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Why are PS3 and Xbox 360 graphics are almost the same?

kabunaru said:
People keep saying that PS3 has more potential and better graphics but from these videos it looks almost the same to 360. Are developers lazy in taking advantage of PS3's Blu-ray capabilities?
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Oh boy. Everyone get to the trenches, war is about to break out.

Short answer is that whether one console is more powerful than the other isn't that relevant because developers don't want to spend the extra time and money to eek out extra performance. The machines are different enough that the extra amount of work wouldn't be justified.

P-Worm
 
"Fire in the hole! Incoming!"
"Tell them about Mass Effect, Mass Effect!"
"Return fire! Uncharted: Drake's Fortune!"

(Disclaimer: Blu-Ray = more storage = more graphical potential in future, to be fair. The gap might widen over the next few years. Damn, I've been sucked in, haven't I?)
 
P-Worm said:
Short answer is that whether one console is more powerful than the other isn't that relevant because developers don't want to spend the extra time and money to eek out extra performance. The machines are different enough that the extra amount of work wouldn't be justified.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks. That's a good explanation.
 
First of all the 360 has Direct X 10 support, the PS3 does not. Secondly Blu-Ray doesn't mean better graphics, just more storage which could be used for more advanced graphics, but the hardware would need to support the upped graphics as well.

That being said, I own and love my PS3 =]
 
Cause lots of games are cross-console (or at least the ones with stupid comparison vids) and they don't want to waste time making one version better. PS3 exclusives look sweet (GT5, Uncharted...) :D.
 
The only people who have been saying that the PS3 is far more powerful has been first party Sony developers (what else are they going to say) Sony Marketing (what else are they going to say) & a lot of fanboys (with the mental capacity of an amoebae and the inability to think of anything in a rational manner)

The reality is that nearly ALL the major developers have gone on record when interviewed and basically stated that the machines are pretty much evenly matched.

Even Hideo Kojima admits that MGS4 coud be done on the 360 hardware with little or no differences.


The truth is that.... Basically the two hardwares are very different and yet very similar.

Whilst A can do blah de blah better than B
B has blah de blah which is better than A

(replace PS3 and 360 with A or B)

It all balances out and hence we see very little difference between the two machines. Add that most games are multi platform and then we see even less differences.

What makes me laugh though is when a developer states on record that it's two versions of the game are pretty much indistinguishable and yet the fanboys in both camps start a Versus pissing competition about which is better comparing things like .. it has better contrast... I mean Plllllleeease.. :rolleyes:


So yeah... PS3 & 360 both great machines, both with very similar power and yet I know it wont be long before the fanboys make there way to this thread and start at it... disregarding what 99% of the developer community and industry are saying because it makes them feel that little bit better to piss higher against the school yard wall.....
 
well both the PS3 and the 360 have pretty much the same video card capabilities (and those matter most in terms of looks...)

straight from wikipedia
Xenos(360):

Maximum polygon count: 500 million triangles per second
Maximum shader operations: 96 billion per second
Maximum pixel fillrate: 4 gigapixel per second (8 ROPs x 500 MHz)

RSX(ps3):

max polygon count: 450 million polygons per second
Maximum shader operations:100 billion shader operations per second
Peak pixel fillrate (theoretical): 4.4 Gigapixel per second

etc. etc. when one GPU is superior to the other you only have to look at the next bullet point and might be turned around again... for example the PS3 RSX might be better at textures/anti aliasing/dot products on the paper but the 360 can get a a higher poly count

in fact the memory bandwidth is the same right after the decimal point ;)
 
takao said:
for example the PS3 RSX might be better at textures/anti aliasing/dot products on the paper but the 360 can get a a higher poly count
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Add the fact the 360 can access more that 256mb of Video memory and it has the benefit of that extra chipset which gives it upscaling and anti-aliasing at no extra cost to performance.

Hence a lot of multi-platform games tend to have a fraction better anti-aliasing on the 360 and why all 360 games can be upscaled to 1080p, whereas only certain titles on the PS3 can dependent on whether a developer has included the software SDK.

So yeah.... swings and round about as I said earlier

MacRumorUser said:
Whilst A can do blah de blah better than B
B has blah de blah which is better than A

(replace PS3 and 360 with A or B)

It all balances out and hence we see very little difference between the two machines. Add that most games are multi platform and then we see even less differences.
Click to expand...


