Not this again.. Naughty Dog says they're using only 30-40% of PS3's power.

The article is mainly on Uncharted's trophy support, but Co-Lead Designer of Uncharted Richard Lemarchand also talks about Edge Tools for third party devs and Sony's First party devs sharing tools and working with each other.

Lemarchand also waxes lyrical about the culture of cooperation that exists between first-party Sony Studios: "We have this culture of open communication: we like to trade stories about what we found were ways of doing things that worked, and what didn't. We're always trading war-stories with Insomniac and Evolution and Sucker Punch. We're just one block away from Sony Santa Monica – the guys who made God Of War – and we get our designers together with theirs for formal lunches, and just talk about tools, design approaches and so on. So there's this town square feeling of everybody trading stories about our best practices, and I think it makes everybody stronger and smarter.

Richard Lemarchand

This is where he talks about using only 30-40 percent of the power of PS3 and why multiplatform games will start to look better on the PS3 soon.

"It's code that runs on SPUs, and it's to do with things like animation compression, generalised compression and rendering optimisations. These guys are really old-school programmers: guys who are always looking to shave another cycle off an operation. And part of the skill of developing for the PlayStation 3 is getting the GPU to farm jobs out to the six SPUs – seeing which SPUs are idling and can take up some of the slack in a frame-to-frame kind of way."

Here, Lemarchand comes up with an interesting revelation: "That's why we think we're probably only using 30 or 40 per cent of the power of the PS3 right now, and there's this great, untapped potential. All third-party developers can get the Edge libraries for free and are going to be able to use them in their own ways, to get more and more and more out of the PS3 over the years."

Richard Lemarchand

"There's a set of tools called Edge that were developed on the Naughty Dog premises, actually, by a group of very, very senior games programmer, some from Naughty Dog and some from elsewhere. I think it's tremendously visionary of Sony to make these tools, which are largely low-level libraries."

Richard Lemarchand

Taken from GAF. Original Article from Three Speech.

My opinion on this is that while 2nd and third gen PS3 games will obviously look better than 1st gen PS3 games, just like what happened in PS2's life cycle, they wont look TWICE as good. By saying that they're only using 30-40% of the PS3, they're implying that maybe one day they'll reach 80-90% or maybe use 100% of PS3 power, which to me says Uncharted 3 will end up looking twice as good on the PS3 and that just wont happen. :|

That said, ND is THE most talented dev working on the PS3 (IF Carmack picked them to do the port for Rage, then they have to be) and I do respect their opinion/claims, it's just that I dont think you can put a number on the capabilites of the PS3.

I've always wondered how developers say how much is left to pull out of a system...If they aren't doing it :|spazzx625

You gotta love it. The bigger mystery is why are they saying stuff like that? If you're using only 30% of the system, what does that tell me? That you're either incompetent programmers, or that the PS3 is the most anti-developer-friendly console ever made. Neither is a good thing so what possible reason do they have for even saying such crap other than to blow smoke up my ass. The PS3 has been out for a while now, this sort of crap might've been acceptable at launch, but now it's just laughable. We know the specs, hardware gurus have tested the damn thing with real-world performance. It's a game console, not some sort of mystical well of untapped power just waiting for some nerd gamer virgin sacrifices in order to finally errupt and bless us with divine gaming experiences straight out of the Enterprise holodeck.

I've always wondered how developers say how much is left to pull out of a system...If they aren't doing it :|spazzx625

[QUOTE="spazzx625"]I've always wondered how developers say how much is left to pull out of a system...If they aren't doing it :|UpInFlames

You gotta love it. The bigger mystery is why are they saying stuff like that? If you're using only 30% of the system, what does that tell me? That you're either incompetent programmers, or that the PS3 is the most anti-developer-friendly console ever made. Neither is a good thing so what possible reason do they have for even saying such crap other than to blow smoke up my ass. The PS3 has been out for a while now, this sort of crap might've been acceptable at launch, but now it's just laughable. We know the specs, hardware gurus have tested the damn thing with real-world performance. It's a game console, not some sort of mystical well of untapped power just waiting for some nerd gamer virgin sacrifices in order to finally errupt and bless us with divine gaming experiences straight out of the Enterprise holodeck.

