35 replies to this topic

[Alecrein]

So I will be the first to say I'm not huge into following how these engines work or how they designed, but one question has been nagging me.

 

Recently EA DICE technical director Johan Andersson stated that the Frostbite Engine tests they did on the Wii U were poor and so aren't even trying Frostbite Engine 3.

 

My question is why is it that CryEngine3 which is used for Crysis 3 (and was reported as running on Wii U) and the recently announced Shadow of the Eternals, which is a gorgeous engine in terms of graphical fidelity, able to run fine, yet an engine which is an equal apparently cannot.

 

So is Frostbite a terrible engine in comparison to CryEngine 3?

 

[Keviin]

From demos I have seen... I like Cry3 better. That's all I know.

[Half]

I'm guessing they lied, or they didn't even bother trying.

[Chrop]

They hate Nintendo. Thus why they are saying stuff like this.

[Nollog]

cry3 is great, but forthbite is about breakable surfaces and stuff like that.

It's more involved than cryengine.

don't just judge everything on  looks.

[MorbidGod]

So I will be the first to say I'm not huge into following how these engines work or how they designed, but one question has been nagging me.

Recently EA DICE technical director Johan Andersson stated that the Frostbite Engine tests they did on the Wii U were poor and so aren't even trying Frostbite Engine 3.

My question is why is it that CryEngine3 which is used for Crysis 3 (and was reported as running on Wii U) and the recently announced Shadow of the Eternals, which is a gorgeous engine in terms of graphical fidelity, able to run fine, yet an engine which is an equal apparently cannot.

So is Frostbite a terrible engine in comparison to CryEngine 3?

I am not a programmer, so am not the best to answer this question. However, I'll do my best.

There are a lot of things we don't know. It is entirely possible they were using older hardware, and they never tested the final dev kit. That's probably a big part in this.

Another possibility is that the engine isn't that flexible. UE4 is designed to be on every system. It's possible Frostbite isn't.

A factor might be politics. But that is yet to be seen. It is odd that frostbite 3 can run on the Xbox 360 and ps3 and not the Wii U.

[Alecrein]

I figured it had to do with scalability. I believe personally it is in line with EA's laziness in regards to Wii U. It's ironic that the most Hated (See Worst Company in America Poll on Consumerist) gaming company is the only major enemy of Nintendo right now.

[Waller]

cry3 is great, but forthbite is about breakable surfaces and stuff like that.
It's more involved than cryengine.
don't just judge everything on  looks.

The thing runs on 6-7 years old hardware, so I don't know how much more "involved" it is in comparison to Cryengine.

[tboss]

I'm guessing they lied, or they didn't even bother trying.

the second

 

what ive seen from cryengine so far looks better. frostbite3 is likly CPU focused, also likly well made for xbox/PS3 with features to upscale to anything else. someone correct me if im wrong. \

 

personly i dont expect great nextgen engines till the next iteration, were they are all mostly designed spacificly for the consuls. UE5,cry4, ect. currently the top ones are designed for PC, and some (UE5) drastically overshot consuls.

[Socalmuscle]

Fb is made for old consoles and ps720.

They could EASILY port it to wii u and it would run perfectly. But their publisher already doesn't want to work with Nintendo, so they'll simply not rewrite the engine and give a crap excuse.

Cryengine blows away frostbite. Completely.

And the wii u runs cry3 like melted butter.

Ea. hates Nintendo. They won't port a second class engine because they don't want to. But that won't stop them from using a philosophical favoritism agenda and using it to further erroneous technical claims against wii u.

[Nollog]

The thing runs on 6-7 years old hardware, so I don't know how much more "involved" it is in comparison to Cryengine.

You're assuming ea are using frostbite 3 on 360? Would make more sense if they're suing 2 on those.

 

It's easy to tone down features too.

If cryengine doesn't have those feature though, it's impossible to tone them down or up.

[Goodtwin]

The difference in motivation in getting the Frostbite 3 engine running on the Wii U vs the 360/PS3 is the installed userbase.  Its near impossible to create a AAA games these days for a new console without taking massive losses, so a buffer period is now needed where they release on both current and next gen consoles.  EA is looking at the Wii U's userbase, and and the current sales pace, and decided that it wouldnt be profitable to support the Wii U.  They most likely feel that they tested the waters with Mass Effect 3, Madden 13, FIFA 13, and Need For Speed Most Wanted, and none of their games have sold very well.  Sales history on Nintendo consoles for EA has typically been far worse than on competing consoles.  So combine this with some salty feelings about a failed Origin deal, a rocky past history, and we are finnally to the breaking point for the Nintendo and EA relationship. 

 

EA wasnt planning on supporting the Wii either until it was outselling the competition by significant margins.  If sales pick up for the Wii U, EA will be back to try and get a piece of the pie.  They may be trying to throw their weight around to score a better deal on royalty fee's that it pays Nintendo for each copy of its games sold, but Nintendo may not be willing to budge on that. 

 

Either way, it has nothing to do with the hardware not being capable enough, but that EA doesnt want to invest the money to optimize the engine for a console that they dont see as a viable platform for thier games to sell well. 

