Warframe: from PC to PS4 in three months

VG247: It took Warframe developer Digital Extremes just three months to get its free online shooter running on PS4. VG247's Dave Cook speaks with the team about the flexibility of Sony's next-gen console.

[allformats]

Mark Cerny was/is the best man to lead PS4. It's like fate had its way - and Sony's been doing all the right things.

Good to hear how quick the port was. PS4 is definitely the dev-friendlier system.

[abzdine]

Cerny show, Sony show! Great news for gamers!

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photo...

[shivvy24]

that is the most badass pic ive ever seen ! The Avengers !

[Aery]

It's an awesome porting and the devs also praise Sony about the support. Of course, they are a talented developers too.

[FamilyGuy]

That's awesome!

Sony team = super heroes
It's official

[Foxgod]

Compared to the ps3 yes, its dev friendlier.
Compared to the Xb1, Xb1 should be easier to port software to.

As Windows games mostly run on DX, and Sony is a linux machine which uses OpenGL.
To port a game from windows to ps4, they still have to port all the DX instructions to OPenGL, which is still a lot of work, which is why it still took them three months.

In fact, if devs develop something for windows8 right now, all they have to do is cross compile their source code to both windows 8 and the Xb1`, which shouldnt take more then a week.

[RiPPn]

Except for the small matter of having to optimise code for the ESRAM unless that's handled natively by the system.

[Foxgod]

The ESram is a form of L cache, Pc's use L cache too.
The Esram handling should be quite familiar to Pc developers.

On top of that, the 360 used a similar approach with its EDram, which is what made the 360 capable of keeping up with the Ps3.

[miyamoto]

I heard Valve's console will be running on Linux too & not Windows.

So will that mean games sold on Steam could easily be ported to PS4?

The article was a good read btw...

[Bluepowerzz]

lol its funny becuase im a dev and what you just said doesnt make any sense you are blindly trying to bend logic to favor ms and xbox1.

[Foxgod]

If you where a dev you would have provided some arguments, ive also never seen developers refer to themselves as "developer", they usually mention their field of work, like i am a C++ developer, or C#, or DirectX or Mainframe or Database developer, etch.

L cache makes perfect sense, as ESram is hardly different from an L3 cache in PC's.
And since a similar approach is already in the 360 (EDram instead of Esram) its hardly something new that developers need to get used to.

[SuperLupe]

Lol "I'm a dev" ... I'm sorry but that doesn't sound convincing whatsoever.

[Cernunnos]

The difference betweeen DX and OpenGL is very small these days. Besides, Sony has a lot of expertise in this field, and they offer all developers support with porting to OpenGL, aswell as provide them with tools.

[jivah]

@Foxgod

Dont mix it up now.. The PS4 isnt a linux machine. It is OpenBSD based. Not linux based.. Very different. But none the less both based on Unix

[sonicjam]

@miyamoto

yes it does boots linux up but a huge part of their catalog are mostly windows games and the reason their going with linux because its free. If they ever release it they should have the option of a windows box which you'll end up paying more for.

[Ju]

a) Playstation does not run OpenGL - yes, Sony offers a OpenGL compatible library in form of PSGL, but the native interface is libGCM.

b) The OS isn't linux but BSD (not OpenBSD, but based on FreeBSD 9 for PS4, older version for PS3)

c) ESRAM is not cache - it is used as such, but it is not managed in HW like caches are (that is, not automatic load/store/flush/write through and what not)

The kernel isn't fully posix but close, the shader language isn't GLSL but Sony's own. DX doesn't really matter, you would have to port shaders and pipeline (gx setup) but this isn't that bad. Most work is mostly porting shader code and tracking down this little dependencies you usually miss migrating from one OS to the other.

[cleft5]

So true, you really do feel that spark of magic happening with the PS4. The last time I felt an echo of this was when the 360 launched and Microsoft was making all the right moves. But even that never felt as strong as when the PS2 launched. It really feels like Sony found what they where missing from the era of the PS2.

