Xbox 360 vs. PS3 Spec Analysis

[Bond]

When you break down the numbers, Xbox 360 has provably more performance than PS3. Keep in mind that Sony has a track record of over promising and under delivering on technical performance. The truth is that both systems pack a lot of power for high definition games and entertainment.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/617/617951p1.html

Well, the Xbox 360 can't be more powerful than the PS3, so this just has to be flat out wrong.

[Stray_Bullet]

:doh:

[DarrenMcLeod]

Kyuzo... er.... Sony, is going to come in here and talk about how Sony representatives..err.... his coworkers, have told him that SONY'S PLAYSTATION 3 is much more powerful.

Why don't we wait until we actually see what the systems do rather than videos before we jump to conclusions? I'm going to say this is a lie and PS3 is more powerful, but I'm not going to do the same thing most kids on message boards do and pretend they know what all these specs mean (unless you're a developer, you probably don't understand what everything here means to the development of a game), so I'm just going to wait.

[Jonbo298]

Darren, that signature scares me so much...same with I believe its Crash's avatar. Thank god I missed the Ninty press conference :errr:

But anywho, without a playable PS3 to the public, its hard to judge who's more powerful. Right now its Microsoft because they PROVED what their hardware is capable of, whereas the other 2 just make claims.

[dropCGCF]

I believe you fanboys are all going to see the power of the X soon. Don't fight the monopoly.

[Jonbo298]

I believe you fanboys are all going to see the power of the X soon. Don't fight the monopoly.

*gasp* for once, fanboy might not have been directed at me :p

[GameMaster]

I'm tired of debating power. It means jack if the game isn't fun. End the dwelling!

[Stonecutter]

Well, the Xbox 360 can't be more powerful than the PS3, so this just has to be flat out wrong.
I have two of my fundamental gaming beliefs going head to head here...

1) If it has numbers in it, and it's from sony, and it relates to how powerful their system is, it must be a flat out lie.

on the other hand

2) If IGN said it, it must be a flat out lie.


Grrrr, confusing.

[bobcat]

I have two of my fundamental gaming beliefs going head to head here...

1) If it has numbers in it, and it's from sony, and it relates to how powerful their system is, it must be a flat out lie.

on the other hand

2) If IGN said it, it must be a flat out lie.


Grrrr, confusing.
So where do we find the truth oh wise one?

[Typhoid]

So where do we find the truth oh wise one?


Obviously the truth is taken from dismantling Sony's blatent and constant lies.

[Perfect Stu]

In the wake of the consoles' unveiling, some developers are already leaning toward one platform.

"I was shocked by how powerful the new consoles are," said Julian Eggebrecht, president of the San Rafael, Calif.-based game development company Factor 5. "They should really free our development."

Eggebrecht said his company--which developed "Star Wars: Rogue Squadron" for Nintendo's GameCube--would create games exclusively for Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3.

The choice boiled down to performance, Eggebrecht said at E3 in Los Angeles. His company has worked with Microsoft's Xbox 360, but found PlayStation 3's 3.2GHz Cell chip offered more processing power. The additional performance allows the gang at Factor 5 to more easily simulate the real world for a better game experience, he said.



or, you could listen to Doug Perry of IGN XBox...

[Null]

Had these same debates going on back when Dreamcast was going to be released before PS2, and sega fans brought up all these arguments claming the dc would still be more powerful. people need to just let go, the later system is usually more powerful.

ppl need to give up the power argument and fucus on the gaming. PS3 more powerful, but both will look great.

[MuGen]

Darren, try to find a way to post without including my name in it.

And the PS3 is more powerful... this not coming from my supposed CoWorkers as Darren so eloquently pointed out.......... this coming from developers who've worked with PS3.. and on unfinished PS3 dev kits too.

Developers say it's more powerful and IGN editors doubt it because they can't explain why it's so powerful.... even the editors dont understand the numbers...

