Batman: Arkham Knight Batmobile Takes Up Enough Memory To Be a Full Xbox 360 Game

T1 - The Arkham Knight batmobile is so detailed it takes up around 160mb of memory alone due to the textures, shaders, and hundreds and thousands of polygons used. With the Xbox 360 only having 512mb of RAM and 256mb of that being dedicated to the CPU, that's more than half a full Xbox 360 before anything else is even added. It’s basically a full Xbox 360 game.

[Crossbones]

WOW!!! O_O

[fr0sty]

Except that it isn't a "full Xbox 360 game". It's less than half of 360's RAM. Most 360 or PS3 games were many GB's in size, especially Ps3.

[mhunterjr]

They are talking about the memory needed to render the vehicle, not the size of the data files.

Both the ps3 and 360 had only 512mb of ram, and both dedicated roughly half of that for graphical processes.

[PLASTICA-MAN]

"It says it is running on their modified Unreal engine."

Oh no, why not UE4 why NOT?

I really wonder about the future of this engine, not even released and almost DBB (Dead Before Birth).

Edit: I saw some ingame photos of the game (look in Neogaf not gonna post them here). The game uses the same old engine but has slightly better graphics, nothing spectacular (for next-gen only game), don't expect UE4 Infiltrator level. Hype just went into free fall. Sorry :(

[Eonjay]

Basically if the game was on the 360, the only thing on screen would be the Batmobile. Thats it.

[Sevir]

Development started in 2012, Unreal engine 4 wasn't completed till late last year, this game was well into development by the time retail availability of UE4 was ready for licensing! Most games using UE4 started development early last year!

[FRAKISTAN]

facepalm @fr0sty

[fr0sty]

A full 360 game is several GB's, which is what the article compared it against. It didn't say "equal to Xbox 360's RAM size" which would have been close to accurate (360's GPU RAM is still more than what the batmobile took up). Just a very inaccurate description from someone who didn't know much about the technical lingo they were trying to use, especially when they use the word "FULL" 360 game.

[Anonagrog]

@PLASTICA-MAN,

Considering how good the old 'Star Wars 1313' gameplay footage and 'The Samaritan' looked those 2 years ago running on one of the latest iterations of UE3, I wouldn't shrug it off just yet.

Some of those modifications mentioned may even be Rocksteady going with a more realistic, physically-based renderer to bring it more in line with the current graphical trends and expectations.

Regardless of whatever "ingame photos" you saw that nobody else has seen, perhaps just wait until game-play footage is released? :P

[PLASTICA-MAN]

@ dogdirt2000

The photos I saw looked nothing like Star War 1313 or The Samaritan demo, they looked slightly betetr than the old games and the old engine and especially character models are very recognizable and last-gen. Plus even the Samaritan demo doesn't look as good like any of UE4 demo whther elemental or Infiltrator cus both used new next-gen tech from translucid material sub surface scattering, SVOGI, etc and other stuff not possible with the highest version of UE3. You can use UE3 to the max, it will never look as good as the basic UE4 , it will alwys look like an UE3 game from last-gen.

[Volkama]

360 didn't split GPU and CPU RAM up 256/256. It had a 512mb unified pool of GDDR3 (+10mb EDRAM) and how it was allocated was entirely flexible, with the exception of the <50mb that was reserved for the OS and system features.

The PS3 had a 256/256 split, that's one of the key reasons it was harder to push the same textures on that platform.

Strange choice for the article headline, but it's fair to say we weren't likely to see any 160mb assets in a 360 game.

[Anonagrog]

@PLASTICA-MAN,

UE3 in it's latest form supports DX11, is capable of now using deferred rendering, and also handles the usual specialist shading with things like translucency, skin sub-surface scattering and hair. There's also the support for tessellation and displacement mapping, IBL and energy-conserving specular brdf. On the global illumination front the last I heard was that Epic ditched SVOGI because it was too resource heavy, and are instead going with the more traditional radiosity approach, ala. Geomerics' Enlighten perhaps, which has actually been available through UE3 for some time.

Let's not forget that Rocksteady are full licensees. They have access to the engine's codebase and can change whatever they want to achieve their goal(s). If they wanted to re-write the entire renderer they could, though I doubt going to that extreme would be necessary.

[PLASTICA-MAN]

@ dogdirt2000
If you want, I will send the pics' link to you only and tell me if this is comarable to Samaritan demo, let alone Infiltrator demo.

This is just beefed version of the old engine which conserves the really bulky ugly models and doen't come up to anything seen next-gen.

Oh BTW, deferred rendering was used since the first Bioshock and it was even using UE2.

[Anonagrog]

@Plastica-Man,

Nope, that's not right at all.

