Playstation 3 e3 thread 4

[Mordecaii]

Now this is something I can completely agree on... no more about it please But back onto the subject of the original post... Ah yes, PS3 at E3... Overall, for a product being close to a year from launching I thought they did a good job of showing off the system. It's to be expected that some things (such as the internet service, certain HW details, etc) won't be hammered down yet, but they certainly made a good presentation based on what was available to them.

 

[ManuVlad3.0]

The Ageia NovodeX API, when they bring it over to the PlayStation 3, will be very fast, very powerful--similar to the Ageia [chip].

Mark Rein - GameSpot Interview

Very interesting 8)

 

[inefficient]

GS: How has it been programming for the Cell processor? Have you tapped into the extra processing cores yet?

MR: We haven't really delved into the Cell all that deeply yet. All we've done is mostly take advantage of just the normal PowerPC core and the RSX graphics, so we really look forward to getting home and tackling all kinds of cool stuff on the Cell

As I suspected...

 

[wco81]

Isn't Harrison head of development for SCEE, not marketing?

He said on G4 that the SCEE studios have had dev kits for about 5 months.

He also said Motor Storm demo may be more of a replay sequence rather than gameplay, kind of like the difference between in-game GT4 and replay GT4. Especially the portions which featured cameras outside the car.

 

[mckmas8808]

From Mark Rein

The PlayStation 3 Cell architecture is very similar to the hardware design of the Ageia chip, so the PC will be able to get superaccelerated also. The Ageia NovodeX API, when they bring it over to the PlayStation 3, will be very fast, very powerful--similar to the Ageia [chip]. But the cool thing about that is if someone's lead moneymaking platform is the PlayStation 3, they're going physics up the wazoo because they have so much power.

\

I think this is really interesting. This Ageia NovodeX API might be a great help. Physics up the wazoo.
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HEADSHOPS

 

[passby]

I must have missed it long ago.

We haven't really delved into the Cell all that deeply yet. All we've done is mostly take advantage of just the normal PowerPC core and the RSX graphics

Very promising indication of improvements in the coming years.

 

[mckmas8808]

I know passby can you imagne what games are going to look like once they dig deep into the cell. The physics are going to be crazy.
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Arizona marijuana dispensary

 

[wco81]

I must have missed it long ago.

We haven't really delved into the Cell all that deeply yet. All we've done is mostly take advantage of just the normal PowerPC core and the RSX graphics

Very promising indication of improvements in the coming years.

Or maybe most multiplatform games never tap into the SPEs because that work wouldn't transfer to other platforms.

What if physics in sports games could be done well in the Cell but would have to be scaled back or eliminated on PCs and X360?

Would publishers and developers spend the resources to develop such features or just ignore them knowing they can't be leveraged beyond the PS3?

 

[Acert93]

The PS3 and Xbox 360 have similar PPC cores. The general game code should be very easy to port.

They would just need to make the physics modular and tweak/recompile for the SPE/VMX units on the two machines. I believe both allow programmers to work in C, so if they design their physics code to port well from SPE<>VMX then I do not see the problem.

Yes, the PS3 will have about 2x the performance in FLOPs, but the VMX are pretty flexible and the xCPU has 3 PPC instead of one.

I think when the dust settles we will see we have made a big deal out of nothing for the most part. Each system will have strengths and weaknesses--some more than other--but cross platform games will be designed in a way to work as well as possible on both (if not all three), and first party games will FOCUS on the strengths and exploit them and stay away from any weaknesses.

What I expect is there to be a bigger difference this gen between

1st Party and 3rd Party

and

Large budget and Low budget

There was probably a bigger difference in systems this gen (PS2 with the under featured GS did well against the Xbox; the Xbox's 3GFLOP CPU did well against the PS3 6GLOPs CPU... some games exploited those features and made a big difference, MOST DID NOT... the average game was pretty comparable between the two less some minor IQ issues which wont be an issue this gen because of the choice of GPU IHVs).

The architectures are also quite similar. SM 3.0(+) GPUs that do Pixel and Vertex shading, PPC CPU cores, fast vector units for FP power (SPE and VMX), sound is done on the CPUs, 512MB of memory, the ability of the GPU to offload vertex processing to the CPUs. Even the system's other points are similar: wireless controllers with basically the same buttons, wifi, ethernet, internet out of the box, larger optical media than this gen, home A/V look, Media PC features, and so forth.

Really, the two systems are really very similar. I would say the differences last gen are only exceeded by the similarities this generation.

The art direction and time to really get a feature rich engine to exploit the power of the machines is VERY time consuming, and having the tools to allow the artists and map makers spend more time making game assets instead of waiting on coders. I think this is why we have seen an exodus to the UE3 Engine.

