Looking for numbers

jdhdiggs

Did a brief search but I couldn't find what I was looking for. Anyone have a comparison of the processing power of the 360 vs PS3 and the fill rates or something similar?

Shizelbs

http://effectu.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=248&Itemid=1

I went to google, searched for '360 ps3 comparison chart'

Shizelbs

FWIW, the chart is a little dated, but it should get you started.

BIZILL

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=758390&highlight=cell+processor

16 pages. read away...

cheddar

I found the following piece very informative. He explains not just the raw numbers but also the advantages to each system's design characteristics. It goes much further than marketing hype.

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1

Edit: Well, maybe a little 360 bias if you read some of the comments on the article. But still very informative.

jdhdiggs

Yeah Shelby, I did that search and everything I found was biased and run before the PS3 was out (or sometimes before the 360 was released)

Thanks for the help.

jdhdiggs

Ok, it looks like the 360 is the better machine all the way around except for something developed specifically for the PS3.

From my reading it looks like the PS3 is a blue ray player that can play games and not a next gen game machine on par with 360. Is that a fair assumption? (Looking at you chedder)

lanion

jdhdiggs wrote:

Ok, it looks like the 360 is the better machine all the way around except for something developed specifically for the PS3.

From my reading it looks like the PS3 is a blue ray player that can play games and not a next gen game machine on par with 360. Is that a fair assumption? (Looking at you chedder)

No, not a fair assumption.

PS3 has more processing power, Xbox 360 has more graphics memory, it all pretty much evens out -- especially when you consider that third party exclusive games are starting to die out. Xbox 360 is now getting Virtua Fighter, Ace Combat, and Devil May Cry... in the same light. PS3 is now getting Ninja Gaiden. These games will probobly look about the same on both systems, since middleware (like the Unreal 3 engine) is becomming more and more popular. On 1st part exclusives like Halo 3, White Knight story, Killzone 2, only time will tell which one is prettier.

cheddar

jdhdiggs wrote:

Ok, it looks like the 360 is the better machine all the way around except for something developed specifically for the PS3.

From my reading it looks like the PS3 is a blue ray player that can play games and not a next gen game machine on par with 360. Is that a fair assumption? (Looking at you chedder)

Nice way to draw me into a discussion of 360 vs. ps3. You actually made a very sweeping statement that the ps3 is not a next gen console. I think it's more accurate to say that the wii is not a next gen console (graphicswise) on par with the 360 and the ps3. It just has a rather creative control system. But the ps3 and 360 are definitely "on par" if you compare them to any other console available. They even port games to each other. So I'm not sure what you mean about not being on par since they are nearly equivalent in terms of overall game capabilities.

This is how I see the differences:

1. 360 has a superior graphics chip. Some nice architechture like those 48 unified pipelines. But how much better? Certainly not next and last generation different. The nvidia chip that the rsx is based on is no slouch. Both chips are quite accurately called next generation for consoles (but not next generation for pcs). Certainly much more alike each other than a machine like the wii.

2. 360 has stripped down powerPC cores that make it less powerful than the latest PCs but really good as far as consoles go. Still it's gonna have limitations that programmers have to program around. But that's what they get the big bucks for.

3. Games like Gears are absolutely outstanding. But they have rather short campaigns. Same with Halo 2. Will Halo 3 have a short campaign as well? Could this have something to do with the limits of the xbox's dvd drive? Maybe. Or maybe it just costs too much to develop a game that's longer for the number of consoles out there now (around 10 million). Programmers can find ways around space limitations on the disk, but then again, it's a strain on developers time just like programming for the cell.

4. The cell processor has some limitations because of memory and some advantages in having more "cores" ultimately to program tasks to (still a powerPC design). This takes some real effort by game developers to maximize for. But the potential is there for developers to tap. Doesn't mean that the ps3 has some sort of automatic edge over the 360, just that it also is a very capable machine if developers can tap the potential.

Now the biggest thing you haven't considered is that no game and no developer has used either machine to its theoretical maximum. This isn't possible for one thing as both machines have inflated stats. But more than that, it would cost just too much money to even approach the realistic maximums of each machine with a game as companies have to look at developer time vs. expected profits. So all games out for both consoles at the present time are far below maxing out either machine.

