[romiced]

http://1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3142404

As it turns out, the Beta kits look able to achieve solid results, but it's doubtful they will provide the instant visual leap many players were hoping for. We tested both Full Auto and Condemned, and they featured roughly the same amount of visual detail as was in the E3 versions, but both games had problems keeping a smooth framerate. It's obvious this is due to the Beta kits only having been around for three weeks and not poor programming -- the Full Auto team expects their framerate to be back where it was at E3 time in just one week from now -- but it shows that the Beta kits are not the immediate miracle that some fans were hoping for. Developers will not be able to port over existing code and see it magically look better.

[dukmahsik]

Originally Posted by romiced

http://1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3142404

you dont say!

[jvd]

whats the point of the article . Developers still have to program to take advantage of th enew features , the extra cpu threads , the sm3.0 features that the x800 cards didn't have and a ton of other stuff .

You don't automaticly get a visual increase

[Farid]

dukmahsik, your comment was not exactly useful, I hope you know that.

While I agree that the 1up article is clearly only stating the obvious.
I have to say that if you want, absolutely, comment on the issue then substanciate your reply, a little. At leat a complete sentence, you know.

[ralexand]

Might as well post the gamespot article on Need for Speed here. They played a beta build of it:

The most encouraging thing about the demo we saw was that it seemed to be running more smoothly than it was at E3, and whether that fact owes more to EA's development prowess or Microsoft's tightening of the 360's hardware, it's nice to see things are coming together for the system's launch,

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/driv...w_6129910.html

[dukmahsik]

Originally Posted by Vysez

dukmahsik, your comment was not exactly useful, I hope you know that.

While I agree that the 1up article is clearly only stating the obvious.
I have to say that if you want, absolutely, comment on the issue then substanciate your reply, a little. At leat a complete sentence, you know.

I didn't know B3d forums required use of complete sentences but I will try from now on.

[mckmas8808]

Well I can say this. F the BS no more excuses at TGS. It's time to put up or shutup. Well actually its after the console comes out but you know what I mean.

At all times before the release they must show put up at TGS. I don't wan to hear complaints and "oh the Beta also sucks too". There better be some impressive stuff coming from them.

[Farid]

Originally Posted by mckmas8808

Well I can say this. F the BS no more excuses at TGS. It's time to put up or shutup.

MS chose to go down the software way for their Devkits. The problem is that it's really hard to push the envelope on a platform when the hardware is not complete.

MS goal is to get the games ready for the launch, not for E3, not for TGS, not for X05.

Originally Posted by mckmas8808

At all times before the release they must show put up at TGS. I don't wan to hear complaints and "oh the Beta also sucks too". There better be some impressive stuff coming from them.

MS is not developing every X360 games, you know.

[scooby_dooby]

gamespot disagrees:

RE: Full Auto
"It's also worth noting that the game was being shown on a beta version of the Xbox 360 hardware rather than one of the alpha development kits seen at E3, and we're pleased to report that the improvement in its performance was quite noticeable. With that said, there were still occasions when the frame rate couldn't keep up with all of the on-screen carnage, but Sega and Pseudo Interactive still have plenty of time to address that."

Isn't this just common sense MckMas? The Alpha kits had 1/2 the power of the GPU(according to ATI), do you really think the final system with a GPU twice as powerful won't look much much better? Seriously man...

[mckmas8808]

MS is not developing every X360 games, you know.

Well I know that I'm just saying. When I said MS, I really meant any game coming on the platform. So I should have clarified that early. My bad.

Why's that? Do MS owe you, personally, anything?

MS chose to go down the software way for their Devkits. The problem is that it's really hard to push the envelope on a platform when the hardware is not complete.

MS goal is to get the games ready for the launch, not for E3, not for TGS, not for X05.

You're right that don't that's why I typed this.

Originally Posted by mckmas8808

Well actually its after the console comes out but you know what I mean.

I was saying just for hypes sakes. The launch is what really matters. But for hypes they should prepare BIG for TGS, because they now know Sony will. And its their own turf, my god.

Get your game strong MS because Sony is in their own country this time.

[Almasy]

Originally Posted by jvd

whats the point of the article . Developers still have to program to take advantage of th enew features , the extra cpu threads , the sm3.0 features that the x800 cards didn't have and a ton of other stuff .

You don't automaticly get a visual increase

Obviously the developers need to do several changes, but at least I was expecting a solid framerate increase at the very least (like when you upgrade your PC GPU).

I´ve always thought MS´s "30%" was a petty excuse, but so far it doesn´t seem like it´s true.

