my first ps3 impressions

[Arwin]

I think i'v read in some of these BC threads that socom 3 online didnt work. maybe thats onle a problem with that specific title.

I was wondering another thing. Since i dont know nobody in my neigbourhood with another ps3 ..
well, when you download a movie or demo, you can choose where to install it.
I saw that option cause my 512mb mp3 player was still connected to my ps3. so imagine i download a nice game on a usb stick, i can borow that stick to my mate so he can play it for a while and give me my stick back? i think that could be awesome.
Need to retest it, cause i'm doubting i could choose destination drive also for the game demos... hmm

We do already know that the titles you buy (those most likely to contain any kind of DRM), you can download 5 times. There might be a limitation on saving those on the HDD, partly because you can redownload them a few times.

Certainly it's not going to be a problem for downloadable demos and such, which is still pretty useful. I like the concept, because it makes working with large memory sticks and portable and external HDDs a lot nicer. Transferring files to them can be slow, but when you're waiting for the download anyway that doesn't matter.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Being able to d'load to USB HDDs is nice. Someone was asking me this just the other day. What they really need to add is NAT support, to download files direct to your central distribtion device.

If you download a file onto Compact Flash say, presumably that'll be portable to play on other PS3's? How do they stop content being copied from storage devices then? Or are downloads locked to run only on specific machines somehow?

hey69 can try this out when he has multiple PS3's awaiting distribution to customers. I'm sure those on here he's sold to are willing to donate their machine for a moment to let hey69 try swapping d'loads between machines!

 

[hey69]

yeah sure, everybody start sending me your ps3's hah. sorry i cant , the consoles are sended out directly from japan.
but what we could test is, lets say i download a demo, i upload it to a server and somebody else downloads it and transfer's it to his usb stick and tries to run it

 

[Npl]

Is it operable without HDD? Games work without / fail / complain ?

 

[hey69]

good question. but i dont want to poke around with the box alot for the moment. maybe i will sell it in the future

 

[hey69]

bought finaly a RGB scart cable! WOW what a difference already
I also ordered some component cables from ebay.
Well i'm glad they use the same cables as for ps1/2 . no need to fork out 30 euro for a stupid cable. scart cable was only 6.99€
Registered my self on the USA ps3 network. I tried to register ken kutaragi , xbox360 Wii and a few more but they where al taken .. bummer

anyway, downloading MOTORSTORM now, will take pics with my cam later

wowow, motorsstorm is so cool and freakin fast! yay. gotta go, i will put more impressions later on

 

[Sindre]

hey69, I was just wondering if you could check out which bit rate values one can choose from when importing music from a CD to the HDD. Especially interested in Atrac rates...
I know the default setting is 128kbps, but what is maximum rate?
Oh, and if you try it out, is the encoding fast?

*Eagerly awaiting those MotorStorm impressions btw!*

Edit: Sorry for asking this much, take your time!;-)

 

[hey69]

Hi, i think those bit rates where posted already somewhere. or maybe even on the online manual .
i will try that. PS3 is still busy downloading Resistance (865 Mb... )takes a while.

Anyway motorstorm. Damn i like this demo. I dont understand why everybody says this game is slow.
First of all you have a turbo button wich you can practically always use. and at full speed , its ridiculously fast!
I must say, there are far way less particles and bits and pieces flying apart when you make a crash.
its like they toned that down (or demo limit?)
Demo is just one nice track. lots of ramps . I always fell of the cliff , need to practice some more.
Gfx & lightning are very nice, maybe it could use some more different desert plants . But maybe thats for every track different i dont know.
You have the option to play with a buggy style of car andwith a motorcycle.
First person view is very frantic .. very impressive.It gives you a really nice feeling like you are really there, racing at full speed.
With the motorcycle you have a eagle eye camera and another one wich is directly behind the bike. no first person view here.
I saw no frame drops . Maybe it runs at better FPS cause my tv is only 480i
BTW, RGB SCART on my widescreen CRT already looks way better then that crappy included cable
i will post some pics later. ps3 is bussy with downloading.

