Devs Problems: Lack of memory on Sony PS3 and storage on Xbox 360
Filed under: News | By: Daniel
Posted on: November 3, 2007 | 134 Comments
We have heard many gamers comparing the different games on the Sony PS3 and Xbox 360 but today we had a long comment from someone calling themselves “IsThis4Real” and they make an interesting case for both the PS3 and 360.
Also they outline some of the problems both games consoles face and explain a little about the CELL CPU. Have a read a let us know if you agree.
Here is IsThis4Real’s comment:
I honestly wish people would get over the whole “CELL” thing. Its totally, as it stands now, overated - and the concept is still in its infancy. Its not the be all end all of CPUs. Its simply a single IBM Power PC core with 7 SPEs. I think people still make the mistake in claiming and thinking that they are essentially seperate CPUs. They are not.
Its “simply” designed for very fast on the fly encoding/decoding (gross missunderstatement, I know - but I think for some it has to be put VERY simply if you know what I mean) - its specialty will lie in the integration of the home based setup.
This is something Sony mooted nearly 10 or more so years ago, the ability to have every single (Sony based) product in one house hold to be able to communicate with eachother. This is when they forst started announcing that they were working on a single SUPER cpu.Watch that space over the next few years. They might actually get there, but I tell you, it aint going to be this incarnation of CELL, thats for sure.
It is not even an ideal functioning model for multi-threaded coding, an area, which despite a few game companies have said they are able to pull off, is again, still very much in its infancy - especially on the mainstream level - ie to you.
If you really want to be “technical” the PS3 setup is absolutely lousy - plain and simple - for modern game setups. The majority of the work needed for the PS3 is not the so called difficulty of the CELL processor, but its lack of main memory, lack of video memory, and very slow load data-read speeds, and much slower bus speed, all in comparisson to the Xbox 360.
The CELL, despite what is said, is NOT an overly complicated piece of architecture. It has the potential to be quite elegant in fact.
Think to yourselves for a minute, peoples?
You have games on the PS3. Dev kits have only been out X amount of time. Both 360 and PS3 release are identical - dont be anal guys.
Yet, you will notice that the PS3 sufferes time and time again in comparison - just mildly - mind you. The issues being what? Framerate? Resolution? This are problems not associated with CELL, but less memory, fill rate, bus transfer etc. The only way to really optimize is for Sony to “cut the fat” from their supplied libraries. Thats it. Its very little, or nothing at all to do with CELL difficulty. The processors are a non event.
That will possibly be the only major problem for devs for both consoles in the near future.
1). Lack of memory on the PS3.
2). Lack of storage space on the Xbox 360.
Watch out for that one. It will be here sooner than you think, if not already.
Hence the heavy need for almost triple assest content on Blue Ray discs, and very heavy cache useage. But cheers to Sony anyways for bringing something new to the table. But to say that games that are comming out would not be possible without it are just plain rubbish. But not so if on the PS3… Its just a little bit different. Tis all.
You want to talk about technical limitations??
All it will take is one REALLY good game, yet to come, on the PS3, with exceptional graphics and very heavy scripting, and it will absolutely bring that machine to its knees. Just because of the Single PPC core, and small ammount of memory. If you have actually looked at the way the PS3 “works”, it is a very laborious process !! There is so much to and fro before it even gets into the pipeline for post processing, any benefit that the CELL even began to pose is vanquished.
But everyone, just bear this in mind. The Xbox 360, for all the bagging it gets, is really quite a powerfull piece of kit. It has 3 seperate PPC cpus, which basically equates to 6 hardware threads. It has more memory to play with, a superior GPU, and superfast bus rate.
All the BS talked about GOW pushing the 360 is almost toss. Sorry. It was only running on two thread system. And even that engine was very buggy and “heavy” at the time. If not totally overated in its own right as well.
Honestly, if MS decided to put some form of a HD disc in it, Blu Ray or HD-DVD, the damn thing would be almost future proof, with the exception of the over heating, ofcourse.
