id Says Rage on 360 Runs Faster Than PS3, Brings the Ruckus

[Keane Ng]

id Says Rage on 360 Runs Faster Than PS3, Brings the Ruckus

id Software and John Carmack caused, in their own words, a "ruckus" by revealing that the 360 version of the developer's upcoming FPS Rage runs twice as fast on the 360 as it does on the PS3.

id Software seems to be having some problems getting their PS3 version of their next big shoot-em-up, Rage, to run as well as its counterparts. The PC version, reports EDGE Magazine, runs at a solid 60 frames per second. The 360 version keeps up with it frame for frame. The PS3 version, meanwhile, isn't doing as hot. When EDGE saw [http://edge-online.com/news/carmack-ps3-performance-lags-behind-360] it, it was going at just 20-30 FPS.

"The PS3 does lag a little bit behind in terms of getting the performance out of it," id mastermind John Carmack admitted. "The rasteriser is just a little bit slower - no two ways about that...processing wise, the main CPU is about the same, but the 360 makes it easier to split things off, and that's where a lot of the work has been, splitting it all into jobs on the PS3."

Appropriate to the name of the game, response from some gamers was apparently less than positive, with some doubting id's commitment to Sony's console. id issued an official response denying these accusations, however. "The Edge Magazine article has caused quite a ruckus," the official Rage Twitter wrote [http://twitter.com/RAGEgame/status/2953312605]. "We are committed to ensuring that gamers on all platforms have a great RAGE experience."

Carmack himself is confident that the PS3 version will shape up in the future. "Everything is designed as a 60 hertz game. We expect this to be 60 hertz on every supported platform," he said. "The work remaining is getting it locked so there's never a dropped frame or a tear, but we're confident that we're going to get that."

Well if anyone can do it, it's John Carmack, right?


Permalink

 

[Zer_]

Coming from Carmack, that's quite a surprise. Makes me wonder just how much of a pain in the neck the PS3 is to develop for.

For the record, Carmack is the industry's leading engine programmer. He brought us .bsp maps in Doom/Wolf 3D, he brought us true 3D polygons in Quake, and he made the Tech3 (Quake 3) engine which surpassed the UE99 and UE2 engines in licenses.

 

[manaman]

That is what you hear constantly. Seems no matter how many times someone or a company tells people it is harder to program for the PS3 they just respond with chastisement or they just think the company is lying so they do not have to program for the PS3, cause everyone knows companies are fanboys and not really interested in making money.

 

[Zer_]

Coming from Carmack, that's quite a surprise. Makes me wonder just how much of a pain in the neck the PS3 is to develop for.

Well, it is supposed to be intentionally difficult to develop for.
But you probably knew that.

Oh yeah, that. That's like saying we intentionally put those barbed wire fences to keep injured and sick people out of hospitals.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

id Says Rage on 360 Runs Faster Than PS3, Brings the Ruckus

I'm not lying: Best headline ever. This pretty much brings up the issue of Sony making their console difficult to develop for, it may well bite them in the arse. However Carmack is a god, so I guess he can make it happen.

Where is Mazty anyway?

 

[Monshroud]

Well the issue is that the PS3 is difficult to program for. Just ask any developer out there, hence why the PS3 lost a bunch of exclusive titles that turned into multi-platform titles. Spec wise the PS3 is absolutely more powerful than a 360, the catch is re-designing your code to take advantage of all that horsepower, with budget issues and deadlines, it makes coding for the thing very difficult.

But heck, Sony wants it that way...

 

[SinisterDeath]

Its easy to understand why it doesn't work as good compared to 360.
It was made for PC/360 first, the codeing, the architecture is based on standard PC/360 design. You can't simply except to put an NES in an Saga and expect it to work.

If game companies want to make multi-platform games, they have to learn from past examples, that any game thats multi-platform, designed to run on the ps3/360 from the get-go is going to work better then if its designed on the pc then the ps3. The archicture for the Ps3 is a oneway street. Ps3 - > pc/360. (or in conjunction) but going pc/360 -> Ps3 does not work.
Ps3 has to put things like phsyics, AI, on the SPE's, The main Processor on the PS3 is a Single Core Processor, which is slightly slower then the 360's 3, 3.0ghz Processors. But the PS3's got 6 useable SPE's that operate at the same speed. Its like trying to run a quad-core optimized program, on a single-core CPU. Thats what they are doing with Rage. It don't work.

In order to make it work, they have to split it up. They have to put some of the proccesses on each SPE, Thats how its meant to work. They can't simply press a button and expect to decompile it to work from 360 to ps3. They litterally have to code it For The Ps3, and going from Ps3 to 360 is so much easier, as it requries far less 'manaual' coding to make it work. Infact, since everythings already split up, they can combine it together to be split onto the 3 Processors of the 360.

I'm suprised though, didn't ID make UT3? Woulda thought they'd have known going from ps3 to 360 = easier then 360 to ps3.

