What happened to the massive power of the "Cell"?

I seem to recall not more then 6 months ago Cows were going balistic about how much more powerful the PS3 was then the 360.  Back then everyone seemed to belive that the PS3 could produce WAY better graphics then the 360.  Now it seems that developers seem to be coming out of the woodwork explaining how much easier it is to program for the 360.  Several developers have come out saying that the PS3 has bottlenecks in it's processing power which makes it very difficult to develop anything for.  In addition there have been a bunch of games which have been much better for the 360 then the PS3. 

There will be several cows who are going to come in here and blame lazy developers.  The simple fact is that if it takes a small army of developers a long time to simply port a game properly then the system is lacking in the hardware arena.   If it takes that much time and effort to port games then developers are simply not going to do it.  Games like Oblivion prove that the PS3 can produce execlent graphics but it took forever to get together and Bethesda publically complained about the difficulty numerious times.

Anyways we seem to have gone from "Behold the power of the cell" to "The PS3 could have produced 60 fps like the 360 version if the developer would have worked at it". 

Cell is pretty powerful... Its the PS3s bottlenecks holding it back. Devs just need to figure out how to access its power.

http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/05/29/free-radical-says-ps3s-power-locked-away-demands-key/

"Its strengths are obviously that is has a lot of processing power. Its weaknesses are that its processing power is locked away at the moment. But everyone's going to hit that wall across all platforms at first."

I do believe the Cell can and will proove itself to be a powerful processor. But I also believe that it really does take much more effort to harness that power than for example the 360 processor (which I'm sure due to its 3-core design still requires a lot of work). I think this is why some crossplatform games run worse on the PS3; the devs aren't lazy, its just not in the budget or timetable to get the performance they want from the processor.

I think this sort of situation will be much less common as better, more robust development tools become available, but that always takes a while. After all developers didn't squeeze amazing games like God of War out of the PS2 early on, heck early PS2 games often looked worse than Dreamcast games. As the popular PS3 slogan goes, "Just wait."

I do believe the Cell can and will proove itself to be a powerful processor. But I also believe that it really does take much more effort to harness that power than for example the 360 processor (which I'm sure due to its 3-core design still requires a lot of work). I think this is why many crossplatform games sometimes seem to run worse on the PS3; the devs aren't lazy, its just not in the budget or timetable to get the performance they want from the processor.

I think this sort of situation will be much less common as better, more robust development tools become available, but that always takes a while. After all developers didn't squeeze amazing games like God of War out of the PS2 early on, heck early PS2 games often looked worse than Dreamcast games. As the popular PS3 slogan goes, "Just wait."

Corvin

Eventualy peopel ar egoing to get tired of waiting.  

Cell is pretty powerful... Its the PS3s bottlenecks holding it back. Devs just need to figure out how to access its power.  

asdasd

I'm no developer but from most accounts the problem lies with the RAM.

[QUOTE="asdasd"]

Cell is pretty powerful... Its the PS3s bottlenecks holding it back. Devs just need to figure out how to access its power.  

Firelore29

I'm no developer but from most accounts the problem lies with the RAM.

And in typical Sony fashion they skimped on it!

What massive power?

[QUOTE="Corvin"]

I do believe the Cell can and will proove itself to be a powerful processor. But I also believe that it really does take much more effort to harness that power than for example the 360 processor (which I'm sure due to its 3-core design still requires a lot of work). I think this is why many crossplatform games sometimes seem to run worse on the PS3; the devs aren't lazy, its just not in the budget or timetable to get the performance they want from the processor.

I think this sort of situation will be much less common as better, more robust development tools become available, but that always takes a while. After all developers didn't squeeze amazing games like God of War out of the PS2 early on, heck early PS2 games often looked worse than Dreamcast games. As the popular PS3 slogan goes, "Just wait."

black_awpN1

Eventualy peopel ar egoing to get tired of waiting.

I know, that last bit was meant to be a bit insulting towards the machine, its all well and good to have powerful hardware but if no one can harness that power on a reasonable timetable or budget, whats the point? However, for those who are willing to wait it out, I think it could yield stunning results. Question is, will there be any developer confidence left by then? Will the PS3 begin to see nothing but half-assed efforts like some of the early Wii games, since no one really expected it to blow up the way it did? That could happen too.