[QUOTE="UpInFlames"]

[QUOTE="spazzx625"]I've always wondered how developers say how much is left to pull out of a system...If they aren't doing it :|SteelAttack

You gotta love it. The bigger mystery is why are they saying stuff like that? If you're using only 30% of the system, what does that tell me? That you're either incompetent programmers, or that the PS3 is the most anti-developer-friendly console ever made. Neither is a good thing so what possible reason do they have for even saying such crap other than to blow smoke up my ass. The PS3 has been out for a while now, this sort of crap might've been acceptable at launch, but now it's just laughable. We know the specs, hardware gurus have tested the damn thing with real-world performance. It's a game console, not some sort of mystical well of untapped power just waiting for some nerd gamer virgin sacrifices in order to finally errupt and bless us with divine gaming experiences straight out of the Enterprise holodeck.

Just you wait, all of you! I will develop a game utilising 100% of the PS3's capabilities. On my own!

I will call it Infinity. It will be about 1's and 0's. Rendered at the speed of light. Thousands on screen in-game! Ever changing patterns! Realistic physics for the 7th dimension!

I've always wondered how developers say how much is left to pull out of a system...If they aren't doing it :|spazzx625

[QUOTE="spazzx625"]I've always wondered how developers say how much is left to pull out of a system...If they aren't doing it :|UpInFlames

You gotta love it. The bigger mystery is why are they saying stuff like that? If you're using only 30% of the system, what does that tell me? That you're either incompetent programmers, or that the PS3 is the most anti-developer-friendly console ever made. Neither is a good thing so what possible reason do they have for even saying such crap other than to blow smoke up my ass. The PS3 has been out for a while now, this sort of crap might've been acceptable at launch, but now it's just laughable. We know the specs, hardware gurus have tested the damn thing with real-world performance. It's a game console, not some sort of mystical well of untapped power just waiting for some nerd gamer virgin sacrifices in order to finally errupt and bless us with divine gaming experiences straight out of the Enterprise holodeck.

They're just giving an honest assessment of where they're at...they have no reason to deceive you or "blow smoke up your ass". All they're saying is "we have some headroom here". They're not promising you the moon or anything, just saying that they haven't pushed the system to its limit yet. They've only made 1 game for it, for crying out loud! I really don't think there's a need to get so offended by what they said, or to look too deeply into it.Teufelhuhn

Oh, it takes a lot more to offend me. This is just boring me. Frankly, I'm not sure how much of their statements are honest assessments and how much of it is just meant to build up some empty PS3 hype. Lord knows Sony's devs are masters at that.

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"]They're just giving an honest assessment of where they're at...they have no reason to deceive you or "blow smoke up your ass". All they're saying is "we have some headroom here". They're not promising you the moon or anything, just saying that they haven't pushed the system to its limit yet. They've only made 1 game for it, for crying out loud! I really don't think there's a need to get so offended by what they said, or to look too deeply into it.UpInFlames

Oh, it takes a lot more to offend me. This is just boring me. Frankly, I'm not sure how much of their statements are honest assessments and how much of it is just meant to build up some empty PS3 hype. Lord knows Sony's devs are masters at that.

Coming from a guy who is completely Pro Xbox. I love it, no hypocrisy here.

Coming from a guy who is completely Pro Xbox. I love it, no hypocrisy here.

Blayde-

Heck, check his Gamertag on his profile, and you'll see how he only has 110 gamerpoints, and only for one game, Gears of War.

[QUOTE="Blayde-"]

Coming from a guy who is completely Pro Xbox. I love it, no hypocrisy here.

Skylock00

Heck, check his Gamertag on his profile, and you'll see how he only has 110 gamerpoints, and only for one game, Gears of War.

I relize he tends to favor PC games but his post history speaks for itself when it comes to consoles.

I relize he tends to favor PC games but his post history speaks for itself when it comes to consoles.

Blayde-

Just you wait, all of you! I will develop a game utilising 100% of the PS3's capabilities. On my own!

I will call it Infinity. It will be about 1's and 0's. Rendered at the speed of light. Thousands on screen in-game! Ever changing patterns! Realistic physics for the 7th dimension!

inoperativeRS

Thats all good and all, but would it have realtime weapon change? because that could cause MASSIVE DAMAGE!!!

Coming from a guy who is completely Pro Xbox. I love it, no hypocrisy here.Blayde-

You gonna bring forth some arguments to discuss or just waste everyone's time?

