Developer Says 2-3 Years Till PS3 is Maxed Out

[Manos]

Things like this is proving my point. Why i found dumb to buy a PS3 back in the days ( only for those not looking for a BR player valid cause for a BR + console then it was worth the price etc so dont get me wrong )? Simple, So expensive and even up till now you see Uncharted. Thats all the console is all about up till not. An Uncharted which is graphically and gameplay wise an amazing game. But Up till the Uncharted 2 + slim/pricedrop PS3 as a console was just not worthy at all. Get what? A PSN promising to get better and still trying to catch up to XBL and crossplatforms that arent even as good with about a year release delay half of them and yet worst versions?

I still remember Sony talking about the amazing possibilities of the PS2's GPU which was another of big words that come out of ppl's mouths to support Sony's console and I will never get the reason. Right now if I had time for more gaming I would actually consider buying me another console and yeah, in about 2 years that most big developers will have tools and engines prepaired to work on and try to make the titles as good as on the 360 it will be even worth it. Till then the PS3's value is still at question for me ( like i said without the BR possibilities cause ive really have all my home theater through my PC. Audio, Video etc is all going through it )

 

[Manos]

[citation][nom]kiniku[/nom]More baseless FUD, PS3 hate, from "expert" programmers that have the time to post misspelled opinions on websites.Let's see who do we believe. PS3 game programmers from Insomniac or tech wannabe help desk jockies with opinions. The PS3 was designed for growth and longevity. The FUD "too hard to program for" dribble is getting old. PS3 exclusives showcase the GAMING power of the PS3 and it will only get better as Insonmiac states. the only time a PS3 game looks average is when it's shackled to a joint release with a 4GB DVD Xbox 360.[/citation]

No we will listen to you that you would pay as much as it was for your PS console and you know nothing about it and also you keep talking about gaming by bringing up the BR . Its funny how the games run smoother and better / faster on the 360 with the DL dvds ( its not 4GB you fully ignorant its aprox. 8.5GB ) and yet you with ALL the data you can fit on your gaming disk of a BR that yet you have to install your games on your system when on the 360 you dont. So when you find me the advantages of the BR you have seen so far PLEASE be the first one to show us your findings so far and a title that does a good use of it. ty come again ( but please next time do it with something useful )

 

[JPForums]

@coder buy
I wouldnt say its technically harder to code for the ps3 just more time needed which equals more money as you actaully need more code.

Actually it is harder. The PPE doesn't automatically figure out how to divide the code between SPEs. That means you have to figure out both how to write you code to take advantage of the parallelism, and figure out the most efficient way of dividing it up. Often developers will have one or more SPEs going significantly underutilized.

@fulle
I don't have time for an argument backing a statement like "The Xbox 360 has a superior graphics card to the PS3" right now (it does).

Since you actually did a decent job explaining the PS3's GPU (RSX), I'll give a brief explanation of the XBOX360's GPU (Xenos). The short of it is the Xenos is a 48 shader GPU based on the R600 (X1900XT) architecture. While the Xenos has 32 GB/s access to eDRAM and 22.4 GB/s access to 512MB GDDR3, it also has to function as the 360's northbridge, thus sharing access to the memory. The CPU to GPU link caps ot at 10.8 GB/s so the GPU will never be memory bandwidth starved, but in certain scenarios, it could affect performance.

The easiest way to compare the RSX to the Xenos is to look at the GF7800GT(X) and the X1900XT(X). It should be general knowledge by now (at least to enthusiasts) that the X1900 series won this battle over all. To be fair, the RSX has the potential to push more pixels per second than the Xenos. However, the shear difference in shader power is too great to overcome in DX9 level games. It should be noted that some of this graphical disadvantage can be compensated by running more complex physic calculations to the Cell's SPEs that the 360 can run.

The PS3 is not tapped. While they've figured out how to keep the whole processor relatively busy, they can still find different operations to do the same thing in less time, given the architecture. Optimizing order of events and load distribution are two things that they are likely, only now getting a feel for. That said, the biggest improvements won't be in graphics. They'll be in physics (which can also be visual) and AI.

