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[KernelPanic]

What happened with the RSX is that they probably finalized the design a bit too early, and when blu-ray encryption and cell yields started holding everything up it was too late to beef it up. That and they probably skimped a bit on the RSX a little simply because they had to know costs were going out of control. Even with that, it appears to be a pretty decent GPU.

A G70-based RSX was their only option at the time I think.

The G80 is huge, far too big and expensive to be used in a console. The recent Anadtech article comparing the RV770 and Nvidia's offerings shows how big Nvidia's GPUs are of late.

 

[FirewalkR]

Overall a good PS3 resource, a lot of effort went into this and seems pretty accurate overall and fairly up to date, PS3 secrets:

http://www.edepot.com/playstation3.html

It is apparently a good PS3 resource and since all info is pretty much available here and there throughout the Net it should be, but do not take the "The Future" and "PS4 Secrets" sections seriously. It is even written almost as if it was all fact. It's sheer speculation and at least some devs at B3D immediately dismissed it. It's kind of a pretty fantasy though.

With that said, I hope the next Xbox and the PS4 both target 1080p at most. Can you guys imagine 2011/2012's processing power and more memory applied to basically the same graphics resolution as today? I can't really, but I believe it is beautiful.

 

[Death Dealer]

What happened with the RSX is that they probably finalized the design a bit too early

That and they probably skimped a bit on the RSX a little simply because they had to know costs were going out of control. Even with that, it appears to be a pretty decent GPU.

It was finalized too early in the sense it was based on top of the line PC GPU of 2005, when the PS3 didn't launch until following year 2006. I've read B3D commentary had they "dumped" RSX after it was known PS3 system to be delayed another year and gone with G80 derived GPU, it would cost much more than $600 in November 06. Not to mention more thermal issues. So it's nice to say "what if", but not feasible given market reality.

MS was smart to approach ATI early about a one off custom GPU for their box. But I don't think you can say Sony made a mistake with RSX. Given original launch window, it was the best option available. Both GPUs were gimped compared to PC GPU of the era, 128 bit memory bus and 8 ROPs etc. Although essentially a G70 design, RSX does have some specific optimizations to work in PS3 environment, namely larger internal cache.

What hurt MS with the Geforce 3 chip inside Xbox was the fact that Nvidia retained all the IP and production rights. So as time went by and process improvements came along, MS was unable to capitalize on savings since their contract with Nvidia was for the GPU at a fixed cost. Lessons learned as both Sony and MS own the rights to their current GPUs, so they can contract them out to whatever fab they want, negotiating for cheaper prices as die process becomes smaller.

 

[Hunter D]

The Cell in the PS3 wouldn't be able to produce games on the nvidia 7 series level. It would be able to something that has gamecube level of graphics with good AA.

 

[AndyD]

The Cell in the PS3 would be able to produce games on the nvidia 7 series level. It would be able to something that has gamecube level of graphics with good AA.

You mean if there was no RSX? Or if there were two cells?

 

[KeioSquad2]

The Cell in the PS3 would be able to produce games on the nvidia 7 series level. It would be able to something that has gamecube level of graphics with good AA.

In terms of poly performance, each spu on the cell can push at least 800,000 tri's at 60fps. Times that by 8(or 6 in the ps3's case) and that's close to what the Rsx it self is able to handle.

So I think it's probably safe to say that it would be way better then gamecube performance in the right situation.

 

[MikeB]

The RSX is more powerful than the Xenos, both designs however provide their advantages and disadvantages. The Xenos is more flexible (yet the amount of EDRam is a severe limiting factor), but the Cell for what the RSX has been designed to take advantage of, is far more flexible.

 

[Hunter D]

You mean if there was no RSX? Or if there were two cells?

If there was no RSX.

In terms of poly performance, each spu on the cell can push at least 800,000 tri's at 60fps. Times that by 8(or 6 in the ps3's case) and that's close to what the Rsx it self is able to handle.

So I think it's probably safe to say that it would be way better then gamecube performance in the right situation.

No, it can't. If it could sony would not of used the RSX.

 

[Forsete]

Ruh-roh.

Interesting thread btw. Nice to have all this tech stuff in one thread.