 

[Sindre]

Hi, i think those bit rates where posted already somewhere. or maybe even on the online manual .
i will try that. PS3 is still busy downloading Resistance (865 Mb... )takes a while.

Anyway motorstorm. Damn i like this demo. I dont understand why everybody says this game is slow.
First of all you have a turbo button wich you can practically always use. and at full speed , its ridiculously fast!
I must say, there are far way less particles and bits and pieces flying apart when you make a crash.
its like they toned that down (or demo limit?)
Demo is just one nice track. lots of ramps . I always fell of the cliff , need to practice some more.
Gfx & lightning are very nice, maybe it could use some more different desert plants . But maybe thats for every track different i dont know.
You have the option to play with a buggy style of car andwith a motorcycle.
First person view is very frantic .. very impressive.It gives you a really nice feeling like you are really there, racing at full speed.
With the motorcycle you have a eagle eye camera and another one wich is directly behind the bike. no first person view here.
I saw no frame drops . Maybe it runs at better FPS cause my tv is only 480i
BTW, RGB SCART on my widescreen CRT already looks way better then that crappy included cable
i will post some pics later. ps3 is bussy with downloading.

That's great! I guess when they'll update the firmware next time, one will be able to do a lot of other things while downloading. Have fun

The "Cell Processor" PlayStation Story number 4 is up at www.eu.playstation.com/ps3 btw...

 

[London Geezer]

The "Cell Processor" PlayStation Story number 4 is up at www.eu.playstation.com/PS3 btw...

I wonder if they'll ever put a "PS3 Scaler Wanted" Story - any number really - on the website...


By the way... awful video. Sorry but i was litterally cringing. I'm almost changing my mind about wanting to go work for them...

 

[Sindre]

I wonder if they'll ever put a "PS3 Scaler Wanted" Story - any number really - on the website...


By the way... awful video. Sorry but i was litterally cringing. I'm almost changing my mind about wanting to go work for them...

Yeah, I agree, they suck compared to the fancy "US" ones at www.playb3yond.com (Even my girlfriend wanted one after watching those;-) )
Oh, a new one there too, "Higher Definition". . .

 

[rounin]

The CPU one looked pretty cool to me.

 

[hey69]

resistance done downloading, started directly F1 to download. 650mb i guess....

i really should go to bed now.. almost 2 AM

 

[Sindre]

The CPU one looked pretty cool to me.

Some of them are okay, but IMO the Playb3yond ads are so much more effective showing of the capabilities of the system. "Explaining" technical terms for the general audiences in a simple and flashy way, although over-dramatizing a wee bit here and there. But hey, it's marketing;-) And it works.

The PS3 stories seem to make everyday examples and visualizations of what the system does, in a "semi-art-ish" way, but does not succeed 100% in my eyes.
At least they might be more useful for the masses than the wicked David Lynch "The Third Place" ads for PS2 (My all time favorites nonetheless)

 

[mito]

tomorrow a great day in canada.

come to papa, baby

 

[inefficient]

My PS3 impressions

Adding my PS3 impressions to the pool.

I bought the 60GB Japanese model. These are my findings after day1 and some 12hours with it.

The good
Region free!! I knew it was region free before I bought it - it was one of the key selling points. But I didn't realize just how good "region free" meant.

I bought the "Japanese" retail version of Ridge Racer 7 and Resistance just because I could not find the US version anywhere. I figured - just a racing game and a shooter, it can't be too bad with Japanese menus. But when you set your PS3 to "English" as the system language options, all the games are in English! That's so brilliant. That means there are multiple language versions on these BR discs now. This is heaven for anyone living abroad.

PS3 store is Japanese only if you indicate you live in Japan. But I supplied a US address and everything in the store is English. I thought maybe demo downloads would be slow if I chose a non-local region. But download speeds are insanely fast!

