Paul Hossack's response to NG Debate

[manutdfan145]

OK having read this, I understand why next gen gameplay can't be implemented in this years version of FIFA 09. However, I am curious as to what kind of processing power is required to required.

I don't think I've ever seen a game that requires a quad core so unless this game is really unique(which it may well be), I don't see why a relatively common dual core processor wouldn't have been enough.

[SoccerPC]

Originally Posted by manutdfan145

OK having read this, I understand why next gen gameplay can't be implemented in this years version of FIFA 09. However, I am curious as to what kind of processing power is required to required.

I don't think I've ever seen a game that requires a quad core so unless this game is really unique(which it may well be), I don't see why a relatively common dual core processor wouldn't have been enough.

I think they are thinking fifa Ai to be something like Weather forecasts or pixer animations where u need super computers to calculate those

IF u cant give us the Ai why not give us the exact next gen graphics dam it .. just an upgrade from the previous version wont help

[Rhipz]

EA Sports sucks really. Wow, Big up to Paul Hossack actually taking a stand and giving a reply to the negative feedback... Even if it was a **** reply. I don't think they understand... We do not care if it will require steeper requirements. For F**** sake everyone knows that. This guy still thinks the standard PC is a

Pentium 4 2.4ghz
512-1gb ram @ low 377mhz speeds
nVidia 7600gt
Windows XP

I'm sure NG Fifa would only require a e6400 @ 2.5ghz, 8800gt and 1.5 gb ram to play at maximum detail and a decent frame rate, And again, R* is releasing GTA 4 this november, which undoubtely has better graphics and requires more CPU power than NG Fifa. What do you say about that Paul Hossack?
We are not in 2005 anymore. Arrgh I would've understood more if they said, We want our sales, so dumbing down the PC version can allow more people to buy it because it will run on their 5 year old systems therefore we can profit alot more.

You know what, stuff EA sports, Paul Hossack I hope you read this... 'You Fail.'

[Outsider87P]

Originally Posted by SoccerPC

First of all I thank hossack to take time and try to answer some of the flaming issues in fifa 09 pc section.

About the PC ps3/xbox360 port , i dont know who speak these things but a port can never a solution .Port is something like emulating ps3 or xbox on pc which is the worst thing performance wise. for an example , like if i use an ps2 emulator and try to run a simple ps2 game on my pc , it crawl down even my moster pc.But i know my pc can handle much more heavy work than that old gen graphics.
Just like this ps3 port is not the answer for PC.I think EA done the right job making a separate version for pc. Having said that , we expect no a single drop of anything less than ps3/xbox360. You guys said graphics is scalable but the graphics of pc fifa09 is not the same as of ps3 and xbox 360, how will you define that? if its scalable , why not make same graphics like ps3 if not better?

Totally agree. I don't want a simple PS3 port. What they are doing is in the good way, but now they have to improve a lot the PC gameplay and give us the whole NG graphics. We will not be satisfied if FIFA 2010 will be only a graphic enhancement or only a gameplay enhancement. We want 3d crowd, untucked shirt,etc and good gameplay

A question for Paul: why there is the jerseystylecode in the db for untucked kits but you are not using a proper .o model (like EURO one) for it?

[Inzaghi]

Originally Posted by miharuhk

I will not buy this until it completely move to NG.

Oh, then you won't buy fiva until 2100

[Andres1221]

I don't believe that ps3/xbox360 have more powerful cpu then most pc's. Thist is lala...

Maybe the reason is that ea sports fails to optimize game on pc platform?

[Kinglts1]

gosh if you care so much about this game, get some good a level grades, go to a top 10 uni and do comp science (not shi**y game programming), and apply for internships at EA, graduate and apply for a vacancy with EA then put an end to your own misery else just live with fifa as it is.

for those who lack the mental faculty to get into a good uni i would suggest purchasing a 360 or an ps3 (far quicker and cheaper than the above alternative )

and with this post let the childish aggressive responses commence !

[lavrentis]

Cutscenes

[DjokoPeridlaka]

Holy lalalala, EA actually reads these forums!

Anyway, I'm glad EA responded. Hopefully, we're actually gonna see more and noticable improvements in FIFA 2010.

I'm okay with FIFA 09 for PC, but it could be better.

[Stoyanis]

Originally Posted by DjokoPeridlaka

I'm okay with FIFA 09 for PC, but it could be better.

