I am simply stating that UNTIL one of his peers presents evidence that contradicts his own analysis then it should be accepted as fact. klactoseHmmm..... why? Tell me, has he presented any facts to his claims? If I make a point and if such point is not argued between a person of my own stature does that make it true?
Until a DEVELOPER counters Insomniac's TECHNICAL claims, their word is law!
This topic is locked from further discussion.
While i don't know about his word is law, the article makes a lot of sense.
Im not claiming his observations are lies. I'm claiming that his motivations, his background, instills an inherent bias that will no doubt effect many aspects of the PRESENTATION of his observations. The technical aspects of this mans opinion are irrellevant as the most technically superior console rarely wins. What this thread is REALLY about is the conclusion he reaches....that ps3 will win and wii will not. This conclusion comes from a BIASED position! The part of the "logic" you are missing is that the claims of one man are not right SIMPLY BECAUSE he made them and no one else, in his similar position, has come along and contradicted them. Those technical observations are not enough to justify his conclusion as markets such as this are unpredictable because the conclusion he reaches RELIES SOLELY on consumer purchase decision; he cannot predict those and no amount of technical observations will help him determine which system will win the "system war".MaTT2011
NOW I understand what the problem is. You haven't even read my post! :lol: Why am I sitting here having a discussion with you when YOU are going to tell ME what MY thread is REALLY about? Dude, in the FIRST paragraph I say
Well this post ISN'T about his forecast for the future, half of his article is speculative and he isn't a fortune teller (I'll ask Cleo if I want to know the future).klactose
I further go on to explain that the only thing I'm interested in is his TECHNICAL perspective on the two systems, which I go on to list. Do you understand that I don't care about his analysis of who will win the system war? Do you realize that this post is NOT REALLY about the conclusion he reaches? If you don't realize this, what can I do to help you realize this? Obviously typing words for you to read doesn't convey that message to you, so help me to help you. How can I explain any better than I already have, that this topic is STRICTLY about the technical issues.
You actually seem like you SHOULD be able to grasp this. So my suggestion would be to give it another try and actually read what I wrote, instead of ASSUMING that you know what I think. Cheers. :)
[QUOTE="klactose"]I am simply stating that UNTIL one of his peers presents evidence that contradicts his own analysis then it should be accepted as fact. StealthStingHmmm..... why? Tell me, has he presented any facts to his claims? If I make a point and if such point is not argued between a person of my own stature does that make it true? In absolute terms? No. In relative terms? Yes, It makes it true until a person who DOES have the knowledge to debunk it is presented. This is why in a court of law they present expert witnesses. This is simply a matter that stands UNTIL the contrary is presented. The contrary may be presented tomorrow for all we know. As I've stated, I hope it is, then we may get a more technically accurate and in-depth viewpoint. As of now, there is too much secrecy surrounding the two consoles technical prowess. In my opinion, the more technical information we hear from devs the better. If two devs present contradicting information, the beauty of it is that other devs will try to duplicate it and report on wether it was or wasn't accurate. It's a win/win. And it's also why I love science.
I think true power lays in the tools and APIs that accompany a platform. If you can't harness the power of a system then what good is it? Although I have never programmed for the Playstation, I can tell you from experience that developing for Xbox 360 is hassle free, simple and enjoyable. Microsoft provides the developers with great set of tools and a comprehensive documentation both for their console and Windows platform. Take MSDN for instance, although sometimes technical, it provides the developers with all sorts of information such as detailed parameter explanation and even code samples in whatever language you choose to develop under and that is why I believe the Xbox 360 is the superior system.
Nice, good read, though it could have done without the number 7 reason....munu9Actually, in my opinion he could have done without all of the speculation and just made it purely a technical article. But then again, I supose he would have had a lot shakier argument if he kept it purely scientific. As it is, he makes some decent speculations, but many of them are the same ones we see every day right here, and at the end of the day his speculations are no better than mine or yours.
[QUOTE="StealthSting"][QUOTE="klactose"]I am simply stating that UNTIL one of his peers presents evidence that contradicts his own analysis then it should be accepted as fact. klactoseHmmm..... why? Tell me, has he presented any facts to his claims? If I make a point and if such point is not argued between a person of my own stature does that make it true? In absolute terms? No. In relative terms? Yes, It makes it true until a person who DOES have the knowledge to debunk it is presented. This is why in a court of law they present expert witnesses. This is simply a matter that stands UNTIL the contrary is presented. The contrary may be presented tomorrow for all we know. As I've stated, I hope it is, then we may get a more technically accurate and in-depth viewpoint. As of now, there is too much secrecy surrounding the two consoles technical prowess. In my opinion, the more technical information we hear from devs the better. If two devs present contradicting information, the beauty of it is that other devs will try to duplicate it and report on wether it was or wasn't accurate. It's a win/win. And it's also why I love science. So in your opinion it can be regarded as true only and if viewed in relative terms? Ok, thats good enough for me.