If they use a little bit of that power to fix the tearing in Uncharted 2, then that would be great.argianas

I know!!! I have been playing the game for the past four straight hours and while it doesn't affect the gameplay, it's there and very noticable in the early levels. For a drop dead gorgeous game like Uncharted, little things like that dont go un-noticed.

Heck, check his Gamertag on his profile, and you'll see how he only has 110 gamerpoints, and only for one game, Gears of War.Skylock00

No need to make fun of my gamertag, man. :(

Those are some heard-earned points. Also, don't tell anyone, but that's actually a Games for Windows Live gamertag. :P

[QUOTE="Skylock00"][QUOTE="Blayde-"]

Coming from a guy who is completely Pro Xbox. I love it, no hypocrisy here.

Blayde-

Heck, check his Gamertag on his profile, and you'll see how he only has 110 gamerpoints, and only for one game, Gears of War.

I relize he tends to favor PC games but his post history speaks for itself when it comes to consoles.

Let's not make it THAT kind of thread. if you do have a beef with something he said, then argue that point, this kind of name calling derails the thread faster than massive damage gets rid of giant enemy crabs.

[QUOTE="inoperativeRS"]

Just you wait, all of you! I will develop a game utilising 100% of the PS3's capabilities. On my own!

I will call it Infinity. It will be about 1's and 0's. Rendered at the speed of light. Thousands on screen in-game! Ever changing patterns! Realistic physics for the 7th dimension!

S0lidSnake

Thats all good and all, but would it have realtime weapon change? because that could cause MASSIVE DAMAGE!!!

:lol: That developer's demo of uhhhh.... the Ominusha clone was more entertaining than the game itself. The reference makes me laugh every time I hear it.

Honestly, the two things on my wishlist for Uncharted 2 are better boss encounters (I really didn't like the structure of the lone boss fight in Uncharted) and puzzle bits that don't hold your hand (either eliminate them or make them challenging, don't make them bothersome distractions).

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"]They're just giving an honest assessment of where they're at...they have no reason to deceive you or "blow smoke up your ass". All they're saying is "we have some headroom here". They're not promising you the moon or anything, just saying that they haven't pushed the system to its limit yet. They've only made 1 game for it, for crying out loud! I really don't think there's a need to get so offended by what they said, or to look too deeply into it.UpInFlames

Oh, it takes a lot more to offend me. This is just boring me. Frankly, I'm not sure how much of their statements are honest assessments and how much of it is just meant to build up some empty PS3 hype. Lord knows Sony's devs are masters at that.

Naughty Dog is one Sony dev team that has delivered on their promises. Their prerendered trailer for Uncharted actually looked a little inferior to the final game. Just look at the difference in graphics from Jak 1 to Jak 3, and not just the graphics. jak 3 was a completely different game than Jak 1, with an open world sandbox gameplay.

[QUOTE="S0lidSnake"][QUOTE="inoperativeRS"]

Just you wait, all of you! I will develop a game utilising 100% of the PS3's capabilities. On my own!

I will call it Infinity. It will be about 1's and 0's. Rendered at the speed of light. Thousands on screen in-game! Ever changing patterns! Realistic physics for the 7th dimension!

CarnageHeart

Thats all good and all, but would it have realtime weapon change? because that could cause MASSIVE DAMAGE!!!

:lol: That developer's demo of uhhhh.... the Ominusha clone was more entertaining than the game itself. The reference makes me laugh every time I hear it.

Honestly, the two things on my wishlist for Uncharted 2 are better boss encounters (I really didn't like the structure of the lone boss fight in Uncharted) and puzzle bits that don't hold your hand (either eliminate them or make them challenging, don't make them bothersome distractions).

That boss fight has to be the most anti-climatic boss fight ever. The three shooting segments that preceed the fight were actually quite intense, but yeah this game needs to have at least four boss fights. Get rid of all the respawning enemies, been playing the game the past few hours and there have already been at least fives areas where I've had to face three waves of enemies one after another.

The platforming was awesome, I want more.

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"]They're just giving an honest assessment of where they're at...they have no reason to deceive you or "blow smoke up your ass". All they're saying is "we have some headroom here". They're not promising you the moon or anything, just saying that they haven't pushed the system to its limit yet. They've only made 1 game for it, for crying out loud! I really don't think there's a need to get so offended by what they said, or to look too deeply into it.UpInFlames

Oh, it takes a lot more to offend me. This is just boring me. Frankly, I'm not sure how much of their statements are honest assessments and how much of it is just meant to build up some empty PS3 hype. Lord knows Sony's devs are masters at that.

