2 player mode?

[Cobra S]

ok, so with all this talk of online play, i was wondering if PD at least improved the 2 player mode. first of all, can the 2 players race against 4 computers now, or is it just the same with only 2 human players? and will you be able to customize\change settings on your car before racing this time, without having to load each others memory card, going into simulation mode, and saving?

i hope this hasn't been posted or answered before, did a search and came up with nothing.

 

[Leet_Newb]

I always wanted to have 6 computer cars to race aginst in 2 player mode. Also would like to have it so you can wager the car you race in and win your opponents car.

 

[LAW_3000GT_VR-4]

Ya I wish GT3 would of had that. I am really looking forward to multiplayer though!
But I know this doesn't answer your question I would have to look that up.

 

[213101]

i wouldnt think so these days threse no info about 2 player mode and now its all about "Lan" or "Internet play" so yea.

 

[LoudMusic]

I highly doubt that 2 player has changed much. I would love to see 4 players on one console, but I seriously doubt we get that either.

 

[allsops]

Ya, I really hope that they include the option of racing against 4 cpu drivers in split screen mode. Afterall, there's nothing better than to beat the snot outta your friend (in GT, of course) thats sitting 5 feet away... it could only be better doing an actual 6 car race!

 

[Cobra S]

so there's been NO mention of the 2 player mode ey? ahh well, guess thats no surprise- i'm probably the only one who cares about it

 

[Jedi2016]

I'm thinking that 2-player will work the same way it did before, on all the previous games.

But it would be nice to have a full grid while racing.. it'd let my friends complain about someone other than me ramming them off the road. It's usually an accident if I do it, though.. screw up braking or something. Always came back to haunt me, though.. He'd slam my ass into a wall the next chance he got, regardless of whether it was an accident or not. But hey, that's fun, occasionally turning it into a dirty-driving fiasco, literally battling your way to the finish line.. hehe. One advantage of doing it with your friends right in your living room, rather than with strangers online. Instead of pissing someone off to the point of death threats, the loser has to go get the beer.

 

[ZeratulSG]

so there's been NO mention of the 2 player mode ey? ahh well, guess thats no surprise- i'm probably the only one who cares about it

Nope. I originally bought my PS2 for two reasons: GT3 and having my buddies over to play GT3

Besides, where I live Internet connections are still relatively slow and broadband is still stupidly expensive (and pretty new), so I'm not concerned about the removal of online mode in GT4 at all.

What I hope they HAVE done for 2 player mode in GT4 is cleaned it up. If I have to go all the way back into GT mode every time I want to see the ACTUAL specs of my home garage cars for 2 player mode, like I did in GT3, I'll be annoyed

 

[TriplePlay]

Most likely there will be no full grid in 2 player mode. There would be too much information on the screen at one time, the ps2 wouldn't be able to take all of it. As it is, 2 player is 30 fps anyways, and that's a huge cutback from the 60 in SP. If they had a full grid, plus two physics calculations/inputs from controllers, effects....it wouldn't be good for your ps2

 

[the Interceptor]

I agree with TriplePlay, there will be no AI-opponents in 2 player mode because the PS2 just hasn't got the power to do that. In the 2 player mode of GT3 the texture quality already was reduced and some track details were removed. They had to do that because the PS2 needs to simulate two independent environments at the same time, so they sequeezed everything it had left out already.

As GT4 will be even easier on the eye compared to GT3, I doubt there will be any improvement in this section of the game, although I'd love to see that as well.

Cheers,
the Interceptor

 

[amar212]

Have no special wishes about 2 play, because there's no place for many improvements, but one:

- to bring back old and legendary name "MEMORY CARD BATTLE" for memory cards battles. Sigh!

 

[PhatFat]

Have no special wishes about 2 play, because there's no place for many improvements, but one:

- to bring back old and legendary name "MEMORY CARD BATTLE" for memory cards battles. Sigh!

The memory card battle stunk!!!!!!!!! When we played GT1 we only had one memory card so to play to player we had to load the card in slot one select a car and then switch slots. That name gives me bad memories.


But also good ones too.

 

[LoudMusic]

Whoa whoa whoa ... let me get this straight. You guys are saying the the PS2 can handle one player input and FIVE AI cars, but when you add another player suddenly it can't do the AI cars anymore? BS! BS! That's a load of crap! Perhaps you were refering to visual capabilities ... I'd again have to say you're crazy. In split screen it is doing half the resolution on two screens - big whoop. If it's really that big of a deal they could drop the resolution on the AI cars.