[QUOTE="klactose"][QUOTE="MaTT2011"][QUOTE="klactose"] And while I agree with much of that... You haven't addressed the topic of THIS post which addressed the technical issues he brought up. Those technical issues shouldn't be dismissed so quickly. And until another developer discounts them, this is the most authoritative comparison of the technical issues I've pointed out.MaTT2011Thats ridiculous. So if I say something it stands as true till someone in my same position can prove otherwise? Have you ever heard of this little thing called "logic" ? Do you realize that you STILL haven't addressed the what this post is talking about? And the LOGIC behind holding this dev's PROFESSIONAL opinion concerning the TECHNICAL merits of the PS3 and the 360, above that of simple fanboys to me seems quite apparent. But to spell it out AGAIN. In the professional world, MOST people in SCIENTIFIC and TECHNICAL fields will NOT tell outright lies due to the simple fact that TECHNICAL and SCIENTIFIC analysis can be VERIFIED by peers. With that said, I am simply stating that UNTIL one of his peers presents evidence that contradicts his own analysis then it should be accepted as fact. If he is mistaken, then we should hear pretty soon from another dev. And it is THIS conversation and in-depth exploration on the technical merits of these two systems that actually interest me, NOT the small minded "I want my favorite console to win" conversation that the majority of posts here have presented. If you read what I've written you would realize that I have no particular allegiance to either console. So, now please explain to me, what part of "logic" am I missing? Im not claiming his observations are lies. I'm claiming that his motivations, his background, instills an inherent bias that will no doubt effect many aspects of the PRESENTATION of his observations. The technical aspects of this mans opinion are irrellevant as the most technically superior console rarely wins. What this thread is REALLY about is the conclusion he reaches....that ps3 will win and wii will not. This conclusion comes from a BIASED position! The part of the "logic" you are missing is that the claims of one man are not right SIMPLY BECAUSE he made them and no one else, in his similar position, has come along and contradicted them. Those technical observations are not enough to justify his conclusion as markets such as this are unpredictable because the conclusion he reaches RELIES SOLELY on consumer purchase decision; he cannot predict those and no amount of technical observations will help him determine which system will win the "system war".what about the part where he said that the 360 has a slight GPU advantage over the PS3? Is that biased?
That makes sense. And I agree that the dev tools are what will empower developers in the end. Actually I think that Mr. Hastings conceded that as well. I wish that you would have also been able to program for the PS3, or at least were very familiar with it. Then I'd be able to ask if you found any faults in Mr. Hastings' technical arguments.I think true power lays in the tools and APIs that accompany a platform. If you can't harness the power of a system then what good is it? Although I have never programmed for the Playstation, I can tell you from experience that developing for Xbox 360 is hassle free, simple and enjoyable. Microsoft provides the developers with great set of tools and a comprehensive documentation both for their console and Windows platform. Take MSDN for instance, although sometimes technical, it provides the developers with all sorts of information such as detailed parameter explanation and even code samples in whatever language you choose to develop under and that is why I believe the Xbox 360 is the superior system.
saspool
I'm a 360 owner and a ps3 owner and I love my 360. I agree with everything that gentleman said... except he left out some parts.... #1. the games have to be fun, I want nice graphics but I also want FUN. #2. Better graphics don't make a better system. I had all the consoles last gen and I must say I sure enjoyed my ps2 3 times more my other console.. why? see #1 again.
Klactose I understand the the point of your post but this is SYSTEM WARS!!!! WHERE NO LOGIC HAS GONE BEFORE!!!!!. Most people on here are DEE DEE DEE's and have the brains of stormy from Sealab 2021[QUOTE="BlackDianWei"][QUOTE="klactose"]First question I would have to ask after reading your rant is: Did you actually READ my post? It seems that a LOT of fanboys are jumping to conclusions about what this topic is about. Now, if you have read the post and aren't jumping to conclusions, then please, please, PLEASE, provide me some link to all the Devs that discredit the technical issues brought up by Mr. Hastings.klactose
Hahaha! :lol: That is true... it is very hard to get a logical conversation going here. Sometimes I don't even know why I try! :P But anyway, that "DEE DEE DEE's" comment sounds like something we'd say here in Chicago, and I never expected to see it used on this website! :lol: Where are you from?
I'm from Arkansas and I watch a lot of Mind of Mencia :)Yep, FUN is definitely the main factor to be considered when playing games.I'm a 360 owner and a ps3 owner and I love my 360. I agree with everything that gentleman said... except he left out some parts.... #1. the games have to be fun, I want nice graphics but I also want FUN. #2. Better graphics don't make a better system. I had all the consoles last gen and I must say I sure enjoyed my ps2 3 times more my other console.. why? see #1 again.
bloodyclot
Till a developer counters Insomniac? John Carmack has already countered what Insomniac has said and he is more neutral. As for the PS3 CPU being leaps above the 360s that's not what Carmack said. He said he prefered the parralel design of the Xenon over the Cell. Also he preferred the development tools of Microsoft. Even the Sony developer could not deny the Xenos was better than RSX. Atleast we can finally end that debate now. There have been countless developers say this with many also saying the preffered the UMA of the 360 too.
You have Carmack (preferred Xenon, Dev Tools), The Darkness Developer (Better Textures/GPU 360), Insonmiac (Better GPU 360), Cliffy B, and Bizzare all who said the 360 had advantages over PS3.
Till a developer coutners Insomniac? John Carmack has already countered what Insomniac has said and he is more neutral. As for the PS3 CPU being leaps above the 360s that's not what Carmack said. He said he prefered the parralel design of the Xenon over the Cell. Also he preferred the development tools of Microsoft. Even the Sony developer could not deny the Xenos was better than RSX. Atleast we can finally end that debate now. There have been countless developers say this with many also saying the preffered the UMA of the 360 too. rexoverbey
Interesting. I have read what Carmack said about his preferences, he was stating that he felt that the PS3 was harder than it needed to be to develop for. Everyone has said that the Cell is harder to develop for then the 360 and that Sony has had crap Dev Tools, even Hastings. However I did not read any article where Carmack discounted or stated an opposing view concerning the technical merits that Hastings has presented. Do you have a link by chance? I'm guessing you don't. Also concerning the Xenos, I agree that it is becoming a consensus on it being the superior GPU.
