Differences between xbl and psn(online only)
- Thread starter Alkohallick
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May be a different issue. PS3 system software update is downloaded and updated whole. 360 updates are deltas. Plus PS3 firmware updates are more frequent and in-your-face. Software patches are aplenty too (e.g., LBP was patched 5-6 times since launched).
There was an interview where a PS3 exec mentioned that some ISPs filter/trottle PSN or PS3 traffic because they thought it's P2P traffic. According to him, it was an on-going issues they were trying to address.
There was an interview where a PS3 exec mentioned that some ISPs filter/trottle PSN or PS3 traffic because they thought it's P2P traffic. According to him, it was an on-going issues they were trying to address.
I never read anything about that filtering. You have a link? I would like to read more on it.
PSN could certainly stand to use some type of silent patching (I believe we spoke of this before and mentioned Google api's). Not only does the PSN allow however many patches the developer wants, there is no size limit so some have been 600mb+. Microsoft limits the size to 4mb for the lifetime of the game. Don't quote me but I am sure it is extremely small unless they lifted it.
Sorry for going a bit OT OP.
I know. I am looking for the link too. 
It was mentioned in passing. Will take some time to find.
EDIT:
Found a user link. I'm not sure if this is the only one.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1155869.html
Can't find the Sony exec's reference yet but you should be able to see the challenges.
It was mentioned in passing. Will take some time to find.EDIT:
Found a user link. I'm not sure if this is the only one.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1155869.html
Can't find the Sony exec's reference yet but you should be able to see the challenges.
I don't (where exactly do you see that I have an issue? Just because I'm asking a simple question you keep avoiding?) but you are definitely not helping the discussion or answering the OP's questions on the matter. That I even have to continue asking for clarification is a rather poor display on your part. What exactly am I to garner from "whatever" ?
If your intention is to provide half-answers that don't contribute to the thread, why bother?
To better answer betan's point, I think he mans it's possible to do things on PSN w/out a lot of hassle that you couldn't otherwise do on XBL w/out explicit permission from Microsoft.
i.e. Warhawk can use it's own servers, and the end user is allowed to create their "own" dedicated server via their PS3. Or the option to use your own back end and dedicated servers is always there w/out any questions, where as with XBL, you have to cut through the red tape with Microsoft.
I think it's more of a question of control rather than feature sets.
To answer the OP's question, there aren't any. People who say they can tell the difference between performance of both online systems during online gameplay are just feeding you a spoon full of monkey poop. P2P gaming is P2P gaming, period.
There may be times when PSN versions of multiplat games have issues (like CoD4, for example) but that has a hell of a lot more to do with the developer not properly developing a large scale beta program for that platform. Had there not been a beta for CoD4 on 360, I'm positive it would have been a shit storm for the first month as well.
That said, let us not forget the Woes of Gears of War 2. XBL isn't immune to screw ups and problems with it's subscription based service, and is certainly as vulnerable as PSN to "bad service". It's all just in the minds of people who wish to pretend their money is well spent.
...IMO.
Without a proper comparison, it isn't even known if it's a valid question yet! Anyone with both systems willing to download the same sized content at the same approximate time (not simultaneously due to conflicts) and measure time taken?
You also hear a lot of complaints about that you can redownload games an unlimited amount of times on XBL but only five times on PSN, where in fact they're confusing that you can download your games an unlimited amount of times to up-to five different PS3s.
Listening to podcasts, I'm not hearing that many differences these days. I'm not the right person to confirm this for you though as I live in the Netherlands. I just tested it when I upgraded my internet connection to 20Mb/s download. Over here, both systems seem to give me about 600KB, which is close to the limit that my previous connection had, and nowhere near the 2400KB I now get max for various other downloads.
I think that the answer to the ops question is, as mentioned elsewhere, that there is no real difference specific to that part of the online service. I'm willing to bet that both SDKs have the same kind of examples, and multi-platform games will use similar kind of netcode across platforms these days. Looking at the various issues occurring now at the launch of a new online game (e.g. Battlefield 1943 on the 360 and Fat Princess on the PS3), we see issues happening at just about the same level, which is typically in the match-making phase.
