@BrianK

Quote:

-I don't think the problem will be as big or widespread as the 360. But, I do think having another console this generation with such errors will make big news even if it's not.-

I am calm.

The PS3 is the most complex console out there, sure there are failures within industry standards to be expected.

My PC harddrive failed a couple of months ago (I had to go through similar issues at least 3-4 times before, once on the Amiga, the PS3 has a harddrive as well. The PS3 harddrive may be more sturdy as 2.5 inch harddrives usually are, but there will be issues being reported sooner or later.

Though most issues seem to relate to consumers who mistakenly updated the firmware with a version intended for another region.

Last edited by MikeB on 11-Apr-2008 at 09:43 AM.

@BigD

Regarding to the EU wikipedia article I linked to:

"In particular it seeks to guarantee four freedoms, which relate to ensuring the free movement of goods, capital, people and services within the area."

That's reason enough for SCEE to handle the UK launch.

Combine this with the fact that PAL is a standard in the UK and NSTC is a standard for the US, it's really easy to understand. So the UK got PAL PS2/PS3s just most SCEE covered countries. That's the main reason why Australia is also handled by SCEE.

@Lou

My my Lou, your posts are so full of mistakes, I hardly know where to begin.

Why are you saying I get things twisted?
I never said ALL games on the PS3 can be done in 1080p60, yet that is how you are fighting my post. What was that about putting words into someone's mouth?

You are telling me I am potentially calling all devs "lazy" or "lame"? I would say if you actually read my post, there is no way I would call the devs from Polyphony lame. Again, what was that about putting words into someone's mouth?

Quote:

I'm not saying the PS3 lacks power, I'm just saying it can't do all things all the time

Doesn't rhyme that well with:

Quote:

Developers should focus on rock solid 720p games rather than stuttering 1080p games

The theme of your tirade sounded as if you thought the PS3 couldn't handle 3D games in 1080p60.

You are right you didn't literally compare GT Prologue with Bejeweled, but it was really strange to see you countered my example of GT Prologue where you tried to make a "point" by giving the example of Bejeweled. I would say it was insulting, especially when I already gave the example of GT Prologue.

You can claim GT Prologue isn't a "full" game, but it is reality and fact and you can't exclude it from this discussion.

I did read the post from Hammer, but he never claimed the PS3 can't do 3D games in 1080p60. I would be very surprised when he actually tried to tell me just that. But that's up to Hammer to clarify. Sure there are faster GPU's out there now, but that still doesn't mean that the PS3 can't do 1080p60 for 3D games (and don't even bother making a stupid reply about Quake 1).

When people call Gears of War a 60FPS game, that doesn't mean that it will never drop below 60FPS. It only means that for the major part it is running at 60FPS.

@jiyong

Quote:

When people call Gears of War a 60FPS game, that doesn't mean that it will never drop below 60FPS. It only means that for the major part it is running at 60FPS.

At least on the 360 it's a slow moving 30 FPS game with very noticealbe texture pop-ins.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pDUkgxNkCBk

Like other 360 games based on this Unreal engine, here Mass Effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTkbvZpsOfA

Unreal Tournament 3 on the PS3 does not suffer from such issues despite being of a faster pace sporting much bigger environments.

@MikeB

Quote:

Unreal Tournament 3 on the PS3 does not suffer from such issues despite being of a faster pace sporting much bigger environments.

Interesting as Unreal on the PC does suffer from similar issues. When Unreal and GeOW2 come for the 360 later this year that'll make a better comparison.

@BrianK

Nothing like in those videos posted above:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/29546.html

@MikeB

Regarding the Danish youtube video, the issues they have do not affect my console. I have played Mass Effect for a good 7 hours straight before, (and given I have completed the game with a final save time of over 50 hours - it is safe to say the disk has been used in the machine for at least that length of time), and it has zero scratches. The same is true of the other games I own that were bought brand new.

Regarding the issue of "texture pop-in" that you have also used as a problem with the XBox, again this is not true. It is an issue with the way LOD is rendered in the Unreal 3 engine. In Gears of War, this problem is not evident in single player games, but does show more in multiplayer ones. As for Mass Effect, the issue only shows when a level is first loaded (typically from a save game), with the scene being rendered fully detailed within a couple of seconds of the start of the level load.