@Antilycus
And for all the PC Gamers (I used to be one) that are always touting your system is better then console X, no shit. How much have you spent in video cards in the past 5 years? Probably a lot more then the 300 I spent on launch day for my console system. In the end you get much more out of a gaming console (if you want games) then you do out of a PC, for the price.

Thank you for being the first console gamer I've come across to realize that the only difference between a decent PC that many people have already, and a gaming PC is a good video card.

I spent about $260 on an X1900XT a couple of months after the XBOX360 came out. While it can't max out the settings, It can still play games with equal or better visuals than the current consoles. I will never need to upgrade that system to maintain superiority. It doesn't suddenly become inferior to consoles just because games can be look even better on the newest PC hardware.

Further, most of the major releases I've seen for both console and PC up to this point have retailed at around $60 at launch for console and $40 or $45 for the PC. In general, games are cheaper on PC. Depending on how hardcore you are, or rather how many games you buy, you can save enough money over a console to by better mice and keyboards, upgrade the memory, or even the CPU or Video Card down the road. Twenty games at a savings of $15 per game gives you another $300 video card right there. That said, there were rather popular versions of each console selling for well over $300 at launch. You can pay a little more for a better experience.

There are other reason to like PC gaming aside from the hardware superiority. The PC has a plethora of control devices including the gamepads you typically see on consoles. I like my keyboard and mouse, joystick, racing wheel, and game pad. You can choose whatever control you like. Also, better cooling makes well built PC's less likely to burn out than console. A lot of people had a lot of trouble with warranties on their consoles. More still had them go out just after the warranty expired.

I wonder if reasonable people would actually spend more on video cards or replacing their consoles in five years. I know two people personally that have bought three since the consoles came out. One had to replace his 360 twice, the other replaced his PS3 twice. You should have seen the look on his face each time when he was preaching the better reliability of the the PS3 and then his croaked less than a week afterward each time.

 

[fulle]

[citation][nom]duckmanx88[/nom]lol fulle .what kind of idiot argues that the ps3 and 360 have old hardware. they came our 3 and 4 years ago. and just because the hardware is old doesn't means its reached its full potential. why do you think drivers get update for nvidia and ATI. moron.[/citation]

This'll be my last post for this article. I already look like a troll on this one.

I was mocking the PS3's graphics card because I believe it's the PS3's primary weak point when it comes to its ability to produce good looking games. The low memory, and low memory bandwidth simply won't allow newer games to be programed for a higher resolution, and since the hardware's quite old, developers know how to program for it. Because the graphics card is so imporntant, and its reached it full potential, that leaves the only performance gains to be from the stupid, hard to program for, parallel CPU. But, the parallel CPU isn't the primary bottleneck to begin with, and current games are multi-million dollar projects that couldn't afford to ignore any areas of lost performance. Programmers are already fighting with and extracting most of the performance they ever are out of that crap CPU, which means that any remaining performance gains are going to be pretty small, if not irrelevant.

I'm looking at it as if I had a computer with say a E6400 OCd to 3GHz, like 1GB of RAM, slow and tiny HD, and a 7900 GTX 256MB. And lets pretend that's what everyone has had a similar system for 4 years. Now, lets pretend a developer comes along and says they are making a new game engine that'll run a lot faster, because they're improving the way they program for the E6400 CPU. But, we're bottlenecked primarily on the Graphics card and memory, why the hell do we care if they're improving the way they program for the CPU? It'll increase performance by like 5%, and have no effect at all at higher resolutions.

If anyone doesn't get why I think James Stevenson was just trying to create hype and talking out his ass at this point... well, I give up on you. I've beaten a dead horse too much already.

 

[10tacle]

I'm both a PC gamer (build and o/c my own rigs) and a PS3 gamer. Since I can't carry my PC very easily on board planes on business trips, the PS3 suffices just swell - and also makes a great portable home entertainment centerpiece when visiting family during the holidays and showing off home movies and pictures. So there!

