joystiq.com — "We pushed the 360 to the limits," Gears of War QA manager Preston Thorne said. So does that mean PlayStation 3 couldn't handle the game? When asked, Preston skillfully dodged the question, but implied the answer was "no."
Oct 26, 2006 View in Crawl 4
drxymOct 27, 2006
Every console gets better with time. It's not just that people get to understand more about it, but also the tools, libraries and the SDK get better too. Every software house makes heavy use of 3rd party engines for games, physics, menus, graphics etc. So once these improve then so do the games that rely on them.The XBox 360 has a fairly conventional processor, but has 3 cores. Once you spawn off music, physics etc. onto separate cores, things get faster than single threaded. I expect the many of the first generation of libs & games played it safe and used a single core and didn't do much with the others. As developers get better they'll start to farm off significant chunks onto other cores and the result is they can do far more in the same amount of time.The PS3 and Wii will go through the same process. The PS3 also has less general computing power than a 360 but it has 6 SPEs for in-game use. An SPE is basically a DSP and capable of brutal floating point performance. The single general purpose PPE is meant to act like a conductor and has to keep feeding the six SPEs with things to do. The whole concept will weird-out programmers at first and they might rely too much on the general purpose PPE. But once they get heads around it the PS3 will scream. The danger is that many titles, especially ports may not bother and there will be occasions where the PS3 game looks worse than the 360. Again, better 3rd party libs might help here.The problem for the Wii is that is has nowhere near the performance of either the 360 or the PS3. It has a single 750Mhz PPC core which is closer in performance to the XBox or Gamecube than the other next-gen consoles. Memory is much lower too. The disparity is so great that I think it far more likely that titles will be ported up from the current generation of consoles than down from the 360 / PS3. Paradoxically that might mean the Wii is easier to work with than the other two consoles since it's a known quantity. However the challenge is to maintain the momentum when titles dry up for the current generation of consoles and the Wii finds itself on its own and facing two far more powerful rivals.
mredamonOct 27, 2006
the thing few people seem to remember is that regardless of who takes the larger market share, none of the big 3 systems are going anywhere. they are all here to stay and that GREAT for us gamers. I'm sure one may have the advantage on the other two in raw computing power but that is irrelavant. higher pixel/polygon count does not always mean a better game. it seems with some of these games that the more realistic it gets, the less i am able to believe it. for instance - oblivion - what AMAZING visuals and what a great game but the facial graphics were creepy... a constant reminder of : THIS IS JUST A VIDEO GAME. i found it easier to immerse myself in a more consistent world like zelda. In the end, the computing power is a tool to get the job done but it does guarantee a good game, which face it, in the end even fanboys have to admit is what it is all about.
jm9206755Oct 27, 2006
Just because those formats were not particularly successful in consumer retail doesn't mean they were unsuccessful overall. Most of those formats were very popular and widely used in multimedia industries.
moguaOct 30, 2006
they are NOT made on the same equipment. Stop saying they cost the same because they require about the same amount of raw material.You are saying something along the lines of "Toyota assembly plants can pump out BMWs."My point is that since DVD plants can readily produce HD DVDs with minimal upgrade, HD DVDs have an advantage. On the other hand, if you wanted to start making made-from-corn-BRs, you have to start a new plant from scratch (and that takes a lot of investment)
distrbnceNov 4, 2006
MOGua, you would be very happy with 256MB of XDR RAM in your machine. Running at 3.2GHz instead of 700MHz.
distrbnceNov 4, 2006
Another one of Sony's formats also enjoyed a modest success. the Compact Disc.
djboogieDec 7, 2006
Best reply on the thread!!!well done!thats exactly whats happenedall technology can be pushed furtherlets go back to the megadrive/genesis daysit was claimed that the genesis could NOT achieve mode 7 type sprite rotation like seen by the SNES on streetfighter 2, yet they used various tricks and achieved itwith mutiple cores and so much memory available on consoles now, much can be achieved.Look (graphically and technically) at halo 1, chronicles of riddick, and splinter cell chaos theory on the original xbox and it answers the questionin 100% agreement with you.the difficulty for thw PS3 is getting to grips with the technology...........for different reasons yet similar circumstances, it was the sega saturns downfall
djboogieDec 7, 2006
actually sony cant take credit for the CDit was a joint venture with philips (who have the glory of the biggest part of mainstrean retail technical inventions over the past few decades)
djboogieDec 7, 2006
I wondered how long the PC fanboys were going to be before complaining about console memoryyou have to remember, a console is built for ONE purpose, a PC is built to multitask through an operating system.As we say in England, the proof is in the puddingtell me how many games look and run as well on a PC, such as Splinter Cell chaos theory (original xbox) that have a 700mhz pc, limited memory, nvidea 5.1 (or equivalent)it cant be compared, and its really a silly argument.More often than not, programmwers have more direct control over the architecture of a console, which was the case with the original xbox, and they continued that to the XBOX 360, Whilst in theory the Sony PS3 has MUCH to offer, because of the lifespan and competition of consoles, it may be asking too much too soon of the game programmers.If they keep releasing games like resistance, which is getting very good press, however, may tie it over til the really awesome stuff comes out.Having said that........I still love my 360:-)
djboogieDec 7, 2006
Mediaphile, if you want to be really critical and use the PROPER Engish language. Its actually called a "full stop" not a period.
tona107Apr 13, 2010
Digggg man Epic really does make the best game engines.
tona107Apr 13, 2010
Graphics are essential to playability but after a certain point it is overkill. The only people that care about the graphics are casual gamers (non-gamers) that want to look at a pretty screen for a couple hours, and geeks who just care about pixel shading etc. The people who care about gameplay are the true gamers. Load up your N64 if you don't believe me and throw on some Goldeneye. I swear when that game came out the graphics were mindblowing (which they obviously aren't), but it was the awesome gameplay that had me amused for hours.Anyways, in my opinion, graphics to games as boobs are to girls; the nicer the better, but not necessary for essential gameplay. I never played Gears for the graphics, the awesome high speed gameplay of Gears 1 were enough to draw me in, but the graphics were nice to look at I guess.