Gamespot's PS3 site

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » November 30, 2006, 10:56 pm

Subtle marketing.

Note: the other sections of gamespot aren't nearly as bad.

Canelek · Post by **Canelek** » December 1, 2006, 12:11 am

Ouch. That site is as slow as checking NCAA football scores on espn.com!

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » December 1, 2006, 2:08 am

Winnow's workin for Gamespot?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 1, 2006, 2:45 am

I think the Wii blows but I'm eventually going to buy a PS3 so the bad news regarding it isn't giving me any pleasure. I'm hoping nothing is found that can't be corrected with patches. The Bluetooth connection/sync issues don't sound good though.

Anyway, kyoukan losing its grip over it all is a bonus.

Canelek · Post by **Canelek** » December 1, 2006, 4:34 am

Oh golly! That is totally relevant, Winnow!!!

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » December 1, 2006, 5:17 am

yeah i am insane with rage over it because i only like one console.

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » December 1, 2006, 12:12 pm

calm down!!!!

Sparty · Post by **Sparty** » December 6, 2006, 6:38 pm

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6162742/index.html

My Name is Sparty

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 6, 2006, 7:37 pm

Another thing that reviews have been noticing is that the gamma is too high on the PS3. An artificial way to make the graphics appear better although there's no hiding the "washed out" look. It's very apparent in the comparisons in that article. Do the mouseovers and observe the brighter, but washed out, images coming from the PS3. Look at the shadows, etc.

These comparisons don't mean much if the monitor you're looking at them on isn't calibrated as well. The 360 images could appear too dark or the PS3 images too bright. That won't hide the washed out shadows though unless the detail in the shadows is too dark to see on with your monitor settings.

Conclusion
The Xbox 360 had better graphics in almost all the games we examined. The 360's biggest victories were in Madden 07 and Fight Night Round 3, where the differences in texture detail and lighting stood out in our comparison shots. We couldn't capture this in the screenshots, but the Xbox 360 games generally offered better framerates too.

We're going to give the PS3 the benefit of the doubt in this initial round since developers might need more time to figure out how to maximize performance from the Cell and the RSX. If you look at the Xbox 360's first Madden game, Madden 06, you'll notice that it doesn't offer very realistic stadium shadows, either. The trouble with buying a console at launch is that you often have to wait for the second or third generation of games for the system to fulfill its potential. The PS3 didn't beat the 360 in this first comparison, but the games do look fine for first-generation titles. The real graphics battle will likely come next year.

The only other thing that summary doesn't mention that they do mention in their article is the longer load times for the PS3. Twice as long to load a Fight Night game and a third longer to load a quick fight. That's a definite advantage for the 12X DVD in the 360 (while noisy) vs the larger capacity (quieter?) PS3.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » December 6, 2006, 10:20 pm

Gamma is set in software, you frigging doofus. And you're thinking contrast, not gamma, which is also set in software.

Games that are on both systems are never going to look much nicer because they have to design them for the lowest common denominator, which is the 360. It is the same thing with PS2 to Xbox ports, where they were virtually the same looking even though the xbox was technically more powerful, and xbox exclusive games tend to look better.

PS3 exclusive games like Resistance and MGS4, Heavenly Sword and Motor Storm, etc. are all going to look a lot nicer than these games, which are essentially 360 games ported over. The second generation PS3 titles are going to be night and day.

A game developer told me all of this.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » December 6, 2006, 10:21 pm

Gamma is set in software, you frigging doofus. And you're thinking contrast, not gamma, which is also set in software.

Games that are on both systems are never going to look much nicer because they have to design them for the lowest common denominator, which is the 360. It is the same thing with PS2 to Xbox ports, where they were virtually the same looking even though the xbox was technically more powerful, and xbox exclusive games tend to look better.

PS3 exclusive games like Resistance and MGS4, Heavenly Sword and Motor Storm, etc. are all going to look a lot nicer than these games, which are essentially 360 games ported over. The second generation PS3 titles are going to be night and day.

A game developer told me all of this.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 6, 2006, 10:27 pm

kyoukan wrote:Gamma is set in software, you frigging doofus. And you're thinking contrast, not gamma, which is also set in software.

