Wasn't MSs big selling point for potential developers that the system was fairly simple to develop for, thus making it an obvious choice for development?

If that's true, then that means that it's fairly simple to max the system out, faster than say, the PS3 or the Wii...

And Gears 2 does lack anything that makes it stand out from the first, it still looks good, not exceedingly well though.

I don't think it's "maxed out" yet, but I'd say that graphically, the 360 isn't going to get much better than Gears, as it's the best looking game on the system.

mrstickball said: colonelstubbs said: Considering the 360 is a slightly pimped up xbox, comments saying it usually takes 4-5 years to reach the peak of a consoles ability dont apply here. If you disagree, compare halo 2 with halo 3. Difference in graphics? Not really. Graphically geow2 looks fractionally better than geow1, so id say there isnt much more to pump out of the 360    Very funny. By that same regard, I think MGS4 looks only a little better than MGS3. At any rate, I'd love to see a company make a AAA Xbox 360 game that used the same budget as MGS4. You know, 200+ developers, 4 years, $40m+ for 1 game. The fact that it takes such a HUGE game to have PS3 fans start claiming superiority is staggering. Gears was made for about 1/4th the budget of MGS4, yet people are saying that MGS4 looks slightly better. Crazy that a $10m game that was made 1 and 1/2 years ago is being compared to a game that came out last week, and cost over $40m, no?

Can you link me to where Gears was made for 10 million, or MGS4 for forty million?

this topic could go on forever...i have no idea if the XBOX360 is tapped out graphically and truthfully i doubt many if ANY have that knowledge...the games will speak for themselves...MGS4, GeOW2...beautiful stuff...which is better? completely subjective

Xbox is almost done, the only games that fanboyz are looking for is fable and gears

ceaser92 said: Xbox is almost done, the only games that fanboyz are looking for is fable and gears

 

Awesome insight into if the 360 has reached it's graphical limit.

 

:On Topic:

I think there is headroom for the 360, but I wonder if developers are not mining that headroom given the cost of development this generation.

@ selnor

The Xenon is comparitively handicapped due to slower higher latency shared system RAM, shared L2 cache by all 3 cores and the PS3 just has more processors than the Xenon has cores. Anyhow the emphasis of the 360 design is on the GPU.

Some technical details with regad to Kameo (IMO an awesome and great looking game):

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/b/e/5bec52bd-8f96-4137-a2ab-df6c7a2580b9/Coding_for_Multiple_Cores.ppt

"Cores 0 and 1 were ~80-99% utilized, and core 2 was typically 50% utilized"

You're welcome.

 

@ MikeB

thanks for the source...definately an interesting read

MikeB said: @ selnor So your saying that his comment is completely ok? The fact that he states one of the worse looking release games nearly uses all of the cpu cycles with no evidence at all and you expect for people to believe him? The Xenon is comparitively handicapped due to slower higher latency shared system RAM, shared L2 cache by all 3 cores and the PS3 just has more CPUs than the Xenon has core. Anyhow the emphasis of the 360 design in on the GPU. Some technical details with regad to Kameo (IMO an awesome game and great looking game): http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/b/e/5bec52bd-8f96-4137-a2ab-df6c7a2580b9/Coding_for_Multiple_Cores.ppt "Cores 0 and 1 were ~80-99% utilized, and core 2 was typically 50% utilized" You're welcome.

For the sake of people who didn't read the last page, let it be said that those percentages are almost meaningless since this is a console game we're talking about.

 

@ NJ5

No the info is meaningfuland yes you can perform manual optimisations like I stated in my first post within this thread. But I was talking about game engine design and that's about optimal at this point for the 360 with top games. The hardware is being used as intended.

When for Motorstorm was said to use about 15% of available SPU resources, this could be brought down further as well with through extensive optimisation.

What I am saying game engines on the PS3 still don't tap its potential like it's intended. Resistance 2 would be, as they moved almost everything onto the SPUs, it will be interesting to know how much of the Cell potential they will be tapping this time.

selnor said: Lets rephrase your OP. Not many PS3 fans are impressed by it's graphics. You see I never really saw that Uncharted was that great graphically. It was good and maybe better technically, but it's the result on the screen that matters. I think Gears 1 isn't that far behind MGS4 even the cutscenes. To prove heres my fave Gears moment and this is entirely using in engine and is definately not CGI. Anyone who says that this is not that impressive is a major fanboy. This is still one of the most graphically impressive games. And Gears 2 will better than this by some way. SPOILER ALERT.

 

Gears was my favorite exclusive 360 game by far and my favorite 7th generation game until I played CoD4.

Uncharted looks way better than Gears IMO. Gears 2 look like Gears 1 with better lightning and more interactivity, and that's not a bad thing.