After fifa 05 i had great expectations, which didn't come true with 06. After 07 again there was some hope, and guess what happened when 08 was released ... And now I find 09 to be worse in several areas where euro 08 was good.

So it's far from OK with me. Not to mention I had real possibility of heart attack with 02 and 04. Hopefully only few keyboards died during that time.

[lelentz]

Originally Posted by lelentz

Ok...let's say that the gameplay CAN'T be ported on PC BUT...I think you can do the crowds, ball, cameras, untucked shirts, commentators, nets, menu, skills same as PS3/360 version! If FIFA 09 on PC had that and the same gameplay will be a much better game!

I WANT AN ASWER TO THAT FROM YOU PAUL/BAKER011 !!!!!

ps: Sorry 4 my english!

I want an aswer to that.

Let the gameplay the same but make the ball, crowd, stadiums, lightning effects, nets, menu, skills, commentators, untucked shirts, cameras like in NG.

[oshyman2010]

hey guys calm down on paul he is right this is what the able to do right now and i guss its so great
and it will be more greater in the full ver and next year

[The Doctor76]

Thanks to Paul Hossack for actually bothering to reply to us. However, no mention from him of:

Cutscenes. Every single year, we get the same tired old cutscenes, that make no sense some of the time. This year, we even get players from the same team pushing each other around, instead of the opposition player, and I fully expect that to remain in the full game. Look at PES, Paul. Their way is far better!

Heading. Paul, the ball drops out of the sky and just bounces off players, whether they jump or not! Watch a real match and see what happens after a goal kick. Nine times out of ten, it results in an aerial battle/heading tennis session between two or usually more players. Also, if it was as easy as it is in Fifa 09 to direct a header when it's coming down from that high, then don't you think players would do that in real life, instead of heading it up in the air to start an aerial battle, since that's the only thing you can actually do in real life, if you're surrounded by players and the ball is coming down from high up! So, I expect we can also see that broken heading system in the full game? And I doubt if it can be patched, either. It's a shame, Paul. That is the only aspect in the game that still needs a lot of work in my opinion. The rest of the game is coming along swimmingly!

Attention to detail. Come on, Paul, it doesn't take a six-core processor to implement untucked shirts on the right players (or let us do it ourselves through an editor), nets that look and act like nets, crowds that wear the correct colours and wave flags (it was in Fifa 2003). Also, please take a look at how PES handles offsides! In PES, if the ball goes in, the crowd cheers, players celebrate and then the official sticks his flag up! It's excellent, there's no way of knowing whether this is offside or not. In Fifa, you immediately know it's offside because there is no cheer and the player doesn't celebrate! In real life (and in PES), players play to the whistle, that is, if they believe they've scored, they act accordingly. Attention to detail is very important in a sports game, it can elevate a game like Fifa 09 (a good game) to a great game.

Sound. Go to a real football match, or watch one on the TV. Listen to how clearly you can hear the chants! Sometimes, the whole home support are chanting the same thing and it reverberates around the stadium! At least give us support like PES (once again) are doing, in letting us put our own chants in the game (and presumably, control how loud they are.)

Don't get me wrong, Fifa 09 is looking really good, (apart from the heading issue I mentioned. There is a poll here: Am I the only one... that shows that 96% of us agree on this issue and that it would massively benefit Fifa 09 PC if aerial battles were in there - as they are in NG apparently. PES has them (that game, once again)!

@EA Mods: Could you please insure that this reply is forwarded to Paul Hossack, for implementation in Fifa 2010?

[PlayFifajo]

"Instead, we decided to do the work of bringing a big improvement to the graphics (as many of you have noted), further polish and enhance our deep gameplay engine, and work on some PC-specific features. We didn’t want to just give you a port, but rather the best experience for FIFA on the PC. This included the mouse controls for the keyboard gamers, the online widgets, the higher-res menus, and fully customizable controls."


Yes you port but the WRONG version.You port Ps2 version NOT Xbox360/Ps3 version.Why they give us a port of Ps2 ? Because there are the same animations , same Ps2 engine , same crowd , same refferies...you just added some idiotic graphics which are not next gen( only a fan boy which haven't played a REAL next gen game like Crysis think Fifa 09 is next gen, and in my opinion not even Crysis isn't fully next gen, you will see in 2009 games which are real next gen) , and second thing what you addded is unrealistic grass ( I told before...not even in Romanian 4th League the grass is not so big).

