*Game Development Issues*

[_phil_]

So yeah , we just learn developpers are like anybody ,they have an opinion.Will die wiser...

 

[SedentaryJourney]

I don't know if this lies within the realm of opinion since Carmack claims there's a limiting or gating factor with the PS3 version. It's not like his earlier comments about cell.

 

[nAo]

This is just plain common sense.
Let's put development issues related to SDKs&related tools aside and analyze for a second what it means to develop on PC, 360, PS3 and Mac.

GPUs on all these platforms can be programmed through a set of extremely similar APIs and all share the same modus operandi when it comes down to vertex and pixel shading, therefore what it makes a big difference here is the CPU and the amount of available memory (I'm not concerned that much about differences in GPUs performance as GPU content is usually easier to scale..).

It's clear that PS3 has the most exotic architecture compared to the other three platforms, and also a (relatively small) memory disadvantage.
While the latter is a kind of bottleneck that can be easily overcome (again, scale the content) to other platforms detriment, the former is certainly not that easy to address, especially if you are in love with OOOE CPUs (and who's not?)

Programming everything from the ground up to be efficient on PS3 would benefit 360 a lot too, while PC and Mac platforms really wouldn't care that much.
Again the choice you have to make is a no brainer here, PS3 will end up being your bottleneck in many cases, while CELL will mostly go unused.
I guess Sony has learned a lot of lessons this round, and if they have not, well.. who wants to open a restaurant with me? (Faf I know you want to..)

A last recommendation for all f@anbys, no matter what's your faith is, don't count the number of SPUs or CPU cores used to find out which platform is more powerful/cool/etc. Just give a look on what you see on screen and draw your own conclusions

p.s. I'm afraid to sound as Monsieur de la Palisse today but after having read so many pages I got the impression a lot of ppl lost sight of what this debate is all about.

 

[-tkf-]

On the video clip second from the top, starting about around 1:18, John Carmack says it's more difficult to develop on the PS3.

http://kotaku.com/5025229/carmack-talks-from-idea-to-mac-gaming-and-ps3-programming

I always had this picture in my head of JC being the uber nerd that preferred the hard way instead of the easy way.

I dont know if i am wrong, but since the heydays of Quake he started to look more at the business side around Quake 3 so i don´t think it´s any surprise that he prefers things "as he knows them".

The sad thing is that he would be the perfect choice if you wanted someone to really explore the depths of Cell.

 

[-tkf-]

Jeeze, you really wanna get me crucified on this forum, don't cha?

Well you never seemed to care anyway ;-) i guess that is one of the reasons you earned so much respect here.

Ohh and personally you doubled that respect because you took the hard way (hello PS3) instead of the easy way (hello 360), which in the end will benefit the guys that buy your games and own a PS3.

 

[SedentaryJourney]

This is just plain common sense.
Let's put development issues related to SDKs&related tools aside and analyze for a second what it means to develop on PC, 360, PS3 and Mac.

GPUs on all these platforms can be programmed through a set of extremely similar APIs and all share the same modus operandi when it comes down to vertex and pixel shading, therefore what it makes a big difference here is the CPU and the amount of available memory (I'm not concerned that much about differences in GPUs performance as GPU content is usually easier to scale..).

It's clear that PS3 has the most exotic architecture compared to the other three platforms, and also a (relatively small) memory disadvantage.
While the latter is a kind of bottleneck that can be easily overcome (again, scale the content) to other platforms detriment, the former is certainly not that easy to address, especially if you are in love with OOOE CPUs (and who's not?)

Isn't this content scaling you're mentioning the one thing people notice immediately when starting vs. threads? Also joker seems to be implying that there are particular sanctions in place against developers who do this(with certain exceptions). Therefore in order to avoid these sanctions, and the appearance that the developers are lazy, the 360 version is usually scaled back to match.

I don't know if this is true, and I've been impressed by a few exclusive PS3 titles, but when games are multiplatform it's almost never the PS3 version that fares better under comparison. Rage avoids this by building concurrently on several platforms using the same assets making sure no single one is left behind.

 

[psorcerer]

Who's BB? In any case, We're only ~2ms from making frame at full rez, I'm not worried about it.

OK, never mind.

Not sure where you're going with this. The big boys run with a different rule book, that's all I was saying.

That's not true.
It's much simpler, if MSFT approves and Sony does not Rockstar would just shift release date on PS3. Disaster for Sony. The opposite is true for MSFT. So we have a peculiar game here: who approves first.

