Harmonix Developer on the PS3

Abooie

Abooie

Abooie

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http://jbooth.blogspot.com/2007/10/ps3-misconceptions-and-spin.html

I read various game forums from time to time, and often see gamers complaining about 'lazy ports' to the ps3. They often mention how the ps3 is the most powerful game console and blame developers working on the console for doing a bad job. Sony has all of these people duped by impressive marketing spin, and I'm often amazed at how potent this type of rhetoric proves to be. For those unaware, I'm going to break it down simply and explain exactly why ports to the ps3 will never be as good as their 360 counter parts, and why most ps3 exclusives will likely continue to suck. First, lets debunk a few common misconceptions:

"The PS3 is more graphically advanced than the 360"

Fill rate is one of the primary ways to measure graphics performance - in essence, it's a number describing how many pixel operations you can perform. The fill rate on the PS3 is significantly slower than on the 360, meaning that games either have to run at lower resolution or use simpler shader effects to achieve the same performance. Additionally, the shader processing on the ps3 is significantly slower than on the 360, which means that a normal map takes more fill rate to draw on the ps3 than it does on the 360. And I'm not talking about small differences here, we're talking roughly half the pixel pushing power.

"Ok, fine, but the cell is like, super powerful"

In theory, sure, but in reality it doesn't work out that way. Game code simply doesn't split well across multiple processors. You can probably find a way to split a few things off fairly easily - put the audio on one processor, animation on another; but generally the breakup is always going to leave several of the SPUs idle or underutilized. On top of that, it's usually not CPU speed that restricts the visuals in games - it's fill rate.

"Uh, Blue Ray!"

Great for watching movies, but not so great for games. Getting data off the blue ray drive takes about twice as long as it does to get the same data off the 360's DVD drive. That translates into longer load times, or god forbid if your streaming from disk, tighter constraints on the amount of data you can stream.

"But it's got a lot more space than DVD"

Ok, you got me there - it does have a lot more space, and there is the potential to use that to do something cool, but thats unlikely to be realized in any useful way. There are tons of compression techniques available for data and I'd personally rather be able to get my data faster than have more of it. Most developers who use the entire Blue Ray drive are doing it to work around other problems with the ps3 such as it's slow loading - for instance, in Resistance: Fall of Man, every art asset is stored on disk once for every level that uses it. So rather than storing one copy of a texture, you're storing it 12 times. If you took that entire game and removed all the duplicate data, it would likely fit on a DVD without any problem. They do this to speed up load times, which, as I pointed out before, are painfully slow on the ps3. So in this case, the extra space is completely wasted.

"Once developers figure out the PS3 they'll maximize the hardware and it will be amazing"

I suspect a small number of PS3 only developers will optimize the hardware to do something cool. However, this will be an exception to the rule, and will likely involved game designs that are specifically designed for the hardware and funded by Sony. If those will prove to be fun or not is another question.

Most of the performance centric research into the PS3 has been around making it easier for developers to get the same level of performance you get out of the 360 naturally. For instance, some developers are using those extra SPU's on the cell to prepare data for the rendering pipeline. Basically, they take the data they would normally send to the graphics chip, send it to an SPU which optimizes it in some manner, then send it to the graphics chip. So, once again we see an 'advantage' in hardware being used to make up for a disadvantage in another area - a common theme with the ps3. And this introduces an extra frame of latency into the equation, making controller response slower.

So, the common theme is this; developers must spend significantly more time and resources getting the PS3 to do what the 360 can already do easily and with a lot less code. Lets look at how this translates into practical realities for a moment:

Why the PS3 version often pails in comparison to the 360 version, and why exclusives often suck:

As outlined above, getting equivalent performance out of the PS3 requires a lot of work unique to the platform, and in many cases, even with all these tricks, you still won't see equivalent performance. Thus, many ps3 games have simplified shaders and run at lower native resolutions than the 360 versions. On top of this, there is shrinking incentive to do this work; the PS3 isn't selling.

The code needed to make the PS3 work is most likely only useful to you on the PS3, as the types of tricks you need to do to make the thing perform are very unique to the platform and unlikely to be useful on any other architecture now or in the future. These issues all stem from unbalanced hardware design, and any future hardware that is this unbalanced will likely be unbalanced in a completely unique way.

