Good article selnor. missed your threads. :)

LOL. I know no resource is free. But in terms of EDRam it's free. Take EDRam away from 360 and you have the general setup that EVERY single game so far has used. I'm sure your aware of how much a hit 4xMSAA can be to performace. The fact that EDRam chip was designed to do this without using any of the GPU or CPU resources of 360, effectively makes it free. Just needs a different approach to programming, which we are finally seeing, much like a different approach was needed for Cell.

You need to see that UE3 is a multiplatform engine, not designed for 360 hardware acceleration. I mean 360 has a chip designed to take care of 4xMSAA free, and UE3 doesnt even use it. That should tell you it all.

And when a dev says ythey are maxing a system, they obviously mean with the engine they are using. Whereas another engine like Remedys Alan Wake engine will utilize the 360 better, therefore be 100% the system with it's engine yet be much much more crisper and detailed.

Hell Resistance 1 maxxed out PS3. But only with the way the engine was designed at the time.

I think something that holds the 360 back, IMO is that horrible 1MB CPU cache they have..split between three cores.. I dont know what they were thinking...

Reach doesnt look THAT pretty.. but its nifty for a halo game.. anyhow no one plays halo for prettiness..

FF13 though is another matter.. screw you SE.

Yes, but 'maxxing it out' just means all it's available resources are used - not that they are used most effectively. For instance, I can put the pedal to the medal of my car and max it out... and hit 30mph... but the problem is that I'm in first gear. All of these people that says they have "maxxed it out" are using engines not optimized for the 360, and not using the EDRam at all.

The fact is, the PS3's first party titles have been given *huge* budgets and development times, the types that very few 360 games are on par with. Given the kind of time/money put into something like KZ2, it could absolutely have a game that can stand up to the PS3 titans graphically. But games like that are a poor investment... heck, KZ2 sold 2m copies and would have only turned in a meager talent. Spending that kind of time and money is rarely worth it, financially. But whereas Sony HAD to have the graphics mantle, 360 has plenty of it's own merits it's focussed on.

It's not all about graphics. And it would seem you miss the point. Imagine Halo Reach cutting out 40 enemies onscreen, going down to using 2xQSAA and having preprogrammed scripted level edited AI. IT would look the same if not better thanany other corridor shooter. It's about the engine itself. Technically, from visuals together with amount of advanced AI, with 4xMSAA etc etc. Thats technical capabilites. A consoles power cannot be determined on how it looks alone. Because graphics are like 20% of the entire work the system does.

Where did you read that Halo:Reach was using 4xAA, I have not heard that.

Secondly, Rare's engine that they created for Viva Pinata and used in BK:N&B is pretty darn good as well. Uses tessellation.

I totally agree.. Halo Reach is pretty much the first game,barring ninty nine knights, that has lots of enemy action on screen. Now wer talking CPU here and yes in that regard the cache on the CPU is horrible and has pretty bad branch prediction. Its still good to see them making progress on this, though...

Based on the trailer that was ingame it's confirmed 4xMSAA. When asked, Bungie replied " Thanks to EDRam ". Also tessellation is impressive, but MSAA is astonishing to see 4xMSAA on consoles.KZ2 for instance uses 2xQSAA. QSAA has less than half the performance hit of MSAA but as a downfall blurrs textures alot. Which is why although MSAA is harder for a system to handle it's always the best option to go with if your PC or cnsole can handle it. Uncharted 2 is the only PS3 game to use MSAA. It uses 2xMSAA but not for shadows or effects.

Incorrect.  GT5:Prologue has 4xMSAA when running in 720p.  That's all I wanted to say... continue.