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final fantasy (movie) animation (1 Viewer)

Greg Elliot

Auditioning
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May 26, 2002
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Hello everyone. I just saw final fantay for the first time the other day and my friend and I were wondering how many years, or generations of systems, do you guys think they are from that level of animation in a console or PC game?
 

Rob Lutter

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I could see XBOX-2 running some of that FinalFantasyTSW-like stuff... but it is all speculation for now :D
 

Camp

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Have you seen Doom III? It's pretty damn close.
Let's just hope the script writing in games is better than the FF movie. :)
 

Brian Kleinke

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Sep 9, 1999
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The PS3 might be able to get close. If not then I'm sure the PS4 will. PCs should be able to hit that level in a few years.

Doom III is sweet, but doesn't have the leval of realism for human characters. That is what makes FF so damn impressive.

Brian
 

Morgan Jolley

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I think that in two more generations, we should be close to that, if not there. Just look at what we've done in 10 years.

Also, there was supposed to be a version of the FF:TSW movie for PS2 where some scenes would be rendered in real-time so you could remake the whole movie (change angles, etc.) but they cancelled the project. It probably didn't look that great, either.

Didn't Sony make a device with 16 PS2 EE chips in it? I seem to remember them running TSW in real-time on it.
 

Jeff Kleist

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Uhhh, no

You will not see that level of clarity in-game for a minimum of 2 generations, probably 3 on consoles

I could see it on PC in 5 years
 

MikeAlletto

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I didn't think FF was all that impressive. Especially the animation...it was really bad.
I tend to agree...sorta. They can't do humans really well yet. They can do human parts, like hair and clothes, but skin, movement and mannerisms are just not there. The stuff that looks the best is all the mechanical stuff. Cars, planes, buildings, weapons. All the fiery effects look really good too. Once they figure out human then it will all fall into place.
 

Brad Grenz

Second Unit
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Mar 14, 1999
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You won't see the level of quality seen in Final Fantasy running in realtime for some time. Low res aproximations, but not anything truely comparable to the film's quality. You're talking about really, really high res stuff with a nonexistant polycount limit, many, many lighting and effects passes, ray-traced in realtime. That 90 minute film at 24 frames per second represents thousands of hours of processing time. Plus you have to take into account memory and storage limitations. The art assets for that film must be 100s of gigabytes. I don't have the time or energy to do some reseach and do the math, but something really that good is well off.
 

Jeff Kleist

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Final Fantasy took the render farm computers approximately 1 day to produce 24 frames (1 second)

I don't know how many multiprocessor computers they had running, but at best they might have been able to render out maybe half a minute a day
 

Lee Petty

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actually, the xbox is using technology that was out on pc about a year earlier. it uses the core geforce3 technology in its graphics, which i had already been using on my pc long before the xbox even came out. looking at the xbox parts and specs, you will see that it is actually just a low end, proprietary pc.
nvidia has already surpassed the graphics chip used on the xbox twice. first with the geforce 3 ti chips and now with the geforce 4. and it wont be long untill the new geforce 4 cards are out, and the xbox will still be at the same level. consoles seem to be on a 4 year generation, whereas pc's are on a 6month - 1 year generation in graphics.
dont get me wrong, the thing is amazing, but when it was released, it was big news to console gamers, but to hardcore pc gamers, it didnt really introduce a whole lot of new features.
 

Romier S

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actually, the xbox is using technology that was out on pc about a year earlier. it uses the core geforce3 technology in its graphics, which i had already been using on my pc long before the xbox even came out. looking at the xbox parts and specs, you will see that it is actually just a low end, proprietary pc.
Actually you are correct and incorrect. The box does use the Geforce 3 core but the X-box uses what is essentially a Geforce 3.5. Which means it is more advanced version of the Geforce 3. The NV2A as the chipset is called has two vertex shaders as opposed to the one that is featured in the Geforce 3 cards. This second vertex shader is an earlier form of the dual programmable vertex shaders that are featured in the Geforce 4TI cards.
In essence, yes, right now computer graphics and technology have surpassed the X-box, as is common considering the X-box is a CONSOLE. PC's have always and will always move ahead with technology because of the fact that PC's are inherently upgradeable. Nonetheless your statements above are not exactly factual about what is inside the X-box.
Fuurthermore, considering that the X-box's motherboard, memory and all other components were designed for one purpose and one purpose only, to play games. It works very differently than a low end computer does.
For example, a statement like this:
"How in the world can they do Morrowind on the X-box since I have 512mb of RAM on my computer and it runs chuggy, the x-box only has 64mb."
The X-box is fundamentally comprised of well known PC manufacturer parts such as an Intel P3, Nvidia graphics core and N-force motherboard but it does not work like an average computer, nor is memory or CPU usage the same.
If you want more information on how the X-box *actually* works along with some really damn good info on the inner workings of Playstation 2 and the Gamecube go to these articles:
Aandtech article: Part 1
Anandtech article: Part 2
PS: Now Nvidia's next chipset, soon to be announced this October..That should be something to see! An all new graphics core designed to work with Direct X9. I'm all for it!
 