[Solid Snake]

The PS3 and the XBox 360 seem to have two designs that go in little different directions. You are going to have games that are optimized for both systems and both are going to look great. It is still too early to make claims of one system being more powerfull than the other, although it is only logic that the console being released last will have more current technology and therefore be more powerfull, but none of us know that for sure.

I still think that you won't be able to find very many differences between the games of PS3 and XBox 360 when it is all said and done.

[Null]

as far as graphics, there 'may' not be a big difference, thats not where the extra power lies. you will notice it in other things tho.

[Perfect Stu]

as far as graphics, there 'may' not be a big difference, thats not where the extra power lies. you will notice it in other things tho.


good point null

hideo kojima (he knows a thing or two about making good games) mentioned that with this next generation of games, he wants to focus more on the things you CANT see...

for example, a tree in a game can be beautiful. but it's still just a tree...if you give the player the ability to plant the seed, shine light on it and have it grow with its own unique attributes, it's something completely different...and it'll still look beautiful, graphics-wise

[Stray_Bullet]

I have two of my fundamental gaming beliefs going head to head here...

1) If it has numbers in it, and it's from sony, and it relates to how powerful their system is, it must be a flat out lie.

on the other hand

2) If IGN said it, it must be a flat out lie.


Grrrr, confusing.

No worries Stoney C. They both lied. The PS3 and XBox will have the same power output. *looks around*

[Vampyr]

as far as graphics, there 'may' not be a big difference, thats not where the extra power lies. you will notice it in other things tho.

I'm most interested to see how the extra power is used for Artificial Intelligence.

But I agree with Link...I don't think the differences between the 360 and the PS3 will be large enough to account for a tremendously noticable effect.

[Solid Snake]

But I agree with Link...I don't think the differences between the 360 and the PS3 will be large enough to account for a tremendously noticable effect.

I think you mean Solid Snake, not trying to toot my horn or anything.....

Also I wouldn't want Link miss represented.

[GameMaster]

I think your avatar is confusing everyone :D

But remember kids, if it doesn't shrug and walk away, then it's not the real Link!

[Solid Snake]

That's what I was thinking, I'm just trying to show support for all my favorites by having the name Solid Snake, the avatar of Link, and the signiture of Joanna Dark.

I will try to find a different link or Zelda picture for my Avatar so I will no longer confuse anybody.

[gekko]

While I am not the tech expert, I do read things and pretend I understand it. From what I've learned:

1) Cell processors are extremely powerful when used with more than one. They are designed to do work in 2, 4, 8, and even 16 processor machines. PS3 has 1, and won't be getting nearly what they should out of the processor.

2) Cell processors do single-precision floating point operations, so while Sony boasts huge FLOP numbers, so while they try to say it's 27 times more powerful than PCs in floating point calculations, it really ends up being 2.7 times more powerful.

3) From everything I've read on multi-core processors, there's no advantage except for heat. Since making faster 90nm chips was becoming way too hot, they instead put in multiple lower-clocked cores that ran cooler, so higher speeds were achieved.

But like I said, I am not the tech guy. If you need any more explanation than what I gave, fine the original article and figure it out, because I know no more. There are so many factors that need to be considered, unless you're a complete tech nerd and know the exact details of PS3 and Xbox 360's setup which you can't tell from paper specs, it means nothing.

What I do know...

Xbox 360 and Revolution both use PowerPC CPUs and ATI GPUs. PS3 uses Cell CPU and nVidia GPU. Despite the power, PS3 has the hurdle of difficult development to overcome, where Xbox 360 and Rev both use similar processors, which makes for much smoother ports. Something to think about.

[Perfect Stu]

Xbox 360 and Revolution both use PowerPC CPUs and ATI GPUs. PS3 uses Cell CPU and nVidia GPU. Despite the power, PS3 has the hurdle of difficult development to overcome, where Xbox 360 and Rev both use similar processors, which makes for much smoother ports. Something to think about.