[The Doctor76]

Originally Posted by PlayFifajo

"Instead, we decided to do the work of bringing a big improvement to the graphics (as many of you have noted), further polish and enhance our deep gameplay engine, and work on some PC-specific features. We didn’t want to just give you a port, but rather the best experience for FIFA on the PC. This included the mouse controls for the keyboard gamers, the online widgets, the higher-res menus, and fully customizable controls."


Yes you port but the WRONG version.You port Ps2 version NOT Xbox360/Ps3 version.Why they give us a port of Ps2 ? Because there are the same animations , same Ps2 engine , same crowd , same refferies...you just added some idiotic graphics which are not next gen( only a fan boy which haven't played a REAL next gen game like Crysis think Fifa 09 is next gen, and in my opinion not even Crysis isn't fully next gen, you will see in 2009 games which are real next gen) , and second thing what you addded is unrealistic grass ( I told before...not even in Romanian 4th League the grass is not so big).

Just turn off the 3D grass in the menu?

[PlayFifajo]

Originally Posted by The Doctor76

Just turn off the 3D grass in the menu?

Whatever...The entire game $uck$ not only the grass. And i don't say these things because i am a PES fan boy or something else.I say them like feedback because next year i want a good game.

[The Doctor76]

To say that the entire game sucks is daft, mate. It is a lot better this year, but there is still some way to go.

[BLaZiNgSPEED]

Originally Posted by lelentz

Ok...let's say that the gameplay CAN'T be ported on PC BUT...I think you can do the crowds, ball, cameras, untucked shirts, commentators, nets, menu, skills same as PS3/360 version! If FIFA 09 on PC had that and the same gameplay will be a much better game!

I WANT AN ASWER TO THAT FROM YOU PAUL/BAKER011 !!!!!

ps: Sorry 4 my english!

Totally agree with that!
I was suggesting the same but EA don't understand us. More skill and possibly 360 directional move will make it kinda more Next Generation (ish). Curing the ball is definitely possible.
EA ignore that bit and make it the same every year and expect us to be satisfied.
So I don't know from where EA comeup with this theory that NG is not portable on the PC?!?!?!

[Stefan9]

I will not be buying fifa 09. I have bought ever fifa since 1999 but I am sick and tired of being treated like a second class citizen by ea sports. We the pc gamer deserve the same product as the console gamers. I don't buy this it can't run on the pc because of the cpu.

So please EA release these specs that we would need to be able to play your super game. Willing to bet a lot of gamers on this forum will meet or exceed them.

[BLaZiNgSPEED]

Originally Posted by Stefan9

I will not be buying fifa 09. I have bought ever fifa since 1999 but I am sick and tired of being treated like a second class citizen by ea sports. We the pc gamer deserve the same product as the console gamers. I don't buy this it can't run on the pc because of the cpu.

So please EA release these specs that we would need to be able to play your super game. Willing to bet a lot of gamers on this forum will meet or exceed them.

Absolutely agree. "2nd class citizen is the perfect expression"! And EA certainly are treating us PC gamers like poor souls and I feel humiliated
If EA are not improving FIFA Konami are here to save us! PES will retain its pride with their new PES 2009 game! Yes PES 2008 was bad but it was only temporarily bad until a new PES game comes up to continue their dominence.
The difference between EA and Konami is that Konami are treating us equally as the NG consoles 1st class citizens!, but EA are not!

[The Doctor76]

That is spot on, there couldn't be a better description for what EA are doing. You are treating PC as second class citizens, there's no getting away from that. If we were on Titanic, we'd probably be allowed onto the deck just as the last lifeboat was leaving (full of PS3/Xbox 360 owners). Konami don't do that, EA. Remember what'll happen to the sales you get from PC Fifa if Konami manage to get the Fifa licence. They'll disappear, a bit like the aforementioned Titanic! And PES 2008 (while nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be) will likely just be a blip, so Konami will be back on form next year, if not this year. Konami gameplay at its best, plus Fifa/Champions League licence = bye, bye, EA! You can have your First Class NG citizens!

So please EA release these specs that we would need to be able to play your super game. Willing to bet a lot of gamers on this forum will meet or exceed them.

