ok let's start with some facts shall we
running the game on a PC, requires the game be run in windows. This allready presents some serious problems. us PC gamers are used to our platforms being the be all and end all of power, but have we ever considered why ? the reason is the power needed to overcome the shoddyness that is windows
several major microsoft programmers have gone on record stating that vista is full of 16bit code, and all sorts of other stuff, that they couldnt touch. The programmers that wrote it have long since left, and they cant touch it without stuff breaking. So rather than scrap it and start from fresh, each version of windows is just more stuff bolted on top of the last one. Why do you think each windows version gets bigger and bigger ? in a recent test, the basic latency behind the OS and the soundcard on a PC was something like 105ms. For an apple mac (with its highly optimised unix based OS) was something like 20ms
and this is how the consoles do it. Windows is ancient, full of all sorts of routines and functions that are no longer needed. But instructions still need to be processed by them. In a closed hardware environment (much like OSX) your programmes can be much more optimised. You dont have to programme the game to run on 800 graphics card, only 1. Or in OSX's case, about 20.
consoles are highly specialized devices, with streamlined operating systems that serve only one purpose. To play games. Windows has to do all sorts of other things too. a console doesnt. As a result you can achieve the same effect with much less processing power. You cant think of the console like a PC, it may well have PC components (in the Xbox 360's case) but it runs a lot faster without having to run on windows. Windows answer to solve this problem has just been to require us to ever more faster CPUs, ever more RAM and ever more powerfull graphics cards.
And remember, the PS3 is a closed hardware platform, because it doesnt need expandability, the Cell CPU has a 35GB/s link to the graphics card. PCI Express in comparison is 4gb/s So yes the PS3 GPU is only a 7600 GT in terms of sheer pixel power, with a highly optimized operating system, and a highly optimized platform (with no sacrifices made for unneeded expansion capability) the PS3 will be plenty capable of running UT3
oh and for the record, DX9/DX10 etc.. wont come into it. the PS3 has its own software set, again highly optimized. So instead of programming your game to run on lots of systems, you only have to programme it to run on one.