[QUOTE="rexoverbey"]Till a developer coutners Insomniac? John Carmack has already countered what Insomniac has said and he is more neutral. As for the PS3 CPU being leaps above the 360s that's not what Carmack said. He said he prefered the parralel design of the Xenon over the Cell. Also he preferred the development tools of Microsoft. Even the Sony developer could not deny the Xenos was better than RSX. Atleast we can finally end that debate now. There have been countless developers say this with many also saying the preffered the UMA of the 360 too. klactoseInteresting. I have read what Carmack said about his preferences, he was stating that he felt that the PS3 was harder than it needed to be to develop for. Everyone has said that the Cell is harder to develop for then the 360 and that Sony has had crap Dev Tools, even Hastings. However I did not read any article where Carmack discounted or stated an opposing view concerning the technical merits that Hastings has presented. Do you have a link by chance? I'm guessing you don't. Speaking in a lengthy interview with Game Informer at CES, id Software's John Carmack has once again backed the Xbox 360, revealing that he believes Microsoft's development tools "are so much better than Sony's." "We've got our PlayStation 3 dev kits, and we've got our code compiling on it. I do intend to do a simultaneous release on it. But the honest truth is that Microsoft dev tools are so much better than Sony's," said Carmack. "I think the decision to use an asymmetric CPU by Sony was a wrong one. There are aspects that could make it a winning decision, but they're not helpful to the developers."
http://news4gamers.com/industrynews/News-19561.aspx
BTW why would Carmack comment on what insomniac would say? He is a much more known developer and his viewpoints on hardware are always asked first by the development community. The Cell is nothing more than the emotion engine hyped. It also was impossible to develop for and never lived to the hype.
These all SUPPORT not refute what Hastings has said as well.You have Carmack (preferred Xenon, Dev Tools), The Darkness Developer (Better Textures/GPU 360), Insonmiac (Better GPU 360), Cliffy B, and Bizzare all who said the 360 had advantages over PS3.
rexoverbey
Till a developer counters Insomniac? John Carmack has already countered what Insomniac has said and he is more neutral. As for the PS3 CPU being leaps above the 360s that's not what Carmack said. He said he prefered the parralel design of the Xenon over the Cell. Also he preferred the development tools of Microsoft. Even the Sony developer could not deny the Xenos was better than RSX. Atleast we can finally end that debate now. There have been countless developers say this with many also saying the preffered the UMA of the 360 too.
You have Carmack (preferred Xenon, Dev Tools), The Darkness Developer (Better Textures/GPU 360), Insonmiac (Better GPU 360), Cliffy B, and Bizzare all who said the 360 had advantages over PS3.
rexoverbey
what do they have in common all of them in the end said the ps3 is more powerful system..
[QUOTE="rexoverbey"]Till a developer counters Insomniac? John Carmack has already countered what Insomniac has said and he is more neutral. As for the PS3 CPU being leaps above the 360s that's not what Carmack said. He said he prefered the parralel design of the Xenon over the Cell. Also he preferred the development tools of Microsoft. Even the Sony developer could not deny the Xenos was better than RSX. Atleast we can finally end that debate now. There have been countless developers say this with many also saying the preffered the UMA of the 360 too.
You have Carmack (preferred Xenon, Dev Tools), The Darkness Developer (Better Textures/GPU 360), Insonmiac (Better GPU 360), Cliffy B, and Bizzare all who said the 360 had advantages over PS3.
elementz28
have do they all have in common all of them in the end sayin the ps3 is more powerful system..
None of them said that. Carmack said the theoretical performance of Cell would never be reached. All the other developers have never said the PS3 as being more powerful maybe you would like to show a link.[QUOTE="rexoverbey"]These all SUPPORT not refute what Hastings has said as well. Which one said the Cell was leaps and bounds above Xenon? Plus the developer contradicts himself. One he said Gears was the best looking game. Then he says games will be better w/ 50Gigs. Gears was half the size of Resistance and yet it demolishes it every catagory from graphics, physics, etc.You have Carmack (preferred Xenon, Dev Tools), The Darkness Developer (Better Textures/GPU 360), Insonmiac (Better GPU 360), Cliffy B, and Bizzare all who said the 360 had advantages over PS3.
klactose
I completely agree with his wii is a fad point of view.palaric8
well said
The problem with including a hard drive in one version of the 360 and not in the other is that developers can't use it for the games. Or, at least, they can't use it for any required features. When you are guaranteed to have at least a 20 GB hard drive in the console, you can write your load caching routines around it, or use it for your application's storage needs. To a developer, an optional hard drive is roughly equivalent to no hard drive at all.klactoseEqually moronic regarding the load caching. If there's a hard drive, the game uses caching. If there isn't, the game doesn't. Simple. Unless a game is OMGSOEFFINGHUGE that EVERY stage must be streamed at a fast pace, but then you're hitting budgetary concerns, not technical concerns, because the sheer amount of $$$ required to put THAT much detail into a game would hit astronomical levels. Why don't you find a quote from someone whose paycheck isn't signed by Sony. Did Bethesda have trouble incorporating the optional hard drive into the 360 version of Oblivion? No, they didn't. The PS3 has a very slight load time advantage, and I emphasize the word *SLIGHT*. Did being on 3 DVDs stop Mistwalker from creating a game that has received rave reviews in Japan and will likely be a million-seller on these shores? No, it didn't. This is just SCE propaganda intended to deceive the lay audience into thinking that these SUPERFICIAL reasons are enough to sway developers and consumers into buying into the PS3. This guy is correct..For anyone who cares.
[QUOTE="klactose"][QUOTE="rexoverbey"]These all SUPPORT not refute what Hastings has said as well. Which one said the Cell was leaps and bounds above Xenon? None... I didn't say they supported EVERYTHING Hastings said, but they don't refute ANYTHING. Hasting's said that the 360 had a superior GPU! He also said that the PS3 had crappy Dev Tools! So you supported those two comments. But you haven't refuted anything.You have Carmack (preferred Xenon, Dev Tools), The Darkness Developer (Better Textures/GPU 360), Insonmiac (Better GPU 360), Cliffy B, and Bizzare all who said the 360 had advantages over PS3.
rexoverbey
OK, I'm guessing you only glanced at the title and you didn't actually READ my post. Because you are not saying anything differently from what Hastings has said in regards to the Technical aspects of the console. So far you have only supported different things he has already said. Read my post man, this isn't a 360 bashing post at all. Not everything Hastings said (from a technical point of view) was negative towards the 360 anyway. No clue why everyone is so fast to defend the 360 before they even read the darn post.
The PS3 is here now and it's too late to talk about potential. I want to know what it can do now, instead of waiting endlessly hoping for someone to unlock it's hidden p0waa.Natural_MysticWell I don't think it's too late to talk about potential, I have a dual core CPU in my computer right now that isn't living up to it's potential. Yet that doesn't mean it's not more powerful than both the PS3 and the 360.
