Until a DEVELOPER counters Insomniac's TECHNICAL claims, their word is law!

klactose · 2007-03-27 02:52:19

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.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.Brian Hastings2: 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 Hastings3: 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 Hastings4: 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 Hastings5: 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 HastingsSo 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.

This topic is locked from further discussion.

klactose

1167

Forum Posts

Wiki Points

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

#301 klactose

Member since 2003 • 1167 Posts

[QUOTE="mikasa"][QUOTE="klactose"][QUOTE="mikasa"]Not that I agre their word is law, but I will debunk 2 of his comments. 1) that the 360 GPU only has a slight advantage? It has more than a slight advantage (and yes I'm a dev as well) 2) the Cell is NOT 8 CPUs. To even suggest that it is is a load of crap. And then he tried to clarify it by sayign 1 is a PPU and the other 7 are cell processors. This is just wrong. I'm hoping this was your mistake in paraphrasing the aritcle because if he said this...he's a dev we can just ignore after such a stupid comment.

Great, who do you develop for? Are you willing to go public? If so, please do and state the company you work for, the game titles you've worked on, and the consoles you've worked on. Thanks. 1) As far as the GPU having "more than a slight advantage", it probably does, the point is that it has an advantage, and now I doubt that any will claim that it doesn't. And further if he is understating that advantage I'm sure that some other Devs will openly "correct" his comment, to me this is a win/win situation. Because it will move the debate beyond the simplistic stage that it has remained at for many months, hardware specs should NOT be a mystery. 2) As far as the Cell goes, I think he was trying to simplify the conversation for the laymen. But if it is so far off (eventhough it's pretty close to what I've read everywhere else about the Cell - 1 PPU & 8 Cell processors with 1 disabled), won't someone come along and correct that too? So basically UNTIL a developer/university OPENLY comes out and CORRECTS this information, who are we to believe?

Ok, so when / if a dev comes out and corrects this load of hype, then does that mean from there on out everything insomniac says is considered BS? learn to think for yourself.

No, when / if a dev comes out and corrects this load of hype, then we will likely have some REAL discussion about the hardware. And regardless of whether you believe so or not, I always think for myself. It takes conscious thought to realize one's own limitations and to decide to get "guidance" from a more knowledgable source. While YOU may know everything, I do not claim to be as gifted as that. There is no shame in recognizing someone's expertise.

17 years ago

klactose

1167

Forum Posts

Wiki Points

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

#302 klactose

Member since 2003 • 1167 Posts

[QUOTE="klactose"]

5: PS3 has major CPU advantage over 360.[QUOTE="Brian Hastings"]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.adman66

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.

POTENTIALLY is the key word here.

so 360 gpu is better as he said in your point 4. but then he says ps3 might have a more pwerful cpu, so that makes the ps3 better?

what a stupid thing to say.since when does an assumption > fact?

I've never said that the PS3 was better than the 360. Where did you get that from? But to address your other points. We all understand and agree that Hastings said "potentially" in his statement. And yes, the 360 GPU is better according to Hastings. I hope that is all clear now. Concerning assumptions... Well an assumption CAN equal fact, and throughout history it has been proven that false assumptions CAN BE "greater than" fact as well. But I'm sure this isn't the conversation you want to have, so I'll end it at that. I just wanted to be thorough and address all of your concerns. Enjoy!

17 years ago

klactose

1167

Forum Posts

Wiki Points

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

#303 klactose

Member since 2003 • 1167 Posts

[QUOTE="mikasa"]And here's another reason to ignore this 2nd party dev for Sony. Proof he's just spinning to make PS3 look good. He claims Casino Royale BluRay makign the top 10 is a big deal. Well wtf would you expect when they are giving it to everyone that buys a PS3? Good thing Wii didn't try to force a new standard on the public by giving away a free movie with the wii...as that would have made it the #1 selling movie and quickest selling of all time (just a guestimate)...so by insomniac logic that means that movie format would have won no matter what the format! See how silly that is.

I think you are arguing a point that I explicitly am NOT making. I started this thread explaining that I'm not even considering his predictions about who will win the console war. So why do you persist to try to argue that point with me? I don't care who will win. You are right that he IS spinning to make PS3 look good. Hasting's non-technical arguments meant absolutely nada to me. But I won't ignore everything he says simply because he is a fanboy, some fanboys DO have qualified expertise that should be listened to. And remember that it's harder to spin somethings than others.

17 years ago

SeanDiff

933

Forum Posts

Wiki Points

Followers

Reviews: 6

User Lists: 0

#304 SeanDiff

Member since 2007 • 933 Posts

The PS3 is more powerful,twice as much end of. no more descussion,its true,solid fact.

17 years ago

klactose

1167

Forum Posts

Wiki Points

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 0

#305 klactose

Member since 2003 • 1167 Posts

klactose he said it all stop aruging trying to win your already lost you have 200 post on this topic with majority saying it's not law. Ok my understanding from the topic is the guy said the Gears Of Wars looked better cause better Engineers made a betetr looking game without blueray and with less powerfull CPU. But the way briand said it he distorted it to sound like PS3 is better. Don't know how this is even good press for Sony. Brian is not an expert Witness if he Is the Brother of the Defendant wich in this case he is case closed you lose. theres a conflict of interest if anything he's just a character witness. this is True so the poster is right your logic fails.
If a Bomb Speacialist is an expert witness to a Bombers trial and it's found out there brothers think there gonnna keep the same Expert Witness? NO
peacebringer

Since you couldn't understand the initial post, see the post directly above this one. Notice that I don't care about the fanboy nature of Hastings surrounding arguments. Yes he is biased, but even biased people have expertise that they can legitimately speak upon. It is the more legitimate technical comments that I have specifically narrowed this conversation down to. Is that not understandable. Am I speaking a foreign language?

And guess what, in court, if your brother was an expert in explosives and he had testimony that could exonerate you, they WOULD most definitely hear it and take into account his EXPERTISE.

17 years ago

The Best-Reviewed Games Of 2023

Best VR Headsets In 2023

Move topic to another board