I for one have queued up in to the "waiting" list, I won't touch a PS3 until at least a price drop and more worthwhile games hit the market, and I'm perfectly happy with my 360 until then.

PS3 and 360 have a completely different architecture unlike last gen. porting games are going to be quite dificult for developers especially from 360 to PS3 because the advantages they got from 360 won't be there on PS3, like RAM for example. Soon developers are going to shift towards PS3 as their main platform for multipat titles. Its far easier for deveopers to create games on PS3 first then port over to 360, we are already seeing this with Burnout 5 and Haze, soon more will follow.

Cell is indeed powerful but I agree its also difficult for developers to get the best out of it, Sony however have brought out Playstation Edge tools for 1st and 3rd party developers which will allow them to better understand the Cell processor etc to create games for the PS3. This year is more like a learning experience for developers to get to know the PS3, next year you will see a clear difference in PS3 and 360 games in favour of the PS3.

Devs have been saying that the 360 was much easier to develop for from the very beginning... so was the original xbox. And much like the original xbox, the games on the 360 aren't going to see tremendous leaps in graphical quality as the years go on b/c devs are already able to tap most of its potential. Just look at the last 2 yrs... it hasn't shown that much growth in quality and the best looking game on it is 6 mths old and counting.

On the other hand, devs ARE coming out of the woodworks claiming that there is so much untapped potential still to be found in the cell. Commenting on how it just keeps giving & giving... and we're already starting to see the results, just six months into the console's release. Everytime there's a game conference, the PS3 just gets more & more impressive. There will be good games on both systems.... but the power of the PS3 really isn't questionable.

[QUOTE="Corvin"]

I do believe the Cell can and will proove itself to be a powerful processor. But I also believe that it really does take much more effort to harness that power than for example the 360 processor (which I'm sure due to its 3-core design still requires a lot of work). I think this is why many crossplatform games sometimes seem to run worse on the PS3; the devs aren't lazy, its just not in the budget or timetable to get the performance they want from the processor.

I think this sort of situation will be much less common as better, more robust development tools become available, but that always takes a while. After all developers didn't squeeze amazing games like God of War out of the PS2 early on, heck early PS2 games often looked worse than Dreamcast games. As the popular PS3 slogan goes, "Just wait."

black_awpN1

Eventualy peopel ar egoing to get tired of waiting.

Yeah that's exactly why there ARE lots of good first party exclusives coming this year alone. PS2 launch to year 1 was a huge difference...... just like PS3 launch to these really good looking year 1 games. Then it kept getting better and better throughout the generation. 360 is really prettymuch tapped after this year... Gears2 is not going to look better aside from possibly more stuff going on.

The thing about PS3 for these first year multiplats is that the quality of the games is going to vary a lot based of the developer and how they handled the port or production. On one hand you have Bethesda who reworked Oblivion for PS3 hardware and made an outstanding game that is at least equal to the 360 version.... and on the other hand horrible stripped down ports from Ubisoft. When games are made with both systems in mind from the start they are easily equals.

Devs have been saying that the 360 was much easier to develop for from the very beginning... so was the original xbox. And much like the original xbox, the games on the 360 aren't going to see tremendous leaps in graphical quality as the years go on b/c devs are already able to tap most of its potential. Just look at the last 2 yrs... it hasn't shown that much growth in quality and the best looking game on it is 6 mths old and counting.

On the other hand, devs ARE coming out of the woodworks claiming that there is so much untapped potential still to be found in the cell. Commenting on how it just keeps giving & giving... and we're already starting to see the results, just six months into the console's release. Everytime there's a game conference, the PS3 just gets more & more impressive. There will be good games on both systems.... but the power of the PS3 really isn't questionable.

 

haze_blaze

That's great if it's untapped but if there is no way to tap it because of a bottleneck then it will continue to have amazing potential with 0 games to access it.   I would also like to note that the PS3 is not becoming more and more impressive to me.  Just the opposite in fact.

Devs have been saying that the 360 was much easier to develop for from the very beginning... so was the original xbox. And much like the original xbox, the games on the 360 aren't going to see tremendous leaps in graphical quality as the years go on b/c devs are already able to tap most of its potential. Just look at the last 2 yrs... it hasn't shown that much growth in quality and the best looking game on it is 6 mths old and counting.