I was at the Play.com live event at Wembley on the 16th March, and had the chance to play around with a PS3. Some of the titles were not overly impressive to me when compared to their 360 counterparts (Lost Planet being a prime example where the graphics were a lot more jagged). I haven't decided on Army of Two yet, but I did find the controls annoying on the PS3 (not aided by the fact they kept using these horrible 3rd party controllers). Rock Band also had serious connectivity issues (they changed one of the guitars twice in the 30 mins we watched it - and still during play it kept complaining of one of the controllers losing connectivity and pausing the game).

That said there are some nice original titles coming for the machine that I do like - Little Big World being one of them. MGS4 is another game I would like to get if I had a PS3.

_________________
Test sig (new)

@MikeB

Quote:

Though most issues seem to relate to consumers who mistakenly updated the firmware with a version intended for another region.

I read about this too. I didn't see anything proof positive that this is the case of every problem. It seemed to be more of someone w/o the problem guessing. If this is true then I think this is Sony's problem. Sony designed a console that allows users to put the wrong firmware on the console then tanks the console. Also they failed to design proper checks into their ecosystem to ensure consoles could only get the proper region. Seems to me it'd be fairly easy to develop the bios such that when queried it would say 'hey I'm a US system'.

@_Steve_

Quote:

Some of the titles were not overly impressive to me when compared to their 360 counterparts

Porting games over from 360 to PS3 without significant redesign will not yield good results for more demanding games. The recent most demanding cross platform games are as good as identical (COD4, Assassin's Creed, BurnOut, DM4, etc), despite they take more into account the 360's hardware abilities with regard to design sacrifices.

The best results are achieved by leading development on the PS3, and ironically this will benefit 360/PC ports as well. A good engine design is crucial on the PS3, resulting in huge gains and to a lesser extend leads towards PC/360 performance gains as well.

For judging the PS3, judge the platform on exclusive games like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (best console graphics so far, no in-game loading times, no install required), Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction (smooth game, 60 FPS, lots of things going on simultaneously) or for example Super Stardust HD (1080p, 60 FPS, lots of things going on simultaneously) and that's only the beginning, this year exclusives will really make the PS3 shine in glory.

Last edited by MikeB on 11-Apr-2008 at 04:34 PM.

MikeB wrote:

Quote:

Anyway, next week there will be an important update available. A new store, DTS Master Sound supported (next to Dolby TrueHD and PCM already supported) and a few surprises as well! I'll keep you guys posted.

One of the surprises has been revealed, open beta for Metal Gear Solid Online (EU):

http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/comments_news.phtml?id=041108_7

For a preview of the new store look here:

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/04/10/firmware-v230-details-and-store-walkthrough/

@MikeB

Quote:

The best results are achieved by leading development on the PS3, and ironically this will benefit 360/PC ports as well. A good engine design is crucial on the PS3, resulting in huge gains and to a lesser extend leads towards PC/360 performance gains as well.

Do you have any examples where this concept is proof positive? Or is it you reading PS3 developers talking about how their approach is best?

To run with your idea here it's a good thing Unreal came for the PS3 first that means us 360 owners will benefit from the better version.

@BrianK

Quote:

Do you have any examples where this concept is proof positive? Or is it you reading PS3 developers talking about how their approach is best?

Cross platform and PS3 designers state this. I can provide a lot of quotes if needed, the 360 pushes devs towards lazy approaches while the PS3 requires devs to take care. The PS3 approach is superior in all regards compared to what Microsoft suggests.

There may be hardware issues rather than game engine issues preventing the 360 port to come out on top, but certainly the 360 version of UT3 will benefit as well as the 360/PC versions of Gears 2. A lot of work is however still required for the Unreal engine to be considered a PS3 orientated engine, but for being about on par with 360/PC versions it's now at a good enough stage.

Last edited by MikeB on 11-Apr-2008 at 05:18 PM.