[BTOA]

Originally Posted by scooby_dooby

gamespot disagrees:

RE: Full Auto
"It's also worth noting that the game was being shown on a beta version of the Xbox 360 hardware rather than one of the alpha development kits seen at E3, and we're pleased to report that the improvement in its performance was quite noticeable. With that said, there were still occasions when the frame rate couldn't keep up with all of the on-screen carnage, but Sega and Pseudo Interactive still have plenty of time to address that."

Alpha vs Beta

[jvd]

Why ? the game isn't optimized. WE don't know whats in the beta kits . Whats the ram speed ? whats the cpu speed , whats the gpu speed ?

If the ram is only 500mhz there will be a huge diffrence with 700mhz ram . IF the cpu is only 2.8 ghz there will be a huge diffrence at 3.2 that is 400mh on 3 diffrent cores .

[PG2G]

Well, I'd assume it depends on how the code was written. If they didn't treat the CPU in the alpha kits like an in order processor and write the code accordingly (Condemned is a PC game, isn't it?) I wouldn't be suprised if there wasn't a great deal of immediate performance gain.

[Dave Baumann]

If they haven't properly threaded things yet either, I wouldn't be surprised to see performance losses initially.

[msia2k75]

The demo that ran at the summit was based on the alpha or beta kits?

[pso]

Originally Posted by msia2k75

The demo that ran at the summit was based on the alpha or beta kits?

I think beta kits, not to sure though.

[scooby_dooby]

If you read that NDA tech doc that got PM'ed out a while back, it was pretty clear that the Beta was actually weaker in certain things, and they made specific reference to using advanced cache management and mutli-threading in order to get improved performance.

they had a bunch of features all in columns, comparing alpha to beta with with checkmarks for worse, better, same etc, the majority of things were either better or far better, but there were some that were worse.

damn i wished i'd saved that to my HD...

[Rockster]

I think once Sony shows actual games running on the PS3, reality will start to better balance out the current perception, and 360 games will appear better as a result.

[SanGreal]

I don't think so. I think most 360 games look exactly like you would expect a game designed to run on dual G5s with an x800 to look like and they aren't going to suddenly look better in 3 months. I don't know why this is the case as developers have certainly had the real specs for a long time to target, but I expect first-gen PS3 games to be more representitive of the PS3's potential than first-gen 360 games.

If you look at the realtime PS3 stuff we've seen they've mostly all been running off just the PPE and GPU a combination most certainly outclassed by the 360 yet 360 developers haven't been able to show equally impressive work (with the exception of a few games).

[croc hunter2]

I would have thought that the assets at this stage of development (for launch games) would have been pretty much finalised. And these assets should have been aimed at the final hw spec not the alpha or beta kit spec.

Things that should improve - the framerate, lighting, AI and possibly IQ but not the art to any great extent.

[chachi]

Originally Posted by croc hunter2

I would have thought that the assets at this stage of development (for launch games) would have been pretty much finalised. And these assets should have been aimed at the final hw spec not the alpha or beta kit spec.

Things that should improve - the framerate, lighting, AI and possibly IQ but not the art to any great extent.

You can't target some hardware abstract when you're showing the game on different hardware unless you do what Sony did and render scenes out frame by frame and then stitch them together to create a trailer and just show movies.

Now that developers have actual hardware (or a better approximation anyway) they can adjust model poly counts, lighting, and scene complexity for the actual GPU and start optimizing code for the processor it has to run on.

[BTOA]

Originally Posted by chachi

You can't target some hardware abstract when you're showing the game on different hardware unless you do what Sony did and render scenes out frame by frame and then stitch them together to create a trailer and just show movies.

Now that developers have actual hardware (or a better approximation anyway) they can adjust model poly counts, lighting, and scene complexity for the actual GPU and start optimizing code for the processor it has to run on.

Sony and the PS3 developers are showing us what next gen should and will look like. How is that so wrong of them to target such quality exactly?

btw, Sony's development kit actually has hardware that are similar to what will be in the final hardware, while MS's are a hit and miss.

[BenQ]

I don't understand this whole Apha kit vs. Beta kit nonesense.

It's asthough some people expected games graphics to magically get better moving from an alpha kit to a beta kit..... but why would they? I can see the framerate improving, but not the graphics.

When it comes to the screenshots that the devs are releasing, there's absolutely nothing that the Beta kit can render than the alpha kit couldn't.

If you do see a difference in graphics, it's more likely that the graphics have simply improved as development time passed, and not the Beta kit "magically" making the graphcics any better.

[croc hunter2]

chachi, i understand that to show running games you can't target a hardware spec. but i think i prefer what Ninja Theory have done and target what they want and show that rather than show a moving target in terms of look.

So what if people can't play pre-alpha games. At the moment all the devs are doing are giving people a bad impression with ugly games, that move like shit etc. Put out playable demos when you are ready. Before that throw out movies etc

Your mileage may vary.