There was no way we could fit the whole map of gta3 in PS2 memory. Streaming involves loading models from the DVD as the player moves around. This was the hardest technical challenge during the development of gta3 and was coded by Adam Fowler. The closer models physically are on the DVD, the faster they are loaded. This is because the DVD needs to accelerate/decelerate as the head moves to a different track. Adam tried to place models that were close together in the city also close together on the DVD. He also experimented with repeating commonly used files. Even after placing models on the DVD efficiently, it was still not fast enough. Players would see the low detailed version of buildings and sometimes the road was missing. At some point we couldn't speed the streaming up any further. We had no option but to slow the player down. Portland initially had a big drag running all along the island. This was a worst case scenario. The player could go fast and there were loads of buildings to load. The artists changed the road layout to slow the player down. In other problem areas, we increased the drag (air resistance) on the vehicles 5% or so. Hardly noticeable but it helped. The streaming issues were the main reason we couldn’t let the player fly in gta3 (other than with the dodo) Streaming was also used for vehicle models, npc models and music but the map posed the greatest difficulty because of the amount of data. As models got loaded into memory and then removed, the memory would fragment into smaller and smaller blocks. Adam’s code constantly moved models around to fix this. This was tricky as models sometimes had to be moved while they could be rendered. For Vice City, various code improvements were made. Better compression of models and textures. Smarter code that would load the detailed versions of buildings only if the player was not flying. Streaming issues tends to get worse with older DVDs and older PS2s. (screenshot by @TheSphereHunter)
@ObbeVermeij Very impressive stuff! Were there ever any plans for a Dreamcast version? Any prototyping done at all?
@MRRATCHET_ We started developing gta3 on the DC but then switched to PS2 when it became clear the DC was not commercially viable. It was a shame. We were all into phantasy star online at the time.
@ObbeVermeij @MRRATCHET_ Any DC prototype somewhere?? Cc @CombyLaurent1
@ObbeVermeij @MRRATCHET_ how far did you get with the Dreamcast version?
@ObbeVermeij @MRRATCHET_ Has anything (screenshots, trailers, etc) of the Dreamcast build ever been released publicly?
@ObbeVermeij @MRRATCHET_ I still found it incredibly disheartening that the Dreamcast died right in the middle of development since if GTA 3 would've hit the console, I would've bought that version in a heartbeat against the PS2 version looking back at it (since I'm a Dreamcast collector myself)... [1/2]
@ObbeVermeij Olha que interessante @jogabilidade