UE3 had been primarily a forward renderer up until several years ago, and it certainly didn't launch with it. It was brought right to the forefront when UE3 was brought up to DX11. UE2 absolutely didn't support it, and deferred rendering wasn't even a 'thing' in games until STALKER brought it to everyone's attention about 6-7 years ago.

Bioshock Infinite was the only Bioshock console game running a deferred renderer as far as I'm aware, and it was on UE3. The other two were running on modified UE2 engines that diverged from Epic's engine a long while ago. Bioshock 1 wasn't deferred. I'm not sure about what they did with Bioshock 2 though, and I don't know about the PC versions.

I don't see how you can think "... really bulky ugly models..." has much at all to do with the engine when both UE3 and UE4 can push current hardware, albeit to a lesser extent with the former. There's nothing inherently restricting in UE3 that would mean it's models are destined to look bad or "ugly", though.

[PLASTICA-MAN]

@ dogdirt2000

I don't see why you defend them for using a modified UE3 (modified but still UE3) while they could have opted for the use of UE4 with all those features in plus extra new extra feature and spared the time modifiying the UE3 (which still looked nothing groundbreaking even highly modified compared to UE4) while UE4 is there and even easier to use (promise from the devs). Do you want even next-gen games to stick to UE3 forever too? Why even create an UE4 then?

[Anonagrog]

@PLASTICA-MAN,

I defend them because my I spend a lot of my time programming, researching, and working on game tech, so perhaps I'm seeing this from more angles, based on experience, than other folks appear to be doing.

"... they could have opted for the use of UE4 with all those features in plus extra new extra feature and spared the time modifiying the UE3..."

You should understand that sometimes it just isn't feasible to move on to a new engine when you're financially and technologically committed to the work done over a 5 year period on the previous engine iteration. This work can end up in the form of hefty changes to the gameplay layer and engine run-time, as well as the other half of what makes a good engine "good"... the supporting tools and the asset pipeline.

Look at the game specific things like the actual Batman gameplay. Now, there will always be a goal of not introducing gameplay stuff into the engine-side, but that doesn't stop the reverse where the gameplay layer ends up quite dependent on the structure of the engine (run-time and tools). Some stuff will be data-driven and scripted using both flow and UnrealScript, and other parts with more demanding, real-time requirements can end up hard-coded. On the UE4-front UnrealScript is gone, C++ scripting's in, the flow system has been completely overhauled, the object model and game-play code will probably be fed and use data in a fundamentally different way to the past, the way their own additional tools plug in to the engine asset pipeline, and I've no clue about the engine-side systems, though I imagine it will have a much different shape based on it's development history.

Considering that there were some fundamental changes made to UE4 (more-so than generally seen between iterations of the same engine in my view), I can foresee there being huge challenges in bringing the Batman systems and tools to UE4. They'd have to do make that decision on the basis of cost vs. time vs. worth.

To me making that big shift to UE4 for this would be especially surprising considering Rocksteady don't need to think towards a long future of Batman afterwards. They can evaluate their technology choices with less restrictions after this project is done.

People can slate a developer using a "modified" engine instead of a "new" one all they want, but at the end of the day it is all code. It's in the hands of the engine guys and the other system programmers to mold their tech to purpose where necessary.

[GamersHeaven]

Man this game is going to be kick a$$

[Mr_cheese]

That just sounds immense.

I love the fact that this is catered for current gen rather than older gen ports.

[Sevir]

Lol that isn't anything remarkable though! Gears of War did this in 2006 and Uncharted did this and several other games last gen did. The added memory of next gen simply allows these nuances to to proliferate the finished product of these games and happen dynamically

[ginsunuva]

I'm not sure what rain droplets have to do with the game being good but okay!..

[Snookies12]

It has EVERYTHING to do with a game being good... Lol, kidding aside, I agree. It won't make the game good, but it does add a lot to the experience with these little details. :]

[ddgaming820]

I....uh...wat now?

[jay2]

The Bat-mobile would use up all the power of the PS3 and Xbox 360, things are so big that one character would be everything they can put on your TV.

[ginsunuva]

Memory not power.

[mafiahajeri]

Thats not saying much, is it? hehehe

[maniacmayhem]

Dang...just wow...the way this reads it appears this game is going to show what these new consoles can and should be doing with new games.

[kingdom18]

This is what I consider NEXT GEN, something that truly couldn't be done on the last gen.

[webeblazing]

Oh most of the stuff on the list are just gfx upgrades but I a liking some of the gameplay additions. Good to see they want to push the consoles to their limits.

[jay2]

OH YES! They need better directions to things though!

[Bonkerz]

Is this supposed to come out this year? Because if it is i may pass out lol.

[Ashunderfire86]

According to Gamestop and Amazon its coming out October 14, 2014. Now you can really pass out.

