Killzone 2 VS Gears of War 2 through the eyes of a programmer

[jetrii]

I have some code compiling so I can afford to take a few minutes off to catch up on the thread

alephnull said:

jetrii said:

alephnull said:

jetrii said:

alephnull said:
Not that the KZ2 people don't need to be put in their place, but the thread parent doesn't contain anything measurable and just engages in a bunch of hand waving. Furthermore, the ridiculous OS comments neutralize any effect the appeal to authority has.

 

If you are not pleased with my simple explanation, you are free to read the more technical discussion on page 5. Also, what OS comment are you talking about?

The "OS" numbers I see bandied about look like the size of firmware updates to me, most of which are userspace applications.

I highly doubt either the kernel used by either the 360 or the ps3 is larger than 10 MB and  probably much less than that. Even if they decided to cram a bunch of user space programs into kernel space ala NT they would all just end up getting swapped out anyway.

Decided to reply to this before I left. Right now, you are pulling numbers out of thin air. Do a Google search for Xbox 360 OS footprint or Playstation 3 OS footprint and you'll have hundreds of sites confirming what I said.

Xbox 360 OS = 32mb of ram

PS3 OS = ~70-80MB. The sites will report less than this but that's just the OS memory, there are other things which also take up memory on the PS3.

I did a decent amount of kernel development before I got into HPC. I have seen these numbers before and do not believe them because of said experience.

I really don't know what to tell you, buddy. I've already told you the correct information and even gave you the exact phrase to search for on Google to confirm what I said. Xbox 360 uses 32MB and the PS3 uses more than that. It really doesn't matter if you did kernel development because this generation of consoles have much more than just a kernel, they have a full blown OS that can be accessed from within the game. If you still don't believe me, then we can agree to disagree.

@iyzy

I too agree that Killzone 2 does look better than Gears of War 2, however, I started the analysis with that belief firmly planted. I'm glad that you enjoy Killzone 2, I am sure it will be a great game and push a quite a few copies when it is released.

@IllegalPaladin

The 80-90 figure was for the PS3 OS only and it did not include additional things like the backbuffer and other components. Since then, Sony has actually lowered the memory usage of the OS down to 43MB but other things bring it up to 70MB or so for the average game. Some (very few)games can do tricks to lower the PS3's OS usage but Killzone 2 is not one of them.

Also, the body is in memory but it is not rendered. Consoles only render what you can see and just skip over everything else outside the field of vision.

@dbot

Haha, be careful, you may start a triple dog fight between GoWII fans, MGS4 fans, and KZ2 fans! Actually, I am pleasantly surprised that this thread is still this civilized. Kudos to VGChartz.

@mesoteto

Thanks for the concern but I really don't mind. I know there will always be people that will refuse to step out of their shoes for a while and see things from another perspective.

@largedarryl

Of course, Crysis is a beautiful game. And you're right, after a certain point, additional improvements do become more subtle and hard to see. However, next gen we are jumping to full blown 1080P! We should see some very nice improvements.

If you really want to be impressed by Crysis, check out these shots. I believe they are from a mod, but they certainly show off the power of today's modern GPUs.

http://www.picgarage.net/images/juhd8_42900_263.jpeg

http://www.picgarage.net/images/10h2j_36839_286.jpeg

http://www.picgarage.net/images/2nhnu_42874_687.jpeg

@BenVTrigger

I feel the same way. Killzone 2 does look very good, but Gears of War 2 is not that far behind in terms of graphics. However, it still has some catching up to do in the animation department.