But does it really matter at the end of the day. :)

------------

edit**


Oh and PREEMPTIVE STRIKE at the other FANBOY argument.

And those saying that the 360 has somehow peaked and the PS3 hasn't also are talking nonsense. Both machines will continue to improve and be pushed further and further, just as the last generation of consoles did right the way through their lifespan.
 
It's pretty complicated.

The amount of misinformation in this thread is staggering. You guys seem to have no idea what you are talking about. Stop confusing the OP. I'll explain it.

Below is a very technical explanation:

The XBox 360 has DirectX 10, as you all know, but it actually uses a special version that utilizes some features planned for DirectX 11 (known internally to Microsoft as DirectXXI ). That software has a special hardware function called Ebkac that enables real-time NURBS and raytracing through advanced box-modelling techniques. That's why 360 games look a little better; the software lets the 360 pixel-draw with much less CPU cost. Plus, the 360 has three 3 GHz G5 processors, it's like a PowerMac.

Meanwhile, the PS3 has its own advantages. See, the Cell processor can put out teraflops, it has 8 processors, and uses its teraflops to texture multi-sided polygons, it's really quite impressive. That's where the term 4D comes from. The cell's speed is rated at 120,000 HPC. The 7th Synergistic Processing Element (#007) in the Cell processor runs a process called RSX that is used for graphical effects.

Both have problems though. The 360 uses Shared RAM, and anyone who has ever built a PC knows that shared RAM is slower than dedicated. But the PS3 doesn't have a graphics card, using the Cell for everything, and developers don't know how to use the Cell very well, so 360 games always end up looking better.

I hope you learn from this, it's really quite fascinating the way this industry works.

Some people might spin stories about one system being better or worse than the other, just ignore them. Pay close attention to this post, I explained everything, don't listen to anyone else.
 
GFLPraxis said:
It's pretty complicated.

The amount of misinformation in this thread is staggering. You guys seem to have no idea what you are talking about. Stop confusing the OP. I'll explain it.

Below is a very technical explanation:

The XBox 360 has DirectX 10, as you all know, but it actually uses a special version that utilizes some features planned for DirectX 11 (known internally to Microsoft as DirectXXI ). That software has a special hardware function called Ebkac that enables real-time NURBS and raytracing through advanced box-modelling techniques. That's why 360 games look a little better; the software lets the 360 pixel-draw with much less CPU cost. Plus, the 360 has three 3 GHz G5 processors, it's like a PowerMac.

Meanwhile, the PS3 has its own advantages. See, the Cell processor can put out teraflops, it has 8 processors, and uses its teraflops to texture multi-sided polygons, it's really quite impressive. That's where the term 4D comes from. The cell's speed is rated at 120,000 HPC. The 7th Synergistic Processing Element (#007) in the Cell processor runs a process called RSX that is used for graphical effects.

Both have problems though. The 360 uses Shared RAM, and anyone who has ever built a PC knows that shared RAM is slower than dedicated. But the PS3 doesn't have a graphics card, using the Cell for everything, and developers don't know how to use the Cell very well, so 360 games always end up looking better.

I hope you learn from this, it's really quite fascinating the way this industry works.

Some people might spin stories about one system being better or worse than the other, just ignore them. Pay close attention to this post, I explained everything, don't listen to anyone else.
Click to expand...

Finally the truth is spoken with no fanboyism! Great explanation there Praxis.

Ed
 
GFLPraxis said:
It's pretty complicated.

The amount of misinformation in this thread is staggering. You guys seem to have no idea what you are talking about. Stop confusing the OP. I'll explain it.

Below is a very technical explanation:

The XBox 360 has DirectX 10, as you all know, but it actually uses a special version that utilizes some features planned for DirectX 11 (known internally to Microsoft as DirectXXI ). That software has a special hardware function called Ebkac that enables real-time NURBS and raytracing through advanced box-modelling techniques. That's why 360 games look a little better; the software lets the 360 pixel-draw with much less CPU cost. Plus, the 360 has three 3 GHz G5 processors, it's like a PowerMac.

Meanwhile, the PS3 has its own advantages. See, the Cell processor can put out teraflops, it has 8 processors, and uses its teraflops to texture multi-sided polygons, it's really quite impressive. That's where the term 4D comes from. The cell's speed is rated at 120,000 HPC. The 7th Synergistic Processing Element (#007) in the Cell processor runs a process called RSX that is used for graphical effects.

Both have problems though. The 360 uses Shared RAM, and anyone who has ever built a PC knows that shared RAM is slower than dedicated. But the PS3 doesn't have a graphics card, using the Cell for everything, and developers don't know how to use the Cell very well, so 360 games always end up looking better.

I hope you learn from this, it's really quite fascinating the way this industry works.

Some people might spin stories about one system being better or worse than the other, just ignore them. Pay close attention to this post, I explained everything, don't listen to anyone else.
Click to expand...

Best post explaining the difference between PS3 and XBox 360.
In that case, I would get either one. I like both and both are good.
 
GFLPraxis said:
The XBox 360 has DirectX 10, as you all know, but it actually uses a special version that utilizes some features planned for DirectX 11 (known internally to Microsoft as DirectXXI ). That software has a special hardware function called Ebkac that enables real-time NURBS and raytracing through advanced box-modelling techniques. That's why 360 games look a little better; the software lets the 360 pixel-draw with much less CPU cost. Plus, the 360 has three 3 GHz G5 processors, it's like a PowerMac.

Meanwhile, the PS3 has its own advantages. See, the Cell processor can put out teraflops, it has 8 processors, and uses its teraflops to texture multi-sided polygons, it's really quite impressive. That's where the term 4D comes from. The cell's speed is rated at 120,000 HPC. The 7th Synergistic Processing Element (#007) in the Cell processor runs a process called RSX that is used for graphical effects.

Both have problems though. The 360 uses Shared RAM, and anyone who has ever built a PC knows that shared RAM is slower than dedicated. But the PS3 doesn't have a graphics card, using the Cell for everything, and developers don't know how to use the Cell very well, so 360 games always end up looking better.
Click to expand...

Very, very, VERY, perfect explanation. Great post!
 
If I remember right, the designs of both chips are based off the companys graphics card designs that they were working on at the time. Of course, they were enchanced and customized, but they used the basic design as the starting points.

PS3 - GeForce 7800/7900 Series

360 - Radeon X1800/X1900 Series

Both of these cards give pretty equivalent performance in games.
 
GFLPraxis said:
Waffles
Click to expand...

OMG! Wait! :D

You hit my NERD nerve with a few of your statements:
Plus, the 360 has three 3 GHz G5 processors, it's like a PowerMac.

Are you generalizing? The 360's proc is no more a G5 than the Wii's proc. If anything, it's a G5's retarded cousin.


the PS3 doesn't have a graphics card, using the Cell for everything
:eek:
Yes it does, its name is nVidia. :)

---

And I've always modeled in real-time with Nurbs under Maya, even when I was working on a GF2 Ultra on a PC, what am I missing? :)

<]=)
 
JackAxe said:
OMG! Wait! :D

"the PS3 doesn't have a graphics card, using the Cell for everything"
:eek:
Yes it does, its name is nVidia. :)
Click to expand...

Benjamindaines said:
The Cell is one processor, it has 7 (not 8, the 8th is disabled in manufacturing) synergistic processing elements. The Cell is completely different from everything else out there.
Click to expand...


OMG!! You do realise GFLPraxis post was meant to be humorous right ? :rolleyes: Sometimes I wonder if people have had a sense of humor bypass surgery :rolleyes::)
 
That's what i get for skimming and not reading. All I saw was 3 G5... :eek:

But you tend to roll your eyes a bit much, so I made this for you to use: :)
re_huge.gif


<]=)
 
GFLPraxis said:
But the PS3 doesn't have a graphics card, using the Cell for everything, and developers don't know how to use the Cell very well, so 360 games always end up looking better.
Click to expand...

Good post, particularly about the inbuilt particle accelerators. Take that, Cold Fusion Wii.

But always better? I hear the new Burnout looks slightly better on PS3, not that it matters.

I attribute this to the lack of phosphate inhibitor.
 
The games that are being released now are on par with their xbox360 brother or slightly better.
The developers are getting use to the cell and putting more time into it so the game looks and plays exactly the same....I don't think you'll see that more of an improvement from 3rd parties....only the 1st party developers will push each HW limits.


I tell you for the life of me I can't see a difference in 3rd party titles....its just me though cuz I don't give a ****



Bless
 
^ Yep exactly.... First party games will probably be the ones that push each hardware to the limits. Was the same last gen, so can't see any reason why it would be different with this.

:)
 
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