| davygee said: You base your findings on games that were developed for the Xbox 360 and then ported to the PS3. We are now in the process of seeing games being initially developed on the PS3 and then ported to the 360, we have seen this happening with Burnout Paradise. The PS3 version is better. And there are a few games in development at the moment that are being developed primarily on the PS3, being Dead Space amongst others. Once these games come out, then we can make proper comparisons. Also what about a few games that are and have come out later and are better on the PS3 like Oblivion and going by reports Bioshock. |
http://kotaku.com/5025229/carmack-talks-from-idea-to-mac-gaming-and-ps3-programming
John Carmack – Doom/Quake fame talks about how he approaches the PS3 architecture. From 1.18 remaining on the first video. He is one of the best engine developers in the game, and he is also very respected.
Here you go, just for you. John Carmack on developing his Rage engine on the different platforms. Its from my notes.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1192598&postcount=707
You're not as far off as you think 
Sony's first question now to any publisher is "Is your game at parity with the 360 version". That is their #1 concern, and they make no hesitation in letting you know it, and publishers make no hesitation in repeatedly reminding developers of it. If you're PS3 version isn't at parity, then you run the risk of being not approved by Sony and canceled on PS3.
The big guns like GTA4 of course play by a different rule book, they can ship a PS3 version with lesser frame rate, no aa, lower rez and orange tint. And of course, Sony themselves can release games that render at 1024x512. For the rest of us though, we have to explain every difference from the 360 version to Sony. You then either have to fix/add it on PS3, strip it from 360, or flex some studio muscle and hope Sony backs down.
Point being, impressing publishers with your PS3 abilities has now become somewhat more important than before. They don't want to be stuck funding a PS3 version of a game that may not be approved in the end due to deficiencies compared to the 360 version. For developers, when you are at a show like E3, it's not only about impressing the media. It's about impressing every publisher on the show floor. That's because a competing publisher today could become your publisher tomorrow.
*Just a developers commentry on some of these issues*
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1192838&postcount=727
Let's put development issues related to SDKs&related tools aside and analyze for a second what it means to develop on PC, 360, PS3 and Mac.
GPUs on all these platforms can be programmed through a set of extremely similar APIs and all share the same modus operandi when it comes down to vertex and pixel shading, therefore what it makes a big difference here is the CPU and the amount of available memory (I'm not concerned that much about differences in GPUs performance as GPU content is usually easier to scale..).
It's clear that PS3 has the most exotic architecture compared to the other three platforms, and also a (relatively small) memory disadvantage.
While the latter is a kind of bottleneck that can be easily overcome (again, scale the content) to other platforms detriment, the former is certainly not that easy to address, especially if you are in love with OOOE CPUs (and who's not?)
Programming everything from the ground up to be efficient on PS3 would benefit 360 a lot too, while PC and Mac platforms really wouldn't care that much.
Again the choice you have to make is a no brainer here, PS3 will end up being your bottleneck in many cases, while CELL will mostly go unused.
I guess Sony has learned a lot of lessons this round, and if they have not, well.. who wants to open a restaurant with me?
(Faf I know you want to..)A last recommendation for all f@anbys, no matter what's your faith is, don't count the number of SPUs or CPU cores used to find out which platform is more powerful/cool/etc. Just give a look on what you see on screen and draw your own conclusions
p.s. I'm afraid to sound as Monsieur de la Palisse today but after having read so many pages I got the impression a lot of ppl lost sight of what this debate is all about.
*Another developer - MikeB has used his words in the past*
Joker again - http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1193017&postcount=740
People also used to live without air conditioning and ride a donkey to the market, doesn't mean I have to If I can get my job done easier, faster, and more efficiently doing X, or using Y, then I'm gonna do it. Like on the new 360 Pix, apparently you can edit shader code on the fly and rerun it, time it, see the results, rinse and repeat, all in pix. I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard that's how it works. Now, that is just too damn cool and useful for me not to use.
But yeah you are right, I could "tough it out", be hardcore, and stick to the PS3 way where I'd:
1) compile and run
2) setup the scene
3) run replay, capture and time
4) see the results
5) tweak the shader
6) go back to step 1
I could do that a few dozen times a day. Or...I could get a 360 dev kit again and just do it all in pix. Hmmmmmmm.....tough call eh? I'm sure there are some masochists out there that would prefer to tough it out. Me, I think I'll be asking for a 360 dev kit again once this project is done. Oddly, I'm finding out that a 360 dev kit is one of the better PS3 development tools.
There you go - some more stuff! xD
Tease.