As a fan of games, I am really excited for the PS4. I own a 360 and a PS3, so I am not being a fanboy on anything. I am just really happy that one of the big companies get what gamers actually want. I don't feel it's wrong to praise a company that is making all the right moves either. I am all for being fair, but being fair shouldn't mean you don't praise a company when they are making moves that you really agree with.

[kratoz1209]

Yeah in one of there interview, the developers said that its been less than a year and the game is nearly completed :D
anyway cant wait to play this alongside PlanetSide 2 :D

[fermcr]

Since it's so "easy" to port PC games to the PS4, the other way around must also be "easy". From a business stand point, Sony should release PS4 exclusives on the PC a year or two after the PS4 release. More money in sales.

[annus]

Apart from the fact that, you know, it's a reason to buy the console which in turn means more people buying the exclusives and other games, which in turn amounts to even more profit.

If it were that simple don't you think all the big companies would be doing that? Or don't you think companies care about money?

[fermcr]

A exclusive game after two years of being released, hardly has any sales, or it's sales are irrelevant. Hardly anybody buys a new console to play a two year old exclusive, so keeping it exclusive after two years is just bad business. If someone hasn't purchased a exclusive game for their console of choice in the first two years, then he most likely won't purchase the game ever.

So to capitalize even more on the game (and porting the game is quite cheap), it makes perfect sense to release that game on another platform to have a few more sales.

[annus]

I missread over the one or two years part. That kind of makes even less sense since it requires a whole new team to get together to understand and port the code as well as add new code. Most people that really want the game would have bought the console to play it, as you said, which means that the amount of sales that will come would be minimal and not be worth it.

Trust me, if this were easy money all the companies would be on it.

[shivvy24]

look at starhawk for example, i reckon it should come to pc due to low sales

[younglj01]

That sound logical but i doubt Sony would announce their exclusives for the PC.

[abzdine]

not necessarily, one doesn't imply the other.

[CGI-Quality]

Exclusives keep a console healthy. It's clear you're having trouble understanding the basics of business.

Thankfully, whether two-years-old or not, Sony knows the importance of exclusive titles and they will remain that way on their machine(s).

[DrakenSilverwing]

I hope this means we can get games like Civilization, Total War,Non-DRM Sim City, More MMO's, And alot of other PC exclusive games to the PS4 then! since also it seems like Sony has no problem having them play together on the same servers anywayss as well.

[Coach_McGuirk]

sounds good to me, as long as PC gets some PS4 exclusives as well. You know, a fair trade.

[Einhert]

The problem is not the servers or running the game, the real problem is the controls for the game.

unless they make one of the sticks an improvised mouse.

[Smoey]

BF4 is apparently looking into using a mouse/keyboard on the PS4.

http://n4g.com/news/1305932...

So the conversion may be easier if other titles support this & RTS games would be easier to port to the PS4.

[Serg]

Unreal Tournament III supported Mouse & KB on the PS3, as does Dust 514 and a few other games. Hardly news, the problem is that almost nobody is willing to bake in support for Mouse & KB into their games.

[Tatsuya]

Console exclusively for the PS4 :)

”I was every surprised how fast we got up and running – I think Sony was as well. When we went to [E3] people said, ‘Holy smokes this is on PlayStation 4? It looks amazing.’”

This is what it means, by PS4 is a beast!

"It’s absolutely awesome. What surprised me most is how kick-ass the GPU is – the graphics are super, super high-end.”

This coming from a 3rd party dev, really means a lot to me. I am glad my 13 years of allegiance towards SONY has ben paid off. Come November, I'll be one very happy gamer. Looking forward to other praises from 3rd party devs and more games for PS4 whether, it be console exclusives for PS4 or exclusively for the PS4. We welcome them :)

[fardan85]

Glad to see that porting games from pc to ps4 is easy.
In the article, it's mentioned that the ps4 will support keyboard and mouse, I hope we will get RTS games like command and conquer. I poured so many hours in older releases of C & C.
I want it on ps4 with K/M.
It's gonna be awesome.