@ LordTheNightKnight

Lie? You sound like an upset fanboy...

The PS3 has more than 10 times the amount of memory than a PS2. I wasn't talking about Blu-Ray or DVD in this regard, but the ratio system memory vs storage media capacity IMO is relevant.



You decide what counts and what doesn't on this board? I didn't know that. Why does it matter FMV was used? Isn't the end result more improtant, both the FMV parts and ingame engine looks amazing!

MikeB said: @ TheBigFatJ http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=3450 The review states the PS3 version is a much better looking game (higher quality textures) and offers additional content.

 

The devil is in the details my friend.  The PS3 version is better looking because of an improved shader technique.  The Oblivion team promsed this for the 360 version as well via a patch.  I'm not sure if it materialized yet, but it was an improvement the Oblivion team was able to make with additional time between the releases and improved programming techniques, not because they had additional storage.

However, the increased capacity actually did give them one advantage.  The BD drive on the PS3 reads slowly compared to the Xbox 360's DVD drive.  They duplicated a large portion of the data in several spots to minimize seek times on the BD version and it improved load times significantly.  It's literally a data-layout optimization but it was enabled because of the additional storage capacity.  Again, it doesn't mean they couldn't have improved 360 load times via a variety of mechanisms (including data duplication and data layout optimization and intelligent preloading) but the increased capacity allowed them to do it to an extent that couldn't have been done on DVD9.

The choice to bundle a BD drive will cost Sony and its customers far more than $100 per console.  And regardless of the FUD Sony is trying to throw around, it will benefit a very, very small percentage of games and isn't really a gaming accessory.

MikeB said: The Snes was a great game console, IMO better than the NES for its time, but even the Snes which was released in Europe in 1992 was less powerful in many regards than a 7 Mhz Amiga from the 80s.

Those games look a lot prettier than the first one you showed. Also I'm sure you know that even back then (video) memory was way more important for graphics than either CPU speed or persistent storage. I can't find the specs for the model you are referring to, but they seem to top the 128KiB RAM + 64KiB VRAM of the SNES.

But all in all, the SNES also had great examples of great looking somewhat pre-rendered 2D graphics. Even by today's standards, some of it's 2D games look great - or just look at the sprites of Donkey Kong Country. The only way we've evolved for 2D really is flash-like vector graphics. And they didn't seem limited by cartrige size in anyway, as far as graphics are concerned, though maybe games could be bigger - they all can.

Plus another difference, is that back then ROM storage was, relatively speaking, much faster than any optical storage can be today. I could even go on a limb and say optical storage used to be "faster" than it is today, which probably isn't true, but not that far. The truth is that persistent storage hasn't evolved either in terms of troughput, and specially in terms or latency, as fast as CPUs and GPUs. You can store a lot more, but it takes more and more clock ticks to retrieve it, so much so that it pays to use lossless and even lossy compression tecnhiques, as well as copying your stuff all over for faster access time.

I'm sure the PS3 will give good use to 25-50GiB for some games. I'm not sure that most games will give it good use, and that some if not most of the few that will give it good use could not simply use 2 or 3 DVDs. Even Halo, would it be so bad if the game used 1-2 DVDs for the storyline, plus another for online mode? Would it be such a pain to change disc once for the entire game, and use another one for online? Is it really worth the extra cost?

@ TheBigFatJ

Only for single layer DVDs.



Which was later said to be greatly exaggerated. The end effect however remains that the PS3 version loads a lot faster and is less frequent as compared to the XBox 360 version.

Oblivion is just a port, not a game specifically designed with the PS3's technical advantages in mind. IMO it's great they did a quality port of what I think is the XBox 360's best game.



They don't want to upset XBox 360 fans, but they used higher qualtiy textures as well.

@ KruzeS

That's because in 1986 games developers didn't yet figure out how to make good use of the Amiga's custom co-processors. The other games were released years later, I think PS3 developers will take a lot less time to figure out how to make good use of the Cell's SPEs. Back then games development was mostly done by small teams with small budgets, unlike is the case now with IBM and Sony doing everything in their power to (re-)educate developers.

So MikeB its your belief that a great looking game in 2000 like Giants: Citizen Kabuto or Sacrifice that came in just under 1GB of storage and games in 2005 that came in usually at just under 4.7 GB (F.E.A.R & Oblivion) don't represent a trend in the size of games growing in size to me I just thought that was an indication of about .94GB every 5 years or the average lifetime of a console which puts 2011 somewhere around the size of a dual layer DVD 9GB and even if you believe that is a growth of a little under 4.7 you still get something like 22 GB for the large graphical games in the next 5 years I mean if you still think that you will need 50 GB w/e to each his own just a bit curious about the basis in referance to average growth over the years I mean understand the advantages but think its just a bit early think the format will do much better in 5 years than now.