But if you actually read the post, you will find that this is not a PS3 support thread or anything similar. This is a thread speaking about the claimed technical prowess of both machines, which for the FIRST time a developer has gone ON THE RECORD with a comparison of the CPU, GPU, HDD, and Disc Storage, and to boot provided clear reasoning that can either be verified or proven false by other Devs. If he has made erroneous comments, I'm sure we will hear other dev's call him on it in the near future.
EDIT: Until then, his word is the only qualified word we have on the matter. Unless of course you can provide me with some links that dispute his claims.
The PS3 is here now and it's too late to talk about potential. I want to know what it can do now, instead of waiting endlessly hoping for someone to unlock it's hidden p0waa.Natural_Mystic
Let me ask you this how long did it take to get most out of the PS2. I think 3 years and you are giving Ps3 5 months thats not good. Look at GoW2 that game is incredible and its on a 7 year console.
I don't get it. He didn't tell us anything we didn't know already.rykazielWell, I don't know about that, many people have voiced many different opinions here in SW. Technically speaking though he may only have verified some things that many have suspected. However, what makes it interesting is that he is the FIRST developer to do so publically.
So when Valve bashed the PS3 and called it a "total disaster" it was law?
NO.
Stupidest thread ever.
[QUOTE="rykaziel"]I don't get it. He didn't tell us anything we didn't know already.klactoseWell, I don't know about that, many people have voiced many different opinions here in SW. Technically speaking though he may only have verified some things that many have suspected. However, what makes it interesting is that he is the FIRST developer to do so publicly.Actually this only supports all the dev's that have made similar comparisons of both. The one's you protected from the irrational attempt at proving a technical dominance from fanboys by asking for credentials. The reason i posted star in your post is cause it's well put together. it is well worded. good post .
Gabe Newell bashes everything, he bashed Vista in the same freaking paragraph...and other developers contradicted some of what he said as well.So when Valve bashed the PS3 and called it a "total disaster" it was law?
NO.
Stupidest thread ever.
360_Degrees
Well just as I discount Hasting's predictions on how well the console will do in the future. I discount Valve's as well. If Valve has something to say regarding the technical merits of the system I would take that into consideration as they are game developers. But simply saying a system sucks, or that a system is great does not sway me much at all. The games will ultimately decide which system wins the console war. But there are definite technical advantages inherent in each console, that are real. These differences are of interest to me. And these differences are what this post is about. Next time, please read the thread, and THEN comment. Thanks.So when Valve bashed the PS3 and called it a "total disaster" it was law?
NO.
Stupidest thread ever.
360_Degrees
[QUOTE="Natural_Mystic"]The PS3 is here now and it's too late to talk about potential. I want to know what it can do now, instead of waiting endlessly hoping for someone to unlock it's hidden p0waa.klactoseWell I don't think it's too late to talk about potential, I have a dual core CPU in my computer right now that isn't living up to it's potential. Yet that doesn't mean it's not more powerful than both the PS3 and the 360. But if you actually read the post, you will find that this is not a PS3 support thread or anything similar. This is a thread speaking about the claimed technical prowess of both machines, which for the FIRST time a developer has gone ON THE RECORD with a comparison of the CPU, GPU, HDD, and Disc Storage, and to boot provided clear reasoning that can either be verified or proven false by other Devs. If he has made erroneous comments, I'm sure we will hear other dev's call him on it in the near future.There is a big difference between your core2duo and the Cell. For one, the software that can get the most out of your core2 exist and the software that can get the theoretical performance out of the Cell doesn't exist. One is real performance the other is an imagined posibility. You're ill informed about developer opinion. This is not first time a developer has gone on record about the technical aspects of both the PS3 and 360. Gabe Newell discribed the PS3 as a "total disaster on so many levels" and his credentials are alot better than this guy from Imsomniac. So I don't think you want to get into a debate on which system developers prefer.
[QUOTE="klactose"][QUOTE="rykaziel"]I don't get it. He didn't tell us anything we didn't know already.akuma303xWell, I don't know about that, many people have voiced many different opinions here in SW. Technically speaking though he may only have verified some things that many have suspected. However, what makes it interesting is that he is the FIRST developer to do so publicly.Actually this only supports all the dev's that have made similar comparisons of both. The one's you protected from the irrational attempt at proving a technical dominance from fanboys by asking for credentials. The reason i posted star in your post is cause it's well put together. it is well worded. good post . Thank you for complimenting my post. I appreciate that.
The thing about OTHER devs is that none of them have publically made a direct comparison between the the GPU, CPU, HDD, and media disc space of the 2 consoles (that I'm aware of). There is alot of rumblings about PS3 dev tools, and the like. But no real meat and potatos comparisons. This is the first that I've seen by an ACTUAL Developer. It is kind of like no one want's to say anything that can be construed as negative about either console. I simply want to hear the truth about what's under the hood and how what is under the hood affects gaming.