Kelley_B

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Romier,

You also left out the coolest part of the next nVidia chip.....OpenGL 2.0 Compliant!
 

Morgan Jolley

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While PCs might have been doing what the X-Box could do at its release, compare prices, ease of use, and the fact that you can play the X-Box in a Home Theater while you generally play a PC in an office chair and on a monitor. Personally, I'd prefer a Home Theater.

Yes, you can play a PC in a Home Theater, but is it really worth all that effort when you could just do it with a console instead? The X-Box also has games that PCs will never get that cater to a different crowd than PCs, so the power difference (which is not that big of a deal when you play a game) is barely an issue.
 

Brad Grenz

Second Unit
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Mar 14, 1999
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295
PS: Now Nvidia's next chipset, soon to be announced this October..That should be something to see! An all new graphics core designed to work with Direct X9. I'm all for it!
Tangent: Mmm... I'm not so sure it'll be a success. nVidia has said their next chip will still be using a 128 bit memory interface while 3D Labs, Matrox and and now ATI (as reported by a couple places from Computex, including Anandtech) will all be riding a 256 bit memory bus in the same timeframe. I've always thought nVidia's reluctance to embrase a more advanced memory architecture might see them getting passed by and no matter how much bandwidth saving you do in the architecture, it'll be hard to catch up with parts all with access to twice as much. 3D Labs and Matrox don't sound like they are making bandwidth conservation a high priority in their designs, but ATI's R300 will sport the third generation of its Hyper-Z tech which includes Z checks, fast clears, vertex compression, etc. But then again, maybe nVidia is planning on using DDR II or QDR memory, but I'm doubtful of that.
 

Lee Petty

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yes, i agree about it working differently, thats why i said it was proprietary. meant for one purpose: games. the xbox still runs an os, but a proprietary one specific to xbox, just like arcade games have. when you look inside a snk arcade machine, you will find ram, scsi hard drives, motherboard, etc. thats why a few years back, arcade games didnt have lag, but you buy a home version for your pc and it lagged. why? you have more going on at home than the game, mainly a resource hogging os in the background running all of its application, and usually a webpage, virus-scanner, winamp, notepad, etc. open as well.
do note that i said "core" geforce 3 technology, i didnt mean that it was the exact same chip. sorry for the confusion.

also on the abilities of the x-box, its is hard to find a game that uses ALL of the features of the graphics chips, as soon as the xbox comes out. it usually takes programmers some time to adapt a game to the new features.
thats what i meant about having recent xbox graphics, a long time ago.

sorry i guess i didnt explain myself well enough.

true about the console thing though. yes you can hook it up to a home theater, as you can with a pc. and if all you want to do is play games, thats a good solution. but if you want to play games, and have access to a lot of other resources, i personally like to stick to the pc. the game platform thing does suck though. i found myself buying a ps2 just to play final fantasy x. and dont think im bashing the xbox, i find it a very awsome console. and most likely i will purchase one myself when the time comes.



as far as the new nvidia cards, dont even think that nvidia will be outdone. since the introduction of the tnt card, they have been working hard to out do everyone else. ati does make some good advanced cards, but without good driver support, they will fall into the same position as they are now: 2nd. even if they do stick with a 128bit architecture, they will still most likely produce a card with awsome graphics at a superior speed.
 

Romier S

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Thanks for the clarification on your comments Lee. 2 things though:
also on the abilities of the x-box, its is hard to find a game that uses ALL of the features of the graphics chips, as soon as the xbox comes out. it usually takes programmers some time to adapt a game to the new features. thats what i meant about having recent xbox graphics, a long time ago.
I agree with some of these statements. I do however respectfully disagree with the comment that PC games have been doing what the X-box, or even the Gamecube has for a long time now. I am an avid PC gamer just like yourself Lee and I do absolutely agree that we have had the Geforce 3 card for a good bit before the X-box or GC was ever released.
The question here is though, what games have taken advantage of Geforce 3 or 4 specific features on the PC to the extent of something like Halo, Rallisport Challenge or even Rogue Squadron? No doubt games like Doom 3, Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest 2 are soon to be released. They will no doubt blow the hinges off the doors leading to the graphical heaven we have been waiting for since these cards were announced, but these are recent games though. Not what has come long ago.
If you look back since the Geforce 3 was released very few PC games have utilized the the power of the newer Geforce or ATI cards to its maximum potential. Aquanox, Giants, May Payne, Sacrifice are some of the few noteworthy titles.
I in no way a shape or form want this to appear as a PC vs Console argument because thats just a useless debate. I enjoy both formats equally but I personally don't feel that until recently PC games had been using these advanced features to the extent that you noted Lee. (Note I said until recently. Games like Morrowind, Doom 3 and others noted above will *FINALLY* unlock the true potential of these powerful graphics cards we paid so much for!:))
 

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