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Allegorithmic's programs to make game file sizes smaller

Posted Oct 4, 2006 at 3:46PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Wii, PS3, MMORPG, Xbox 360 Tags: GDC, London Games Festival, Xbox Live Arcade

Allegorithmic might just make our games more manageable

That is, if some new programs by a lesser-known company become the industry standard for making games. At the Games Developers Conference (GDC) of the London Games Festival, the company known as Allegorithmic claimed that it could reduce the texture file sizes in games by up to 70 percent.

The two programs, known as ProFX and MaP Zone 2, should potentially lessen the file sizes of textures even while the files keep the same quality as current texture files today. A show of their programs' capabilities came in the form of a demo for RoboBlitz, which is coming out for Xbox Live Arcade. With a 50 MB cap on the file size for these game, file sizes did have to be lessened, and according to the report, the game ran well on its Unreal 3 engine with only a 280kb size for the overall texture files.

What does this mean to us? First, that can potentially mean more content, should it become and industry standard. Since file sizes for those textures could be reduced from 1GB of textures to 300MB, hypothetically speaking, that could mean additional missions or quests or at least more places to explore for new games. Of course, not every game uses that many textures, which leads to the second, more impressive point. Smaller file sizes means a faster download for certain games, and that's definitely a plus.

Of course, now we have to wait and see what the industry will do with this interesting development.

Thanks to Badam for the tip!

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I'm a big fan of this method of producing graphics and games, so much detail can be produced with such little information. For example, the game ".kkrieger" (google it) is a full-on 3D-FPS weighing in at a total of 96kb for all game files, textures, sounds, music etc.

This method is called procedural synthesis, and is basically a way of mathematically representing data. The first major commercial game that I know that will use this will be Spore, which is a game opening new possibilities of gameplay becuase it uses this technique.

Biggest pros of using this method of programming: file size and flexible/adjustable game models/textures.

Biggest cons: Extended loading times and memory requirements (RAM)

# lol — eslim21 2006-10-04 19:06

Sony Fanboys will still say, they need blu ray because they need more space.

# Heh. — Guest 2006-10-04 20:04

Microsoft needs this a lot more than Sony. Too bad textures aren't the only things that make up games. Until they figure out how to do this kind of compression on game code, animation, 3D models, sound files, and scripting it doesn't make THAT much of a difference in the overall scheme of things.

But I'm sure PS3 devs would look into this software anyway. 50GB is a lot, but the more they can fit, the better. =]

# ... — Guest 2006-10-04 21:41

My point was they have figured out how to use the compression on gamecode, animation, 3D models, sound files, scripting etc.

Download .kkrieger at http://212.202.219.162/kkrieger it's only 96kb so it's dial-up friendly

, but you will need a hefty computer to play it plus patience to get past the loading times

# homebrew? — Gattack 2006-10-05 04:18

I wonder if there's an accessible version for homebrew....

Would it mess up existing code writing standards?

# exactly as #6 — Jx1 2006-10-05 04:18

I was JUST to mention that.

Would it be the same case with consoles? longer load for the supposed compression, though you do mention it's faster. :/

who knows. time will tell.

# Deja Vu — Guest 2006-10-05 04:20

XNA, ProFX, MaP Zone 2, whatever you use to reduce the size of files is fantastic. If Sony can use A-Trac for shrinking music files why can't they see Blu-Ray is a waste of space with file size reduction for games. Yea, yea Hi Def CG is great, but shouldn't these systems create powerful enough graphics to use in-game models to tell the story? Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, anyone? It is possible, Nosy just wants to shove Blu-Ray in our faces.

-V

# and exactly there... — Guest 2006-10-05 04:35

"..patience to get past the loading times"

Xbox 360: still loading

PS3: lvl 2 done

# daf — Guest 2006-10-05 04:51

360 fanboys, why do you think there are tools like this? Its certainly not because DVD9 offers plenty of space... Get over yourselves already.

# #10 — Guest 2006-10-05 07:09

#10

guess u didnt see the folks over at psm wait a few for their black screen to show signs of life. ;)

# #12 — Guest 2006-10-06 01:47

what? no, link?

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