@jtsiren

Quote:

It might be slightly faster in real-world scenarios

XBox 360 game deisgners are doing their best to fit their games on a single layer (there have been complaints by developers), as there is a penalty for making their games larger, also many XBox 360 owners still don't own a harddrive to compensate this matter. I think if there would be no penalty, probably games like Gears of War and Lost Planet would have been larger games. For the rest of your posting I agree with you, although I am certain Blu-Ray will and to some extend already has shown off its additional value.

BTW, have you played a bit of Resistance (for instance till the first Stalker, still rather early in the game) or did you test the game online? Any opinions on the 1080p RR7 demo I asked you about earlier?

Last edited by MikeB on 26-Mar-2007 at 10:04 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

I think if there would be no penalty, probably games like Gears of War and Lost Planet would have been larger games.

I have no knowledge or source if that would or would not have been the case, but certainly this will be one topic I will continue to watch now that I have both consoles. Having both means I can pick and choose game by game, which is nice.

Many games are short also due to production reasons. One very short game that comes to mind was the Pacific MoH on PS2/Xbox, clearly rushed out for Christmas and cut in half because the storyline wasn't completed.

Quote:

BTW, have you played a bit of Resistance (for instance till the first Stalker, still rather early in the game) or did you test the game online? Any opinions on the 1080p RR7 demo I asked you about earlier?

I haven't had a chance to look into the RR7 yet. I spent most of my weekend playing time with Motorstorm. As said, I really like the game. Very, very nice. Resistance was just that initial try, I'll see when I get back to it.

@MikeB

Quote:

A picture may speak louder than words:

Yeah. I still think it's too big to fit in where the Xbox was - simply because it looks too tall.

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PS3 game developers don't need to worry about making storage sacrifices

Except they do. The speed issue is a storage sacrifice of sorts too. Having to put the same data on various areas of a Blu-Ray disc is a sacrifice.

Besides it's quite common that you have too much data on the final disc compared to what is actually in the game. This is what the development tools from MIcrosoft help you avoid. You can often cut gigabytes by just removing what is not used.

Once again I stress that more storage space is not a bad thing, but it's clearly not as one-sided as you make it out to be either.

@jtsiren

Quote:

Many games are short also due to production reasons. One very short game that comes to mind was the Pacific MoH on PS2/Xbox, clearly rushed out for Christmas and cut in half because the storyline wasn't completed.

I agree, but I think this goes both ways in relation to PS3 games making it on time for christmas 2006 as well, thus some may not have been as polished as they could have been.

IMO it's very important for the community to not present such double standards. For instance this was the team of ICT professionals I was with at CeBit, standing next to me Mr Bodha, who made the AmigaOS4 demonstration possible at a local event last year.



It's really difficult to explain what Fun Computing has to do in relation to the Amiga Community with the currently presented attitudes, as many people don't seem to be having much fun "supporting" their hobby platform. People shooting down good oppertunities presented to them and trolling against positive developments to place then into a non-fun overly negative light. Personally I am little tired of explaining to people the rivalry history the Amiga community is and has been going through. Just reading the PS3 threads here at AmigaWorld alone paints an overly negative picture of the Amiga community...

Ironically IMO one of the Amiga Community's worst enemies is the community itself...

@MikeB

Quote:

also many XBox 360 owners still don't own a harddrive to compensate this matter.

I doubt many do. I went to pick up a 360 Core for a temporary project a couple of weeks ago and it was a 2005 model. It doesn't exactly seem like they've been selling like hotcakes.

Besides nothing is stopping developers from using the HD as a cache anyway. After all they already do.

Quote:

probably games like Gears of War and Lost Planet would have been larger games.

Most likely not. First of all Lost Planet is pretty darned big. Secondly Gears of War was built for co-op, and co-op games tend to be relatively short for a good reason. Obviously there are also many more areas in the game than that, since there is an entirely different online multiplayer section as well.

Australian figures:

"At more than 20,000 units in the first three days, the PS3 looks unlikely to challenge the Nintendo Wii for the title of fastest-seller in Australia. Figures from data trackers GfK Australia show that the Wii sold 32,901 units in its first four days after launch. The previous record holder was the Xbox 360, which sold 30,421 units in its first four days of availability. Before the 360, Sony's PSP was king with 27,055 units sold in the first four days. While the PS3 won't break the Wii's record, Sony's console does have the disadvantage of being more than double the price of the Wii in Australia. The PS3 retails for A$999.95 ($805), while Wiis will set consumers back A$399.95 ($322). The top Xbox 360 bundle costs A$649.95 ($523) in Australia.