I don't think his statement was meant to be taken at face value. Notice the word 'probably'. Its just his way of giving us a rough picture of where the PS3's graphics currently stand and how much room there is for improvement because let's face it, as history has shown there has been a massive difference between games that were developed in their first year versus the 5th or 6th year.

Not exploiting a system's power to its fullest potential is not a reflection on their technical expertise. Working with multithreaded architecture is something that's still relatively new with most developers. With every passing moment there's always new techniques being discovered; its all a matter of experimentation and different approaches of streamlining the data to the SPEs.

[QUOTE="Skylock00"]Heck, check his Gamertag on his profile, and you'll see how he only has 110 gamerpoints, and only for one game, Gears of War.UpInFlames

No need to make fun of my gamertag, man. :(

Those are some heard-earned points. Also, don't tell anyone, but that's actually a Games for Windows Live gamertag. :P

You're even less of an XBox fanboy than even I suspected...wait, I never suspected that you were one. ;)

up in flames hates the ps3.

up in flames hates the ps3.

canuck19

Who cares? He is still a rad dude. Why did this turn into a character assassination thread? I think it is pretty obvious that UIF has been joking in this thread. I don't think you could read his first post and not:

1. Realize he's joking

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"]They're just giving an honest assessment of where they're at...they have no reason to deceive you or "blow smoke up your ass". All they're saying is "we have some headroom here". They're not promising you the moon or anything, just saying that they haven't pushed the system to its limit yet. They've only made 1 game for it, for crying out loud! I really don't think there's a need to get so offended by what they said, or to look too deeply into it.UpInFlames

Oh, it takes a lot more to offend me. This is just boring me. Frankly, I'm not sure how much of their statements are honest assessments and how much of it is just meant to build up some empty PS3 hype. Lord knows Sony's devs are masters at that.

I'm sorry for getting pissy about this, but I just hate when developers give us insight and gaming fans crucify them for it. Teufelhuhn

People are going to take pretty much whatever developers/console manufacturers say, and take it in various ways.

I don't care for these percentage "estimates". Especially coming from exclusive developers. They always stink of hyperbole.

We hear this stuff all the time. I recall Miyamoto claiming that Mario 64 used less than 60% of the N64's power. Despite making it sound like N64 games would eventually look almost twice as good as Mario 64, that game was a good indication of what to expect from the N64 and remained one of its best looking titles.

John Carmack seemed to have a pretty good assessment of the PS3's power potential in a recent interview. I don't know if this statement from Naughty Dog is supposed to be a response to that, but my personal belief is that there is no "unlockable potential" or "magical secrets" to be found in the console.

It sounds more like something some people buy into because they believe that since the PS3 came out later or is more expensive, that it must be significantly more powerful than the competition. Only they are not taking into account that Sony perhaps focused more on expensive components that are not completely related to the gaming side of things.

What we have seen so far is likely a very good indication of what we will see for the rest of the generation with small improvements here and there.

He is probably talking truth because he LINUX guy.

Even for those who dont believe it just look at first gen Metal gear SOLID 4.

Sony's developer agreement states that each developer can only use a designated amount of PS3 power assigned to each game, and when a developer makes the best use out of that limited amount of power - they must brag about how little power they are using.

[QUOTE="inoperativeRS"]

Just you wait, all of you! I will develop a game utilising 100% of the PS3's capabilities. On my own!

I will call it Infinity. It will be about 1's and 0's. Rendered at the speed of light. Thousands on screen in-game! Ever changing patterns! Realistic physics for the 7th dimension!

S0lidSnake

Thats all good and all, but would it have realtime weapon change? because that could cause MASSIVE DAMAGE!!!

Hmm, excellent idea my good colleague! Perhaps you would like to join my elite team of super developers? I need someone to update the textures on the 0's!

I don't think a system's ease of programming directly impacts how much a system's games improve. The amount of developer support and the amount of time developers support a system matters more than anything.

To hear developers tell it, the PS1 was easy to program for but the PS2 was hard to program for, but both systems saw equal improvement from the first gen to the later gens (for the PS1 compare screens of FF7 to screen of Vagrant Story, for the PS2 compare screens of MGS2 to screens of MGS3).