There is no doubt though that initially the 360 had a better development infrastructure to get online games up and running (specifically the match-making bit was well supported on the 360). But very early on PSN showed that all upsides have their downsides: Resistance and Warhawk had dedicated servers, and Warhawk even a nice mix of dedicated servers, the option to use your own PS3 as a dedicated server, and regular user-player-host setups.
It took very long for a game to appear on the 360 that had dedicated servers (was it the first Battlefield game?), and to date there are still very, very few of them. The P2P netcode in some of Microsoft's own games seems to be of a very shitty all-to-all kind that can make connecting to games with firewall-using people very, very annoying as it only takes two people in the whole group with limited settings one way or the other to screw things up. This affected me a lot in particular because I had a lot of problems with games like Forza 2 and PGR, which seem to share this code. I eventually DMZd my 360 while my PS3 is still behind a firewall, as I've never had much problems with online games on that system. Hopefully Forza 3 has new netcode, and we see more titles use UPnP support like for instance GT5 Prologue seems to manage with great effect, allowing global 16 player races that tend to run pretty well - I've at least had several lag free races with people from all three regions in the earlier days of GT5 Prologue, back when not everyone was waiting for GT5
(it's still no problem to find online races though, but you'll rarely see a full grid, unless maybe in one of the beginner races/ovals )Mind you, this is my personal experience, and your mileage, especially in the U.S. where Microsoft just seems to try harder, may well vary.
Even then, it's not accurate still. There are so many factors that tie into download speeds for Demo's that different regions will have different experiences.
Server distance, ISP, current demand (bandwidth). All of things tie into your speed. Downloading a 1GB demo the day it comes out from a server that's far away when a million other people are clawing at it will result in slower speeds. Downloading it when no one wants it will have different results.
That is one advantage XBL has. More servers world wide, so downloads are more consistent across regions. Still, that's not technically a part of the online gaming performance, and IMO isn't necessarily important given how background downloads work on both systems.
Which is why I suggested a measured investigation. The same person on the same connection downloading the same sort of content will reduce the variables to PSN delivery versus XBLive delivery. Try it at a couple of different times and of course, not at peak periods, and that'll give a reasonably fair comparison of the devliery platforms. MS having more servers would mean Live having a better speed than PSN, and Asher's 'people' being right.
More servers for downloads. This doesn't really apply to P2P gaming. I'm certain that the matchmaking servers are not the same as the content servers for XBLM.
That said, one user may be able to do that, but his results will probably be widly different from my own, or someone else's. When I was back in Kansas, my PSN download speeds were considerably faster than my XBL speeds, but now that I'm in Texas, my PSN speeds are slightly slower than XBL.
That said, I still am an avid supporter of free online. MS has been selling jpeg's for $1 on XBLM for over 3 years, there is no reason for them to charge for XBL when they've been reaming customers on DLC and accessories for their system. It's a waste of money (which is also why I scrounge for XBL Gold cards for free and trade codes, rather than give them a dime of my money).
Indeed, but doesn't the issue of Live! speed versus PSN speed only matter regards content delivery, because both offer P2P networking which is out of MS's and Sony's hands. That is, if there is any speed difference in the networks, it'll be in the content server setups and not the gaming setups because neither offers dedicated servers on the whole.
If they both had dedicated game servers, then there could be a game-impacting network speed difference. But there isn't!
Yes, I think so too. That's why I mentioned (even) the infrastructural differences will be masked by the CDN providers, as I don't see their P2P network setup being different enough from each other.
I do expect XBL to introduce dedicated server gaming (soon ?). I also expect Sony to introduce premium gaming services in the future (What is PS Cloud ?).
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Well, there'd also be the implementation of the P2P code. It's pretty much standardized on the X360, but PS3 devs are on their own correct? So it's possible some devs could be reinventing the wheel so to speak so implementation could vary between different devs. Which in turn could affect how well online plays in one title versus another title.
