It' s no big secret that CAPCOM now have a modular inhouse standard engine and development environment for their next-gen games. What most of us didn' t realise is that Lost Planet and Dead Rising use the exact same engine (abeit tweaked and optimizted for different things) and that Devil May Cry 4, Resisent Evil 5 and Monster Hunter will use the same engine.

Right now 360 is getting (has) Dead Rising, Lost Planet and Resident Evil 5, and PS3 is getting Devil May Cry 4, Monster Hunter and Resident Evil 5. However, CAPCOM have put some serious effort into making this engine work accross multiple platforms, something that would hinder getting the most out of the machines. Ideally they' d want exclusive games to be built from the ground up for a specific machine but that' s not what they' re doing.

CAPCOM could be going multi-platform. It' d certainly up their profits and this standard engine/development environment will keep their development costs down.

It should be noted that Japanese developers generally build their engines from the ground up for specific games and hardly ever recycle anything. Building an engine and development environment and then creating new tools for different games is a typicaly western approach, but it' s the approach that CAPCOM are taking.

It should also be noted how they say that getting a next-gen-esque (and by that they mean a game that look as stunning as Lost Planet) game running at 60fps is almost impossible (though the word impossible could have been mis-used in the translation and i' m assuming they mean it can' t be done right now but will likely be done later). This is interesting because DMC4 really needs to run at 60fps which means that graphical sacrifices would have to be made. Maybe that' s the reason some of you guys that have seen te DMC4 Famitsu scans weren' t that impressd.

Anyway, the following is a translation of CAPCOM' s CEDEC2006 technical presentation...

* The Framework engine is adopted in games including Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Resident Evil 5, Devil May Cry 4, Monster Hunter 3.
* The Framework engine has 3 characteristics: multi-platform support, multi-core optimization, tool integration.
* As for multi-core optimization, the session mainly discussed methods for symmetric multi-core (Xbox 360). Since parallelization per module or loop which are often seen in parallel programming is not suitable for a game engine, parallelization per task including player character, enemy, bullet, camera, effect generator etc. is mainly used in the engine.
* To suppress parallelization bugs such as dead lock, they made 2 clearly separated rules called " parallel update" which has no dependency and " synchronized update" in which each task can refer to and update other tasks. Task relationships and synchronization update intervals are adjustable on a GUI tool to make it easy to find parallel processes against the rules.
* The performance for 1 thread vs 6 threads is, 2.6x in Dead Rising, and 2.15x in Lost Planet (under development). The CPU load is 80% for the main thread, 70% for rendering and sound, and 50-60% for other parallelized tasks.
* There were only a few parallelization-related bugs against the rules in thousands of bug reports in the bug-checking period of the Dead Rising development, which shows totally parallelized application doesn' t necessarily equal a bug-hell and they can realize stable parallelization thanks to the parallelization techniques and the strict rules in the Framework engine.
* As for hi-def graphics, they pointed out " frame rate, fill rate, texture quality and size are more problematic than shader." Because of their estimation that 60fps is impossible for next-gen-esque imagery, they added lightweight 2.5D motion blur to make 30fps look smoother. Besides MSAA mini buffer is used in effect drawing to gain more fill rate (with the premise that GPU can use MSAA mini-buffer without cost). For better texture compression, they do original texture compression which appropriates an alpha channel for an extended information area and decompress it with programmable shaders.
* The Framework engine can run not only on Xbox 360 but also on PLAYSTATION3 (asymmetric multi-core) and PC (single-core/multi-core). Parameters of its units can be edited to test it on real hardwares for each platform.

LINKY - but useless unless you can read Japanese

LINKY - the above translated

I was affraid that the best japanese developer wants to be like western devs...

Well, according to most Japanese developers, westernising games is becoming
bigger because of the ever-growing population of video gamers there.. So this is
really a no-brainer.

GO CAPCOM!!

So is a 360 version of DMC4 on the cards??

ORIGINAL: Tiz

Well, according to most Japanese developers, westernising games is becoming
bigger because of the ever-growing population of video gamers there.. So this is
really a no-brainer.

GO CAPCOM!!

So is a 360 version of DMC4 on the cards??

I doubt it however if that were to happen whats to keept lost planet and dead rising from going ps3?.

ORIGINAL: dasher232

ORIGINAL: Tiz

Well, according to most Japanese developers, westernising games is becoming
bigger because of the ever-growing population of video gamers there.. So this is
really a no-brainer.

GO CAPCOM!!

So is a 360 version of DMC4 on the cards??

I doubt it however if that were to happen whats to keept lost planet and dead rising from going ps3?.

CAPCOM need to do what Ubisoft do and have all of their games multi-platform.

One of the reasons they broke their exclusivity deals with Nintendo for RE4 and Killer 7 is because the profits to be earned by releasing the games on PS2 far outweighed the cost of terminating the contract.

With PS3' s future still undetermined and it looking like this console race is going to be a lot closer that the last in terms of marketshare then it stand to reason that they release multi-platform games.

360 is obviously a very viable platform for them to release their games on and they' ve already seen massive Dead Rising sales (and it' s only been released in the US so far/it' s out here tomorrow) and they' ve had a really warm reception with the Lost Planet demo. Resident Evil 5 will likely be the biggest seller and that' s the only game confirmed multi-platform.

DMC4 could very well turn out multi-platform and they have said that at their DMC4 media briefing there will be a surprise announcement, ...BUT, if DMC4 goes multi-platform then Lost planet and Dead Rising would almost certainly follow.

