Right I understand that but still memory (or more accurately a lack of it) would still cause a problem when trying to run higher resolution textures?
Has the PS3's time come?
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Right I understand that but still memory (or more accurately a lack of it) would still cause a problem when trying to run higher resolution textures?
Soldato
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As far as I'm aware, the memory on the PS3 although split can be used 50/50 by Cell and GPU, Or 100% by either. Or something like that lol, It's off the top of my head.
But anyways, 512mb is plenty on a console for nice textures.
Why would this suddenly be the point when the last game released, GTA4, proves it isn't?
In the future, probably, almost certainly, but not at this moment.
It doesnt though.
One website says it does, and everybody else says it doesnt.
Which is the reason why the whole argument is stupid and pointless.
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Yeah, I find that wierd, Why is it because 1 website says 1 thing, But countless websites say the opposite, That everyone is taking the single sites word as gospel.
The PS3 is restricted to 256MB system RAM and 256MB GPU RAM. I believe access to the GPU RAM is allowed by the CPU but at a large cost to memory bandwidth and read/write latency.
The 360 has a shared 512MB RAM that can be split as desired amongst CPU and GPU.
Because people want to be better than other people by what ever means they can.
Having the best console, great!!
Go buy all of them, be super great and experience being a loser at the same time for owning an inferior console.
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is it? 512mb on a graphics card is barely enough to store textures on alone for high res gaming @ 1920x1080, let alone the main program as well.
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I dunno, seems to be working fine for the 360 at the moment
But that said, Most the gaming is at 720p or lower unless upscaled
I dunno, seems to be working fine for the 360 at the moment
But that said, Most the gaming is at 720p or lower unless upscaled
The RAM is one of the key reasons for this generation not performing as well graphically as expected. If sony or MS had 1GB shared memory in their systems they'd comfortably out perform the opposition. I really have no idea why they didn't though as and extra 512MB of RAM is dirt cheap, it's probably because of fluctuating memory prices or something =/
Yep, when the 360 was developed 512Mb cost a lot more than it would now.
I'd imagine the next gen will address this and have at least 2 Gb (I think that will be cost comparitive).
Personally, I think PS3's year will be next year & Microsoft will announce the 360 replacement end of '09 begining '10 forcing Sony to play catch up again.
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i was just going to say, i remembered somebody convinsing ms to double the memory. to think they wanted 256mb as standard
Those figures don't account for falling memory costs though so it would have cost them significantly less than a billion dollars.
Imagine if MS hadn't been convinced to use 512MB? The Ps3 would dominate it.
unfortunatly the ps3 has no games that are console specific that are coded well for it
things like uncharted and ratchet and clank come up trumps because the developers coded them well
once the games are written for the console specifically - [instead of it falling foul of bad multiplatform ports] then it will start to excel
the proof of this will be apparrent in weather or not the developers invest the extra time and money into optimising new games for each console and building from the ground up
i may be wrong - just my opinion [ ask kreeeee - he will know the answer ]
things like uncharted and ratchet and clank come up trumps because the developers coded them well
once the games are written for the console specifically - [instead of it falling foul of bad multiplatform ports] then it will start to excel
the proof of this will be apparrent in weather or not the developers invest the extra time and money into optimising new games for each console and building from the ground up
i may be wrong - just my opinion [ ask kreeeee - he will know the answer ]
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I'm sorry, thats like taking the stairs to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and complaining that the people who took the lift got there first, are not out of breath and have had longer to take in the view.
Sony made their architecture more difficult, whether they were aware of the impacts of this complexity upon software developers or not it was still sonys decision to take this route.
Microsoft have said from day 1 they made a console that was designed to be as powerful as possible with as little burden on the developers as possible. Also MS have developed really good APIs and development kits. Sony originally couldn't give a rats ass about the developers and due to their vastly superior sales in the previous generation they treated the development studios like poor distant relations and told them to sort it out themselves (in effect) Its only after the studios started to heavily support the 360 that Sony started to backtrack.
