Provocative comment by Id member about PS2 (and Gamecube)!

[Josiah]

it's too bad consoles can't be benchmarked like video cards can, it would be very interesting to see.

 

[PC-Engine]

Take a look at these screens of Jak II. Do you still think that PS2 is inferior in the geometry department?

Using screens to gauge specific poly counts is futile. Those pics are not very impressive btw.

It is difficult to see where a performance increase, so big it would be worth compromising IQ so much, would come from. In fact in some ways mip mapping should increase performance.

So why is it rarely used in high profile PS2 games while it's common on Xbox games???

I didn’t say they were not. I said that few xbox games actually use them

Anisotropic maybe but trilinear?? How do you know this???

The clamp function on GS is hardwired. It is used to “stretch†textures, it’s just a general function that can be used in a variety of ways

How is stretching textures equivalent to trilinear???

In most cases the xbox high resolution textures is “just†a low res base texture, with a detail texture on top of it.

Nobody asked how it's achieved. Point is it's superior looking textures end of story.

Okay, so PS2 can’t fit a whole frame buffer system inside its 4Mb VRAM, so what? It saves huge amounts of bandwidth by having all the buffers on die, I think that’s an acceptable trade off.
Besides 480p looks almost as good, and doesn’t have the performance hit of 720p. The important thing is that it is progressive, that is much more noticeable than a slight increase in resolution.
By the time PS2 is faced out, it will still only be a very small percentage of the world’s population who have access to HDTVs.

Point is it's available for 99% of the Xbox games so if someone has an HDTV they can take advantage of it for 99% of the games not just a pathetic 1%..

People by HDTVs for higher image quality right? Progessive is better than interlaced isn't it???

And?

...people don't need to worry about spending more money to buy extra bandaids for games that use the hardrive and ethernet because it's already built into EVERY Xbox console...

 

[rabidrabbit]

...IIRC the GS's triangle setup is limited to 75 Mpolys/s while the EE can only dish out 66 Mpolys/s so the bottleneck is at 66...

Whats the situation in xbox?
How much can the 733 MHz CPU push out polys?
Is the 116 million polys on xbox a theoretical number that the GeForce chip could push, if the CPU could feed it enough data?
I'm just asking because this is unclear to me.

 

[Josiah]

It is difficult to see where a performance increase, so big it would be worth compromising IQ so much, would come from. In fact in some ways mip mapping should increase performance.

So why is it rarely used in high profile PS2 games while it's common on Xbox games???

I think that is to save memory. Instead of having to deal with all the textures in a scene + the various MIP levels, they just send the textures without MIP maps, which means less data to send to GS. Since GS does not support texture compression, this is probably neccessary.

 

[PC-Engine]

...IIRC the GS's triangle setup is limited to 75 Mpolys/s while the EE can only dish out 66 Mpolys/s so the bottleneck is at 66...

Whats the situation in xbox?
How much can the 733 MHz CPU push out polys?
Is the 116 million polys on xbox a theoretical number that the GeForce chip could push, if the CPU could feed it enough data?
I'm just asking because this is unclear to me.

The CPU in Xbox doesn't do any TnL as that's the job of the dual vertex shaders.

The CPU in PS2 does the TnL not the GS.

 

[Jov]

Whats the situation in xbox?
How much can the 733 MHz CPU push out polys?
Is the 116 million polys on xbox a theoretical number that the GeForce chip could push, if the CPU could feed it enough data?
I'm just asking because this is unclear to me.

Have a read of the following from PCvsConsole:
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=448&page=7

How accurate Chairmansteve is, thats another matter.


Jov

 

[_phil_]

The CPU in Xbox doesn't do any TnL as that's the job of the dual vertex shaders.

triangle setup is CPU bound.Also the VertexShaders on Xbox cannot generate vertices,VU1 Can.

 

[PC-Engine]

The CPU in Xbox doesn't do any TnL as that's the job of the dual vertex shaders.

triangle setup is CPU bound.Also the VertexShaders on Xbox cannot generate vertices,VU1 Can.

...And ERP's racing game pushes 30 Mpolys/s with 25,000 polys and 4 texture layers per car

Pretty fast mobile Celeron huh?

