X-Box or PS2?

[old.job]

AAWW the poor old Dreamcast, that's the console I've got now,
totally underated, the games on the Dream look as good as PS2 games, overall it is just as powerful.
No don't laugh, what it lacks in pure processor power it gains everywhere else including a lovely texture cache.

If you aren't convinced get MS2 on the Dream it stands up against the best PS2 driving games.

 

[Sharma]

Get away PC rules, you play DAoC on it, NUFF SED

 

[ShiShi]

morning,

have you seen guys the game preview trailer of the "Lord of the Rings: 2 towers"? (PSX2, Cube).

you can get it from the www.ea.com webbie
kncoked me down by the beauty of graphics and dynamic action, yummie!!!
and you can bash trolls also, what ask more?

S.

 

[old.mattshanes]

Xbox,i have both and would say xbox has a good future that no one has seen yet,there is a lot of good online games promised for it early next year.The dvd player is better than ps2 with better sound too,as for games ps2 may be ahead at the moment having more companies providing the games for the console but i can see xbox putting a end to this at the beginning of next year if not giving sony a run for their money.

Anyway i slightly favour the xbox even though both are good.

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

Thanks for all the good input (except the "upgrade your PC" ones *snorts*).

Will go to my favorite games dealer tomorrow and have a look at both systems.

....... still slightly favoring the X box.

 

[old.mattshanes]

Well if you want a nice dvd player and you don't have one already xbox certainly is worth more value in that case.

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

We have a DVD player already actually (Pioneer DVD 343 - teh rawk) but it's a nice bonus to have another one.

So whenever I want to watch 'A bridge too far', I can sneak out the room, pretending to play on the x box.

The missus usually falls asleep if we watch a movie I LIKE.
teh mean...*sniffle*

 

[Danya]

PS2 - largest selection of games.
GC - more "fun" (kiddie if you prefer) titles, very cartoony etc.
Xbox - best graphics, more "serious" titles.

Take your pick. Personally I don't own any, though I do use an xbox a lot.

 

[old.job]

Let's get serious here, get the PS2, cos it will be hacked to bits and you'll be able to get loads of pirated games/movies for it in no time.

 

[Danya]

Originally posted by boni_ofdavoid
Oh, and anyone out there who thinks the XBox is good should really pickup the PS2 hardware manuals and take a good read

Um, if you base things on that xbox would kick PS2 all over the room. PS2 hardware is just *bleh* from a development point of view when compaired to xbox. Also anyone who says the PS2 has better hardware is lying, the xbox is more powerful, significantly so, it was released later so this is to be expected.

As for all development houses dropping xbox, can't say I've seen all that much evidence of that, though people are definitely not as excited about it as they were a year ago.

 

[ShiShi]

Originally posted by old.job
Let's get serious here, get the PS2, cos it will be hacked to bits and you'll be able to get loads of pirated games/movies for it in no time.

xbox is hacked also fyi mate

note about online game, not sure about details, but as far i saw PSX2 has sth like (or will release shortly) network card...

have seen on web an announcement for an online beta (UO? EQ? lol can't recall now, sorry) on PSX2...

/wave

S.

 

[old.mattshanes]

Well if you look at a ps2 version of a game compared to a xbox one,the xbox one mostly wins hands down,for example dead or alive 3.As i said people haven't seen the best of xbox yet at all,wait til next year and people will realise that it is very good.

 

[Gef]

One major selling point for the Xbox, IMO anyway is you can mod it to hell. Does nobody want a DivX player sat under their nice widescreen telly? So you dont have to watch movies on your monitor?

You can install anything you want on it once you disable all the device signing stuff. Plug it straight into your home network and away you go. PS2 is sooo limited

 

[boni_ofdavoid]

Originally posted by Danyan

Um, if you base things on that xbox would kick PS2 all over the room. PS2 hardware is just *bleh* from a development point of view when compaired to xbox. Also anyone who says the PS2 has better hardware is lying, the xbox is more powerful, significantly so, it was released later so this is to be expected.

As for all development houses dropping xbox, can't say I've seen all that much evidence of that, though people are definitely not as excited about it as they were a year ago.

Hmm I have to disagree with your comment about the PS2 hardware. I programe all these machines every day, and I can assure you that the PS2 Vector units and GS well outperform the XBox when used correctly (although they often arent)...

