@ Garnett

What they stated is that they use all of the available CPU time, by that measure XBox 360 launch titles already maxed out the XBox 360.

But what Naught Dog stated:

"I'm sure people have seen reports in the past where we said we were using '100 percent of the PlayStation 3,' and we're not lying or exaggerating when we say that." But Druckmann said the studio doesn't intend to imply that the console is maxed out. "What we mean is that none of the SPUs are ever idle. They're working 100 percent of the time. In the first Uncharted, they were idle about 70 percent of the time, because we were just on the GPU."

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=26074

So let's keep this accurate.

All that Naughty Dog has proven is proving a lot of vocal 360 fanboys wrong that developers would never put those 8 processors (OS + game) in full use. Naughty Dog did this already with Uncharted 2, utilizing all the CPU resources available to them, but there are a lot of oppertunities for optimizations, especially when having to optimise for 8 different processors in use within PS3 games and OS.

Optimization you could view as re-coding parts of the engine to do the same or more using up fewer CPU cycles.

'While Uncharted 2: Among Thieves utilizes the full power of the Playstation 3 hardware, Druckmann said that the engine can be optimized to look better than the latest entry in the series.'

So more to come and stay tuned the next couple of years!

It was clear from the beginning that the PS3 Hardware has lot more power then Xbox360 Hardware. The Cell has 2 times more power then the Xbox360 CPU.

But the Xbox is easier to develop for and it has lesser bottlenecks. The PS3 Hardware is MUCH sronger then the Xbox360 Hardware but because of bottlenecks the difference is not as big as it should be.

And games have to be programmed exclusively on the PS3 to use the full power of the Hardware thats why we can see the Power just in exclusive games.

The Xbox360 hardware is compared to PS3 very easy to programm for thats why the Developers should already use the full power of the Console. Ofcourse they can use some tricks to push the hardware even further. But I dont think that there is a lot more room left.

The PS3 used first time with the game Uncharted 2 the SPEs all the time. Uncharted 1 used the SPEs just 30% the time. But even if it uses the SPEs 100% the time there is still room for optimizing the code. To use the Sources in a better way then it were used it Uncharted 2. The SPEs are very flexible. The GPU of the Xbox360 may have an advantage but most people forget that the Cell is not a classical CPU the SPUs can be used for every sort of calculation the SPUs can do things which are tasks of the GPU.

And we could see a lot of surprises in the future of the PS3.


If the Xbox 360 is really able to push graphics more then it would mean that we have still not reached the End of the HD Consoles Graphicabilitys.

One thing is for sure, If the Xbox360 can beat Uncharted 2 the PS3 is theoretically able to top that too if there is a developer which is able to handle the Hardware.

I would be glad to see an Xbox360 game with better graphics then Killzone or Uncharted that would mean that future PS3 exklusivs could be even better. If the Xbox360 is on its Limits then that would mean that the PS3 Graphics wont see steps as big as the step between Uncharted and uncharted 2 or Resistance and Killzone 2.

For the near future I hope that Heavy Rain is really as good looking as the Videos and Pictures shows because that would be a gigantic step again. Have someone seen the family in the mall and the clown if thats not a cutscene it will be probably the best looking game ever made. I misinterpreted the Screenshot with a real Photo in the first seconds. And

Killzone 3, God of War 3 is a possible candidate to push the limits and if the CryEngine 3 will be anywhere near the PC Version it will be a blast. But if Cryengine 3 will be better then everything else on the market and is on both consoles the same then there would still be potential in the PS3 or the Boys from Crytek are Gods.

@ Garnett

To quote myself from a long time ago:

'Resistance just like Motorstorm, despite their impressiveness only used about 15% of available SPU power and there's even a lot of room for optimisations in addition'

Of course, those launch games also didn't do texture streaming yet. I also stated there was a lot of potential with regard to this and I think Uncharted 2 now proves my point.

To requote myself from a few years ago:

"streaming is more advanced than that, you free up unneeded memory (previous areas, enemies, sounds, and such) and load new data into memory while actually playing the level. Resistance & Motorstorm for example performed music streaming, but loaded all the graphics data for the level into memory in one go, in this regard Ratchet and Clank: TOD is more advanced as the game also streams texture data."

Reading back, I think a lot of what I stated in the past can now be better understood with games like Uncharted 2 available and many of the past attacks from 360 fanboys were really uncalled for.

@ Netayaroze

Actually well more than 2 times and in addition some other important advantages allowing developers to really harvest all this power.



Easier, you are correct to some extend. But starting from scratch it's not that much harder. Porting old game engines is usually much harder.

Fewer bottlenecks, not by a long shot. The 360 has more severe bottlenecks (like shared CPU/GPU bandwidth, DVD storage, tiling issues due to lack of EDRam, etc, etc).

Your right MikeB, Perfect Dark Zero maxed out the 360, while PS3 is only using 0.000.001 percent of its True power!

 

Once devs unlock the magic code of the Cell (Much like a rubik's cube) games will look like Crysis and it will be Virtual reality.

Look its TEH C311!

 

Running a Wii game...

 

@ Garnett

Let's make this simple.

1) I never said XBox 360 launch games maxed out the 360, in fact when Epic claimed to have maxed out the XBox 360 with the original Gears of War I expressed scepticism against that claim.

2) We were talking about CPU time and a XBox 360 launch title like Project Gotham Racing used up all available CPU cycles (based on Microsoft documentation).

3) You're acting stupid on purpose.

@MikeB

 

No no no, you see the PS3 has something called "AFT" aka Advanced Floor Tile, what this does is it takes the stress off the GPU, so the GPU can do other things, thats why Floor Textures in PS3 exclusives always look good. It also helps that the PS3 has the most advanced GPU out.

 

I mean i would of expected you to know this by now...

kowenicki said: The next test for the console makers is to produce a machine (the next gen) with all of this raw power on tap and all the tools already in place to enable devlopers to make great games that also look good.

That's not how major technical breakthroughs usually happen. Creating new ahead of its time technology always introduces adaptation issues for developers. This we saw for example with the Amiga. Of course even with sub-optimal software and games in the beginning it ran circles around what PC and Macs could do at the time, but it took years before developers truly showed off the hardware compared to for instance the much weaker AtariST regarding multi-media and gaming.

We also saw this on the PC, although dual-core was in no way a breakthrough, as there had been more advanced implementations available with regard to multi-processing a decade before that. The available software at the time could not really take well advantage of this power and it took quite a while for developers to really start showing off real world advantages. For example a games developer may be busy creating a game based on an obsolete gaming engine, not designed with dual-core in mind.

kowenicki said: There you go with silly comments and sound bites again... nothing in any console this gen is ahead of its time...

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ahead+of+one%27s+time

So you know what that phrase actually means.

Next time, the PS3 may well have paved the way for the PS4. More and/or higher clocked SPUs will not introduce a major shift.

The last 15 years we have seen remarkably slow progress with regard to operating systems and CPU architecture. So I am happy to see daring new advancements.