On the other hand, devs ARE coming out of the woodworks claiming that there is so much untapped potential still to be found in the cell. Commenting on how it just keeps giving & giving... and we're already starting to see the results, just six months into the console's release. Everytime there's a game conference, the PS3 just gets more & more impressive. There will be good games on both systems.... but the power of the PS3 really isn't questionable.

 haze_blaze

I think right now the power of the Cell is still largely questionable. There really hasn't been any games on the PS3 that are remarkable or show off its 'power' . However, with releases like Uncharted and Heavenly Sword around the corner, I might change my opinion :) .

well i certainly wouldnt take sonys words at face value. the cell certainly isnt an al conquering, world dominating chip. a core 2 quadro would certainly give it a very good run for its money in games performance.

however its no wimp either. look at games like MGS4....looks lovely. konami could use the SPEs to create certain effects that would, perhaps, not be as easy to do on the 360. the cell is very good at processing huge amounts of data (eg folding at home is what cell does really well....just takes data and processes it at huge speeds).

this means that the cell would be better suited to graphics and physics work. the SPEs in the cell are vector processors that could be used as a very fast unified shader (an shader in a 8800GTX runs at 1.35GHz, an SPE in the cell runs at 3.2GHz). so, on paper at least, the PS3 would have 24 pixel shader, 8 vertex and 6 unified (in reality...not gonna happen like that). however where the cell is weaker is on more random stuff like AI.

the cell is also very complex to develop for, as was the emotion engine. the vast majority of devs didnt touch the vector processors in the PS2 (it had 2 as far as i know)...they were too complex and time consuming. only games like GOW, SOTC and spartan total warrior used em (and they certainly opened doors....500 3d units on the screen with a simpler version of HDR on PS2 is a very impressive feat). i reckon alot of 3rd party devs are going to develop with only the PPC part of the chip in mind. thats still pretty powerful.....a dual threaded 3.2GHz processor. it also allows devs to port their code relatively easily to the 360 since that part of the cell is quite similar to a 360 core.

anywho i rant a bit. overall i think its going to be a case of PS3 being better at certain types of games compared to 360 (like racing games with really kewl graphics and lots of physics but alot less animation and AI) where as the 360 will be stronger at other types of games (like FPS due to more general processors and full access to 512MB of ram for the GPU and CPU with no performance penalty). however the difference will be minimal overall. anything on the PS3 could be moved to 360 with enough tweaking and rewriting of code and vise versa. 

[QUOTE="Corvin"]

I do believe the Cell can and will proove itself to be a powerful processor. But I also believe that it really does take much more effort to harness that power than for example the 360 processor (which I'm sure due to its 3-core design still requires a lot of work). I think this is why many crossplatform games sometimes seem to run worse on the PS3; the devs aren't lazy, its just not in the budget or timetable to get the performance they want from the processor.

I think this sort of situation will be much less common as better, more robust development tools become available, but that always takes a while. After all developers didn't squeeze amazing games like God of War out of the PS2 early on, heck early PS2 games often looked worse than Dreamcast games. As the popular PS3 slogan goes, "Just wait."

black_awpN1

Eventualy peopel ar egoing to get tired of waiting.  

That might be true... if the games weren't going to be out by the time most casuals start adopting next gen systems. As for the PS3, their fall lineup is already realizing a lot of this power... ppl aren't going to be tired of waiting that quickly... in fact, they'll be right in time for the holidays!

You'll notice that the developers that are making games exclusively for the PS3 will get the most power out of it compared to devs that are making multiplatform games obviously.

Just look at the Lair, Heavenly Sword, R&C, Haze, and Little Big Planet. They all look amazing with great amount of detail and they are exclusive games being developed with the PS3 in mind. And future games down the road like Final Fantasy XIII and White Knight Story will also showcase how powerful the PS3 is.

Just give the developers time and they will learn how to get more out of the PS3 and you will end up being owned in the end. Just imagine how good the graphics are going to look in the PS3's last year as a console. Trust me, they will look better than anything on the 360 at that point in time when developers are making a game with the PS3 in mind.