So yes the PS3 probably has a lot of untapped power, yes by the time its 10 year life cycle is complete (and we are 3 years into the Xbox 1080) there may be one or 2 games that as near-as-dam-it use all of its potential. But the majority of games never will.
The games coming out on the 360 continue to impress and the games are all showing continuing technical improvement
I'm not sure about anyone else, but I'm quite content with having a constant stream of quality games coming out that have a minor improvement over the previous games released rather than having an occasional quality game with a significant improvement.
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From reading around the subject, IMO, I think people are over simplying the whole PS3/360 future capability issue..
I think the whole porting issue has come about because most developers idea of parallel programming only really works on the 360 architecture, i.e. just split your traditional design into 6 parallel threads, and off you go.. of course having a non symmetrical architecture puts the PS3 at a disadvantage that I think has been shown in shoddy ports, as this just doesn't 'work' on the PS3.
The downsides to this basic parallel design is that your CPU may be processing 6 times the code, but you just create a bottleneck at the CPU IO such as memory/GPU/BR/DVD/HDD, so as a 'system' it's still not getting the most out of it.
What developers are learning, and the PS3 architecture is forcing them to do, is to approach it from a different angle, with much more asymmetrical designs. If you do this, you are basically using some of the CPU power to ease some of the bottlenecks in the system (a good example being an SPE used to augment the RSX), with the idea that your system 'throughput' increases.
On the surface, especially using the SPE/RSX example, it would seem that the PS3 is far better suited to this then the 360, however, it actually transposes pretty well to the 360, since it has effectively 6 threads, and spare CPU capacity with a unified shader GPU, the actual system resources overall balance out fairly well. I think when one of the developers said that leading on the PS3 and therefore changing your design methods to produce asymmetrical designs, it benefits both platforms..
I'd say that game engine design now has a new 'avenue' to go down, we will see continual development on both platforms at a similar rate, most improvements will come from game engine design, not 'unlocking' hidden processor power.
I think the whole porting issue has come about because most developers idea of parallel programming only really works on the 360 architecture, i.e. just split your traditional design into 6 parallel threads, and off you go.. of course having a non symmetrical architecture puts the PS3 at a disadvantage that I think has been shown in shoddy ports, as this just doesn't 'work' on the PS3.
The downsides to this basic parallel design is that your CPU may be processing 6 times the code, but you just create a bottleneck at the CPU IO such as memory/GPU/BR/DVD/HDD, so as a 'system' it's still not getting the most out of it.
What developers are learning, and the PS3 architecture is forcing them to do, is to approach it from a different angle, with much more asymmetrical designs. If you do this, you are basically using some of the CPU power to ease some of the bottlenecks in the system (a good example being an SPE used to augment the RSX), with the idea that your system 'throughput' increases.
On the surface, especially using the SPE/RSX example, it would seem that the PS3 is far better suited to this then the 360, however, it actually transposes pretty well to the 360, since it has effectively 6 threads, and spare CPU capacity with a unified shader GPU, the actual system resources overall balance out fairly well. I think when one of the developers said that leading on the PS3 and therefore changing your design methods to produce asymmetrical designs, it benefits both platforms..
I'd say that game engine design now has a new 'avenue' to go down, we will see continual development on both platforms at a similar rate, most improvements will come from game engine design, not 'unlocking' hidden processor power.
I have eyes and it's clear to see that the PS3 version is no better.
My point is, people say the PS3's time has come, but of all the major releases over the last 6 months such as GTA4, Burnout Paradise and Call of Duty 4, there is nothing in it.
If the PS3's time coming was to match the Xbox360, then perhaps it has. But if it's to better it, then no, it hasn't.
Colin McRae Dirt?
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Very true indeed, good post. I do feel though that we'll see more than just one or two games that take advantage of the PS3 efficiently before the next gen is out but in regards to how Sony ****** up with the developers in the early days (before even the PS3 was released) I agree completely, Sony were being very arrogant thinking Dev's would just fall in line and jump on the PS3 when it was released after being neglected, I've said on here before it's the reason they are in the position they are in now in terms of software availably for the system, and it's install base in NA, they have nobody to blame apart from themselves.