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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I read a lot of sites sayint that the CPU of the PS3 is superior. I also agree that both GPUs are generally the same. But shouldn’t have Sony made a superior GPU than 360 since they came out a year or more later. But anyway what I wanted to know was what was the difference between a 3-core CPU (of the 360) and a 1-core with 7 SPEs in Speed, performance etc…?
I also seriously want to know which of them is better to have for gaming?
Wow, Bob!!! That was a very well organized and articulated argument. And I must say I fully agree with all that you said because it is FACT based which people nowadays can’t seem to grasp. The two systems are very different and do well in their own right. To each his own for the system they choose. It is not necessary to bash one to prove superiorty of another it is all choice in the end. I CHOSE the PS3 over the 360 because I felt it has the potential for greater longevity based on untapped power and hardware/software. I think that MS will have to make another system to match the PS3’s capabilities. I base this on the same FACTS found in Bob’s comments. I could be wrong in the end, but it doesn’t seem that way at this point. I am not saying the 360 sucks, if you like it better, more power to you. I am sticking with the PS3.
I think Bob is correct in saying “neither is more powerful, they just do calculations differently”. And please, xbot fans, listen, i was torn between getting a ps3 or 360, do you know what made my decision? The 360 has to many problems! I know that the 360 has over heating problems, and the red ring of death. And i would personally be rather playing killzone 2, than talking to a micrsoft person for an hour…only to find out it’ll take a month for my 360 to be fixed from the “ring of death”. And for overheating, my ps3, has never frozen, or shut off when i didnt intend for it to. The only time it has frozen is online twice. I played Resistance for 6 hours straight and it never froze.
As for power, next gen games come down to a couple of factors. Like in assasians creed, (we all have heard of)is finding the 360 to be frustrating. Y?? because there spending more time than exspected to compress information on the 360’s dvd. Im not making it up, its in a interview with the director of “assasins Creed”. Compression can only do so much good…but when you have 5 times the space of another system to work with, which do you think developers will choose? And i know i sound one sided….but i hate FANBOISM!!! this person obviously is a ms fanboy…and im not a sony fanboy, just giving you the facts…nothing more…nothing less.
Hey,Danial why be a fanboy have you found devs complain about the memory it’s not inferior to 360 on memory 256mb of ram 256mb of vid ram devs can use the other for things if needed.360 has 512mb of memory SHARED AROUDN THE WHOLE AND I REPEAT WHOLE SYSTEM.so level.
the gpus yea about the same but rsx is better though.and cpus noc ontest cell wins.
ps3’s harwdare wipes the floor with 360 hardware.
Cell is the best gaming chip on Earth FACT.
And they spent $400 BILLION on cell with toshiba and ibm.
so don’t talk rubbish dan.
yeah i ahve a ps3 as it’s the most powerful and graphically capable console ever.
Killzone 2,Uncharted Drake’s Fortune,Ratchet and Clank,Gran Turismo 5 all have this thing in common other games probs do anall.But….
THEY ARE ONLY POSSIBLE ON PLAYSTATION 3.
THIS IS LIVING
RJCMANUTD94 (PS3 ID) Contact me
I could heaps of shit abt Ps3 or 360 but in the end all the knowledge is superficial to average gamers argue about cores and spe. The only way to get correct approximation is by looking at the games well DMC4 was said to be not possible on 360 but its comin. Gears was said impossible on PS3 but UT3 is coming on PS3 and there is a 360 version coming too. MGs4 is said impossible on 360 but Kojima San himself said its possible but they are just not making it. Well Killzone 2 is said to be impossible on 360 whereas Alan wake is said to be impossible on PS3. Although both game look less than crysis running on full settings.
also ps3 is that powerful ti can do folding at home.
215 gigflops v 115 for 360 ps3 wins.
oh did you 360 fanboys here the truth about halo 3 ya xbox 3shitty can’t handle it properly.
Thats the truth.
I have a wii as well but it’s not as good as my ps3.
Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii are the present.
PLAYSTATION 3 THE FUTURE.
RJCMANUTD 94 PS3 ID ADD ME PEOPLE
My god. This writer IS NOT a developer. He hasnt written a line of PS3 code, and you lot beleive his ramble? WTF is going on with everyone these days? Jason Booth - another example, writes some ‘technical’ article that is quite completely false, and everyone thinks some technical person wrote it - HES A DAMN ARTIST FOR GODS SAKE!! NEVER WROTE A LINE OF PS3 CODE IN HIS LIFE!!!
So, for all those that believe in these false prophets, I say “stop being idiots”. This stuff is pure flame feeding fanboy BS. You want some _real_ numbers on the Cell VS say a dual core Mac? Here try this:
http://www.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/05CB9A9C5794A5A8872570AB005C801F
The TRE engine is a very early test of the Cell, and performs over 3x better computationally than a dual core G5 Mac. So much for your “Cell isnt really so great” rant.. and you can effectively equate the X360 to the tested G5 CPU.
Additionally you have ‘computational’ work being done specifically on the Cell in a number of different places. Google if its not too hard people… And to top it off, this writer is plain WRONG in terms of the SPU’s. They are ENTIRELY independant cores, with their OWN local storage, making the writer look like a complete fool. THe SPU’s can do ANY computational work, they have a RISC set of commands, but so do many chipsets these days (ARM in NDS, CPU in the Wii, CPU’s in Apples XSERVE, IBM’s POWER servers.. even Intels new CPU’s are all RISC based designs), so please quit with the “all they can do..” bs..
Anyone who has spent time working on the SPU’s and writing code for them has found one very common problem - keeping them BUSY is the hardest task. This is NOTHING to do with memory, or bus, or any other excuse a developer might use. This is purely because they are not being used to their MAXIMUM potential. Thats it. Developers still have a long way to go to real the maximum perf levels in the Cell - 200 GFlops was shown in the TRE example, whereas the Xenon CPU in the X360 has only around 35-40 GFlops of REAL WORLD performance. This is why the CPU is simply not used too heavily on the X360 - ask the GTA folks about this problem, they will explain all the problems with having too little CPU performance available on the X360 (hence the delays).
Finally something this writer is blindly unable to understand, is the future of CPU’s. And they are ALREADY here. THe multicore CPU is the future of ALL CPU’s. Whether you like it or not, the Cell is one big jump down the path to that. And guess what? MS and NIntendo ALREADY recognise that. Guess who have ALREADY signed up with IBM for developing their next machines CPU’s? Thats right, late last year IBM announced MS and Nintendo future consoles will be using CELL BASED CPU’s? How does that make you fanboys feel now? Heres a link for the ignorant ones:
http://www.echannelline.com/usa/story.cfm?item=22546
Stop harping on the Cell and PS3 you haters.. its just a damn box of electronics.. get over it.. they will all be Cell driven in a couple years time.
damn…bob got you guys pretty good
You lack a lot of memory, too! hahaha….
Kaz
I love these posts! BS3?! Wow! That takes the cake. It’s a great Blue Ray player because it lets you play games too as opposed to a great gaming system that lets you play Blue Ray movies. BOB! If you’re wife spent 10 hours cooking a dry turkey for Thanksgiving, how thankful can you really be? Shit, thanks for the effort but I’m still hungry. And to make it worst, my neighbor’s wife is a great cook and I can smell what she’s cooking. Bobby, when Kill Zone Deux and MGS4 comes out, you’re gonna be let down again. One thing I want you to do is to look up old clips of E3 from 2005 and compare them to what you’re gonna be getting. Ummkay!