What is Digg?426 Comments
- RazorCrusade, on 10/10/2007, -73/+359Next week's headline: "Ubisoft AI Developer fired for incompetence."
- whatthefu, on 10/10/2007, -35/+202Yes, because your average Digger knows more in this case than a programmer working with the system.
- cool8man, on 10/10/2007, -23/+138The Assassin's Creed developer, Jade Raymond, said the same thing last year regarding Xbox 360 being better for A.I.
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Xbox_360_Version_of_Assassin_s_Creed_Will_Feature_Better_AI_Than_PS3 - guardianzero, on 10/10/2007, -85/+185*****. The AI in resistance was impressive, and that was a launch title.
Why doesn't he just say his company isn't good enough to program for the PS3. - TheMeatball, on 10/10/2007, -14/+100To all those who are calling the developers "lazy" and inept: Doesn't that just mean the 360 is easier to develop advanced AI on? Even the the PS3 has more potential, if it takes years to code, what's the use?
We've got a whole team of arm-chair programmers here. - spoiled1, on 10/10/2007, -42/+109Absolutely right.
A good AI can only go as far as much as programmers putting efforts in it. - HaMMeReD, on 10/10/2007, -19/+83That is not always true, ps3's strength lies in it's floating point ability and # crunching.
While 360 is a more well rounded generalized cpu for handling branching logic and such.
Traditional AI does not benefit from flops, it benefits from logical branching and such, which is something from what I understand does not actually suit the ps3 programming model well.
There are things that the ps3 could probably cream the 360 add, like bulk processing of image data, folding@home, etc. - BrainRecall, on 10/10/2007, -9/+60Here's the gory details why the Cell processor is NOT good for AI. (Note: I didn't say it can't do it, just that the Xbox360 could stomp it.)
First off, those 8 cores that everyone rants about are not what they think they are (actually, there can be only 7. Sony considers one dead core from manufacture acceptable). Those 8 SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) cores cannot handle branches in at all. What's a branch? If something, do something, otherwise, do something else. Branches consist an immense portion of modern game AI. To handle all of the complicated stuff the Cell must fall back on its single, actual, processing core. That core is essentially a stripped-down Power4, lacking both out-of-order execution AND branch prediction. OOE lets the process dynamically reschedule and issue instructions to prevent stalls. Branch prediction is a far more important feature for AI; it allows the processor to take an educated guess on which way a branch will go, and begin executing for that path. If it guesses wrong, it flushes the pipeline and begins again without loosing much time. If it was right, it could be several instructions ahead.
Branch prediction is a prime feature for CPU performance that has been included in most modern desktop processors for near the last decade. Taking it out really reduced the performance of an otherwise crippled CPU.
Fact is, the Cell was never intended for this kind of workload. Sony originally intended this monster to be both the CPU and GPU, where the SIMD units acting as a rudimentary GPU. Later on when they caught wind on how much power they really needed, they decided to generalize the SIMD units, and strap on a traditional GPU unit.
But, hey, what do I know, right? I’m just a computer engineer who spent a whole year going over advanced processor architecture, what possibly could I know against the average Digger? - CReyes4182, on 10/10/2007, -51/+95The AI in Motorstorm was relentless when you set it to the highest difficulty. Not only that but the drivers drive differently on every race. The AI in Resistance is insanely good as well. This is BS it should be more like "We don't know how to program AI properly for the PS3." I also think this is very reckless of them. If they say that the ps3 isn't good for AI what are we suppose to think of Haze? Does that mean that the AI in Haze is **** as well? Way to shoot yourself in the foot Ubisoft.
- Rioracer916, on 10/10/2007, -6/+49I agree. It doesn't even matter anymore if the A.I. claims are theoretically untrue. In practice developers are having a hard time. That's more Sony's problem than the developers. They choose an unorthodox architecture, they need to provide means for developers to fully utilize it.
But the Sony apaologists come out of the woodwork anyway trying to defend this anyway. Nice try guys, the professionals opinions carry much more weight than fanboys, regardless of what you may think of them. - puddpunk, on 10/10/2007, -4/+42Actually, he's pretty close dude.
"The Cell has only one PPE to the Xenon's three, which means that developers will have to cram all their game control, AI, and physics code into at most two threads that are sharing a very narrow execution core with no instruction window. (Don't bother suggesting that the PS3 can use its SPEs for branch-intensive code, because the SPEs lack branch prediction entirely.) Furthermore, the PS3's L2 is only 512K, which is half the size of the Xenon's L2. So the PS3 doesn't get much help with branches in the cache department."
Source: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars/7
Branch prediction is a _huge_ part of AI programming as AI is normally absolutely riddled with if/elses.
Nice flame, though. - username9000, on 10/10/2007, -12/+49It was the opposite. The dev. said that crowd AI was better and more fully realized on the 360.