 

[Zer_]

Well the issue is that the PS3 is difficult to program for. Just ask any developer out there, hence why the PS3 lost a bunch of exclusive titles that turned into multi-platform titles. Spec wise the PS3 is absolutely more powerful than a 360, the catch is re-designing your code to take advantage of all that horsepower, with budget issues and deadlines, it makes coding for the thing very difficult.

But heck, Sony wants it that way...

the real shitter here is that id has coded Tech5 to work on all platforms right from the start, that includes the PS3. It's not just a port so to speak. Anyways, this has my wondering just how bad it really is to work on the PS3.

Having seen LucasArt's troubles with the PS3 version of The Force Unleashed first hand, I instantly knew then that the PS3 was not a port-friendly platform, but LucasArts made TFU primarily on the 360 and then ported it to the PS3. PS3 testing for us started quite a while after the 360's testing began. Anyways, having Carmack come out and say that they are having some issues with the PS3 version of Rage really gets me to wonder why the hell Sony intentionally failed so badly.

 

[Syphonz]

Well my first question will be this:

"Which console did you originally develop it for?"

If 360 first, then the following question will be:

"Did you pull an EA and just slap the format on a Blu-ray and call it a day?"

If so, then theres your reason why the 360 runs better...

 

[jboking]

Instead of trying to comprehend what sinister death just wrote, I think I'll ask something that could be a stupid question. What is Rage and why should I care?

 

[Zer_]

Well my first question will be this:

"Which console did you originally develop it for?"

If 360 first, then the following question will be:

"Did you pull an EA and just slap the format on a Blu-ray and call it a day?"

If so, then theres your reason why the 360 runs better...

Nope... Tech5 is coded from the ground up to be a multi-platform title. All builds of the engine are being coded concurrently.

 

[Jhereg42]

I'm suprised though, didn't ID make UT3? Woulda thought they'd have known going from ps3 to 360 = easier then 360 to ps3.

Isn't it just as easy to argue though that the approach you were suggesting is counter intuitive to a programmer like Carmack (and ID) who has worked with Direct X for so long that they find it easier to use? It's kind of like taking a person who has driven a car his whole life and expecting him to ride a motorcycle. He may be passable, but he won't be doing any tricks or taking any hairpin turns on it for a long time.

 

[Syphonz]

Well my first question will be this:

"Which console did you originally develop it for?"

If 360 first, then the following question will be:

"Did you pull an EA and just slap the format on a Blu-ray and call it a day?"

If so, then theres your reason why the 360 runs better...

Nope... Tech5 is coded from the ground up to be a multi-platform title. All builds of the engine are being coded concurrently.

Then I stand corrected. Thank you good sir.

 

[farmerboy219]

this really means nothing, if movies are filmed at 24 frames per second (no not 25 frames per second) which look fine. any more frames per second wont make the game better, improve graphics or make it look superior in anyway.

all FPS will change is the amount of frames an animator has to animate something and human eyes are adapted to looking at tv's which are using 24 fps or 25 fps, it will look no different

 

[Malkavian]

Instead of trying to comprehend what sinister death just wrote, I think I'll ask something that could be a stupid question. What is Rage and why should I care?

Next FPS from ID, and you should care because... Well because it's the next FPS from ID.

Meh. I'm excited anyway. And if these trouble contrinue, I'm just glad I ordered an X360 today.

 

[Neosage]

I'm suprised though, didn't ID make UT3? Woulda thought they'd have known going from ps3 to 360 = easier then 360 to ps3.

No. That would be Epic.

 

[Zer_]

this really means nothing, if movies are filmed at 24 frames per second (no not 25 frames per second) which look fine. any more frames per second wont make the game better, improve graphics or make it look superior in anyway.

all FPS will change is the amount of frames an animator has to animate something and human eyes are adapted to looking at tv's which are using 24 fps or 25 fps, it will look no different

It's a very common misconception that the human eye can only see ~30FPS. In fact you simply cannot measure the eye's ability to "see" in Frames Per Second. The only reason a movie at 25 frames per second looks smooth is because of motion blur. You have to have a much higher FPS to have something look smooth without any motion blur techniques.

It's also a 60hz game, therefore it'll only really look smooth when approaching 60FPS or more.

 

[jboking]

Instead of trying to comprehend what sinister death just wrote, I think I'll ask something that could be a stupid question. What is Rage and why should I care?

Next FPS from ID, and you should care because... Well because it's the next FPS from ID.

Meh. I'm excited anyway. And if these trouble contrinue, I'm just glad I ordered an X360 today.

Didn't Id make Doom 3...on that thought, anything else released to be exciting about this game.

on topic, 3 questions...why do we care about the frames per second; isn't it still the same game? Also, if Id said that they would have it up to par before release I once again have to ask, Why do we care? Finally, Are we really so surprised by them telling us something we probably already knew?(that being that the ps3 is hard to program for)

 

[phoenix352]

Instead of trying to comprehend what sinister death just wrote, I think I'll ask something that could be a stupid question. What is Rage and why should I care?

its what people on the interwebs called the big "omfg Fallout 3 Rip-Off omgbbq!!!!"