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
CLICK HERE to keep updated with the latest news, share a comment or problems with products and services. Follow us on twitter or read more Call of Duty 4, Sony PS3 news.
“1) RSX has 1.8 TFLOP’s of computing power, while Xbox 360’s GPU has about half that number.
2) RSX needs help from the Cell processor (namely to prep polygons) in order to try and keep up with Xbox 360’s GPU.
Pretty weird, huh? Sony touts RSX as being twice as powerful as 360’s GPU, but it can’t keep up with 360’s GPU. Pure fantasy.”
As said above, RSX need optimization because it is not as flexible as 360s GPU. RSX is theoretically more powerful but it needs to take special advantage of the card, something which happens rarely. On the other hand, 360s GPU almost always runs at full power since it is optimized for the programmers. Learn to read, funny how you throw the term fanboy without looking in the mirror.
“PS3 = low textures, low polygon counts, low framerate.”
Is that why uncharted has more polygon counts per character than Gears of War?
“PS3 DOES NOT = 1080P gaming at 60 FPS, 1080P gaming at 120 FPS (thank you ken), or even 720P gaming at 60 FPS.”
Is that why War Devil runs at 1080p and 60 frampes per second? Is that why Ridge Racer runs at 1080p60fps while on 360 it runs at 720p and 30fps? Is that why Ninja Gaiden Sigma runs at 720p and 60fps while on 360 Ninja Gaiden 2, a game that does not look better, runs at 585p? Why is it that first party games ony Sony run in HD while they do not on Xbox 360? Silly fanboys.
“Sony paid Fox $150 million and Warner $500 million to win the Blu-Ray battle, but no matter what they pay Square-Enix, Konami and all the other devs, they have already lost the console war.”
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. When PS3 launched, 360 was 10 million ahead of PS3, now it is only 5 million ahead even though the 360 already has Halo 3 and is cheaper while PS3 has been battered by the press and is barely warming up. What do you think will happen once PS3 gets the games that are coming this year and next? I will let you do the math. Oh wait, fanboys dont do math, they only speculate and use fallacious arguments. Poor fanboys.
I own a DS, a PSP, a PS3 and a 360 and soon I will own a Wii. I feel sorry for you Xbox rabids that have to bash the competition to feel better about your purchase, especially since you are missing out on a lot of things since this particular generation there is no winner on most fronts like last gen was.
Hey guy’s what you fighting over polygons for both consoles i have, and both console i buy games for. To be perfectly honest i like both and although not trained professional at counting polygons, in fact ive never tried because 1. prefer to get on and play games and 2. they almost look identical. As long as they work who really cares so instead of pratting around on forum arguing of figures about these things just use and have fun. ps at least we still not all playing on orignal gameboys?
ronhoward post 99
“Sony’s PS3 losses (cash AND PS2/PSP profits): $5.4 billion and counting. PS3 can’t keep up with a system that is a year older. Deal with it Fanboy.”
so are microsoft, heres prouf to backup my argument compared to your nonesense
http://www.newrowley.com/2007/01/microsoft_continues_to_lose_mo.html
search it on google if you don’t believe me, i would say ms are more in the shit because they won’t make that money back from the xbox unlike the ps3
Guess what?!! I’m enjoying my MGS4 as much as my GOW2.
I’m happy!!, so why all of you can’t be???
The guy who posted this article got what he wants “YOUR TIME” (even thought what he said is 100% false).
by the way things going, i expect to see PS3 games running along has smooth has the 360 ones,probably wend M$ realease the 720 machine !!! devs by them will have full acknowledge of the cell potential! but in the other hand most likely M$ will lunch a killer machine,super user friendly for devs like the 360, and the story will be exactly like this generation “SONY RUNNING RUNNING AFTER THE LOSTS OF THIS GENERATION!” “WAKE UP SONY THE FUTURE IS TODAY! AND I DONT CARE ABOUT THE CRAPY FEATURES YOUR TEAM REALEASE ON EVERY NEW FW UPDATE ,, I CARE ABOUT GAMES,PLAIN AND SIMPLE !!
Wow, ‘Z’ and DrogonPT sure seem hurt by the facts.
Here’s a few more for you. The Cell chips in roadrunner aren’t the same as the chips in Ps3. They have an extra SPE and a better memory controller. But here’s the real painful fact for the Sony fanboys.