 

[Grall]

Why do you have this weird need to constantly whine like a little girl?

Oh, an unprovoked ad-hominem attack. How nice.

Nobody is forcing you to read this.

Unfortunately, as I read the board I can't help reading your silly posts too.

I'd rather you not read further as your whining is extremely annoying...

As opposed to your silly arguing over dead, lifeless bits of plastic? Like I said, get OVER it and just play the games, confident in your dead lifeless bit of plastic's superior abilities.

Your entire chain of arguments can be condensed down to the kindergarten statement: "my daddy is stronger than your daddy!", there's no merit in what you're doing. You're just polluting the board with noise and unpleasant outbursts (like the one above).

So just go play your XB and stop polluting the board. Isn't it clear to you by now that both sides are so firmly entrenched neither of you are going to switch position? It sure is to me. Any further arguing is just a waste of time and energy. Do something useful with your day instead.

*G*

 

[London Geezer]

not to be off topic, but why are there still people who argue about hardware superiority? i have a PS2, not an Xbox (for obvious financial reasons, nothing else), and i'm the first to acknowledge that hardware that came out 18 months after Ps2 will of course be superior.
Ps2 has some advantages, and to be honest i'm still drooling over ZOE2 after having finished it twice.. but thats it.... doesnt mean that PS2's hardware is "better" than xbox.
they do things differently, and the Xbox does MOST effects better than PS2... thats it. big deal...
what i was really curious about, is how do u replicate a game like ZOE2 on xbox? the hardware is capable of doing it, but how do u deal with all those insane particles and polys being pushed around?

 

[Squeak]

Take a look at these screens of Jak II. Do you still think that PS2 is inferior in the geometry department?

Using screens to gauge specific poly counts is futile. Those pics are not very impressive btw.

How’s that? I think you can get a pretty good impression of the curvedness of round shapes, and the geometric richness of the environment by looking at screens. One thing you can’t see of course, is the framerate, the problem of many xbox games.
But even at 60fps, Jak II beats all similar xbox games I’ve seen, if you’re looking at geometry that is.
Just look at the movies in the Jak II thread if you’re still not convinced.

It is difficult to see where a performance increase, so big it would be worth compromising IQ so much, would come from. In fact in some ways mip mapping should increase performance.

So why is it rarely used in high profile PS2 games while it's common on Xbox games???

Good question.

I didn’t say they were not. I said that few xbox games actually use them

Anisotropic maybe but trilinear?? How do you know this???

I use my eyes.

The clamp function on GS is hardwired. It is used to “stretch†textures, it’s just a general function that can be used in a variety of ways

How is stretching textures equivalent to trilinear???

Not trilinear, but anioso. With anioso you’re decreasing the resolution of the texture perpendicularly to the tilt of the polygon, the same thing can be done with a little creative use of clamp.

In most cases the xbox high resolution textures is “just†a low res base texture, with a detail texture on top of it.

Nobody asked how it's achieved. Point is it's superior looking textures end of story.

Again I agree. But question is, can't PS2 do something similar?

Okay, so PS2 can’t fit a whole frame buffer system inside its 4Mb VRAM, so what? It saves huge amounts of bandwidth by having all the buffers on die, I think that’s an acceptable trade off.
Besides 480p looks almost as good, and doesn’t have the performance hit of 720p. The important thing is that it is progressive, that is much more noticeable than a slight increase in resolution.
By the time PS2 is faced out, it will still only be a very small percentage of the world’s population who have access to HDTVs.

Point is it's available for 99% of the Xbox games so if someone has an HDTV they can take advantage of it for 99% of the games not just a pathetic 1%..

People by HDTVs for higher image quality right? Progessive is better than interlaced isn't it???

And?

Again, what is your point?

...people don't need to worry about spending more money to buy extra bandaids for games that use the hardrive and ethernet because it's already built into EVERY Xbox console...

As I’ve already said, I can’t see the great, cost to usefulness, ratio in putting a HDD in the machine as standard. It is still the biggest cost ms has to swallow in the production of the box.
And the point about the built-in Ethernet port is flawed, as you still have to put down extra money, to actually use it for anything else than just linkup gaming.

