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i bought issue number 5 of G-force magizine and it had a DVD video with footage of Mario Sunshine amongst other things on it but it was a normaly sized DVD and not a Gamecube disk, i have a PS2 so i could watch the DVD but just wounded how Gamecube owners can see it without a DVD player?
Do you guys have to fork out for a DVD player as well as the Gamecube?
Do you guys have to fork out for a DVD player as well as the Gamecube?
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The 1.5GB discs can store information more effectively too, so it kind of makes up for it. Also, there's always the option of two discs and double sided discs. Also, playable demos and footage will be coming soon to NOM, and has already been included with some Japanese magazines.
i'm sure Nintendo has this memory storage thing in hand so don't worry about it :)
I think that the 1.5GB may be enough for the GC. Remember that the old cartridges where upto 256Mbit(maybe 512Mbit) but thats only 32MB(0.032GB) for the 256Mbit cartridge or double that for the bigger 512Mbit, if any games used that. So think how big Zelda was and that fitted into only 32Mb of data, while a PS1 disc has 650Mb. 1500Mb is alot bigger than the whole cartridges, and if Nintendo used the same sort of compression as they did with the N64 cartridges, then the 1.5GB should be enough.
mess wrote:
> And the GameCube has the fastest seek time out of the three consoles
> because the disks are smaller. So the laser lens has a shorter
> distance to travel.
All 100% correct - but as I said, the difference it makes is so small as to be irrelevant.
> I find that multi-purpose machines that try to do so many different
> things tend to be average at everything and not excellent at anything.
Can't agree with that at all. Both PS2 and Xbox have DVD drives because of the storage capacity they offer. Neither machine's ability to play games is affected by the movie-playing ability, with both having excellent titles available.
> And the GameCube has the fastest seek time out of the three consoles
> because the disks are smaller. So the laser lens has a shorter
> distance to travel.
All 100% correct - but as I said, the difference it makes is so small as to be irrelevant.
> I find that multi-purpose machines that try to do so many different
> things tend to be average at everything and not excellent at anything.
Can't agree with that at all. Both PS2 and Xbox have DVD drives because of the storage capacity they offer. Neither machine's ability to play games is affected by the movie-playing ability, with both having excellent titles available.
And the GameCube has the fastest seek time out of the three consoles because the disks are smaller. So the laser lens has a shorter distance to travel.
In response to the original question, if all GameCube owners are anything like me they're going to strive for quality. I bought a GameCube because (in my opinion, lets not start arguing) it had the best facilities for games. I also have a separate DVD player, quite an expensive one in fact that gives an excellent signal.
I find that multi-purpose machines that try to do so many different things tend to be average at everything and not excellent at anything. Sure, its more convenient to have everything bundled into one, but for me a separate DVD player is ideal.
In response to the original question, if all GameCube owners are anything like me they're going to strive for quality. I bought a GameCube because (in my opinion, lets not start arguing) it had the best facilities for games. I also have a separate DVD player, quite an expensive one in fact that gives an excellent signal.
I find that multi-purpose machines that try to do so many different things tend to be average at everything and not excellent at anything. Sure, its more convenient to have everything bundled into one, but for me a separate DVD player is ideal.
The decreased loading time will be negligible, as the only real factor is seek time, not data transfer rate.
It's the same as with 5400rpm and 7200rpm hard drives. Both are capable of the same data transfer rates, but the seek time is lower for faster drives.
As seek time is generally measured in milliseconds, it's not something that will affect loading times.
(For those that don't know - 'seek time' is the time it takes for the drive to locate the data it needs to read; 'data transfer rate' is the time taken to read the data from the disc into memory.)
It's the same as with 5400rpm and 7200rpm hard drives. Both are capable of the same data transfer rates, but the seek time is lower for faster drives.
As seek time is generally measured in milliseconds, it's not something that will affect loading times.
(For those that don't know - 'seek time' is the time it takes for the drive to locate the data it needs to read; 'data transfer rate' is the time taken to read the data from the disc into memory.)
All valid points, but the small discs, beside their piracy advantages and decrease in loading time, have a certain aesthetic value as well. Nintendo seem to be going down that road of making Gamecube a quirky, innovative product that can be marketed in a way that it higlights it's uniqueness of design, in the same way a VW Beetle is - the small discs are part of that.
