickly realized that the tools in that engine were too underpowered and unwieldy for the depth and complexity of the gameplay and narrative we had planned — our very patient but long-suffering designers and artists were due for a total toolset overhaul. That alone was one of the most compelling factors behind our decision to abandon that engine and start over with UE3 as a base.
But UE3 out of the box was not enough to meet the demands of this game, so we took out a knife and started doing some surgery:
• Given the intelligence and sheer number of AI we planned to throw at the player, we needed an entirely new AI system that was both more efficient and gave designers the ability to author their own behaviors. And because smooth and complex animation is the key to looking intelligent, we got down to business building a new animation system on top of Natural Motion's 'Morpheme' technology.
• All major FPS engines (CryEngine 3, UE3, id Tech 5) are designed and optimized for static environments that the player moves through, which is a reasonable choice because, even if there are trees moving in the wind, the ground under the player's feet isn't going anywhere.
Unfortunately for our tech team (but good for you) everything in Columbia is capable of moving. The very ground beneath your feet could fall out of the sky at any moment, which makes for some awesome gameplay and visuals but required us to create a completely new technology that we're calling "Floating Worlds". You saw a little of this in the gameplay demo video (in the part right after Saltonstall jumps on the Sky-Line) and you'll be seeing a lot more of it in the future.
• To meet the aesthetic goals of our art team, our rendering gurus had to write a whole new renderer for BioShock Infinite based on Deferred Lighting (a technique used in Uncharted 2, CryEngine3, and Killzone 2), and on top of that they've developed a proprietary per-pixel dynamic relighting scheme that allows characters and dynamic objects to receive global illumination.
• BioShock 1's audio system was… umm… "sub-optimal". This time around our sound team demanded a new audio pipeline based on AudioKinetic's WWise technology that supported 5.1 with adjustable dynamic range and a fully dynamic mixing system. Not only did our engineers rise to that task, but they subsequently took it up a notch and implemented both a custom sound propagation system (so voices properly echo down corridors and around buildings) and a dynamic wind audio system that reinforces the dynamic weather in the world.
• Finally, we've built a whole new parallel processing framework (a "job architecture", in programmer lingo) that lets the engine take advantage of as many cores as you can throw at it.
This will let us eke out all the power of the PS3 and 360, and also give hardcore PC gamers something to show off their rigs with.
That's just a sample of some of the major changes we've done so far on our way to building BioShock Infinite. Hopefully in the future we'll be talking some more about these and some others I haven't mentioned, so please subscribe to our podcast and keep your ears open!
Chris
PS – We're always looking for world-class engineers of all experience levels. If that sounds like you, please check out the open positions at the bottom of our Careers page at
http://irrationalgames.com/studio/careers-at-irrational
(Followup): in addition to the positions listed on our Careers page, we also have open positions for a Backend (server-side) programmer, a Principal PC platform programmer, and several "general" (engine and/or gameplay) programmers!
Wow… All that adds up to make Bioshock Infinite definitely worth watching for the visual experience alone. And I love the lighting engines in UC2 and KZ3 a lot more than the ones in the Bioshock series, so hearing that they're applying something similar gets me excited. Speaking of inFamous in another thread, it used the same type didn't it?
Peace.
They should just do the same thing THQ did with Darksiders Ps3/360 neither were the lead platform, both were being worked on by different teams individually.
Of course the ps3 version was the superior one.
At any rate, Infinite is going to be a singular experience for sure. It's fun being a Big Daddy but it'll be cool to be human again. Bioshock and Killzone are the only FPS I really care about. I dig Resistance, but 3 isn't top of my list since they got rid of Nathan Hale and put that douchebag in.
This is great news. Of course I wasn't worried about this game anyway as Irrational seems to know what they are doing when it comes to using Unreal and porting to the PS3. Bioshock was one of the best ports I have played this gen. Sounds like they are doing what Kojima Pro did with Castlevania which is great. Game came out pretty much identical with the 360 only suffering from color wash out and a slightly worse frame rate.