1080p! I have a 1080p Bravia - and 1080p games look so much better than 720p games. Like Ridge Racer at 1080p looks so much better than Motorstorm or F1 to me.

Actually I was disappointed by Motorstorm graphically. It didn't look as good as I remebered at TGS. And on a big screen at 720p it looks very blurry and muddy. Compare that the the ultra crisp picture in RR7.

F1 is just sad compared to RR7. F1 looks like a game that "should" be at 1080p just because there is just not that much going on on the screen. Again compared to what I saw at TGS I was disappointed - maybe this demo has the stuff cut out to allow for a smallish DL.

I heard negative things about NBA 07 - mostly because compared to NBA 2k7 it's not as good. But NBA 07 at 1080p looks amazing! I was blown away. Not much into sports games so I can't rate the game play. but just as a graphical show piece, it's really something.

The photo display features of the PS3 are very cool. The high res photos I take on my digital camera never looked so good as they do on a large 1080p screen. This was a very nice bonus.

Physically setting it up and getting it connected to the network was very streamlined. Plug in power, HDMI and LAN - and we are done.


The bad

I HATE typing system on the PS3!! It took me like 1 hour to set up my PS3 and sign up for an online account just because I was fighting the typing system. Maybe it's something I can get used to, but it is very frustrating right now. Typing in URLs into the browser is a pain. But at least you can bookmark and there is a history list.

Speaking of the browser, it's very slow. Pages take a long time to load. Once it does load it looks very nice and I have not seen any errors so far. But it's crazy slow. I have a very high speed connection - and the exact same pages load fast on my PC. The only explanation is that the current software is not optimized.

When you download software there is no indication of the speed it is downloading at. Sony please add this along with background DLing.

It crashed/froze up on me once while playing RR7 already and I had to do a hard reset. Actually it froze in the game menus not while playing which leads me to think it some kind of code bug not a system bug.

The fan actually "can" get loud - louder than I expected. When you first turn it on it's barely a whisper. But if you leave it on for a while or after several hours of gaming it gets noticeable when the room is quiet. It's not 360 loud, or loud as my PC but it's just louder than I expected. Maybe my expectations here were too high since everyone talks about it.

I suck at console FPS games!!! I've been a hard core FPS gamer, and never got into console FPS games. But I figured since Halo1 came out progress has been made in this genre with regards to control. So I picked up Resistance and I am NOT ENJOYING IT! I can't get my PC gamer brain to wrap around this control scheme they came up with.

Sigh... I know its supposed to be a great game, I'll try harder in the coming weeks to learn how to control it to the point I feel like I am actually in control. But right now, my brain is involuntarily fighting the controls. Also there is no tutorial or training at the start of the game. It just dumps you straight into a battle.

Most of the videos I have on my PC are not recognized by the system.

My 40G video ipod is recognized by the system, but it says that I have no music, video, or pictures on it! Maybe all the files need to be in the root folder for it to see it.

Motorstorm is ugly to my eyes. Maybe the demo version has lower res textures or something. Because F1 also looked very low res and muddy to me too.

Some of the music in RR7 can get very annoying.

The music in Motorstorm is annoying from the get go.

The R1 & R2 buttons are too sensitive to be used as anything else than analog levers. It's too easy to accidentally hit the button. Like in Resistance I kept involuntarily hitting L2 to duck. just because I am used to slightly resting my finger on that button on a Dualshock2 controller. Now I have to learn to keep my fingers completely away from it.

In Ridge Racer I used L2/R2 as throttle and brake. But in this game you are squeezing on it for 99% of the time. After a few hours of playing, my hand was starting to feel pain from having to squeeze that button the whole time and I remapped it to something else.

 

[macabre]

Do you think the bad quality of Motorstorm/F1 is a scaling issue ?
I`m thinking about getting a 1080p Bravia too, but that would be not so great.

