*Game Development Issues*

[valioso]

I didn't see this posted, sorry if its a repeat

http://jbooth.blogspot.com/2007/10/ps3-misconceptions-and-spin.html

AlStrong Says:
Alright folks... just a thread title change to be something more generall It is nice to have some developers stop by with some insight, so let's keep the discussion civil, please, or else the thread will be locked...again.

 

[Carl B]

The link was posted before here, and locked:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=44976

My inclination is to lock it again as there's not anything Booth says that hasn't already been discussed on these forums many times before, but we'll see how conversation progresses for a while to see if there is indeed anything of merit that arises.

 

[Arwin]

I'd like to know how this game would need anything more than a sincle thread on the PPE and some basic GL stuff on the graphics card, but that's just me I guess.

 

[rekator]

We can add this other:
http://daveasbell.blogspot.com/2007/08/trouble-with-ps3.html

Same history… Sony give tools to games devs!

 

[rbushner]

I'd like to know how this game would need anything more than a sincle thread on the PPE and some basic GL stuff on the graphics card, but that's just me I guess.

And how would that make his opinion any less relevant or challenge any of his points?

 

[-tkf-]

And how would that make his opinion any less relevant or challenge any of his points?

If you read this forum on a regular basis you can´t read his post without a little vomit in your mouth.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

My inclination is to lock it again as there's not anything Booth says that hasn't already been discussed on these forums many times before, but we'll see how conversation progresses for a while to see if there is indeed anything of merit that arises.

It's probably worth opening it up for discussion as it keeps coming back like a bad penny, and people ought to get some perspective on his comments!

And how would that make his opinion any less relevant or challenge any of his points?

I would suggest because he's not using any of PS3's difficult aspects so can't really comment on difficulty of implementation. I think it's very apparent from his opening misconception debunks that he doesn't understand the hardware very well. eg. Commenting on fillrate limits requiring simpler shader effects to get round. Fillrate is totally independent of shader performance. In fact one could argue that the inverse case is true - if you have less fillrate and can't draw as many pixels as XB360, you have more time per pixel which could be spent on more shader ops per pixel. Saying game code doesn't split well across multiple processors and you'll have SPUs sitting idle or underutilized shows he doesn't appreciate the changes happening in multi-threaded code design, and ignores the advances other developers are making.

As the guy's profile lists a music education, work as a 3D artist, and lists his current occupation as Game Designer, that gives background to the technical inaccuracies. I don't think the guy really understands the subject well enough to know what he's talking about, and is talking more from a 'what I've picked up listening to guys' position. If he were a senior engine developer, it'd be a different matter, but that's not his role in the industry and he hasn't got the expertise to talk about the subject reliably.

 

[scooby_dooby]

'what I've picked up listening to guys' position.

Ya, probably. But then again, that means he's probably echoing the general sentiment among his (more knowledgeable) colleagues.

Anyways, this isn't much we haven't heard before. 3rd party's continue to be less than enthusiastic about the PS3 design choices.

 

[rbushner]

I think it's very apparent from his opening misconception debunks that he doesn't understand the hardware very well. eg. Commenting on fillrate limits requiring simpler shader effects to get round. Fillrate is totally independent of shader performance. In fact one could argue that the inverse case is true - if you have less fillrate and can't draw as many pixels as XB360, you have more time per pixel which could be spent on more shader ops per pixel. Saying game code doesn't split well across multiple processors and you'll have SPUs sitting idle or underutilized shows he doesn't appreciate the changes happening in multi-threaded code design, and ignores the advances other developers are making.

That would be a much more appropriate statement.

As the guy's profile lists a music education, work as a 3D artist, and lists his current occupation as Game Designer, that gives background to the technical inaccuracies. I don't think the guy really understands the subject well enough to know what he's talking about, and is talking more from a 'what I've picked up listening to guys' position. If he were a senior engine developer, it'd be a different matter, but that's not his role in the industry and he hasn't got the expertise to talk about the subject reliably.

If we are to go down that road, what gives Arwin or you the 'expertise' to talk about the subject reliably? Why is it OK to attack his credentials rather than his points?

3rd party's continue to be less than enthusiastic about the PS3 design choices.

