And, uh, they look exactly the same…
I honestly can’t see a difference in quality there.
I have to ask, though. Is there a difference in framerate?
Like I’ve said in previous threads, the only way you can compare the two is with exclusives, and that’s somewhat of a paradox, since you can’t do a side-by-side with an exclusive. Do any of those games claim enhancements for either system? If not, why is this surprising?
edit: also, how do you expect to be able to pick out differences in minute details with image sizes at 400x300?
Yes, the ps3 has more chop according to reviews in a lot of multi platform games, but I’d seriously assume it’s just that its a pain to program for and devs need to get used to it.
I DL’d the high-res video of the Ridge Racer comparison, and I’d give a slight nod to the PS3 in terms of quality there. Things I noticed:
Better road textures, better lighting in the tunnel.
However, whether this is a system difference or a matter of them having more time to work with the PS3 is pretty unclear. Since they seem to have used the same courses on both system, it could simply represent them having time to worry about the little details for an extra year on the PS3.
One thing I did notice in the side-by-side pictures was that the XBox seems consistently darker. Not sure why; could be as simple as having the gamma set differently.
I think the relevant comparison would be resistance to GoW. Comparing EA games which all have the same base assets anyway is pretty pointless.
Actually, there ARE differences. On a bunch of the screens, the PS3 appears to be using slightly lower res textures and missing some shaders. The only one that looks better on the PS3 is Fight Night – they’ve obviously increased the texture res on the characters and futzed with the shaders.
Seemed to be a contrast issue. Contrast was higher on the 360 by default, making the PS3 look slightly washed out and brighter by comparison.
A bunch of screens? I’ve only seen one that looked like the PS3 had lower-res textures, and that’s Madden.
Most of them looked like there was a difference to me, but it could’ve simply been a lack of shaders, making them seem less detailed.
One thing I have seen is that normal map saturation appears to be lower on the PS3, which gives it a flatter look. There’s no real performance gain from doing this, so I think it might be related to how the graphics card processes certain shaders.
Seems a bit silly to compare sequels like rr6 vs. rr7 and FA1 vs. FA2. rr7 and fa2 could look just as nice on the 360
360 is a x1900xt with 512MB of RAM vs the PS3’s 7800GTX with 256MB of RAM, basically. Neither side is really exploiting their weirdo CPUs. If anything I would expect the 360 to look somewhat better at this point since it has double the memory for high res textures and such. Anyway, not surprising.
Yeah, there was a great story that went into details on the pros and cons of each machine and basically came to the same conclusion stusser did.
Not really. It shares a certain number of similarities with the X1900’s dispatch processor and pixel shaders, but the shader units in the 360 itself are different. They perform somewhat different operations, there’s no vertex shader units (there are on all the ATI PC cards), there’s direct memory export functions, etc. Not to mention that the 10MB of RAM on the graphics chip with absolutely insane bandwidth between it and the GPU logic, and AA resolve functions implemented in that RAM daughter die.
From an API perspective, it’s DX9 with a couple of tweaks and memory export. From a GPU microarchitecture perspective, the 360 can’t really be directly compared to PC graphics.
vs the PS3’s 7800GTX with 256MB of RAM, basically
This one is basically true. They’ve discovered that the chip seems slightly bigger that that simple formula would suggest, but the extra transistors could be something as simple as an integrated PCIe to FlexIO bridge or something.
Note that both the PS3 and 360 have 128-bit memory controllers, too. The PC counterparts you listed have considerably more graphics memory bandwidth to the main bank of RAM (again, the embedded RAM in the 360 throws a monkey wrench into the equation).
Right now developers aren’t really getting much out of the flexibility of the 360 GPU - most titles are treating it like any 'ol DX9 GPU and then doing a few small tricks to optimize for it. But it’s actually quite more adept at doing things like tesselation, creating and manipulating particles, and other “CPU tricks on the GPU” stuff than PC-style DX9 hardware is. I bet we’ll see more of that kind of stuff in the 3rd/4th year 360 titles.
Neither side is really exploiting their weirdo CPUs. If anything I would expect the 360 to look somewhat better at this point since it has double the memory for high res textures and such. Anyway, not surprising.
Agreed there. There’s lots of headroom, optimization, and learning to be had on both systems in the CPU department.
In the end, “Cell potential” or no, the typical PS3 game is going to have less of a difference from it’s 360 counterpart than there was between the PS2 and Xbox. Nit-pickers might be able to pull out differences where one or the other is “better” but the general market won’t see any difference.
Frankly, a whole lot of it is going to come down quality of artwork and art direction.
Yep, agreed. Unlike last generation, 360 games aren’t going to look significantly better than ps3 ones. Hardware capabilities are roughly equivalent.
The 360 Fight Night boxers look like boxers. The PS3 Fight Night boxers look like underwear advert models.
I can see Blu-Ray plausibly having an effect on visual quality in games with a wide variety of textures. That certainly seemed to be what Ted Price was getting at when he said Resistance would’ve been hard to implement as-designed on any other platform.
There’s one thing you can’t see in these screenshots: emotion. PS3 owns it in that category.
Ehhh… if they are being meaninglessly wasteful, maybe. But your visual quality is limited more by your video memory than by your storage space.
“Not to mention that the 10MB of RAM on the graphics chip with absolutely insane bandwidth between it and the GPU logic, and AA resolve functions implemented in that RAM daughter die.”
I swear I got a spam email with that as the junk text.