New technology may compress texture file sizes down 70% [update 1]

by Nick Doerr { Oct 5th 2006 at 2:00PM }

At the London GDC (Game Developer's Conference), Allegorithmic gave a speech about some new bits of technology they have been working on that can supposedly decrease the size of texture files by 70%. These programs, dubbed ProFX and MaP Zone 2, may become an industry standard if their lofty claims hold true, while not diminishing graphical quality of current texture files. The company showed a few demos and pretty much wow-ed the audience. An XBox Live Arcade game named Roboblitz used their technology and, in a 50MB game, the texture files were a whopping 280KB. Oh, the game runs on the Unreal Engine 3. That's impressive.

Think about this in relation to the idea of getting rid of the disc format. Many of you complained that you'd be able to get 3 games on the 60GB PS3. Now, however, you could get quite a few more, if this program catches on. Not only that, but the smaller games for download will become even smaller and download times will be cut into pieces. This technology may be just what e-distribution has been waiting for. What do you guys think? Would this make online content/games/demos a lot more appealing for our consoles?

[update: changed the subject line to better reflect the material presented!]

Tags: Allegorithmic, Playstation 3, Playstation3, PS3

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Cage @ Oct 5th 2006 2:15PM

I think this is more relevant to why we need blu-ray disks. Do people really believe that a PS3 game would hold double the amount of gaming than any other console and still be the same price? All BD will be used for is more cutscenes (Oh, forgot. Some gamers LOVE cutscenes. Uh...why? I have no idea.)

Frosty22 @ Oct 5th 2006 2:28PM

Yeah I think this combats the idea that you need a more expensive medium to give disks a higher capacity. Why do you need a BR disk or a HDDVD for gaming if you can compress files to fit fine on a DVD-a technology that has been perfected (for gaming, at least).

alienclay @ Oct 5th 2006 2:30PM

my issue is not storage size. 5 years in the future we may be running with 200GB - 600GB hard drives in the ps4. what gets to me is distribution. there is a strong push in america to get broadband into every home, but what about remote areas? i happen to be in the navy and being able to buy discs and having them shipped to me overseas is a big plus. i can't make these kinda downloads at sea. what about the person with unstable or slow internet connections. what about backwards compatablity? what about sharing games with friends, or selling old ones to get money for new ones? not everyone can afford $60 a pop for games. most people pay less one way or another, either by renting, selling, trading, waiting for price drops, etc...
it may save money by cutting out the middle man but if it dosent cut down the price for the end consumer by making $60 games $40 than don't expect more sales, expect fewer. (if discs go away completely) a new combination of both traditional and online is needed.

whats more, lets say that this technology can do %80 compression, in the roboblitz example given the decompressed files would be about 1.2MB. oveall thats about a 2% savings in overall file size. i doubt people are going to make a stink about 50MB vs. 52MB or 500MB vs. 525MB downloads. in this new generation where AI will become the new wow and pow factor above graphics, based on the info given here, the program only goes so far.

SuicideNinja @ Oct 5th 2006 2:46PM

Blu-ray and HD-DVD, FTL!

The industry is already looking at ways to reduce media size, not increase it. If we're going to start transmitting loads of video and video games over wire then size will be an issue. Even when bandwidth and speed increases, filesizes will still need to be smaller to be efficient.

I think we need to get away from disc media altogether, but not necessary mobile media. Flash/NAND/etc will be great alternatives when cheap enough.

alienclay @ Oct 5th 2006 2:41PM

to frosty and the people who think like him,
those words sound a lot like what nintendo was saying back with the N64. compression or not you can only compress so far and if you can use software compression to make 9GB look like 90GB than you do the same to make 50GB look like 500GB. the question is a matter of timing, if the tools are placed before the workers, will they have the skills time and dextarity to wield that tool. more so, do they want to use those tools to build something they couldn't do otherwise. devlopers may or may not make the most of BD today,(esp ports) but the question is will they next year? what about the year after that? and will it be a big factor in the quality of games like it was for the past 2 generations? maybe only the console exclusives like resistance will show us what it's worth, but this is a question that maybe only time will tell.

alienclay @ Oct 5th 2006 2:44PM

hey just clarify, the title implies that the entire game file would be compressed 70% but the post shows that it's only the texture files getting compressed. those are two entirely different scenarios.

tah @ Oct 5th 2006 2:51PM

@3 i thought the ps3 had a lifecycle of 10 years - you won't need the ps4 until 2016 and by then i would imagine the 4th dimension will have been realized - oh yeh BR will be dead too so sony better bank on the e-dist methods...

bwahaaaahaaahaaaahaaa

alienclay @ Oct 5th 2006 3:00PM

to frosty,
you can learn to make a dollar outta 15 cents, but that means i can make 5 dollars from 75 cents.

i agree with ninja about replacing discs with flash but only if the price of the disc/flash for the same amount of data is about the same and i don't see that. the n64 used a cheaper (for the system) cartdrige over CD-Rom but games were always $10-20 more expensive on the system. because the expense of the media was passed to the consumer. what's more take into account ecnomies of scale and what's a $200 BD drive now when in 3 years that drive is $30-40? the 360 may use a dvd drive but there wont be much reduction in manufacturing cost from a drive that started at $20.

i'm happy to see tech like this come along, i look forward to downloading great games to my ps3, but i think it's still to early for anyone to be calling for online distribution only. there are still a lot of questions for us to answer first.

ndoerr @ Oct 5th 2006 3:14PM

@ alienclay -- Aww, I was excited about the title... nothing like leading traffic in on a misleading header, huh? Anywho, I'm changing it now. Better to be safe than sorry.

Frosty22 @ Oct 5th 2006 3:59PM

Still don't see it. Don't see the need for 50 gigs for a game. Will it be nice to have? You betcha. Time will tell if game developers utilize it though (aside from the region free benefit). Am I willing to pay a $200 premium to get it? Nope. Maybe when it comes down in price. PS3 will be a great console... just more than I need for more than the price I'm willing to pay at the moment.