Yes, and I'm somewhat shocked with how quickly their opinions are written off. These are the people that helped make the PS2 the dominant platform, surely their opinion means something. Whether they are 'wrong' or not, doesn't matter, it's their job doing ports, and they don't like it and are having problems.

 

[assen]

The fact that he has worked on non-graphically demanding titles makes his complaints about the PS3's apparent lack of power and unpleasant development MORE valid, not less.

I've been reading his blog for the past few years - well before they got bought out by MTV. He's no Carmack, but he's definitely an experienced developer and dismissing him as "n00b" or "lazy" is stupid and arrogant. Scroll down the page, for example, for his post from Feb 11 on procedural content - one of the best analyses on the subject I've had the pleasure to read.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If we are to go down that road, what gives Arwin or you the 'expertise' to talk about the subject reliably? Why is it OK to attack his credentials rather than his points?

No-one's attacking his credentials. His technological knowledge is clearly lacking. You don't need to be a game developer to know that, you only need to have been paying attention to the discussions on this board for the past 12+ months. Reference to the credentials is only by way of excusing his otherwise fundamental lack of understanding. If he was a key programmer and he was saying this stuff, about fill-rate limiting shader performance and SPUs sitting unused because though you can map a few processes one per SPU to them games don't map well, then I'd worry!

Yes, and I'm somewhat shocked with how quickly their opinions are written off. These are the people that helped make the PS2 the dominant platform, surely their opinion means something. Whether they are 'wrong' or not, doesn't matter, it's their job doing ports, and they don't like it and are having problems.

That they don't like it, fine. What's perturbing is a non-technical person trying to give technical answers. If the marketing guy who helped sell GOW was to write a piece on why PS2 was superior technology-wise to XBox, would you take their work for it because they helped produce a top-selling PS2 title? Or if not the marketing guy, would you trust the accountant, or the secretary, or the project manager, or the head of SCEA who's background was managing Nike shoes and prior to that managing a baby clothes company? Working on a project doesn't make you an instant expert on everything to do with it. Companies are made out of lots of specialists in different fields, who know their side of the job and generally just have an overview of the others involved.

Anyway, it's clear where this discussion is going (shocker!). If you want to put your faith in one blog and not even attempt to engage in sensible discussion on the points raised, that's fine. I'm not going to waste my breath challenging the points raised. Anyone who is on B3D because they value the technology of these consoles should have an instant recognition of some nonsense comments. The rest of the piece is what we've heard before and everyone accepts - Cell is used in part to augment RSX and ports from XB360 are both tricky and hard to get good performance out of. He could have stuck with that overview without trying to explain away the common misconceptions and he'd have got no complaints from me.

 

[slider]

The fact that he has worked on non-graphically demanding titles makes his complaints about the PS3's apparent lack of power and unpleasant development MORE valid, not less.

He said that? Wow. Of all the things to throw at the PS3 is apparent lack of power the first that springs to mind?

I'll go check the link - although it'll probably all be over my head.

 

[AlphaWolf]

He said that? Wow. Of all the things to throw at the PS3 is apparent lack of power the first that springs to mind?

I'll go check the link - although it'll probably all be over my head.

I don't think he ever says it in those terms, but he does make the comments about fillrate.

 

[PARANOiA]

I don't think the guy really understands the subject well enough to know what he's talking about, and is talking more from a 'what I've picked up listening to guys' position. If he were a senior engine developer, it'd be a different matter, but that's not his role in the industry and he hasn't got the expertise to talk about the subject reliably.

To be honest, Shifty, what you've described is 95% of Beyond3D, too - armchair experts spouting fact based on the low-level knowledge of a few around here.

I'd like to see his points critiqued - they do seem a bit thin - but talking about his background seems fairly pointless. If any of the tech experts here can begin disecting his points that would be great.

And stupid comments like:

He is SO clueless he makes me look like a god damn expert, i doubt he even knows the XBOX 360 has a 3 core CPU.

really serve no place IMO - why is this type of trash tolerated here?

 

[digitalwanderer]

 

[rbushner]

Anyway, it's clear where this discussion is going (shocker!).

So I'm not allowed to disagree with judging his credentials. But an ad hominem one liner post is cool? I'll drop it, I think your statements would stand better if they kept his education and so forth out of the picture. I think your posts had some good information in them, some of the other posts.

