Devs Problems: Games use 30% Sony PS3’s Power & 60% Xbox 360’s
Filed under: News | By: Daniel
Posted on: November 6, 2007 | 52 Comments
As we featured a really good comment the other day that was a little more on the 360’s side about Devs Problems and the lack of memory on Sony PS3, plus storage on Xbox 360.
We thought we should feature some news about games apparently using up to 30% of the Sony PS3’s Power and 60% of Xbox 360’s.
David Taylor makes this claim and even backs it up with some sources to where he got that information from.
Here is what David Taylor said:
And even though no one has a clue who this person is or if what they say holds any truth his claims will be repeated all over the place as fact by retarded 360 fanboys.
Devs who have worked on the PS3 such as naughty dog are saying they have only used 30% of the PS3s power.
According to the devs Motorstorm apparently only uses between 15% and 20% of potential:
See ps3.qj.net Under the hood of MotorStorm
EA said in December they were using 20% of the PS3s power:
See kotaku.com EA Games Use 20 Percent of PS3’s Power
On the other hand the developers of lost Planet said last year they were using 60% of the 360s power:
See the news on xbox365.com
This guy is just another hater hiding behind pseudo made up science and anonymity. There are no memory size problems at all with the PS3 if you know how to code for it. It has exactly the same amount of memory as the 360. In fact there is less of a strain on the PS3s memory because it can cache to the hard drive. Why do all these so called experts always forget about that?
The FACT remains that the PS3 is more powerful which is why Microsoft will not allow the 360 to essentially be bench marked against it in Folding@home. PS3 games are already at the same graphical level as the 360.
This statement really sums up what an idiot this guy is:
“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.”
Really? What like Ratchet & Clank did? Its also funny how Oblivion which is one of the most technically demanding games on any platform runs better on the PS3 than the 360.
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youse keep going on about mgs4 and all that shit but dont forget that There will be a Gears of War 2 and maybe halo 4. not to forget that gta4 will have exclusive downloadable stuff just for the xbox. so while you gaystation fans are playing the last mission of gta4 and mgs4, ill be play GOW2, halo 4, and the downloadable stuff for gta4.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I have both systems.
I am an IT hardware technician.
If you want my opinion about this debate, then I have some facts about this argument.
There is a lot of fanboy crap on this page, and very few facts.
So here are some facts:
The Xbox 360s GPU is more powerful and EFFICIENT than the PS3s. It uses a UNIFIED SHADER ARCHITECTURE similar to the R600 dx10 ATI cores.
That means that each pipeline can produce vertex and pixel shaders, unlike the ps3 which has a fixed number of pipelines for each. Meaning that heavy pixel or vertex scenes can explot the xboxs superior architecture.
The PS3s GPU us based on an old nvidia 7XXX series which is a bit slow compared to newer cards, but still has a lot of life left in it with efficient coding.
This is an indisputable fact. Look it up.
The PS3’s cpu is theoretically more powerful than the 360’s cpu, in certain circumstances, and if the code is specifically coded to exploit the 1 multi threaded general purpose cpu, and 7 spus.
Low level tasks like folding @home can take advantage of all these processors.
HOWEVER!
Games developed in this way are expensive and hard to code, and share little in common with the xbox and PC systems, which have a far larger market share.
Programmes not coded VERY specifically for the PS3’s cell CPU, will actually run faster theoretically on the Xbox 360s cpu because it has 3 general purpose cores, and the PS3 only has 1. Indeed, the processing ability of the PS3s 7 spus are quite limited.
Coded to maximum efficiency, the PS3 processor is faster and CPU dependent programmes will run faster on it, like folding @ home.
However in the real world for MOST general software that is coded for all 3 platforms, the xbox is actually faster, as it has more general purpose cores.
Not only that but most games are more dependent, and the GPU is the bottleneck, not the CPU.
Indeed the 7 spus on the PS3 don’t even handle “graphics” as such, they are better for handling sound, physics and AI, freeing up the CPU itself (the one cpu).
You don’t believe me… LOOK IT UP.
Next up, the ram. the xbox gas 512mb of shared, the ps3 has 256 each for cpu and gpu.
This means that the ps3 is inflexible depending on how much ram is needed for each CPU or GPU, the xbox is again more efficient.
Next, the 10mb of embedded eram on the xbox provides superior (not free) antialiasing, but its there.
All this crap quoted by ignorant people who haven’t done their research about what “percentage” of the power of each system is used by a game is pathetic.