[Skate-AK]

Yeah. On my birthday. October 14 2014.

[rastapau19]

Ok lets all pass out on Skate-AK's Bday then:)

[YoungKingDoran]

And wake up with penises drawn all over you? Lol.
Yeah Skate-AK, sounds like your batman themed party that we are all invited to is gonna be awesome.

[Fasttrack76]

Day one for me

[nope111]

WAT?!? hahaha that's crazy.

[Metallox]

Wonder why that much, it must be cool, otherwise I'll be disappointed.

[BobbytheBuilder]

So many amazing games coming out this year, I wonder if they can all sell well...

[Alex_Boro]

480p on Xbox One confirmed.

[OculusRift]

#ShotsFired

[danthegamerfiend]

Yeah maybe Sony might have that same resolution too. At least Microsoft will tell it like it is. Good luck trusting a company that lies about their games. "killzone"

[Shadowsteal]

Sony never lied technically Killzone still does run in 1080p even in multiplayer. Just not full 1080p.

[Sevir]

Lol, Danthegamerfiend... MS hasn't come out and admit a thing, game journalist have done that.

Secondly, KZ's multiplayer resolution is 1080 vertically, and 990 horizontally, the rest of the image information is repeated to fill in the remaining picture! It's the same exact method Polyphony Digital used to render Grab Turismo 5 at 1080p only GT5 's horizontal resolution was higher than Killzone's while the vertical was 1080. It's a far more efficient way of upscaling , as all the vertical lines are at the 1080 resolution.

[Alex_Boro]

I'll be playing 4k on my PC. I don't care about PS4's resolution. I know it will be higher than Xbox One's though.

[T2]

Microsoft will tell it like it is
.."you can't just flip a switch "
" there is no way we are giving up a 30% advantage"

Hahahaha! Ah thanks I needed that

[webeblazing]

Lol was that a excuse. Does that mean less than 1080p is good enough for you now

[hkgamer]

hahaha... Well MS screwed up by only telling the truth, look at MS announcement and its DRM thing. they didn't even properly talk about family share.

now about the sly bastards Sony, they kinda slipped in the PS+ multiplayer thing, also said DRM is upto publishers.

Killzone MP running on 1080p, well its still kinda 1080p right? just not the 1080p we was thinking.

[GarrusVakarian]

"At least Microsoft will tell it like it is. "

Yeah, just like they did with DRM - "you can't just flip a switch, the console is built around DRM".....flips switch. /s

Showing Forza 5 to the public running on PC's and saying it's X1 gameplay.

"Xbox one is the most powerful console, when you connect it to the internet (cloud), it's 3 times more powerful".

Face it, both companies lie. MS's track record is much dirtier than Sony's, that's for sure.

[Anonagrog]

@Shadowsteal,

"Sony never lied technically Killzone still does run in 1080p even in multiplayer. Just not full 1080p"

I think you mean '1080i', not "p". Progressive frames will never be the same as Interlaced frames.

[danthegamerfiend]

Number one to say the xbox one cant do 1080p 60 fps is a understatement. Maybe if you dont recall but microsoft did say this console will evolve into something greater then it was released as. Sony did lie, why would they say the game is 1080p and then change it without even a official article. I mean why would i even trust a company that is going down as a company all together and had a history of shity service like psn getting hacked for a month. And Sevir i dont know why your even comparing a old gen shit game like gran turismo to forza 5 that is actually runs a full beautiful 1080p 60 fps. Do you even guys even remember call of duty 2 when that came out, remember how bad those graphics were. Webeblazing Honestly there isnt even much of a difference in resolution anyways unless you have a magnifiling glass to pick out all the pixels. Look at metal gear ground zeros as a example. Dogdirt2000 dude you need to watch want you post because 1080i is a completely irrelvant. Lukas_japonicus I didnt mind drm, because i always have internet on 24/7. I hate switching disks to play a different game. It goes to show that they are willing to change things to cater to there fanbase and make their customers happy.

[IonDestroy]

Sort of a misleading title, there are PS1 games bigger than that. However, it is interesting to see the progress in modeling. That's a TON bigger than models from early last generation.

[dcj0524]

You misunderstand. He speaks of ram. Not hard drive space a game takes up.

[IonDestroy]

Thanks for clearing that up.

[king_george]

Hopefully we can drive it lol

[Snookies12]

No! You just get to look at it. You don't touch it, ever...

In all seriousness though, that is pretty impressive. I'm just a little worried on how it will run in that case. I mean, if just that vehicle uses as much ram as the 360 had for games... Considering you have 8 GB's of ram, using the entirety of what the 360 had for one car is a relatively decent portion of that. I guess we'll see how it turns out as it draws closer to release.