Because, as it stands, the PS3 only has the storage space over the 360. Its not anymore “advanced” at all, and in many ways, slightly less.
Anyways, ive gone on a bit. Sorry.
Sometime soon, some dev will get around to managing the PS3 with a par excellence attitude. It looks like Infinity Ward might just be there.
Take it easy, guys. Sorry for going on a bit.
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Imaballa is absolutely right. the writer of this artical did not do the research he should have, he probably got his info from an xbox fan site.
Plain and simple, the 360’s GPU is NOT more powerful, and the CPU certainly isnt. If you really want a way to compare the GPUs without having to look at all the specs and what not, just think of this; The Xeon is just a modified Radeon X1950XT, and the RSX is a modified 7800GTX. Technically neither is “more powerfull” than the other, they just do calculations differently.
The CPUs are an entirely different playfield.
The cell is an early form of a hybrid of a CPU/GPU which is what AMD/ATI is trying to make. It uses a single PowerPC core which has similar performance to an AMD Athlon 64 3200, and its aided with 7 SPUs that do simple calculations. very similar to pixel pipelines or pixel shaders on GPUs. so the cell is going to be very beneficial for media-based applications.
as for the Xenos, its just a Hyper-Threaded version of the PowerPC. very similar to the P4 HT, only instead of the HT acting as 2 processors it acts as 3. it still is a very powerful processor, but for what its made for, it has nothing on the cell.
i just got done beating halo 3, and i noticed something that Gears did also, there are moments in the game where armor or textures do not load, and it looks like a blob of mud. im sure everyone who has played gears knows what im talking about. and i thought it was just the way gears was programed, but since Halo 3 does the same thing, its got to be something else…
dont get me wrong, i just bought my 3rd 360, and its for a reason. the hardware is nowhere near as impressive as the PS3, but the online gameplay is awsome, i hope PSN will get there someday. and since bioshock and halo 3 where huge dissapointments, i hope mass effect and too human make up for it.
to all you xbox die hard fan boys, why does Killzone 2 look so much better than anything out on 360? or Heavenly sword? or Rachet and Clank? or MGS4? even GT5 looks far better than Forza ever thought about. now that may be the blu-ray advantage, but its got to be something else.
one thing that i thougt was severly impressive for the PS3 was how well it runs UT3. a side by side comparison of a PC with a Nvidia 8800 ultra, 4 gigs of ram, and a quad core intel, which rounds to about 3 grand, the now 400 dollar PS3 version looks just as good, and the physics are actually superior, unless you want to include the ageia physics processor, the its pretty equal.
The other thing, the main thing i hear about the PS3 as far as trash talking goes, is the lack of games, now if i remember correctly, and i know cause i had one when it first came out, it didnt have shit for games until Gears came out. The PS3 has had 2 very distinguished titles very close to its release time, Motorstorm, and Resistance. Resistance looks as good as halo3 by the way, and that was just a launch title for the PS3.
So dont get me wrong, i have both systems, and they both do what they do very well, but when i hear shit about the PS3’s hardware being inferior to the 360s, i have to correct. same with the lack of games. oh and the sales of the 360 are almost exactly how the original xbox sold. look at the figures, the PS3 is doing no worse, its not doing much better either though.
I just respect sony for trying to make an advance in the hardware for the gaming world. they spent millions on developing the cell, while the other companys just took something that was already there, and shaved, and added something else to make it “their’s”.
u cant argue with this…
I think this is bullshit at the most what that guy said about PS3s cell and cou the Ps3 is the most advanced piece of hardwarwe ever created in the video game industry. I know cause i worked on a few game demos that has alreadied appeared on PS network it has 70 times the power than x box 360 people are just porting those crappy games that first appeared on the 360 onto PS3s motherboard and the PS3 is trying to program it more than what the game is capable of doing dont blame the PS3 in itself blame the devs that would rather port instead of recreate an engine and build it from the ground up but like i know it is more time consuming and it REALLY saves alot of money
Just what I thought imaballa!
and here keep on the fanboys attacking each other on the specs they read about on the internet. look if you think you all know it all then buy all video game consoles out there, open them up and read the things letters numbers and all on its inside and get it over with. if you think specs are important then buy a nes and a super nes cuz theres plenty of good games for it. if you think power is important then buy a super computer and good luck affording it!