Anyroad, that is probably only a small factor. And if Shigsy had his way, Nintendo would probably still be using cartridges.
Anyroad, that is probably only a small factor. And if Shigsy had his way, Nintendo would probably still be using cartridges.
Gridloch wrote:
> Do you guys have to fork out for a DVD player as well as the Gamecube?
Yup. The small discs don't have enough capacity to hold these things.
The disc size (in terms of capacity - 1.5GB - not physical size) is my biggest issue with the GC.
On the PS2 and Xbox, not only can you play the video DVDs which come on some mags, but the official mag's coverdisc has several playable demos AND video footage of games - none of which require additional hardware to view. This can't be done on the GC because of the small disc capacity - or so it seems at the moment.
And with Resident Evil, we've already hit a limitation of the machine this early on. We're already moving into games which require more than one disc - which I find strange, as the original on PSone didn't even fill one CD (650MB). Even with the extra bits and pieces added to the GC version, I still find it odd that it needs over 1.5GB. I can only think it's down to pre-rendered video sequences in the game, as they eat up disc space.
Disc swapping isn't a new thing, and if worked into the game correctly it isn't even an inconvenience - but it does limit what you can do in terms of games. For example, GT3 on PS2 uses just under 3.5GB of data.
That would be 2-and-a-bit GC discs, and you can't disc-swap in such a game. On the PSone, GT2 was split onto 2 CDs between Arcade and GT modes. In theory you could do that for GC, but assuming that at least 2GB of GT3's data is car models, track models and physics/telemetry data for car handling (that takes up a heck of a lot of space) and doesn't include the game engine, I'm still not sure it would be possible.
My fear is that, after sticking with the cartridge format longer than they should have, Nintendo may have boobed again with these new discs. They may be pirate proof at the moment, but make no mistake, it will be defeated because of the money pirates can make. I think they'd have been better going with the full DVD format, simply because of the huge difference in storage and the possibilities it opens up.
> Do you guys have to fork out for a DVD player as well as the Gamecube?
Yup. The small discs don't have enough capacity to hold these things.
The disc size (in terms of capacity - 1.5GB - not physical size) is my biggest issue with the GC.
On the PS2 and Xbox, not only can you play the video DVDs which come on some mags, but the official mag's coverdisc has several playable demos AND video footage of games - none of which require additional hardware to view. This can't be done on the GC because of the small disc capacity - or so it seems at the moment.
And with Resident Evil, we've already hit a limitation of the machine this early on. We're already moving into games which require more than one disc - which I find strange, as the original on PSone didn't even fill one CD (650MB). Even with the extra bits and pieces added to the GC version, I still find it odd that it needs over 1.5GB. I can only think it's down to pre-rendered video sequences in the game, as they eat up disc space.
Disc swapping isn't a new thing, and if worked into the game correctly it isn't even an inconvenience - but it does limit what you can do in terms of games. For example, GT3 on PS2 uses just under 3.5GB of data.
That would be 2-and-a-bit GC discs, and you can't disc-swap in such a game. On the PSone, GT2 was split onto 2 CDs between Arcade and GT modes. In theory you could do that for GC, but assuming that at least 2GB of GT3's data is car models, track models and physics/telemetry data for car handling (that takes up a heck of a lot of space) and doesn't include the game engine, I'm still not sure it would be possible.
My fear is that, after sticking with the cartridge format longer than they should have, Nintendo may have boobed again with these new discs. They may be pirate proof at the moment, but make no mistake, it will be defeated because of the money pirates can make. I think they'd have been better going with the full DVD format, simply because of the huge difference in storage and the possibilities it opens up.
Well most new PC's nowadays have DVD drives as standard. (Good thinking by Nintendo) and naturally I have a DVD player for my TV as well. They arent that expensive anyway.
i bought issue number 5 of G-force magizine and it had a DVD video with footage of Mario Sunshine amongst other things on it but it was a normaly sized DVD and not a Gamecube disk, i have a PS2 so i could watch the DVD but just wounded how Gamecube owners can see it without a DVD player?
Do you guys have to fork out for a DVD player as well as the Gamecube?
Do you guys have to fork out for a DVD player as well as the Gamecube?
Page: