Is a MBP more powerful than a game console?

[MattZani]

I would like to see a MBP run RR7 at 1080p, MotorStorm at 720p, GT5 at 1080p

No way in hell could a MBP run any game better than a PS3, and also resolution doesnt matter, I bet you couldn't notice the difference between COD4 on PS3 and maxxed out on a PC.

Also, HL2 is a poor comparison, the game engine is 5 years old! It was released on Ps3 + 360 because its the best FPS ever, not because it looks amazing

 

[0098386]

You just said "HL2" so whilst you're right, the HL2's version of the source engine is very old. Whereas Episode 2's engine is very new and supports HDR, soft particles, motion blur, dynamic lights, TF2 even supports phong shading. It's very much an optimised new engine.
We could then also say that Quake Wars engine is old since it's based on the ancient id Tech 2 engine.

So why oh why are Orange Box games limited to 720p and, especially on the PS3 version, have frame rate issues? I'm running at the equivalent to 900p at a constant 30fps.
And of course a computer could run Motorstorm at 720p. That's a low resolution compared to more power hungry engines that run fine even on my machine! As I said before I can play Bioshock, Oblivion, UT3 at a higher resolution than these "super consoles". They're not that powerful really, in the rare chance that you'll get a high resolution game it's likely to be heavily optimised (something you can't do with PC coding since the hardware isn't fixed for 5-7 years like a console).

Oh and resolution does matter. Higher resolution means you can see more of whats going on, it's what the anti-Nintendo crowd complained about when the Wii was launched ("boo hoo not 480p on my HDTV" etc). You can see objects better in the distance. I couldn't play CoD4 or Team Fortress 2 on anything lower than 900p because I can see a difference.

 

[MattZani]

Motorstorm would never run on a MBP, for starters it uses at least 5 cores, and then the graphics card would have to do so much work.

Fine, show me UT3, COD4 or HL2 looking better on PC than PS3.

Also, HL2E2 uses the same engine, but they have added a pretty glaze, and some newer physics

 

[0098386]

Motorstorm would never run on a MBP, for starters it uses at least 5 cores, and then the graphics card would have to do so much work.

What? The graphics card does not pick up CPU slack (at least not yet in major games) so I don't know where on earth you're getting that from. Why does GTAIV on the PS3 use more cores than the 360 version and still process the same amount? Same for any of the multiplatform titles I've said. I've only got a dual core but for CPU intensive games like Oblivion it doesn't have a problem!

Fine, show me UT3, COD4 or HL2 looking better on PC than PS3.

Wow, you do realise that these games have the same raw materials, the same quality textures, the same polygon models and rendering effects... Right? The only difference of the PC version in these games is you can set the resolution higher, and thanks to some tweaking and hardware applications you can add much more Antialiasing, more anisotropic filtering. Set the resolution higher, add higher quality texture packs, add texture sharpening. And this isn't even including optional post-processing methods.

You don't think that the 360/PS3 versions magically have better graphics for no reason do you? Do you even know much about gaming, hardware and game development?

Also, HL2E2 uses the same engine, but they have added a pretty glaze, and some newer physics

Where are you getting your info from? As someone who has made games using the Source engine in the past they have not added "newer physics". So pretty glaze means HDR, Bloom, enhanced multicore support, soft particles et al. Why are you talking about games and graphics when you just sum it up like that?

I suppose to you Doom 3 is just Quake 1 since they both share the same engine foundation. The only major engine to see any "fresh" revision is the Unreal 3 engine. That's it out of the big 3 engine providers.

 

[MattZani]

Yep, because im an idiot who loves to play games, and is good at them, and is a PC/Coding Enthusiast.

All im saying is

PS3/360>MBP

 

[0098386]

Well you clearly don't know much about your field of work, about post-processing effects, anti-aliasing, differences in resolution. Tell you what, do consoles have their own specific physics hardware processor yet? How about AA whilst running at post 1080p resolutions?

Also for night/day comparison between PC and console specs have a look at any ambient occlusion effect. Games consoles aren't powerful enough to run this, yet most DirectX10 video cards are.
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=258cj9t&s=3, just look at how flat the console version would look (btw the pre-SSAO shot has the same effects as the console version, SSAO is PC only).

I don't see how you can argue such a silly an uninformed point. Where did you pluck "being good at them" from when it's a discussion about visual capabilities of a 2 year old games console (even 3 since the 360's hardware was finalised way before launch) against a brand new DirectX10 capable computer.

All im saying is

PS3/360>MBP

And that really is all you have been saying since you're not discussing anything other than stating your opinion.

 

[Jurwin]

Dude stop this already. You're making my head hurt. The PS3 has a 3.2 ghz cell processor. The floating point performance of the whole system (CPU + GPU) is reported to be 2 TFLOPS. PlayStation 3's Cell CPU achieves 204 GFLOPS single precision float and 15 GFLOPS double precision. The PS3 has 256 MB of Rambus XDR DRAM, clocked at CPU die speed. The RSX GPU has 256 MB GDDR3 RAM clocked at 650 MHz with an effective transmission rate of 1.3 GHz and up to 224 MB of the 3.2 GHz XDR main memory via the CPU (480 MB max) As you know already the cell is 1 PPE + 7 SPE (which 6 is accessible) At 3.2 GHz, each SPE gives a theoretical 25.6 GFLOPS of single precision performance. The cell can perform at 98% of it's theoretical peak performance.
Let's go back to the GPU. The PS3 gpu is based of the GeForce desktop 7900 wich is more powerfull than the mobile 8600 used in the MacBook Pro. They actually managed to run Geekbench on a PS3 running linux. But there are any problems with that as geekbench isn't coded for cell and does not take advantage of the cell atall. Only the PPE was used. As a general purpose CPU the PS3 is as fast as a powermac G5 1.6ghz. But the PS3 wasn't designed to be a general purpose machine. Cell is optimized towards single precision floating point computation and in that it will even make the most powerfull 8-core mac pro its bitch. Just look at the numbers being produced by PS3 in folding@home. I rest my case.

 

[Tastannin]

It really does not matter if you try to compare hardware specs between consoles and Macs - if you can't get the games you want on the Mac.

Tell me if you can find Call of Duty 4 on the Mac? Didn't it just get delayed again? Tell me if you can find Halo on the Mac? Oh, just the old original version? Tell me if you can find MGS4 on the Mac? Oh, it's a PS exclusive. Tell me if you can find GTA IV on the Mac? Oh you must be joking - it's never coming to the Mac.

Yes, WoW isn't on a console (yet), so you can use your Mac for it. EvE Online? Sure. The Sims 2, sure.

Bottom line - if you're a gamer, go get a console and use it, or be happy with the very few games available for the Mac, and pay through the nose for them. I am a Mac die-hard, and bristle every time I go into Fry's Electronics or the local Apple Store and see three year old Mac games still selling for retail price of $50, when the PC equivalent is in the bargain bin.

 

[eXan]

This isn't a valid question. PS3 is a heavily specialized hardware, while MBP is general-purpose hardware.

PS3 is heavily optimized for games only, while MBP can do so much more! Hardware specialized for certain tasks(s) is MUCH performs those tasks SO much more faster than general-purpose hardware. Just look at hardware H.264 chips or PPUs (physics processing units) or even graphics cards, for that matter.

 

[0098386]

snip

So how does my iMac, whilst running XP too, manage to run them multiplatform games better? Real world results kinda rain on the console parade.

 

[The Menacer]

Ditto can't believe this question was even asked.

You guys don't need to be rude to him. I didn't know the answer to this question either. Give him a yes or no and why, and don't make sarcastic comments.

 

[GFLPraxis]

Okay, there is some incredible ignorance going on in this thread. Not from the original poster but some mind-boggling misinformation from people responding. Sorry to sound rude but the hyperbole is deafening.

You have to be kidding right? The Xbox 360 has three cores running at 3.6 GhZ. Just google for game consoles specs.

Dude, MHz Myth? The XBox 360 processors are massively stripped down and don't even do out-of-order execution, but run at a really high clock speed to make up for it.

A 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo would outperform it *easily* for regular computing tasks.

Its graphics card is less powerful than a Geforce 8800GT.

It might outperform the MBP in gaming because games written on the XBox 360 are heavily optimized for the hardware and the MBP's GPU isn't *that* good. But the MBP is definitely more powerful.


The fact is that they can't be compared well. All of the code that runs on an XBox 360 will be optimized to run very, very well on its highly specialized processor with a very limited instruction set. All of the code that runs on an MBP will be pretty generic for Intel hardware. The 360 will perform great for gaming but would do terrible for general computing. The MBP would be the opposite.

The processors that game consoles use are very specialized at multithreading and are able to process a lot very quickly, though they aren't as suited for conventional computing as the processors used in a MacBook Pro, for example. Modern technology is still unable to rival the processing power of a PS2, so emulators for consoles are released many many years after it has become more or less obsolete. The game consoles of today are insanely powerful, but they are too hot and power hungry for practical use in computers, therefore to answer your question, PS3 > Xbox 360 > MacBook Pro.

Not quite accurate. The game consoles are very specialized and limited, and the code written for it is written within those limitations to take advantage of its exact strengths.

Since every XBox has the exact set of hardware, code can be optimized for the XBox. Heck, the XBox had a nearly STANDARD Pentium 3 (only difference was half the cache). Why does it outperform every Pentium 3 on the market? Because games were developed specifically to run on its exact hardware and utilize every strength possible while avoiding every weak point.


PS3 and XBox 360's processors are NOT superior to a MacBook Pro. However, it will run games better because the code is optimized so well for it, and the processors aren't bad at all to begin with.

Modern technology is still unable to rival the processing power of a PS2, so emulators for consoles are released many many years after it has become more or less obsolete.

This must be a joke. Emulators are released for consoles many years later because:
A) You need a machine 10x more powerful than what you are emulating. That's why a 1.4 GHz G4 can barely emulate a 300 MHz Pentium 3 in VirtualPC.

B) Console processors are often very specialized and hard to write an emulator for. Modern machines are easily powerful enough to emulate a Sega Saturn, but the Sega Saturn had well over a half-dozen separate co-processors handling audio, video, CPU, etc in a very unusual configuration and the homebrew writers have had a very hard time getting a stable, consistent emulator.

because it wasnt coded for them, PS3 and 360 (Just) Could do Crysis, at full.

Also, going on CPU (Console GPU's dont seem ipressive compared, but are)

MBP - 2.5Ghz x2
360 - 3.6Ghz x 3
PS3 - 3.2Ghz x 8 (7 For use in game)

This is ridiculous. MHz Myth again. This means nothing- each of the XBox 360's 3.6 GHz processors are far stripped down and nowhere near as capable as the MBP's processors.

The PS3? The PS3 does not have 8 3.2 GHz processors. It has one central processor at 3.2 GHz and 8 secondary processing units that only perform floating-point calculations.

Also, I do believe Crytek stated that the consoles couldn't run Crysis on max. But we don't know if that was just an excuse or not.

God why would you even ask this? I can understand you being curious or something but are you that much of an apple fanboy to even think that a laptop can rival the power of the PS3?

...I'm sorry, but I'm amazed to think that there are people that actually believe things like this...

 

[GFLPraxis]

MattZani, you're making yourself look silly. Don't argue with Jimmi. He's a games developer, lol.

Fine, show me UT3, COD4 or HL2 looking better on PC than PS3.

You realize that if you max out the settings and use a high res texture pack, these games DO look better on the PC, right?

And Crysis can't run on a PS3.

Actually...sorta, yes. Specifically, the Cell in the PS3 can do a (theoretical) maximum of ~2TFLOPS. The lowest ranked computer on the top 500 supercomputers list does a little less than 6TFLOPS, so the PS3 comes close. In fact, the world's first PFLOP (petaflop) supercomputer was just announced today, which essentially uses a crapload of Cell processors working together.

This was debunked ages ago. Microsoft and Sony were including GPU processing power in these estimates. Don't go off of the teraflop numbers. Microsoft also claimed the XBox 360 was in the teraflop range using GPU estimates.

 

[alphaod]

Yes it is.

 

[atszyman]

Just look at the numbers being produced by PS3 in folding@home. I rest my case.

The F@H production for the PS3 is also inflated since the only work units farmed out to the PS3 take full advantage of the processors strengths just like the games it runs, while a normal computer gets everything and the kitchen sink thrown at it optimization be damned.

 

[MattZani]

Still, a Games Console will play Games, Music, DVD/Blu-Ray better, as it was made to do that, but get it trying to decrypt a DVD, or Render 3D Models in real time, and the Console will just sit there, thinking, for a very long time.