[QUOTE="klactose"][QUOTE="Natural_Mystic"]The PS3 is here now and it's too late to talk about potential. I want to know what it can do now, instead of waiting endlessly hoping for someone to unlock it's hidden p0waa.Natural_MysticWell I don't think it's too late to talk about potential, I have a dual core CPU in my computer right now that isn't living up to it's potential. Yet that doesn't mean it's not more powerful than both the PS3 and the 360. But if you actually read the post, you will find that this is not a PS3 support thread or anything similar. This is a thread speaking about the claimed technical prowess of both machines, which for the FIRST time a developer has gone ON THE RECORD with a comparison of the CPU, GPU, HDD, and Disc Storage, and to boot provided clear reasoning that can either be verified or proven false by other Devs. If he has made erroneous comments, I'm sure we will hear other dev's call him on it in the near future.There is a big difference between your core2duo and the Cell. For one, the software that can get the most out of your core2 exist and the software that can get the theoretical performance out of the Cell doesn't exist. One is real performance the other is an imagined posibility. You're ill informed about developer opinion. This is not first time a developer has gone on record about the technical aspects of both the PS3 and 360. Gabe Newell discribed the PS3 as a "total disaster on so many levels" and his credentials are alot better than this guy from Imsomniac. So I don't think you want to get into a debate on which system developers prefer. No you are incorrect, I am very familiar with Gabe Newell's remarks[QUOTE="Gabe Newell"]The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels, I think It’s really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted ... I’d say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a ‘do over’. Just say, ‘This was a horrible disaster and we’re sorry and we’re going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it. My question to you is, how do his comments address the TECHNICAL issues that Hastings as covered? My answer would be that Newell's comments do not speak on those technical issues at all. But please tell me yours. Now of course if you can produce a link that shows where he does specifically discuss and debunk these issues, I would love to be presented with it. Thanks in advance! :)
Ok, by now everyone is aware of the "10 Reasons Sony Wins" article the Chief Creative Officer at Insomniac, Brian Hastings, wrote. Well this post ISN'T about his forecast for the future, half of his article is speculative and he isn't a fortune teller (I'll ask Cleo if I want to know the future).
What he is, however, is a Game developer with intimate knowledge of software and hardware. So the specific items he touched on regarding the technical attributes shall be considered true by me until another developer claims differently. I don't want to see any crappy posts in here from "anonymous devs". If they have something to say the should be willing to speak openly. I respect Brian for having the guts to put his professional opinion on the line. With that said, let's get busy and explore the technical issues he discussed.
1: Gears is the best looking game to date, including RFOM.[QUOTE="Brian Hastings"]Gears of War is a beautiful game and shows off the highest resolution textures of anything yet released, partly because of the Unreal Engine's ability to stream textures. This means that you can have much higher resolution textures than you could normally fit in your 512 MB of RAM.
...
Sometimes people ask us, "If Resistance takes 14 gigabytes, why doesn't it look better than Gears?" Well, for one, Resistance didn't support texture streaming, so we had to make choices about where we spent our high-res textures.klactose
2: 50GB of data WILL make games better.
As games get bigger, more advanced and more complex, they necessarily take up more space. If developers were filling up DVDs last generation, there are clearly going to be some sacrifices made to fit current generation games in the same amount of space....
There's no question that you can always cut more levels, compress the audio more, compress the textures more, down-res the mpeg movies, and eventually get any game to fit on a DVD. But you paid for a high-def experience, right? You want the highest resolution, best audio, most cinematic experience a developer can offer, right? That's why Blu-Ray is important for games, and why it will become more important each year of this hardware cycle.Brian Hastings
3: The Hard Drive MATTERS.
The problem with including a hard drive in one version of the 360 and not in the other is that developers can't use it for the games. Or, at least, they can't use it for any required features. When you are guaranteed to have at least a 20 GB hard drive in the console, you can write your load caching routines around it, or use it for your application's storage needs. To a developer, an optional hard drive is roughly equivalent to no hard drive at all.Brian Hastings
4: 360's GPU has slight edge over PS3's.
The GPUs on the Xbox 360 and PS3 are roughly equivalent, with the Xbox 360 arguably having a slight edge.Brian Hastings
5: PS3 has major CPU advantage over 360.
The difference in CPU power, however, is far greater with the PS3 enjoying the advantage. The PS3's eight parallel CPUs (one primary "PPU" and seven Cell processors) give it potentially far more computing power than the three parallel CPUs in the Xbox 360. Just about any tech programmer will tell you that the PS3's CPUs are significantly more powerful.Brian Hastings
So there you have it. Anything that disputes these points that doesn't come from another developer will be ignored, or proclaimed as bunk. However if another dev disputes this then we will finally have a real discussion in the gaming world about the real limitations of both of these consoles.
EDIT:
People PLEASE READ the post BEFORE you respond. Alot of you are making yourselves look silly.:shock: This post is NOT saying that Insomniac's word is law concerning PS3 winning the console war. This post IS saying that the TECHNICAL issues that Mr. Hastings has broached will be considered TRUTH up until the time that another developer counters them. If you do not understand this, please take a reading comprehension course. Thank you.
1) So, the best looking game so far is on the 360, that's nice to know.
2) "Some sacrifices", like procedural generation instead of pre-built textures. Oh darn. If Sony would get off their posteriors and build their tools for it, like Microsoft has, their abysmal load times wouldn't be so bad. But c'est la vie. There are plenty of places you can 'cut the fat', so to speak, but devs don't like it because the tools are less mature right now. Of course, on the 360, it's gaining plenty of traction, but that's because they're not the ones trying to fill up 25GB worth of space to convince people Blurry (I'm sorry, Blu-Ray) is necessary.
3) This is the straight, god's honest truth. Writing for the 360 means assuming there is no hard drive. The manditory hard drive was one of the things which made the XBox more powerful than the PS2 (Aside from the less-powerful-but-easier-to-program-for-processor, more RAM, and more powerful graphics chip... hrm, this all sounds familiar...), and the lack of a manditory hard drive is one of the most disappointing decisions they made with the 360, in my mind.
4) This is total, utter bunk. The Xenos outperforms RSX in every category other than filtered texture fetch. The only way that the PS3 will get graphics comparable to the 360 is to use at least three of the 6 available SPUs (remember, of the 8 SPUs, one is disabled, one reserved... and on top of that, one can be taken by the OS at any given time) as geometry shaders (thus taking up a good chunk of the processor), to use some of the system RAM as VRAM to increase the bandwidth (thus taking up a good chunk of the processor's memory bandwidth), and be very, VERY careful with the graphics subsystem to make sure it constantly uses the shaders in a very fixed ratio (3:1 Pixel to Vertex shader ops). Why? Two reasons: One, the unified pipeline shaders of the Xenos means that it runs more efficiently, since you can't really ensure a fixed pipeline ratio, you can only try to keep it close. So instead of some pipelines being starved, every pipeline will be working, as long as there is work to be done. Two, and this is the biggie: Anti-aliasing, z-buffering, and alpha-blending are all done in the eDRAM, meaning there's no performance penalty at all... All those nice feature which make the RSX start chugging hard are done free, meaning the processor isn't forced to compensate, and the eDRAM logic/buffer bandwidth is vastly, VASTLY superior to the memory bandwidth of the PS3 (And main memory bandwidth of the 360, by extention, since the main memory bandwidth is only slightly faster than the 256 MiB of GDDR3, and somewhat slower (but lower latency) than the XDR), meaning the processor doesn't have to fight with the GPU as much over the RAM bandwidth, either.