My other point is it doesn't matter if he is wrong, or even his credentials, what matters is that he shows the PS3 has clearly lost mindshare the PS2 had. I don't see anything inflammatory about that, it's the way it is. This sort of attitude is poison to development projects, if you hear bad things from one person, it's probably a pretty common feeling across the team. People don't motivate well for projects they don't believe in. It can create a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

To be honest, Shifty, what you've described is 95% of Beyond3D, too - armchair experts spouting fact based on the low-level knowledge of a few around here.

I'd like to see his points critiqued - they do seem a bit thin - but talking about his background seems fairly pointless. If any of the tech experts here can begin disecting his points that would be great.

There's not much to critique, and certainly nothing that hasn't been done before.
1) PS3 is fillrate limited - RSX has similar fillrate to Xenos.
1a ) Lack of fillrate limits shaders - nonsense.
2) Games doesn't split well across multiple processors - been discussed to death. We have games using all the SPEs a lot of the time, and all three Xenon cores, which disproves this.
3) BluRay is slow - discussed in the older BRD threads. IIRC the difference wasn't pronounced. XB360's DVD drive runs at 12x peak, single layer. It runs at 8x dual layer, peak. Data transfer difference isn't enough to make PS3 much slower loading versus XB360. Can't recall seek times differences, but again that shouldn't severely impact PS3 even if much worse.

The rest is non-technical and mostly accepted. Few developers will max PS3, those generally being 1st party (the niggle about games being designed to be performance hogs and thus questionably being fun as a result is a low comment IMO that ignores has past power increases have benefited game design); Cell's power is used to prop up RSX in rendering the same stuff as Xenos; Ports are hard and costly and no-one likes them; as a result XB360 tend to look better as its easier to write for.

...why is this type of trash tolerated here?

Who says it is? And officially, please use the Report Post button rather than rant.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So I'm not allowed to disagree with judging his credentials.

You said people were writing off his comments on his credentials which I wasn't. But invariably in these threads we get the same pattern. Developer Blog says something; people disagree; thread degenerates quickly into a 'is this dev any good or not?' personal discussion as people ally themselves either with the 'he's a developer so everything he says must be true' or the 'he said a silly thing so is a lazy, stupid developer'. Such debates have no merit.

My beef wasn't his credentials. I looked at his technical points and thought 'this doesn't make sense coming from a programmer' so I had a quick nose at his profile and see he's not a programmer; not a full-on hardcore coder anyhow, even if he has programming experience. That explains his lack of correctness. I never brought it up as basis to discredit them. The term 'developer' is applied as though it adds instant credibility to everything uttered, but there's different types of developers with different types of knowledge, and you have to know which a person is to know where their strengths lie and where their information is going to be reliable.

 

[PARANOiA]

There's not much to critique, and certainly nothing that hasn't been done before.
1) PS3 is fillrate limited - RSX has similar fillrate to Xenos.
1a ) Lack of fillrate limits shaders - nonsense.
2) Games doesn't split well across multiple processors - been discussed to death. We have games using all the SPEs a lot of the time, and all three Xenon cores, which disproves this.
3) BluRay is slow - discussed in the older BRD threads. IIRC the difference wasn't pronounced. XB360's DVD drive runs at 12x peak, single layer. It runs at 8x dual layer, peak. Data transfer difference isn't enough to make PS3 much slower loading versus XB360. Can't recall seek times differences, but again that shouldn't severely impact PS3 even if much worse.

The rest is non-technical and mostly accepted. Few developers will max PS3, those generally being 1st party (the niggle about games being designed to be performance hogs and thus questionably being fun as a result is a low comment IMO that ignores has past power increases have benefited game design); Cell's power is used to prop up RSX in rendering the same stuff as Xenos; Ports are hard and costly and no-one likes them; as a result XB360 tend to look better as its easier to write for.

You're a prince as always, Shifty

Who says it is? And officially, please use the Report Post button rather than rant.

I assumed it was since you read it and took no action. I didn't realise the mods here waited for a report In future I'll report, even if I know a mod has already reviewed and not modified.

 

[rbushner]

...

I understand, I know it seems trivial, but thanks for the reposted points.