@jtsiren

Quote:

I've been thinking about what attracts MikeB in PS3

Most importantly the Cell and 'Other OS' support as I pointed out. A Blu-Ray drive now comes at close third (scratch resistance, movies, much larger game storage, reading speeds are well enough and should actually be faster / more silent as compared to a x12 DVD drive regarding larger games and in the larger scope of things there's the Cell and a harddrive by default).

As for not sharing all the information I have today, probably in the future I will be able to do so. But I already hinted to Cell sharing workload with the RSX and doing other impressive things simultaneously. The only reason why I pointed this out was due to degrading comments and speculation in reply to the PS3's potential from XBox 360 supporters.

Last edited by MikeB on 19-Feb-2007 at 08:33 AM.
Last edited by MikeB on 19-Feb-2007 at 08:20 AM.

@jtsiren

Quote:

It is most interesting to read things like Full Auto 2 commentary. Lets see how the whole "1080p" gaming will shape this year now as both consoles are getting 1080p titles and if PS3 can really try and beat Xbox 360 on this. It is also of interest in general will 1080p result in less content detail than using 720p

Like I said before, Full Auto 2 has been improved in almost any way. Faster, more impressive graphics displayed both at 720p downscaled and 1080p native, lots more things happening on screen and things to destroy. Rendering at 1080p requires an estimated 1.6 times the power as compared to rendering at 720p. I have no idea if this game actually makes good use of the SPUs, but considering it's a launch title I doubt that, only with regard to Resistance SPU usage is apparent considering all the things happening at the same time, bodies piling up without dropping a frame.

With regard to COD3, possibly the updates enhanced the engine. But already at launch the game was roughly on par with the XBox 360 version, I like the color setting better on the PS3 judging from what I have seen in video comparisons.

@MikeB

Quote:

For example many framebuffer effects probably the RSX will have an edge over Xenos. The RSX is connected to two seperate buses instead of just one,

Actually, Xenos has two buses i.e. one for eDRAM and the other is for main system ram.

Quote:

the RSX supports 128-bit pixel precision for rendering of scenes with High Dynamic Range imaging.

X360's Oblivion for X360 has both HDR + FSAA. This feature is available for PC version of Oblivion (enabled at Radeon's R5xx driver level since normal DX9c APIs was not exposing all of R5xx’s capability). R5xx hardware goes slightly beyond DX9c.

Last edited by Hammer on 19-Feb-2007 at 11:04 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 19-Feb-2007 at 11:02 AM.

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@MikeB


Quote:

I have given the XBox 360 more than enough Kudos, why do I have to repeat this fact over and over again? The XBox 360 is so much more impressive to me than the cut down consolified PC the original XBox was.

In some areas, it's hardly a cutdown e.g. NV2A's twin vertex shaders was superior to Geforce 3 TI. NV2A design was recycled for Geforce 4 TI. XBOX's nForce hyper-transport enabled chipset was recycled for AMD K7 market.

To keep things into perspective,
1. R580/RV570 (~169 USD) is already capable driving games beyond 1080p. GPU flexibility delivered by CTM. Both PS3 and XBOX360 is a joke when one compares to PC gaming boxes i.e. PCs that runs useless FPS game benchmark scores, equiped GPU memory bandwith to drive FSAA+HDR and beyond 1080p resolution.

2. Xenos will be eclipsed by AMD’s R600/630 (targeting DX10.1) i.e. the second generation unified shader GPU.

3. RSX has been eclipsed by NVidia G80 and AMD's R580/RV570.

4. GFLOPS marketing, AMD's RV570/R580 with CTM can play this marketing game i.e. AMD's Stream Processor (rebadged R580/RV570) already targets CELL's markets.

Last edited by Hammer on 19-Feb-2007 at 11:09 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 19-Feb-2007 at 10:59 AM.

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@Hammer

More regarding bus speeds and 128-bit HDR another time.

@ itix

The PS3 is still 1st as bestseller (preorder) over at Amazon.co.uk (no XBox 360 to be found in the top 100, Availability: In stock).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/videogames/ref=sv_vg_h__3/202-7715691-1051801

Most popular PS3 games:

1) Resistance
2) Motorstorm
3) Call of Duty 3
4) Gran Turismo 5 (!)
5) Formula One

Last edited by MikeB on 19-Feb-2007 at 11:36 AM.
Last edited by MikeB on 19-Feb-2007 at 11:35 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

The PS3 is still 1st as bestseller (preorder) over at Amazon.co.uk (no XBox 360 to be found in the top 100, Availability: In stock).

