GamesActionGrand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto 3GTA 3 dev says that the open-world game’s “hardest technical challenge” was partially solved with careful city planning and some extra windy weatherWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesActionGrand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto 3GTA 3 dev says that the open-world game’s “hardest technical challenge” was partially solved with careful city planning and some extra windy weatherWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Rockstar Games)
A former GTA 3 developer says Rockstar was forced to slow the player down as they cruised through Liberty City’s most densely-populated areas in an attempt to solve the game’s “hardest technical challenge.”
Former Rockstar developer Obbe Vermeij has taken to Twitter several times over the last few months to talk about the weird technical solutions that were baked into games like GTA 3 and San Andreas. Fromthe mystery of GTA 3’s three moonsto thelaws behind San Andreas' plane crashesand thevehicle programming that recently killed a speedrun attempt, he’s offered a rare peek behind Rockstar’s curtain.
This time, he’s talking about the “hardest technical challenge” that GTA 3’s developers had to deal with. One of the biggest and most ambitious open-world games, Vermeij says “there was no way we could fit the whole map of GTA 3 in PS2 memory.” To get around that, he says that fellow developer Adam Fowler set to work on “the hardest technical challenge during the development of GTA 3.”
As a PS2 game, GTA 3 ran on a disk, and models were loaded (or ‘streamed’) from the disk as the player moved within range of them. “The closer models physically are on the DVD, the faster they are loaded,” Vermeij explains. “This is because the DVD needs to accelerate/decelerate as the head moves to a different track.” So Fowler set to work placing models onto the disk as efficiently as possible, arranging them as close together as he could to ensure the fastest-possible loading speed.
But it still wasn’t enough, and assets like roads or buildings wouldn’t load in properly. Despite Fowler’s best efforts, Rockstar reached a point where it couldn’t do anything to improve streaming speed any further. Instead, Vermeij says, “we had no option but to slow the player down.”
Vermeij points to Portland, the game’s most densely-packed island. Early in development, “a big drag running all along the island” represented “a worst case scenario” - players could go fast down this straight road, but the game would be struggling to load in a large number of models. To help out, the artists changed the island’s road layout to slow players down. Vermeij doesn’t explain exactly how Portland changed, but there’s a pair of junctions in the center of the city that seem to bear the scars of that alteration.
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Back in November, Vermeij was ready to tell all about his time at Rockstar, before the studio politely asked to please not do that.
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1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1
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1Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show”
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4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien”
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4
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3Skeleton Crew review: “Perfectly captures the vibes of classic Star Wars with a swashbuckling twist”
3
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4Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands”
4Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands”
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Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands”
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5Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place”
5
Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place”