davis.anthony
Veteran
The same GC that didn't get a Burnout 3 port because it's CPU couldn't handle the game?
The same GC that fairs poorly to PS2 in multiplat games?
PS2 is still the best designed console in terms of hardware ever (And that isn't a joke) (or is it?)
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The same GC that didn't get a Burnout 3 port because it's CPU couldn't handle the game?
The same GC that fairs poorly to PS2 in multiplat games?
'Best' is a relative comparison, requiring comparison criteria to be defined. Without that, everyone's response will be what they consider best console in terms of what they are measuring by. eg. Silent_Buddha determines developer ease a requirement to be the 'best hardware' where the original point may have been looking at hardware a different way. Other people will consider hardware cost and 'best' to factor in production costs to filter out easy wins by just spending more, or even size and power efficiency. It's possible for a platform to be best in some ways, not in others, and an aggregate 'best' to be pretty subjective.
I don't have high hopes for this thread as people tend to assume their way of feeling the best is the right way. I hope people can be more specific by describing what features made for a good design choice and which platforms executed best in those regards, avoiding an attempt to pedestal a platform. It's probably better if people said "my preferred" where an objective comparison isn't being made.
PS2 was so very different; it excelled in some areas, failed in others. It wasn't the most well rounded, but it sparkled in ways other platforms didn't.
Do you have a source for this? RE4 for instance looks better on GC than PS2. The problem with the GC was once again its lousy storage so you didn’t get the same audio quality as the Xbox/PS2.
davis.anthony
Veteran
The Burnout 3 claim was made by a developer in this very forum years ago so you'll have to search (Basically Burnout 2's particles, AI and physics systems were updated so much for Burnout 3 that GC's CPU couldn't handle it)
In regard to multiplats this shocked me as I always thought GC was easily between PS2 and Xbox (But closer to Xbox)
But the reality is there are many mutiplats where GC offers higher resolutions over PS2 but can have some pretty big cut backs in visuals and a lower frame rate than PS2.
This video shows it perfectly, graphically PS2 seems to doing everything effect wise that Xbox is doing (Just at a lower resolution)
Where as GC is the same resolution as Xbox but offers cut back visuals (No DOF, motion blur, bloom...etc...etc...)
And this isn't a one off either, the more video's you watch about GC vs PS2 in multiplats the more you see it wasn't as clear cut as people always thought (me included)
(This is a good channel too as some of the differences between PS2/Xbox/GC are fascinating)
The driving section later on in the video is especially poor on GC.
Now for a machine released later than PS2 it's not a good look.
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That's what you get when you have such different architectures, trying to extract all the juice from all platforms with a single game is a pain for devs, so they'll stick with the main plateform they started with, and try to port to others in a limited time and without starting from scratch.
They cut on the VRAM but focused on other areas such as the huge amounts of bandwidth and fillrate. Overall it had more memory than the DC if I recall
The VRAM was supposed to be assisted by the super fast bandwidth for fast texture swapping. It is not something the devs figured out alone but it was part of its design logic from Sony.
I dont think there was anything that could replicate MGS2, TTT or GT3 when these games were released.
(1) Resident Evil 4 | PS2 vs GameCube | Was there a big difference? - YouTube
Sometimes it is interesting to take a look back to realize that before some versions did make a difference. Currently, all versions provide a very similar experience, while previous generations left us very curious and interesting cases, such as Resident Evil 4.
In this case, the PS2 version suffered considerable cuts. Let's go with the comparison:
- Cutouts in texturing and polygons of characters and environment.
- Elimination of some post-processing effects, such as fog or light rays.
- Cutouts in ambient occlusion and lighting.
- Longer loading times when changing zones or accessing the menu.
- The cutscenes on PS2 were pre-rendered GC videos. Gamecube showed the custom suits in the scenes, while PS2 did not.
- Water effects considerably lower or directly eliminated.