 

[Raistlin]

The RSX is more powerful than the Xenos, both designs however provide their advantages and disadvantages. The Xenos is more flexible (but the amount of EDRam is a severe limiting factor), but the Cell for what the RSX has been designed to take advantage of, is far more flexible.

More powerful? You can't just go by MHz, etc. RSX does have better shading performance iirc, however, it is pretty limited in vertex processing compared to Xenos.

That said, it's about the system as you've implied. When taken together, amazing things can be done. The problem is generally with multiplatform releases, since it's quite difficult to tap the PS3 when creating a multiplatform engine. The architecture is just too different from 360/PC, so at most ... you can hope the PS3 releases aren't signicantly gimped.

For instance, EDGE and many 3rd party engines now use an SPU to do coarse vertex culling before sending the data to RSX. That helps alleviate the vertex delta between the GPU's somewhat, but is obviously not 'taking advantage' of what the PS3 can do. You'll only really see that in 1st/2nd party offerings for the most part.

No, it can't. If it could sony would not of used the RSX.

I don't know if those specs are accurate, but they may be ... regardless, that does not imply PS3 wouldn't need RSX.

Those numbers would be for using the SPU's only for vertex generation, meaning you'd only have a single core CPU doing all physics, AI, etc. That would be pretty limiting. Beyond that, it's just talking refering to vertex generation, not texturing, shading, etc. So even on the graphics end, we aren't talking about the whole nine yards.

 

[KeioSquad2]

If there was no RSX.


No, it can't. If it could sony would not of used the RSX.

Yes, it can..... look up the sony demonstrations where they have the cell rendering all of london.....

 

[MikeB]

More powerful? You can't just go by MHz, etc. RSX does have better shading performance iirc, however, it is pretty limited in vertex processing compared to Xenos.

That said, it's about the system as you've implied. When taken together, amazing things can be done. The problem is generally with multiplatform releases, since it's quite difficult to tap the PS3 when creating a multiplatform engine. The architecture is just too different from 360/PC, so at most ... you can hope the PS3 releases aren't signicantly gimped.

For instance, EDGE and many 3rd party engines now use an SPU to do coarse vertex culling before sending the data to RSX. That helps alleviate the vertex delta between the GPU's somewhat, but is obviously not 'taking advantage' of what the PS3 can do. You'll only really see that in 1st/2nd party offerings for the most part.

Yes, but the RSX is well more powerful in terms of shader ops per second. It's only weak at some things the Cell's SPUs are very well suited for. The RSX makes sense within the PS3 system architecture, like the Xenos makes more sense within the 360 architecture. Unlike what some think, if a PS3 console with Cell and Xenos existed it would actually be a much weaker solution than a Cell + RSX system. A RSX with Xenon CPU 360 system would be a weak solution as then the RSX would need to do a lot of stuff it wasn't designed for. A Cell within a 360 system would never come anywhere near its potential, but it would be more powerful than what the 360 is today.

I can imagine some multi-platform devs initially thinking with a 360 mentality that the RSX would be less powerful (after having used the 360 much longer), but from the big perspective it's actually more powerful when looking at how it's intended to fit within and be used for the system.

 

[Death Dealer]

The Cell in the PS3 wouldn't be able to produce games on the nvidia 7 series level. It would be able to something that has gamecube level of graphics with good AA.

I don't think that's a safe assumption. I think it's because, like someone posted on the last page, with dual cells and no "typical" gpu for graphics, developers would have had an extremely steep learning curve. It probably would have spelled an early death for the system. Only the true brainiac studios would attempt to wrap their head around it. And that's likely why Sony realized it would be too radical of an architecture.

however, it is pretty limited in vertex processing compared to Xenos.

Aye, the major advantage to Xenos' unified shading, dynamic management of geometry/pixel resources. Although like most things, it's unlikely to ever display peak theoretical performance. Because you can't dedicate all 48 pipelines to vertex ops, without leaving anything to shade those polygons.

but is obviously not 'taking advantage' of what the PS3 can do. You'll only really see that in 1st/2nd party offerings for the most part.

And that is the thesis of this thread. PS3 has a lot of potential in those SPEs, if developers make use of them. I read a whitepaper discussing how just 4 SPEs theoretically have the shading power equivalent to all 24 shader ALUs inside the RSX. The trick is writing the code efficiently enough to make that possible. And of course that would involve trade offs as well, less SPE available for AI, physics, and other opportunity costs.

