Woo, technological willy-waving time! Epic's Unreal Engine 3 Samaritan tech demo - positioned as a "proposal for the next generational leap in gaming" - requires a 2.5 teraflop machine to run.
As Develop points out, that's ten times the Xbox 360's hitherto quite satisfactory upper limit of 0.25 teraflops - and well beyond the Xbox 720's (otherwise impressive) rumoured specifications. IGN and Fuzilla sources have the machine down to be six times as powerful as Xbox 360.
Huge and fundamentally new enough for you, readers?
"If you can give us something that has this minimum spec, then this is the kind of quality that we can produce," senior technical artist Alan Willard said of the Samaritan demo in October. "And obviously since we license the engine other studios will be able to produce that level of quality too."
Despite its enthusiasm for high fidelity polygon meshes and shaders, Epic has a few lingering reservations about the move to next gen hardware, rumoured to kick off in 2013.
Eternally quotable frontman Cliff Bleszinski told OXM in November that another round of hardware investments could whittle down the number of triple-A releases to "three or four a year".
"I'd like to see it at a time when consumers are going to be ready to adopt it and jump in whole-heartedly," the company's Mark Rein said in July. "I'm not in a huge hurry for it."
Here's that Samaritan video again. Marvel at the advancedness.
9 comments so far...
hujiki on 14 Feb '12 said:
That trailer looks amazing, imagine the future of gaming... its looking good....
bamozzy on 14 Feb '12 said:
Still looks like a CGI movie though and I have seen this so many times!!! I want to see some actual gameplay that utilises this engine....
As nobody knows the final spec of the next xbox (whatever it is called) it is impossible to say whether or not this engine will be capable of running on it. I would hope that Microsoft do make the xbox 720 as up to date and powerful as is possible with a lot more RAM too. If it is not capable of running things like the unreal 4 engine it will age very quickly....
Bezza89 on 14 Feb '12 said:
I dunno, isn't the point that it does look like a cgi trailer and that that is what gameplay will look like? Tim Sweeney has been quoted as saying unreal engine 4 runs on an as yet unannounced/unnamed console. It's a safe bet it's an MS console as epic and MS are quite friendly.
bamozzy on 14 Feb '12 said:
I know it is supposed to look like a CGI trailer and also what gaming could look like but it is too much like a cut scene or movie and not much like a game play video!!
GrimStreaker on 14 Feb '12 said:
I doubt that the nextbox/720 will be able to run unreal engine 4, as this is on about unreal engine 3 and as the article states if the spec rumours for the 720 are true it will struggle to run unreal 3.
Hopefully this is what gameplay will look like though. I watched the video. But due to my crappy laptop it was a bunch of amazing looking still screens with a soundtrack.
Bezza89 on 14 Feb '12 said:
Where? The specs for 360 run unreal 3 and '720' spec rumours only indicate more power.
Thos. on 14 Feb '12 said:
That doesn't even make sense - you build to the limits of current or forthcoming tech. Presumably any software company can create a piece of software that will only run on hardware far in excess of today's PCs, but they don't bother.
Another point is how rarely final games match the tech demos. Sony in particular are renowned for showing off incredible demos, with shoddy releases a year or two later.
Don't forget the Xbox 360 pre-launch crash demo. No games have managed to match the detail in that demo (close, after years of optimisation and working with the hardware, but still not as good as the demo):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRGMcFswwik (crashes start at 1 minute)
Crocodile3 on 14 Feb '12 said:
Next generation. Hmmm. I have some thoughts.
IMO the next Xbox will not be a dedicated gaming console, I think this will be Microsofts attempt and getting back at Apple. I don't think they see Sony or Nintendo as their rival anymore. If you consider the way the iPhone has diminished demand for hand held consoles I think that the next xbox will aim to do the same in the home. Things that I think it will be:
- Base machine with x6 power with dedicated kick ass graphic cards
- Tablet controller that will work as a controller/ipad in the home through wifi, with a 4G option (see alliance with ARM chip maker)
- In the home this will wirelessly stream graphics to the tablet so you can play games on it the same way you do with WiiU
- Outside of the home it will feature cut down bespoke games e.g. Angry Birds or cut down part of traditional games, e.g. puzzle sections, driving sequences, tactical game play etc
- The whole thing will use Window 8 or whatever it is called
- Microtransactions will play a major part
- Kinect will be enhanced and built into the base unit and speech will feature heavily in navigation
- Will feature Xbox TV pay on demand service
- It will stream adverts into your home
- It will be very expensive at launch
- It will be out in 2013
CunningSmile on 15 Feb '12 said:
I think the next generation will belong to Gertrude