Regards,
SB
I think you picked the worst possible game to use for an example, Warhawk's online was appalling. It was a fun game....when it worked, which was rare. It was so hard to ever actually get online working, let alone even getting in a game. I presume they fixed it eventually but I never found out, I got so fed up with connection errors that I eventually just sold the game. It seemed pointless to own an online only game that rarely worked online. Warhawk at launch was the poster child of how not to do online, it really reflected badly on the state of PSN at the time.
Download speeds are probably impossible to compare, presumably people in different areas get different results. I've always had fast speed XBL, on PSN my speeds are very slow, I usually let PSN demo downloads go overnight. But that's in LA, presumably others get different results. XBL does more in the background anyways, so XBL demos finish while I'm doing other stuff on the 360 whereas PSN will frequently stop background downloads depending on what you are doing on the PS3. So to me, downloading in general on PSN is a painful process.
Regarding what you can and can't do on XBL and PSN, ultimately publishers with clout will be able to get away with anything. Microsoft will push back more on XBL because they realize a unified experience is what's is better for consumers, just like with any other product out there. Publishers know this as well so typically they will just go with the guidelines. It saves publishers money going that route anyways since the online process is unified and streamlined, they don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. With PSN though, publishers are saddled with dozens of codebases of online solutions from all the companies they own or work with, all of which must be maintained. It's not a good situation at all.
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Dedicated servers exist on XBL as well. Left 4 Dead uses dedicated servers on XBL, IIUC: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169669
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I did a speed test. I'm on a 10 Mbps cable connection (Rogers Cable) in Toronto, Canada. Cable modem is plugged into a gigabit switch with a 3ft Cat5e cable. Both consoles are then plugged into the gigabit switch with a 3ft Cat6 cable. Obviously, the 360 connected at 100Mbps and the PS3 at 1000Mbps.
The Xbox 360 downloaded the NHL 10 demo (765.36MB) in 10 minutes and 6 seconds (1.25MB/s). This is the theoretical max speed for my Rogers 10Mbps connection, so it may even be faster but my connection doesn't support it. Of course, the game was instantly playable after -- no additional decompression/extraction/installation.
The PS3 downloaded the NHL 10 demo (820MB) in 12 minutes and 19 seconds (1.1MB/s). It then immediately entered the installation mode, which took an additional 1 minute and 52 seconds, bringing the total acquire time to 14 minutes and 11 seconds.
(Amazingly, as I was browsing the Playstation Store to get to the NHL 10 download I got a "Disconnected from server" message while browsing the menu, and it kicked me back to the XMB...)
Would be interested if someone with a faster connection than mine could test this out, as I think the 360's may be even faster but it's hitting the absolute limits of my connection while the PSN is testing just under the limits. In any case, the PSN is faster than I remember (and it may've just been slower and not holds up to the demo release-day strains as well as the XBL servers, as I normally download demos day-and-date with their release), but it's still noticably slower than XBL's. Add in the perplexing installation time, and it's significantly longer.
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I did a speed test. I'm on a 10 Mbps cable connection (Rogers Cable) in Toronto, Canada. Cable modem is plugged into a gigabit switch with a 3ft Cat5e cable. Both consoles are then plugged into the gigabit switch with a 3ft Cat6 cable. Obviously, the 360 connected at 100Mbps and the PS3 at 1000Mbps.
The Xbox 360 downloaded the NHL 10 demo (765.36MB) in 10 minutes and 6 seconds (1.25MB/s). This is the theoretical max speed for my Rogers 10Mbps connection, so it may even be faster but my connection doesn't support it. Of course, the game was instantly playable after -- no additional decompression/extraction/installation.
The PS3 downloaded the NHL 10 demo (820MB) in 12 minutes and 19 seconds (1.1MB/s). It then immediately entered the installation mode, which took an additional 1 minute and 52 seconds, bringing the total acquire time to 14 minutes and 11 seconds.
(Amazingly, as I was browsing the Playstation Store to get to the NHL 10 download I got a "Disconnected from server" message while browsing the menu, and it kicked me back to the XMB...)
Would be interested if someone with a faster connection than mine could test this out, as I think the 360's may be even faster but it's hitting the absolute limits of my connection while the PSN is testing just under the limits. In any case, the PSN is faster than I remember (and it may've just been slower and not holds up to the demo release-day strains as well as the XBL servers, as I normally download demos day-and-date with their release), but it's still noticably slower than XBL's. Add in the perplexing installation time, and it's significantly longer.