This is kind of counterintuitive, because one would think a system which is hard to program for would see big gains down the line while a system that is easy to program for would see small gains down the line but I don't recall any cases of this happening.

Also, the level of developer support matters, but only to a point. The Xbox saw big gains during its short life (NG blew the doors off any of the early Xbox games) despite the fact it got much less developer support than the PS2.

I don't see how the PS3 could pull away from the X360 unless MS and other publishers stopped focusing on the X360 which will only happen if the X720 is hitting in 2009 (given that MS's game divsion just had its first profitable year ever, I dont' see why MS would rush out another system, but I also don't see why MS's E3 showing was love letter to the Wii, so they might surprise me).

Carmack's claim that the visual quality of X360 games might be negatively impacted N64 style by the limitations of the storage medium might become relevant, but I refuse to believe MS will stay stubborn about it. If enough developers raise enough ruckus, MS will lower the price of additional disks the same way they raised the maximum size of XBLA games.

[QUOTE="Skylock00"][QUOTE="Blayde-"]

Coming from a guy who is completely Pro Xbox. I love it, no hypocrisy here.

Blayde-

Heck, check his Gamertag on his profile, and you'll see how he only has 110 gamerpoints, and only for one game, Gears of War.

I relize he tends to favor PC games but his post history speaks for itself when it comes to consoles.

yeah i don't see it. He's posted in topics talking about the 360's failure rate and how he dislikes XBL...

anyways I also hate this 25.68% of tapped power crap...

John Carmack seemed to have a pretty good assessment of the PS3's power potential in a recent interview. I don't know if this statement from Naughty Dog is supposed to be a response to that, but my personal belief is that there is no "unlockable potential" or "magical secrets" to be found in the console.

Mash_Affect

why do people feel those comments as fake ?

just look at ps2 history, look at first PS2 games and the recent ones, God of War is one of the best proofs there...

so whats surprising when its said for PS3 too ?

[QUOTE="Mash_Affect"]

John Carmack seemed to have a pretty good assessment of the PS3's power potential in a recent interview. I don't know if this statement from Naughty Dog is supposed to be a response to that, but my personal belief is that there is no "unlockable potential" or "magical secrets" to be found in the console.

Teufelhuhn

If you want to wait around for this supposed 300% increase in graphical fidelity to arrive, then that is your prerogative. I, for one, expect that the next Uncharted, Resistance, or whatever the heck else, will look similar to the first with perhaps some improvements to v-sync, frame rate, or draw distance. Not even close to three times, or even twice of what their predecessor looked like.

Carmack is not only the single most legendary graphics designer in the business, but he is also a multiplatform developer. It also helps that he is kind of a genius and that history backs him up in his statements.

Mash_Affect

I, for one, expect that the next Uncharted, Resistance, or whatever the heck else, will look similar to the first with perhaps some improvements to v-sync, frame rate, or draw distance. Not even close to three times, or even twice of what their predecessor looked like.

Mash_Affect

why do people feel those comments as fake ?

just look at ps2 history, look at first PS2 games and the recent ones, God of War is one of the best proofs there...

so whats surprising when its said for PS3 too ?

TheLegendKnight

What you see now is a good indication of the overall power of the PS3 and what you will see throughout its lifecycle. So if you're not satisfied yet, then I have some bad news for you...

Because God of War did not look 2-3 times better than other games released in the first year of the PS2 like MGS2, NBA Street, and Gran Turismo 3.

Mash_Affect

I kind of have to disagree with you there. The difference between first-gen and late-gen PS2 games was nothing less than stunning.

Heck, developers added in 480p support onto certain games on a system that wasn't originally supposed to support it, and yes, God of War is one of those games.

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="Mash_Affect"]

John Carmack seemed to have a pretty good assessment of the PS3's power potential in a recent interview. I don't know if this statement from Naughty Dog is supposed to be a response to that, but my personal belief is that there is no "unlockable potential" or "magical secrets" to be found in the console.

Mash_Affect

If you want to wait around for this supposed 300% increase in graphical fidelity to arrive, then that is your prerogative. I, for one, expect that the next Uncharted, Resistance, or whatever the heck else, will look similar to the first with perhaps some improvements to v-sync, frame rate, or draw distance. Not even close to three times, or even twice of what their predecessor looked like.

Why are you singling out graphics? Are graphics the only thing that can be impoved in a game? What about A.I.? Sound? Physics?