Conspiracy_Of_Doves writes to tell us Brett Thomas over at Bit-Tech recently interviewed Elder Scrolls producer, Gavin Carter. From the article: "The size, scope and sheer graphical grunt required for Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion requires gigahertz of processing power to run, good bandwidth to update and expand, and gigabytes of hard disk space to store. Things that a console didn't really have...until now." The interview takes a look at the development with respect to the two different platforms, PC and Xbox 360. Gavin Carter Discusses Elder Scrolls Log in/Create an Account | Top | 153 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 153 comments 0: 146 comments 1: 109 comments 2: 79 comments 3: 20 comments 4: 13 comments 5: 10 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. so no xbox 360 core? (Score:5, Insightful) by El_Muerte_TDS (592157) <elmuerte@drun[ ]ipers.com ['ksn' in gap]> on Wednesday November 09, @03:44PM (#13991913) (http://elmuerte.com/) gigabytes of hard disk space to storeXBox 360 core dosn't have gigbytes of disk space. [ Reply to ThisRe:so no xbox 360 core? by qortra (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @03:48PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by antifoidulus (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:02PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by qortra (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:06PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by timeOday (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:24PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by blincoln (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:15PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by utnow (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @06:36PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @08:33PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:so no xbox 360 core? by Mac Degger (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:24PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by wbren (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @03:56PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by jpx7777 (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @03:59PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by wbren (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:14PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by dbug78 (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @04:25PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by wbren (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:47PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by MBraynard (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:23PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by Jace of Fuse! (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @10:14PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by earnest murderer (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:55PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by garvon (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @04:35PMRe:so no xbox 360 core? by Hast (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @11:19PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.It's about the size of the game by DeadScreenSky (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:31PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. On PC, though... (Score:1, Insightful) by BronxBomber (633404) on Wednesday November 09, @03:56PM (#13992057) To me this game begs to be played on PC. With the HDR lighting its going to blow the 360 version out of the water, along with some other shading/lighting effects the 360 wont have..And the TESCS - thats just a must have. I made the mistake of playing this on Xbox first, and while it rawked, I wish I could have modded it. It would have made an already ridiculously deep game even better. I nearly bought it twice so I could mess with the TESCS, but I got into WoW instead. [ Reply to ThisRe:On PC, though... by Dixie Flatliner (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:05PMRe:On PC, though... by Mac Degger (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:27PMRe:On PC, though... by Hast (Score:2) Thursday November 10, @12:54AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:On PC, though... (Score:5, Informative) by MightyPez (734706) on Wednesday November 09, @04:06PM (#13992175) Why exactly won't the XBox 360 have these lighting features? The GPU in the 360 is a next generation video card made by ATI, like nothing on the market right now. Do you have some insider knowledge that it won't have abilities of current DirectX 9 video cards? [ Reply to This | ParentRe:On PC, though... by BronxBomber (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @04:17PMRe:On PC, though... by Gulthek (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:24PMRe:On PC, though... by MightyPez (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:30PMRe:On PC, though... by Intocabile (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @07:40PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:On PC, though... by master_p (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:12PMRe:On PC, though... by Hast (Score:2) Thursday November 10, @12:48AMRe:On PC, though... by Cheapy (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @05:33PMRe:On PC, though... by Carnildo (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @07:50PMRe:On