Some games allow you to adjust Gamma in settings but what does that have to do with initial settings? And no, I'm not thinking of contrast you moron.

Gamma correction matters if you have any interest in displaying an image accurately on a computer screen. Gamma correction controls the overall brightness of an image. Images which are not properly corrected can look either bleached out, or too dark. Trying to reproduce colors accurately also requires some knowledge of gamma. Varying the amount of gamma correction changes not only the brightness, but also the ratios of red to green to blue.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » December 6, 2006, 11:35 pm

Just because some games don't allow you to set the gamma or the contrast doesn't mean it isn't set in software. The PS3 isn't setting gamma purposely too high because it is up to the people who make the game to determine default gamma and contrast settings.

And it is contrast that TV and video game makers jack up to make an image look better, especially in a non-ideal conditions; not fucking gamma. All gamma does is brighten the image and wash it out if it goes up too high. contrast can make the colors look nicer and the image look sharper in a big, well lit area like a showroom in a big box store or a video game kiosk in a mall or at E3.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » December 7, 2006, 11:44 am

I personally thought the higer gamma settings in the PS3 version of Ridge Racer made those shots look nicer overall that the darker 360 ones.

They're all f'ing screenshots anyways and we all know what a poor job screenshots do of representing a game.

My main concern is - Does it look good and are the framerates consistant.

You realise that most of these gripes in the shots are only really noticable if you expressly look for them. And the major differences in the titles (no stadium shadows in the PS3 version of Madden 07) is just EA being the usual EA and rushing shit out the door for the cash grab.

We will see a lot of ports and timed exclusives this round. Everyone is saying that it's gonna be a much closer battle and with the price it's costing them to make these games, 3rd parties can't afford to make games for only half of the total console market. Capcom, SquareEnix(they are doing exclusives for both sides FFXIII for the PS3, Project Sylpheed for the 360, hopefully they multi-platform both of em them) and KOEI have realised this already and (hopefully) a lot of other devs are going to follow suit.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 7, 2006, 1:08 pm

Animalor wrote: My main concern is - Does it look good and are the framerates consistant.

Framerate and load times appear to favor the 360. The load times are easily explained by the slower optical drive in the PS3 but frame rates are a bit of a concern as that's a key part of actual gameplay.

I suppose in a year, Sony could introduce a faster Blu Ray drive for the PS3. My guess is Microsoft won't integrate the HD-DVD drive as one of the 360 hardware packages until they are sure the DVD9 load times won't suffer.

For the PS3, the biggest concern for Sony should be why someone would want one right now with Resistance being the only game that's not a multiplatform title worthwhile playing yet still trailing the 2nd generation of 360 games. That's why the game attach rate for PS3's being reported by some retail chains is less than one game per unit. It's just an eBay thing right now. The 360's launch titles weren't that much better but they were the only HD console option so those shitty Madden games and other ports still looked better than anything else which isn't the case for the PS3.

For a 360 owner that has access to all the multiplatform games already, I have a hard time finding a reason to own a PS3 for the next 6-12 months until the Metal Gear Solid (for those that want it) and FFXIII type games come out. There's also a major firmware upgrade for the PS3 scheduled for March of next year which hopefully will take care of launch issues. The 360 was much the same way as the wait for decent titles after launch was around 6-7 months. Enjoy the exclusive 2nd wave of 360 titles for awhile and then grab a PS3 when they are available with maybe a few fixes already in the hardware.

vn_Tanc · Post by **vn_Tanc** » December 7, 2006, 2:57 pm

Fuck all that bullshit. Where's my high-def, gigaflopped WipeOut??

Fuckers.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 8, 2006, 5:35 pm

Here's a more balanced developer comparison between the 360 and PS3:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archi ... peaks.html

By Keith Stuart / Next Gen 08:42am

The debate over which is the more powerful next-gen games console has been raging for over a year, but in the last few weeks we've finally been able to pore over some first-hand evidence. The Call of Duty 3 conversions to Xbox 360 and PS3 are more closely comparable, perhaps, than many fanboys on either side would have predicted. More interesting is the unspoken rivalry between Gears of War and Resistance: Fall of Man - two showboating FPS titles with similar themes and environments.