Long story short: The PS3 has some clever tricks which can bring the GPUs almost into parity, but they involve nullifying, and then some, the advantages which it has over the 360. Further more, the tricks only bring the PS3 into parity with the 360 without trying similar tricks, E.G. If the 360 wanted to cannibalize the processor (Say, because a game's AI and physics were rather simplific), it could also get away with using a core and its VMX unit as a geometry shader...
5) Yes, the Cell is significantly more powerful than the Xenon (The 360's processor) in terms of FLOPs. So was the Emotion Engine compared with the 733 MHz Coppermine PIII in the Xbox. The difference? The Xbox was far easier to program for, and was designed around running real code, instead of being designed in a theoretically fast way which forces the code to fit it, rather than the other way around. The problem? It's easy, but expensive, to make a processor run arbitrary code fast. Sony keeps going the cheap PR route: design a processor around one ****of problems (Single precision floating point operations) which is a minor subset of the requirements of real code, ignoring others entirely, and forcing all the hard work on the programmers, who may or may not be able to solve a given problem to the degree they'd like. (Try and run branch-heavy code on the SPU, watch it peform like a dog). Is the Cell more powerful? In some ways, yes. If you can fit all your code into the subset of things it does well, you're going to love it. Unfortunately, many of the things which we love to rave about (Collision detection, AI, pathfinding) are very, very branch heavy, which is something the Cell does abysmally. If you have more than one, maybe two things which is branch heavy (And, again, many common tasks in video games are branch heavy), odds are that the 360 will do better. If you have a video game which is entirely single-threaded, in that case both will be about equal. If you can only parallellize a little bit, odds are the 360 will be superior. If you can parallellize a lot, the PS3 will be better, assuming you don't try and run branch-heavy code on the SPUs.
Summary: Is the Cell more powerful: In theory. In practice, I have a feeling most games will run better with the 360, processor wize. And as a result, most games on the PS3 will cannibalize the SPUs for the GPU which needs the boost, and dumb down the CPU intensive parts. Ports will look similar on both, with a slight advantage to the 360 thanks to the free 4xAA. PS3-exclusive games with simple physics and logic will look amazing, "proving" to Sony fanboys that it's more powerful than aNYTHANG EVAR, while the ports will all look slightly beter on the 360, "proving" to Anti-Sony people that the PS3 is an overpriced paperweight.
They're different. Not the same. Incomparable. One is not 'better' than the other, but I believe that in most cases for their intended purpose (video games) the 360 is a better architecture. There are some video games where the Cell will be phenominal, but most of the uses for the Cell are DSP related fields (of which, Video games are not one).
Disclaimer: I am "a developer", but not the type you're probably wanting. I do, however, talk to the type you want rather frequently. Most of my experience in this field is as a video technician (IE: I know the ins and outs of NTSC, PAL, ATSC, SECAM, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Composite, SVideo, Component, SCART, 14-pin, XLR, et cetera), but I also do software development for the PC. I've watched and studied both architectures out of intellectual curiosity. I am not advocating one system over the other: Both are equally worthless without software. Follow the games you want. If all you want are cross-platform, pick your poison, both have advantages and disadvantages. I have a preference, but that's subjective. All rights reserved. Why are you still reading?
[QUOTE="munu9"]Nice, good read, though it could have done without the number 7 reason....klactoseActually, in my opinion he could have done without all of the speculation and just made it purely a technical article. But then again, I supose he would have had a lot shakier argument if he kept it purely scientific. As it is, he makes some decent speculations, but many of them are the same ones we see every day right here, and at the end of the day his speculations are no better than mine or yours.
No, but him and his speculation have more credibility than anyone here. He's not some random system wars guy, he's an actual dev who's had years of experiance. In fact, he deserves more credibilty than anyone else expect other devs...
[QUOTE="Natural_Mystic"][QUOTE="klactose"][QUOTE="Natural_Mystic"]The PS3 is here now and it's too late to talk about potential. I want to know what it can do now, instead of waiting endlessly hoping for someone to unlock it's hidden p0waa.klactoseWell I don't think it's too late to talk about potential, I have a dual core CPU in my computer right now that isn't living up to it's potential. Yet that doesn't mean it's not more powerful than both the PS3 and the 360. But if you actually read the post, you will find that this is not a PS3 support thread or anything similar. This is a thread speaking about the claimed technical prowess of both machines, which for the FIRST time a developer has gone ON THE RECORD with a comparison of the CPU, GPU, HDD, and Disc Storage, and to boot provided clear reasoning that can either be verified or proven false by other Devs. If he has made erroneous comments, I'm sure we will hear other dev's call him on it in the near future.There is a big difference between your core2duo and the Cell. For one, the software that can get the most out of your core2 exist and the software that can get the theoretical performance out of the Cell doesn't exist. One is real performance the other is an imagined posibility. You're ill informed about developer opinion. This is not first time a developer has gone on record about the technical aspects of both the PS3 and 360. Gabe Newell discribed the PS3 as a "total disaster on so many levels" and his credentials are alot better than this guy from Imsomniac. So I don't think you want to get into a debate on which system developers prefer. No you are incorrect, I am very familiar with Gabe Newell's remarks[QUOTE="Gabe Newell"]The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels, I think It’s really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted ... I’d say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a ‘do over’. Just say, ‘This was a horrible disaster and we’re sorry and we’re going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it. My question to you is, how do his comments address the TECHNICAL issues that Hastings as covered? My answer would be that Newell's comments do not speak on those technical issues at all. But please tell me yours. Now of course if you can produce a link that shows where he does specifically discuss and debunk these issues, I would love to be presented with it. Thanks in advance! :)Hastings didn't discus technical issues.