 

[matt87_50]

[citation][nom]fulle[/nom]Whatever. The PS3's videocard SUCKS. Its NV47 based with 256MB of memory.... which puts it on par with 7800 series Nvidia graphics cards. I wouldn't care if the PS3 has a fucking 5GHz 9 core Nehalem CPU in it, its not going to get much better than what we're seeing now because its bottlenecked by a crap videocard with insufficient memory. The hardware is tapped people. Its fucking tapped.[/citation]


he IS right. the reason the PS3 is so hard to develop for is because you have to constantly nurse the GPU along, you have to constantly offload graphics processing back to the spus during the rendering pipeline! its not clever, its just a massive pain in the ass!

the GPU was maxed out from day 1! granted there is more potential to get out of the PS3 (cause refining the above mentioned extremely convoluted process takes time)

if you are going to have a dedicated processor that does GRAPHICS and nothing else, it should atleast be able to handle it by itself!

 

[DouglasYBCO]

M'eh, Some of the best games I've ever played were on a Spectrum +2. Now, that is old hardware!

I can sympathise with many of the arguments here. I think we can agree that a PC has the most graphical grunt at present (although at launch of the Pbox and XS3 I thought the same was true). However you'll pay through the nose for it and there is another fanyboy argument right there about what you should spend your money on.

The article is more editorial than a concrete statement about some mythical untapped potential. The person quoted is entitled to his opinion. You only need judge it on the basis of who pays his salary. Optimisation of developer/code procedures happens for most if not all popular hardware. It's probably still going on for the crowd of people making games for the PS2 - they do still do that? Don't they??

I’ll admit to not owning either of the 2nd or 3rd most popular consoles. Still, when sitting on a couch for a gaming night with friends it has never really mattered what colour of controller I’m handed the games mostly play exactly the same and fun is always had. It is, after all, mean to be entertainment!

 

[megamanx00]

Well, graphically the PS3 is closer to a DX9 GPU while the 360 is closer to a DX10 GPU. Granted the Open GL like API on the PS3 is notably cleaner, and thus faster, than DX9, it still uses something closer to 3.0 shaders at a time when developers are moving to DX10 and DX11 unified shaders, as well as hardware tessellation which is present in the 360.

It's true that the PS3s GPU may have more raw polygon processing power, but as we enter the age of shaders the more advanced shaders and hardware tessellation on the 360 will prove beneficial and help it keep up with the PS3. Of course the PS3s CPU is also considerably more difficult to optimize code for, and thus as long as the PS3 has a higher development cost the XBox 360 will continue to have cheaper games and more of them.

Of course, a PC with a Radeon 5870 and a good CPU would crush the PS3 or 360 visually .

 

[bob_vicktor]

A lot of people have given some very good points about whether the PS3 is or isn't capable of giving better graphics, and there are more then a few references to how hard it is to program for it. The problem with many of those arguments, however, is the lack of credibility.
I, for one, will straight out admit that I only have a basic understanding of the subject. I don't even own a PS3 or XBox360. What I do own is a PS2. The same system that had relatively crap hardware when compared to the Xbox, yet in my experience had comparable gaming capabilities (except load times...). Has anybody here ever played Burnout Revenge? It might have taken a few years for the developers to reach that point, but the results are amazing! I still can't believe the level of graphics and complexity in that game, all running on the equivalent to some Pentium 3.
Fast forward to the current generation. Games on both systems have been growing in complexity in a similar manner to the venerable PS2 that still sits on store shelves (and sells). I agree with James Stevenson. Whether it is because of a difficult learning curve at the fault of Sony, or because the stars have yet to align, the capabilities of both systems will only grow as developers learn new programming tricks in the years to come.

 

[Guest]

More like 5 years

 

[r0x0r]

I think there's some merit in what Insomniac have come out and said.

Just look at the timeline of the PS1 and PS2. New game with amazing graphics comes out, everyone says "It's maxed!", then 12 months later something even better looking comes out.

