Xbox 360 vs Wii vs PS3 - what'd you get ?

[cHodAX]

Yep, it is that time of the week again, thread update with news links

First one is Sony confirming no PS3 price drops in the calendar year 2007

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070123-8683.html

Second, a nice little article on the PS3 entitled 'After the honeymoon: the PlayStation 3'. It is a nice little breakdown on the launch and what you can expect over the next 6-12 months.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/ps3-honeymoon.ars

Oh and almost forget this little gem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCD9TwLrVs

 

[soze]

Reads like Europe are the lucky ones with having to wait as we should get a better version of firmware. Looks like getting it out befor Christmas could get sony more bad PR than having just delayed it again. Also i wonder why there are no games did sony only give people a finished specs 2 weeks befor release or something I know you said they think its difficult to write a game but the hardware specs ect have been about 6 months now why no games

 

[cHodAX]

Reads like Europe are the lucky ones with having to wait as we should get a better version of firmware. Looks like getting it out befor Christmas could get sony more bad PR than having just delayed it again. Also i wonder why there are no games did sony only give people a finished specs 2 weeks befor release or something I know you said they think its difficult to write a game but the hardware specs ect have been about 6 months now why no games

The hardware specs have been written in stone for 11 months bud, sadly the development kits are very basic and the software tools a pain to get up and running. The lack of games is coming down to a couple of things, firstly the development tools and software are very basic, theyl still feel very much like beta tools. Secondly, CELL is a bastard to code for and get half decent performance from, everyone is struggling to use the SPE's and get anything usable from them apart from video playback right now.

What a lot of development houses are doing is coding the games for 360 using Microsofts excellent developers kit and then porting the code across to work on the CELL's single PPC core. That isn't good for PS3, it isn't going to shine running ported code and workaroundeds. Until Sony get the tools in a finished and usable productive state this is going to continue at alot of developers studios. The companies that don't have 360 dev kits are struggling to get what they want from PS3 at the moment but once they get do get to grips with it the code is going to run alot better than the ported code because it is native to the hardware instead of being a series of workarounds and hacks.

 

[soze]

The hardware specs have been written in stone for 11 months bud, sadly the development kits are very basic and the software tools a pain to get up and running. The lack of games is coming down to a couple of things, firstly the development tools and software are very basic, theyl still feel very much like beta tools. Secondly, CELL is a bastard to code for and get half decent performance from, everyone is struggling to use the SPE's and get anything usable from them apart from video playback right now.

What a lot of development houses are doing is coding the games for 360 using Microsofts excellent developers kit and then porting the code across to work on the CELL's single PPC core. That isn't good for PS3, it isn't going to shine running ported code and workaroundeds. Until Sony get the tools in a finished and usable productive state this is going to continue at alot of developers studios. The companies that don't have 360 dev kits are struggling to get what they want from PS3 at the moment but once they get do get to grips with it the code is going to run alot better than the ported code because it is native to the hardware instead of being a series of workarounds and hacks.

That sucks, looks like we well not you will have to wait for the exclusives to show up to see what it can do then. WTB Devil May Cry and MGS

 

[cHodAX]

That sucks, looks like we well not you will have to wait for the exclusives to show up to see what it can do then. WTB Devil May Cry and MGS

Word is that Devil May Cry is not going to be exclusive after all, it has not offically announded yet but with PS3 sales so slow Capcom really need a 360 version to generate enough revenue to recoup development costs and turn a profit. I think there will be alot less exclusives this generation, with development costs soaring most companies can no longer afford to support a single platform.

 

[soze]

Word is that Devil May Cry is not going to be exclusive after all, it has not offically announded yet but with PS3 sales so slow Capcom really need a 360 version to generate enough revenue to recoup development costs and turn a profit. I think there will be alot less exclusives this generation, with development costs soaring most companies can no longer afford to support a single platform.