I'm no developer but from most accounts the problem lies with the RAM.Firelore29

what im more worried about is 360 lack of processing prowess, games like halo 3 and forza 2(9.2) had to dedicate much of the ram to processing and the visuals seemed to have suffered, they both look good but not great or major leaps.Mandingo101

You better listen to this man because he speaks the truth.  I'm not sure how much more the 360 can progress dedicating large amounts of ram to processing.  PS3 games are only going to look better and have all of the advantages of a superior cpu.  In other words, 10 years really isn't stretching the life cycle as Sony claims because it hasn't even got started yet.  Who gives a rat's tail if 360 has a few perfect "10" games now when in a couple years Sony will start rolling extraordinary exclusives left and right just like last gen.  It can and will happen.

I seem to recall not more then 6 months ago Cows were going balistic about how much more powerful the PS3 was then the 360.  Back then everyone seemed to belive that the PS3 could produce WAY better graphics then the 360.  Now it seems that developers seem to be coming out of the woodwork explaining how much easier it is to program for the 360.  Several developers have come out saying that the PS3 has bottlenecks in it's processing power which makes it very difficult to develop anything for.  In addition there have been a bunch of games which have been much better for the 360 then the PS3. 

There will be several cows who are going to come in here and blame lazy developers.  The simple fact is that if it takes a small army of developers a long time to simply port a game properly then the system is lacking in the hardware arena.   If it takes that much time and effort to port games then developers are simply not going to do it.  Games like Oblivion prove that the PS3 can produce execlent graphics but it took forever to get together and Bethesda publically complained about the difficulty numerious times.

Anyways we seem to have gone from "Behold the power of the cell" to "The PS3 could have produced 60 fps like the 360 version if the developer would have worked at it". 

Firelore29

The Cell is extremely powerful and a great CPU.

Its just a shame that Sony messed up and bottleknecked it in so many areas. The quickly thown togetherr GPU that adds nothing and detracts from what the CPU could of done with a) another cpu or b) a good gpu that works in harmony. The slow reads/writes from some components, some slow buses, poor integrated software including OS, among other hardware mistakes including BR

The CELL rocks but I can never understand some of the simple mistakes they made in the hardware especially with 360 hardware out, they could have checked the throttlers(cpu drainers/wasters) and improved them or changed them. It seems so dumb to have some of them, to be honest if the Cell was a PC. Loads of PC know-its would be taking out some feature hardware, putting in, changing the OS, increasing a few things and it would cost what £25-50 max.

If Sony got rid of BR and stuck with DVD9 & Hard-drive (60gb) to support some compression and HDrive loading you'd be able to still get huge games like the supposing massiveness of KZ, Resistence, FF & MGS4 ...etc AND have spare cassh to get better components, GPU & buses that don't strangle the CPU so much.

Shame...

You'll notice that the developers that are making games exclusively for the PS3 will get the most power out of it compared to devs that are making multiplatform games obviously.

Just look at the Lair, Heavenly Sword, R&C, Haze, and Little Big Planet. They all look amazing with great amount of detail and they are exclusive games being developed with the PS3 in mind. And future games down the road like Final Fantasy XIII and White Knight Story will also showcase how powerful the PS3 is.

Just give the developers time and they will learn how to get more out of the PS3 and you will end up being owned in the end. Just imagine how good the graphics are going to look in the PS3's last year as a console. Trust me, they will look better than anything on the 360 at that point in time when developers are making a game with the PS3 in mind.

Baird-06

How is a stronger CPU going to make games look vastly better than the 360 if they are bottlenecked by the PS3's GPU and RAM? 

I seem to recall not more then 6 months ago Cows were going balistic about how much more powerful the PS3 was then the 360. Back then everyone seemed to belive that the PS3 could produce WAY better graphics then the 360. Now it seems that developers seem to be coming out of the woodwork explaining how much easier it is to program for the 360. Several developers have come out saying that the PS3 has bottlenecks in it's processing power which makes it very difficult to develop anything for. In addition there have been a bunch of games which have been much better for the 360 then the PS3.

There will be several cows who are going to come in here and blame lazy developers. The simple fact is that if it takes a small army of developers a long time to simply port a game properly then the system is lacking in the hardware arena. If it takes that much time and effort to port games then developers are simply not going to do it. Games like Oblivion prove that the PS3 can produce execlent graphics but it took forever to get together and Bethesda publically complained about the difficulty numerious times.

Anyways we seem to have gone from "Behold the power of the cell" to "The PS3 could have produced 60 fps like the 360 version if the developer would have worked at it".