@jiyong

Quote:

jiyong wrote: @Lou My my Lou, your posts are so full of mistakes, I hardly know where to begin. Why are you saying I get things twisted? I never said ALL games on the PS3 can be done in 1080p60, yet that is how you are fighting my post. What was that about putting words into someone's mouth? You are telling me I am potentially calling all devs "lazy" or "lame"? I would say if you actually read my post, there is no way I would call the devs from Polyphony lame. Again, what was that about putting words into someone's mouth? Quote: I'm not saying the PS3 lacks power, I'm just saying it can't do all things all the time Doesn't rhyme that well with: Quote: Developers should focus on rock solid 720p games rather than stuttering 1080p games The theme of your tirade sounded as if you thought the PS3 couldn't handle 3D games in 1080p60.

LOL - my tirade, lol!

Quote:

You are right you didn't literally compare GT Prologue with Bejeweled, but it was really strange to see you countered my example of GT Prologue where you tried to make a "point" by giving the example of Bejeweled. I would say it was insulting, especially when I already gave the example of GT Prologue.

Insulting to a PS3 fanboys only. So what.

Quote:

You can claim GT Prologue isn't a "full" game, but it is reality and fact and you can't exclude it from this discussion.

There is no discussion here, it's just the usual - I make a comment about Sony you don't like and you defend them like your grandfather started the company by putting words in my mouth and having quasi-delusional aspirations for PS3 world domination.

Quote:

I did read the post from Hammer, but he never claimed the PS3 can't do 3D games in 1080p60. I would be very surprised when he actually tried to tell me just that. But that's up to Hammer to clarify. Sure there are faster GPU's out there now, but that still doesn't mean that the PS3 can't do 1080p60 for 3D games (and don't even bother making a stupid reply about Quake 1). When people call Gears of War a 60FPS game, that doesn't mean that it will never drop below 60FPS. It only means that for the major part it is running at 60FPS.

Why are you bringing the 360 into this?
Actually, the word you used in post #423 was "lame". Just as you say I said you called all developers lazy, you are saying that I am saying 3D games are not possible on the PS3. LOL. Do you actually know what the phrase "putting words into someone's mouth means.
Are you blind? Can you read? I said it depends on the complexity of the game.
For instance, I have ever confidence that the PS3 can to Wolfenstein-3D in 1080p @ 60fps.
You're grasping at straws with is "arguement" attempting to win...win what? You just like to pester me with your PS3-fanboyism. Meanwhile I secretly laugh at it and throw you another bone to chew on and resume my internal laughter. Let's see who can find the bone in this post...

Last edited by Lou on 11-Apr-2008 at 05:35 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Cross platform and PS3 designers state this. I can provide a lot of quotes if needed, the 360 pushes devs towards lazy approaches while the PS3 requires devs to take care. The PS3 approach is superior in all regards compared to what Microsoft suggests.

Sure, provide quotes, preferably with links. This reads as sort of misleading.

As MS suggests basically equates to write your game similarly to writing for a PC with multiple cores. Ease of development and dev time at this point is certainly 'superior' in MS'es case, here, not Sony's.

That's one of the problems. MS has become quite good at putting together dev tools and documentation, without a huge paradigm shift required in order to start coding on the XBox.

Sony, on the other hand, has 'unique' platforms in the PS2 as well as PS3, requiring significantly more time to get the PS to 'perform.'

So, while I do agree in some respects:
- people are still learning how to do things on ps3 in efficient fashion
- There may be some benefits in going from PS3->XBox due to code design imposed by needing to split out functionality more efficiently across the SPEs..although I'm unsure how well this will map from SPE to Xenon cores, thus the Q for links

This isn't the same as 'superior to MS in every case' when a company needs to produce a game on a deadline, and still doesn't know how to write good code for the PS3. Once a company has gone through the time/pain of becoming ps3 'proficient,' the statement may be more true, but until then, some companies make it or break it by meeting or slipping a deadline by a few months, and time to dev is certainly relevant.

Last edited by wegster on 11-Apr-2008 at 05:47 PM.

