Call of Duty 4: Larger burden on Sony PS3 than Xbox 360
Filed under: Gaming, Sony Playstation 3, Xbox 360 | By: Daniel
Posted on: July 5, 2008 | 127 Comments
Games like Call of Duty 4 run at a framerate of 60 frames per second on both systems. But Call of Duty 4 is a game that experienced technical problems with various bottlenecks due to the varying levels of action that occur on the screen. The game was originally designed to run at 60 frames per second at 720p, but it caused drops in the framerate.
The proof of this is the fact that Call of Duty 4 runs at a resolution of only 640p on both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. This may be “equal” in terms of what is displayed on the screen, but the FACT is that Call of Duty 4 is putting a much larger burden on the PS3 than it is the Xbox 360.
Confirmation of this can be seen in the large number of games that “run smoothly at 60 frames per second on the Xbox 360, but struggle to run at 30 frames per second on the Playstation 3.” That was a quote from Gamespot.
It’s simple math: The Xbox 360 can display approximately 500,000,000 polygons per second, compared to 275,000,000 polygons per second for the Playstation 3.
Multi-platform games use what is called a “Lowest Common Denominator” form of programming.
Basically, what this means is the developers start out by saying to themselves, “We need to develop a game for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3.”
Then, the developers put limits on how many polygons they are going to put on the screen, and they determine what framerate the game will run at as a result of that number.
When the developers multiply the number of polygons displayed on the screen by the number of frames being displayed each second, they examine what that number is. Multi-platform games can NEVER display more than 275,000,000 polygons per second, or else they can’t be released for the Playstation 3, since the PS3 cannot display more than 275,000,000 polygons per second.
As a result, developers are often conservative with the number of polygons being displayed with multi-platform games, especially with the poor reputation of inconsistent framerates that the Playstation 3 has acquired over time.
It basically comes down to these THREE factors:
If a multi-platform game running at 30 frames per second on the Playstation 3 uses 250,000,000 polygons or less, it gives the developers the ability to allow the Xbox 360 version to run at 60 frames per second, since 500,000,000 is double the number of 250,000,000.
If a multi-platform game running at 30 frames per second on the Playstation 3 uses over 250,000,000 polygons per second, it means the Xbox 360 version is also forced to run at only 30 frames per second. This is an unfortunate situation, because it means the Playstation 3 will be using 90-100% of its power by displaying somewhere between 250,000,000 to 275,000,000 polygons per second, while the Xbox 360 will only be using 60% of its power, since the Xbox 360 has so much more polygon power.
If a multi-platform game is intended to run at 60 frames per second on the Playstation 3, the Xbox 360 version will also run at 60 frames per second. The Playstation 3 version will be limited to 275,000,000 polygons per second. The Xbox 360 will also be limited to 275,000,000 polygons per second, due to the fact that 275,000,000 is the Lowest Common Denominator. This is unfortunate, because it means the Playstation 3 version will be using between 90% to 100% of the systems power, while the Xbox 360 will be using only 60% of the systems power. Call of Duty 4 is an excellent example of this situation.
The Playstation 3 only transfers data at a rate of 54MB per second as a Blu-ray player being used for movies. When it comes to gaming, there are hardware “bottlenecks” that the Playstation 3 faces, which allows the PS3 to transfer data at a rate of only 9MB per second. The Xbox 360 transfers data at a rate of 16MB per second.
The Official Playstation Magazine wrote an article about the longer load times of PS3 games shortly after the Playstation 3 was launched. The only time the PS3 does not have to deal with either noticeably or significantly longer load times is when the game is placed on the PS3 hard drive. Sadly, it often takes over TWENTY long minutes to write the game onto the PS3 hard drive. Even when a PS3 game is written onto a hard drive, the load times between Xbox 360 games and PS3 games is virtually identical, as we saw in Devil May Cry 4 and Grand Theft Auto 4.
Gamespot has conducted a Graphics Comparison between the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 each year since the Playstation 3 has been available. Xbox 360 has been declared the winner of the Graphics Comparison each of the three years: 2006, 2007, 2008.
2008 shows that the gap in performance continues to get bigger, in favor of the Xbox 360. Here is the hyperlink that shows the newest comparison–one the Xbox 360 easily defeats the Playstation.
Also, the Xbox 360 uses 10MB of eDRAM. This new form of RAM technology is something that even Windows Vista-based PCs do not yet take advantage of. The next release of Direct-X on the PC will start to take advantage of eDRAM technology for gaming, but it still hasn’t happened yet.
This just goes to show you how incredibly far ahead of its time the Xbox 360 Unified-Shader GPU/Multi-Core CPU design is.