Well, I never experienced many problems, but reading back I do see that at least some issues were addressed with a patch fairly soon.
Still, that says nothing about this being the worst example. Because for those that did have issues, these were eventually fixed and from there on it's been smooth sailing.
They work in the exact same way - if you start an online game, they stop downloading. I don't understand your comment.
So to me, downloading in general on PSN is a painful process.
Regarding what you can and can't do on XBL and PSN, ultimately publishers with clout will be able to get away with anything. Microsoft will push back more on XBL because they realize a unified experience is what's is better for consumers, just like with any other product out there. Publishers know this as well so typically they will just go with the guidelines. It saves publishers money going that route anyways since the online process is unified and streamlined, they don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. With PSN though, publishers are saddled with dozens of codebases of online solutions from all the companies they own or work with, all of which must be maintained. It's not a good situation at all.[/QUOTE]
Maybe the issues were regional, but to date Warhawk is the only game I have ever bought that I could not play for many days. It was literally impossible to play it for many days after purchase. That's really really bad, as in many a publisher would drop a developer for a foible like that. It emphasizes the problem with the PS3's free for all approach to online, you never know what you're gonna get, which from a user satisfaction perspective is terrible at best, unnacceptable at worst.
Nopers, they don't work the same. Here's a simple example. Start downloading a demo on PSN, when it's about 2% complete start playing a dvd. Watch it for a while, then exit it and come back to check on your download. You'll see that it's still at 2%, because PSN frequently halts downloads when anything else is going on. Now try the same on the 360. Start a download, at 2% start watching a dvd. After a while exit the dvd and check your download, you'll see that the download is complete because on the 360 it keeps downloads going on in the background. Much more convenient! You can even check the progress of the download while watching the dvd, something you can't do on PSN. It's many little things like this which to this day keep XBL and PSN leagues apart in user friendliness, convenience and overall experience.
TheWretched
Regular
I have a 16mbits line, which maxes out at about 1.9megabyte/s. Since I do not have a 360, just a PS3, I cannot test that, but from what I've seen, PSN maxes out my line nearly every time I donwload something (even if a new "hot" demo is released like Infamous).
Also, I get mostly 15ms pings with Resistance 2 and other games.
I live in Germany btw.
At my mums house, we have a 3mbit/s line, which is always maxed out when using PSN.
Also, I get mostly 15ms pings with Resistance 2 and other games.
I live in Germany btw.
At my mums house, we have a 3mbit/s line, which is always maxed out when using PSN.
I live in NJ I always download at 2MB/s (whenever I bother to check actually).
Also Joker, ps3 background downloading resumes for single player/offline games. So "frequently" is a little exaggeration, as always.
And Warhawk is an interesting example for p2p vs dedicated because even before those numerous patches, games on dedicated server were much more stable.
In general though, I give a couple of weeks to PSN online games, because they almost always start with problems.
I'm inclined to think that's more of an experience issue more than anything else since it's not limited to PSN.
Also Joker, ps3 background downloading resumes for single player/offline games. So "frequently" is a little exaggeration, as always.
And Warhawk is an interesting example for p2p vs dedicated because even before those numerous patches, games on dedicated server were much more stable.
In general though, I give a couple of weeks to PSN online games, because they almost always start with problems.
I'm inclined to think that's more of an experience issue more than anything else since it's not limited to PSN.
Yes, everything I've heard about European users of PS3s is the PSN is fast, responsive, etc. I think Sony Europe just cares more, or is more competent.
They certainly do better in Europe than North America these days, which may be a testament to their priorities...betan: It's interesting you max out at about twice the download rate I've got even though NJ is actually fairly close to Toronto. We should be using geographically the same servers. It shouldn't be the internet backbone between Toronto and NY/NJ, because I assure you that it is a very beefy line.
The PSN servers have always been noticably slower than Xbox Live's here. I can't think of anyone to blame here but Sony for it, but it is highly suspicious to me someone so close to me as you could have at least twice the speed.Similar threads
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