Firelore29

Why don't you quote some developers and cite some proof, and realize that it takes years to master a new architecture, it's not going to happen in 6months or even 1year, but we are still getting great games. 

[QUOTE="Baird-06"]

You'll notice that the developers that are making games exclusively for the PS3 will get the most power out of it compared to devs that are making multiplatform games obviously.

Just look at the Lair, Heavenly Sword, R&C, Haze, and Little Big Planet. They all look amazing with great amount of detail and they are exclusive games being developed with the PS3 in mind. And future games down the road like Final Fantasy XIII and White Knight Story will also showcase how powerful the PS3 is.

Just give the developers time and they will learn how to get more out of the PS3 and you will end up being owned in the end. Just imagine how good the graphics are going to look in the PS3's last year as a console. Trust me, they will look better than anything on the 360 at that point in time when developers are making a game with the PS3 in mind.

Danm_999

How is a stronger CPU going to make games look vastly better than the 360 if they are bottlenecked by the PS3's GPU and RAM?

The PS3 isn't bottlenecked as much as lemming say, infact the 360 is more bottlenecked, I just know.. 

Oh ps3 is "Teh hidden power" all over again, just like with the ps2... even into late 2004 there were still cows going: T3h hidden powerzorz!!!!111oneoneeleven

Never believe Sony, EVER! They are the kings of hype. Remember the Emotion Engine was so powerful Sadam was buying PS2's for the chip to run nukes. All ridiculous propaganda instigated by the ultimate liars. Sony and Kenny Boy Kutagari.atarigrad

yeah well Saddam did buy PS2s to guide is missiles- but they were crap- thats how the USA & UK invaded Iaq without no problems lol Saddams missiles got blown up because the PS2s inside were constantly.... LOADING

[QUOTE="atarigrad"]Never believe Sony, EVER! They are the kings of hype. Remember the Emotion Engine was so powerful Sadam was buying PS2's for the chip to run nukes. All ridiculous propaganda instigated by the ultimate liars. Sony and Kenny Boy Kutagari.CwlHeddwyn

yeah well Saddam did buy PS2s to guide is missiles- but they were crap- thats how the USA & UK invaded Iaq without no problems lol Saddams missiles got blown up because the PS2s inside were constantly.... LOADING

Uh, I believe the NSA have you on lock.  Sending in the marines. 

Why can;t it be beacuse if devs???  Are there not improvements made to games for a certain console over the lifetime of that console?  Don't most consoles start out with lackluster games and then have devs figure everything out and make some cool stuff?  Hasn;t this happend with every console ever made?  Didn;t this happen on the 360 at launch?

Come on.  We all know that devs are STILL getting used to developing for the PS3.  I'm sorry, the darn thing has two brand new pieces of technology.  How easy is that to develope for right out of the shoot?

I seem to recall not more then 6 months ago Cows were going balistic about how much more powerful the PS3 was then the 360. Back then everyone seemed to belive that the PS3 could produce WAY better graphics then the 360. Now it seems that developers seem to be coming out of the woodwork explaining how much easier it is to program for the 360. Several developers have come out saying that the PS3 has bottlenecks in it's processing power which makes it very difficult to develop anything for. In addition there have been a bunch of games which have been much better for the 360 then the PS3.

There will be several cows who are going to come in here and blame lazy developers. The simple fact is that if it takes a small army of developers a long time to simply port a game properly then the system is lacking in the hardware arena. If it takes that much time and effort to port games then developers are simply not going to do it. Games like Oblivion prove that the PS3 can produce execlent graphics but it took forever to get together and Bethesda publically complained about the difficulty numerious times.

Anyways we seem to have gone from "Behold the power of the cell" to "The PS3 could have produced 60 fps like the 360 version if the developer would have worked at it".

Firelore29

...many developers have also said that the ps3 is superior to the 360... 

Cell is pretty powerful... Its the PS3s bottlenecks holding it back. Devs just need to figure out how to access its power.

http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/05/29/free-radical-says-ps3s-power-locked-away-demands-key/

"Its strengths are obviously that is has a lot of processing power. Its weaknesses are that its processing power is locked away at the moment. But everyone's going to hit that wall across all platforms at first."

asdasd

The Cell isn't all that powerful.  The reason why it's so effective for folding@home is because:

1. Developers can specifically program the PS3 version of F@H for the Cell, while they can only take advantage of the general commands on PC processors.  They made the program able to run on old processors, so they couldn't take complete advantage of advances in CPU technology in recent years.