[Waller]

You're assuming ea are using frostbite 3 on 360? Would make more sense if they're suing 2 on those.

It's easy to tone down features too.
If cryengine doesn't have those feature though, it's impossible to tone them down or up.

I'm not assuming anything; Battlefield 4, a game built with Frostbite 3, is coming to Xbox 360 and PS3. You can even go read their interview, they straight up tell you the engine was built keeping in mind those two consoles.

http://www.videogame..._interview.html

What you going on about toning down features? That's completely irrelevant.

Edit: oops, totally typed up Frostbite 4 there.

Edited by Waller, 13 May 2013 - 10:43 AM.

[routerbad]

You're assuming ea are using frostbite 3 on 360? Would make more sense if they're suing 2 on those.

 

It's easy to tone down features too.

If cryengine doesn't have those feature though, it's impossible to tone them down or up.

They've already said that FB3 will power BF4 on 360 and PS3.  It really does come back to level of effort and business relationships.  The business relationship is poor, so they are not going to put more resources into R&D to develop the engine for WiiU.  It isn't necessarily more CPU intensive than other engines, there is a lot of physics stuff going on, but nothing that can't be handled either by the WiiU CPU (which is actually quite the performer) or the GPGPU on the Wii U, which allows it to run highly parallel SIMD focused physics engines.

[tboss]

wouldn't a true next gen engine look worse on PS3/360 overall if you think about it? high end PC's and all next gen consuls are designed differently, and run alot differently. optimizing it for that kind of hardware that relies on the reverse of PS3/360. wouldnt optimizing a engine for next gen literly de-optimize the engine from last gen. and as a direct result make it look worse?

[Nollog]

I'm not assuming anything; Battlefield 4, a game built with Frostbite 3, is coming to Xbox 360 and PS3. You can even go read their interview, they straight up tell you the engine was built keeping in mind those two consoles.

http://www.videogame..._interview.html

What you going on about toning down features? That's completely irrelevant.

Edit: oops, totally typed up Frostbite 4 there.

"You're assuming EA are using frostbite 3 on 360?

It would make more sense if they're using 2 on those."

That makes more sense?

I don't keep up to date with much ea and no battlefield news as neither interest me.

 

Toning down features means watch dogs on pc and wii u will look alike, but the pc version will be prettier.

Does that example help you understand?

Edited by Nollog, 13 May 2013 - 11:54 AM.

[Goodtwin]

wouldn't a true next gen engine look worse on PS3/360 overall if you think about it? high end PC's and all next gen consuls are designed differently, and run alot differently. optimizing it for that kind of hardware that relies on the reverse of PS3/360. wouldnt optimizing a engine for next gen literly de-optimize the engine from last gen. and as a direct result make it look worse?

 

Not really, a lot of times newer engines actually have new more efficient ways of doing things, which makes those features less demanding on the hardware.  However, the majority of new game engines are loaded with new advanced features that also require more powerful hardware.  Its kind of like when Epic said the UE4 could scale to a tablet or smartphone, but the majority of that engines advanced features would go unused.  

[routerbad]

Not really, a lot of times newer engines actually have new more efficient ways of doing things, which makes those features less demanding on the hardware.  However, the majority of new game engines are loaded with new advanced features that also require more powerful hardware.  Its kind of like when Epic said the UE4 could scale to a tablet or smartphone, but the majority of that engines advanced features would go unused.  

Exactly, and at that point (UE4 on smartphone) the reason is for familiarity with the pipeline and efficiency

[MorbidGod]

The difference in motivation in getting the Frostbite 3 engine running on the Wii U vs the 360/PS3 is the installed userbase. Its near impossible to create a AAA games these days for a new console without taking massive losses, so a buffer period is now needed where they release on both current and next gen consoles. EA is looking at the Wii U's userbase, and and the current sales pace, and decided that it wouldnt be profitable to support the Wii U. They most likely feel that they tested the waters with Mass Effect 3, Madden 13, FIFA 13, and Need For Speed Most Wanted, and none of their games have sold very well. Sales history on Nintendo consoles for EA has typically been far worse than on competing consoles. So combine this with some salty feelings about a failed Origin deal, a rocky past history, and we are finnally to the breaking point for the Nintendo and EA relationship.

EA wasnt planning on supporting the Wii either until it was outselling the competition by significant margins. If sales pick up for the Wii U, EA will be back to try and get a piece of the pie. They may be trying to throw their weight around to score a better deal on royalty fee's that it pays Nintendo for each copy of its games sold, but Nintendo may not be willing to budge on that.

Either way, it has nothing to do with the hardware not being capable enough, but that EA doesnt want to invest the money to optimize the engine for a console that they dont see as a viable platform for thier games to sell well.

You might want to tell EA DICE that, because that isn't the reason given for no support.

Although, I don't really not agree with what you said. It's just not what EA is saying.

[routerbad]

You might want to tell EA DICE that, because that isn't the reason given for no support.

Although, I don't really not agree with what you said. It's just not what EA is saying.

EA won't come out and say that they aren't supporting WiiU due to bad business relationships, they would have to deal with a hellstorm if they did, because it makes them look even more grubby