Xbox 360 Battlefield 3 ‘standard def’ without install

Xbox 360 Battlefield 3 ‘standard def’ without install
James Orry Updated on by

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Battlefield 3 on Xbox 360 running without the optional high resolution texture pack – found on the game’s second disc – has been labelled the “standard def” version by Battlefield 3’s executive producer Patrick Bach.

“There’s nothing magic about it,” Bach told GamerZines. “It’s the same thing we do for PC and PS3, so there’s nothing extra.”

He continued: “So what it does is it gives you the same abilities, kind of, as the PC and PS3. You can actually stream information from the hard drive.

“That’s new for Xbox 360, but it’s not a new idea for the gaming industry as a whole. No one has really tried to do it properly, so us doing it will create question marks.”

The option to install the texture pack (for those with a hard-drive equipped Xbox 360) comes highly recommended.

“It does make a difference, yes, absolutely. The whole engine is based around streaming textures, streaming terrain and a lot of other content.

“The thing with the 360 is that you need to be able to give consumers a game where you don’t have to install it on a hard drive, because there are 360s without a hard drive. So we need to give you the option of installing it, rather than just demanding it. You could call it a ‘standard-def’ version for the 360 if you don’t have a hard-drive.”

Back concluded: “We’re really trying to push the limits of what we can do on the consoles and the PC. Our goal is to see how we can utilise as many of the systems that you actually have in your machine that some people haven’t utilised before. Some (developers) just do it like, if it doesn’t fit into memory we just make a lesser game. We don’t do that. For us, it’s about how we can give you the most game ever even though the hardware is over five years old.”

Battlefield 3 will be released October 28 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

It sounds like Xbox 360 gamers without a hard drive might want to take this into account when considering a purchase, or else they’ll end up with a game which looks ever further away from the gorgeous PC version we’ve all been amazed by over the last year.