I don’t even have to say anything because smoothn00dle & imaballa said it all can’t put that or write that down any better I have both 360 and ps3 love them both but you will see that the ps3 will start to make better looking games in the future and it starts now with CoD4 even the developers said it looks slightly better on ps3 then it does on the 360 I also belive that CoD 4 is running at 1080p for those with hdtv’s that support it while 360 its only running at 720p but you’ll see in a couple of more months or this november as games keep coming out and go do some research come back when you have something better to say come from both sides “360Fanboy” yep I said it.
I dont like how you capmpared the problems that the muti-console games have such as framerate. The 360 has been out for a while and they have been able to take care of those things a whole year before they could on the ps3 where as of now not only have they had less time to figure things out they have 2 consoles to worry about as opposed to one. And that is very time consuming.
So what im trying to say is to give the Ps3 a chance because considering what i have just said the ps3 is doing extremly well in those areas becasee they keep catching up.
why is it that games exclusive to sony can pull of the 1080p at 60 fps??
@Bob
finally someone who makes sence. I think you need to be a columinst for this site, who is obviously hurting badly for them.
“Blue Ray discs” ???
The man can’t even write Blu-ray correctly and you want I belive is mumbo-jumbo crap?
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Do you believe in everything people say in this site? Pathetic…
The post I was agreeing with earlier seems to have been deleted for some reason.
It mentioned that Capcom said last year that they were using 60% of the 360s power for Lost Planet but at the same time EA said they were only using 20% of the PS3s potential. Both of those devs are completely independent. It also said that the reason Microsoft wont allow the 360 to be used for folding is because everyone would be able to see from the figures that the PS3 is far more powerful.
It also mentioned that Oblivion actually runs better on the PS3 than the 360 and as any PC gamer will tell you Oblivion is a very demanding game.
The other point was about the PS3s memory. The PS3 has the same amount of memory as the 360 but it is set up differently so you just have to develop for it differently. The PS3 actually has an advantage with memory because it can cache to the hard drive instead of having to keep game data using up memory space.
The guy who wrote this article is obviously just another dumb 360 fanboy. The good will out in the end and over the next few years the extra effort that Sony have put in will pay off and all the haters will fade away.
Any 360 owner that thinks their machine is as powerful as the PS3 should take a look at Ratchet & Clank.
The New York Times:
“The new ‘Ratchet’ is a watershed for gaming because it provides the first interactive entertainment experience that truly feels like inhabiting a world-class animated film,”
“Because, as it stands, the PS3 only has the storage space over the 360. Its not anymore “advanced” at all, and in many ways, slightly less.”
LMAO who let this fool out ^ ?
the ps3 less advanced than the 360?is that why the 360 needs an add-on to run hd movies?could that also be why the 360 needs an add-on to access a wifi network?what about being able to stream 360 games to a portable device,oh wait…
let me tell you something kiddo:The 360 is without a single doubt in my mind the INFERIOR product.Proof of this?The Red Ring of Death.But no,don’t get it mistaken.It’s not the fact that the hardware overheats that makes it inferior.Its the REASON why it overheats that makes it a toy compared to the Ps3.Here’s a hint:It starts with a ‘G’ and ends with a ‘U’.
I’m tired of these Google kids claiming the 360 is on the same level as the Ps3,I have worked at the exact place where they fix the shoddy 360 consoles and I can tell you with utmost confidence that the Xbox 360 architecture is a joke compared to the Ps3 architecture.But oh well,let me go buy a 360,even though it wont last past my next haircut.