The PS2 completely blows the XBox away on fill rate, and if you know what you are doing you can do integer arithmetic at over 10Ghz, though only a few people in the world know how to do this Take another example... I can draw over half a million dynamic seperate objects on the PS2 (per frame!), on the XBox I would be lucky to shift more than hundred thousand due to the bus restrictions and lack of procedural geomety support within the XBox. On the PS2 I can read direct from the frame buffer and produce any number of interesting effects, on the XBox I would have to render to texture and thats sloooow. Oh and all the performance figures for XBox's are for 0 size polys drawn offsceen, no really they are, ive talked to people from nvidia and done the test myself... If you use path 3 uploads on PS2 correctly you can shift 10MB of textures around per frame. Basically I run into the same problem each week, I think of something really smart to do on the PS2 and people say 'No you cant add that to the game beacuse we simply cant to it on the XBox'

From a development point of view as you put it, programming XBox is easier because it uses Direct X, and we all know how good that is dont we kids Oh and u arent actually allowed at the hardware on the XBox, roflol

PS2 is a bitch to program, many american developers simply couldnt get their heads round it, but it is THE programmers machine, ask anyone who codes PS2 VU1 microcode and also knows there way round vertex shaders on XBox.

...and yeah, people are dropping XBox left right and centre. Many of the software houses that Microsoft made produce XBox only titles are running in fear cause of the sales figures atm (or simply liquidating cause its hit them too hard). I can see the change in the industry, last year I was working on cross platform titles that included XBox, two months ago we were told they were no longer economically viable, and I work for a very very large company with a global view of the market.

 

[Danya]

There is the point that spending hours and hours on carefully crafted microcode doesn't neccessarily make a game better. People want to get the game engine up quickly, because that costs less money. Xbox does that a lot better than PS2. My bleh for developemtn was because it's so much harder to actually get something running well on the PS2 more than because the machine is incapable - most people aren't going to use it's full potential because they cant.

On the proceduaral geometry etc. what exactly does the xbox not support that you want (I'm not that familiar with PS2 hardware)? And why would you want half a million dynamic objects? Most game levels probably don't have that many objects in total let alone needing that many dynamic objects. Also have you considered that people say "we can't do that on xbox" because they can't use it, not because it is incapable of the task...

I don't see not being able to get at xbox hardware as a particular issue, sure it'd be nice in a few select instances but largely speed of coding is more important than squeezing that extra 5% out of the hardware by bypassing the API. How many games are written in assembler these days?

 

[Belsameth]

Boni: a very interesting technical story which doesn't explain why the Xbox looks a lot better.

just compare Tekken 4 which just came out on the PS2. a machine programmers had the time to get used to, you'd think.
to the both older but graphically FAR more impressive DoA 3. who also came out on a freshly released console.

you can throw every technical nicety at me you want, but you can't convince me the PS2 is more powerfull till you show me some actual proof (and yes. FFX came very close )

 

[Danya]

As I said, you can have the greatest machine in the world, but if it's too hard to use people won't get the best out of it. Xbox games look better because it is easier to get them to look better. From a consumer point of view that's a far more compelling reason to buy it than what it's ultimate top techinical performance might possibly be, given no game will ever achieve that.

And before you ask, I'm not a consumer per se as I don't own a console. I merely work with them. however seeing it from a consumer point of view is much more useful than seeing it from my own point of view (i.e. as a programmer).

 

[boni_ofdavoid]

Originally posted by Soulcatcher
Boni: a very interesting technical story which doesn't explain why the Xbox looks a lot better.

just compare Tekken 4 which just came out on the PS2. a machine programmers had the time to get used to, you'd think.
to the both older but graphically FAR more impressive DoA 3. who also came out on a freshly released console.

you can throw every technical nicety at me you want, but you can't convince me the PS2 is more powerfull till you show me some actual proof (and yes. FFX came very close )

I can only try and convince you how powerfull it is by describing how the hardware should be used and what its potential is.

Proof you want?

http://www.gamerankings.com
+ sales figures of PS2 consoles and game

should do it.

 

[Halo | NS]

Is that Britney Spears game out for Xbox?

If not, then get the PS2.

 

[boni_ofdavoid]

Originally posted by Danyan
There is the point that spending hours and hours on carefully crafted microcode doesn't neccessarily make a game better. People want to get the game engine up quickly, because that costs less money. Xbox does that a lot better than PS2. My bleh for developemtn was because it's so much harder to actually get something running well on the PS2 more than because the machine is incapable - most people aren't going to use it's full potential because they cant.

