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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This article is bullcrap through and through. It takes one little tidbit of information and tries to build a whole article around assumptions and omitting all the contextual information about how the Cell works together with the RSX to produce the PS3’s visuals.
The PS3’s architecture is entirely different than the 360’s and each has its strengths, but you can’t directly compare them like this. What a sad, worthless piece of misleading writing.
And to think this is linked from the Google main page. Hopefully less-in-the-know people scroll down to the comments to get the real story before taking this as truth because this is one of the most biased, fabricated articles I’ve ever read.
These message boards are filled with sony fanboys. Yes his article is incredibly biased. But look at the facts, almost all of the multiplatform titles have a lower framerate on the ps3 than the 360. If the ps3 which came out a year after the 360 is so much more powerfull than wouldn’t that be the opposite. Stop defending your companies as if you would die for them. Every company has its problems. Microsoft=rrod Nintendo= third parties Sony=harder to develop on and framerate issues. Each company has its strong points too. So please don’t let other people get to you. you are entitled to your own opinion. YOU WILL NOT CONVINCE EACH OTHER THAT THE OTHER CONSOLE IS BETTER. SO SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP.
Whatever the truth, it still will never get you the exclusives for both consoles and its game quality that you count, not polygons. I own all 3 systems - way more polygons than your single 360….
lol what utter rubbish,these r the guys that put 2video`s of a car game together i cant remember the name now and they said one was the ps3 version and one was the 360 version and they made the 360 version look better but it was reveealed they made a mistake and both video`s was the ps3 version…..so one of the vidoes`s was dumbed down to make the ps3 look bad,prove there in the bill gates pocket….oh and the ps3 also has 500,000,000 polygons its just that this can be split in half to 250,000,000 so what u talking about know ur hardware u idiot,i`ve heard the opposite that is the 360bringing down the ps3 not to metion oblivion n the devs agree has better graphics then the 360 n pc verions,oh n mgs4 just blew ur crappy 360 away pal,im not even a fan boy just facts im afraid,il agree it might be a little hard to code for buts thats just cause of lazy devs use to working on the 360 first
Just accept it, man. Xbox 360 is a dying horse or should i say…very fragile it can die any day since you bought it!
One question, have you even asked infinity ward about this?Or did you just make numbers out of your head? Considering as stated in previous comments infinity ward said the ps3 has a long way too go?
well if the ps3 can only display 275,ooo polygons per second, how is each car in GT5 200,000 polygons.
Wow I thought MGS4 looked a lot better than COD4 with more polygons on screen, higher resolution textures and a framerate that I’ve never seen drop but I guess COD4 was the best the PS3 can do. I guess that means all the Killzone 2 gameplay was fake.
Also it must of meant that when Naughty dog said that they were only using a third of the PS3’s power they were lying.
Right Pete!! Just let them compare MGS4 of PS3 to any games of XBOX(already out or still coming). I think they cant even start a letter with their comparison..
He’s like comparing a Ferrari and a Mitsubishi Car with Nitros. The Ferrari maybe faster, but look how fast a Mitsubishi Car will be when using Nitros.. It will blow you away..
The PS3 is a console with Nitros..