- Nobi-Wan, on 10/10/2007, -26/+62Dude, the AI in Resistance was not that impressive.
- kaelyiesta, on 10/10/2007, -5/+36chess AI does not require the same demands as real time game AI does. That comparison isn't very good at all.
- lacronicus, on 10/10/2007, -6/+37and good AI is also limited by the processing power the programmer has to work with.
optimization isn't some magical tool that can make something run on less powerful. even the greatest developer in the world couldnt put assasin's creed on a super nintendo, its just not gonna happen. sometimes its actually not a matter of how much work a dev puts into it, but a matter of the hardware they have to work with. on that note, however, i think assasin's creed does some very similar things to this new splinter cell, so i dont know which way to go with this. the ps3 may very well not be capable enough, but on the other hand, he may well just not like the ps3. - gweedo767, on 10/10/2007, -2/+31Okay, I am not defending this persons statement since I haven't had the pleasure of developing for either platform, but lets look at this logically. The PS3's SPU simply aren't targeted at AI operations. AI isn't something that lends to matrix math (what the SPU's excel at) and are highly branching causing tons of pipeline flushes as changes occur. Since the PS3 can only really rely on the single PowerPC core for that kind of operation, it makes sense that a system with 3 general purpose cores would be better suited to that.
Hope that helps. - username9000, on 10/10/2007, -12/+40I'd suspect that with pretty much every single 3rd party developer saying that the PS3 is not as good to program for says more than some PS3 fanboy.
- spucky, on 10/10/2007, -5/+28A lot of simple AI is if/then/else type stuff, but the real learning stuff such as neural nets are more like non-linear filters and the Cell is an absolute monster at this kind of stuff.
The Cell does have one PowerPC where all the heavy branching stuff should be, but the SPUs can offload the heavy computation. Each of the 7 SPUs can do 4 floating point computations in parallel and each of them has 2 instruction lanes so if the instructions are ordered right, they can issue 2 instructions at a time.
Also, the SPUs have "hand" branch prediction - you have to add the prediction by hand and if you predict correctly there is no penalty for the branch. Many times it is easy to predict the correct branch such as in loops where you always predict backwards and the only time it fails is the one time the loop exits.
The only thing I can find wrong with the Cell is that I have heard about slow memory read throughput (which really sucks if true), but I have yet to experience it. (Well, that and I think the SPEs local stores are too small.) - taxman, on 10/10/2007, -10/+33Yeah,the AI in a FPS is so much similar to the AI in an unscripted action game like this one.Taking off the Sony goggles sometimes helps to think logically.
Maybe this team does not have proper knowledge of the PS3 architecture but there hasn't been a single 3rd party developer that has said that the PS3 is outrightly much better than the 360. And companies like Ubisoft,EA can rarely afford to pick sides in the console war and these guys are not pawns of either company and each iteration of splinter cell sells atleast a million copies,so the team does have the necessary pedigree .So when they say something like this Sony better take notice. - briansearles, on 10/10/2007, -1/+23Not sure where you come from, but around these parts people normally don't make sequels to things that sell like *****.
- username9000, on 10/10/2007, -6/+27http://www.gamewad.com/assassin-s-creed-ai-better-on-xbox-360-1818-p.html
- Ignignokt01, on 10/10/2007, -6/+27Digg users love to tell themselves they know more about video game programming from just playing games than the actual developers themselves. You'll get buried, by fanboys.
- v0yeur, on 10/10/2007, -9/+28so where does the Wii stand? this is more like "it's not something we're used to, so we'll just say it's worse"
that dev should watch the MGS4 demo - elvenseven, on 10/10/2007, -4/+22Thats because it's ported and it's EA.
- grat2001, on 10/10/2007, -13/+31Let's see, the PS3 is outstanding at protein folding, but not good enough for video game AI????
- username9000, on 10/10/2007, -11/+28Other studios, like EA are having issues with other aspects. Look at Madden. Its plays 60FPS on the 360, 30FPS on the PS3.
- Firehed, on 10/10/2007, -4/+20Have you never played Splinter Cell? Gameplay is completely ruined if AI isn't perfect. It's nothing like ducking for cover when under fire. It's guards thinking they glimpsed something in the shadows or might have heard a shoe squeek, investigating, starting their search, calling in other guards, etc. Hell, they'll hold back from investigating an area if they think it might be a trap.
Whether this truly is an issue for the PS3, I can't say. But don't think for a moment that the quality of the AI in even the best FPS is going to be remotely similar to any game in the genre of Splinter Cell. When you're in a firefight, there are only so many things you'll do, and attention to detail is hardly ultra-critical. Even the original, which came out quite a few years ago, has more realistic AI than any FPS game I've played - and I've certainly played my share. - jacksons98, on 10/10/2007, -10/+25Haze coming out around the holidays by Ubisoft is PS3 exclusive.