 

[Squeak]

not to be off topic, but why are there still people who argue about hardware superiority? i have a PS2, not an Xbox (for obvious financial reasons, nothing else), and i'm the first to acknowledge that hardware that came out 18 months after Ps2 will of course be superior.

Much of the technology in xbox has the same age, or is older, than the technology in PS2, and most importantly overall PS2 is better optimised for realtime 3d.

 

[London Geezer]

not to be off topic, but why are there still people who argue about hardware superiority? i have a PS2, not an Xbox (for obvious financial reasons, nothing else), and i'm the first to acknowledge that hardware that came out 18 months after Ps2 will of course be superior.

Much of the technology in xbox has the same age, or is older, than the technology in PS2, and most importantly overall PS2 is better optimised for realtime 3d.

ooookay... the question was, since the Ps2 VU's can actually generate new vertices, and god it generates a crapload of vertices in ZOE2, how would the vertex shaders in the Xbox handle all that? for anyone who hasnt played ZOE2, at times there must be litterally millions of particles flying around the screen. there are even objects (Anubis burst attack) MADE out of particles

 

[function]

This is getting a bit crazy IMO.

We're talking about tens or hundreds of thousands of polygons a frame in modern games. And people can tell which machine can comfortably use higher polygon counts by looking at screenshots of a game they like...?

I didn’t say they were not. I said that few xbox games actually use them

Anisotropic maybe but trilinear?? How do you know this???

I use my eyes.

In the nicest way possible, I suspect you don't know what you're looking for. I haven't seen anything on the Xbox that isn't using trilinear filitering. If you aren't using trilinear the point where the textures change between mip-map levels are pretty obvious. And without mip maps you get the kind of texture aliasing (distance shimmer) common on PS2 and some DC stuff.

Not trilinear, but anioso. With anioso you’re decreasing the resolution of the texture perpendicularly to the tilt of the polygon, the same thing can be done with a little creative use of clamp.

With aniso you're sampling texels in a none square pattern, usually something like a rectangle, in the direction that the textured surface points away from the camera. I've never heard it described as decreasing the resolution of a texture before.

I've never actually come across this "clamp" operation on PS2 before, but I don't see how 'stretching' a texture (as you describe it) can do the same thing as aniso. Presumeably that would just distort the texture ...

not to be off topic, but why are there still people who argue about hardware superiority? i have a PS2, not an Xbox (for obvious financial reasons, nothing else), and i'm the first to acknowledge that hardware that came out 18 months after Ps2 will of course be superior.

Much of the technology in xbox has the same age, or is older, than the technology in PS2, and most importantly overall PS2 is better optimised for realtime 3d.

And the Nv2A wasn't designed around doing realtime 3D graphics?

 

[London Geezer]

he must be thinking it was designed for, dont know, run Photoshop or something....

still my question is still unanswered... i really am curious to know how one would program a game like ZOE2 on Xbox, retaining all those crazy particles. the hardware is perfectly capable of, from what we've heard, and then some more. the thing that concerns me is the fact that the vertex shaders cannot create new vertices, unlike the VU's...

i mean, what does that REALLY mean anyway?

 

[notAFanB]

i mean, what does that REALLY mean anyway?

it means it'll look a little different most likely.

 

[_phil_]

And the Nv2A wasn't designed around doing realtime 3D graphics?

Let's say more intelligent 3d graphics

I see CPU (versus GPU+CPU) ,as the best way to achieve intelligent , reactive graphics.

So ps2 is a start toward that.

 

[notAFanB]

Phil:

I have no idea what you mean regarding 'intelligence' in 3D graphics.

 

[function]

Yes, I'm not sure what Phil means either.

Could you go into a little more detail Phil?

 

[Fox5]

And the Nv2A wasn't designed around doing realtime 3D graphics?

Let's say more intelligent 3d graphics

I see CPU (versus GPU+CPU) ,as the best way to achieve intelligent , reactive graphics.

So ps2 is a start toward that.

With all of PS2s flaws and that the GS Cube exists yet there is no official multi xbox station, I'd say it's more the other way around.(I wouldn't say the n64 was made for realtime 3d either, though I don't know if its chips were used in a render farm or anything)