Yes, come on EA, if you have nothing to hide! Release the specs that we'd need to have for NG version, since you are so sure that only 5% of us will be able to run it (and I bet that's a load of old cobblers as well!)

[Priend]

Originally Posted by EAUK_Baker011

The better your graphics card, the better we could make FIFA PC look. If you didn’t have the best card, the game would play the same, but wouldn’t look as great. That’s what you expect for any PC game. When it came to gameplay, the story was different. When we re-wrote the gameplay for FIFA 360/PS3 a couple years ago, we took full advantage of the multiple, multi-core processors (actually 3 essentially dual-core CPU’s on 360, and 6 available Cell processors on PS3). The bottleneck for getting “NG on PC” was the CPU (i.e. it was AI, not graphics). Unfortunately, unlike graphics/rendering, you can’t scale gameplay depending on the CPU in the machine because the game needs to “play” the same on each machine – you can't just turn off the decisions, positioning, or inverse kinematics for some of the players. Why does FIFA 360/PS3 gameplay use so much CPU compared to Crysis, CoD4, etc.? It’s because of the depth of the gameplay (21 players making 1,000 decisions/second, the new animation system, etc.) – very different from the amount of gameplay ever running in an FPS. This meant if we ported the 360/PS3 gameplay to PC and optimized it, we would have to increase the minimum spec on the CPU to a level where only around ~5% of FIFA PC gamers would meet it. As much as any of us wanted to do this, it did not make sense.

Instead, we decided to do the work of bringing a big improvement to the graphics (as many of you have noted), further polish and enhance our deep gameplay engine, and work on some PC-specific features.

First of all I understand that porting the gameplay on to the pc is going to be difficult due to it being needed to be ported to the x86 architecture so recoding will take time. However it may be a wise idea to start now as the likes of Xbox 720 and PS4 may move on to greater processors than powerpc to x86 and x64 architecture. This is because they may want to give console buyers the satisfaction that it is an all in one gaming device with real pc capabilities. Also all developers know that coding for the x86/ x64 architecture is a lot easier than say coding for the cell processor. It is a proven that developers are wasting time coding for the ps3 compared to the xbox 360 as the ps3 has only one main core and 6 weak spes' . This results in a lot of work to optimize game code to run on such an underpowered platform. The Xbox has 3 cores of all the same power of the ps3s but is a lot easier to code due to there being less cores and the strength of the cores being greater. However these processors have been hyped so much and are equivalent to a processor that is slightly faster than the one in the apple power mac g5. This means the likes of the cell and the xenon triple core in the xbox 360 will struggle to just outrun the fastest p4. Everyone knows p4's are slow and this puts console cpus in perspective in actual developers views. They know that if they coded the Fifa next gen gameplay to the x86 platform then it won't take even 100% cpu utilization of a budget pentium dual core such as an e2140 let alone the fastest dual core and quad cores out. Also coding to maximize the x86 platform is a lot quicker and easier hence why there is less apps for ppc64 platform. To get the full potential out of the ps3 developers would need to spend 2 years extra than the 360 version to get it to run as fast. That is why you see games run a lot smoother on the 360 compared to the ps3 as well as the fact the 360 has a better gpu.

This leads me on to the leading edge graphics the pc supposed to have this year. I understand that you have acknowledged the fact that the pc has superior graphics cards. However the level of graphics detail in Fifa 09 is more suited for what integrated/ discrete graphics cards can support. I can run it fine on my laptop with all the details high on 800x600, with shader level 2, 3d grass and so on at 50fps. This is on a nvs 135m (8400m gs). This is a discrete graphics card in a laptop yet it can run all the 'next gen' graphics easily. When I tryed to run it on my pc, the gpu and cpu were probably trying less than say decoding a blu ray film. I was playing it at 60fps at 1680x1050. If possible I could of run the game 6 times at 60fps without making my cpu usage go over 90% as well as my gpu. My desktop pc is only mid range as well compared to what other people have got, i.e a high end would be a pc with core 2 extreme qx9650/ qx9770 at 4.0ghz+ and two 4870x2 cf .If that is the level of leading edge graphics that fifa has to give out for the pc platform then I wonder why the graphics on my ps3 look substantially better. The 3d grass on fifa 09 looks like the cartoony graphics on fifa 06 on ps2. I think high end UMPC's will probably be able to run fifa 09 on high without a sweat, then the fifa team say it is only accessible to ~5% which is a joke as there is so many people with high end computers online. EA don't seem to realise the so called '~5%' seem to be the majority of people who play games on pc. Most people who can't play any pc game on their pc will not try but with fifa 09 they have hope in running it on a ancient gaming rig even on high that has no chance of running most games on low. The quicker that ea make people upgrade the better as well. The same for phasing out the 'old generation' consoles such as the ps3 and xbox 360 (lol) that are severely limiting the pc gaming platform with these underpowered gpus and hard to develop slow ppc64 cpus. At least the fifa 09 this year is a lot better than the buggy and slow paced fifa 08.