My one hope is that Bioshock Infinite has better graphics as a result. Going back and looking at Bioshock 1 and 2, they are good but no where near great. Both tend to be lack luster when it comes to detail and texture quality.
Didn't they cram those games into Unreal2 or something? Infinite should be better since it's the latest version of that poor pathetic engine which these guys somehow made work.
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 11/21/2010 11:46:26 PM
Yea, you're right. They did use Unreal 2 for the other games. The trailer for Infinite looked mighty nice but we know how devs like to use cut scene footage of Unreal games to pretend the graphics are better than they actually are *cough*EA*cough*
So well have to wait and see I guess.
There's some gameplay footage too and it looks incredibly good.
How anyone can call the engine that's being used by such a long array of top notch games "poor pathetic engine" is beyond me. Is it just because it's happen to be one of the few truly working multi-platform engines?
Sounds great but I'll still get the PC version instead just as I did with the previous ones.
yea?
ill believe it when i see it!
sorry, but 2K have released some really shoddy ports in the past so.
bioshock, bioshock 2, mafia 2, even R*s games are slightly better on the 360.
not saying its going to be a bad game, on the contrary if anything can give RAGE, crysis 2 and batman AC a run for its money its this, but the ps3 version will probably be inferior just like all the other 2K games.
ill be getting it on the PC, where FPS are suppose too be played!!!!!!
Bah! I couldn't disagree more, FPS are meant to played on your platform of choice. I grew up playing a few FPS like Half Life, Counter Strike, and Quake on meh PC but grew into the Playstation controller. Perhaps certain games were meant to be played on certain platforms, like exclusives.
As for PS3 "ports" being inferior, it may be partially true but the PS3 version of Bioshock Infinite will be built separately just like the 360 and PC versions.
I agree.
I love that they're changing their creative processes to take full advantage of the PS3… Maybe it'll be the first multiplatform game to come anywhere near the exclusives as a result. Seriously though, the more I hear about this game, the more I anticipate it, and that certainly isn't helped by my current playthrough of the rest of the series. Downright amazing games, but I am glad that 2K Boston is back in charge, rather than 2K Marin. Maybe they can bring back the originality of the first.
Speaking of, my review of the first is up, and the second should be up by the end of the week, if I can pump it like I want to.
Peace.
Last edited by Lawless SXE on 11/22/2010 1:08:56 AM
So wait. uhmmmmm can anyone please explain to me if the storyline is gonna be connected to bioshock 1 and 2 cause i havent played both of em… Bioshock 1 I didn't finish, but Bioshock Infinite is looking pretty sick and im hoping to get it when it comes out.
It is set at the turn of the century, so about fifty years before the first series. It has similar themes and elements, but it appears as though there are no direct links… Kind of like System Shock to Bioshock.
Peace.
I'm really looking forward to some of that Victorian goodness.
keep your fancy graphics I just want a long campeign and great gameplay…but so far I like the look of B.I. and the gameplay looks great I cant wait to rent this….
Last edited by KNG201 on 11/22/2010 3:35:49 AM
Why can't all developers do what Irrational is doing? Because 5 million people are willing to pay $60 to be an alpha tester for Bethesda. As long as stuff like that continues, buggy games will be the rule rather than the exception.
All that hard work doesn't sound Irrational to me.
HA!
Good for Irrational. I'm glad to see a company that cares about making all versions of a game take advantage of the platform it is on. After the disappointment of BioShock 2, I'm really looking forward to Infinite. It will redeem the series.
That is some spectacular change of heart. They go from making a 360 exclusive to porting it, to a multiplat sequel, and now they're using the PS3 as a lead platform?
Whatever has caused this shift in thinking?
Kevin Butler caused a time continuum rift shift of awesomeness in their thinking.
lol
You're probably right