MGS4 3D engine post mortem [translation needed]

[Betanumerical]

MGS4 looks better than those games while having the cutscenes running in realtime with arguably the best looking character models in gaming and with zero pop ups or screen tearing.

And it's funny how some of you bring up Uncharted as having better textures than MGS4, but conveniently chose to ignore the absolutelly horrible pop ups and screen tearing the game is plagued with, while MGS4 is a completely smooth ride from start to finish. Imagine having pop ups, pauses and tearing with every camera change in MGS4's cutscenes or in gameplay. It would completely destroy the game. The developers really did an outstanding job eliminating those issues in MGS4 and i think the installing has a lot to do with it.

I didn't seen pop ups and screen tearing in Uncharted.

And its pretty impressive for a RSX only game.

 

[Neb]

wait. Whats 25fps? The tech demo? they said something about a "timer" thats why the framerate dropped (whatever that means). Other than that the demo run at 60fps without human intervention

60fps for that demonstration? There might be something wrong with your mediaplayer then. Also the Otacon part has low framerate i nthat demonstration and it fluctuates. But it would be amazing a 7800GTX + Cell would do 60fps with the initial MGS4 version.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

with arguably the best looking character models in gaming

That's highly debatable even on an artistic level, not to mention the technical side.

 

[Nesh]

60fps for that demonstration? There might be something wrong with your mediaplayer then. Also the Otacon part has low framerate i nthat demonstration and it fluctuates. But it would be amazing a 7800GTX + Cell would do 60fps with the initial MGS4 version.

No thats not what I am saying. That particular demonstration runs below 60fps on my player too.

What I am saying is that they said something along the lines that there was a frame drop because of a "timer" or something. I dont know what this means. But the same tech demo when it was demonstrated as it was, without the developers playing with it, it was running at 60fps. There are videos out there showing this tech demo at 60fps. Not this demonstration though where they changed cameras, shadows, focus etc.

The demo also initially said "60FPS". They felt that it was a sure thing and the demo showed exactly that when it was first shown.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Do you really know the meaning of a cpu as fast as a gpu?
If you think Cell's peak performance is matchable by a core2duo or a quad core you definitely don't..

Where did you get that the Cell is as fast as a GPU? Its not, unless the gpu you want to compare with is like 5 years old. Have you seen what the cell can render alone in realtime? Its not exactly impressive by itself.

The Cell (like all Cpu's) is rather slow if your going to render graphics with it. A 5 year old GPU like a 6800 ultra would give it a run for its money.
'

wikipedia and what some developers on this forum said about rsx, difference between rsx and 7800gtx ,512 or 256, is not that much to make that much downgrade necessary.

So your saying that having half the vram, half the bandwidth and half the rops is not much of a difference? If so, what drugs are you on?


PS3 devkits in 2005 had 512mb ram, 2,X ghz cell and a 512 mb 7800GTX i suggest people stop talking about sli'd 7800gtx because that has never been in a PS3 devkit.

Difference between a 7800gtx and rsx is the difference between 2006 build and the latest build, nothing more.

RSX was out and in devkits in april of 2006 or so....

It is obvious they just decided not to optimise graphics engine for spes.

Lol.

I do not think half the rops and %60 bandwith can do that much difference.

I dont think you completely understand what your talking about.

At the end of this generation we will see games which uses cell processor to its theoretical peak and they will be proof enough.

Good luck with that theory. Just out of curiousity, why do you think this will ever happend?

Cell also is not a hybrid gpu/cpu, it is just a cpu, it can help graphics because it is general purpose and very fast, pc cpus cant help graphics because they are so slow at such tasks.

The cell is a cpu designed to, amongst other things ,render graphics decently, while its very fast at rendering graphics compared to other CPU's, its dog slow compared to a GPU.

What do you mean when you say "you seem to think cell is a holy grail"?I don't really care ,I just pointed out what I know to be true.

Its clear to me by reading your posts that you seem to think that the Cell is some kind of magical cpu with unparralled strenghts.

While the Cell is fast, its is not somekind of alien technology with powers from another world. Certainly not at rendering graphics.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I dont know what this means. But the same tech demo when it was demonstrated as it was, without the developers playing with it, it was running at 60fps. There are videos out there showing this tech demo at 60fps.

Are you saying the trailer was 60fps and the tech demostration was not? Is'nt it fairly obvious that the trailer wasn't real time to begin with? (Wasn't the trailer in some odd native resolution anyway?)

