"It's possible GTA4 PS3 went with the blur because a blur upscale post process pass is much faster than using any form of hardware msaa on PS3. You can do an upscale in ~0.5ms, compared to potentially many milliseconds for msaa. Remember that with msaa, the more stuff you draw the more expensive it becomes. A post process upscale on the other hand is a fixed performance cost regardless of what's going on on screen. GTA4 draws far more stuff that just about any game out there, far more than your typical shooter game, so msaa on GTA4 was probably very expensive on PS3.

Also, a post process upscale will require less memory than msaa will. All games have post process passes, and the upscale step can be fit into that framework with no extra memory required. Given the scope of GTA4, it's possible that they couldn't afford the extra memory hit for any form of msaa on PS3.

Combine the two, both a performance and memory hit, and you can see why they may have chosen to not use any msaa on GTA4 PS3 and instead go with a blur filter. The reason they went with msaa on the 360 version isn't because they are all dumb PS3 programmers at Rockstar that want Sony to fail. They have some serious talent there, they contribute to many of the graphics books that we all read. Instead it's likely because there is no memory hit for using msaa on 360, and the performance hit on 360 is relatively minimal as well.

Finally, you can't compare Killzone2 to GTA4. Those games have totally different hardware demands, it's impossible to compare the two. Open world games like GTA4 are perhaps the toughest most hardware demanding style of games out there to implement."

Source Joker454 (Same as the one 2 posts up) http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1234947&postcount=958

Oh and one last thing. The PS3 still does suffer from a crippling level of ram usage. BUT the technique I outlined above (Some of your general Cell optimizations between RSX -> Cell) also reduce memory usage and so does deferred rendering because you only shade visible pixels.

Now the issue is thus: If you use deferred rendering on the 360 it will come out bunk, so obviously this preferred technique for the PS3 is out. Killzone 2 is an example of a game which uses this technique. The other issue is that using the Cell like that is also a platform specific optimisation so you have to spend your limited resources implementing it.

Squilliam your the man :P

I will agree, the PS3 is not everything Sony claimed it to be >_> It's still a badass machine, but not GAMING IN 4D. WHATEVER.

However, tech specs aside, when utilized, the PS3 will probably be able to stomp the snot out of the 360 because...

Mother F*cker came with a hard drive >_>;;;

Plenty of disc space for high res textures, (and quite a number of them!), streaming audio... the bs that goes with all that.

Faster Ram. (not sure about implementation, but sony will figure it out >_>)

Edge on processing power.

I have no idea who's going to take the graphics crown, I want to give it up to the PS3 regardless of the GPU, but in overall execution of game features, audio, frames per second, resolution, effects on screen, poly counts, blah blah blah, I'm going to give it to the PS3 hands down.

Actually the 360 has a better GPU,It can do better resoultion,AA and oodles more,but the PS3 isnt far behind,more like half a step behind.

@Garnet, I only say that because so far the PS3 seems to have more games that run natively in 1080p. Or ????x1080. Mgs, Wipeout, and GT5P off the top of my head :x

I'm not sure about the tech speak behind it all, but they're already getting games like that out the door, so I'ma have to say the developers know something we don't.

@Chrono, Thanks. Anyway my last post here for today is:

The Xbox 360 pretty much wins any multiplatform development contest as that is the nature of development and the architecture. Its even edging the PS3 in PS3 lead games. Its more due to striking a path that keeps both platforms in sync and certain techniques such as MSAA give the 360 an obvious advantage.

Oh, for some reason I prefer how the PS3 renders games. Its a little "nicer" thats about all I can explain it as.

@Squilliam, Yeah I think that's a fair assessment, although I still think games that are lead on the PS3 work better for both systems ^^ and have a slight edge on the PS3.

But the exclusives are where it's at for me :) And in my opinion the PS3 exclusives just perform better ^^

No Offence but have you seen them? MGS4 = closed in game therefore more room for graphics,Wipeout decent graphics colorful,and GTA5p is racing,racing games always have good graphics.

If you wanted to say PS3 has a better GPU then you should of pointed out Killzone 2 :)

Well yeah I think Killzone 2 looks amazing :P Don't get me wrong, but it's resolution is still 720p :P I just think it's amazing for it's particle effects, and lighting n' "stuff".

I won't make excuses for why the previously mentioned games were in 1080p, I mean think about it... Forza wasn't, gears 2 is pretty much close quarters, and they're still in 720 :x So I'm not sure what the dealio is... but that's really all I have to go off of ^^

Although I think someone mentioned in some other topic, that although Gears is in 720, it still had a higher resolution than MGS4, anywho, I'm not really clear on all that stuff :P But I think the PS3 still has the edge here ^^ Judging from what's out.

Eh,its VERY hard to get GOOD looking games running at 1080p native,now upscaling can do the same thing without the strain on the console.

http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/blogs/turn_10s_forza_motorsport_blog/archive/2007/02/12/46731.aspx

Fronza 2 has 1080p,Gears of war 2 is much more open than MGS4 and thousands of enemys on screen when MGS4 only has 10 max.