Will the engine be fixed because FO3's is kinda stuttery at best even on the consoles ?

Well this engine has givin us classics but its on life support now. I think after new vegas beth will pull the plug on it.

It was mentioned in one of the video interviews(I forget which one right this moment, will try to look it up) that Obsidian has been tweaking the engine, including enhanced performance and that it should run smoother than FO3. Possibly not a dramatic difference, but any enhancements there would be more than welcome.

It's actually much LESS stuttery on PC. It seems to be a RAM and HDD issue - throwing plenty of RAM at it helps, but the consoles can't do that. Not really something they can get around.

The current consoles are on life support and the plug needs to be pulled on those?

what....... maybe in the next couple of years, yes, sooner with the xbox since they are having trouble with some games keeping it on one disk, but the ps3 is fine and should be fine for a good few years to come

If Obsidian fixed the memory leak that occured on the PS3 version of Fallout 3 then I'm pretty sure the game will run fine, on PS3 atleast...

Not really, technology has progressed a *long* way since they were released. The PS3's processor can still hold it's own, though it'd crumble and die up against an i7, but the graphics chip and RAM aren't even sub-par anymore, they're worse than that. Consoles need a new generation, they've been holding back technology at their level for too long.

As buggy as it is I wouldn't give it up. The moddability more than makes up for the bugginess, especially when we can make plugins that fix most of the bugs.


Or at least work around them...

I agree. We need new consoles. Just out of curiousity, can anyone please explain why consoles have such a pitiful amount of RAM compared to PCs?

Twofold: RAM was more expensive back then, and 512mb is about right for the rest of the hardware, given that it has no multi-purpose OS. Otherwise things would bottleneck the RAM. A bit more would be nice, but again, expensive, limited gains.

Yet there is only 256mb for PS3s, and the result is a very noticeable stuttering/lagging effect, in Oblivion's case, but a lagging, unplayable mess in Fallout 3's case(GOTY), unless the second may be due to a memory leak and Bethesda is just horrible at optimization.

There's actually two 256 chips, though one of them is significantly faster than the other. Making it that much harder to optimise for, too.

you guys talk like you can't just change anything involved and just have to start over on some other engine. Gamebryo is only getting more popular as an engine. bethesda probably gets partner updates, and can literally paste in code for anything the sdk offers, like directional lights, or hell just write it themselves. Which we have seen the do already.

i can see them still continuing to use/improve on what they have.

the engine that bethesda is using probably mostly their own in house code at this point. the entire world editor, ie the CS, and tons of specific technology/middleware, has been modified to a great extent, that even having access to the orginal source code to some of it still doesn't help you see whats happening after bethesda got hold of it.

they spent a whole year just making the cs when the did MW. and they still use it. it is in fact a great editor as it happens.

sure the engine has flaws, bug, lacks some cool things(that they probably can't use because the game would grind to a halt on consoles). but they can just add real world refection, shadow maps on everything, new shaders, GI, directional lights, entirely new animation systems, write in house bethesda specific particle system blocks, whatever.

edit: you're probably not getting consoles until after 2012- by most speculations.

So, what would be up to date hardware specs for a new generation of consoles in relation to the old consoles, if they were, hypothetically, to be released now?

Quad core CPU, 4 gigs of ram, some sort of DX11 GPU with 512mb to itself, seperate from system ram.

At least that's how I'd spec it out. I'd even make it x86 so companies wouldn't really have a programming excuse for not having a PC release

Putting things on two discs does'nt matter in my view,whats the big deal....your talking about space,not proccessing power etc.
PS3 & xbox are similar...the xbox has more quality games,its more popular,& its easier to make games for.
There are'nt that many games that use two discs anyway...& even so...its not a big deal.
Saying xbox wont last longer because of that is just idiotic.
Fallout was smoother on the xbox & less buggy,because overall its a better system to make games for...so if one console was to last longer it would be the 360.
And your up against microsoft...that should tell you alot in its self.
I hope both consoles do well....competition keeps things interesting & pushes boundries

Gotta remember that part of why the PS3 didn't take off as well was the fact that the PS2 was still popular *and* supported (when were the last PS2 games released? Last year?).

Console gamers, as a general class, don't seem to be as obsessed with the current cutting-edge of PC world. Yeah, some are, but not most. I'd expect the PS3 to still be going strong for a while yet. (Heck, it usually takes 3+ years for programmers to figure out how to get the most out of a console system. And definitely in the case of the PS3, with it's very different architecture.)


...hmm, thinking about it, I'd guess that the greater number of PC/X360/PS3 ports between platforms would increase the amount of "but the PC version is better! Need new console!" /shrug

So true, games like Killzone 3 just look outdated, amirite?

Why do graphics matter in this day and age?

Because in this day and age my good man, people prefer quantity over quality in their games.

Why? I don't know and I don't care. I just want to play a Bethesda game that looks good without lagging and stuttering as often as they do on my Playstation.

While I did know that already, reading it makes it sound even more sad.

@Seti

Nothing wrong with that.

I'm not even asking for much. Anything equivalent to Oblivion's level of graphics or higher is considered outstanding by me. I don't need Crysis level graphics, but I was playing Oblivion this morning and while walking through the Great Forest area near Chorrol, the game is constantly lagging, very noticeably. Even the bar that shows the progress of saving a game lagged. The same thing is true for many outdoor areas in Oblivion oustide of a city. Oblivion gates are just pure torture. A few Daedra on the screen with an Oblivion gate in the background is enough to make the game slow down to the speed of a slideshow and make aiming properly difficult. It's a good thing I use melee weapons in Oblivion, or I couldn't hit anything near an Oblivion gate. Riding my horse around Cyrodiil, or even running around Cyrodiil, and constantly watching buildings and trees just pop up out nowhere while the game stutters with a "loading area" message of the bottom of the screen got irritating, and loading screens weren't the shortest or the most immersive thing.

Fallout 3 initially worked better, but post GOTY edition, it's even worse. To play a new Elder Scrolls/Fallout game with Oblivion's graphics that doesn't constantly lag is all I want. Why can't Bethesda give that? Is it the hardware? Gamebryo? Bethesda's lack of optimization knowledge?

I think part of the problem is ports.


Games made specifically for a console, with full knowledge of how to tweak the system to get best results, don't have problems and look great.


Games made for multiple platforms, including PC - based off originally PC games and engines...... well, I can see them having issues. It may just be that Gamebryo doesn't work well on console. It may not be as optimized around smaller amounts of RAM/etc. But hey, that's just guessing.