2. Out of all the PC processors running folding,@home there's likely to be quite a few powerful processors, but there are many, many more Centrinos and old P4s running on it.  Up until recently, most of the PCs sold at major retail outlets were equipped with Centrino 4s or P4s without HT.

Your post is extremely intellectually dishonest to the point of being blatant misinformation.  Here's why: 

I seem to recall not more then 6 months ago Cows were going balistic about how much more powerful the PS3 was then the 360.  Back then everyone seemed to belive that the PS3 could produce WAY better graphics then the 360.  Now it seems that developers seem to be coming out of the woodwork explaining how much easier it is to program for the 360.Firelore29

First of all, what does one thing have to do with the other.  It's like saying because somebody is uncomfortable driving at 200 miles an hour, a NASCAR car can't really go faster than a normal car.  That is intellectually dishonest and complete misinformation.   The two have nothing to do with each other.  Every developer has either hinted or stated flat out that the PS3 is noticeably more powerful than the 360.  The catch is that, right now, developers are either hampered by the difficulty of the newly designed hardware (which they are unfamiliar with) or they just don't have the budgets right now to spend on pushing the PS3. 

I will also direct you to a post just yesterday from a Developer saying the PS3's power is basically "locked away" since developers don't yet know how to use the 7 SPUs to their full, efficient potential. 

Finally, just because the PS3 hasn't killed the 360 in graphics righ at launch, it doesn't mean the graphics are poor.  And Cows SHOULD know by now that every PS console has shown consistent improvements over their lifetime.  IN comparison, I would personally argue that the Xbox and 360 both improve only slightly over their lifetime as developers are more able to use that power from day one. 

Several developers have come out saying that the PS3 has bottlenecks in it's processing power which makes it very difficult to develop anything for.  In addition there have been a bunch of games which have been much better for the 360 then the PS3. 

Again you falsely act as if the two things are related when they are not.  Games right now are mostly being developer with the 360 in mind as the "main" console and then ported to the PS3.  So of course this will not only make the PS3 version harder to make, but it will not turn out as good as if it was made from the ground up on the PS3.  It's no different than when devs were making games for the PS2 and porting them to the Xbox.  They were able to make minor improvements but not one of them was anything close to the games made from the ground up on the XBox.  There was a real, noticeable difference.

As mentioned already, the "bottlenecks" are not due to inferior hardware, but completely new hardware that developers are unfamiliar with. ALso, they are not willing to learn how to use it properly...at least not all at once, right away, since they have budgets and deadlines to meet as their first priority.  But like with all PS consoles, they will learn over time and we will see huge improvements as time progresses. 

There will be several cows who are going to come in here and blame lazy developers.  The simple fact is that if it takes a small army of developers a long time to simply port a game properly then the system is lacking in the hardware arena.   If it takes that much time and effort to port games then developers are simply not going to do it.

You are probably right.  But don't act as if developers not being able to push the PS3 to it's full potential is the same thing as the PS3 being inferior.  You are trying to make both cases as if they are one and the same and they are not.  The PS3 is a superior console but as a result it is hurt by it's own innovation for the exact reason you give.  You can't have it both ways and say, well the PS3 is inferior and weak...but it's so powerful that devs can't afford to use it properly. 

Games like Oblivion prove that the PS3 can produce execlent graphics but it took forever to get together and Bethesda publically complained about the difficulty numerious times.

Boo hoo.  They complained because they wanted a quick and easy port from the PC/360 to the PS3 and couldn't do it ebcause the PS3 is totally different.  Yet you bashed the "lazy developer" excuse.  Maybe if they took the time to learn the hardware, instead of doing what PC devs have done for years now (comlpain that consoles aren't like PCs) they would have had a much easier time.

Anyways we seem to have gone from "Behold the power of the cell" to "The PS3 could have produced 60 fps like the 360 version if the developer would have worked at it". 

So?  What's your point?  Both are totally valid and to assume otherwise is irrational and dishonest.