Can you elaborate on that? Developers have been saying how surprisingly easy PS3 is to develop for... :confused:

GI: What can you say are the differences between developing for PS2 then developing for PS3?

Mark Rein: Everything.....

GI: In what sense?

Mark Rein: The PS2's emotion engine had our developers learning a new language of programming to begin development on a game. The PS3 uses OpenGL which we've been working with for decades, and the Cell architecture is accessible using C++ which is already a widely known programming language.



GI: What do you think the future is for Playstation 3?

Mark Rein: Things can only get better from here. All the developers we've been speaking already love the architecture and the language PS3 is using, and they can't wait to utilize the cell chip further.

[MuGen]

I'm starting to realize how endless this arguement will be.

Consider having X360 and PS3 both being able to port games to each without a single slight of difference in graphics and framerate. That's a good revelation and while I support PS3, I wouldn't mind both consoles being equal.

[DarrenMcLeod]

I'm hoping for easy ports from Rev to X360 and X360 to PS3 and whatnot.

Thanks for the information, gekko. +rep.

[gekko]

Can you elaborate on that? Developers have been saying how surprisingly easy PS3 is to develop for... :confused:

Right now it's marketing, not reality. You'll hear people like Hideo Kojima say how easy PS3 is to program for, expecting you to not realize that the people being interviewed don't write code, but rather design games.

Developers expressed their concerns learning a new type of processor that handles information differently than what they're used to, and now they magically love it? No. It takes time to code a game, and it takes time to develop an opinion on the PS3, good or bad.

Wait until you hear real programmers talking. Look to the IGDA or GDC for real opinions from the guys writing the code, not IGN and EGM for the guys running the company.

Not saying 360 or Rev is great, but PowerPC is a more common processor than Cell, and most programmers would have prior experience with it.

[Perfect Stu]

it's not so much the processor as the development language

personally, I would trust the word of someone who has actually worked on a PS3 game (even in a press conference to build hype) over yourself, who hasnt. it's no offense, it just seems like proper logic

but that's only what I believe at this point and time...we'll know the truth in just over a year when we start to see multiplatform next-gen games

[gekko]

The development language is the same. Libraries are different.

Who has worked on a PS3 game? I've yet to see anyone.

[Null]

While mark rein doesnt program the games, he does follow along and have a very good understanding of them, he is very close with the people who do make the games at epic, hes a frequent poster on the epic message boards and explains much of that stuff along with the actual programers.

it may or may not be AS well off as he claims, but i dont think he's too far off in his comments.

well just have to wait and see what developers are saying in the first year of release tho to see how easy it is to program the games.

[MuGen]

The development language is the same. Libraries are different.

Who has worked on a PS3 game? I've yet to see anyone.

The GPU is accessed and programmed with OpenGL and XML, an open-source language widely used today and is widely favored by many programmers.

The CELL is accessed using C++ calculating language.

It doesn' t matter which processor is more widely known. It's the way they access it in terms of coding. Cell has been confirmed to be running on C++ programming....

[Dyne]

That's annoying. Here Universities did the paradigm shift from C++ to Java, and now people are still going to be using C++ in the future.

[Null]

That's annoying. Here Universities did the paradigm shift from C++ to Java, and now people are still going to be using C++ in the future.

Java was never going to replace C++, only thing good about java is that it runs on all the different platforms, but it was never better then C++ for anything, Java actually runs like 10 times slower then C++.

[gekko]

It doesn' t matter which processor is more widely known. It's the way they access it in terms of coding. Cell has been confirmed to be running on C++ programming....

It doesn't? Sure does.

Like I said before, it's not the coding, it's the libraries. The different way that the processors handle and display information, the different way they store information into memory. It changes between systems. If you want to get good performance, you need to rework the engine to work with that specific hardware.

If it worked like you say, porting a game would be no different than putting the game on a different disc. It's not that simple.

The processor doesn't read C++ either. Programming languages are designed to be a modified form of English, and then you compile it, put it in machine code.