yeah this can only work if implemented by the devs. The only reason this can be done for some older emulated games is that there is only a megabyte or two needed to capture the state of the entire system. Not several gigabytes.
New Sony Patent Will Let You Replay A Game From Any Point Possible
Submitted 1 year ago by helloharu@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://insider-gaming.com/new-sony-patent-replay/
Comments
vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 year ago
No game should save gigabytes. Even megabytes can be too much. If the game is very linear a save could mean a single number. Even if it has character cosmetic customization and a convoluted plot with lots of choices it’s still usually in the kilobyte range. The larger saves (overall) would be sports games like rally racing where the game needs to be able to provide a thorough replay of every race.
vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
system state is not the same as a save file. System state is the cpu registers, the process’ entire memory space (because you don’t know what the game might do at any point) gpu context, etc.
mrnotoriousman@kbin.social 1 year ago
My BG3 saves are massive. Not at the PC but very much in the Gigabytes
Ilflish@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I was under the assumption the collections that utilize this system do it by just saving the inputs and timestamps and simulate them as such rather than understanding the entire whole state. I’m not sure how it works with non-seeded elements
I do agree with you about the dev focus. It would be way more complex even though if feasible if you can simulate without it graphically but you I can’t imagine it just being a system similar to recording or achievements
vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
that only really works with deterministic systems though. You could do that with a 6502 or simple systems because you could perfectly predict what the state of the system would be in just by replaying inputs. everything up to predicting all cache misses.
consider a badly written game on a modern console (remember that save states should work for any game) in which physics is tied to framerate. Follow the chain… framerate depends on system speed… which, indirectly depends on the ambient temperature (a console running in a hot climate would throttle earlier than one running in an air conditioned cool room). And because modern systems execute more than one process, it also depends on what else is running (were you downloading a game in the background, slowing down the game ever so slightly?) or unpredictable things such as interrupts on certain system timers. And the list goes on and on. Even if the game didn’t have physics depending on framerate, differing deltaTime on each frame means different floating point rounding errors happen, which could accumulate over time.
So in this case, replaying inputs does not get you the exact state. you were in. there are just too many variables.
Whirling_Cloudburst@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Many emulators have been doing something like this for quite a while. Its called a “saved state.” In some cases, a saved state can introduce bugs into the game play and mess up your progression, but that is just in emulation.
sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Hell, Nintendo has this on their Switch online emulator. Are they going to have to remove that from NSO because Sony patented it?
Fades@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And? Sony has patented their way of doing it, big deal if it’s been done elsewhere. It isn’t something PlayStation games can do easily so they’re building a solution.
This article isn’t saying this is some groundbreaking discovery of technology or something
remotelove@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
The points you make are the exact reason why people are looking at this patent in a funny way.
What they are describing in the patent is basically a save game or checkpoints for subchapters in a game. This is not innovative or new and that is the problem. You can’t patent something that can already be considered public domain or common practice.
It’s very much a big deal if this has been done somewhere else. The patent is obscure enough to look unique but it common enough to start years long legal battles.
On reading the patent, it is specifically referencing streamed game checkpoints. That is, believe it or not, very different than save games stored locally. Still, I find it hard to believe that NVidia, Google or Nintendo wouldn’t have a patent for that already. If not, it may still be considered common use.
The devil is in the details for this issue.
stoy@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
This is a big deal as it could be that Sony is attempting patent trolling on the save game feature.
Phen@lemmy.eco.br 1 year ago
I just had a revolutionary idea: what if every time you reach a new point in a game, it showed you a certain sequence of icons related to that point in the game. Then, if you ever want to play that part of the game again you can just insert that same sequence of icons into an option of the game and it’ll play from there.
Then people could also share the sequences they discover with their friends, allowing said friends to skip part of the game if they want to.
deur@feddit.nl 1 year ago
So many people did not read the sarcasm from this lol
Phen@lemmy.eco.br 1 year ago
I was afraid I was too old and people wouldn’t even know games used to do this.
JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The OG Crash bandicoot had this as memory cards were not widely used at the time. So you would write down the sequence to to get back to that section.
Joker@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
That’s how our games worked in the 80’s. Most of them used passwords. I remember one that used a tic-tac-toe looking thing where you entered a combination of dots to load your game. I think it may have been Mega Man. Zelda was the first one I remember that actually saved your game. There was a battery in the cartridge.
Princeali311@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Mystical Ninja for SNES did this
ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Another software patent that no one should respect because it does something that was done 30 years ago.
ExLisper@linux.community 1 year ago
New Sony Patent Will Let You Replay A Game From Any Point Possible
Possible points: beginning of the game
sirico@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Ohhh they’re doing an apple and inventing F5 + F8 save states
vonxylofon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s not what the article says. This is basically a save game for every-ish moment in the gameplay + a facility to launch the game at the scene you’re watching a video of, which is massive amounts of data + progress sync, so if they figured out how to do that at scale, it’s legit innovation.
MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
So isn’t this like what stadia wanted to do with its integration with YouTube where you could watch someone’s letsplay and there’d be a button that could take up to where they were so you can experience it or see if you can do better?
How were they able to patent it if something like this was already described by another company years ago?
Carighan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So… they’re inventing level codes you can re-enter to start from there.
I’m massively impressed by Sony, clearly revolutionary technology right there.
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
To me it sounds more like hitting f8 reload but being able to choose the f5 quicksave from any point in the game, not just the points that you remembered to save or your most recent f5?
nicman24@kbin.social 1 year ago
did they grant a patent for a mission select screen
MissGutsy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
… sooooo … chapters?
helloharu@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think this is more granular than that. More like; pages, paragraphs, or even sentences than chapters.
MissGutsy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Sounds cool and all but I heavily doubt they would do the work to implement it like that. Replay value doesn’t add market value in the view of the producers. So there is not much money to be made from the large amount of work this requires.
Of course if they ever do it, feel free to correct me, people from the future
iAvicenna@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Sounds like a billion save files taking up space
remotelove@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
This seems suspiciously like a “save game” feature. Many games even auto-save which functions suspiciously like what they are describing as a “trigger point”.
While I am sure this is new and innovative, it still reminds me of when pyramid schemes mostly converted to MLM terminology. I had a friend that tried to convince me that MLM wasn’t a pyramid. So, I had him draw their sales hierarchy on a sheet of paper for me…
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Yes. And this description gives me Alone in the Dark (2007) vibes: they explicitly stylized chapters and subchapters as episodes on dvd. Would they make something original to build a game around this idea? Would it be linear-only, for games like TLOU with limited choices? Or it’s just about patenting everything that’s not nailed down?
I think it would only stand out if you would be able to rewind and passively watch the in-engine recording of your whole previous gameplay (like in cybersports, or clip editors in some games), with an option to jump in at some sections. But it’s a little too much to implement smoothly, having no reason.
remotelove@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
By pure chance, I am watching Edge of Tomorrow as we type. (It’s a Tom Cruise time loop movie, if you haven’t seen it.)
A game with a story line built around that concept would be very interesting, for sure. However, the old Sierra adventure games came to mind, specifically Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry, where you just had to keep trying different things until you didn’t die. It was fun back in the day, but it got old really quick.
Implemention in a sports game is a cool idea, though.