That would not be a bad thing i have always wanted a PC version of MGS so if the exclusive deals go that would be one sweet PC game

 

[Naffets]

Word is that Devil May Cry is not going to be exclusive after all, it has not offically announded yet but with PS3 sales so slow Capcom really need a 360 version to generate enough revenue to recoup development costs and turn a profit. I think there will be alot less exclusives this generation, with development costs soaring most companies can no longer afford to support a single platform.

Didn't Microsoft buy capcom?? = 360 version..

1.5 firmware is reported to fix backwards compatibility, not tested it.

In other news, rumour is a iso loader for ps3 is in the works <o/

 

[soze]

Didn't Microsoft buy capcom?? = 360 version..

1.5 firmware is reported to fix backwards compatibility, not tested it.

In other news, rumour is a iso loader for ps3 is in the works <o/

Sounds like there will not be alot it will not do eventually if you can throw your own operating system on it. Personally im alergig to Linux so i will have to avoid that

New Devil May cry is anounced October this year for PS3 i think

 

[Naffets]

Time for another bump.

Sony confirms Ps3 DOES have a hardware scaler, and gives developers access to part of it

http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/ps3scaler/

Nobody knows why its shrouded in mystery, but it exists

So much for resolution problems ay.

+1 for sony Everyone had previous thought they'd stuffed this up

 

[soze]

Seems abit silly.

If i was sony when MS said "Sony not putting a hardware scaler in the machine is a big mistake" I would have came out and said "hey numb nuts there is one but we are bot blowing our whole load on everything in the first year"

 

[cHodAX]

LOL and now we know why the didn't enable it via the SDK in the first place, because it isn't a scaler chip it is a software function run on the RSX and it kills fillrate performance which is something the RSX struggles at anyway comapred to the 360 GPU. The ram usage of implementing is a massive issue because the PS3 doesn't use a unified memory pool and so it gobbles up a load of extra video memory which developers are stuggling to fit all these high resolution textures into without sharing it for some crappy buffer scaling senario. It is a double edged sword, lower fillrate performance and extra bandwidth/memory consumption, either way it hurts performance.

Now the kicker, they could have added a $10 hardware scaler chip that took any output from the RSX and scaled it on the fly to the given resolution. No extra memory usage, no fillrate hit, no extra memory bandwidth being eaten up and most importantly no performance hit.

Now we know why they have been so quiet when faced with all these reports, they are relying on RSX to scale internally and it kills performance.

The new SDK workaround is a hack, it takes a 960x1080 frame and line doubles the horizontal pixels to negate the fillrate problem but mark my words the quality will suffer. If you know anything about video scalers you will know that line doubling is a cheap assed way to scale an image and it results in poor quality images as well as artifacting.

Simply put, PS3 does not have a hardware scaler, it uses a firmware hack and a software algorithm to both together a 1080i image. The article doesn't come out and say it but the scaling is done on the RSX GPU via software.

 

[Chronictank]

LOL and now we know why the didn't enable it via the SDK in the first place, because it isn't a scaler chip it is a software function run on the RSX and it kills fillrate performance which is something the RSX struggles at anyway comapred to the 360 GPU. The ram usage of implementing is a massive issue because the PS3 doesn't use a unified

-snip-

Simply put, PS3 does not have a hardware scaler, it uses a firmware hack and a software algorithm to both together a 1080i image. The article doesn't come out and say it but the scaling is done on the RSX GPU via software.

doesnt it say several times that it is a hardawre scaler tho? taking the effort away from the RSX GPU
It explains what the problem currently is, which is mirroed by what you said above.
The next page says how the problem is solved

In conclusion, the foretold yet hitherto unseen PlayStation 3 hardware scaler has made its entry onto the development scene with this SDK update. Its appearance should bring hope into the hearts of 1080i-only HDTV owners that all future games may support their television sets natively.

or am i wrong? :S

 

