14 DAY TRIAL // The idea of getting back to the basics with Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend sounds simple - at first. But in reality, there's nothing basic about raiding ancient tombs with living physics, or creating a character that can move through dynamic environments with athleticism and intelligence.
Back when Crystal Dynamics was making games for the 3DO console, we created a technique for streaming data from the disk to the console's memory, which removed memory restrictions that other game engines suffered from. Over the years, we've modified and improved our streaming technology to handle the increasing demands of the gaming market.
Today, the streaming technology we're using in Tomb Raider: Legend sets this title apart from previous Tomb Raider games. For example, it gives us the ability to create a much more finely detailed world. The content creators can spend as much effort in a few rooms that previously would have been spread over an entire level. It also eliminates load times by continually rotating relevant data into and out of the console's memory as needed.
In Tomb Raider: Legend we're using streaming technology for more than just textures, animations, sounds and logic. We've improved the resource sharing and added several new types of resources that can be streamed, including cinematic data and physics information. This is important when you consider that a typical TRL level requires 5-times more memory than the PS2 console offers.
One of the hurdles we faced with TRL's streaming technology was with the memory management system. It became more complicated, since more data is moving in and out of the console's memory. Developing automated tools that could tell content creators exactly how much memory they are allowed to use in a particular section was key.
TRL's streaming technology helped us close the gap between the original concept of Lara Croft and how she actually expresses her personality in the game. And it allowed us to make each environment much more detailed, interactive and realistic.
As you continue to see more of the code leading up to launch, you'll start to see more of the advantages of streaming technology in TRL.
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