 

[mckmas8808]

What if physics in sports games could be done well in the Cell but would have to be scaled back or eliminated on PCs and X360?

Great question wco81. To me Mark from Epic answered your question.

We're going to be able to do a lot of cool stuff on it. Especially great physics--the NovodeX guys are going to get their API put on it.

Things that you write for the NovodeX API automatically become hardware-accelerated, automatically get faster [with a physics processor]. What's more significant isn't really that. What you get is instead of having 600 rocks rolling down a hill you have to do 6,000 rocks rolling down a hill. So you'll be able to do so much more, do much deeper simulations than what we could possibly do without it. But people who don't have it won't feel completely ripped off--they just won't get the full experience.

Notice what I did in bold. It sounds like if its there they will use it. He is clearly stating that if a console or pc doesn't have the NovodeX API then they will lose some game play experience.
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[Acert93]

Notice what I did in bold. It sounds like if its there they will use it. He is clearly stating that if a console or pc doesn't have the NovodeX API then they will lose some game play experience.

It is not an issue of whether or not a system has the "API", the issue is whether a system with accellerate the Novodex Physics engine with hardware or if it will be processed in software.

The NovodeX physics application is being ported to the PS3 and Xbox 360; on these two systems it will use the VMX and SPE units to accelerate the physics.

On the PC NovodeX also works, unaccellerated on normal PCs and accellerated with PCs that have the PPU card.

The API is part of the UE3 enchine I believe (or a plug in). It can be either software or hardware accellerated depending on the hardware. Like I mentioned it is being ported to the consoles specifically to be accellerated by each of their designes unique structure.

 

[blakjedi]

the novodex api was announced as supporting the x360 platform first.... that leads one to believe that x360 can accelerate the API in hardware just fine...

 

[alexsok]

Guys, you shoulhd all read the following IGN analysis of PS3 vs XBOX360 specs:
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/617/617951p1.html

 

[Shifty Geezer]

AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a MICROSOFT creation. This is MICROSOFT talking about how their unlaunched hardware compares with Sony's unlaunched hardware.

We decided to put this Microsoft-provided information our undigested. Thus, enclosed is a Microsoft-made comparitive analysis. We have not alterted, added, or tinkered with the data. We have not interpreted the specs. We have pasted and cut this information from the email into our site and formatted it. Make of it what you will, but be clear we know Microsoft has clearly slanted this info, and we're not endorsing it, just printing their version. There is a difference.

Personally I Don't trust MS to provide unbaised objective comparisions about their competitor.

My God, it's a PR nightmare! I wish none fo the damned machines had been shown and just got released!

 

[Titanio]

the novodex api was announced as supporting the x360 platform first.... that leads one to believe that x360 can accelerate the API in hardware just fine...

Novadex will work on anything from a single core CPU up. It's a question of how well or on what scale it will work - that'll vary from one piece of hardware to another.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel it too.

 

[blakjedi]

the novodex api was announced as supporting the x360 platform first.... that leads one to believe that x360 can accelerate the API in hardware just fine...

Novadex will work on anything from a single core CPU up. It's a question of how well or on what scale it will work - that'll vary from one piece of hardware to another.

I was just saying that because people were talking about the novodex accelerating cell as if the xecpu/gpu could not do the exact thing or as well... which remains to be seen.

 

[Titanio]

I was just saying that because people were talking about the novodex accelerating cell as if the xecpu/gpu could not do the exact thing or as well... which remains to be seen.

I don't really think they were. And at what point does "running" become "acceleration"?

But honestly, Cell should "do" physics better than X360's CPU. Epic is putting it in PhysX's ballpark, which would be quite impressive (i'm sure it won't be quite as good, but even getting close would be very nice).

 

[blakjedi]

I was just saying that because people were talking about the novodex accelerating cell as if the xecpu/gpu could not do the exact thing or as well... which remains to be seen.

I don't really think they were. And at what point does "running" become "acceleration"?

But honestly, Cell should "do" physics better than X360's CPU. Epic is putting it in PhysX's ballpark, which would be quite impressive (i'm sure it won't be quite as good, but even getting close would be very nice).

"Should" is the operative word in your statement. Which is the same thing as my statement that it "remains to be seen."

But i do expect radical acceleration on PS3 because it has more fp power in the cpu.

 

[Titanio]

"Should" is the operative word in your statement. Which is the same thing as my statement that it "remains to be seen."

But i do expect radical acceleration on PS3 because it has more fp power in the cpu.

Well, pretty much everything is "shoulds" and "woulds" for those of us without console dev kits on our desks, unfortunately

But I think Epic knows what they're talking about, and it wouldn't be very surprising.