Yet they're still both giving us great next gen games. For FPS fans, Gears is just a great game. And for racing fans, the gameplay and graphics of motorstorm are stellar.

To move beyond these current titles will require something that neither machine has reached yet, and that is the level of the installed base of the ps2. It's pretty widely acknowldged that the ps2 rather than the xbox has more developers willing to put up the enormous costs to put out a quality game (just look at how much time is being spent developing halo 3 and ps3 killzone). And this was with an installed base for the xbox of 30 million with the ps2 at over 100 million. So my rough guess is that developers would need an installed base of 50-100 million to justify some of the more difficult games that would really push the envelope on either machine.

So your "fair assumption" is an oversimplification of small differences in practical game maximums. They can only be tested by a much larger installed base for developers to really bet the farm on truly envelope pushing games anyways.

For the time being, both consoles are true next generation consoles with a lot of untapped potential left. Why so concerned with some overblown statistical differences? Just play the games you like. And for some of us, we'll watch high def movies too. Having both, I can tell you it's all good. I enjoy both machines with more time spent gaming on the 360 just 'cause it's got a bigger library at the moment.

avelanchefan

Just an FYI...the Wii is basically the GameCube with new controllers. There really is no difference between the two.

Oh yeah, and Tiger Wood on the Wii is fantastic.

As for which system is better...well I could not really care. I personally love the 360 due to it's Live functionality. I know the PS3 has it for free, but it is no where near what M$ has done with Live.

I am sure in the future I will get a Ps3, but there are no exclusive titles that really justify the 600 dollar purchase, and personally I am not interested in HDDVD or BlueRay.

jdhdiggs

Naw Chedder, I just knew that you probably had the most up to date info. From what I read and understand, unless a developer goes to extreme lengths to optimize everything exactly for the PS3, then it will likely perform better on the 360, which seems odd due to the release timing. I just wanted to see what info (on the performance side) I was missing and obviously there wasn't any.

Going into this I wanted to see how much superior the PS3 was so I do find the results a bit shocking to find out that, other than being the only one with solid next gen DVD capabilities and HDD, it's not superior in almost every other measurable way.

As for short games, I doubt they are out of space, but rather, as you said, out of money for development. Also, with the advent of true online play with these devices, I would expect more and more games to only hold graphic libraries and rule sets on the disk and levels for the download. The PS3 wouldn't have to go this route but could.

cheddar

Interesting you're still hung up on small differences on overblown specs for both machines. Most of the info you're looking through including the link I gave are heavily influenced by fanboys on both sides. I wouldn't just make sweeping statements based on those sites. Once you get past the marketing numbers and look at real world applications, your conclusion that the 360 is superior in every way is just completely inaccurate.

You are very correct that the ps3 is also a high end AV device with the latest available tech on the blu-ray side (HDMI 1.3, TRUE HD decoding, etc.). The delay in release of the ps3 was primarily for the blu-ray innards as the GPU was already decided on over a year ago (Remember the first release date?). So it shouldn't be any surprise that the GPUs in the two machines are roughly equivalent. The gaming specs were pretty much done less than a year apart. However, although the PQ in the 360 with HD-DVD is excellent, it is obvious from the poor AQ that the present 360 will never be a high end high def player. Maybe there's still hope for the higher priced 360 Elite?

As an example of how real world applications move beyond the fanboy arguing on these stats (which you now seem to want to take part in...) just look at how Stanford University is using the ps3:

http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-PS3.html

The processing power is just amazing:

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/news/?id=15582

To sum up:

14,100 active ps3 users are creating 346 trillion floating point operations per second which is more than double that provided by 160,000 pc users. I'm sure Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and cancer suffers are happy there's one console around with that kind of computing power. Or maybe you'd rather just pull them all out and stick in those stripped down powerPCs in your 360.

Maybe we should ask Stanford if they should switch them out because you think you've found the vastly superior machine?

Well Stanford?

