Cross Platform Development Considerations

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Who The Hell Am I?

• David PevrealDip App Sc, BIT.
• Lead Programmer on the Merkury Engine, Krome
  Studios.
• TitlesStargunner, Sunny Garcia Surfing, The
  Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius Jet
  Fusion, King Arthur, TY the Tasmanian Tiger 1
  2.
• PlatformsPC, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube.

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Who The Hell Are You?

• PC Developers coming to console development
• Single console developers considering moving over
  to multi-sku
• Killing time until the next presentation

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From PC To ConsoleConsole Manufacturer
Requirements

• Just because you think your game is finished,
  that doesnt mean the manufacturer will allow it
  to ship
• Guidelines like language and terminology, user
  interface, and memory card access are the most
  common failures
• Each platform is different, and sometimes
  platform requirements conflict!

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From PC To ConsoleConcatenate Files Into A
Single Archive

• You cant dump hundreds or thousands of files
  into a directory like you can on a PC. There are
  file system limitations.
• How well you order the files inside the archive
  will have a big impact on your games load-speed
  performance
• There are load-time guidelines, so your game may
  not ship if its too slow to load!

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From PC to ConsoleDiffering Development
Philosophies

• Hardware is consistent
• Audience is different
• Memory is limited
• Game design should have given thought to hardware
  limitations of consoles
• Inflexible ship dates late games often have to
  wait for the next window for manufacturer
  testing. This costs money.

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Console Differences

• Input devices each platform has a different
  controller, different buttons
• Storage capacity, PS2/Xbox use DVD (up to 9GB),
  GameCube uses a 1.4GB proprietry disk
• Alignment and endianness
• TRC/TCR/LotCheck requirements differ

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Casualties of Multiplatformism

• Memory management
• Needs to be same on all platforms
• PS2 has problems using its MMU
• Needed to use a lowest common denominator
  approach
• Textures
• Each platform has different display
  characteristics
• PS2 needs indexed textures

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Commercial Realities

• Making games costs a lot of money on average
  between 5 and 7 million
• Some decisions are made based on making more
  money, not a better game
• PS2 will most often be the lead platform in a
  multi-platform game

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Interface Design A Little Thought Now or
Cripple Your Next Platform

• Layer between hardware and game needs to be
  finely balanced
• Too thin and youll have problems porting
• Too thick and youll have performance problems
• The trick is to package up effects in ways that
  each platform can achieve the same result, but in
  different ways

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Interface Design Common Denominators Are Bad

• Avoid the temptation to expose common
  denominators among your platforms
• Keep interfaces high-level enough that platforms
  can implement the effect in a variety of
  different ways
• Avoid exposing limitations in interfaces if you
  can, instead try to hide the limitation
  artificially (if possible)

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Asset Pipeline

• Time spent perfecting the asset pipeline is an
  investment
• Ensure your intermediate asset format doesnt
  lose or change information
• From the intermediate format transform into a
  highly optimised and lightweight format
  specifically designed for each platform

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Conclusion

• Even if youre coding an engine for one platform,
  keep an open mind now so that you can port later
  on
• Keep engine interfaces high level
• Study the TRC/TCR/LotCheck documents
• Spend time refining the asset pipeline

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Questions