PODCAST 15: INSIDE THE PS3

Elizabeth: Welcome to episode 15 of the BioShock Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about building BioShock for the PS3, and I’m here with two of the guys who helped make that happen. Before we get started, I’m going to let them introduce themselves. How about you guys say your names, your titles.

Carlos: Carlos Cuello, Lead Programmer, 2K Marin.

Raymond: And this is Raymond Graham, lead PS3 programmer at 2K Marin.

Elizabeth: To start off, let’s talk about your background a little bit. Had either of you ever programmed for the PS3 before? What was your experience before you came in to work on BioShock.

Raymond: I have. I’ve worked on PS3 before at another company, and it was a pretty painless process all around. I’ve worked on the Simpsons game, and also Godfather the game, over at EA. I can’t complain, it was a pretty smooth process.

Carlos: I’d actually never programmed on the PS3, I’d just worked on the X-Box 360 and PC, so it was a new experience for me.

Elizabeth: Comparing to your [Raymond’s] experience with the PS3 and, for you [Carlos], on working for the X-Box 360 and PC, how was it programming for the PS3? What kind of experience was it?

Carlos: It was surprisingly painless for me transitioning over. The support was really well-done. There was good documentation on their website.

Elizabeth: Did you get a lot of support from Sony?

Carlos: Yeah, they helped out a lot, actually. They came on-site twice, and they really helped us optimize the game. Get it up to speed, get it under memory. They also helped out on loading times quite a bit. They were really useful and helpful. Their support site, you can ask a question and they’ll respond right away.

Elizabeth: What are some of the most significant changes you had to make BioShock to have it work on the PS3?

Carlos: Well, the architecture is really different from the X-Box 360, and the game was built pretty much specifically for the X-Box 360. The way we laid out threads was built specifically for it. It definitely took a while to get things running correctly and optimized for the PS3. That was the biggest change, I think, that we had to do.

Raymond: Yeah, the biggest change was definitely the memory architecture is different between the PS3 and the X-Box 360. So, that was part of the biggest challenge in getting everything to fit and run properly on the PS3.

Elizabeth: For some of the techie geeks out there who are listening to this, you guys can get a little more technical. Were there hurdles between, other than what you’re saying, the memory architectures, the systems, I mean, I know that the PS3 utilizes the hard drive. What kind of hurdles and perks did you have when you changed over to make this game for the PS3?

Raymond: Yeah, definitely the hard drive helped us out a lot, because we installed the game to the hard drive, and that allows for quicker load times, so people can get into the experience quicker. Also, the SPUs helped a great deal with the physics in the game. Havok is run on the SPUs, and also our audio solution. So, that was able to offload some of the work from the CPUs to the SPUs.

Elizabeth: Now, most of these changes are pretty behind-the-scenes. Is there anything you did that people will actually be able to see, especially those that played it on the X-Box 360 and PC and are going to revisit it on the PS3, or will it feel like the same experience when they’re playing through?

Carlos: Our primary goal was to make it feel like the same experience. We didn’t want to change the game drastically. We didn’t want to have a director’s cut or anything like that. At the end of the day, if the game looked exactly the same, and we saw comparison videos online, and no one was going crazy about how different it looked on different platforms, that was exactly what we wanted. There were some things that we were able to do with the added time, like we had interactive load screens where you can cycle through different load screens during level loads.

Elizabeth: What were your favorite parts of working on this game and working with the PS3?

Raymond: Well, my favorite part definitely was just working on BioShock. I played it on the X-Box 360, and it was a real privilege to work on the PS3 version. And that was actually very exciting to me to work on the team where everyone’s really hard-working and dedicated to making a good product.

Carlos: The favorite part for me was how it all came together. It was a very interesting development experience because we had so many studios working on it. We had Boston, Australia, us, and Digital Extremes working on it. Just to see how it all came together at the end, being able to play it now and have the same experience that we had last year was really amazing.

Elizabeth: Were there any major stumbling points or tricky moments when you’re trying to get the game to work, and it wasn’t really working, and you had to find a solution? Can you talk about some of those, because I’m sure they happened. They happen in every game.

Raymond: Yeah, those always happen. *laughs*

Carlos: *laughs*

Raymond: Yeah, the main issues definitely, there were two main issues, and those were memory architecture and load times. Just working to get those two problems solved.

Carlos: Yeah, I completely agree. There was a time when Sony came up towards the end of the project. We had load times up to like, 2 minute-long load times. We thought the sky was falling, and it took the work of everyone on the project across all the studios AND Sony coming in to help us to really nail that down.

Elizabeth: Another fun aspect of the PS3 is the XMB, the trophies. What was it like coding that stuff in? Did you get to do anything fun with those features?

Carlos: Nothing too fun, but it was actually really interesting, because we were one of the first people to use trophies, to have access to the Trophy SDK, and helping Sony out with some issues that came up along the way was definitely interesting. I think for the most part, we tried to keep the bar the same for achievements and trophies. We did add a couple trophies specifically for the PS3. And the in-game XMB was actually interesting, because they came up to us at a conference, and were like, “You guys are supporting in-game XMB, right?” And this was before we’d even heard of it actually being out, and we’re like “Uhhhh, yeah, maybe.” And then we got in and downloaded the latest version of the Sony SDK, and it mostly just worked, which is pretty cool.

Elizabeth: The PS3 has new content for add-on content. You guys touched on that. Is there anything from the X-Box 360 version that you guys got to code in that didn’t make it into the first version of the game, that is in this add-on content? How’d that work out for you?

Carlos: For the most part, we tried to keep the game the same. One thing that we did do, that was fairly easy to do, thankfully, was that we added in all the additional content that was added as DLC for the X-Box 360 and the title updates for the X-Box 360. We added a few things like being able to disable VitaChambers and turning off and on true widescreen support. Those are all in the box from Day 1. As far as anything else that was on the X-Box 360 that didn’t ship, we didn’t really make too many changes in the regard.
Elizabeth: Not to reveal anything about add-on content that is coming after the game comes out, is there anything challenging or particularly fun about working with that content?
Carlos: That one wasn’t too bad because it was mostly done in Boston, so we didn’t really have too much actual involvement in it, outside of doing some giving them feedback on performance and optimization.

Elizabeth: Last question, which is on a bit of a tangent from what we’ve been talking about. Can you guys talk about your favorite memory of the entire project and your experience working on BioShock PS3?

Raymond: Staying up all night. Was fun. *laughs*

Carlos: *laughs*

Elizabeth: *laughs*

Raymond: No, my favorite part was definitely just having the opportunity to work on the project. Contributing to it on a technical level and fixing the problems. And now that the game is done is going to be out there, that’s probably going to be my favorite moment, that it’s finally over and people are going to enjoy the game.

Carlos: I think just echoing what Ray was saying, just the chance to work on a project like this with such talented people, and to see what the final end result was, was amazing.
Elizabeth: Cool. Thank you guys for being here and talking to us about the PS3 experience.