PS3 and its struggle with multiplatform FPS visuals

[MikeB]

disolitude said:

MikeB said:
@ disolitude

In any case, the problem with the PS3 is not the Cell...its the RSX GPU.

The main "problem" with the PS3 are the Cell's SPUs', a radically different but extremely powerful approach. The RSX is mainly a PC style GPU, this apart from how the GPU is able to potentially take advantage of the Cell. The RSX is in many ways more powerful than the Xenos, such as allowing for more shader ops/sec. The Xenos' main advantage as well as a disadvantage for the long run is its reliance upon its daughter chip approach. The PS3 has far more system bandwidth and fewer bottlenecks.

The main reasons why some 360 to PS3 ports are better on the 360 is due the 360 being better able to handle inefficiently designed game engines (but the dev approaches needed to get the most out of the Cell are beneficial to the 360 as well), the platform's one year headstart providing developers more time to get to know the system and tools which are more similar to those available for Windows PCs.

Talented developers given enough time will be able to push the PS3 much further than will be possible on the 360.

That seems to me like a very elitist point of view. "You can't make this look good therefore you are not a good programmer."

There are things like budget and time that are a factor even for the best movie directors and game programmers.

Sure, Epic games can fiddle with the game engine till it runs in circles around the 360 version. However its just not a smart business decision to do this at this point.

Steven Spelberg could have made Indiana Jones not suck as bad...but he only had 185 million to work with... :)

Yes, it has to do with effort and dedication. Creating games for the Snes, NeoGeo, PSX, etc were also harder to develop for than on far more expensive and inefficient PCs. Consoles in the past have always been about dedicating best efforts to push the hardware to the best of developer abilities. IMO that's also part of the charm of consoles. I think many devs are too ambitious (like demoscene coders) to not push the tech to the limits, I think it's mainly company managers which are looking at short term costs, rather than at long term gains.

IMO it makes sense for Epic to continue to improve their engine despite their public comments at this point (their perspectives change as fast as the wind), they will receive lots of competition in the future. Who knows, maybe even from Crytek or Square Enix. Sony devs are sharing their knowledge, Sony themselves is helping developers like they helped Epic to get an acceptable performance out of the Unreal engine. IMO it makes sense to deliver a cutting edge product for them to compete, their engine looking subpar and dated isn't a position I think they would like to be in.