 

[Arwin]

1080p! I have a 1080p Bravia - and 1080p games look so much better than 720p games. Like Ridge Racer at 1080p looks so much better than Motorstorm or F1 to me.

Yes, this is actually a bit of a problem right now. Games designed for 1080p generally don't look as impressive at 720p, because they have had to make some sacrifices to run at 1080p. But when you run a 720p on a 1080p screen, then there is upscaling and that also makes it look less ideal. Tricky stuff. But it does show you that 1080p matters, and if it is true that in the future 1080p will be the standard, then games supporting 1080p will become more and more important.

I HATE typing system on the PS3!! It took me like 1 hour to set up my PS3 and sign up for an online account just because I was fighting the typing system. Maybe it's something I can get used to, but it is very frustrating right now. Typing in URLs into the browser is a pain. But at least you can bookmark and there is a history list.

You don't have a USB keyboard lying around?

I suck at console FPS games!!! I've been a hard core FPS gamer, and never got into console FPS games. But I figured since Halo1 came out progress has been made in this genre with regards to control. So I picked up Resistance and I am NOT ENJOYING IT! I can't get my PC gamer brain to wrap around this control scheme they came up with.

You may want to look into customising your controls (in Resistance you should be able to configure it almost any way you like), also with regards to your problems with the R/L2 buttons. Don't give up!

Most of the videos I have on my PC are not recognized by the system.

Most of them should be easy to transmux though - all the DivX, XviD and so on should be easily transmuxed to MP4.

My 40G video ipod is recognized by the system, but it says that I have no music, video, or pictures on it! Maybe all the files need to be in the root folder for it to see it.

They need to be in the folders "MUSIC", "VIDEO", and "PICTURE" for the PS3 to see them by default. However, if you press Triangle while having your iPod selected in the XMB, you should be able to view the whole file-tree.

 

[mrboo]

I bought the "Japanese" retail version of Ridge Racer 7 and Resistance just because I could not find the US version anywhere. I figured - just a racing game and a shooter, it can't be too bad with Japanese menus. But when you set your PS3 to "English" as the system language options, all the games are in English! That's so brilliant. That means there are multiple language versions on these BR discs now. This is heaven for anyone living abroad.

Yep, that was a huge benefit that Sony and a few developers were banging on about, having enough space to put the language for each country on the same disk.

 

[inefficient]

Do you think the bad quality of Motorstorm/F1 is a scaling issue ?
I`m thinking about getting a 1080p Bravia too, but that would be not so great.

I'm sure up-scaling causes some blurring. But I don't think that the main source of the problems.

Motorstorm just lacks definition when the textures are up close. When the camera is really high off the ground in some of the cinematic shots, the terrain and textures look very good. Sometimes it looks damn good. But usually, when you are actually racing, it looks smeary. Maybe some sort of shader that adds noise to the terrain would help.

F1 looks quite bad now that I've had an even closer look at it. I'm not even sure its running natively at 720p anymore - it's that bad. It's very blurry even when the car is not moving. Their motion blur effect is ugly. And there is this heat haze effect coming out of every cars exhaust which would be a nice touch if done right, but it makes the back of every car look even more blurry.

There is no car damage modeling. (which previous game trailers of this title have shown) And I'm pretty sure the game is only running at 30fps. Hopefully the retail game will address these problems. I remember when I saw it at TGS I thought it looked pretty decent. But I must not have been wearing contacts or glasses on that day.

I think lack of 1080p is inexcusable for this game (F1) considering the bar RidgeRacer7 set for racing graphics - and that was just a port!

They need to be in the folders "MUSIC", "VIDEO", and "PICTURE" for the PS3 to see them by default. However, if you press Triangle while having your iPod selected in the XMB, you should be able to view the whole file-tree.

Nice tip. Unfortunately, the music folder on the ipod seems to be a hidden folder. Ideally there would be a function to scan the disc for files it can play and then build some sort of play list.