On the proceduaral geometry etc. what exactly does the xbox not support that you want (I'm not that familiar with PS2 hardware)? And why would you want half a million dynamic objects? Most game levels probably don't have that many objects in total let alone needing that many dynamic objects. Also have you considered that people say "we can't do that on xbox" because they can't use it, not because it is incapable of the task...

I don't see not being able to get at xbox hardware as a particular issue, sure it'd be nice in a few select instances but largely speed of coding is more important than squeezing that extra 5% out of the hardware by bypassing the API. How many games are written in assembler these days?

Well thought out reply

a). Yeah on microcode taking time. Most people resort to middleware, like Renderware, I dont but im the last of a dying breed of people who enjoy the pain of making optimal code

b). Upload small amount of data to near the GS, produce large amount of polys. e.g. send a random seend and draw a tree. The XBox is one vert in one vert out always, its a limitation to get the vertex shaders to work in time.

c). Why a million things? leaves on trees, raindrops, explosions, dust, blood, patches of cloth. etc.

d). Why assembler? For the majority of a game these days no, but titles tend to be restricted on graphics these days so a bit of assembler round the draw a trainge bit is a must
Optimisation firgures for assembly are more in the region of 800% than 5% Really you should take a look at the assembly your XBox compiler produces. I laughed so much I couldnt stop the first time I peeked!

BUT yeah, games are more about design and stuff and getting on with writting a decent title. GTAIII Vice City for instance used middleware, I laugh at the shoddy performance of its engine but it is a very good title and using middleware helped them get the job done without getting to the hardware too much

 

[Danya]

I like assembler, don't get me wrong. But in the world of making games for money time to write is a big factor. Hence the popularity of products like renderware (not a fan myself but people seem to like it ). Given that the ps2 requires more time to code to get the same effects people are naturally going to see better effects on xbox, hence from a consumer point of view for graphical quality xbox is better. Having said that ps2 sells better and has more titles for it. When it comes down to it, it depends what you want a console for. As an entertainment device purely for kids I'd have to go with the gamecube as that's what it aims for and it does it damn well. The xbox is much more a "grown-up" concole, the games aimed for it tend to be more serious.

BTW I think 800% is a little exagerrated except in very specific cricumstances, typically asm can yield a 50% improvement over compiled code. However I was referring to going direct to the hardware as opposed to an API rather than the compilers code generator. I'm not sure of exact figures for the xbox but most driver writers aim for about 5-10% hit going through the driver instead of direct register programming (glide certainly achieved this and I don't see why the xbox driver shouldn't given it's fixed hardware).

 

[Belsameth]

Originally posted by boni_ofdavoid


I can only try and convince you how powerfull it is by describing how the hardware should be used and what its potential is.

Proof you want?

http://www.gamerankings.com
+ sales figures of PS2 consoles and game

should do it.

the comercial success isn't related to the power of the consol. Xbox games look plain better. PS2 games are, mostly, better. the last is more important to the sales of a consol then the graphics. + the PS2 had a name and Xbox still needs to make one

besides that. interesting discussion. a nice break from the usual OT sillyness )

 

[boni_ofdavoid]

Originally posted by Danyan
BTW I think 800% is a little exagerrated except in very specific cricumstances, typically asm can yield a 50% improvement over compiled code. However I was referring to going direct to the hardware as opposed to an API rather than the compilers code generator. I'm not sure of exact figures for the xbox but most driver writers aim for about 5-10% hit going through the driver instead of direct register programming (glide certainly achieved this and I don't see why the xbox driver shouldn't given it's fixed hardware).

A Figure of 800% or 8 times speedup for a good assembly optimisation vs compiled C++ output is quite reasonable and I stick by it.

Your point about the XBox being a good choice cause games are easier to program and therefore there are more decent titles almost holds up and I agree in principle that this holds back the PS2 compared to the XBox.

However... this is a complex relationship that depends on a lot more than just how hard the machine is to program.

Basically for whatever reason (and im not claiming its superior hardware) the PS2 does have the most good games out there, by a very large margin. A quick trip to the review sight I list above will confirm that for every good XBox title there are about 5 equivalent PS2 titles.

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

Alrighty then - Uncle Sick(tm) made a decision.

PSII. I have summoned the mother in law to get us a PSII at her local Walmart.

$199.- plus memory card and two games.

There are just alot more good titles for the PSII than for the X Box - including games for kids. After all it's for Uncle Sick's spawn... not just for my own delight (heck, I told the mighty M-I-L to get me Silent Hill 2... ).

And again - thanks for all the good info you guys gave me.
It's appreciated.