Again, not really sure where you're going here. If a company can spend X dollars developing a product, or spend X+Y dollars, there is no reason to choose option B. I've yet to encounter anyone that claims PS3 development is the cheaper of the two, so why would you lead on it unless you just feel like burning through more cash? If anyone can explain to me how leading on PS3 would save money, then spell it out. I'd be interesting in hearing the theory behind it.

Err.. to make game on cellular phone costs much less, and profits are much better. Why not ditch X360 and go cellular? Good enough for a theory?

It's not power, so much as leverage. It was different in the PS2 days. With a 100+ million install base, Sony had the levarage to force exclusivity windows, etc...

...people debugged with hardcopy of memory dumps.
And now even slightest challenge is not accepted: "Why? On X360 we could get out with pretty graphics doing nothing!"

 

[nAo]

Isn't this content scaling you're mentioning the one thing people notice immediately when starting vs. threads?

I should have made it more clear, content scaling on all platforms, not just one.

Also joker seems to be implying that there are particular sanctions in place against developers who do this(with certain exceptions). Therefore in order to avoid these sanctions, and the appearance that the developers are lazy, the 360 version is usually scaled back to match.

Sony and MS ninjas are not what they used to be anymore, what a disappointment..

I don't know if this is true, and I've been impressed by a few exclusive PS3 titles, but when games are multiplatform it's almost never the PS3 version that fares better under comparison.

Yes, and my post lists part of the reasons behind this fact.

Rage avoids this by building concurrently on several platforms using the same assets making sure no single one is left behind.

You are drinking the Kool-Aid here, Rage is not the first game doing something like this, not the second and not the third either..

 

[Nesh]

Sony and MS ninjas are not what they used to be anymore, what a disappointment..

Based on that part you quoted I get the impression that the X is the weakest and so the Y's version is scaled down so both will be equal in quality. Right?

 

[nAo]

Based on that part you quoted I get the impression that the X is the weakest and so the Y's version is scaled down so both will be equal in quality. Right?

It doesn't happen all the time, different companies have different approaches.
From a personal standpoint when I'm working on a multiplatform project I always aim at having the same content/resolution on all platforms involved.
This means assets were shared and then automatically processed, encoded and stored differently on each platform to make the best out of each architecture.

 

[Panajev2001a]

This is just plain common sense.
Let's put development issues related to SDKs&related tools aside and analyze for a second what it means to develop on PC, 360, PS3 and Mac.

GPUs on all these platforms can be programmed through a set of extremely similar APIs and all share the same modus operandi when it comes down to vertex and pixel shading, therefore what it makes a big difference here is the CPU and the amount of available memory (I'm not concerned that much about differences in GPUs performance as GPU content is usually easier to scale..).

It's clear that PS3 has the most exotic architecture compared to the other three platforms, and also a (relatively small) memory disadvantage.
While the latter is a kind of bottleneck that can be easily overcome (again, scale the content) to other platforms detriment, the former is certainly not that easy to address, especially if you are in love with OOOE CPUs (and who's not?)

Faf never told you that FPU code OOOE nightmare story, I see .

who wants to open a restaurant with me? (Faf I know you want to..)

Oh well, I thought we were going to work at a butcher shop... restaurant is fine too I guess .

 

[eastmen]

People say this on the internet a lot but my own experience is that I see both versions of the same co-branded commercial about equally. If there was some demonstrable statistical evidence, that would be one thing, but you could just be missing the other versions on channels you don't watch.



Well, I just know a guy who works at G4 and asked about what I was seeing in their coverage. Here's a link. Matt Keil works on X-Play and helped produce their E3 coverage. Unless you have any evidence to the contrary, there's really no reason to dismiss his answer.

Seems to me it supports my theory that g4 is a bunch of idiots . they tried to play a bluray disc on an xbox 360 ?

Doesn't seem like that dev was really given a choice on what platform to use , they were most likely told to bring ps3 demos .

 

[Mintmaster]

Err.. to make game on cellular phone costs much less, and profits are much better. Why not ditch X360 and go cellular? Good enough for a theory?

Since when is cell phone gaming more profitable? It's a small, niche market with low ASPs. You can't hit GTA homeruns there. Maybe it will become bigger later, but your argument is rather meaningless today.

 

[joker454]

...people debugged with hardcopy of memory dumps.
And now even slightest challenge is not accepted: "Why? On X360 we could get out with pretty graphics doing nothing!"

People also used to live without air conditioning and ride a donkey to the market, doesn't mean I have to If I can get my job done easier, faster, and more efficiently doing X, or using Y, then I'm gonna do it. Like on the new 360 Pix, apparently you can edit shader code on the fly and rerun it, time it, see the results, rinse and repeat, all in pix. I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard that's how it works. Now, that is just too damn cool and useful for me not to use.