As generations of games pass on a system the coding gets more efficient, and the graphics get better.
Ever seen a final generation PS2 game? some of them look great.
Most current games only even use 1 core on the 360, they don’t even make multi-core games yet.
Both the PS3 and the xbox have a long way to go before they reach their limit.
If these games you lot are so easily quoting only use this or that % of the systems power, how come they slowdown when the screen gets busy?
INEFFICIENCY.
Both systems are well within their limits, and there are improvements to be made in each.
Titles developed for pc xbox and ps3 together will all be similar due to the costs of altering code across sytems.
If anything the xbox versions will be better due to the 3 cores vs the ps3s one core.
If games were coded at maximum efficiency for both systems, then believe it or not, they would be about the same.
The xbox has a superior general purpose CPU, and more efficient and powerful graphics.
The ps3 has a more powerful specific CPU, which can make up for the gpu being less powerful.
So noobs.
If any of you think you can argue with these facts, then post some links, don’t just pull numbers out of your ass like, this games uses X% of the power, blah blah blah.
I have and enjoy both systems, and have always been a sony fanboy with PS1, 2 and PSP, but the facts speak for themselves.
Conclusion:
The xbox is currently theoretically “more powerful” in this and probably the next generation of games, because it is more efficient and better suited to current games. However, cross platform coding means that these differences will matter very little.
In time, as the difficulties of PS3 coding become reduced and the technology becomes more familiar then these differences may decrease.
Did you lot know that madden 08 runs at 60 frames a second on the xbox, and 30 frames a second on the PS3?
Here is a link on a sony fanboy site stating just that:
http://www.ps3vault.com/madden-08-runs-30fps-on-ps3-but-runs-60fps-on-xbox-360-1713
the guy from EA says they have done it to perform as well as they can on each system.
This doesn’t mean the PS3 is half as powerful, but it’s harder to code for, and back up everything I’ve said.
If you want to argue with me, then post some facts and argument as I have attempted to do.
If not then I will assume you agree, or you are a 12yr old fanboy who spouts sony propaganda.
I love both my systems and can’t wait for MGS4 on ps3, and Mass effect on xbox, both will rule.
Blu-ray is a better format than HD-DVD by the way.
and the extra storage will come in handy for extra content for ps3 games in the future I hope.
I want both comanies to suceed, but the xbox is in most situations “more powerful”
Quoting Folding@home scores just makes you ignorant. It’s like saying a dragster is “better” than a formula one car, because its faster in a straight line, remember formula one cars go round corners.
Enjoy your squabbles noobs.
Fanboy Troll Alert!! - These idiots make me want to bin all my consoles.
@Woobie - So your telling me that that its good news the 360 is using only 60% of its power 2 years on? mmmmmm On the flip side next year when the PS3 games are using 60% xbox will be using 90% and then when PS3 is running 90% is this when 360 gets binned and you need to buy the 720Elite with External BluRay Addon and HD Addon and Wifi Addon
Although I know games are the primary (but not only reason) to buy a video game console, one has to look at the future. I say this because when I plunk down $399 for a console (Premium xbox with XBL or the 40gb PS3) I expect more than one year of hits. Microsoft has a played a good game getting more of the “satisfy me now!!” crowd while Sony is building up its PS3 so all the PS2 owners can finally see the time to upgrade. I mean seriously, the xbox360 has been out for two years and has only sold alittle over 13 million consoles and for the first full year it HAD NO REAL COMPETITION! That is sad, really. No doubt Sony has made some mistakes this generation, I would be totally blind to not see this but you have to realize something, while MS killed off last generation due to horrible licensing fees, Sony has had to try it’s best to keep the PS2 alive with it’s 120+million install base. Even if one says 30 million consoles were bought to replace old or broken ones (don’t work xbots I won’t even touch your sales number…RRoD anyone?) that is 90+million PS2 owners who so far, by looking at sale numbers, have not bought into the HD gaming and tv era yet. The 40gb sku (I have a brand new ps2 so for me BC is not an issue) price point was all I was waiting for to buy into the HD gaming era (HD tvs are still WAY too expensive for me lol). I bought me a 360 and had GoW, Lost Planet, LotR:BfME, R6:V, Viva Pinata, and CoD3 and enjoyed them but the 360 itself was only a half step forward to me. I mean you can go all the way but come on, $179 add on player, $99 wifi, $60 wireless headset, $179 120 gb HDD and a horrible failure rate all said to me, no thanks, maybe next round microsoft. The biggest reason I saw no future for the 360 for me personally because of the proprietary hard drives, I mean $99 for 20gbs and $179 for 120 gb is absolutely freaking ridiculous! Anyways just for any readers info, I loved the xbox more than the ps2 last year BECAUSE of the built-in HDD and power. I only dropped it because MS did. I think next round, if MS really listens to their customers (which seems to be against corp polocy) the next xbox will really be worth something instead of a good solution until the PS3 reaches its prime. Because lets be real, that is all that it is. Everything it was released to do has be done and do not say IPTV, because it is about the games remember?