Then the problem wasn't storage.

As to the SPEs I think they can be great for gaming, specially physics and geometry (though I really don't believe they'll help much with AI). I'm much more of a fan of the Cell than I am of Bluray.

But that might be because I hate FMV, and think it usually looks totally out of place. I'm not against cutscenes per si, or even pre-rendering either - just pre-rendered cutscenes. Gamecube's Resident Evil 4 cutscenes looked great, and Resident Evil Remake/Zero pre-rendered sets did too. But the more pre-rendered cutscenes try to look good and above the rest of the game, the more they look alien to me - and when they end it's like going back to playing a very early last gen game.

MikeB said: @ LordTheNightKnight 1. 10 times? That is a lie. blu-ray has 5 times per layer. Lie? You sound like an upset fanboy... The PS3 has more than 10 times the amount of memory than a PS2. I wasn't talking about Blu-Ray or DVD in this regard, by the ratio system memory vs storage media capacity IMO is relevant. . I said current systems specs, which means God of War 2 doesn't count. That and you are ignoring the FMVs it used, so comparing it to games without FMVs is still a further lie. You decide what counts and what doesn't on this board? I didn't know that. Why does it matter FMV was used? Isn't the end result more improtant, both the FMV parts and ingame engine looks amazing!

 I was referring to the 360 vs the PS3, not the PS2 vs the PS3. And since the PS2 did have dual layers, it's maximum disc size is not one tenth of the PS3's; it's still one fith.

As for God of War 2, the reason FMVs are important is that you brought up the dual layers to prove that the content of GoW2 was much bigger than PS2 games at the beginning. Since most of those layers are filled with FMVs, that hurts your claim, unless you have a number of the in-game data, without FMVs.

Plus the look of GoW2 is irrelevant to the size. That's due to programming. 

@ JDWolf36

I don't know those games except for FEAR and Oblivion, IMO the last couple years games didn't really advance that much at all. IMO with regard to PC gaming Quake was a significant milestone and later on Half-Life as well. I expect PS3 games to set new milestones though. My PC favourites currently are Cvilization IV, GTA San Andreas and Half-Life 2, pretty much evolutionaire products based on earlier versions.

I didn't think that much of consoles for years, until now with the PS3 that is. For me Mario64 on the N64 was the best of all console games I've played, the Snes was pretty cool as well mainly due to Super Mario World. So I am not much of a traditional Playstation "fanboy", although I liked Ape Escape, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon games as well.

I got interested in the Cell processor initially as I love such innovative developments. Blu-Ray disc is more of a bonus for me, but with regard to gaming and movies IMO far from useless like some here believe. I even think, considering for what Sony is aiming for (not a Nintendo Wii or PS2.5) it's crucial for the long run.

MikeB said: @ JDWolf36 I don't know those games except for FEAR and Oblivion, IMO the last couple years games didn't really advance that much at all. IMO with regard to PC gaming Quake was a significant milestone and later on Half-Life as well. I expect PS3 games to set new milestones though. My PC favourites currently are Cvilization IV, GTA San Andreas and Half-Life 2, pretty much evolutionaire products based on earlier versions. I didn't think that much of consoles for years, until now with the PS3 that is. For me Mario64 on the N64 was the best of all console games I've played, the Snes was pretty cool as well mainly due to Super Mario World. So I am not much of a traditional Playstation "fanboy", although I liked Ape Escape, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon games as well. I got interested in the Cell processor initially as I love such innovative developments. Blu-Ray disc is more of a bonus for me, but with regard to gaming and movies IMO far from useless like some here believe. I even think, considering for what Sony is aiming for (not a Nintendo Wii or PS2.5) it's crucial for the long run.

 We're not claiming it's useless. We're just pointing out nothing has so far proved it is vital to gaming.

 And that goes especially with the PS3, since the slow speed of its drive greatly limits how much it can load at one time, and its RAM limits both how much content can run, not matter how much is on the disc, and how much the Cell generates can actually be stored.

 Does this mean the PS3 is weak? No. It just means its potential is not as great as Sony hyped it. If it had a much faster drive, and far more RAM, then we would likely see some incredible stuff from blu-ray and the Cell. As it is, it doesn't have the great size freedoms you are claiming is so important.