* the sound of crickets *

jdhdiggs

Obviously you don't understand programming or something... If you took a Cray supercomputer and tried to play doom 3 on it, it would suck. If you were to play it on a 360 or PS3 it would do well. Now if you wanted to do a simulation of a nuclear explosion, it would do really well on the Cray, ok on the PS3 and suck nards on the 360. BTW, the Stanford item? The tense is future looking and uses Sony's bogus numbers but the other piece is cool, and since they are looking for all the computing power they can, they really don't care what does it. PC's are easy because of CPU designs allow them to do everything kind of well. The PS3 is good because it kicks **** on FP math. The 360 would be more difficult as it doesn't have the dedicated ideal design of the PS3 or the flexibility of the PC.

But remember:

These are game machines FIRST, why the hell would I buy it because Stanford is using some of them for molecular modeling? What the hell does that have to do with GAMING? (presumably the reason one would buy it)

The 360 looks to have all the advantages in a real world GAMING environmet where the PS3 is very good at streaming repetitive data (such as HD video, weather forecasting, etc...). All the advantages you point out have nothing to do with the primary reason one might buy a gaming system.

cheddar

Actually floating point calculations are at the heart of processing capabilities for games in such things as game AI and such. Saying it's irrelevant shows you are obviously biased and intent on picking a fight to bash Sony which is what I expected.

Why the hell would I buy a gaming machine based on bloated marketing specs and fanboy spin on the websites you've been looking at? The core advantage for Stanford is the basic number crunching capabilities (floating point calculations) that ALL processors must excel in to be useful for ANYTHING. So you saying that it has nothing to do with gaming shows your ignorance not mine.

In anycase, I certainly wouldn't buy a system or a game based on just the Stanford site alone. The only thing that matters is what avalanchefan mentioned which are the actual games and gaming environment. That's why the wii which can't approach any of the 'statistics' you're looking for can still have kickass games.

Just wait until next fall when (hopefully) we'll have games like halo 3 and killzone to compare actual gameplay with. For me, I'm not really interested in fanboy statistical spin contests like this that say nothing about actual gameplay. Compare two games that had different development times as a case in point, Oblivion. It is common knowledge that Oblivion graphics work better on the ps3 than on the 360. But this isn't a function of your bloated marketing numbers. Instead, it's just that developers of Oblivion kept working on the engine and those advances showed up in the ps3 'cause it was released later.

For my money, I don't really care which machine has such and such stats that you can spin in such and such a way. I'm going to get both Halo 3 and Killzone and just enjoy the hell out of both systems. .

powerlord

Did any of you guys see the msnbc report on the new super 360?There wasn't a word said about a war with Sony,just over the new huge hard drive and HDMI plug,and competing with Imac.It was on at noon today.

cheddar

powerlord wrote:

Did any of you guys see the msnbc report on the new super 360?There wasn't a word said about a war with Sony,just over the new huge hard drive and HDMI plug,and competing with Imac.It was on at noon today.

I actually posted a link to the rumored specs on this thing awhile back. The good news is that it has a larger hard drive in line with MS wanting people to download movies and stuff off Live and they've finally made it HDMI capable. The bad news is that it's 80 bucks more than the current premium model. It doesn't have wi-fi or an HD-DVD drive for the increase in price, and to upgrade the little 20GB one that most of us have to the new one will cost $179. That's about a hundred bucks premium over the internet price of generic drives which the ps3 accepts.

Not surprised the Microsoft network praised a Microsoft product, though.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5040&Itemid=2

krabby5

cheddar wrote:

I actually posted a link to the rumored specs on this thing awhile back. The good news is that it has a larger hard drive in line with MS wanting people to download movies and stuff off Live and they've finally made it HDMI capable. The bad news is that it's 80 bucks more than the current premium model. It doesn't have wi-fi or an HD-DVD drive for the increase in price, and to upgrade the little 20GB one that most of us have to the new one will cost $179. That's about a hundred bucks premium over the internet price of generic drives which the ps3 accepts.

Not surprised the Microsoft network praised a Microsoft product, though.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5040&Itemid=2

i figured this rumor was coming true eventually...but to price the 120 gb at $180 is a joke...current premium owners will not like this one..

cheddar

Yep,

$80 bucks and you have a drop in 120GB replacement for a ps3 that installs with a screwdriver and doesn't void your warranty.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101230-2&prodlist=froogle

Microsoft is taking a big cut off premium upgraders...