PC, though... by Cheapy (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @08:20PMRe:On PC, though... by ToasterofDOOM (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @09:49PM I got old too soon (Score:5, Insightful) by milktoastman (572643) on Wednesday November 09, @03:57PM (#13992073) As a college undergrad, I was interested in the Elder Scrolls 2 from watching others play. I never really had a computer that could run it. In Grad school, sans flies, I bought a computer to run Elder Scrolls 3 and was so looking forward to playing a computer/console RPG of the likes I had dreamed of since 8th grade...but when I tried it, I realized, I just couldn't get absorbed. It required such an investment of time and interest that my busy life wouldn't allow. Also, I actually felt guilty playing because I knew how much valuable 'real time' was going to waste. I guess I'm too old to play these games now. Too bad my last fling was Ultima 9. Kind of cool, but not what I had dreamed of playing. Don't you wish the sheeny scales would flute madly? [ Reply to ThisRe:I got old too soon by planetoid (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @04:10PM Re:I got old too soon (Score:5, Interesting) by Gulthek (12570) on Wednesday November 09, @04:18PM (#13992272) (http://www.stephenball.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday April 25, @09:03PM) Holy Avatar, you're last RPG fling was Ultima 9? I'm so sorry.My brother and I actually downgraded our gaming machine from a modern (at the time) video card to two 3DFx cards in SLI (it was designed for Glide) so we could play U9 without it crashing every 5 minutes. Then it only crashed every 20 minutes.Not to mention being so incredibly awful that it actually made us yearn for the days of cheap sprite graphics and dungeon running in Ultima 5/6/7. Or even Ultima 4. Almost Ultima 3. Not "Avatars in Space" Ultima 2, and not "Glorified Nethack" Ultima though. And I don't think anything will ever make me yearn for the spell casting atrocity of Ultima 8 (and the sad fall of Dupre). [ Reply to This | ParentRe:I got old too soon by furrywithwings (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @07:21PMI admit it. by earnest murderer (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @07:44PMRe:I admit it. by limabone (Score:1) Thursday November 10, @12:00AMRe:I got old too soon by Angry Toad (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:37PM Re:I got old too soon (Score:5, Funny) by TrappedByMyself (861094) on Wednesday November 09, @06:09PM (#13993365) You should try World of Warcraft. You can play at a leisurely pace and not have to worry about getting sucked in.Definitely the game for RPG fans with busy lives. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:I got old too soon by Phoenixhunter (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @07:21PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. One other thing (Score:5, Informative) by BronxBomber (633404) on Wednesday November 09, @04:00PM (#13992100) If you want to try the one that started it all, go here [elderscrolls.com]. Its free. Windoze only and you need DOSBox. [ Reply to ThisRe:One other thing by Linzer (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @04:03PMRe:One other thing by BronxBomber (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @04:07PMRe:One other thing by HunterZ (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:34PMRe:One other thing by HunterZ (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:50PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:One other thing by gringer (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:34PM 2q 2006 (Score:3, Interesting) by selfabuse (681350) on Wednesday November 09, @04:09PM (#13992198) Wonder how Microsoft feels about them knocking the release date back another 6 months. I was at the local EBGames recently, and they were mentioning how many people had already called to cancel their xbox360 preorders - and this was just a day or two after the delay was "discovered". I say discovered, because the publisher, Take 2, mentioned it on their financial statement, but it took a week and >45 200 post topics on the elder scrolls forum to choke a response out of Bethesda. Even then, their response was to sliently change the release date in the FAQ. Just in the past day or so the PR guy made a statement, but I think the damage has already been done. Knocking it back another 6 months gives me time to save up for some new hardware to run the PC version instead of buying the 360 like I had planned. [ Reply to ThisRe:2q 2006 by Vacuous (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @04:38PMRe:2q 2006 by Fallingcow (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:45PMRe:Bethesda's Spy-games by earnest murderer (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:39PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Language Police... (Score:1) by yobtah (16795) on Wednesday November 09, @04:09PM (#13992199) Dude... "gigahertz" is not the plural of "gigahertz". [ Reply to ThisRe:Language Police... by ichigo 2.0 (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @04:19PMRe:Language Police... by MoriaOrc (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @04:30PMRe:Language Police... by pharwell (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @05:35PM This title was the "System Seller" (Score:5, Interesting) by popo (107611) on Wednesday