Sony's A$25 million haul for the PS3 also falls short of Microsoft's take for the Xbox 360 when it first released in Australia last year. At the time, Microsoft stated that it had sold between A$30 and A$40 million worth of consoles and games at launch. The Xbox 360 was released in Australia on March 23, 2006--exactly one year before the PS3."

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6168040.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;2

@MikeB

Quote:

It's really difficult to explain what Fun Computing has to do in relation to the Amiga Community with the currently presented attitudes, as many people don't seem to be having much fun "supporting" their hobby platform.

Sure we do! I love my Amigas.

However, so far the PS3 has nothing to do with Amiga.

Quote:

People shooting down good oppertunities presented to them and trolling against positive developments to place then into a non-fun overly negative light.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Quote:

Personally I am little tired of explaining to people the rivalry history the Amiga community is and has been going through.

Why do you have to explain it?

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Just reading the PS3 threads here at AmigaWorld alone paints an overly negative picture of the Amiga community...

Yeah, but at least we have lots of balanced posts to even out your propaganda.

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Ironically IMO one of the Amiga Community's worst enemies is the community itself...

In a sense I think you're right. There are a lot of people who need to "wake up and smell the coffee".

@Trezzer

Quote:

Except they do. The speed issue is a storage sacrifice of sorts too. Having to put the same data on various areas of a Blu-Ray disc is a sacrifice

That's an option available to reduce seektimes, the overall speed is more than sufficient and quite a bit faster than on the PS2, in fact some PS2 DVD games load significantly quicker when played on the PS3 depending on the game's loading strategy.

With the sustained reading speed of Blu-Ray disc it's easier for PS3-only game developers to predict how much data can be streamed while playing the game and thus design their game with this in mind, 9 MB/s is quite a lot.

@MikeB

Quote:

With the sustained reading speed of Blu-Ray disc it's easier for PS3-only game developers to predict how much data can be streamed while playing the game and thus design their game with this in mind, 9 MB/s is quite a lot.

Just keep telling yourself that it loads faster while every report suggests otherwise.

Oh, and another thing: What was your point with the picture, where you stand next to Mr. Bodha? Does that make you an almost-arranger? Does it give you some credit by affiliation?

While I have certainly seen you try to evangelize the OS4 platform, you have at the same time caused it quite a bit of harm (but we have already discussed that). I don't exactly consider you a boost for Amiga platform. Nor do I consider you more reliable than the people you like to call trolls.

The above can always change if you actually do manage to do something positive of course.

@MikeB

Quote:

I agree, but I think this goes both ways in relation to PS3 games making it on time for christmas 2006 as well, thus some may not have been as polished as they could have been.

Of course.

Quote:

IMO it's very important for the community to not present such double standards. For instance this was the team of ICT professionals I was with at CeBit, standing next to me Mr Bodha, who made the AmigaOS4 demonstration possible at a local event last year.

I think these threads show that maybe we all have to be very careful when posting about these, sometimes emotion raising issues. I think all of us, yourself included, have sometimes dismissed or dimished some points when they didn't suppot our view of the world. It is very easy to do that and human nature as well.

Being truly free of double standards is a very, very difficult task.

@Trezzer

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Why do you have to explain it?

Because people have internet access and ask these sort of questions.

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In a sense I think you're right. There are a lot of people who need to "wake up and smell the coffee".

If you repeat often enough, this cannot happen, we suck, we can't make a difference, etc. You may actually contribute in making this reality, it's called a self-defeating prophecy.

@MikeB

I don't really know who is who, so I will state it plainly. The PS3 is just a perfect match for OS4, nothing could fit better than these two.

I am a high school teacher, and all I can say is that the way computers are used in schools has been shameful. The idea of unleashing students on a general OS (like XP) where they distract themselves from whatever task they are supposed to be doing simply does not work, either I help individual students (which is my job), or patrol them so they stay on task.

For years now I have prayed for Amiga to revive, just in order to use easy kiosk-type control of what students are doing. As a lightweight, robust and versatile system it fits very well into the school context (as anyone who has struggled with NT, XP and Linux can attest - making these OSes behave the way you wish them to is a fool's errand).

