| joeorc said: @selnor here is some fact's for people: users.ece.gatech.edu/~lanterma/mpg/ece4893_xbox360_vs_ps3.pdf real world tests.... http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-cellperf/ @selnor to me this shows his take has many faults on what you describe as.."facts" about the ps3 though i respect his opinion i do no agree with it. like other's may not agree with mine. |
IT doesnt matter when an article was written, the componenets of a machine dont change. That IBM article you posted is what the tech specialist used and has as a source on the final page of his disection. Yes they are tests. But tests are done in a controlled environment. Notice how on IBM's very own graphs they show they can actual only get 75% of the theoretical power when using all SPE's at once?
That IBM article completely backs up this tech persons article. Theoretical PS3 can do 218 GFLOPS with the cell. Actual game environment will be closer to 70 GFLOPS in the best games of this gen. For some reason Cell loses alot of peak ower when all SPE's are being used. 360's Xenon will likely see around 60 GFLOPS peak for actual games. But again Cell can help out The weak RSX where it needs to. And Xenos on 360 has the ability to help out Xenon CPU. Because the Xenos is very much more advanced than RSX. It's catch 20/20.
The article is very factual. Yes developers will always find ways around problems of hardware, and in terms of console hardware these 2 consoles are a big step up from the previous generation. But the actual CPU's inside 360 and PS3 aren't actual capable of more than Athlon 3200+ for instance. Becasue In Order Execution CPU's have a very limited way of being used. And adding multithreading makes that even harder. If cell and Xenon were Out of Order CPU's they would be considerably more powerful and faster at what they could do, but they wouls alos lkely cost you to sell your mum to buy the console.
The only part that can change in from the article is the OS usage. How much ram and how much processing time. But thats it. The rest will never change, but developers will learn ways like they did last gen to overcome any hiccups. And g=create great games like Killzone 2, or Forza 3. It's the nature of the beast.
The main points I got from the article is that in no way Is PS3 or 360 supercomputers. Also PS2 had a better CPU than Xbox 1, yet Xbox 1 provided greater graphics. How advanced the 360 GPU actually is. And how the gap this gen between the 2 are closer than the gap between PS2 and Xbox 1.
You have to remember that the hard facts about machines dont change. The specs dont change, how out of order CPUs work dont change, how memory works doesn't change and the article even talks about how developers can use the SPE's to their advantage or not.
Lets not discredit factual information because it hurts our fanboyism. I have no problem in admitting I was wrong that PS3 Cell wasn't that powerful. But like the article says using SPE's for things like cloth motion etc means the cell can display more on screen than the xenon.
But as he points out on a whole the machines are so much closer than last gen, becasue RSX is helped by Cell and Xenon is helped by Xenos. It's like M$ really went for awesome graphics chip and Sony went for awesome CPU. And in the thick of it both machines can use the stronger chip to help out their weaker chip to overcome an shortcomings. It's funny really. But thats life.
It's also worth noting that multithreaded engines like UE3 are nowhere near fully optimized multithreading code. this can take even another 3 or 4 years to perfect.