- The sound undergoes a fairly aggressive compression, decreasing its quality.
- Elimination of elements in the environment such as trees, rocks, bushes or animals.
I have no idea if RE4 port on ps2 was exceptionally bad or anything but GC version looks like a night and day. I wonder the same about vid you posted, is it because GCN is much weaker than xbox and ps2 or the port is just bad.
davis.anthony
Veteran
Comparing how a multiplat game performs is no the same as comparing a port of an exclusive (It was also a bad port that I don;t even think was done by Capcom)
In the same example imagine a ZOE2 port on GC.
Indifferent if it is easy or hard from a developer standpoint I believe we lost a lot when consoles started to want to be like PCs.
But that is what it is... it won't change anymore and I understand from a developer standpoint the PC hardware route is better for them but don't push for the best results that a specialized hardware can do.
So in terms of hardware design the PS2 was indeed way better and interesting than PS4 and PS5 imo... saving some minor changes PS4 and PS5 are very standard PC hardware with it pros and cons.
But that is what it is... it won't change anymore and I understand from a developer standpoint the PC hardware route is better for them but don't push for the best results that a specialized hardware can do.
So in terms of hardware design the PS2 was indeed way better and interesting than PS4 and PS5 imo... saving some minor changes PS4 and PS5 are very standard PC hardware with it pros and cons.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Think about it another way.
PS2 vs. Xbox.
One was a custom designed piece of hardware that was very hard to extract performance out of. The other was an easy to develop for piece of hardware using common desktop PC technology.
In general games looked significantly better and performed significantly better on the Xbox. Obviously, all the games were on PS2 because that was the dominant console not because it was the better console.
Sure the argument can be made that the Xbox came out a year later, so it has a technology advantage.
So, in games that were playable on both consoles, Xbox generally gave a much better user experience.
PS3 vs. X360.
Well, the PS3 came out a year later than the X360, so the X360 can't lay claim to releasing later with an advantage. Instead we should be saying that PS3 should have a technology advantage since it launched later.
Very different hardware architectures. PS3 is significantly more powerful in many ways but is also significantly harder to program for. X360 had some advantages and disadvantages as well, but it was significantly easier to develop on.
Hence, the vast majority of multiplatform games looked or performed better on the X360. Sure if you could afford the time and effort to try to extract performance out of the PS3 you could get some pretty good results. And towards the end of the generation multiplatform games on PS3 started to look and perform as good as they did on the X360. Not because it intrinsically suddenly became easier to program for, but developers could now use shared libraries that made it easier (but still not as easy as the X360) to develop games on the PS3. Basically the closer it got to X360's ease of development, the closer it got to matching the look and performance of games on X360.
Sure, 1st party developers that can afford to spend significantly more time attempting to extract performance out of a difficult to develop for piece of hardware could do some really nice things. But everyone else who didn't have that time? They were basically releasing worse versions on PS3 of games that were released on X360. And that only started to change as they got access to shared libraries from those 1st party developers.
So, which would be the better design from an end user POV? The one that starts out looking and performing well right out of the gate compared to the competition and basically still matches it at the end of the generation? Or the one that looks significantly worse at the start of the generation but can finally match the other by the end of the generation?
Neither PS2 nor PS3 are making a case that custom hard to develop for architectures are better for either the consumer or the developer. Generally speaking the easier it is for a developer to create something for a platform, the better the end user experience will be.
As such, Sony decided to follow Microsoft's lead, not only because custom hardware is expensive and requires you to have far more expensive to employ engineers on your payrol, but also because they were increasingly losing developers to the Xbox ecosystem (by this, I mean developers were choosing Xbox as the primary development platform due to ease of development). And that also creates it's own advantages that will be experienced by end users. Primary development platform means games released for it will have more time, polish and attention to ensuring it runs and looks well on that platform versus other platforms regardless of any hardware differences.