@George.
Your Statement.
“I have both systems.
I am an IT hardware technician.
If you want my opinion about this debate, then I have some facts about this argument.”
Firstly , Im a musician and Use a Mac, So I know nothing of IT and Console Programming, and dont pretend to. But firstly , I know a lot of IT people that pretend to know more than the other… Its just like the ” I do Web Pages” Statement. I’m guessing by IT you mean programming for consoles??
I’m not pissing in anyones pocket… but If it interests you… which it did me, there is some seriously interesting “Tech Talk” on the following forums re: 360 and PS3.
Its quite non-biased because of the community. We can all learn something.
I think if there is any chance of FACTS , They lie here.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/forumdisplay.php?f=15
In case you haven’t noticed, this whole article was written by a Playstation 3 Fanboy who has absolutely zero technical expertise.
Someone needs to point out that the Playstation 3 can only display 275,000,000 polygons per second, compared to the 500,000,000 polygons per second of the Xbox 360.
That is the reason why games like John Madden Football 2008, NCAA Football 2008, All-Pro Football 2008, and many other games from EA Sports, 2K Sports, and so many others all run at 60 frames per second on the Xbox 360, but only 30 frames per second on the Playstation 3.
Gamespot specifically said in the review of those sports games: “The Xbox 360 versions run smoothly at 60 frames per second at 1080p resolution, while the Playstation 3 versions struggle to run at 30 frames per second at 720p resolution.”
It isn’t just sports games with that problem. Look at all the Tony Hawk Skating games, Tom Clancy Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and F.E.A.R. They have frame rates that drop below 20 frames per second on the PS3 and go into slow motion it is so bad…even though the Xbox 360 versions have very smooth framerates.
Oblivion is NOW BETTER on the Xbox 360!!!
When Oblivion was released a year later on the PS3, it used a new shader design…that had NOTHING to do with hardware technology; it was just something put into the new version of the game as a software program. The download was released for the Xbox 360 later on, but the PS3 fanboys always pointed out, “But when you compare the actual discs, the PS3 one has some advantages (although the Xbox 360 version also has advantages, and was ALWAYS rated higher).
Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition is now available for the Xbox 360, and when you now compare Oblivion on the Xbox 360 to Oblivion on the PS3, there is NO DOUBT that the Xbox 360 version is significantly better; that is why it is rated higher!
The Playstation 3 version of Oblivon is a perfect example that what this man is saying about the Hard Drive of the PS3 being used to help out with memory limitations is NOT true. Consider the FACT that the Playstation 3 version of Oblivion does NOT allow the entire world to exist in the game at the same time, like the Xbox 360 version does. This is because of the Memory Bandwidth hardware bottleneck of the Playstation 3.
Also, when it comes to RAM, the Xbox 360 certainly DOES have fundamental advantages over the Playstation 3!
For example, the CPU of the PS3 can NEVER access more than 256MB of RAM at any point. The Xbox 360 CPU is free to access up to 512MB of RAM if there was a need. With the PS3, there are plenty of times when the CPU needs more than 256MB of RAM, and the Video-RAM of the PS3 is actually using less than 256MB of RAM, which means that if the PS3 had a Unified RAM environment–like the Xbox 360’s–then that unused Video-RAM could help the CPU, like it does on the Xbox 360. OBVIOUSLY, the Xbox 360 RAM design is much more flexible; it helps developers in ways that they enjoy working with.
Plus, it’s important to remember that the original design of the Playstation 3 called for the used of TWO Cell CPU processors–each with two Threads that could Send signals to the SPE subprocessors.
However, when Sony saw the design of the Xbox 360, and they saw how much better the Xbox 360 was, then Sony was forced to redesign the Playstation 3 very quickly in a way that hurt the PS3 system. This is nearly identical to what happened with Sega and the Saturn. Sega saw how much better the original PS1 was, and they were forced to quickly redesign the Saturn in a way that used parallel processing that was difficult to work with and was more expensive. This is EXACTLY what happened with the Playstation 3.