[cHodAX]

doesnt it say several times that it is a hardawre scaler tho? taking the effort away from the RSX GPU
It explains what the problem currently is, which is mirroed by what you said above.
The next page says how the problem is solved



or am i wrong? :S

Yes you are wrong, it says the hardware rescales by using a linedoubling feature. It even hints at a video scaler but it can't point to it on a PS3 motherboard because it isn't there, it is done internally on the RSX GPU and the article is very misleading in that regard. If it was a seperate hardware scaler it would not need access to video memory. What they didn't make clear was that they use horizontal line doubling through software on the RSX of a 960x1080 image, it is a hack to add 1080i support and it sacrifices quality for sake of performance. They state that the data has to be swapped in and out of video memory which a hardware scaler does not need to do as it rescales on the fly (or in it's own buffer) and requires no system memory. Swapping in and out of memory for each and every frame to be rescaled uses alot of video memory bandwidth which is not good. The PS3 is doing it for one reason alone, the lack of a dedicated scaler chip so the RSX has to take the workload on using a software scaling algorithm and extra video memory. I really can't make it any simpler that than.

It is a botched solution, they could have added a dedicated $10 scaler chip like the ANA chip in the 360 which is an elegant solution and enables to rescale to just about any resolution you desire without touching video memory. It simply takes the output of Xenos (360 GPU) at the final frame buffer and rescales on the fly passing the data off to the DAC for display. It needs no extra GPU peformance or memory bandwidth. Simply put it is what the PS3 SHOULD have shipped with but cost reasons forced hardware compromises and they felt demand for proper 1080i support wasn't going to be an issue. It was a mistake.

The comment from the article...

There are multiple reasons for this continuing secrecy, and insiders are reluctant to discuss them even off the record, nevermind for publication.

...is a smokescreen to distract attention away from the problem. I can see no other reason why they won't divulge thier hardware scaler otherwise or why it wasn't availble before this SDK update, it isn't rocket science after all, there are hundreds of hardware scaler soloutions out there and they all do a similar job.

 

[cHodAX]

Read the comments section from that article here...

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38026

...many others expressing the same doubts that I am and giving technical reasons for it.

Even a member of the site staff saying this...

I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't really a scaler per-se, although I *think* that's how it is being described to developers. We ran the story with what we knew - not with what we didn't. So hopefully we'll get to know more about this in the (near) future...

 

[soze]

"This is an issue on the side of the individual television sets," a statement from SCEA confirms, "which do not accept 720p input, so when a game outputs an HD signal only at 720p, these select TVs have to display the game at 480p instead."

Thats abit harsh

I should be fine my Sony Bravia played my 360 at 720p.

 

[Chronictank]

Read the comments section from that article here...

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38026

...many others expressing the same doubts that I am and giving technical reasons for it.

Even a member of the site staff saying this...

tnx for the explanation,
its rather difficult to understand what the hell they are on about in that article :S

 

[cHodAX]

Thats abit harsh

I should be fine my Sony Bravia played my 360 at 720p.

Aye it is a real shame for the loyal people who bought Bravia's not capable of 720p, the SDK fix at least means they can use thier PS3 at 1080i I guess. Even if they will not be getting the quality they should be it will still look ok, not as good as native 720p but a damn sight better than 480p.

 

[Naffets]

Aye it is a real shame for the loyal people who bought Bravia's not capable of 720p, the SDK fix at least means they can use thier PS3 at 1080i I guess. Even if they will not be getting the quality they should be it will still look ok, not as good as native 720p but a damn sight better than 480p.

Just happy i invested in a 1080p dell screen

Got my 360 back up and running today aswell <o/ uber happy.

Pretty bored of the ps3 for now until more games come out that are good (March)

Yet to finish resistance or ridge racer, just have a craving for lost planet and crackdown.

 

[psyco]

Just happy i invested in a 1080p dell screen

Got my 360 back up and running today aswell <o/ uber happy.

Pretty bored of the ps3 for now until more games come out that are good (March)

Yet to finish resistance or ridge racer, just have a craving for lost planet and crackdown.

how do you find good new release's i cant seem to find anything decent now adays

 

[soze]

In all honesty i think the games will decide this. I had 20 something games on my 360 when i sold it to my cousin. There were games that i liked but not one that i though give it 2 years and i will want to play that again. Compare that to the fact i have GT 1 - 4 all the MGS, devil may cry and GTA games still waiting incase i want to play them again.