Sony says that their weaker PS3 Cell chip delivers 212 GFLOPS. Lets see, that would be 12,000 Cell chips multiplied by 212 GFLOPs = 2,544 TeraFLOPS. Why are there half as many Teraflops in Roadrunner when it has more powerful processors?
Lets face it, you’ve been lied to. RSX is weak, and Cell delivers half the computing power that Sony bragged it would……or is IBM a Xbot too? lol
Actually ‘Ron’, the Cell in the PS3 does have all 7 SPE’s, one is disabled to assist the OS. It’s there, just not usable. We’re not hurt by facts, cause you’re not using any
Morne
Poor ron, he has been owned so hard, he did not even bother to refute any claims, he simply makes random bullsh1t statements; the cell that is used by the PS3 is just 75% as powerful as other cells, so? It is still way better than 360s processor, and it also functions as a GPU. The PS3 is used by the scientific community to simulate every kind of scientific experiment because it can do just about any calculation you want, something I can not say about your favorite console.
The 360 is built to save the programmers job, even though consoles are not PCs, but it seems that this fact is something your thick skull will never be able to absorb apparently as you show no signs of having functional gray matter. Poor fanboy, I bet he cant afford to own all consoles this gen so he has to bash one.
Sony did not lie about the performance, what people fail to realize is that to take advantage of the actual performance of the cell processor and the RSX, you have to program adequately, the way first party programmers are doing it. Unfortunately for Sony, you may need a Ph. D. to be able to squeeze out as much power out of the Cell as papers say, and a very skilled graphics programmer.
As I said before, the RSX is not weak, it is streamlined to get more horsepower in exchange for difficulty of programming, its 24 pixel shaders and 8 vertex shaders render 136 operations per cycle, while 360s unified shaders render each 98 operations per cycle, which is slower, but not bad considering they are unified. RSX runs at 550 Mhz while the Xenos runs at 500 Mhz. The RSX shader pipeline has a total of 32 shader processors while the Xenos has a total of 48. Do the math, and the RSX gives you a theoretical 2.4 trillion shader operations per second while the Xenos gives you a total of 1.9 trillion shader operations per second.
That is impressive for both, however the problem with the RSX is that to actually achieve that you need to control the programming environment, and programmers that are not really good or are lazy or simply not have the time to optimize the code are gonna have a better time with the Xenos which can take sh1tty graphics code since every shader processor can admit either pixel or vertex shading programs. That is why most exclusive games on PS3 eclipse the exclusives on 360, while early multiplatform games are crap since developers are used to PC-like environments where you do not have to optimize the code for a particular platform.
The numbers I am actually giving for the RSX understate the power of the RSX since these are only estimated specs, nVidia actually said the RSX is an optimized product when compared to the 7800GTX, and in fact some developers at EA compared it with the 7900 GTX which is even better. If you do not believe me, do your research on Beyond3D and Ars Technica, or better yet learn anything about computers.
And when you say somebody is hurt by facts, save it, you are just embarrasing yourself by projecting your psyche to us, nobody cares about your sad life so do not seek to put a label of what you are on the rest of us, ok? It is time to sleep, remember you can not miss school, kiddo.
“Actually ‘Ron’, the Cell in the PS3 does have all 7 SPE’s”
Actually Mornelithe, 7 isn’t ‘all the SPE’s’, you dummy. PS3’s Cell chip has up to 8 SPE’s, but because of yield issues, Sony set the standard at 7 SPE’s.
“what people fail to realize is that to take advantage of the actual performance of the cell processor and the RSX, you have to program adequately, the way first party programmers are doing it. ”
Listen to this tard. RSX is a PC GPU, you fool. No secrets, no magic, no hidden powers to unlock and no PHd required. The fact is, Sony admits that RSX is outperformed by 360’s GPU, WHATEVER THE REASON. Sony admits that Cell HELPS RSX try and keep up. 1st and 2nd party software for PS3 are optimized at great expense, something most developers wont/can’t do just to make Sony’s foolish design look good.
Please don’t say ‘kiddo’ anymore. It make me think of you as someones grandpa. Before you preach about the use of the term fanboy in this thread, try doing some reading first.
Again, this is nonsense. The ps3 processes 450,000,000 polygons, not half the 360! As well as this, the FPS of a game is not entirely based upon a graphics chip, but rather the processor and the graphics ship combined, along with the speed of the hard disk, speed of RAM in all areas, amount of cache available etc.etc.
Most games are not optimized for the Ps3, but rather created for 360 then poorly ported over. This is a very incorrect article.