Thanks to Mike Zoran
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Dear Mister,
It is the worst fanoyist article I have read in months! All the technical stuff written down on here is fals and wrong. Please go back to school before writting down “so called” technical articles !!. The XBOX360 is able to claculate 1 teraflop erp second whereas the PS3 is able to calculate 1.8 teraflops per second. Punto.
And what is the point of this Article?You’re an absolute joke if you think GameSpot comparisons are to be used as a source of comparison,they’re the same guys who gave Mass Effect an 8,Bioshock a 9,and Ratchet&Clank a 7.HOW are they credible again?
Not only do you sound worried,that is,afraid of the momentum of the Ps3.But your Article comes off as nothing more than a last ditch attempt to bash the Playstation 3 for the FEW multi-platform games that run better on the Xbox 360(Don’t even ATTEMPT to prove me wrong,as I own almost all Multiplat games they have used in their Comparisons).You’re probably not going to allow this comment,since it exposes the obvious desperate nature of the Fanboys posing as Journalists Online.
Horribly designed Site,horribly written Article.Shoot me an Email once your Site is even remotely considered as a credible source by Gamers.
-ShootingPool
The biggest fail of an article I have ever read, where is the source for the following:
“It’s simple math: The Xbox 360 can display approximately 500,000,000 polygons per second, compared to 275,000,000 polygons per second for the Playstation 3.”
Made up garbage.
The Gamespot comparison was also laughable. It’s been shown numerous times and stated even by non-PS3 fanboys, that Gamespot has the PS3 video on ‘Limited’ rather than ‘Full’ for it’s settings. Gamespot refuses to change the settings. Watch Youtube for REAL comparison videos of the same games. So using Gamespot as a source is horrible ‘journalism’ knowing the PS3 isn’t set on ‘Full’.
I have to agree with the others. This is a fanboy rant. With no credible or reliable sources being used beyond personal fanboyism.
Explain MGS4 then bub.
Morne
This article is false and misleading. The PS3 can push way more polygons than the 360. The reason the 360 has won comparisons so far is because most multi platform titles have lead on 360. Porting a 360 title to the PS3 architecture is not very effective and usually ends up with a substandard product, as has been seen too many times.
A Sierra dev of the new Ghostbusters title recently stated the exact opposite of what this article is saying. He said that PS3 users are getting short changed because the title is also releasing on 360. If the title were a PS3 exclusive they would of been able to have TWICE as many polygons on screen at once but had to reduce it due to the 360’s inability to cope with it.
The problems so far with third party PS3 games are down to the devs either not understanding the machine properly or porting a 360 built game to save on development costs. The machine is more than capable as has been shown in first party games.
I suggest you do some research and get your facts straight before posting more lies.
That is not the way consoles work, evidently you are not a game developer and by the sound of your inference you will never be, not even a mediocre one. The reason the 360 video card can process 500 million triangles per second and the PS3 video card can process 275 million triangles per second is because the 360 GPU has access to twice the RAM, so if anything the RSX is actually faster per unit of RAM according to your numbers. However, the Cell processor, unlike 360s processor, also processes graphics. Theoretically speaking, the PS3 can calculate more floating point operations per second but you have to program it adequately. Of course, this is nothing you will ever understand, especially not after knowing you have an agenda.
Anyway, comparing specs is pointless across consoles since all games run differently and all consoles have different specific capabilities, the proof is in the pudding, and I have yet to see a game looking as good as Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted or Killzone on 360. The 360 has Gears of War, which is its best looking game, but it still does not measure up to the games I just mentioned.
This kind of articles is so 2005. Anyway, I just called the national education services, the short bus should be arriving soon for you.
Poor PS3 fanboys! Can’t take the truth, can you? I suppose all the failures of your system are getting to be too much to bear… Call of Duty, Orange Box, Haze… games just can’t run as well on the PS3 as they do on the 360. The PS3 was rushed out only as a Trojan Horse for Blu-ray anyways so enjoy all your Blu-ray movies (with the pauses in between scenes) that nobody else is buying. Sony really messed up this race. Well, hopefully one day MS will buy Sony and then we can get the next ICO/SOTC game (the ONLY game that really interests me on the PS3) on the Xbox and it will just be them vs. Nintendo.
Correction, the PS3’s GPU can only display 275,000,000 polygons while the 360’s GPU can display 500,000,000 polygons, that side of things is always carried out on the GPU in the 360, while on the PS3 it was designed so that the cell can take over these tasks while the rsx takes just some of the bulk and the less intensive tasks.
This is a new, unknown architecture that is misunderstood, people are misunderstanding it by judging the whole PS3 on just one or two pieces of hardware.
Developers are already advancing, and will hopefully get far ahead very soon, the 360 has used about 85% of it’s power already, 2 PS3 exclusives have already far exceeded all 360 exclusives.
I sense a tiny, itty bitty bit of bias in this article.