_________________
Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@wegster

Tomb Raider: Underworld, still a 360 lead project, 360 developer:

"Secondly, the matters of multithreading policies, the whole job queue architecture, encapsulation of jobs and their corresponding data packets, etc. that work on the PS3 are indeed more than applicable of the 360/PC. And as I've mentioned before, they work better than anything and everything that Microsoft recommends (so far without exception for us)."

http://forums.e-mpire.com/showpost.php?p=1780087&postcount=116

Quote:

'unique' platforms in the PS2 as well as PS3

There's a learning curve, but same was the case with regard to the Amiga. The PS3 is much easier to develop for than the PS2 and the way of the PS3 benefits game engine design in gerenal, also for cross platform porting.

Insomniac:

"The SPU is not a magical beast only tamed by wizards."

Conclusion:

"It's not that complicated.
Good data and good design works well on the SPUs (and will work well anywhere)‏
Sometimes you can get away with bad design and bad data on other platforms
...for now. Bad design will not survive this generation.
Lots of opportunities for optimization."

http://www.insomniacgames.com/tech/articles/0208/files/insomniac_spu_programming_gdc08.ppt

Last edited by MikeB on 11-Apr-2008 at 06:31 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 11-Apr-2008 at 06:26 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Cross platform and PS3 designers state this. I can provide a lot of quotes if needed, the 360 pushes devs towards lazy approaches while the PS3 requires devs to take care.

No quotes needed. I wanted to understand the depth of your understanding. It seems you're repeating other devs and trusting their right. They well may be but until there is a clear example in their favor it's only lip service.

Coding is as much an art as it is a science. Different approaches and variations will have positive and negative impacts on the coders themselves.

Quote:

The PS3 approach is superior in all regards compared to what Microsoft suggests.

I disagree. My understanding, like you from developers not writing code for either platform myself but have written code and worked within development environments, is that the 360 tools and programming environment are better defined and easier to operate within. Having such an environment allows developers to reduce resource costs and get their game to market quicker. In addition the PS3 is more complex taking more resources and time to master, read costs. Using the 360 first can be adventageous to developers and is likely superior in the aspect of sales and profits, clearly why companies make games.

@wegster

Quote:

Sure, provide quotes, preferably with links. This reads as sort of misleading.

Some developers don't agree the PS3 developer solution is superior in all cases, as MikeB stated.

" With the PlayStation 3, ...they just took a design decision that wasn't the best from a development standpoint....Microsoft dev tools are so much better than Sony's. We expect to keep in mind the issues of bringing this up on the PlayStation 3... they're not helpful to the developers.." -- John Carmack

It appears developer problems on the PS3 are something Sony is working on. Early this year they published news on the PhyreEngine to help developers accomplish this goal. It appears Sony is improving their tools because they know they have to...
"It's been rather commonplace for developers to neglect PS3 with inferior and oftentimes delayed versions of multiplatform games. With PhyreEngine, Sony is making a much more attractive plea: make games on PS3 first, guaranteeing high quality games that will not only match their 360 counterparts, but in many cases can exceed them. Sony's message is clear: start games on the PS3, and they will be better for both PS3 and 360 owners. It appears to us that PhyreEngine is a crucial part of that plan" -- Joystiq from GDC 2008.

"The truth is the PS3’s tools and the way it works just sucks. The truth is they are both virtually the same in terms of hardware when it comes to how powerful they are, maybe the PS3 has a few different things that makes it a bit more advance, and Sony has this idea that it is designed for optimal development but that’s a load of crap....It will change in the future, but for now it sucks" -- NASCAR developer from EA Tiburon

One reason I can see using the PS3 first would be superior is that from the get go one designs their game with the split in RAM in mind. From my limited programming history for me it'd be easier to split the RAM first (PS3) then redirect to a unified ram (360) then it would be to take a game from unified RAM and have to split it.

Today there are newer published games which are cross platform. They are clearly better then the early ports. Clearly the cross development tools are ramping up for the PS3. Even using the 360 first model today is producing much better quality of PS3 ports then we saw early on.

@MikeB

Argh, I didn't realize the second link was a PowerPoint!

The first one is good, though, thanks.
http://forums.e-mpire.com/showpost.php?p=1780087&postcount=116

You'll note a few things in here that don't exactly hold some people's viewpoints, though:

Quote:

All our multithreading is done on PS3 first without exception, and other platforms emulate SPURS. Still, there's little question that the PS3 codebase has a long way to go, and being GPU limited as a result of basing a lot of prior work on the 360 is a big part of it.