As long as the platforms get exclusive content then it could only be a good thing for gamers.

The fact that Capcom knows they can make mony from the 360, you only need to look at the success of Dead Rising to see that, and it' s not proven whether the PS3
will sell on a widescale because of Blu-Ray... and the director (can' t remember his
name) has also said that Lost Planet and Dead Rising were built with the 360 in
mind and are 360 games. (Like Kojima says that MGS is a Playstation brand which
translates to - " We won' t ever abandon the company that helped give me my private studio away from the hassle of Konami... so there." )

ORIGINAL: Tiz

The fact that Capcom knows they can make mony from the 360, you only need to look at the success of Dead Rising to see that, and it' s not proven whether the PS3
will sell on a widescale because of Blu-Ray... and the director (can' t remember his
name) has also said that Lost Planet and Dead Rising were built with the 360 in
mind and are 360 games. (Like Kojima says that MGS is a Playstation brand which
translates to - " We won' t ever abandon the company that helped give me my private studio away from the hassle of Konami... so there." )

You know someone was saying ' ' they only bought it because of the drought' ' but I just realised this people would have returned or told other not to buy it if they didn' t like it so it must have been good. Does anyone think it will do equally well or better here considering how many have the console?.

ORIGINAL: dasher232

You know someone was saying ' ' they only bought it because of the drought' ' but I just realised this people would have returned or told other not to buy it if they didn' t like it so it must have been good. Does anyone think it will do equally well or better here considering how many have the console?.

I think this game will kick Saints Row from the top spot to be completely honest.

I doubt that it selling has anything to do with the drought of games, 99 Nights
barely broke the chart and that was during the drought period... But because
it was mediocre, it didn' t sell.. (Wait... I think I' m getting my regions mixed up
here)

Either way Dead Rising will be good, and something to play over the weekend..

ORIGINAL: Tiz

I think this game will kick Saints Row from the top spot to be completely honest.

I doubt that it selling has anything to do with the drought of games, 99 Nights
barely broke the chart and that was during the drought period... But because
it was mediocre, it didn' t sell.. (Wait... I think I' m getting my regions mixed up
here)

Either way Dead Rising will be good, and something to play over the weekend..

Noooo why must you say such horrible liiiiiess saints row...actually yea I wanna see a dead rising feast i' m hoping there' s enough people with a 360 in the uk to crack such numbers though (I like capcom). I tried yesterday to pre-order a copy and the guy didn' t have any left so I think i' ll just settle for en arm tomorrow, so convienient seeing as how it was there for so long and I had the chance but didn' t bother.

The more I look at En Arm, the less appealing it becomes... (Except for the
Raikoh golem!)

Well, seeing as my brother is a turn-based RPG fanatic, I' ll let him buy it, and see
how it pans out.

With Capcom taking a Western approach, I think more " exclusive" love may
become the order of the day for the 360.

Call it odd, but Okami seems like a game that just SCREAMS Wii.. I was
watching some gameplay videos the other day...

ORIGINAL: Tiz

The more I look at En Arm, the less appealing it becomes... (Except for the
Raikoh golem!)

Well, seeing as my brother is a turn-based RPG fanatic, I' ll let him buy it, and see
how it pans out.

With Capcom taking a Western approach, I think more " exclusive" love may
become the order of the day for the 360.

Call it odd, but Okami seems like a game that just SCREAMS Wii.. I was
watching some gameplay videos the other day...

When gangsta showed it to me I thought it was for wii and I could even see a ds version with touch integrated. As for capcom I find it really odd that they have been ' ' focusing on getting new players into the series' ' I have been hearing that iteration but have been passing it by but now that you think about it why would capcom want to put much focus on new players for a series proven on playstation. Coupled with the idea that you' re not playing the main story as dante but virgil. Anyway only one day to see what this surprise is.

. Anyway only one day to see what this surprise is.

No, the websites countdown ends tomorrow which will probably result in screenshots being released, but the surprise announcement they talked about is being reserved for their TGS press conference.

ORIGINAL: dasher232

I have been hearing that iteration but have been passing it by but now that you think about it why would capcom want to put much focus on new players for a series proven on playstation. Coupled with the idea that you' re not playing the main story as dante but virgil. Anyway only one day to see what this surprise is.

I think the new character is called Nero... But you have a point there Dash..

Make a new character for an already popular franchise.. so as not to
alienate a new *cough* 360 *cough* audience. Have the original character
in there but not playable so that people *cough* Sony fanboys *cough* still
recognise elements of the franchise. Finally hold off for a surprise
announcement *cough* headed to 360 *cough*....

think the new character is called Nero...

Virgil IS Nero (Nelo?)

Speaking of Capcom! im playing my PAL copy of Dead Rising right now!

ORIGINAL: Majikdra6on

think the new character is called Nero...

Virgil IS Nero.

**Scratches head** I suppose my answer lies in DMC3 as to why that is??

ORIGINAL: Vx Chemical

Speaking of Capcom! im playing my PAL copy of Dead Rising right now!

Whab whab whhhhhaaaaat?. I' ll pretend I didn' t hear that ..and that en arm is better.

ORIGINAL: dasher232

Whab whab whhhhhaaaaat?. I' ll pretend I didn' t hear that ..and that en arm is better.

' scuse me?

ORIGINAL: Tiz


' scuse me?

You heard me it' s so mind blowingly awesome I won' t need to play dead rising...for a while...until I can find a copy...

**Scratches head** I suppose my answer lies in DMC3 as to why that is??

LINKY