- scabbers, on 10/10/2007, -1/+16
The lectures provide an introduction to parallel programming and parallel architectures. The recitations echo some of the lectures in a Cell specific context, and offer in depth programming examples, exercises, and labs.
http://cag.csail.mit.edu/ps3/lectures.shtml - archimago42, on 10/10/2007, -5/+19Well, I once read about other people talking about their friends programming AI so, I'm pretty sure I could do the AI on the PS3. Listen to the developers! There are two separate programmers (one linked in a comment) right here saying the Xbox 360 does AI better. Perhaps the system is underselling for a reason? Sony is not God, they can fail as well.
Lord knows Microsoft screwed up their hardware, is it really so hard to believe Sony's chip architecture is crap for AI? Looks like both companies tried to get in over their heads. - Spikeli27, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14this guy definitly sounds like he knows something
- TheNik, on 10/10/2007, -3/+16Different mathematics, broham. Protein folding is pretty straightforward, whereas AI has to constantly and consistently adapt.
- jdaniel284, on 10/10/2007, -31/+44Translation: I don't really understand the cell programming paradigm very well.
"Ubisoft can't do good grammar". - puddpunk, on 10/10/2007, -4/+17"The Cell does have one PowerPC where all the heavy branching stuff should be, but the SPUs can offload the heavy computation. Each of the 7 SPUs can do 4 floating point computations in parallel and each of them has 2 instruction lanes so if the instructions are ordered right, they can issue 2 instructions at a time."
That's actually pretty awesome... The Cell seems to provide the clay to make some amazing achievements happen. I guess all we need is more time/experience on it to get some best practices and abstract out all the picky difficult stuff into a decent SDK. - terminal157, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14I helped design the comment architecture for Digg so I know the intricate details of internet *****. And I must say I find your comment amusing....
Incidentally, *kills self for having part in the design of Digg's comment system* - felman87, on 10/10/2007, -5/+16If he's having trouble with AI, they should ask Ninja Theory for some help ^^
- chaosdude78, on 10/10/2007, -4/+15It is at best a timed exclusive, it is also coming out for 360 and I believe PC.
- 68024, on 10/10/2007, -5/+16Exactly... imagine Commodore 64 programmers would've thought like this! We would be nowhere today.
- guruboyguru, on 10/10/2007, -6/+17Even someone who doesn't know anything knows you don't know what you're talking about.
- yournamehere, on 10/10/2007, -9/+19don't forget BluRay is more popular. Of course that's because there aren't many things to play on the PS3 so you might as well play movies instead
- Tserk, on 10/10/2007, -6/+16Yeah, because XIII was such a good game.
- natenovs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10you shouldn't need to write in asm to write a game. thats what abstraction layers and dev tools are for. if this is the case, and ubi soft really needs to write some inline asm into their games, then sony really screwed over developers.
- EBFoxbat, on 10/10/2007, -6/+16There's no intelligence in chess for a computer. That's strictly computational and no reactive.
- lordtyros, on 10/10/2007, -3/+13I like when people learn just enough programming to prove their idiocy.
- darkbob87, on 10/10/2007, -19/+29This isnt really that new. A lot of developers have been saying they hate writing games for the PS3 for a multitude of reasons.
- grumbel, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12One with a degree in computer science.
- kflasch, on 10/10/2007, -5/+15I hate to break it to you, but AI *anywhere* is computational. It is the foundation. There's no way around it.
I would argue chess AI is reactive as well, as it reacts to a player's moves. It certainly doesn't do it in the same time domain, though. - Kuabarra, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10For idiots who know nothing of processors, read this: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars/7
Here is a sample for those 2 lazy.
At any rate, Playstation 3 fanboys shouldn't get all flush over the idea that the Xenon will struggle on non-graphics code. However bad off Xenon will be in that department, the PS3's Cell will probably be worse. The Cell has only one PPE to the Xenon's three, which means that developers will have to cram all their game control, AI, and physics code into at most two threads that are sharing a very narrow execution core with no instruction window. (Don't bother suggesting that the PS3 can use its SPEs for branch-intensive code, because the SPEs lack branch prediction entirely.) Furthermore, the PS3's L2 is only 512K, which is half the size of the Xenon's L2. So the PS3 doesn't get much help with branches in the cache department. In short, the PS3 may fare a bit worse than the Xenon on non-graphics code, but on the upside it will probably fare a bit better on graphics code because of the seven SPEs. - taxman, on 10/10/2007, -5/+14Hey,atleast the 360 has games that are worth playing for 5 minutes.....
Thank you,Thank you
I'll be here all evening - mturn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8here's what carmack really has to say: http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=93630
and since carmack > all other programmers, he must know what he is talking about, no?
fraking fanboys, don't even know the difference between compiling and porting, yet they think that they know more about ps3 architecture than professional game developers. unbelievable. -
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