The original design of the PS3 was not even supposed to used a GPU, because it was going to have two of the Cell CPU processors. But when Sony saw the revolutionary ATI GPU in the Xbox 360 that was Custom designed for the Xbox 360, and was 1.5 years ahead of its time (since the PC didn’t see similar Unified Shader technology until January 30, 2007), then Sony was forced to removed one of the Cell CPUs in the PS3, and instead add a Nvidia GPU. But there was NOT time to custom design the GPU, so Sony was forced to included a four-year old generic GPU in the PS3. That is why people often point out the vast superiority of the Xbox 360 GPU.
Now that the PS3 only has one 3.2Ghz Cell CPU, it means that the PS3 has only two Threads capable of Sending signals to the six SPE sub-processors running parallel. Each of those six SPE processors is capable of Receiving a Threaded signal; however, the PS3 CPU is only capable of Sending two Threaded signals. This is where the hardware “bottleneck” of the PS3 reveals itself. Programmers often say that the PS3 has two arms (CPU Threads) that are trying to juggle six balls (SPE sub-processors). Obviously, that is NOT possible, and that is why the Playstation 3 hardware is such a BIG disappointment.
With the Xbox 360, Microsoft used a much newer and better form of technology. PCs often brag about their “dual-core” CPU design. The Xbox 360 actually takes that to the next level and used a “tri-core” CPU design, with each CPU using the most developer-favored videogame processor available–the PowerPC.
The Xbox 360 is literally the exact opposite when compared to the Playstation 3 in terms of hardware design and efficiency. The Xbox 360 has three 3.2Ghz CPUs, each with two Threads capable of Sending instructions. But the Xbox 360 doesn’t the outdated parallel processing environment of the PS3. There are no “sub-processors” to worry about with the Xbox 360. The signals can be focused on CPU and GPU commands. This literally means the Xbox 360 has six arms (CPU Threads) that are being asked to juggle only two balls (GPU and CPU functions).
THAT is why the developers absolutely LOVE the Xbox 360 and can design games so much more efficiently for the Xbox 360.
THAT is why games are released so much earlier for the Xbox 360.
THAT is why the overwhelming majority of Xbox 360 games offer better graphic and online performance on the Xbox 360.
THAT is NOT going to change!
It may be easier to port a PS3 game to the Xbox 360 than it is to port an Xbox 360 to the PS3 (since the Xbox 360 is more powerful in terms of videogame performance–500,000,000 polygons for the Xbox 360 is more than the 275,000,000 for the PS3), but the Xbox 360 will continue to be the Lead Platform this generation for two reasons:
(1) Because the Xbox 360 is so much easier for developers to develop games for and experiment with new types of gameplay.
(2) Because the Xbox 360 has sold over Eight-Million more systems than the Playstation 3, and that lead continues grow by hundreds of thousands of systems each month, in terms of Worldwide Sales.
Well guys!
Potential? 30%? 60%? Would you believe them? Oh yes you can believe them, of course! But what is the truth? Its just numbers, estimates… 30? 60? And all estimates leads to ZERO. Especially for PS3. Why? Because of the unknown factor of CELL.
In PC/360 you could easily say, well yeah I only used 60%, in fact I only used a max of 4 hardware threads! Which in a CLEAR voice explicitly defines an UNUSED 40%.
But for CELL? Oh I’m using only 3-4 oout of 7 SPEs at the moment. Could you say you left 70% of potential out-of-the-box? Hell NO! Because to use the rest of the SPEs you’ll need to design a whole new concept of extracting its power which in itself takes up resources (memory, cpu cycles)
So the 70% untouched hardware resource can’t be directly equated to a 70% game resource.
Folding@home can’t and will NOT be ran on the 360! It’s not the issue of proccessing power (I think it can handle it will no problem), but who in their right mind will leave their 360 on over 24 hours while they’re at work or sleep?
To be honest, it IS about the games, and Sony has always proven to rule the games department over Microsoft. This particular generation of the console war is yet to be decided, but history proves Microsoft and Nintendo to be at the disadvantage here. For me, the games that SCEA puts out are what drove me to get a PS3, Tekken 6, Gran Turismo 5, Metal Gear etc, and the other noteworthy developers for Sony, Guerilla, Insomniac etc… I’m sorry but I was never into Halo, I was already obsessed w/ another better FPS at the time. So, Xbox never really drew me in, and Nintendo just turned me off by taking all of their awesome side scrollers and turning them into FPS’ (Metroid…you’re dead to me).