 

[MikeB]

Yes, but the RSX is well more powerful in terms of shader ops per second. It's only weak at some things the Cell's SPUs are very well suited for. The RSX makes sense within the PS3 system architecture, like the Xenos makes more sense within the 360 architecture. Unlike what some think, if a PS3 console with Cell and Xenos existed it would actually be a much weaker solution than a Cell + RSX system. A RSX with Xenon CPU 360 system would be a weak solution as then the RSX would need to do a lot of stuff it wasn't designed for. A Cell within a 360 system would never come anywhere near its potential, but it would be more powerful than what the 360 is today.

I can imagine some multi-platform devs initially thinking with a 360 mentality that the RSX would be less powerful (after having used the 360 much longer), but from the big perspective it's actually more powerful when looking at how it's intended to fit within and be used for the system.

Think of the RSX as a more powerful worker (with well more strength, endurance and is good at what he needs to do) and, the Xenos as a less powerful worker (but smarter who does some things a planner would do), the Cell as a hyper intelligent planner, the Xenon as a far less intelligent planner.

The RSX worker is able to lift more heavy things and get things done quicker under management of the hyper intelligent planner and the end result will be a much nicer building. Just a hypothetical example trying to get the point across, does this make sense to you guys?

 

[Barso]

So mike please,please tell me why guitar hero and its sequels run at a less resolution on PS3 than on 360?
I mean it's guitar hero for gods sake!!!!
And why does GT5 prologue screen tear and drop frames like mad on the london and the mountain track when more than one car is on it?
You can quote all the bull from sony's hype machine you want but what I see on my HDTV screen is a constant stream of games that run at a less quality on PS3 than my 360.
Come on guys WAKE UP!!!!
It's all rubbish and you fell for it.
But it does play dark knight at 1080p and for that I am thankful and the reason why I hold on to my PS3.

 

[belvedere]

So mike please,please tell me why guitar hero and its sequels run at a less resolution on PS3 than on 360?
I mean it's guitar hero for gods sake!!!!
And why does GT5 prologue screen tear and drop frames like mad on the london and the mountain track when more than one car is on it?
You can quote all the bull from sony's hype machine you want but what I see on my HDTV screen is a constant stream of games that run at a less quality on PS3 than my 360.
Come on guys WAKE UP!!!!
It's all rubbish and you fell for it.
But it does play dark knight at 1080p and for that I am thankful and the reason why I hold on to my PS3.

This speculative hilarity made my day.

Thanks man.

:lol

 

[Barso]

I am glad it made you laugh but to the general public that are not tech minded like myself the proof is in the pudding.
Sony messed up and no wonder ken kutaragi and phil harrison is elsewhere!
His comment of getting 2 jobs to buy a PS3 kills me!!!!
The PS3 is a mess and if it's sonys downfall then so be it but screw them for disguising a blu-ray player as a games machine.
CELL was designed for one thing and thats high def video playback.

 

[TTP]

I am glad it made you laugh but to the general public that are not tech minded like myself the proof is in the pudding.
Sony messed up and no wonder ken kutaragi and phil harrison is elsewhere!
His comment of getting 2 jobs to buy a PS3 kills me!!!!
The PS3 is a mess and if it's sonys downfall then so be it but screw them for disguising a blu-ray player as a games machine.
CELL was designed for one thing and thats high def video playback.

Who let the kids out?

 

[wotter]

I am glad it made you laugh but to the general public that are not tech minded like myself the proof is in the pudding.
Sony messed up and no wonder ken kutaragi and phil harrison is elsewhere!
His comment of getting 2 jobs to buy a PS3 kills me!!!!
The PS3 is a mess and if it's sonys downfall then so be it but screw them for disguising a blu-ray player as a games machine.
CELL was designed for one thing and thats high def video playback.

That's why it's being used in the most powerful supercomputer and the most powerful networked application in the world I guess.

 

[Fenderputty]

So mike please,please tell me why guitar hero and its sequels run at a less resolution on PS3 than on 360?
I mean it's guitar hero for gods sake!!!!
.......