Finally, there's the problem of resources. Game Development is, at it's heart, a resource management challenge. Given finite resources, do I have these five engineers work on optimizing the PS3 version to look better, or do I use them to make the game play better and fix bugs? Do I change my design to fit with what the PS3 hardware does well, or simply run the game at a slightly lower resolution on the PS3 to make up for it? Developers striving to push the PS3 hardware have often sacrificed their game in the process.

This post might come across as a lot of Sony bashing, but it's just the reality from the trenches. Sony let their hardware be designed by a comity of business interests rather than a well thought out design that would serve the game development community. They are going to loose hard this round because of it, and I hope that in the next round they take lessons from this round and produce a more balanced and usable machine.
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Interesting read.
 
Interesting read.

Just a few points of my own

Its Blu Ray. :P

And once Developers get to grips with Sony hardware, we will definately see some good games.

Just in the way we already see good games on 360.

I hope this doesnt go the way of many threads, and end up PS3 vs 360, Even though thats what the opening quote is kinda doing on its own.

PS3 WILL HAVE AMAZING GAMES

360 HAS AMAZING GAMES AND WILL HAVE GOOD GAMES IN THE FUTURE.

Blu ray is a good movie format, And it is also a good gaming format. Bigger capacity can NEVER be a bad thing.

Both consoles have their down sides.

Both consoles have their good sides.

Lets focus on the good sides, and pray for excellent games on both console. :)
 
wow.. I hate to say it but I agree with that article. Makes sense to me. If the PS3 was really the "daddy" then it would have at least 1 title to prove it.. As yet the 360 does everything better imo.

Prepare for the flames.

My PS3 is still an awesome DvD player.. I just wish I could find other plus points.
 
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Kinda good reading it from a dev's point of view.

Its a shame the PS3 isn't easier to make games for, because generally competition in the console market can only be a good thing.
 
eerrr

wannabedamned said:
And once Developers get to grips with Sony hardware, we will definately see some good games.
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Abooie said:
"Once developers figure out the PS3 they'll maximize the hardware and it will be amazing"

I suspect a small number of PS3 only developers will optimize the hardware to do something cool. However, this will be an exception to the rule, and will likely involved game designs that are specifically designed for the hardware and funded by Sony. If those will prove to be fun or not is another question.

Most of the performance centric research into the PS3 has been around making it easier for developers to get the same level of performance you get out of the 360 naturally. For instance, some developers are using those extra SPU's on the cell to prepare data for the rendering pipeline. Basically, they take the data they would normally send to the graphics chip, send it to an SPU which optimizes it in some manner, then send it to the graphics chip. So, once again we see an 'advantage' in hardware being used to make up for a disadvantage in another area - a common theme with the ps3. And this introduces an extra frame of latency into the equation, making controller response slower.

So, the common theme is this; developers must spend significantly more time and resources getting the PS3 to do what the 360 can already do easily and with a lot less code. Lets look at how this translates into practical realities for a moment:
Click to expand...


wannabedamned said:
Blu ray is a good movie format, And it is also a good gaming format. Bigger capacity can NEVER be a bad thing.
Click to expand...

Abooie said:
"But it's got a lot more space than DVD"

Ok, you got me there - it does have a lot more space, and there is the potential to use that to do something cool, but thats unlikely to be realized in any useful way. There are tons of compression techniques available for data and I'd personally rather be able to get my data faster than have more of it. Most developers who use the entire Blue Ray drive are doing it to work around other problems with the ps3 such as it's slow loading - for instance, in Resistance: Fall of Man, every art asset is stored on disk once for every level that uses it. So rather than storing one copy of a texture, you're storing it 12 times. If you took that entire game and removed all the duplicate data, it would likely fit on a DVD without any problem. They do this to speed up load times, which, as I pointed out before, are painfully slow on the ps3. So in this case, the extra space is completely wasted.
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Did you read the post ?
 
TheKnat said:
eerrr
Did you read the post ?
Click to expand...


Yes, I did indeed.