It seems to me that a stripped down PS3 would be ideal - take out the blueray, reduce the disk size or take it out altogether, leave in the Lan, USB and maybe bluetooth. Cut every corner and student computer controlled at the teacher's desk is something worth thinking about (if Sony is listening).

An A4 sized LCD screen (behind armoured glass knowing my students), fitted into desks would be heaven (instead of students hiding behind monitors).

All wishful thinking unless OS4 ports.

_________________
Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@MikeB

Quote:

You may actually contribute in making this reality

That would require me to actually say it can't/won't be done. Which I don't. I've discussed matters as they are - not as they potentially can be.

@GregS

At first I thought your post made sense but:
Why even go for a PS3? Clearly what you seek is something small, PPC-based and fast. In fact something like the SAM would fit the bill much better. Less heat dissipation and less power consumption.

I guess I've been lucky. I've actually had the option of using Macs instead of XP at university - and previously I had a laptop with Linux/FreeBSD on it.

Last edited by Trezzer on 26-Mar-2007 at 12:15 PM.

@jtsiren

Quote:

I really don't think anyone is disputing more storage is better. It remains to be seen if this will have any material effect as to what kind of games will be available for either platform. I guess the sentiment is mostly that even the DVD space is currently quite often more than enough. It is not like most games come on many DVDs or something.

I think that could change though, and pretty soon. According to the developers Lair on the PS3 will fill the entire BluRay disc with textures.

--

BTW I've never used hand controllers before so everything is difficult to control for me - but I'm getting better, I can nearly get around GTHD without crashing! I love the use of tilt control in Motorstorm but how easy it is to control something depends on the size of the thing you're driving, big trucks are easy, cars less so, buggies difficult, bikes damn near impossible.

--

I've got movie playback working on Linux. There is tearing but it's a sync issue, there's no performance issues as the CPU is hardly active.

_________________
Whyzzat?

@Trezzer
Thanks for that, but I failed to googled SAM, (well I got lots actually but nothing that looked like a computer).

Heat is a major problem in this type of application. And I am glad you brought this up, as I would generally trade speed in this context for reliable passive air-cooling.

The reason I was attracted to the PS3 for this, is the likelihood of truly massive production of a standard box, that in the fullness of time could become a throwaway item (ie so cheap that it can be used until it fails and simply replaced at a cheaper and cheaper rate as the years progress).

The fact is, given even the worst sales figures, there will be plenty of PS3s around for a good many years - the fixed architecture is a very big blessing (the amount of cash intel computers absorb out of very small school budgets is scandalous - especially as we can never afford simple things like textbooks).

Mac was always a better buy for this reason, more money up front, but less problems overall, and far less costs and man-hours in maintenance.

I cannot stress enough, how much better AmigaOS would be at high schools than any of the other OSes I have used. Experienced users, can control it, customize it and make it do what they need it to. Kiosking is essential and essentially simple, and I have played around with a fair few software "solutions" over the years - all lacked the simplicity to be truly useful, some were devilishly tricky to get to work at all.

I had only one major educational success with computers, and that was improving the writing of the worst class in the school, so that they topped the State - it was only because I was given an old and disused computer lab full of old style Macs where I could strip-out every application bar the word processor. I tried a similar method when students had full systems - it was a disaster, if anything their writing was more hurried, less thought-out and obviously done between sessions of indulging in the many distractions available.

The factor that cannot be avoided is the ease of AmigaOS, especially amongst teachers who have many other things to do besides working through obdurate OSes.

Any suggestions would be welcome - I can only say the experience of the MS path in education has been an unmitigated disaster.

_________________
Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@GregS

Here's a link to SAM.

That said, If I were in a position where I had to manage a lot of computers, I'd want to go with OS X. Why? Because you can lock it down to the extent where it won't be nuked by a little wannabe-hacker. You can use a simplified Finder and give access to only specific applications. I assume that's what you mean by kiosking. If you mean it in the presentation sense of the word, I can point you towards Apple's Keynote.

AmigaOS is insecure by default which is fine for us who like to tinker with things, but in a school setting I would go with something that supports permissions and so on.

Last edited by Trezzer on 26-Mar-2007 at 02:14 PM.

@Trezzer

The penny drops! I have been such an occasional visitor of late I have missed much.

You are right, SAM looks like a very good option.