I seem to recall not more then 6 months ago Cows were going balistic about how much more powerful the PS3 was then the 360. Back then everyone seemed to belive that the PS3 could produce WAY better graphics then the 360. Now it seems that developers seem to be coming out of the woodwork explaining how much easier it is to program for the 360. Several developers have come out saying that the PS3 has bottlenecks in it's processing power which makes it very difficult to develop anything for. In addition there have been a bunch of games which have been much better for the 360 then the PS3.

There will be several cows who are going to come in here and blame lazy developers. The simple fact is that if it takes a small army of developers a long time to simply port a game properly then the system is lacking in the hardware arena. If it takes that much time and effort to port games then developers are simply not going to do it. Games like Oblivion prove that the PS3 can produce execlent graphics but it took forever to get together and Bethesda publically complained about the difficulty numerious times.

Anyways we seem to have gone from "Behold the power of the cell" to "The PS3 could have produced 60 fps like the 360 version if the developer would have worked at it".

Firelore29

Now now. The "Cell" is powerful. Powerful enough to produce those ****** games on that anti christ of a console. They can have the "Cell". 8 months later and the **** games that have been released on the PS3, they can keep it!  :lol: 

the PS3 is powerful but 'its power' stems from its SPEs which arent as useful as PPEs. so gaming-wise its gonna be hardwork for the devs to use the SPEs effectively.

lets say the PS3 is an American muscle car  while the Xbox360 is a European sports car.

the Ps3 has a more powerful engine but the car weighs more & isnt as agile.

the Xbox360 isnt as powerful but its fast & agile.

on certain tracks the X360 will win the race, on others the PS3 will win. & if u consider the developers as 'mechanics' overtime they may be able to 'lighten' the Ps3 & increase its agility.

Sadly, the bottleneck the PS3 is experiencing is directly related to the hardware. No matter how good the developers are at programming for the Cell, it will always be restricted by the system's memory and GPU. Peter_Darkstar

[QUOTE="Peter_Darkstar"]Sadly, the bottleneck the PS3 is experiencing is directly related to the hardware. No matter how good the developers are at programming for the Cell, it will always be restricted by the system's memory and GPU. munsoned

John Carmack said almost the same exact thing.

Cell is pretty powerful... Its the PS3s bottlenecks holding it back. Devs just need to figure out how to access its power.

http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/05/29/free-radical-says-ps3s-power-locked-away-demands-key/

"Its strengths are obviously that is has a lot of processing power. Its weaknesses are that its processing power is locked away at the moment. But everyone's going to hit that wall across all platforms at first."

asdasd

WOW!  That pic proves nothing unless it shows how long each processor ran.  It also doesnt account for someone running a linux server using a P2-200 in their basement.  Make no mistake, i think the Cell is great for number crunching, which is what Folding is, but its not great for floating point calculations, which is what is needed in games.   The cell is a server chip.  There is a reason why gaming machines arent sold using server chips.

[QUOTE="Firelore29"]

I seem to recall not more then 6 months ago Cows were going balistic about how much more powerful the PS3 was then the 360. Back then everyone seemed to belive that the PS3 could produce WAY better graphics then the 360. Now it seems that developers seem to be coming out of the woodwork explaining how much easier it is to program for the 360. Several developers have come out saying that the PS3 has bottlenecks in it's processing power which makes it very difficult to develop anything for. In addition there have been a bunch of games which have been much better for the 360 then the PS3.

There will be several cows who are going to come in here and blame lazy developers. The simple fact is that if it takes a small army of developers a long time to simply port a game properly then the system is lacking in the hardware arena. If it takes that much time and effort to port games then developers are simply not going to do it. Games like Oblivion prove that the PS3 can produce execlent graphics but it took forever to get together and Bethesda publically complained about the difficulty numerious times.

Anyways we seem to have gone from "Behold the power of the cell" to "The PS3 could have produced 60 fps like the 360 version if the developer would have worked at it".

archpro

Why don't you quote some developers and cite some proof, and realize that it takes years to master a new architecture, it's not going to happen in 6months or even 1year, but we are still getting great games.

Exactly.  Even John Carmack (Mr. Doom himself) said in a video interview that PS3 has more  'peak performance' than the 360.  He mentioned that if devs step up to the plate and pour their sweat, blood, and tears into the cell, then the end result will look and play better than anything on 360.  How many devs will do this?  We'll have to see.  But if PS2 is any indication then it's definately going to happen.