Seems like you knew the answer all along. :lol

 

[Mr.Potato Head]

The RSX is more powerful than the Xenos, both designs however provide their advantages and disadvantages. The Xenos is more flexible (yet the amount of EDRam is a severe limiting factor), but the Cell for what the RSX has been designed to take advantage of, is far more flexible.

Umm know its not....Xenos is a superior GPU overall compared to the RSX buddy..Its PS3's Cell thats more powerful then the cpu in 360

 

[AndyD]

I am glad it made you laugh but to the general public that are not tech minded like myself the proof is in the pudding.
Sony messed up and no wonder ken kutaragi and phil harrison is elsewhere!
His comment of getting 2 jobs to buy a PS3 kills me!!!!
The PS3 is a mess and if it's sonys downfall then so be it but screw them for disguising a blu-ray player as a games machine.
CELL was designed for one thing and thats high def video playback.

Welcome to the ignore list.

This is the kind pf posting we dont need in this thread at all. Go back and enjoy your high fps Guitar Hero please...

 

[Nizz]

So mike please,please tell me why guitar hero and its sequels run at a less resolution on PS3 than on 360?
I mean it's guitar hero for gods sake!!!!
And why does GT5 prologue screen tear and drop frames like mad on the london and the mountain track when more than one car is on it?
You can quote all the bull from sony's hype machine you want but what I see on my HDTV screen is a constant stream of games that run at a less quality on PS3 than my 360.
Come on guys WAKE UP!!!!
It's all rubbish and you fell for it.
But it does play dark knight at 1080p and for that I am thankful and the reason why I hold on to my PS3.

Wow man. Thanks for your contribution to this thread...

 

[diddlyD]

i remember when i was 5 years old or so, in church with my parents. i was bored, so i would take my dad's watch and sit there making up functions for each part of it. this part generates power. this part calculates time. this part synchronizes the raminator fluminator with the piston drives. i would even make up technical functionality for the separate parts of the wrist band. it passed the time.

i can't remember exactly what details i made up way back then, but 95% of the discussion in this thread reminded me of my time with that watch.

 

[herod]

My Dad had a watch like that, but it sounded better than yours.

 

[Squeak]

More powerful? You can't just go by MHz, etc. RSX does have better shading performance iirc, however, it is pretty limited in vertex processing compared to Xenos.

That said, it's about the system as you've implied. When taken together, amazing things can be done. The problem is generally with multiplatform releases, since it's quite difficult to tap the PS3 when creating a multiplatform engine. The architecture is just too different from 360/PC, so at most ... you can hope the PS3 releases aren't signicantly gimped.

For instance, EDGE and many 3rd party engines now use an SPU to do coarse vertex culling before sending the data to RSX. That helps alleviate the vertex delta between the GPU's somewhat, but is obviously not 'taking advantage' of what the PS3 can do. You'll only really see that in 1st/2nd party offerings for the most part.

As you already said, Cell can cull geometry and transform it better than any GPU (hell, you aren't even limited to polygons, if that's what rocks your boat. Highres voxels and raytracing as part of the scene is absolutely feasible on PS3, not so with 360).
That already puts PS3 well ahead of 360 in the geometry department, and then we haven't even considered bandwidth and latency and the high cost of geometry buffering and clipping when tiling on 360 (and you do have to tile, unless you want to run in near SD widescreen res).

When devs. start to learn not to have 360 as lead platform, but instead downscale their assets and code from PS3 to the less capable platforms, then we will see multiplatform games shine on PS3.
Exclusives are already there by a mile.

 

[Enojado]

So mike please,please tell me why guitar hero and its sequels run at a less resolution on PS3 than on 360?
I mean it's guitar hero for gods sake!!!!
And why does GT5 prologue screen tear and drop frames like mad on the london and the mountain track when more than one car is on it?
You can quote all the bull from sony's hype machine you want but what I see on my HDTV screen is a constant stream of games that run at a less quality on PS3 than my 360.
Come on guys WAKE UP!!!!
It's all rubbish and you fell for it.
But it does play dark knight at 1080p and for that I am thankful and the reason why I hold on to my PS3.