November 09, @04:23PM (#13992314) Without Oblivion, XBOX 360 has no real "system seller".No Halo? no Oblivion? Perfect Dark Zero could be cool, but I don'tsee nearly the same level of excitement for it.I think this is going to have a huge impact on the bottom linefor initial Xbox sales.I don't know about everyone else here, but for me the first Xboxwas about Halo and Morrowind. [ Reply to ThisRe:This title was the "System Seller" by ilyaaohell (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:56PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by CharonIDRONES (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @05:01PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by Keeper (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:29PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by PimpWilly (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @06:17PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by Delphiki (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:30PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by PimpWilly (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @07:34PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by Delphiki (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @10:29PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by Morinaga (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:10PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by Mac Degger (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:34PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by Jabroni_5000_Deluxe (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @06:44PMRe:This title was the "System Seller" by Mac Degger (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:50PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. That's nothing (Score:3, Insightful) by phasm42 (588479) on Wednesday November 09, @04:27PM (#13992356) Personally, I lost count at 175 hours in the current game, Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. Think about that for a second: that's 2 hours after work every day for 3 full months.Apparently this guy has never talked to an Evercrack fiend. [ Reply to ThisRe:That's nothing by SatanicPuppy (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:04PMRe:That's nothing by Derekloffin (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @05:11PMRe:That's nothing by TimeSpeak (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @05:37PMRe:That's nothing by Hakubi_Washu (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:23PMRe:That's nothing by patio11 (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @08:05PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. bugs (Score:3, Funny) by Erpo (237853) <tint14@hotma i l . c om> on Wednesday November 09, @04:37PM (#13992487) good bandwidth to update and expandTranslation: We're really looking forward to releasing an unfinished game and (perhaps) patching the bugs as you find them. [ Reply to ThisRe:bugs by Keith Russell (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:14PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Next-Gen, Riiiiight. (Score:2) by adam31 (817930) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `13mada'> on Wednesday November 09, @04:40PM (#13992525) We're locking the framerate at 30fps on the 360We don't do a lot with dynamic landscape changes beyond things like grass swaying in reaction to the weather.No cloth physics unfortunately. We found they are a huge sink for processing timeSo, wait. This game is 'next-gen'!? It sounds like all they did was port their pixel shaders to SM3.0 ...Now I'm sure the gameplay is great. But what are they doing with all the extra cycles? There just isn't an excuse to run 30fps any more. Just slapping some over-saturated bloom effects on the framebuffer doesn't cut it. [ Reply to ThisRe:Next-Gen, Riiiiight. by RingDev (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:58PMRe:Next-Gen, Riiiiight. by Keith Russell (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:36PMRe:Next-Gen, Riiiiight. by ikkonoishi (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:34PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Next-Gen, Riiiiight. by ilyaaohell (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:00PMRe:Next-Gen, Riiiiight. by Mac Degger (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @06:39PMRe:Next-Gen, Riiiiight. by king-manic (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @09:23PMRe:Next-Gen, Riiiiight. by _Ludwig (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @10:29PMWelll... yeahhhh! by Imazalil (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:08PM Re:Next-Gen, Riiiiight. (Score:4, Informative) by vectorian798 (792613) on Wednesday November 09, @07:04PM (#13993790) Apparently you seem to know nothing about the game and just posted something half-assedly controversial to get modded up.The game has many novel features. First, every single NPC in the game has its own life cycle including eating meals, working, sleeping, idle activities (note that I said idle activities, not just idle actions such as those in Far Cry). This enhances the 'immersion' factor, which was a VERY big part of Morrowind. Oblivion takes place over a fairly large amount of land (the # of sq. mi. is at Oblivion's website), has a weather system, open-endedness that Morrowind had (feels a lot like Fallout in the sense that you have lots of stuff to do other than the 'main quest').The physics