God, Mike, this is precisely the problem with your posts, as soon as one says something you don't like and can't counter you go into "but the XBox360 blah blah" mode, as if it's relevant.

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@AMiGR

Well, if you want to criticize people, criticize those who brought up the XBox 360 vs PS3 wars from the very beginning. I don't blame them though (apart from degrading comments, twisted info and insults), because both products are aimed at high definition gaming, so naturely they are direct competitors for this still rapidly evolving market.

Last edited by MikeB on 19-Feb-2007 at 11:57 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

But I already hinted to Cell sharing workload with the RSX

Likely it can else Sony wouldn't have started the rumor that everything including graphics would be done by the Cell only to switch to an Nvidia graphics solution before actual product release.

@MikeB

Quote:

More regarding bus speeds and 128-bit HDR another time.

Compare the following screenshots
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v68/pjbliverpool/Oblivion_PC.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/acason/OblivionPS3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/acason/Oblivion360.jpg

All three platforms runs SpeedTree middleware.

Note that GeForce 7 series from nVidia uses a 128-bit floating point register for HDR.

Last edited by Hammer on 19-Feb-2007 at 12:47 PM.

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@Hammer

You've provided these 3 pictures before. Now I hope you're not assuming the improvement is completely due to the PS3. Besthesda has already said since release of the product on the 360 they have made improvements to the engine. The question begs how much of this improvement is the engine or special changes for the cell. "Hines clarifies that the shader functionality which was designed to re-render low-res textures will also be making its way to the 360 and PC versions via updates "

Undoubtably they had to do things a bit differently for the Cell. But, comparing an improved engine to a non-improved engine and claiming the PS3 superior is disingenuous. Once the improvements come to the 360 I suggest users take another look and see what the differences are. At least at that point the engines will be closer to each other.

Of the two pictures there are things I like in both. PS3 for example the mountains look better looks like the tops are not in a set of clouds. 360 the water appears more detailed. 360 the shrub on the right looks better to me. PS3 the bridge looks like it might be more detailed but it looks darker so it's hard to tell if it's detailed or simply darkly shaded.

@MikeB

Quote:

The PS3 is still 1st as bestseller (preorder) over at Amazon.co.uk (no XBox 360 to be found in the top 100, Availability: In stock).

It's a new console it better have a lot of preorders or Sony truly mucked up. Again I've lots of PS3s in stock here. Last week between Mon and Fri Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, and CostCo all have consoles. I have personally seen just just under 100.

@Hammer

Of the 3 screenshots the PC version looks best to me, that's about what I would roughly expect the PS3 to eventually look like if this game was designed around the PS3/Cell-RSX from ground up.

@MikeB

Quote:

The only reason why I pointed this out was due to degrading comments and speculation in reply to the PS3's potential from XBox 360 supporters.

Just why is it that you think it's "Xbox 360 supporters" who have made negative remarks all over the place? Sure, there are some. Most are most likely interested in multiple platforms or even buy them all. Some of the criticism comes from people whose job it is to write about differences between the machines.

@Hammer

Quote:

Compare the following screenshots

It's too bad how the levels fluctuate in those screenshots.

I've seen Oblivion running on both PC and 360 here, and while I was trying it on a lower spec PC the colour levels and so on were more in line when seen next to each other.

Maybe it's just that the levels are optimized for certain kinds of outputs (e.g. 360 shot could be taken from composite rather than VGA).

Game Informer Magazine writes about NBA Street Homecourt (PS3 vs 360 - running in 1080p in both platforms):
"I'd give the nod to the 360 in terms of visuals, but either way this game features great texturing, character models and jaw-droppingly smooth animations."'

@MikeB

Quote:

Well, if you want to criticize people, criticize those who brought up the XBox 360 vs PS3 wars from the very beginning.

What does that have to do with AmigaWorld?

Anyway, I finally played the demo of David Jones' new game, Crackdown. It's no GTA or Lemmings, but it's well worth owning. The graphics remind me a little of Syndicate - just little things like the colour scheme and the puddles of light, and it has a semi-comic book effect. The emphasis is less on driving than your typical GTA-em-up, and the controls work where GTA, Driver and The Getaway never quite did.

It's totally non-linear and as the reviews suggest, not that deep. That's no biggie though - it's very satisfying to play, there's lots of scope for mischief-making and a good co-op. They say there will be free content downloads later. Hopefully this'll offer new types of gameplay - they've set aside Experience points of the new content.

The big thing though, is that one of my favourite games designers is back in business and on form. I can't wait to hear about his longer-term project, APB. That's out in 2007 on PC and 2008 on 360.