 

[Tormentoso]

So mike please,please tell me why guitar hero and its sequels run at a less resolution on PS3 than on 360?
I mean it's guitar hero for gods sake!!!!
And why does GT5 prologue screen tear and drop frames like mad on the london and the mountain track when more than one car is on it?
You can quote all the bull from sony's hype machine you want but what I see on my HDTV screen is a constant stream of games that run at a less quality on PS3 than my 360.
Come on guys WAKE UP!!!!
It's all rubbish and you fell for it.
But it does play dark knight at 1080p and for that I am thankful and the reason why I hold on to my PS3.

Developer problem probably,but remember that the xbox 360 GPU is not as powerful as is advertise,and you know this when it has a separate scaler to upscale games,and still some games are not even 720p native,so you have to wonder if the xbox 360 had no scaler to help,what the RSX does by pure muscle the xbox 360 GPU does it with the help of a scaler.

GT5 can have all the screen tear you want to put on it,but still a more beutiful game than pretty much anything on 360,Uncharted is another game and Killzone 2 which do look better than anything on 360,on Killzone 2 case allot better than anything on 360.

And is funny because Killzone 2 at 720 look better than anything on 360 at any resolution.

Bot the RSX and the xbox 360 GPU are fairly close,with both having advantages one over the other but non completely over any,i think the real difference is Cell which can handle GPU tasks and help that RSX allot.

 

[Raistlin]

Yes, but the RSX is well more powerful in terms of shader ops per second. It's only weak at some things the Cell's SPUs are very well suited for. The RSX makes sense within the PS3 system architecture, like the Xenos makes more sense within the 360 architecture.

Oh, I agree. I was specifically comparing GPU's ... from a system-standpoint, they both make perfect sense.

Unlike what some think, if a PS3 console with Cell and Xenos existed it would actually be a much weaker solution than a Cell + RSX system. A RSX with Xenon CPU 360 system would be a weak solution as then the RSX would need to do a lot of stuff it wasn't designed for. A Cell within a 360 system would never come anywhere near its potential, but it would be more powerful than what the 360 is today.

I disagree for many cases. While there would be some trade-off in terms of shading (though shader ops aren't 1:1, but that's not important for this argument), the fact that the SPU(s) used for vertex assistance could be used for other stuff (either graphics, or not) means it would be better suited for many cases.

That isn't meant as a knock on the PS3. Xenos costs more to fab than RSX iirc, so it would have drove up the cost even more.

I can imagine some multi-platform devs initially thinking with a 360 mentality that the RSX would be less powerful (after having used the 360 much longer), but from the big perspective it's actually more powerful when looking at how it's intended to fit within and be used for the system.

That doesn't change the fact it causes issues for 3rd party devs. For many games, they have to consider PC, 360, and PS3 development. At best, 360 and PS3 development. You can't make the engines so far removed from each other, that you are truly taking advantage of the PS3 architecture. Now that they are more familiar with the system, they can get the performance pretty much on par with each other via CELL assistance, but I don't think we're going to see a time where the PS3 version dramatically outshines the other versions. To do so would mean to have two totally difference engines ... which just isn't a viable solution due to costs.

It's great for the 1st/2nd parties though.

 

[Raistlin]

Aye, the major advantage to Xenos' unified shading, dynamic management of geometry/pixel resources. Although like most things, it's unlikely to ever display peak theoretical performance. Because you can't dedicate all 48 pipelines to vertex ops, without leaving anything to shade those polygons.

True, but in real-world applications, we've seen the results. Look at the polygon performance of multiplatform titles that were strictly using the RSX for graphics.

 

[DeadGzuz]

True, but in real-world applications, we've seen the results. Look at the polygon performance of multiplatform titles that were strictly using the RSX for graphics.

How do you do that?

 

[Squeak]

I disagree for many cases. While there would be some trade-off in terms of shading (though shader ops aren't 1:1, but that's not important for this argument), the fact that the SPU(s) used for vertex assistance could be used for other stuff (either graphics, or not) means it would be better suited for many cases.

The cycles needed on a single SPU to cull millions of polygons before they are even lifted from RAM, are very well used, and unlike a GPU the SPU can quickly and with relative ease be made to do something else, within the same frame.
On PS3 the programmer has a choice of how to apply the power. On 360 much less so.

That isn't meant as a knock on the PS3. Xenos costs more to fab than RSX iirc, so it would have drove up the cost even more.