So its looking forward to those that has sold me on the ps3 but i now might wait for them rather than buy it at release.

 

[cHodAX]

Yet to finish resistance or ridge racer, just have a craving for lost planet and crackdown.

I just love Crackdown, the demo is a blast.

 

[Naffets]

I just love Crackdown, the demo is a blast.

Just downloading it now

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/index/release.html

and

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/index/release.html

For release dates. If that is what you meant psycho

Odd thing is, PSN is faster than xbox live for downloading large files I'd expect xbl to be faster but i remembered incorrectly lol

 

[cHodAX]

Odd thing is, PSN is faster than xbox live for downloading large files I'd expect xbl to be faster but i remembered incorrectly lol

5 million users compared to 500,000 is why is PSN is faster, no excuse for Microsoft not investing more in the backbone though, the video marketplace speeds are totally unacceptable.

 

[soze]

5 million users compared to 500,000 is why is PSN is faster, no excuse for Microsoft not investing more in the backbone though, the video marketplace speeds are totally unacceptable.

Or it could be that Sony have invested more in the back bone of psn

 

[cHodAX]

Or it could be that Sony have invested more in the back bone of psn

No, the PSN network hasn't been stressed because of the amount of users bud, when the PS3 really takes off online then Sony are going to run into the same wall for a time, you can't expand your network overnight and there is not point spending tens of millions on extra capacity that might never be used. You wait and see and then expand according to demand. Microsoft have massive datacenter for Xbox Live but it is being crushed under weight of 5 million users, Xbox Live has superb speeds until video marketplace went live in November. With so many people downloading HD movies it is pushing the network to breaking point. I have heard that Microsoft have a new $50 million datacenter currently being constructed but nothing offical has been mentioned so I don't know when the service is going to speed up sadly.

 

[soze]

No, the PSN network hasn't been stressed because of the amount of users bud, when the PS3 really takes off online then Sony are going to run into the same wall for a time, you can't expand your network overnight and there is not point spending tens of millions on extra capacity that might never be used. You wait and see and then expand according to demand. Microsoft have massive datacenter for Xbox Live but it is being crushed under weight of 5 million users, Xbox Live has superb speeds until video marketplace went live in November. With so many people downloading HD movies it is pushing the network to breaking point. I have heard that Microsoft have a new $50 million datacenter currently being constructed but nothing offical has been mentioned so I don't know when the service is going to speed up sadly.

i was joking i was going to say they have only sold 4.6 mil and there not online at the some time too but i won't

 

[cHodAX]

i was joking i was going to say they have only sold 4.6 mil and there not online at the some time too but i won't

Don't know where you got that 4.6 million number from bud, 3 articles I read last week said 3.1 million and that is wholesale not retail.

 

[soze]

Don't know where you got that 4.6 million number from bud, 3 articles I read last week said 3.1 million.

Pre-Christmas numbers said 360 sales todate were 4.6 million should be somewhere is this thread

 

[cHodAX]

Christmas numbers said 360 sales todate were 4.6 million should be somewhere is this thread

Eh? 10.7 million sales (wholesale) for 360 since launch, 5.8 million Xbox Live active account. I misunderstood your 4.6 million comment as PS3 sales.

As for the amount of maxium users online at anyone time, I believe it has peaked at over 3 million one night recently. The speed problem isn't down to number of users though, it is down to the amount of people downloading full length HD movies from the marketplace, Microsoft are struggling to get 100,000's of users all being able to download 6gb movies at once, it is a massive amount of data to shift. They have been suprised and overwhelmed by the demand Video Marketplace has created.

 

[soze]

Eh? 10.7 million sales (wholesale) for 360 since launch, 5.8 million Xbox Live active account. I misunderstood your 4.6 million comment as PS3 sales.

The 4.6 mil could have been Europe maybe then?? Nah PS3 will not sell 4 mil in the first year i doubt unless the americans start spending tight bastards