The old Kiosk system of Amiga was simplicity itself, you don't load workbench but the applications required without a closedown button (if I remember rightly). Editing the startup file was all that was required.

Doing this can be achieved in a lot of different ways, mostly due to AmigaOS's small size and logical structure - stripping down the OS is hardly a major problem. Loading off LAN or through a USB stick, or a combo is simple.

I saw the Mac reference which is more like a presentation.

AmigaOS would probably need some small changes to work well in this context, but simplicity has virtues. Drawer access and forms of remoting the OS needs to be developed, but I remember seeing something like this back in the old days with Workbench 2.

Security need not be complex, simple file access restrictions can be handled through something like Kepler, a lightwieght web server in Lua, The classic mulituser system has to my way of thinking made relatively simple operations rather complex and hard to manage than they need to be because they evolved from mainframes.

If worse comes to worse a cut down version of Linux could be used - all the Amiga user need do then is boot via their USB, handshake and startup.

Secondary school computer use is more a matter of imposing electronic discipline, than the need for free-ranging computer access needed in tertiary.

Our biggest mistake was to see "Computers" as a solution without first defining what the problems and potential might be, vis a vis actually helping educate students.

The critical bit is that with a few manuals, a relatively computer-naive Teacher has the possibility to run the system to their teaching needs and twig things over time.

The boxed software solution simply does not work, and the dependence on specialised applications to control students' computers never has everything needed.

Because AmigaOS is so small, logical (well more logical at least) open, and relatively easy to learn is a major asset. It stands up well, certain primitive aspects actually are enhancements rather than deficits. I believe there are relatively simple solutions to most of the potential security problems.

Students, constantly swap logins, making the current systems more apparently secure than they actually are - most hacking in schools is fairly primitive and based more on guessing or finding passwords than anything else. Much more practical security could come from simple controls on the teachers side - ie assigning identities to the students actually in the room from an electronic roll, and having all the teacher data around their neck on a USB stick.

There are plenty of other variations that are simple enough to employ and more practically useful in a school (ie where many students can't remember their password at all if there is a lapse of even a day, or complain they can't log in when they constantly type the wrong password - which wastes more time than anyone outside a school could imagine - some even vary their user names on a day to day basis). Just linking the security to the classroom roll would make everything more efficient.

With 4 gig USB sticks, outside media classes, virtually all students work could be in the personal possession of the teacher (no more lost files! no more complaints of work being deleted, in some circumstances, instant marking - the list is endless but only once teachers, rather than technicians, control the OS and applications).

Mac is wonderful but unless there is a specific program that does exactly what you want that is it, Linux is simply too chaotic and complex, XP is a mess (I have spent days tracking down software which inevitably does not do what I want and has one or two interesting features and whole lot of junk I don't need), whereas a simple change in the start up file almost gives me everything I need on AmigaOS.

Sorry about the long rave, but I have waited a long time to have this important tool, and it is still not within practical grasp.

_________________
Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@minator

Quote:

I think that could change though, and pretty soon. According to the developers Lair on the PS3 will fill the entire BluRay disc with textures.

My bet would be that Lair's textures are uncompressed or lightly compressed at bet. Using realtime procedural geometry they should be able to cut down on space requirements and more then likely this approach would fit the game on a DVD.

@jtsiren

Quote:

more than 20,000 units in the first three days

Please note that initially Sony planned to ship around 11,000 units to Australia, well beyond 20,000 unit sales at this price point isn't a bad figure by any means.

Anyway, on various occasions I mentioned Killzone for the PS3 as the title I have very high hopes on. Resistance is an excellent launch title, but to lift the veil on why I am so excited about this game apart from being the biggest multimedia project in Dutch history:

In the biggest Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf,” Guerrilla Games technical director, Michiel van der Leeuw, stated that all environments will be destructible in Killzone 2 for the PlayStation 3, meaning that with a tank you can realistically drive through almost anything, when you launch a rocket which hits a tree, the tree will not be left standing without damage. He also mentioned that the PS3 is easy to develop for and praised Blu-Ray, Cell processor and thus the amount of freedom their game designers have in creating these sophisticated environments, shadow effects and lighting will rival movies,

He proclaimed the XBox 360 inferior and stated that programming for the PS3 is more fun, more creative and more artistic.

http://www.brabantsdagblad.nl/digitaal/article1239255.ece (Dutch)