So, as such, had Sony stuck with custom hardware, even if that hardware was significantly more powerful than hardware that shared common technology with PCs, the vast majority of their games would at best have looked and performed similarly to a less powerful console using PC technology and at worst would both perform worse and look worse due to the difficulty extracting performance from the custom hardware.
Now, is custom hardware more interesting than PC derived hardware? Yes, because it's an oddity. And oddities are always interesting. Could it be more powerful? Quite possibly. Would that potential power translate into most end user experiences on that hardware? Well, history tells us that no, it wouldn't when compared to a relatively similarly performing piece of hardware using slightly customized general purpose PC hardware. At least not until the ease of development started to approach the ease of development of using slightly customized PC hardware.
Regards,
SB
PS2 vs. Xbox.
One was a custom designed piece of hardware that was very hard to extract performance out of. The other was an easy to develop for piece of hardware using common desktop PC technology.
In general games looked significantly better and performed significantly better on the Xbox. Obviously, all the games were on PS2 because that was the dominant console not because it was the better console.
Sure the argument can be made that the Xbox came out a year later, so it has a technology advantage.
So, in games that were playable on both consoles, Xbox generally gave a much better user experience.
PS3 vs. X360.
Well, the PS3 came out a year later than the X360, so the X360 can't lay claim to releasing later with an advantage. Instead we should be saying that PS3 should have a technology advantage since it launched later.
Very different hardware architectures. PS3 is significantly more powerful in many ways but is also significantly harder to program for. X360 had some advantages and disadvantages as well, but it was significantly easier to develop on.
Hence, the vast majority of multiplatform games looked or performed better on the X360. Sure if you could afford the time and effort to try to extract performance out of the PS3 you could get some pretty good results. And towards the end of the generation multiplatform games on PS3 started to look and perform as good as they did on the X360. Not because it intrinsically suddenly became easier to program for, but developers could now use shared libraries that made it easier (but still not as easy as the X360) to develop games on the PS3. Basically the closer it got to X360's ease of development, the closer it got to matching the look and performance of games on X360.
Sure, 1st party developers that can afford to spend significantly more time attempting to extract performance out of a difficult to develop for piece of hardware could do some really nice things. But everyone else who didn't have that time? They were basically releasing worse versions on PS3 of games that were released on X360. And that only started to change as they got access to shared libraries from those 1st party developers.
So, which would be the better design from an end user POV? The one that starts out looking and performing well right out of the gate compared to the competition and basically still matches it at the end of the generation? Or the one that looks significantly worse at the start of the generation but can finally match the other by the end of the generation?
Neither PS2 nor PS3 are making a case that custom hard to develop for architectures are better for either the consumer or the developer. Generally speaking the easier it is for a developer to create something for a platform, the better the end user experience will be.
As such, Sony decided to follow Microsoft's lead, not only because custom hardware is expensive and requires you to have far more expensive to employ engineers on your payrol, but also because they were increasingly losing developers to the Xbox ecosystem (by this, I mean developers were choosing Xbox as the primary development platform due to ease of development). And that also creates it's own advantages that will be experienced by end users. Primary development platform means games released for it will have more time, polish and attention to ensuring it runs and looks well on that platform versus other platforms regardless of any hardware differences.
So, as such, had Sony stuck with custom hardware, even if that hardware was significantly more powerful than hardware that shared common technology with PCs, the vast majority of their games would at best have looked and performed similarly to a less powerful console using PC technology and at worst would both perform worse and look worse due to the difficulty extracting performance from the custom hardware.
Now, is custom hardware more interesting than PC derived hardware? Yes, because it's an oddity. And oddities are always interesting. Could it be more powerful? Quite possibly. Would that potential power translate into most end user experiences on that hardware? Well, history tells us that no, it wouldn't when compared to a relatively similarly performing piece of hardware using slightly customized general purpose PC hardware. At least not until the ease of development started to approach the ease of development of using slightly customized PC hardware.