Not this demonstration though where they changed cameras, shadows, focus etc.

So the demostration where they prove its realtime is not running at 60fps, wheras the trailer runs at 60fps? Isn't it fairly obvious whats going on?

 

[Neb]

No thats not what I am saying. That particular demonstration runs below 60fps on my player too.

What I am saying is that they said something along the lines that there was a frame drop because of a "timer" or something. I dont know what this means. But the same tech demo when it was demonstrated as it was, without the developers playing with it, it was running at 60fps. There are videos out there showing this tech demo at 60fps. Not this demonstration though where they changed cameras, shadows, focus etc.

The demo also initially said "60FPS". They felt that it was a sure thing and the demo showed exactly that when it was first shown.

OK you mean the trailer. IMO I think it is speeded up since I dont think the Cell + 7800GTX could do it at a solid 60fps. Would be amazing but I dont believe the 7800GTX is that powerful.

The final runs at a slightly unstable 30fps on the Cell at higher MHz + RSX. You really think the 7800GTX did that huge of a difference becouse the RSX was not finished year 2005 at showcase time?

 

[Nightware]

Where did you get that the Cell is as fast as a GPU? Its not, unless the gpu you want to compare with is like 5 years old. Have you seen what the cell can render alone in realtime? Its not exactly impressive by itself.

The Cell (like all Cpu's) is rather slow if your going to render graphics with it. A 5 year old GPU like a 6800 ultra would give it a run for its money.
'


So your saying that having half the vram, half the bandwidth and half the rops is not much of a difference? If so, what drugs are you on?


PS3 devkits in 2005 had 512mb ram, 2,X ghz cell and a 512 mb 7800GTX i suggest people stop talking about sli'd 7800gtx because that has never been in a PS3 devkit.



RSX was out and in devkits in april of 2006 or so....



Lol.



I do not think that you even know what these things are. Saying that a



Good luck with that theory. Just out of curiousity, why do you think this will ever happend?




The cell is a cpu designed to, amongst other things ,render graphics decently, while its very fast at rendering graphics compared to other CPU's, its dog slow compared to a GPU.



Its clear to me by reading your posts that you seem to think that the Cell is some kind of magical cpu with unparralled strenghts.

While the Cell is fast, its is not somekind of alien technology with powers from another world. Certainly not at rendering graphics.

I don't really care, just read some non gaming related stuff on net because of curiosity and I thought I understood it(http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cell/Cell0_v2.html this one and some others).

I am not a developer and may be wrong, sorry if I created too much noise.

I also meant as fast as a gpu compared to other cpus not current gpus. 4 ghz 8 spe ~ 6800 ultra in terms of gflops according to what I read.

I read cell cant be as fast as a gpu for stuff gpus specially designed for(like rasterizing), I meant shaders when I said as fast as a gpu(Sony papers say it is better than 7800gtx at that).

My ideas about tgs2005 build of mgs4 are just my ideas.Sorry If I caused too much confusion ,It was not my intention.

Actually when I think about it, I know shouldn't believe anything before I know it is true by practising it,I won't talk about things I am not %100 sure anymore.

If someone is %100 sure what I am saying is wrong just point that and let this discussion end.I didn't really wanted to waste anyone's time.

 

[jandlecack]

Cell [...] is just a cpu, it can help graphics because it is general purpose and very fast

What the hell? When was anything other than the PPE of the Cell "general purpose"? Do you have any understanding of the thing that makes the Cell special and allows the PS3 to outshine the 360 with some dedicated games, while having a piece of shit like the RSX?

 

[Nightware]

No, I don't have understanding of cell, after reading some stuff I thought I understood how hardware works basicly but after reading a little more I see that it is more complex than I think.

Insomniac's gdc2008 slide says it is just a cpu so I thought it must be general purpose.

Assuming things doesn't make me understand anything, don't take what I posted seriously, I have no coding experience.

 

[jandlecack]

Well no, the Cell's most remarkable attribute are the Synergistic Processing Units that I would call anything but general purpose processor such as the 360's CPU or any Intel/AMD CPU really. Asymmetric cores add a great deal in my opinion to make the Cell special. Very special. Too special.

In any case, looking at the tech-demo from 05 again, I must say the final game doesn't look much different - not sure if I could spot particularly more polygons on Snake but I think his ear definitely took a hit in the final product. Disregarding stuff like resolution though, it looks quite similar.

Still want to know if they pulled off the individual streams of hair though. I think not but you never know.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well no, the Cell's most remarkable attribute are the Synergistic Processing Units that I would call anything but general purpose processor.

