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Forums - Sony Discussion - PS3 Has “Tight memory, Poor IO Performance” – John Carmack

Source: http://www.gamersmint.com/ps3-has-tight-memory-poor-io-performance-john-carmack

RAGE has been criticized on all platforms since its launch on October 4th, especially the PC version of id Software’s shooter. John Carmack, technical director of the game’s developer, has now said the studio can’t improve the PlayStation 3 ‘s performance much more, as well as saying the platform has ‘tight memory’ and poor ‘IO performance’.

Speaking via Twitter in a response to a player who said:

John, Pls be professional an give us ps3 customers a heads up. If u cant do anything then just let us know,this is ridiculous!

To which Carmack replied:

we don’t know of anything we can do to improve ps3 performance much, especially on wasteland. Tight memory, poor IO performance.

This isn’t the first time Carmack has talked negatively about the PlayStation 3. The industry veteran has previously said Sony’s platform is the second best console ever made, with the best being the Xbox 360 he believes. Additionally, he’s also said while the Xbox 360 version matches the PC’s 60 frames per second, the PS3′s had once been 20-30, but it’s since become 60. He expanded on the matter:

The PS3 does lag a little bit behind in terms of getting the performance out of it. The rasteriser is just a little bit slower – no two ways about that. The RSX is slower than what we have in the 360. Processing wise, the main CPU is about the same, but the 360 makes it easier to split things off, and that’s where a lot of the work has been, splitting it all into jobs on the PS3.

The legendary developer has been under a lot of scrutiny and undoubtedly pressure from gamers after the problem-riddled launch of RAGE; it released to a horrid PC launch that saw a slew of problems players had to face. An update has been released to rectify the problems but it doesn’t get rid of the game’s shaky launch.

While we’re on the topic of the PC version of RAGE, Carmack tweeted:

We have a bicubic-upsample+detail texture option for the next PC patch that will help alleviate the blurry textures in Rage.

The developer also commented on the higher-resolution texture pack for RAGE’s PC version:

our first test of a higher res page file didn’t help much, because most source textures didn’t actually have any more detail.

Furthermore, the game is so large in terms of depth, scope and breadth that its PlayStation 3 install size weighs in at a whooping 8GB. Oh, and gamers will have to install it – yep, it’s mandatory. The Xbox 360 version of the shooter, meanwhile, comes in three disks with an optional 22GB installation.

iD’s last shooter RAGE released earlier this month for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.



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weird... i play so many amazing games on PS3 that look a lot better then 'Rage' and perform a lot better.. maybe the problem lies with id software..



shut the fukk up John...



^meltdowns commence, not like he's the developer or anything.



Disconnect and self destruct, one bullet a time.



Atto Suggests...:

Book - Malazan Book of the Fallen series 

Game - Metro Last Light

TV - Deadwood

Music - Forest Swords 

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What madness is this?! John Carmack raises legitimate critizisms about the PS3, and people think he's talking bullshit?!

Yeah, John Carmack doesn't know shit!



PlaystaionGamer said:
weird... i play so many amazing games on PS3 that look a lot better then 'Rage' and perform a lot better.. maybe the problem lies with id software..

Do those games run at 60FPS in large open environment?



Rainbird said:

What madness is this?! John Carmack raises legitimate critizisms about the PS3, and people think he's talking bullshit?!

Yeah, John Carmack doesn't know shit!


this is clearly a Playstation fan thread to bash anyone who wont worship the PS3.. get out of here! lol



In all honesty this doesnt surprise me.
Games like GOW3 or Uncharted arent doing nowhere near the same thing as Rage.

First of all Rage doesnt duplicate textures. Everything is modeled individually. Games like Uncharted or GOW3 reuse resources for textures. This is why Rage as an all new texture loading system. And apparantly because things arent reused it stresses the memory more.

Also 60 FPS is preatty damn impressive.

Now I understand that the PS3 version alot of the time is a lower resolution and has more poppin as well as dipping to 45fps fairly often, but even then it must still look pretty good on PS3?

Sure he coulld drop the framerate to 30 fps like Uncharted and free up LOADS of room on the memory and make next gen like textures and Particle effects. But that would destroy how amazing Rage feels.

I wasnt aware was that bad on PS3 till I read DF yesterday. I was shocked at how inferior it was to the 360 version.

I guess many will disagree with Carmack here. For whatever reason.

However playing Rage blew Gears 3 away for me in terms of feel and visuals.Stunning. I think after having 60fps in a shooter now makes me greedy for that.



old dogs don't learn new tricks