engine is awesome even without cloth physics. Trees, grass, arrows, etc. If you look at one of the gameplay videos here [ign.com] you will see a demo where the player character fires arrows into a bucket hanging from the ceiling or something, and the bucket sways and the row buckles etc. from the arrows hitting it. You can then walk up to the bucket, and you will notice that depending on how the arrows penetrated the wood in the bucket (angle, force, etc.), the bucket is tilting or perhaps moving slowly to a stop. When the player character removes the arrows from the bucket, the bucket moves to reflect each arrow you pull out, taking a different 'tilted' position or whatever as per physics. I don't know about you, but the job they did in modifying Havok is pretty damn good.Graphics: you have to be retarded if you think the game is just bloom effects. First, you might have noticed the large number of textures and colors in the world (in the cities for example). Graphics = technical quality (engine) + artwork (textures). Second, the tree generation (I believe they are using Speedtree like Gothic and Unreal 2007) is awesome, it actually feels like a forest instead of a few scattered trees with few leaves on them. Lastly, you may have noticed that the shader effects are present almost everywhere, whereas in Morrowind they were (mostly) confined to the water. There is soft-shadowing, self-soft-shadowing, and a host of other effects you would want in a tier-1 game as well.Sound: If you check out the videos I pointed above, you will hear some of the same songs that were in Morrowind. These songs are extremely well done, and conducive to the atmosphere of the game. Oblivion apparently has many more songs now, as expected, and an awesome all-star cast of narrators that really make characters come through more realistically.For those who enjoy games like Baldur's Gate, Fallout, or really any of the Black Isle works, Morrowind and Oblivion are a must-play. [ Reply to This | Parent2 replies beneath your current threshold. PC/XBOX360 simultaneous development? (Score:1) by eudas (192703) on Wednesday November 09, @05:09PM (#13992805) (http://www.kdi.com/~eudas/) It'll be interesting to see if the game play will be undesirably impacted due to decisions about how to accomodate the development for both PC and console, similarly to how Deus Ex: Invisible War was impacted.One would hope not, but unfortunately, those console dollars are mighty attractive these days.eudas [ Reply to ThisRe:PC/XBOX360 simultaneous development? by Bishop (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:16PMRe:PC/XBOX360 simultaneous development? by NCraig (Score:1) Wednesday November 09, @08:18PM Interesting Thoughts on Threading (Score:2, Interesting) by jfmiller (119037) on Wednesday November 09, @05:24PM (#13992957) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 09, @01:25AM) Gavin Carter: Oblivion will absolutely benefit from a multi-processor or multi-core PC architecture. These improvements have largely been driven by our optimizations for the Xbox 360 hardware. We have built a dynamic thread management system that manages processor load by our specific direction and by priorities. Portions of physics, AI, loading, audio, and rendering tasks can all be moved to different threads to keep the overall load balanced. The net result for the end user is a smoother experience. I think there are some interesting bits in this response. "We have built a dynamic thread management system" really caught my attention. I have read a number of recent articles [1 [arstechnica.com],2 [arstechnica.com]]talking about the need for multithread programming, and the difficulty of doing it. It seems to me that the ES4 team has not only embraced the idea of threading, but done so in what I think is a very logical manner. What I envision of a dynamic thread management system from the quote above seems to be what is needed in the next generation of applications. With clock speed giving way to more cores speed increases will need to come from running tasks in parallel. For a number of reasons that I will not go into here, threading by hand can is difficult to do safely, and in many cases ends up being premature optimization. On the other hand leaving threading to a compiler or even worse the CPU circuitry itself has been seen to be fairly ineffective. The human who writes an application is probably the one most qualified to find parallelism, but may not be the best one to implement it at the thread level.I envision that this system has allowed the different groups involved to create their distinct tasks and rules that govern how the tasks interact, but instead of trying to hand code that interaction, they have designed a system that does the dirty work of translating task interaction into thread logic for them. Additionally, this seems to be done on the fly so a system like the XBOX360 with 3 PPE cores can execute differently then a new PC with a multi core an AMD or INTEL cpu. It also would seem to allow program to adapt to the loads finds itself under.I for one would really like to hear more about the way this thing functions. In a post to one of the articles I referenced, I asked about the availability of programming paradigms that would abstract the concept of threads much as many languages now abstract the concept of memory allocation with "Garbage Collection." I didn't get much of a response. I'm hoping some Slashdot reader can fill me in on what