Just finished Uncharted...

[krik]

crumas2 said:

krik said:

Soriku said:

leo-j said:
Well according to sony(they always lie) the ps3 is the only console that can run uncharted.

I'm sure the 360 can run it. And if you count the PC as a console then that can run it too.

 @Soriku

Have you even played the game? I bet you didn't and even if you did, how can you be so sure? I'm not so sure and I'm a Senior Lead Engineer with 16+ years of experience.

The only think I know is that Naughty Dog uses 1 SPE for the water simulation, 1 SPE for mesh processing (to be able to support meshes with more triangles they preprocess them in the SPE to send less vertex data to the GPU) and another SPE for animation calculation (to perform animation morphing between 200+ animations and also for inverse kinematics).

Now I also know that the SPEs are faster than the main cores doing vectorized code and they are indeed faster doing those specific operations that are all very math intensive.

Now, for me, this means the they probably could do it on the 360 but they would have to reduce some computational power in both water dynamics and animations.

Now you tell me what is the basis for for you being so sure? Do you even know what you talking about?

And I'm a Consulting Systems Architect with 26+ years of experience.  I don't think that means I necessarily know more that someone with fewer years of experience knows.  Remember, there's always a bigger dog... brow-beating doesn't mean squat.

But I do agree with your point that Naughty Dog really pulled out all the stops with this game, particularly with their deep use of multiple SPEs.  And they produced a fantastic game as a result.

On the other hand, although I agree that the Cell is more powerful than the PowerPC chip in the 360, at least on paper, there are other issues that make this closer to comparing apples and oranges.  For example, the PowerPC has 3 full cores, not just SPEs which are very fast pipelines... there are ways of taking advantage of a full core that you can't do with an SPE... sometimes flexibility can win over raw horsepower.

The graphics engine itself on the 360 is very advanced.  You also have to consider specific buses and their bandwidth.  Throw in a unified memory architecture on the 360, and suddenly assuming the PS3 can win hands down is no longer a sure thing.

Yeah, the PS3 is probably capable of a little more on paper, but good systems architecture takes more than just picking the hottest CPU out there.

 

 If you read my comment carefully you will notice I said the 360 could most likely do it but they would likely have to  reduce the animation/water dynamics a bit. This is because the SPEs are much more powerful than the main core doing these calculations and basically the main core on the CELL is the same as one the 360's CPU cores (both are PPC, both have a vector unit and both run at the same speed).

But I don't see the SPEs only as fast pipelines. Each of them as it's own cache and runs independently of the main core. You send them data and code and they crunch it all for you. They are better running vectorized code but they act much like a core with their own instruction set, cache and direct access to the main memory and even the graphics memory. They can even help the RSX and act as vector/pixel shaders.

Also saying the unified memory could help might be a stretch, especially considering the high res textures Uncharted uses. And personally I don't think the 360 GPU is better than the PS3's. They are comparable.

I've seen a lot of 360 games but none impressed me technically. 360 has been out for 2 years and the PS3 has been out for only 1 year and 2 games already impressed me (technically): Uncharted and Ratchet and Clank Future.

 PS: I understand there is always a bigger dog, that is why I asked Soriku for his reasons to be so sure. I gave my reasons ;)