[Rickgrimes95]

Oh my gosh I just have this picture in my head of batman cutting the power in a building bursting in through the window and you taking guys out with moonlight seeping in through the windows.

[hkgamer]

or just run in through the main doors and kick everyones ass because you can.

I do enjoy playing batman games, but the combat needs to change or be updated in a way. AC kinda invented that style, batman improved on it but the mechanics is just way too simple.

[Geekman]

This explains why previous games didn't feature it, as well as why it's not on last gen consoles. I take back my complaints from both subjects.

[ZombieGamerMan]

Damn Rocksteady must not know how to code properly if they need all the 360's capabilities to make a damn car, honestly this is just PR bullshit they are using to promote next gen games.
What they said is clearly bull and just them trying to get people into buying next gen systems for the game and hey that's not bad but please don't make bullshit like that up.

[ThatOneGuyThere]

what they are saying is that THIS particular model uses more resources than the last gen could give them. not that they couldnt have built A batmobile for last gen.

[ado908]

What they are implying is that the batmobile uses most resources comparable to a full 360 game. The batmobile alone is 256mb which in my opinion I find complete and utter bs because this is basically a PR talk to sell their game. With the amount of games that came out last gen and showing me the graphical capablities I think they are lazy for not coding the game properly. They can easily save space but they purposely choose to burn through ram and memory just because its early in the gen. Watch by their next batman game, that game will have graphics that will be 2x better than this game and will pretty much use the same amount of resources they used for this game, why? Because with each new game coming out later into the gen it will be harder to top a sequel and reviewers will choose to be more critical in summary what im saying is a game this early into the gen allows them to be a bit lazier

[Qrphe]

It really is PR talk.

[Salooh]

It's true that they can improve the coding in the future but they are saying it will have more then a 100k polygon . That explains it and it's reasonable to me.

[hkgamer]

bad coding can easily use up RAM. Not saying they are bad coders, jsut saying that there is no need to be cnfined to 512mb RAM anymore and if they tried really really hard they could use 50% less.

It's also kinda big PR bullshit aswell, its saying 360 is 512MB, but then saying most of the time only 256mb is used for cpu and only half of that is sed on this batman car. so thats like 25% how is that anywhere near full?

[BOLO]

It happens many times with major releases..."Game X uses 99.99% of system Y's power", "Our team has used X amount of GPU power to increase polygon meshes 1000 times", and so forth. The only game that needed no play on hype as it brought the goods in my opinion was Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. It is incredibly underrated and should have a proper HD facelift.

[rodiabloalmeida]

Holy sh1t! My body is ready. And my PC. :D

[deadfrag]

Making excuses for not releasing on the PS3,WII U and Xbox 360 nothing more nothing less!Too bad for the bat fans that cant buy or own a PC or a new generation console,but also too bad for WB because they will lose plenty of sales also.

[Eyeco]

This was going to happen eventually, as it's always happened with every console generation I don't understand why there is a minority of gamers pissy about this.

The PS3/360 have been on the on the market for 8-9 years, that's almost a DECADE, in the tech world that's pre historic, dev's can't be tied to these systems forever, gaming needs to progress. The problem is that these new consoles launched noticbly later than previous gens, realistically these new systems should be in their 2nd-3rd years already.

[DigitalAnalog]

@deadfrag

Then the game Rocksteady will make would not be possible. I'm surprised you're concerned about the "sales" rather than the "vision" of the developers. Why bother going to next-gen then if all you want is just the PS3/360? If you're gonig to go with this reasoning, why didn't they make a PS2 version of Uncharted or The Last of US or GTA IV, V? Who wants to drop 150+ million console users right?

[deadfrag]

Im not concern about the sales in anyway i dont own shares at WB;i actually own a PC and a PS4 along with all old generation of consoles,but i dont believe that this game was not possible to do in some kind of way on the PS3 ,XBOX 360 and mostly on the WII U.

[hkgamer]

with the way origins was released I think everyone knew that was the last batman game for that gen. otherwise there was no need to rush out a batman game before PS4/Xbone was released.

[True_Samurai]

Quantum Break, Sunset Overdrive, Halo and now Arkham knight... My wallet is not ready

[MaxwellBuddha]

Agreed with you just to spite the SonyDorks who disagreed with you out of spite.

[90Supra]

That all sounds great and everything......but I'll believe it when I see it...

E3 reveal, I'm assuming...

[Austin48]

so is this the last batman game that rocksteady is making? i hope not without them other teams will ruin this franchise

[Phoenix76]

Hopefully this turns out better than B:AO which was clearly rushed and bugged to hell. Also I hope that they bring back the voice actors & actress of the first two games. Mark hamill's joker was the best