is know about thread management systems.JFMILLERReferences: Wikipedia Entry: Threads [wikipedia.org] Ars Technica Article: Introduction to Multithreading, Superthreading and Hyperthreading [arstechnica.com] A threads FAQ from comp.programming.threads [serpentine.com] [ Reply to ThisRe:Interesting Thoughts on Threading by Hast (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @11:48PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Man, that Xbox 360 must be cool (Score:3, Funny) by dghcasp (459766) on Wednesday November 09, @06:07PM (#13993350) I haven't followed all this stuff about the new Xbox, but I read this article because a cow-orker of mine has been raving about the Elder Scrolls series.From TFA: The Xbox 360 poses some unique challenges in the fact that it's half console, half PC, yet a generation above either of them in their current form. Man, a generation above current PC's! So what has it got?A Hexium processor instead of a Pentium processor?A 128 bit operating system?More than 64 Gb of memory?4000x3000 graphics? (run out through your 720x480 TV?)Terabyte ethernet?DTS2 audio with 18 channels at 192Kb/s per channel?A quantum processor?or is this standard journalists who don't understand quoting people who don't understand? [ Reply to ThisRe:Man, that Xbox 360 must be cool by Babbster (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @08:38PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Re:Elder Scrolls (Score:4, Funny) by Availle (791304) <haslerNO@SPAMcs.tum.edu> on Wednesday November 09, @03:47PM (#13991957) I shouldn't even reply to this, but I'm a woman and I'm looking forward to this game. Yes, I take the occasional shower every day. And for all of the dirty D&D geeks out there, I already have a boyfriend. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Elder Scrolls (Score:5, Funny) by DreadSpoon (653424) on Wednesday November 09, @03:56PM (#13992049) (http://www.awemud.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday April 24, @08:59PM) "And for all of the dirty D&D geeks out there, I already have a boyfriend."Ah, but one must ask, are his D20s big enough for you?(And there goes my "always respectful" track record.) [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Elder Scrolls by Availle (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:05PM Re:Elder Scrolls (Score:5, Funny) by DreadSpoon (653424) on Wednesday November 09, @04:30PM (#13992397) (http://www.awemud.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday April 24, @08:59PM) "If I comment on this, it might damage your ego."Possibly. But remember, it's not the size that counts... ... it's whether or not you can roll the crit hits.(Just digging my well of depravity even deeper, aren't I?) [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Elder Scrolls by ViX44 (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:32PMRe:Elder Scrolls by Mac Degger (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @06:42PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Elder Scrolls (Score:4, Funny) by Sheepdot (211478) on Wednesday November 09, @04:23PM (#13992317) (Last Journal: Monday May 30, @01:21PM) I shouldn't have to say this, but your statement announcing you are "a woman" on Slashdot is akin to saying you're available and looking.So stating "I already have a boyfriend" only indicates to the rest of us that you're looking for a geekier one than you already have. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Elder Scrolls by Gumber (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:51PMRe:Elder Scrolls by milimetric (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @05:53PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Re:Elder Scrolls (Score:3, Funny) by sound+vision (884283) on Wednesday November 09, @03:59PM (#13992088) (Last Journal: Wednesday October 05, @04:23AM) I'm gay, you insensitive clod! [ Reply to This | Parent1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Elder Scrolls (Score:5, Funny) by wbren (682133) on Wednesday November 09, @04:10PM (#13992209) (http://www.google.com/) (Elder Scrolls) is for dirty D&D geeks that have no hope of ever talking to a woman - let alone touching one. That's just not true! One time I was at a strip club and a stripper fell down because she was wearing stilettos. Anyway, on the way down to the floor, the back of my hand brushed against her shoulder. So yeah, we touch girls ALL THE TIME!!! [ Reply to This | Parent1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Observations (Score:3, Funny) by Digital Vomit (891734) on Wednesday November 09, @04:27PM (#13992355) (http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~don/index.htm | Last Journal: Tuesday October 04, @08:17AM) In the video, we see that digital dogs haven't progressed much. Just like in Deus Ex, when a dog turns, it magically spins about it's center. I have a dog, she doesn't turn like that. My dog does that. What kind did you get? [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Observations (Score:3, Informative) by Zed2K (313037) on Wednesday November 09, @04:37PM (#13992486) If the only experience with HDR you have is screenshots then you have no ground to stand on. Its one of those things that looks so much better in motion. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Observations by Fallingcow (Score:2) Wednesday November 09, @04:48PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.10 replies beneath your current threshold.