[Nefertari]

Originally Posted by Priend

First of all I understand that porting the gameplay on to the pc is going to be difficult due to it being needed to be ported to the x86 architecture so recoding will take time. However it may be a wise idea to start now as the likes of Xbox 720 and PS4 may move on to greater processors than powerpc to x86 and x64 architecture. This is because they may want to give console buyers the satisfaction that it is an all in one gaming device with real pc capabilities. Also all developers know that coding for the x86/ x64 architecture is a lot easier than say coding for the cell processor. It is a proven that developers are wasting time coding for the ps3 compared to the xbox 360 as the ps3 has only one main core and 6 weak spes' . This results in a lot of work to optimize game code to run on such an underpowered platform. The Xbox has 3 cores of all the same power of the ps3s but is a lot easier to code due to there being less cores and the strength of the cores being greater. However these processors have been hyped so much and are equivalent to a processor that is slightly faster than the one in the apple power mac g5. This means the likes of the cell and the xenon triple core in the xbox 360 will struggle to just outrun the fastest p4. Everyone knows p4's are slow and this puts console cpus in perspective in actual developers views. They know that if they coded the Fifa next gen gameplay to the x86 platform then it won't take even 100% cpu utilization of a budget pentium dual core such as an e2140 let alone the fastest dual core and quad cores out. Also coding to maximize the x86 platform is a lot quicker and easier hence why there is less apps for ppc64 platform. To get the full potential out of the ps3 developers would need to spend 2 years extra than the 360 version to get it to run as fast. That is why you see games run a lot smoother on the 360 compared to the ps3 as well as the fact the 360 has a better gpu.

This leads me on to the leading edge graphics the pc supposed to have this year. I understand that you have acknowledged the fact that the pc has superior graphics cards. However the level of graphics detail in Fifa 09 is more suited for what integrated/ discrete graphics cards can support. I can run it fine on my laptop with all the details high on 800x600, with shader level 2, 3d grass and so on at 50fps. This is on a nvs 135m (8400m gs). This is a discrete graphics card in a laptop yet it can run all the 'next gen' graphics easily. When I tryed to run it on my pc, the gpu and cpu were probably trying less than say decoding a blu ray film. I was playing it at 60fps at 1680x1050. If possible I could of run the game 6 times at 60fps without making my cpu usage go over 90% as well as my gpu. My desktop pc is only mid range as well compared to what other people have got, i.e a high end would be a pc with core 2 extreme qx9650/ qx9770 at 4.0ghz+ and two 4870x2 cf .If that is the level of leading edge graphics that fifa has to give out for the pc platform then I wonder why the graphics on my ps3 look substantially better. The 3d grass on fifa 09 looks like the cartoony graphics on fifa 06 on ps2. I think high end UMPC's will probably be able to run fifa 09 on high without a sweat, then the fifa team say it is only accessible to ~5% which is a joke as there is so many people with high end computers online. EA don't seem to realise the so called '~5%' seem to be the majority of people who play games on pc. Most people who can't play any pc game on their pc will not try but with fifa 09 they have hope in running it on a ancient gaming rig even on high that has no chance of running most games on low. The quicker that ea make people upgrade the better as well. The same for phasing out the 'old generation' consoles such as the ps3 and xbox 360 (lol) that are severely limiting the pc gaming platform with these underpowered gpus and hard to develop slow ppc64 cpus. At least the fifa 09 this year is a lot better than the buggy and slow paced fifa 08.

Dude, that was a very very well spoken argument/opinion. Nicely done.

[jazd]

The fact Paul has only just looked into the possibility of bringing NG gameplay to PC gives some insight into EAs complacency towards the PC platform.

[MAVIYILDIZ5]

name: paul hossack
the crime:he steal next-gen of pc
reward:2.500.000$