:lol
The E-DRAM die is almost purely a cost saving measure to save on the bus to real external VRAM. It has very few advantages of its own. Some "cost saving measure" :lol The overheating EDRAM was one of the main reasons for the RRoD scandal and it even makes the chip more expensive for the entire lifespan of the console.

That doesn't change the fact it causes issues for 3rd party devs. For many games, they have to consider PC, 360, and PS3 development. At best, 360 and PS3 development. You can't make the engines so far removed from each other, that you are truly taking advantage of the PS3 architecture. Now that they are more familiar with the system, they can get the performance pretty much on par with each other via CELL assistance, but I don't think we're going to see a time where the PS3 version dramatically outshines the other versions. To do so would mean to have two totally difference engines ... which just isn't a viable solution due to costs.

It's great for the 1st/2nd parties though.

I'd be much easier to do your best on PS3 and then translate that to the shovelcode stuff with the direct-x API, than the other way around.

 

[Raistlin]

How do you do that?

Obvious framerate drops (or simply a lower framerate), obvious tearing, and/or lowered poly detail?

Madden at 30fps, etc? That sort of thing. There's a reason people complained about titles that didn't use the SPU's at all. They typically had noticeable issues on PS3.

The cycles needed on a single SPU to cull millions of polygons before they are even lifted from RAM, are very well used, and unlike a GPU the SPU can quickly and with relative ease be made to do something else, within the same frame.
On PS3 the programmer has a choice of how to apply the power. On 360 much less so.

That isn't what I'm arguing. You'd have to ask a dev (or are you?) how much SPU resources are required, and how close that gets it to Xenos performance ... but what I'm saying is that it would obviously be better to not have to do it at all. That would give you more SPU resources for other things.

:lol
The E-DRAM die is almost purely a cost saving measure to save on the bus to real external VRAM.

Okay. I'm still under the impression Xenos costs more, so what are you saying?

It has very few advantages of its own.

Um ... okay. Where did I say it did?

Some "cost saving measure" :lol The overheating EDRAM was one of the main reasons for the RRoD scandal and it even makes the chip more expensive for the entire lifespan of the console.

QC and poor design have nothing to do fab costs ... which regardless, I again, was under the impression was higher to begin with.

I'd be much easier to do your best on PS3 and then translate that to the shovelcode stuff with the direct-x API, than the other way around.

That has nothing to do with truly taking advantage of the system. For instance, you can't port the KZ2 engine to 360 ... which is something that's necessary to be a multiplatform title under the vast majority of budgets.

 

[H.Cornerstone]

Was it really the EDRam that caused it? I just thought it was because the Xenos runs extremely hot, semi due to it being overclocked and they used cheap tin to solder than motherboard or something?


Either way, I highly doubt Sony will ever make a system this hard to program for again.

We will probably see a cell or two again, but it will probably much more GPU designed.

 

[Raistlin]

Developer problem probably,but remember that the xbox 360 GPU is not as powerful as is advertise,and you know this when it has a separate scaler to upscale games,and still some games are not even 720p native,so you have to wonder if the xbox 360 had no scaler to help,what the RSX does by pure muscle the xbox 360 GPU does it with the help of a scaler.

That isn't a particularly effective argument, given the number of PS3 games that run sub-720p ... especially considering some run at a lower res the the 360 version in order to achieve similar frame throughput.

 

[Byakuya769]

So mike please,please tell me why guitar hero and its sequels run at a less resolution on PS3 than on 360?
I mean it's guitar hero for gods sake!!!!
And why does GT5 prologue screen tear and drop frames like mad on the london and the mountain track when more than one car is on it?
You can quote all the bull from sony's hype machine you want but what I see on my HDTV screen is a constant stream of games that run at a less quality on PS3 than my 360.
Come on guys WAKE UP!!!!
It's all rubbish and you fell for it.
But it does play dark knight at 1080p and for that I am thankful and the reason why I hold on to my PS3.

.... you won't last long here...

 

[MikeB]

So mike please,please tell me why guitar hero and its sequels run at a less resolution on PS3 than on 360?
I mean it's guitar hero for gods sake!!!!

Hello Barso, IMO it seems to relate to either extreme developer incompetence or no real effort at all. I don't think the game does anything special graphically (only seen it being played a few times), maybe that's why the devs decided it wouldn't matter? Audio wise (which should matter) they should learn from another multi-platform game like DiRT (as quoted on the first page with regard to audio benefits using the Cell).

