Sony claims PS3 was made deliberately difficult to program for.
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Let me ask you: what console has had its best looking games (or best in general) released in the first 3 years of its lifespan? Discounting those that have been discontinued in such a time, of course. If you think that this applies only to Sony's consoles, you're pretty much ignoring 20 years of console history right there.Mazty said:
It's only natural that games start taking more out of their platform as developers get acquainted to it. Making the development hard intentionally is just silly from that perspective. In Sony's case, the Cell wasn't the biggest of the problems developers had, it was also the shitty tools (though Sony has been fixing that as time has gone by).
Ok, here's an example of how to do it right:
The PS2. It had an obscenely huge library, and by the time that the PS3 was on the horizon, some of the exclusives that were being made for it looked like next-generation games. Case in point: MGS3. I remember having my jaw drop a few times, thinking "This is a PS2 game!??"
I'm going with Gabe Newall of Valve on this one. There is no excuse to having a console that is so difficult to program for that developers run for greener pastures.
The PS2. It had an obscenely huge library, and by the time that the PS3 was on the horizon, some of the exclusives that were being made for it looked like next-generation games. Case in point: MGS3. I remember having my jaw drop a few times, thinking "This is a PS2 game!??"
I'm going with Gabe Newall of Valve on this one. There is no excuse to having a console that is so difficult to program for that developers run for greener pastures.
You don't have to take ANYONE's word for it.Indigo_Dingo said:
Just a little research and some common sense will tell you that it's relatively easy to get the maximum performance out of a GPU, especially when it's the slowest component in your rig. You can safely bet the RSX is churning out as many fps as it can.
Oh, you mean that game that looks like a graphically updated version of Indigo Prophecy, with way more quick-time events? Yeah, you aren't convincing me with that. Are the graphics good? Sure they are, no doubt. But that doesn't make the game good. And to call a game that isn't even out yet 'innovative' is a bit presumptuous. I remember Dai Katana was said to also be super great.Indigo_Dingo said:
And I'm not so sure the PS3 is the 'only system that can handle it'.
And, finally, I'm not saying that more powerful hardware means no imagination. I'm saying that if a company has to spend more money on programming the game because of some convoluted, and purposefully difficult development software, then they have less money and time to spend on the creative side of the game. Powerful hardware is fine, just don't stunt the developers on purpose for marketing BS.
Like I said, it's silly to assume this doesn't apply to every console since history has shown us that the games with the best tech have been released around the end of a console's lifespan since the NES. Earlier, even. It's natural progression.Mazty said:
I understand buying a console for its current library but the whole "I'm buying a console for its future potential" thing is sheer stupidity to put it bluntly. That potential might never be realized and in that case, all you have to show for that is an expensive doorstop like the 3DO (I'm not saying the PS3 is this, but at one point it was possible for it to end up like it).
I'm quoting this post so it doesn't get lost, since it's on the bottom of the last page. This is the best post in the thread, hands down.SuperFriendBFG said:No.SinisterDeath said:It makes sense if you understand the ps3.
In most comparison tests, the ps3 and 360 are equal.
The Cell Processor however, CAN be more powerful, like, 10x more powerful than the 360's cpu & GPU, if used CORRECTLY.
And that 'correctness' mostly has to do, with programming games, around the cell. They could have made it 'easy', so to speak, but that would make the 'total power' that the developers working on, less. Making it 'harder', will allow them to do 'more'...
Kinda think of it like this.
Its easy to carry a brick of gold up hill. But the reward is significantly greater, if you can carry several bricks of gold up hill.
Now, what Sony COULD have done, if its as 'deliberate' as the OP made it sound. They could have released 'advanced' tools for the 'advanced' games, and 'easy' tools, for the 'easy' games.
GPU
"The 360 GPU is more powerful. It has more powerful fillrate, and far more pixel and vertex processing horsepower. Part of the reason is their choice of memory, and architecture of pixel and vertex procesing. I can't get into details but the same vertex shader will run much slower on the PS3 than the XBOX 360. The 360 also has a clever new way rendering high definition anti aliased back buffers. To accomplish the same effect on PS3 is prohibitively expensive. For this reason I think many games will have no choice but to run in non-HD resolutions on the PS3 version, use a lower quality anti aliasing technique, or do back buffer upscaling. The end result in all cases is going to be noticeably worse image quality."
