Ok... I guess this is good news for about PS3 3% of the population who A. Cares and B. Doesn't already whore the graphics on the PC.

The problem that people have, is that (as anyone who has done any programming could tell you) 

int x == 2:

while(x > 1){

x+=1:

}

Will use 100% of a computer's processing power (well, it won't because there are limits to how much processing power the computer will give to it, but you get my point) and, if left long enough will use 101% of a computer's ram

The point is, whenever any developer says they have maxed a console, they are blowing smoke. It is ALWAYS possible to write code in a more efficient manner, thus allowing the same level of graphics etc while using less processing power.

So either they are blowing smoke, or they actually meant to say that they have squeezed out as much as they can without hitting either the limit of their ability to program or the limit of how much time they can put into the game in order to still make a decent profit

Yes. But there are 8 processors in the PS3, to fully hand-optimise the OS and game engine can take many more years to come with big potential performance gains.

Full hand optimisation for just 1 processor is a lot of work, let alone for 8 3.2 Ghz clocked processors. You can also redisign the engine to function in different ways (more optimisation not in the form of code optimisation but rather with regard to overall structure, where is all this power best applied), like opt to use for more procedural processing which is a lot harder to achieve but can yield big benefits.

Streaming can also be optimised. God of War 3 and Uncharted 2 are the best examples of this (much better than Killzone 2 which had in-game loadtime hiccups), but it can be improved further. Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 make heavy use of harddrive caching, but do not use harddrive installation, but by pre-installing more data directly (I mean not the lazy approach as with some multi-platform games) to the harddrive can also yield better results technically. Etc.

I am really looking forward to Killzone 3, I think it will be another eye-opening title to behold!

Most XBox 360 vocals seem to care, often comparing micro differences of some multi-platform games which sometimes aren't enough PS3 optimised.

It may be hard to understand for some, but the PS3 has technical advantages over the PC (and vice versa), such as the Cell is able to outperform the best consumer PC quad core CPUs out there with proper optimisation. Blu-Ray disc capacity allows for more varierty of assets (mainly textures and audio). Blu-Ray is yet to become standard for PC gaming (and publishers don't want to spread their games onto too many DVDs). All PS3s out there have a Cell and Blu-Ray and that allows for much deeper optimisations in course of time. Ironically the most popular PC games are actually some of the least technically demanding titles on the PC.

Top PC GPUs are able to render higher framerates in higher resolutions, but to truly appreciate going from 720p to for example 1080p you'll need a big HDTV.monitor and if good upscaling is applied the difference is even smaller (like on Toshiba Cell powered HDTV). The irony is that most PC gamers I know own monitors much smaller than my HDTV! With regard to framerates a locked 30 FPS experience is perfectly smooth for most types of games (due to human perception delay) especially in combination with motion blur for faster paced scenes. For a game like Super Stardust HD the onscreen action can get so fast 60 FPS is of benefit, hence it will render 120 pictures per second in stereoscopic 3D (60 pictures per eye).

PC gaming also offers a very different relatively solistic kind of experience, a PS3 is a better fit for most home cinema setups. Sitting on the couch with friends playing with multiple wireless DS3 controllers is very different compared to someone sitting behind a desk with mouse/keyboard, usually playing all by himself. So comparing pretty apples with pretty oranges, still makes this comparing apples and oranges.

PC gaming is also taking the back seat this generation, a lot more money, time and effort is being invested in PS3 exclusives than in PC exclusives and that shows!

Killzone 2 was very very impressive and I have no doubts about Killzone 3, but I do have to agree about Uncharted 3 coming in and stealing the spotlight. I'm not going to doubt Guerrilla Games though.

another one using all of ps3s power.... does anyone see a strange pattern here. As games are made in the future they should really all use the max power of the system if they want it to run correctly, if it wasnt using max power things would never lag, yes?

I'm going to have to call BS here.

The Cell was overwhelming tech in 2006, but things move at a fast clip, and it isn't so amazing by today's standards.

(If it was really so amazing, they'd just use Cells for PCs instead of bothering developing all new "weaker" ones)

One of the big misconceptions is that because of the SPUs, people often think of the PS3 as having an 8-core CPU. Unfortunately, the SPUs are limited in many regards; they have no local cache, and need a vectorized instruction set.

There are other issues too, like RAM. The PS3 sports 256MB of main RAM and 256MB of VRAM. This is miniscule by modern standards, and high end gaming PCs can offer many, many times as much.

Then there's the PS3's GPU, RSX, which is basically a 7800 GTX circa 2005, and is in fact inferior to even the 360's GPU. It's so weak in fact that most devs looking to push the system try to minimise it's role as much as possible and use the SPUs to emulate it's role instead, which yields better results, but is still quite inefficient as it eats up SPU power that could be spent on other things if the GPU was able to hold it's own. This puts the PS3 at a disadvantage when competing with a PC which can handle its graphical needs via the GPU and leave the CPU free to handle other elements.

While it is true that the fixed nature of its architecture makes it easier for devs to optimise a game for the PS3 than for PC, the disparity is large enough that it can't be bridged by any amount of optimisation, only narrowed.

Games of course which aren't PS3 optimised unless the PS3 version outperforms the Xbox 360 version. Game developers however contest this point of view quite strongly.

At tasks which the PC CPU has never been specialised to perform. The GPU is specialised to perform with these tasks. Most of what the Cell does the PC GPU already does significantly better so saying that the Cell CPU performs these tasks better than the PC CPU is a red herring.

PC games use as much space as they need. They can use 15+ GB on the HDD, they would use more if they needed to. However they don't need as much space because PC games tend to use dynamic lighting and they don't prebake anything and therefore repeat textures depending on lighting nor do they need to repeat any data on the HDD to speed loading.

Optimisation, yes. Raw performance no. Ironically the most popular PS3 titles are also the least demanding given that they also appear on multiple platforms and apparantly don't take advantage of the hardware.

Not really... Its easy to spot twice the pixels from 50cm away. Also given the distance most PC gamers have a greater need for higher resolution images as the displays still take up a larger proportion of their vision as they are so close.

Thats generally inadequate for a mouse interface outside of an RTS game or perhaps RPG. 60FPS is just smoother in general and ideal when possible.

PS3 playing is also very soloistic given the fact that Sony neglects the local multiplayer option in most of their titles. Only the Wii is truly an experience which can usually be shared, especially when considering the popular titles.

Sony spends a lot of money, they also lose a lot of money and I get it. You still cannot best the overall fidelity of the PC and you cannot best the options PC gaming gives you.

LOL AHAHAAHAH!

Threads like these are funny to read specially when you start seeing PC,Xbox,PS3 and even Wii(LOL the irony) jumping in to "who has the best graphics" debate.