 

[falchard]

I thought the PS3 was maxed out the second they shipped it with 256MB of ram.

 

[Atticah]

the best console is a phone they always update everything

 

[nachowarrior]

I don't get why these consoles in\/est so much in hardware then lock it down and make it un-changable for 4+ years... Architectures impro\/e so fast that it's just down right stupid to not want to ship consoles more frequently. the problem is they ha\/e no backward compatibility, like a pc. Nintendo has it right on this one. less expensi\/e consoles, more games, more consoles... they just need to push up on the graphics a tad and down on the price a tad, but only competition in the market will work to do that, and lets face it... nintendo will jack their prices until one of the other companies decides to compete on the lower end graphics market.

BTW, don't waste your money on a ps3... it truly is a waste when compared to a pc. no functionality.

 

[Zingam]

[citation][nom]microterf[/nom]First off, you can't compare PC to PS3 or 360. I have $650 in my trifire video cards alone. I can't expect a $300 system to have the same graphics processing. Second, The article is quite possibly correct in stating."I still think you're not going to see the PS3 really maxed out for another two to three years. We're using all of the PS3 right now, but you can always be more efficient in the way you use it."This is because as anyone that I can write a 3d Engine in C++ that appears the same exact way John Carmack writes the same APPEARING Engine, but his will be a LOT more efficient, and perform better. All the article is saying is that this is the first time developers have used the tools (SDK?) that the PS3 need to develop. As time goes on in a few years they will learn new tricks within the SDK that allow them to be more efficient, thus getting more out of the same hardware that was available 3 years prior.[/citation]


Yeah, right! Everybody has 600 dollars in graphics cards alone! I wouldn't pay more than 600 including the LCD display and I would expect it to play games! :]

 

[g00ey]

[citation][nom]IronRyan21[/nom]@ fulle, Thats why im a PC gamer......[/citation]

But doesn't the (relatively) inferior hardware in the consoles affect the PC-Gamers too? Some of the games are initially adapted to the hardware limitations of the gaming consoles and then when they are ported to the PC they don't get improved as much as they should if they are supposed to use all the potential in the newer graphics cards. Maybe I'm wrong here but sometimes it feels that way.

 

[randomizer]

You mean it's going to take them a total of 5-6 years to fully utilise obsolete hardware? Damn, these developers are incompetents.

 

[Guest]

I remember when they were maxing out the capabilties of the PS2. It still looked pretty awful compared to a reasonable PC.

The PS3 may max out, but it will still looked dated to any PC technology. Roll on PS4

 

[nelson_nel]

[citation][nom]fulle[/nom]@kireI hope your wrong. Because the longer the 360 and PS3 survive, the longer they'll be the platforms developers program for, and thus hold up the entire gaming industry. Personally, I'm sick of games being programed for DX9 and 5 year+ old graphics cards. Do you have any remote clue how inferior the hardware is in that PS3 is to a Radeon 5850? Its pathetic![/citation]

You're a selfish kind of guy, huh? It isn't consoles that are holding back development, it's software pirating. PS3 has absolutely 0 known priating righ tnow and for awhile Xbox360 was clean. Even with the X360 modded, piracy on there is NOWHERE near as bad as it always is on the PC. Don't you ever read the countless devs that say they would like to do PC specific games (even though they are a NIGHTMARE with their various HW configs) but there's no longer any real money in it because all of the peopel who demand the games are the ones that refuse to purchase them.

You want everything for nothing. It is way easier and more cost effective for the companies to make games on a console (particularly the 360) and port it to PC than to develop for PC where they will make jack.

That's not the consoles fault. Consoles didn't start pirating your PC games.... Don't you think?

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]nelson_nel[/nom]Don't you ever read the countless devs that say they would like to do PC specific games (even though they are a NIGHTMARE with their various HW configs) but there's no longer any real money in it because all of the peopel who demand the games are the ones that refuse to purchase them.[/citation]
You actually believe all those BS excuses?