[QUOTE="Natural_Mystic"][QUOTE="klactose"][QUOTE="Natural_Mystic"]The PS3 is here now and it's too late to talk about potential. I want to know what it can do now, instead of waiting endlessly hoping for someone to unlock it's hidden p0waa.klactoseWell I don't think it's too late to talk about potential, I have a dual core CPU in my computer right now that isn't living up to it's potential. Yet that doesn't mean it's not more powerful than both the PS3 and the 360. But if you actually read the post, you will find that this is not a PS3 support thread or anything similar. This is a thread speaking about the claimed technical prowess of both machines, which for the FIRST time a developer has gone ON THE RECORD with a comparison of the CPU, GPU, HDD, and Disc Storage, and to boot provided clear reasoning that can either be verified or proven false by other Devs. If he has made erroneous comments, I'm sure we will hear other dev's call him on it in the near future.There is a big difference between your core2duo and the Cell. For one, the software that can get the most out of your core2 exist and the software that can get the theoretical performance out of the Cell doesn't exist. One is real performance the other is an imagined posibility. You're ill informed about developer opinion. This is not first time a developer has gone on record about the technical aspects of both the PS3 and 360. Gabe Newell discribed the PS3 as a "total disaster on so many levels" and his credentials are alot better than this guy from Imsomniac. So I don't think you want to get into a debate on which system developers prefer. No you are incorrect, I am very familiar with Gabe Newell's remarks[QUOTE="Gabe Newell"]The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels, I think It’s really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted ... I’d say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a ‘do over’. Just say, ‘This was a horrible disaster and we’re sorry and we’re going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it. My question to you is, how do his comments address the TECHNICAL issues that Hastings as covered? My answer would be that Newell's comments do not speak on those technical issues at all. But please tell me yours. Now of course if you can produce a link that shows where he does specifically discuss and debunk these issues, I would love to be presented with it. Thanks in advance! :) By the way, isn't gabe newell a PC Dev
I have some comments about some of the things he has said.
BTW i have a 360 and PS3
1: Gears is the best looking game to date, including RFOM.[QUOTE="Brian Hastings"]Gears of War is a beautiful game and shows off the highest resolution textures of anything yet released, partly because of the Unreal Engine's ability to stream textures. This means that you can have much higher resolution textures than you could normally fit in your 512 MB of RAM.
...
Sometimes people ask us, "If Resistance takes 14 gigabytes, why doesn't it look better than Gears?" Well, for one, Resistance didn't support texture streaming, so we had to make choices about where we spent our high-res textures.klactose
LoL what a lame excuse. Who cares how Epic did it, as long as it did and it look better do the consumers really care? The Unreal 3.0 engine is gonna pwn and if it looks that well on the 360 I'm not surprised he's defending how RFOM.
2: 50GB of data WILL make games better.[QUOTE="Brian Hastings"]As games get bigger, more advanced and more complex, they necessarily take up more space. If developers were filling up DVDs last generation, there are clearly going to be some sacrifices made to fit current generation games in the same amount of space.
...
There's no question that you can always cut more levels, compress the audio more, compress the textures more, down-res the mpeg movies, and eventually get any game to fit on a DVD. But you paid for a high-def experience, right? You want the highest resolution, best audio, most cinematic experience a developer can offer, right? That's why Blu-Ray is important for games, and why it will become more important each year of this hardware cycle.klactose
Well if i wanted to watch a movie then fine, but a game? It's the few megs of code that makes the game fun not exceesively large textures and sound. If you follow that philosophy then you can argue that a game that is 100GB is potentially better than 50GB. And has this guy ever heard of multi-disc? Since when were multi-disc games were bad? FF7 anyone? How about for a game like FPS how does multi-disc work you ask? Well take a book out of Total Annihilation, Campaign disc and Multiplayer disc.
3: The Hard Drive MATTERS.[QUOTE="Brian Hastings"]The problem with including a hard drive in one version of the 360 and not in the other is that developers can't use it for the games. Or, at least, they can't use it for any required features. When you are guaranteed to have at least a 20 GB hard drive in the console, you can write your load caching routines around it, or use it for your application's storage needs. To a developer, an optional hard drive is roughly equivalent to no hard drive at all.klactose
Hasn't this guy heard of RAM? It's insanely faster than a hard drive. All you need a harddrive for is game saves and content. If you're relying on a harddrive to cache stuff then either you're not using RAM properly or is just saying that the PS3 doesn't have enough RAM. Personally I think that's the case, 256 ain't enough for HD size textures but that's another story.
I get where he's coming from a hdd will assist in reliving some of the pressure but remember that HDD is slow-as and you don't need it for a good gaming experience as much as he claims... unless you develop for a PC lol
1) So, the best looking game so far is on the 360, that's nice to know.
2) "Some sacrifices", like procedural generation instead of pre-built textures. Oh darn. If Sony would get off their posteriors and build their tools for it, like Microsoft has, their abysmal load times wouldn't be so bad. But c'est la vie. There are plenty of places you can 'cut the fat', so to speak, but devs don't like it because the tools are less mature right now. Of course, on the 360, it's gaining plenty of traction, but that's because they're not the ones trying to fill up 25GB worth of space to convince people Blurry (I'm sorry, Blu-Ray) is necessary.
3) This is the straight, god's honest truth. Writing for the 360 means assuming there is no hard drive. The manditory hard drive was one of the things which made the XBox more powerful than the PS2 (Aside from the less-powerful-but-easier-to-program-for-processor, more RAM, and more powerful graphics chip... hrm, this all sounds familiar...), and the lack of a manditory hard drive is one of the most disappointing decisions they made with the 360, in my mind.
