@ Squilliam

I was talking in past tense because that claim have been proved to be false unless you make the proviso that it was all they could achieve with the budget/programing techniques of the time.

If the Spectrum of CPU design difference runs from PS3 --------> Xbox 360 -------> X86 PC its very unlikely that optimizations for the PS3 would even be applicable to the PC. They are completely different architectures.

For the Unreal engine on the PS3 to significantly outperform its 360 version only more stuff needs to be ported over to the Cell's SPEs (tapping into more processors than the 360 has cores available).

Only more stuff.... Well only more stuff needs to be ported from Core 1 to Core 2/3 on the Xenon.

"Microsoft Directions in Parallel Computing and Some Short Term Help:
This talk focuses on the native task scheduler being announced by the Parallel Computing Platform group in Microsoft this spring and offerings that are available in the XDK. The scheduling of tasks within games can improve resource utilization, load balancing, and performance. For games targeting the current generation of PCs and the Xbox 360 console, we discuss an interim solution. Previous talks given on this topic laid the foundation for using tasks to move work required by the engine from an over-utilized hardware core to an underutilized core. A progression of task and scheduler designs is presented that start with simple implementations and move to more complex designs that have low-overhead. The simple implementations are satisfactory for a small number of tasks but impose a prohibitive amount of overhead when the number of tasks grows. Finally, we present the work-stealing algorithm that pulls work from one core to another in the low-overhead scheduler."

"Xbox 360 Compiler and PgoLite Update:
The Xbox 360 compiler has changed dramatically in the last year, which changes the rules for how to write efficient Xbox 360 code. Many of the improvements automatically make your code faster, but others require you to change your code in order to reap the benefits. PgoLite has also improved and should be used differently, to get even better results. This talk summarizes the past year's developments, and gives simple rules for how to get maximum benefit from the changes.

I wonder if MS developpement could have met Intel's one, and if Ms is about to propose something close to Intel threading building blocks?
Which sounds like a effective coder friendly approach to multi threading.
(for reference:http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/i..._for_promo.pdf )"

Considering that many of these so called 100% usage scenario type games were ported to the PS3 and were blatently neglectful of much if any SPU usage I would have to call BS on that. If they were using 100% of 3 cores, the PS3 versions should have been absurdly terrible.

Rendered 60 FPS then 2 frames were combined into 1 to do the HDR lighting. So runs at 30, renders at 60. Pretty much the same deal as COD IV considering the rendering rate and the resolution were the same.

What you're doing is comparing games which Sony feels they have to invest heavily into to "prove" that the PS3 has huge gobs of power when the Xbox 360 running a generic engine with only some specific tweaks can pull uncomfortably close to a game which cost 2-3x to make and was meant to be the technical highlight of the PS3.

it will be a game that was ps3 exclusive. that gets released on the 360 about a year later. thats what i think, with slighly downgraded graphics of course.

when this happens though, thats when you 100% know that the console has reached its limits

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/206977/xbox-360-approaching-graphics-limit-says-gears-2-producer/

As expected, the Xbox 360 is slowing on the "wow" graphics factor as the console makes it over the hill.

This might be as purty as she gets, boys.

"We're certainly approaching the upper end of [Xbox 360 graphics]," said Gears of War 2 producer Rod Fergusson, in an interview with Gamasutra last week. "But just looking at all the [PAX} demos we saw today -- ours and others -- it's clear that all the games just keep improving, and keep pushing that bar."

Historically, consoles reach their graphics potential near the middle to end of their five-year life expectancy. The Xbox 360 will celebrate its third year on the market this November.

But that doesn't mean Xbox 360 owners can no longer expect graphical flourishes in the coming years. Says Fergusson, "There will be games in development that won't ship until 2010, and I'm sure they'll look killer... I still think there's room to grow."