Console Tech Gurus! Help me!

[Reasonable]

Cross-X said:

Joelcool7 said:

Cross-X said:

What's the Cell in the PS3?

Cross-X said

But could you answer why graphics at 30 fps will look better than 60 fps?

It can't. As far as I know our eyes apparently can barely regester over 60 frames a second. if something clocked in at 120 frames a second it would be so fluid it's like real life. The more frames a second the better. Technically a game running at a solid 60 frames a second is going to look better then one running at 30 fps.

The Playstation cell proccessor is an additional proccesor most often used as a replacement for its inferior GPU. I don't know too much about the cell other then the fact that Sony invested millions in the technology and that today its what seperates the X-Box 360/Wii from the PS3. Both the 360 and Wii use PowerPC instead of Sony's Cell processing power. Essentially the cell processor is made up of seven microprocessors..... well since you don't understand the console tech me using technical language and trying to explain it would be hard.

Long story short Sony wanted the PS3 to pack some serious punch so together with IBM and Toshiba they created what they though was the ultimate processor, called the cell processor. While Nintendo and Microsoft used the PowerPC.

Well it's just that I hear that statement a lot. Like even when Gears of War 3 was announced, Cliffy B said that Epic chose to stick with 30 fps because of the graphics. Or maybe every devs opts for the 30 fps on consoles because console tech isn't good enough yet to maintain 60 fps with amazing graphics?

So I get that the Cell is an extra processor and so is the Cell the primary reason why the PS3 used to and still sometimes get crappy ports from the X360 version? Is that why Devs find it harded to develop for the PS3?

 

The thing about 30fps vs 60fps (on consoles anyway) is that 60fps requires a lot more power to support.  So, a 60fps game will be smoother, etc. but will feature less fancy effects, typically, than a 30fps game, as a 30fps game has more free resources for fancy effects.

So, Modern Warfare, for example, is 60fps, very smooth animations and looks nice, but, if you really study it, you'll see lot's of fairly low resolution textures, etc. and fairly frugal use of particle effects and the like.  The argument is that Modern Warfare is fast paced and its more important it is smooth vs looking top flight amazing.

So when Epic say they're going for 30fps in Gears what they are saying is that, due to the somewhat slower pace and stronger focus on graphics to wow you in Gears, they are going to settle for 30fps but much better textures, effects, etc. than say Modern Warfare.  Another example would be Killzone 2, which is 30fps and loaded with fancy effects.

As consoles are all the same and have one specification basically if you want more fps you have to loose other fancy graphical features.  Therefore, from a pure eyeball candy perspective, a 30fps game can be argued to look better in terms of if you stood still and looked around at the textures, etc. vs a 60fps game.

Personally, my view in for SP campaigns and games where you have time to look around, etc. 30fps with the best textures, etc. the developer can manage is better than 60fps, whereas for online, fast paced shooters 60fps is probably better.

On PC, as others have noted, it's all about having more of everything if you have a powerful enough PC, so say 60fps plus all the fancy effects, etc.

Make sense?