4) This is total, utter bunk. The Xenos outperforms RSX in every category other than filtered texture fetch. The only way that the PS3 will get graphics comparable to the 360 is to use at least three of the 6 available SPUs (remember, of the 8 SPUs, one is disabled, one reserved... and on top of that, one can be taken by the OS at any given time) as geometry shaders (thus taking up a good chunk of the processor), to use some of the system RAM as VRAM to increase the bandwidth (thus taking up a good chunk of the processor's memory bandwidth), and be very, VERY careful with the graphics subsystem to make sure it constantly uses the shaders in a very fixed ratio (3:1 Pixel to Vertex shader ops). Why? Two reasons: One, the unified pipeline shaders of the Xenos means that it runs more efficiently, since you can't really ensure a fixed pipeline ratio, you can only try to keep it close. So instead of some pipelines being starved, every pipeline will be working, as long as there is work to be done. Two, and this is the biggie: Anti-aliasing, z-buffering, and alpha-blending are all done in the eDRAM, meaning there's no performance penalty at all... All those nice feature which make the RSX start chugging hard are done free, meaning the processor isn't forced to compensate, and the eDRAM logic/buffer bandwidth is vastly, VASTLY superior to the memory bandwidth of the PS3 (And main memory bandwidth of the 360, by extention, since the main memory bandwidth is only slightly faster than the 256 MiB of GDDR3, and somewhat slower (but lower latency) than the XDR), meaning the processor doesn't have to fight with the GPU as much over the RAM bandwidth, either.
Long story short: The PS3 has some clever tricks which can bring the GPUs almost into parity, but they involve nullifying, and then some, the advantages which it has over the 360. Further more, the tricks only bring the PS3 into parity with the 360 without trying similar tricks, E.G. If the 360 wanted to cannibalize the processor (Say, because a game's AI and physics were rather simplific), it could also get away with using a core and its VMX unit as a geometry shader...
5) Yes, the Cell is significantly more powerful than the Xenon (The 360's processor) in terms of FLOPs. So was the Emotion Engine compared with the 733 MHz Coppermine PIII in the Xbox. The difference? The Xbox was far easier to program for, and was designed around running real code, instead of being designed in a theoretically fast way which forces the code to fit it, rather than the other way around. The problem? It's easy, but expensive, to make a processor run arbitrary code fast. Sony keeps going the cheap PR route: design a processor around one ****of problems (Single precision floating point operations) which is a minor subset of the requirements of real code, ignoring others entirely, and forcing all the hard work on the programmers, who may or may not be able to solve a given problem to the degree they'd like. (Try and run branch-heavy code on the SPU, watch it peform like a dog). Is the Cell more powerful? In some ways, yes. If you can fit all your code into the subset of things it does well, you're going to love it. Unfortunately, many of the things which we love to rave about (Collision detection, AI, pathfinding) are very, very branch heavy, which is something the Cell does abysmally. If you have more than one, maybe two things which is branch heavy (And, again, many common tasks in video games are branch heavy), odds are that the 360 will do better. If you have a video game which is entirely single-threaded, in that case both will be about equal. If you can only parallellize a little bit, odds are the 360 will be superior. If you can parallellize a lot, the PS3 will be better, assuming you don't try and run branch-heavy code on the SPUs.
Summary: Is the Cell more powerful: In theory. In practice, I have a feeling most games will run better with the 360, processor wize. And as a result, most games on the PS3 will cannibalize the SPUs for the GPU which needs the boost, and dumb down the CPU intensive parts. Ports will look similar on both, with a slight advantage to the 360 thanks to the free 4xAA. PS3-exclusive games with simple physics and logic will look amazing, "proving" to Sony fanboys that it's more powerful than aNYTHANG EVAR, while the ports will all look slightly beter on the 360, "proving" to Anti-Sony people that the PS3 is an overpriced paperweight.
They're different. Not the same. Incomparable. One is not 'better' than the other, but I believe that in most cases for their intended purpose (video games) the 360 is a better architecture. There are some video games where the Cell will be phenominal, but most of the uses for the Cell are DSP related fields (of which, Video games are not one).
Disclaimer: I am "a developer", but not the type you're probably wanting. I do, however, talk to the type you want rather frequently. Most of my experience in this field is as a video technician (IE: I know the ins and outs of NTSC, PAL, ATSC, SECAM, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Composite, SVideo, Component, SCART, 14-pin, XLR, et cetera), but I also do software development for the PC. I've watched and studied both architectures out of intellectual curiosity. I am not advocating one system over the other: Both are equally worthless without software. Follow the games you want. If all you want are cross-platform, pick your poison, both have advantages and disadvantages. I have a preference, but that's subjective. All rights reserved. Why are you still reading?
FrYGuY101
Hey man... That was an awesome read. It was the single best response so far, and I thank you for contributing to my post.:D I am glad that you could take the time to respond to the points with some technical explanations. Your insight IS very helpful. It is also very similar to many other post that are scattered around the net. Although I definitely believe that you are a dev, I wish that you were Greg Zeschuk or someone else who makes games that everyone has heard of. Why? Simply because knowledge is power, and when people can trust the sources from which information is gathered then at some point information get's verified, a consensus is formed, and we can all move on to bigger and better things. And that truly is the REAL point of my thread, to be able to reach a consensus regarding the hardware and move on.
If this were a tech site like Beyond3D or CGSociety more people could converse with you on the technical issues you have presented. Even as technically savvy as I am (I'm an audio engineer), I am not so much so when it comes to game design. And as such, I too, must lean on verifiable sources like Mr. Hastings UNTIL others come along to debunk him.
I'm guessing if what you say about the HUGE difference between the Xenos and RSX is true (which I do not doubt), then we should hear some rebuttals in the not too distant future. What do you think? You know these guys better than me, do you think any of them will have the balls to counter what Hastings has presented concerning the GPU? He did say that the Xenos was better, but it seems that you are saying he understated how much better it is, so that should leave some room for his peers to chime in! I can only hope! :)
Anyway, once again. Thanks for the contribution, it was a great read in itself!
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