But yeah you are right, I could "tough it out", be hardcore, and stick to the PS3 way where I'd:

1) compile and run
2) setup the scene
3) run replay, capture and time
4) see the results
5) tweak the shader
6) go back to step 1

I could do that a few dozen times a day. Or...I could get a 360 dev kit again and just do it all in pix. Hmmmmmmm.....tough call eh? I'm sure there are some masochists out there that would prefer to tough it out. Me, I think I'll be asking for a 360 dev kit again once this project is done. Oddly, I'm finding out that a 360 dev kit is one of the better PS3 development tools.

 

[habbe]

Doesn't seem like that dev was really given a choice on what platform to use , they were most likely told to bring ps3 demos .

Please shed some light on how you came up with that conclusion.

 

[Mintmaster]

Programming everything from the ground up to be efficient on PS3 would benefit 360 a lot too, while PC and Mac platforms really wouldn't care that much.

I hear this argument from time to time, and while half true, it still forces studios away from the point of optimality. From years of experience, studio execs feel they can get the most out of a title by, for example, spending X% on coding, Y% on art/content/gameplay, and Z% on testing and tuning. For any given budget, being efficient on PS3 puts more resources on coding that they could put towards the others.

When you look at the big picture and take budget into account, I don't think it's fair to say that coding for efficiency on the PS3 benefits the 360, and in fact it's quite the opposite.

I suppose one can make the argument that studio execs don't devote enough of a budget to coding anyway and doing this just forces them to make a decision that they should be doing anyway, but that would be a bit presumptuous.

 

[Mintmaster]

...people debugged with hardcopy of memory dumps.
And now even slightest challenge is not accepted: "Why? On X360 we could get out with pretty graphics doing nothing!"

Why is this so hard for you to understand? If you want access you a 100M+ install base, you have to go through such pains. It's crap that you didn't have to deal with on other platforms, but you'll gladly pay for it if you can quadruple your target market. That's what joker454 means by "leverage".

With PS3 that isn't the case. You only get about 60% more sales by including PS3, and maybe only 10% of the PS3 version's buyers would refuse to buy the game if it had slight deficiencies like lower resolution, less AA, blurrier textures, or lower framerate. Now you have to ask yourself if it's worth all that work to get 4% more buyers.

Oddly, I'm finding out that a 360 dev kit is one of the better PS3 development tools.

Not so odd considering that this type of thing happens everywhere in code development.

 

[betan]

1) compile and run
2) setup the scene
3) run replay, capture and time
4) see the results
5) tweak the shader
6) go back to step 1

Not that I'm arguing against awesomeness of Pix but aren't most of those scriptable?
I would imagine even 4 and 5 could be scripted for simple cases, automating the whole process?

 

[joker454]

Not that I'm arguing against awesomeness of Pix but aren't most of those scriptable?
I would imagine even 4 and 5 could be scripted for simple cases, automating the whole process?

Even if (assuming for the same of argument) the process was 100% scriptable, it's still a huge time sink. Back at another company, I remember there was an issue with PS3 compile and link times, which were very slow compared to the 360. It was irritating enough that I decided to calculate how much time I was losing each day because of it, just to make the point clear. It ended up being ~22 minutes a day. Going on raw numbers, this means that a PS3 only coder would lose one day every ~21.8 days compared to a 360 coder (assuming working 8 hours a day) just from this one issue. So, a minute or two here and there really adds up.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

Why is this so hard for you to understand? If you want access you a 100M+ install base, you have to go through such pains. It's crap that you didn't have to deal with on other platforms, but you'll gladly pay for it if you can quadruple your target market. That's what joker454 means by "leverage".

With PS3 that isn't the case. You only get about 60% more sales by including PS3, and maybe only 10% of the PS3 version's buyers would refuse to buy the game if it had slight deficiencies like lower resolution, less AA, blurrier textures, or lower framerate. Now you have to ask yourself if it's worth all that work to get 4% more buyers.

Sorry, I wasn't aware that the PS2 started out with 100M+ install base. So, there were no games other than 1st party games on the PS2 'til the install base reached 100M+ install base? ...Nothing at the 10M, 20M, or 30M mark, huh? After all, the PS2 is supposedly the most difficult of all the systems to develop for, right? It must have been really rough for the PS2. How many 3rd party games were on the PS2 by the time the install base reached 20M+?

Somehow that reason doesn't make sense to me. Can anyone tell me why?