Both the PS4 and Xbox One are a major step up compared to their predecessors. With PC like architecture and abundant memory, there is a lot more that developers can do once they know the system in and out. Speaking to Simul Software founder Roderick Kennedy, whose company created the environment and weather simulator TrueSky, we asked whether it will be possible to let the hardware handle every single environmental effect using trueSky, without any fear of running low on memory, to which he replied:
“Yes. At least, every one of ours. The challenge for developers is always to fit everything in – leaving enough power for solid rendering, effects, post-processing and environment rendering. It’s our job to make ours as lightweight as possible, so we’re always looking for new optimizations,” he said referring to trueSky.
We also asked how will the super-low memory footprint of Simul come into play, given the abundance of RAM with next generation consoles. And according to Roderick it is more about GPU and bandwidth and not memory.
“The challenge is more about bandwidth than RAM. Because we do most of the work on the GPU, trueSKY initializes very quickly. I’d like to see games do much more procedurally, and take loading times back down to how they were in the cartridge era. We’re doing our bit!,” he added.
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