Why? because I disagreed with some of the points in the OP?


Dirt is a better game on the PS3 than the 360, Why cos the developers took the time, Oblivion is a better game on the Ps3 why? Because the developers took the time.

Bluray speed problems were overcome by putting extra data clusters on the Bluray disk. In-order to speed up data access.

I do have a question, why do you think i didn't read the post exactly?
 
surely this article could harm their sales of PS3 copies of Rock Band then? If i was Activision I'd arrange an article stating how PS3 optimization is easy and not optimizing a game for PS3 is just lazy.

even if its not true, which i don't know as im not a developer, surely activision could use this to their advantage haha.
 
it is a shame that Sony didn't appear to look to games developers when designing the console.

If I remember rightly, and correct me if I'm wrong but the key to the PS1's success was that with it being Sony's first console, they looked to the developers in order to create a console that was easy to design for and thus establish some excellent launch titles, coupled with a decent marketing campaign, it was a winner.
 
wannabedamned said:
I do have a question, why do you think i didn't read the post exactly?
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Because the points you made were pretty much the exact ones that the original post was countering.

Are you saying that the way the speed problems were overcome are a good thing ? They aren't taking advantage of the extra space for a good purpose, just to overcome problems in the format. The games would be just as good on a DVD, so saying that more capacity is always good isn't really correct.. Hopefully in the future there will be a better way of achieving the same results, so that the extra space can be filled with more content rather than lots of copies of the same content.

And Oblivion came out nearly a year later on the PS3 so I wouldn't announce that as a success. The general point is that why should developers be forced into certain coding methods just because the PS3 is designed that way ? That can surely only lead to poor game conversions (see SKATE) and longer lead times.

At the end of the day, the PS3 is still young so hopefully these problems will be overcome. If they are not then it may lead to games either taking a lot longer to come out, or to the PS3 getting inferior cross-platform games. That can only end up with the PS3 having a bad reputation.
 
TheKnat said:
Because the points you made were pretty much the exact ones that the original post was countering.

Are you saying that the way the speed problems were overcome are a good thing ? They aren't taking advantage of the extra space for a good purpose, just to overcome problems in the format. The games would be just as good on a DVD, so saying that more capacity is always good isn't really correct.. Hopefully in the future there will be a better way of achieving the same results, so that the extra space can be filled with more content rather than lots of copies of the same content.

And Oblivion came out nearly a year later on the PS3 so I wouldn't announce that as a success. The general point is that why should developers be forced into certain coding methods just because the PS3 is designed that way ? That can surely only lead to poor game conversions (see SKATE) and longer lead times.

At the end of the day, the PS3 is still young so hopefully these problems will be overcome. If they are not then it may lead to games either taking a lot longer to come out, or to the PS3 getting inferior cross-platform games. That can only end up with the PS3 having a bad reputation.
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The thing is, 50gb discs, If data is doubled even tripled to recover access times, That doesn't mean its taking up a full 50gb disc. And the extra capacity will still come in handy, for things like 7.1 audio and large textures.

Hell, Theres 100gb Bluray discs now, that the PS3 is supposed to support(Although I'm sure the cost of such discs to developers is a little overly costly)

My basic point is this, The PS3 is just as capable at producing amazing games as its counter part, And i didn't want to see this thread turn into another one of the many war threads we see in here.

Its down to developers to use the consoles the way they were intended, And although it wont always be done in the right way with the PS3, Case and point being the 80% of worse ports on the console up to date :p Games on the PS3 can be just as amazing as the 360 games, if not better sometimes. If developers take the time and do it right.
 
But why expend more effort, time & critically - MONEY to produce the same results?

If taking this extra time resulted in better games all round then this thread/debate/argument would be non existant :)
 
Yeah developers should sit there, making the game run right on the PS3, sod the gameplay and depth, just make it work right on the failure that is the PS3.

I'm not a fanboy, it's blindly obvious it's a failure, look at the figures. People defending it are just trying to justify buying a £400 doorstop.
 
I don't know why you guys are trying to argue with somebody who's actually developed for the PS3 and 360. Try to fight back the tears please, it's making me cringe.
 
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