how much does cross gen limit a game

[TheHorseWarrior]

alot of people are worried about Fallout 4 being cross gen...

there is no doubt cross gen limits a potential of a game, but how much

for example MGS V previews/impressions seem to be universally outstanding, mgs v is ultimately cross gen too

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Depends on the game. I hear Alien: Isolation is fine on either gen, but Shadow of Mordor is downright unplayable in last gen.

 

[baddude1337]

It is very situational, depending on many things. One of the better examples is Metal Gear Solid 5 and the Fox Engine, which is incredibly optimised and scalable, and looks fantastic on current gen, while being perfectly playable last gen.

Overall, games haven't change much compared to the leap from PS2/Xbox to PS3/Xbone, other than better textures and some more advanced particle effects, so I don't see it holding back many games really.

 

[DrOswald]

Open world games suffer quite a bit from cross gen support. It mostly has to do with memeory. The xbox 360 only had half a gig of memory to work with, the ps3 had half a gig but split between video ram and system ram. Skyrim ran into save game issues on the ps3 due to low memory, for example.

No matter what technical tricks you do, memory is a hard limit to the amount of things that can be around in your game at any time. This is why alien isolation, a game that deals in small areas and enclosed spaces, was good on last gen hardware, as Johnny indicated. Shadow of Mordor, a much more open game, ran into severe issues.

Despite what people like Yahtzee say, the 7th-8th gen switch came at about the right time (perhaps a bit late) for a ton of technical reasons. They just don't jump out at you in the same way old hardware jumps did.

If Fallout 4 is cross gen it will have serious problems. Either the game will be limited to allow it to work on old hardware or the game simply we be bad on old hardware.

 

[TheHorseWarrior]

Open world games suffer quite a bit from cross gen support. It mostly has to do with memeory. The xbox 360 only had half a gig of memory to work with, the ps3 had half a gig but split between video ram and system ram. Skyrim ran into save game issues on the ps3 due to low memory, for example.

No matter what technical tricks you do, memory is a hard limit to the amount of things that can be around in your game at any time. This is why alien isolation, a game that deals in small areas and enclosed spaces, was good on last gen hardware, as Johnny indicated. Shadow of Mordor, a much more open game, ran into severe issues.

Despite what people like Yahtzee say, the 7th-8th gen switch came at about the right time (perhaps a bit late) for a ton of technical reasons. They just don't jump out at you in the same way old hardware jumps did.

If Fallout 4 is cross gen it will have serious problems. Either the game will be limited to allow it to work on old hardware or the game simply we be bad on old hardware.

but the impressions for MGS V based on the preview event...seems to be that the open world scale is huge but is technically proficient, and these people played pretty much the first chapter of the game....MGS V is cross gen

 

[ToastiestZombie]

But the impressions for MGS V based on the preview event...seems to be that the open world scale is huge but is technically proficient, and these people played pretty much the first chapter of the game....MGS V is cross gen

The Fox Engine is a much, much better and more scalable engine than whatever engine Fallout 4 will likely use (an updated version of the not-Gamebryo Creation Engine is my bet). Unless they neuter the last-gen versions to hell and high water we're going to get another situation where the game's world is toned down and split up because of console limitations whilst more powerful PCs exist. The entire reason New Vegas was split up into so many loading screens (3 for the strip!) was because consoles couldn't handle that amount at the same time, and if Fallout 4 is a game that has to work on the PS3 and 360 I can see it happening again.

 

[DrOswald]

Open world games suffer quite a bit from cross gen support. It mostly has to do with memeory. The xbox 360 only had half a gig of memory to work with, the ps3 had half a gig but split between video ram and system ram. Skyrim ran into save game issues on the ps3 due to low memory, for example.

No matter what technical tricks you do, memory is a hard limit to the amount of things that can be around in your game at any time. This is why alien isolation, a game that deals in small areas and enclosed spaces, was good on last gen hardware, as Johnny indicated. Shadow of Mordor, a much more open game, ran into severe issues.

Despite what people like Yahtzee say, the 7th-8th gen switch came at about the right time (perhaps a bit late) for a ton of technical reasons. They just don't jump out at you in the same way old hardware jumps did.

If Fallout 4 is cross gen it will have serious problems. Either the game will be limited to allow it to work on old hardware or the game simply we be bad on old hardware.

but the impressions for MGS V based on the preview event...seems to be that the open world scale is huge but is technically proficient, and these people played pretty much the first chapter of the game....MGS V is cross gen

Smoke and mirrors from both a design and technical perspective. I can't really condense why into a single post, I draw these conclusions from years of experience as a programmer, but there are hidden load screens and design compromises all over the place that make this possible. You can see them if you know what to look for, and MGS 5 has these in spades. Scale is not everything, in fact that is one of the cheapest tricks in the box. Make it look big, not be big. Big, empty stretches of desert are actually just load screens. Fallout 3, NV and MGS5 are "big" only in scale, they are very small in concept and detail. Big on the outside but the inside is very small. It is a very good and effective technical trick.

Now, that is not to say that the MGS5 will be bad by any means, but they do have to do with a lot of limitations that will allow it to be released on last gen hardware.