 

[WTFing]

I am glad it made you laugh but to the general public that are not tech minded like myself the proof is in the pudding.
Sony messed up and no wonder ken kutaragi and phil harrison is elsewhere!
His comment of getting 2 jobs to buy a PS3 kills me!!!!
The PS3 is a mess and if it's sonys downfall then so be it but screw them for disguising a blu-ray player as a games machine.
CELL was designed for one thing and thats high def video playback.

 

[MikeB]

Was it really the EDRam that caused it? I just thought it was because the Xenos runs extremely hot, semi due to it being overclocked and they used cheap tin to solder than motherboard or something?

It's the sum of different factors, but it comes down to using too cheap parts and not enough testing. It wasn't ATi's fault.

Either way, I highly doubt Sony will ever make a system this hard to program for again

It's not hard to program for, easier than for the PS2 actually, it's hard to adopt to (coming from using legacy PC game engines).

 

[Stink]

97% of third parties must be lazy or incompetent.

 

[MikeB]

97% of third parties must be lazy or incompetent.

Nah, most of the time there's little to no difference. But Guitar Hero doesn't seem to be a demanding game, I think they only use the PPE like some launch games (which did a much better job).

 

[Stink]

Lowering framebuffer resolution and upscaling seems to be the second most favourite way of getting the PS3 up to 360 performance levels, just behind turning off the AA (although this is mostly an UE3 problem), if the Digital Foundry blog is to be believed. Even then, 50% of the time the result is still a lower framerate. Of course the key thing with Guitar Hero is that timing is of the utmost importance, far more than the graphical resolution, so it's understandable that that title would be one of the worst.

 

[CowGirl]

I think the ST/Amiga -> PS3/360 comparison that MikeB is attempting to make is:

Atari ST / PS3
--------------
Faster CPU than competitor
Worse GPU than competitor
Multi platform games look worse than competitor
Sells less than competitor

Amiga / 360
-----------
Slower CPU than competitor
Better GPU than competitor
Multi platform games look better than competitor
Sells more than competitor


It's a great analogy Mike. You stick to your guns, don't let the haters bring you down.

 

[Maximilian E.]

I thought it was "common knowledge" that PS3 beats 360 in the CPU department but 360 wins in the GPU department.

Why is this still an argument?

 

[Death Dealer]

Developer problem probably,but remember that the xbox 360 GPU is not as powerful as is advertise,and you know this when it has a separate scaler to upscale games,and still some games are not even 720p native,so you have to wonder if the xbox 360 had no scaler to help,what the RSX does by pure muscle the xbox 360 GPU does it with the help of a scaler.

Actually the X360 does not have a dedicated scaler. The hanna chip or whatever is video output only. Xenos handles scaling. RSX handles scaling too but it's rumored to be broken. Although it can perform factors in either the horizontal or vertical dimension, can't remember.
Scaling is a low cost operation, 2-3% of total RSX resources.

 

[spwolf]

Congrats to everyone for ruining the thread... good work.

 

[Death Dealer]

I thought it was "common knowledge" that PS3 beats 360 in the CPU department but 360 wins in the GPU department.

Why is this still an argument?

The marginal difference in GPU power is completely overshadowed by the colossal CPU advantage, if properly utilized.

 

[Squeak]

I think the ST/Amiga -> PS3/360 comparison that MikeB is attempting to make is:

Atari ST / PS3
--------------
Faster CPU than competitor
Worse GPU than competitor
Multi platform games look worse than competitor
Sells less than competitor

Amiga / 360
-----------
Slower CPU than competitor
Better GPU than competitor
Multi platform games look better than competitor
Sells more than competitor


It's a great analogy Mike. You stick to your guns, don't let the haters bring you down.

God no!
Clearly you don't know either of the four machines.
If anything, hardwarewise, PS3 is as close to a spiritual successor to the Amiga as you are going to get today.

 

[Squeak]

I thought it was "common knowledge" that PS3 beats 360 in the CPU department but 360 wins in the GPU department.

Why is this still an argument?

Because it's not true. Read the thread FFS!

 

[Stink]

who needs empirical evidence when you can read theoretical possibilities in a gaf thread.