Bold 1 would seem to indicate there are certainly improvements to be made, but also that some PS3 games are NOT necessarily on part with 360 equivalents, which Bold 2 also would imply RSX < 360.

Note - I'm not saying the SPUs can't help RSX out, or that there's not room for improvement; I expect there is. However, the silly RSX is 'special' arguments there have been in the past is ####.


Quote:

Secondly, the matters of multithreading policies, the whole job queue architecture, encapsulation of jobs and their corresponding data packets, etc. that work on the PS3 are indeed more than applicable of the 360/PC. And as I've mentioned before, they work better than anything and everything that Microsoft recommends (so far without exception for us). The problems lie in the fact that that work is an absolute necessity on the PS3, whereas they're not entirely necessary on any other platform. Even if it does pay off on other platforms, the difference may not be large enough to justify completely tearing apart every platform's codebase. That's the fundamental source of all PS3 development problems.

This is all good info.
Bold 1 - There are advantages in being 'forced to design' for the PS3 that can carry over elsewhere, which is what I expected, although more info on how much is applicable, etc, would be nice to know..in other words, the limits of SPU vs Xenon more general purpose cores, local RAM, etc.

Bold 2 - without SPU use, he seems to be saying 360 > PS3 PPU. I don't think most of us would argue that point.

Bold 3 - There's the real problem I see. I've often had to do cross platform development, although recently for fewer platforms than previously, and the difference between 'lowest common denominator' versus 'optimize for each' becomes a big problem. Time and thus $ vs quality, expected return on the time investment in $/sales, etc...it nearly always remains a possiblility to get 'more' from a program, but as he said, justification of that is sometimes difficult, and doesn't get done.

I do hope in time, and what I expect, is companies cross-platform engines will indeed be optimized for both PS3 and 360, and we may start to see more of that being common, which would be good for both platforms, and 'us' as consumers.

May or may not open the PPT, but thanks for the first link.

_________________
Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@BrianK

Quote:

" With the PlayStation 3, ...they just took a design decision that wasn't the best from a development standpoint....Microsoft dev tools are so much better than Sony's. We expect to keep in mind the issues of bringing this up on the PlayStation 3... they're not helpful to the developers.." -- John Carmack

No real surprise. My first look at MS 'Visual C/C++" version 2, literally looked like notepad with 3-4 buttons, while I was using Symantec Visual Cafe (this was early '90s), which was amazing.

However, MS since then, has really matured with respect to their development tools, and their developer documentation. While it doesn't provide _everything_, Visual Studio is not a bad standard to compare other IDEs and developer documentation to.

Compounding that is the obvious - the 360 is much more like a PC to write code for, versus another 'unique' platform in the PS3, that requires additional work to come to terms with. I have had friends working in the PS2 era on games, one of which was CEO and sold off their set of libraries and engines to a fairly large company, for PC and console development. We didn't talk specifics, but he was NOT a fan of the PS2 dev tools and documentation, so on top of the different architecture, the learning curve is made even steeper because of their dev kit, in comparison to Microsofts.

While I don't think this is unsurmountable, especially IF Sony gets their act together, and matches the 360 dev kit offering, and steps down off it's high horse (the 'they don't help developers' comment is NOT a good one..), and they sell more units, this will improve.

It is unfortunate though - if they don't improve, while some bigger software houses will in time optimize their engines for both 360 and PS3, there will likely be some companies that simply never enter the game at all.

_________________
Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@wegster

Quote:

Note - I'm not saying the SPUs can't help RSX out, or that there's not room for improvement; I expect there is. However, the silly RSX is 'special' arguments there have been in the past is ####.

Down to the core it's basically 96 (Xenos) vs 136 (RSX) shader ops per clock. The Xenos in 600p can add AA nearly freely (perfomance wise, hence 600p renderig for COD4 which is identical for both platforms running at 60 FPS).

The RSX is pretty special though in the sense that the GPU was designed to work hand in hand with the Cell processor. Cell + RSX >>> Xenon + Xenos

Last edited by MikeB on 11-Apr-2008 at 08:24 PM.