RAGE : It Deserves its own thread now!

[Scott_Arm]

One week all versions is the identical.
One week the PS3 version is superior because of bluray, and 360 will have the inferior version, because it's to expensive to ship it on X disks.
One week, it's to slow rasterizer on PS3 so now the PS3 version will be the inferior again to the inferior 360 version.

None of this is actually true if you read the interviews with Carmack. This is just the common talk that floats around on forums.

He's always stated that they will be extremely similar but with some differences to because of the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. I haven't heard him say a particular version will be "better" just slightly different because of different storage, memory etc.

Carmack didn't seem to like the PS3 architecture, and maybe he still doesn't, but he's not a fan boy. If he makes a game on any platform, he's going to try his best to make it as good as he can. I don't think any of the platforms will be left behind.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Hz = FPS regards game display. No developer would talk about a 60Hz and spit out a 10 fps! I guess a possible exception to that would be underlying game engine could run at 60 times a second with the screen refresh at whatever they can get from the hardware, but that'd defy convention.

Didn't they start doing that with Doom3? I remember a big issue in Quake3 was the players with higher fps could jump further for some reason. The solution with Doom3 was to lock the game engine at 60Hz, so even if you had 100fps, the game logic was still running at 60Hz and there weren't any advantages or disadvantages.

I could be wrong, or maybe they fixed it in Quake3. I'm sure there's an id historian around here that would know.

 

[Tap In]

at what point do we say that unified shaders are making a difference? Is this it?

I rarely hear it mentioned at all anymore yet at release many supposed it might be a factor in overall performance.

 

[Gabrobot]

Brian from id Software posted this over at Shacknews...not that anyone paid attention.

So anyway, point is...

This is right from someone at id Software:

The problem is fragment processing on the RSX is significantly slower than on the 360 and virtual texturing uses a lot of fragment processing. Other parts of the engine, such as physics and AI run faster on the PS3, but anything that uses the GPU runs slower on the PS3.

 

[-tkf-]

Or the PS3 platform can't handle the game!

Ok then, if this is the case then the game(engine) never was developed with the PS3 in mind or at least without knowing anything about the PS3 architecture so the PS3 will most likely be inferior in some way or another.

 

[RobertR1]

Sounds like their engine and tech is GPU heavy which naturally tends to favors Xenos.

 

[joker454]

Brian from id Software posted this over at Shacknews...not that anyone paid attention.

People pay attention, they just don't want to believe it. Trust me, I've been there I wonder if they are very much benefiting from xenos unified setup, where they can do pixel operations freely even in vertex shaders. Likewise, you can do fairly powerful stuff on 360 with _fetch shader instructions if you are allowed to use them. Makes me wonder if they are skipping hlsl sometimes and taking direct control in certain shaders to do their megatexture dance, doing that gives you lots of very cool options with the 360 gpu.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Ok then, if this is the case then the game(engine) never was developed with the PS3 in mind or at least without knowing anything about the PS3 architecture so the PS3 will most likely be inferior in some way or another.

RAGE clearly wasn't designed with PS3 in mind. It's a PC game from a PC developer who are viewing the graphics rendering pipeline through the eyes of PC architecture and inventing clever new ways to do things on PC. They have extended themselves to consoles where more money is to be had, but that offers different architectures to worry about. XB360 is a good match for the PC way of thinking. PS3 needs iD to reinvent their wheels. iD deserve credit for aiming high and setting themselves the task of wrestling PS3 into submission.

How well they do will be judged solely on the strength of the finished game. All these WIP comments are silly. I'm surprised any developer talks ahead of release. Whether they claim to be amazing (LAIR and Ghostbusters) or say they're having difficulties, it's all bad press in the end. Unless you really are good (Naughty Dog for example) and can confidently make performance claims based on sense and reality, it's better to just be quiet, work on the game, release the PR screenshots and feature lists, and let the developer make the best game they can without public pressure.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think Megatexture was designed with consoles in mind as much as the pc. Whether the PS3 is more or less capable of handling their implementation is not important. The intention is to make forward looking technology that addresses VRAM limitations as well as assisting the creative process. Whether it is the best solution or will become a standard solution is another question, but I don't think it's fair to say their issues with PS3 is because they are a PC developer with a PC focus.

 

[Weaste]

Ok, it makes a little more sense now with the fragment processing comment. Wasn't that a large part of one of the Phyre Engine presentations and how the SPUs should be used in conjunction with the GPU to reduce bottlenecks? Does this require a deferred renderer though?

 

[RudeCurve]

I think it's kinda ironic that despite the RSX being closer to a PC GPU, it's slower than Xenos when it comes to MT. This flushes the whole PC oriented developer argument down the toilet. The fact AI and physics are running faster on CELL means they're moving along quite well which also makes the PC oriented notion even more irrelevent.

 

[liolio]

I think it's kinda ironic that despite the RSX being closer to a PC GPU, it's slower than Xenos when it comes to MT. This flushes the whole PC oriented developer argument down the toilet. The fact AI and physics are running faster on CELL means they're moving along quite well which also makes the PC oriented notion even more irrelevent.

Indeed some comment are pretty unfair if the post some posts above is legit.

Ok, it makes a little more sense now with the fragment processing comment. Wasn't that a large part of one of the Phyre Engine presentations and how the SPUs should be used in conjunction with the GPU to reduce bottlenecks? Does this require a deferred renderer though?

If their problem (right now, I think they will meet more or less their performances goals) is a the fragment/pixel processing level I don't see how the cell could help. They will need to dig in the RSX low level API, optimize and optimize again.

 

[nAo]

I was told that RSX was vertex limited a million times, and now I find out it's all pixel shaders fault. Oh! Irony!

 

[Weaste]

If their problem (right now, I think they will meet more or less their performances goals) is a the fragment/pixel processing level I don't see how the cell could help. They will need to dig in the RSX low level API, optimize and optimize again.

This is what I was referring to: http://www.technology.scee.net/file...09/DeferredLightingandPostProcessingonPS3.ppt

 

[patsu]

I was told that RSX was vertex limited a million times, and now I find out it's all pixel shaders fault. Oh! Irony!

Ha ha, but we are bored here. Mr. nAo, may I ask what you're working on these days ?

 

[FirewalkR]

I was told that RSX was vertex limited a million times, and now I find out it's all pixel shaders fault. Oh! Irony!

You must go help them nAo.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Isn't it possible that for what they're trying to do, RSX is slower? I mean, we can't exactly look at their code and make any judgements about how optimized it is for RSX. Carmack has always seemed to be pretty honest and upfront with what he's doing and how it's working. That's probably one of the least discussed aspects of ids acquisition. He may not have the freedom to speak his mind like he used to. What will we poor nerds do?

 

[nAo]

Everything's possible (especially given their 'exotic' pixel shading workload) and it's not fair to judge without having some more data point.

 

[assurdum]

Or the PS3 platform can't handle the game!

To be honest I'm so confuse how someone has just said, one day ps3 has a little more raw power to use, the day after it didn't , rsx sucks; another ps3 better texture, no wait 360, no ps3 again has more split memory; but 360 60 fps confirmed, no but needs more sweat to ps3, no rsx slower but ps3 will be better but 360 will be the same oh come on, what the hell of PR has id? At this point will see when release the game and amen. For now it's just speculations and no more for me, only to burn the same stupid console competition between the two 'factions'.

 

[obonicus]

How well they do will be judged solely on the strength of the finished game. All these WIP comments are silly. I'm surprised any developer talks ahead of release.

Well, Carmack has always been open about what he's working on. What I don't think they were prepared for was the way the platform wars makes any platform-favoring comment into major news.