I honestly believe, however, that the real reason they leave out AI cars in split screen is because they find match racing (one on one) more enjoyable. And it's all about what they want.

 

[the Interceptor]

Whoa whoa whoa ... let me get this straight. You guys are saying the the PS2 can handle one player input and FIVE AI cars, but when you add another player suddenly it can't do the AI cars anymore?

Yes!

BS! BS! That's a load of crap!

No!

Perhaps you were refering to visual capabilities

What else should we be referring to? How should it be more work for the PS2 to simulate one human-driven car than to simulate five AI-cars? Of course I did not refer to the work of simulating where the car's going, I was talking of the graphics that needs to be calculated on time.

... I'd again have to say you're crazy.

Thanks!

In split screen it is doing half the resolution on two screens - big whoop. If it's really that big of a deal they could drop the resolution on the AI cars.

It's not doing half the resolution. It is true that the view of your track is only half as big, which does not mean it's only half the work to calculate for the PS2. It still has to calculate two independent 3D-environments which means twice the work as usual. If they already scaled down the texture quality and removed some track details, do you think there's still room for five AI cars?

I honestly believe, however, that the real reason they leave out AI cars in split screen is because they find match racing (one on one) more enjoyable. And it's all about what they want.

I don't!

My answer would have been more kind (but of course with the same content) if you had been more kind with yours.

Cheers,
the Interceptor

 

[LoudMusic]

What else should we be referring to? How should it be more work for the PS2 to simulate a human-driven car than to simulate five AI-cars? I did not refer to the work of simulating where the car's going, I was talking of the graphics that needs to be calculated on time.

Most people seem to think the CPU can't handle two human inputs while it's controling four of its own cars. Which is pure rubbish.

It's not doing half the resolution. It is true that the view of your track is only half as big, which does not mean it's only half the work to calculate for the PS2. It still has to calculate two independent 3D-environments which means twice the work as usual. If they already scaled down the texture quality and removed some track details, do you think there's still room for five AI cars?

It's calculating the 3D environments at smaller resolutions - generating half the output. Look at FPS games on computers. Better hardware means higher resolution. This is the same thing. So when you cut it in half you're drastically reducing the amount of CPU time it takes to make the image. Granted it's not half the amount of CPU, but it is seriously less.

 

[Dev_Zero]

but it has to draw 8 AI cars... 4 for each player. That'll limit the possibillities...

 

[the Interceptor]

Most people seem to think the CPU can't handle two human inputs while it's controling four of its own cars. Which is pure rubbish.

I agree, cause that's what I said. I'd even go one step further and say that there's less work to do for the PS2 the more human drivers there are, cause then it only needs to throughput the signals from the pads to the car instead of calculating where it should go.

It's calculating the 3D environments at smaller resolutions - generating half the output. Look at FPS games on computers. Better hardware means higher resolution. This is the same thing. So when you cut it in half you're drastically reducing the amount of CPU time it takes to make the image. Granted it's not half the amount of CPU, but it is seriously less.

I agree that there is less work for the PS2 to do if the picture is cut in half, but like you said it's more than half the work (as you can see on Nvidia's SLI which doesn't do twice the fps with two identical cards).

I think what they did is this: they cut the pic in half, but they realised that it was not enough to keep the graphics fluent. So they scaled the textures down to reduce graphics load even more until the game became playabale again. I may repeat myself but I still think there are no AI drivers due to technical reasons.

Your last answer was much better by the way 👍

Cheers,
the Interceptor

 

[LoudMusic]

but it has to draw 8 AI cars... 4 for each player. That'll limit the possibillities...

To a certain degree that is correct. But I believe it's not doubling the work load.

 

[T5-R]

I just hope they include split screen to be honest, after all it was noticably absent in GT : P.

I also wouldn't want the crap AI interfering with 2 player races.

 

[RacingFreak2k3]

I don't think they'll be able to do 4 other ai cars....but how about 2? If they had the 2 humans, and 2 AI cars, i think i would have fun with that....with the option to turn them off though.

 

[LoudMusic]

Yes, definitely an on / off option. EVERYTHING should be done in optional inclusion.

