On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:13:43 -0700 (PDT), parallax-scroll
wrote:

On Jul 31, 1:30*pm, Tim O wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:48:19 -0700 (PDT), Air Raid

wrote:
The Xbox 360 and PC versions of id's Rage sport higher framerates than
thePlayStation 3version, the latest issue of Edge magazine reveals.

I realize this post is intended to start a flame war, and as a fan of
PC gaming, I often try to wind up the console players, but lets take a
serious look at the issue.

Rage was programmed by id, traditionally a PC game company.
The XBox360 shares so much architecture with the PC, that it's not
surprising an id game would run well on it.



Actually that is not really true. Although the Xbox 360 shares much
in common with PC architecture on the software side, as far as
Microsoft's tools, development environment, DirectX API, etc, but if
you take a close look at the actual hardware architecture of the 360,
it's not a PC at all.
The Xenon CPU is a custom triple-core PowerPC.
No PC uses PowerPC CPU that I'm aware of.

Which is really a testament to how good DirectX is at running on
multiple CPU platforms. What a shame that the PS3 came out with the
selling point that it was some sort of super computer of the future,
with all sorts of mind boggling possibilities, when the reality is
that the aging XBox 360, despite it's on-paper specs, simply had a
much more mature software architecture with which to build games upon.
The Xenos GPU, is also a
custom piece of silicon, that has no direct PC counterpart.

Very true, because the average 3 year old PC runs circles around it.
We would need to go back further to find a true PC counterpart.

Although
PC GPUs that shipped after the 360, starting with the R600 (Radeon HD
2900), took after the 360's GPU, it would not be correct to say the
360's graphics architecture is based on any PC design. The embedded
graphics memory is one of many features that make the 360's Xenos GPU
a very "anti PC" architecture. It's not unlike the GameCube & Wii,
which, like 360, use a PowerPC CPU and a highly custom, console-
specific GPU created from the ground up specifically for the console.

Not disagreeing, would just like to once again point out that all
these games, despite their higher price tag, not only perform inferior
to their PC versions, but also lag behind in terms of control options,
modifications and the like.

Unlike the original Xbox which used a GPU (NV2A) very similar to the
GeForce 4. Overall, Xbox was just a slightly modified PC in almost
every way, from it's Celeron/Pentium III CPU, to its bus architecture,
to its GPU.

They should have made the 360 more like a PC, since a PC is better at
gaming.

The PS3 actually has more PC-based architecture in it than the 360
does.

Difficult to imagine. The PC and Sony are kind of like a water and
wood combination.. the result can be pretty in the short term and
tends to rot over time.

While the CELL CPU is totally alien to PC architecture, the RSX
GPU is very much a PC-based design, it's basicly a stripped down
GeForce 7800.

How unfortunate for those that paid a lot for this crapstink thinking
they would get entertainment value out of it.

The few technical articles I've read about the PS3 seem to infer that
its an extremely powerful console, but that power is difficult to
exploit.

And power that is difficult to exploit is not very powerful is it?

Sony built something great, but also very proprietary. If you
look at their technology through the years, that is very typical Sony.

That's Sony alright. Every technology decision is founded in "how can
we lock them into our brand?", rather than "how can we make our brand
known for value proposition to the consumer". Just like Apple.

For programmers that aren't completely immersed in PS3 architecture,
making a port must be very difficult.

Making a fun game has been a challenge for them too.

The PS3 is really not much more powerful than the Xbox 360. The
biggest advantage PS3 has, is the amount of floating point performance
it gets from the CELL CPU (over 200 GFLOPs) It's roughly twice that
of the Xbox 360 CPU (over 100 GFLOPs) .

If only processing floating point numbers were fun, this would make
for great gaming!

The 360's Xenos GPU is very much superior to the RSX GPU in PS3.

Therein lies the crux of the thread subject line.

For the most part, the extra power that CELL has, has to go into
making up for the shortcomings of RSX, just to get roughly upto the
360's level in graphics. Sure there are some PS3 games specifically
written to take full advantage of the architecture which outperform
any 360 game, yet there are so many more 360 games that outperform the
same game on PS3, and some 360-only games that outshine anything on
PS3.

And almost all of them, where a port to PC was even attempted, perform
better than either one, offering better graphics, even with lots of
other services running in the background, an e-mail client, the PC
doubling as a web server, and so forth.

Overall the 360 and PS3 are very close in capability, much closer
than PS2 and original Xbox. Both consoles are well behind even
modern low-end PCs that have decent gaming performance.

Amen brother.

I must say, as a console gamer, I am already looking forward to the
next-gen Xbox3 and PS4, as well as the rumored 'Wii HD'

The innovative Wii controller throws a whole different topic in. They
did something nobody else was doing, focused on having fun, and
benefitted from it. Hats off to Nintendo.

As a tech enthusiast, as far as the PC side, I am looking forward to
the upcoming DX11 GPU from AMD & Nvidia, the R8xx/Evergreen and GT300,
as well as Intel's 'manycore' Larrabee architecture.

Is there really any evidence that DX11 will be that more compelling
than DX10? And was DX10 really that much more compelling than DX9?
I'm not trying to be overly skeptical here, as I look forward to new
technology too, but I get the increasing sense (especially after
eyeballing FC2 at DX10 at high resolutions with everything maxed) that
we are "there" when it comes to graphic quality, and that game
developers should be focusing on things like immersion, value to
consumer, overall fun factor. Breaking away from the hyped corporate
marketing-team inspired bull**** and focusing on how to appeal to
gamers rather than buyers of well advertised crap.