The whole problem here is no proper definition of 'general purpose', a subject discussed yonks back, where one POV was that the perception of 'general purpose code' was actually tied to thinking 'x86 code' because that's what everyone writes. If a processor is capable of processing any algorithm, regardless of efficiency, is it not general purpose? If you're going to factor in efficiency, what's your threshold and why? And what about alternative algorithms that work differently but achieve the same ends, but also work far more effecitvely on a vector engine like Cell?

 

[Nightware]

If a processor is capable of processing any algorithm, regardless of efficiency, is it not general purpose?

That was what I meant when I said general purpose.

 

[Fox5]

The only thing weaker from any realtime trailer is a 10% drop in GPU and VRAM, not really enough to make the difference from 'Okay' to 'Gorgeous'.
Seems ironic, doesn't it? They actually had that fidelity up and running in realtime on the PS3 hardware. Unless that was all a sham in the end.

I thoguht it was PS3 dev hardware? IE, a PC with dual nvidia graphics cards or something.

 

[vazel]

And it's funny how some of you bring up Uncharted as having better textures than MGS4, but conveniently chose to ignore the absolutelly horrible pop ups and screen tearing the game is plagued with, while MGS4 is a completely smooth ride from start to finish. Imagine having pop ups, pauses and tearing with every camera change in MGS4's cutscenes or in gameplay. It would completely destroy the game. The developers really did an outstanding job eliminating those issues in MGS4 and i think the installing has a lot to do with it.

You are grossly exaggerating.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That was what I meant when I said general purpose.

Well in that I agree with you, and Cell is a general purpose CPU, just with optimizations for different workloads to other general purpose CPUs.

I thoguht it was PS3 dev hardware? IE, a PC with dual nvidia graphics cards or something.

Yes, but as a developer you shoudln't really be maxing out your devkit when you know the final hardware will have lower specs. eg. With a gig of RAM, if Konami/Kojima used in excess of the 512 MBs of PS3's capacity to get their demo, they were stepping over the limits. If they used more shader ops per frame than RSX could handle, again they were stepping beyond the limits. There's no real reason to get better results from a devkit than the final hardware. i think the real issue here is the demo was a demo, using all the resources for a limited experience that didn't accomodate all the final game was to do.

Also Nebula's painful translation ties in with Kojima's comment :

It has become the largest primary factor as for that before the specification of PS3 decides from, to make the development “of MGS4 START”. When with the developing “of MGS4”, the specification of PS3 decides finally, it became clear PS3 already not to be able to actualize the quality “of TGS-2005 TRAILER” specifications.

When he set out to create MGS4, he had a vision that he thought PS3 would be able to pull off, without realy grounding that vision in the hardware specs of the machine, which weren't out. He wasn't lied to. Sony didn't promise specs that never materialised (other than the 10% GPU clock drop). He just was overenthusaistic in intent!

 

[liolio]

From what I read on the core forum boards I wouldn't call the cell/xenon/larrabee as general purpose cpu.
They look more like throughput oriented designs.
Out of the three systems wii, 360 and ps3 actually I would only call as such the wii cpu (Broadway or hollywood?).
I mean if a processor is not able to run any kind of code (no matter its level of perfs on a given task) can it be called a cpu?

Anyway, It would be nice if someone comes with a proper translation of the article because babelfish translation remains unclear (to me at least).
One for the win?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I mean if a processor is not able to run any kind of code (no matter its level of perfs on a given task) can it be called a cpu?

What code can't Cell/Xenon/LRB run? Can a 6502 or Z80 or 68000 (historic general purpose CPUs) run this code?

 

[liolio]

What code can't Cell/Xenon/LRB run? Can a 6502 or Z80 or 68000 (historic general purpose CPUs) run this code?

I realize that my statement was unclear.
the cell the xenon and the larrabee are all three CPUs, but I would not qualify them as "general purpose designs" as radical choices have been made to favor thoughput of these chips.
What I wanted to mean was like "would we qualify xenon/cell/LRB as CPUs if they weren't able to run any code (which they are)."
Anyway I feel like we're nitpicking here .

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes, we are nitpicking, but jandlecack started it! I just wanted to point out his argument with Nightware is baseless without an actual definition of 'general purpose CPU'. ANd Nightware's comment is valud - Cell isn't a GPU, but it can help the GPU, and is in a good position to do so. It would be interesting to see how the system was put to use. Shame we don't have a translation yet