Chris

@MikeB

For your pleasure it seems PS3 sales are improving in Japan whil XBox 360 sales are dropping:

January 29th - February 4th
Sony PlayStation 3 - 18,727
Microsoft Xbox 360 - 6,130

February 5th-11th
Sony PlayStation 3 - 23,431
Microsoft Xbox 360 - 4,811

PS3 sales up by 25%, XBox 360 sales down by 25%. But problem is that Nintendo dominates the market. More than 75% of new consoles sold in Japan are Nintendo.

http://www.psxextreme.com/psp-news/828.html

(Edit: added source)

Last edited by itix on 19-Feb-2007 at 04:51 PM.

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@BrianK

"Hines clarifies that the shader functionality which was designed to re-render low-res textures will also be making its way to the 360 and PC versions via updates "

It's great to have that confirmed. I'm long overdue picking Oblivion again. I always wonder how much of the colour differences are due to platform; and how much are gamma settings, the way the screenshots were taken, colour settings in Photoshop or whatever. I can't imagine they'd be so similar in mosts respects, but not the level of brightness and saturation.

Chris

@Trezzer

Quote:

Just why is it that you think it's "Xbox 360 supporters" who have made negative remarks all over the place?

OK, I maybe I should have written "XBox fan" instead of plural as it was mostly just you. Mainly you made me get this XBox 360 from my sister now sitting here next to me, you made me play Gears of War all the way to the end to see why it's the best thing since sliced bread.

You came up with so many (IMO mostly baseless) pro-XBox 360 and anti-PS3 arguments along the way the discussion turned away from the PS3's potential for the Amiga community into 'this vs that' war, at a time when the discussions didn't actually relate to anything 'XBox 360 nor 'Gears of War vs Resistance'. I never was much excited about the XBox 360, nor the PS3 before I knew about the Cell processor. I wanted to talk Cell, the PS3 and "Other OS", you talked about Gears and how you doubt the PS3 would be able to handle games of the similar or better quality. What's more you get upset if I ignore those parts of your messages....

From the Open Platform for PS3 thread:

Trezzer: "As for Resistance: Fall of Man - that's another sad case of textures with too low quality. Compare with Gears of War for reference."

Trezzer: "So far things look bleak for PS3 at least. Resistance: FoM looks decidedly last-gen next to Gears of War"

Trezzer: "I wonder whether there will ever be a game on PS3 looking as great as Gears of War"

Trezzer: "Gears of War scored 10 out of 10 for graphics on IGN and not without reason. "

MikeB: "note that some reviewers believe Resistance with its 40 player online multi-player support is equally good as Gears of War."

MikeB: "It all comes down to personal preferences."

Trezzer: "I'm not gonna bother to argue with you any more, since you ignore common sense. I think that people will be able to put two and two together with ads/propaganda from a guy who intends to sell the system being pushed anyway. I hope so at least.

One last point though:
Gears of War ratings
Resistance: Fall of Man ratings"

MikeB: "I will have my sister's XBox 360 for the coming months, I will give 'Gears of War' a more indepth playtest to better understand your excitement and to better understand the 100% scores it received"

And so now it appears I totally prefer Resistance over Gears of War and there's nothing in Gears of War which I don't think the PS3 can't improve on.

Last edited by MikeB on 19-Feb-2007 at 05:21 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 19-Feb-2007 at 05:18 PM.

@Hammer

Quote:

To keep things into perspective,

Hammer, please don't ignore the price in that perspective. There was always something better out there. Even in the past. There were things like SGI when we were playing Amiga. Some gaming PCs these days cost up to $5K. These are workstations, even today, not home machines. It just seems that there are more people around these days who spend that money just for a gaming machine, maybe they do some productive work with it, too (but I would guess this is a smaller group where money does not matter). But back then, an Amiga4000 did cost easily $2500+.

I still think, that, with (and when) all SPEs are getting utilized, the performance will come very close to the multi K$ PCs. And one fact which counts towards game consoles is the fact that you have a big screen in your living room. While I'd consider buying a 1080p 37" as a desktop monitor, usually the main monitor market is still 19"/22"/24" these days (Dell has a 28" out now). This gives you a total different gaming experience between a PC and a console. The same applies to kb/mouse style gameplay on the PC (strategy games like CC etc. which are not available on consoles).

So to make it sort, I think a comparison of both based on raw performance values is meaningless.

Also, a HW lock down in the console market is intended. One could build a PS3+ with two cells, 65nm, scaling it to 16+ SPEs, new G80, 2GB RAM, or what not (or a new 360, for that matter). But that's not the point here, I'd say. Things are also market driven, not just a academic evaluation of possibilities.

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