---------------
CPU
"Theoretically, the Xenon can achieve a maximum performance of 116 gigaflops, while the Cell, in combination of the PPE and the 8 SPEs can achieve a maximum of 205 Gigaflops. But in reality, these numbers are never reached, due to inefficiencies in the architecture. But the question here is, which CPU gets closer to its maximum theoretical performance? For this, we have to identify where in the architecture potential bottlenecks can occur.
In the Xenon, each core is independent of the other, meaning what goes on in one core does not affect the other. In the Cell, the SPEs are dependent on the PPE for tasks to be issued to them. This may not be a problem normally, but if the PPE is under significant computational load, that can affect how it handles the SPEs, thus the SPEs may end up waiting for an overworked PPE to deliver them tasks. Additionally, the Cell only supports two hardware threads, raising the possibility that not enough tasks can be put on two threads to keep the SPEs busy, in some situations. The Xenon supports 6 hardware threads (2 per core), allowing to be more effective at multitasking. Thus, the cores can be kept busy more of the time.
Another issue is the element interconnect bus (EIB) on the Cell. Originally, IBM had wanted to use a crossbar to connect all the cores, but the number of transistors would have become prohibitively high. So to save die space, IBM went with a ring bus-type interconnect. This has lower bandwidth and higher latency than a crossbar, which can induce delays within the CPU, especially during periods of peak data transfer. The cores on the Xenon communicate over a crossbar and through the shared L2 cache, much like how cores communicate on Intel's Core 2 Duo architecture.
The SPEs in the Cell are also limited in what types of instructions they can execute. For any instruction that cant be handled by the SPEs, they must be handled by the PPE. This limits the Cell's capability in some instances. It also puts more load on the PPE and again can overload the PPE, leaving the SPEs waiting for tasks to be issued. The Xenon has 3 cores that can handle any type of task given to them. While not as powerful as the Cell, it is more flexible.
Yet another issue brought up is the Cell's on die memory controller. It has been claimed that this gives it an advantage over the Xenon, as had been said about AMD's CPUs compared to Intel's. However, with the advent of the Core 2 Duo, the memory controller claims were debunked, the location of it has a negligible impact on performance, whether on die or not. It should be noted that the Cell uses a serial bus to connect to the memory. The XDR RAM used is designed by Rambus and is based on RDRAM. For anyone who remembers RDRAM, it had more bandwidth than the parallel DDR modules used at the time, but the latency was very high. So high in fact that it negated any speed advantage it had over DDR, and was eventually phased out. While XDR is improved, it still has higher latencies than the GDDR3 memory used on the 360.
Also, it should be brought up that you don't have all 8 SPEs in the Cell available for gaming. One is disabled for yield improvement, one is reserved exclusively for the operating system, even if not being used. Another can be taken by the operating system if needed. This only leaves 5 SPEs available to the game at any given time. It should also be noted that the SPEs lack branch prediction. One of the claims made is that the Cell is far better for AI and physics. While this is true for physics calculations, AI code is extremely branch intensive and is filled with conditional statements. Thus, the Cell's performance suffers when it comes to AI, as only the PPE features branch prediction. The Xenon is better suited for AI in this case, as all three of its cores include branch prediction.
Despite its shortcomings, the Cell is still an incredibly powerful processor. However, the Xenon is not too far behind. And the fact that the R500 features a programmable tessalator may even negate any speed advantage that the Cell has - when it comes to gaming anyways."
/thread.
Making something more difficult to do doesn't mean the result is any better, and I don't actually follow how logic can tell you otherwise. Difficulty with the development tools isn't going to do anything more than frustrate teams, slow them down and cause them to cut features in the end. The only benefit is many of the features will remain untapped for a certain portion of the product's life cycle, meaning there is always "just a little more power" to harness. The downside is many users simply do not see any evidence of the PS3's supposed hardware superority.bad rider said:
And the metacritic score by platform doesn't tell me anything other than you get more garbage games on some platforms than others, and even that conculsion is sketchy.
