Its been 3 and a half years and NOW there understanding the Cell?!

[joeorc]

Icyedge said:

joeorc said:

tizack said:

Ok, sorry im taking the PS3 side for most of this one...

Well, look at the competition and the turnaround times there, probably the biggest game graphics wise for the 360 that is actually supposed to compete with UC2 or KZ2, Alan Wake, has been in development since before the PS3 was released... Outside of that and nifty CG scenes no other games really come close. So I don't think it really has much of anything to do with understanding the cell processor. I'm not sure i'm following the 3 and a half years either... KZ2 was released a year ago, which means the understanding behind how make what im assuming you are implying as mind blowing games came far before that. Realistically from the developer's perspective,at the very most you could probably get off saying a year and a half or less. But even games like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune at the time it was released blew anything else out of the water. The bar has not been getting raised by the 360, sorry folks, it just aint true, its ps3 exclusives that you can thank for all the awesome looking games that are starting to show up, even bungie admits that KZ2 was a wakeup call that they need to step things up and now look how much better halo:reach looks.  

I own both consoles, and I have to say that graphics wise pretty much all the 360 games up till recently were about as appealing as dirty butt... who knows some of you may like that i dont know... Now, the 360 is finally stepping up its game with splinter cell : conviction, alan wake(finally), and halo:reach. 

Anyway, if we are going to discuss something, lets discuss why the heck the 360 games sucked for so long and are JUST NOW matching what we have been seeing for PS3 exclusives.

because many Game engine's were not optimized for the xbox360.

the majority was not even taylored to the XBOX360's hardware. they were made for PC because many of the same game's on the xbox360 were also going to be released on the PC. not to say every last one of them, No it just mean's the developer's for the xbox360 are mainly PC software developer's the majority are mainly PC centric. So their game's were geared toward that hardware dynamic. just look at unreal engine it's crossplatform in it's design but not taylored made to one specific hardware. where as most of the Game's made for the PS3 are designed for it's hardware.

Now more developer's are going to optimize their game engine's to xbox360, but know this, when the developer does that the game may not come out as fast because with memory managment processor's like what's in both the PS3 and the XBOX360 it has quite a bit under the hood , but take's time to take advantage of said hardware.

Your right, the 2 console still have things to exploit. Those kind of architecture are great, because in the end, we will have good result as gamer and our purchase can and will last longer. Difficulty is obviously no big deal, current games and past games shows that its been a while already that developers are able to handle those architecture, it will only get better. Im not a profesional, probably Joeorc can give us some insight on that side, but I would be very surprise that Sony doesnt assist developers as some people said. Sony are always talking of partnership and vision, also, end product like heavy rain (independant developer) show that Quantic Dream was able to bring something really nice for their first game on PS3. The argument of no tool/no help seems somewhat awkward to me. What your opinion or fact on that Joe?

well as you know development tool's are very expensive, from Hardware to the Software. Hell some of the Software is in the thousand's of $$$$,, yea that $60.00 per game pale's in how much you have to pay upfront or pay when new tool's are made.

Sony does assist developer's the same with Microsoft, there is so much they can do though, spoon feeding is not one of them though../I kid..

but back on topic. what the main thing about this generation that seperates the past generation mostly is how you look at game development on a multi-core design for your software. like for instance both the xbox360 and playstation 3 have multiple Core processor's on board the PCB die. thus each core has the capability to do many thing's in conjunction with the other core's.

where last generation even though the PS2 has multiple core design, it' was no where near this capability, with something like the Cell or the xbox360's 3 core's you can do thing's on just the processor alone that would choke the PS2 and first xbox's processor.

that is not even taking into account what you may want each of those processing Core's to do.

there is just more functionality than what was in the PS2 and First XBOX and game cube era. Like the Wii is not just " 2x Game Cube's stuck together" it's quite a bit more than that, and it's Quite extensive with today's machine's than it was 6-8 year's ago, Like today the Game machine's have the CPU's and GPU's tied very close together, in many way's embedded system's have evolved toward an entire subsystem of computing that was unheard of 10 year's ago, It's just that Many did not see it going toward that type of Computing system enviroment. Quite a number of people in the IT industry question weather Embeded system's needed to be that advanced. Which mainly Question's Why are these system's so advanced over the system's as they were 10 year's ago?. It's not  So much as a want ,as it is a much needed change.

I Think It's mainly on  one level that the Ecology of the Consumer Electronic Embedded system has changed it's Direction in computing. of the big advancement's is the CPU/GPU type of processor that is where combined with seperate GPU's with a very fast connection Bus generates quite a bit of performance for such as a machine as an Embeded Consumer Electronic, that will take some time to tap due to many Developer's that program for Embedded system's has not targeted their software for something as extensive as these game console's.Not everyone right out of the university go right out and start on Embeded system's many GO toward PC development. which is not what Game console's are they are Consumer Electronic Embedded system's. That in many way's now are getting very close to that of PC's in their capabilities.

An Since Not many Developer's  having to Target system's with such fast bus speed's and on the same token somwhat limited Ram.Many DEVELOPER'S were not Embeded computing system type of Developer's. that's why many are still learning today even on the Xbox360 the Game Engine's need tweaking and that's what they are doing on both platform's.

when they say they are just scratching the surface the developer's are NOT and I repeat NOT lieing, they ARE INDEED  are JUST scratching the surface because quite a bit has changed from last generation of the hardware in Embedded system's these Embedded system's are a Beast.

it's a constant learning process that is not going away anytime soon. It's just going to be more thing's for the developer's to learn , new tool's, etc.