One thing has become clear. Totting up specs isn't going to help us choose a winner. On paper, PS3 has more raw processing grunt than Xbox 360, but at the moment - with second generation titles under their belts - developers seem to be extracting more performance out of Xbox 360. That's natural considering their greater experience with the platform. The question is, how much further can Xbox go?

Frankly, the only views that matter in this debate are those of programmers who have experience with next-gen hardware. So this week I spoke to Richard Hackett a head of technology at Blitz Games about his experiences with both machines. He feels that CELL has an ace up its sleeve and it's not something you might have predicted...

The debate over graphics on Xbox 360 and PS3 is still raging online, with developers coming out on both sides to claim superiority. As an independent developer how do you compare the two formats in terms of visuals?

In essence the two systems are actually fairly closely matched in terms of graphics. The jump to HD is a major step up in visual quality and that is delivered by both systems. The difference between 720p and 1080i will be fairly academic for some time as there are very few mass market TVs out there at the moment that support native 1080 resolution, and I'm not sure the average consumer sees the difference between them anyway.

At Blitz our cross platform technology enables us to develop simultaneously for both systems and spend our time playing to the strengths of each. Of course developers have had longer to get to grips with the X360 but you can be sure we won't see the full potential of the either system and especially the PS3 for some time yet.

One developer has publicly (although anonymously) stated that Xbox 360 - in games programming terms - is the better machine as the GPU is more powerful, providing greater pixel and vertex processing horsepower. Do you concur at all? Is this really what it all comes down to?

The X360 GPU is slightly more flexible due to the subtle differences between the respective architectures of the nVidia and ATI chipset. Certain shader restrictions are lifted or easier to work around on X360. The bandwidth of the X360 GPU is pretty massive too, though partly this is balanced out by the differences in VRAM layout of the two systems that means the Xbox needs to move graphics data around the system more than the PS3 does. While the GPUs are fast and have a big impact on the visual quality and level of game effects, other factors such as general processing power and memory architecture also come into play.

I've heard that third-party PS3 developers are currently under using the machine's seven 'SPE' processors. How are you planning to employ them? Do you have specific tasks in mind for specific SPEs as some first-party developers seem to be doing?

It does seem that developers have been slow to make use of the SPEs, especially those coming from other platforms perhaps with existing game engines.

At Blitz we are not reserving SPEs for specific tasks but have implemented a more dynamic system that automatically dispatches processing to each SPE making best use of the available resources. It works something like a distributed computing system, SETI@home being a famous example of that kind of technology. For instance in one of our projects we have hundreds of enemies on-screen and the processing for their animation and AI is split up and automatically sent to each SPE dynamically whenever there is processing time available.

So how do you see PS3 titles developing, visually, as we see the second and third generation of games? What specific new visual elements will we see?

As a result of the kind of processing power we have available we're going to see a lot more procedurally generated effects and dynamic visuals than we've seen before. This means not all game visuals will be created by an artist in the traditional way, an increasing amount will be created in real-time from algorithms and parameters.

To make sure the artists stay in control and we don't resort to graphics created only by programmers (which is often a bad thing), we're working on systems for artists to create and edit these systems themselves without needing a degree in Software Engineering.

Is there anything you're able to do, visually, on PS3 that you can't on Xbox 360?

Certain procedural effects are easier to create on the PS3 because of the power of the SPEs. Effects like water simulations, especially when you move beyond simple surface effects to fluid dynamics require the kind of algorithms that are really suited to the CELL architecture. Having said that the slightly more flexible GPU and unified memory model on X360 allows some neat tricks that level the playing field somewhat. It will be interesting to see what emerges with video processing and EyeToy as well - CELL is designed for streaming and image processing applications in mind. I think we'll see both new visuals and game play out of that.

As an aside the audio technology running on CELL created by the guys in the SCEE Technology Group in London is pretty amazing, opening out loads more possibilities for real-time audio effects to enhance the visuals, something that is often overlooked but is an important part of increasing gamer immersion.

miir · Post by **miir** » December 8, 2006, 6:04 pm

Blitz games huh?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 8, 2006, 6:30 pm

miir wrote:Blitz games huh?

Burger King's "Sneak King" mini game not a big enough game for you? He also had his hand in Barbie's Horse Adventures!

http://www.blitzgames.com/