Agreed. I find it reassuring when Sony take thier time to develop the titles i'm anticipating, instead of just shovelling out crap.TheNecroswanson said:
I knew they were arrogant in the first place with the PS3 but...wow, talk about making no friends on purpose.
Oh well, just give me heavy, rain, and a price cut, so I can buy the bloody system.
If they do give a price cut soon though, either the manufacturing cost sharply dropped or they truly are arrogant.
Oh well, just give me heavy, rain, and a price cut, so I can buy the bloody system.
If they do give a price cut soon though, either the manufacturing cost sharply dropped or they truly are arrogant.
Yeah but if you look at consoles it makes sense, I was pretty shocked by the pc as well.L33tsauce_Marty said:Well that is interesting. But as you see the PC which is easy to program on is about the same as the PS3.bad rider said:Credit where credit is due, he has a point. If you make things difficult to program for your options get larger and more varied, whereas simple programming = simple options. That said I think Sony tends toward the extreme instead of going for the middle ground. But hey, they wanted to build a big powerful behemoth and thats what they are built.
Pretty much sums it up.
Probably not. Not even touching the 360, I'll go with the PC.Baby Tea said:
And don't even tell me that the PC doesn't count, because it plays games for Thor's sake. Or are we just assuming it can already?
Well I am using this the graph to portray it, although I can't say it's evidence as a correlation can be due to other factors, but what I'm saying is your options are greater allowing for more to be done, while it may frustrate teams it's a case of you can get far better quality which this correlation may suggest. But I am saying that and maybe only developers who want to make killer apps or have experience with the PS3 will make games with it stoping the flow of bad games (look at the wii)so I don't know maybe, but the correlation shows it and maybe it's also a case of developers get frustrated, but can still make higher quality games for it. Though Sony do seem to be developing for the long term and a harder difficulty fits in with that plan.Eclectic Dreck said:
For the first console to market, having specific strengths is particularly important. When a game is built using those strengths, it becomes a natural exclusive due to being a PITA to port. This cements the lead.
For the second console to market, it's critical not to have big weaknesses versus console #1 because developers are already investing in #1 and you can't afford to make it difficult to port to your system. See how Sony tacked the RSX on their system at the last minute. They could probably have gone with a lot less GPU had their console been the first one out, but when they were behind, they needed to match the 360 in all areas. OTOH console #2's individual strengths matter less, so Sony now has to pay for all their nice hardware even though devs do not use it fully.
So the way I see this is that Sony's design was a big gamble. Had they gotten a head start, their approach could have been a huge headache for Microsoft, but now that things went the other way, they got hamstrung.
Naturally there was the other gamble (Blu-Ray) which played a considerable part in why the PS3 almost flopped. I certainly hope the income from BR turns out to cover the PS3 troubles for Sony; if Microsoft got to own the entire console market, it would turn to shit for everyone else, including their own customers.
For the second console to market, it's critical not to have big weaknesses versus console #1 because developers are already investing in #1 and you can't afford to make it difficult to port to your system. See how Sony tacked the RSX on their system at the last minute. They could probably have gone with a lot less GPU had their console been the first one out, but when they were behind, they needed to match the 360 in all areas. OTOH console #2's individual strengths matter less, so Sony now has to pay for all their nice hardware even though devs do not use it fully.
So the way I see this is that Sony's design was a big gamble. Had they gotten a head start, their approach could have been a huge headache for Microsoft, but now that things went the other way, they got hamstrung.
Naturally there was the other gamble (Blu-Ray) which played a considerable part in why the PS3 almost flopped. I certainly hope the income from BR turns out to cover the PS3 troubles for Sony; if Microsoft got to own the entire console market, it would turn to shit for everyone else, including their own customers.
Hey if you ignore user reviews their site isn't bad, in fact whats wrong with it. All it does is get a mean score of what people say to show an "unbiased" score.Doug said:Wait, its Metacritic...nevermindjohnman said:Oh my god a chart!!! It must be true!!!bad rider said:
Pretty much sums it up.