 

[ZeratulSG]

It's calculating the 3D environments at smaller resolutions - generating half the output. Look at FPS games on computers. Better hardware means higher resolution. This is the same thing. So when you cut it in half you're drastically reducing the amount of CPU time it takes to make the image. Granted it's not half the amount of CPU, but it is seriously less.

I think you're forgetting that there's more to the game than just rendering the frames. While it may not have to calculate AI control for the player cars, it still has to parse the controller input and run everything through the physics engine. Then there's the audio for the cars (on both screens), then as someone mentioned it has to build the 3D frame internally (for both screens), 30+ times a second (for both screens), and ONLY then (leaving out a lot of little in between bits) does it render the frame to screen. So while the drop in resolution for each 3D frame will help, it's only one piece of the pie.

 

[F310B]

But it's a rather large piece of pie

 

[the Interceptor]

But it's a rather large piece of pie

... if not the largest ...

By the way, I think I speak in LoudMusic's name too when I say that we were referring to the whole calculations of the graphics that need to be done. I personally believe it's the major part of the work the PS2 has to do. It's like playing a modern game on a PC: you can have a CPU as quick as you like (doing the physics and the music), if your graphics card is crap you're not gonna get many fps.

Cheers,
the Interceptor

 

[allsops]

IMO, the PS2 should be able to handle a full grid of cars during 2-player split screen mode, and if the option is left out it's just pure laziness on the part of PD.

Consider this, in single player the system renders say (using this just as an theoretical example) 100,000 polygons to the screen at 640x480 (307,200 pixles - the max res. of a 'regular' tv) whereas in split screen the system now has to render 200,000 polygons (100,000 for each player) at a reduced resolution of 480x360 (25% reduction in resolution resulting in 172,800 pixels on screen). Thus, while the system has to render twice the polygons, its only actually displaying 56% the number of pixels it had to in single player mode. The extra 6% over 50 would no doubt account for a drop in frame rate (acceptable), but other than that there's really nothing 'extra' for it to process. It would already have to calculate the physics for 6 cars on track (just because 2 are human controlled doesn't mean it suddently uses more complicated equations) and the input from the controller would be negligable to the system as it would probably run faster than the 5th AI script in single player mode.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that if PD leaves out a 6 car grid in 2-player split screen mode in GT4 its simply because of focusing their resources in the wrong places (photo mode, for example). A 6 car grid in 2-player would be a HUGE addition for me... c'mon PD - HOOK ME UP!

 

[the Interceptor]

Have you ever played a racing game on a PC where you were driving on some racetrack, and when a few AI-cars came into your sight the fps dropped down? If additional cars are not that bad, why would the fps drop? And why should PD reduce the resolution in 2 player mode when the PS2 has some power left now?

I'd love to see some AI cars in 2 player mode, I just think it's not gonna happen.

Cheers,
the Interceptor

 

[LoudMusic]

Ok, yes, it is more work for the Playstation 2 to render two screens at the same time. No doubt. BUT it isn't so much so that they can't include AI cars. It's because they don't wish to lower the quality of the experience in order to compensate for the workload.

But hello! We're playing in little squatty boxes anyway. Drop the graphics quality and get on with it!

I stand by my statement that why they don't do it now is because they want "2 Player / Battle Mode / Whatever you call it" to be just that - two players and no one else. Match racing. It bores me to tears but some people think it's great.

Look at America's Cup yachting. The creme de la creme sailing event. It's so big they only hold it every 3 to 4 years. Biggest racing yachts on the planet. You'd think they'd want to get all of them out at the same time. Just think how spectacular an event that would be. But no. Match racing is what they do. One on one. Mono y mono. And why? I HAVE NO IDEA! Seems rather a waste of equipment to me. It's not like there's some CPU limitation here ... we're talking about the ocean. I believe it can render a few more boats (:

What's interesting, though, is I'm currently watching a video from the site and it shows a fleet of boats (possibly for publicity) and then three boats racing with their sail tracking rendered time-lapse stuff. So maybe they've changed things up a bit.

 

[Race Idiot]

You know, what i'd like to see is a split screen Lan game. So two players on one machine and two players on another, this way you could do a quick 4 player game without too much hassle.

I always have a few friends who play GT so, we all have winner stays on with our cars. Although I always seem to stay on more because they aren't as obsessive as me about it.

 

[LoudMusic]

Yeah. That would be the best. Look at games like Halo - it's SO EASY to get a bunch of people playing together in no time at all. They need to do this with more games.