Regards,
SB
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Inuhanyou
Veteran
When people say developer ease of use doesn't have anything to do with hardware prowess but component uniqueness does, I wonder where they were the whole PS3 and 360 generation.
Sony exclusives fully utilizing cell like killzone 2/3, god of war 3/ascension and uncharted 2/3 looked much better than third parties and 360 exclusives. But on the whole the amount of those games was much too small to be worth it, they came years into the generation, and for most of the games that mattered to the generation 360 clearly looked and played better all things being equal
Sony exclusives fully utilizing cell like killzone 2/3, god of war 3/ascension and uncharted 2/3 looked much better than third parties and 360 exclusives. But on the whole the amount of those games was much too small to be worth it, they came years into the generation, and for most of the games that mattered to the generation 360 clearly looked and played better all things being equal
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cheapchips
Veteran
Even with Sony first part titles you have to ask how much is due hardware and how is due to expensive production by great developers? There's not really anything in terms of rendering features or performance that the 360 couldn't have pulled off, probably.
Edit: techuse beat me to it and made the same point with more betterer words.
The PS2 was the successor to the N64 in terms of hardware design philosophy. The PS2 is what N64 would have been if it was brought to the next generation ...
The PS2 while it was no match up against the Xbox in many cases, it did manage to come out on top of it's other significant competitor very frequently in multiplatform games such as True Crime, Baldur's Gate, Need for Speed, Burnout, and Crash Bandicoot. Many will point to the infamous RE4 as a counter example but it was explicitly down to political interference from none other than the director himself to have the game be designed exclusively on it's initial platform when Capcom did not agree with him so he supposedly resigned in protest of the fact that the game was being ported to the PS2. Had RE4 been designed with the PS2 as the lead platform in mind, it would've been far less contentious or ambiguous where each platform was in terms of order and the other platform would've been well on the receiving end again to be left out with the technically inferior version of the multiplatform game once more as naturally so but it's useless now to speculate on hypotheticals ...
It eventually became a two horse between PS2 and Xbox since multiplatform studios couldn't get their code running at all or well enough on Nintendo's system and the rest is history ...
The complexity in hardware design of the PS2 was justified given the conditions such as launch date, being the lead platform, and the features as opposed to the PS3 where it took an entire generation of research on niche optimization topics during the time such as compute-based deferred rendering and data oriented design to have a truly competitive platform in multiplatform games ...
The PS2 while it was no match up against the Xbox in many cases, it did manage to come out on top of it's other significant competitor very frequently in multiplatform games such as True Crime, Baldur's Gate, Need for Speed, Burnout, and Crash Bandicoot. Many will point to the infamous RE4 as a counter example but it was explicitly down to political interference from none other than the director himself to have the game be designed exclusively on it's initial platform when Capcom did not agree with him so he supposedly resigned in protest of the fact that the game was being ported to the PS2. Had RE4 been designed with the PS2 as the lead platform in mind, it would've been far less contentious or ambiguous where each platform was in terms of order and the other platform would've been well on the receiving end again to be left out with the technically inferior version of the multiplatform game once more as naturally so but it's useless now to speculate on hypotheticals ...
It eventually became a two horse between PS2 and Xbox since multiplatform studios couldn't get their code running at all or well enough on Nintendo's system and the rest is history ...
The complexity in hardware design of the PS2 was justified given the conditions such as launch date, being the lead platform, and the features as opposed to the PS3 where it took an entire generation of research on niche optimization topics during the time such as compute-based deferred rendering and data oriented design to have a truly competitive platform in multiplatform games ...
While I don't agree, the PS2 had a fill rate advantage over the OG Xbox. From what I remember it was significant and you could blame the slow down in MGS 2:S(Xbox) on the fill rate. Though Ninja Gaiden's signature sword slashes were likely a product of OG Xbox's low fill rate performance.
It had a fillrate advantage which it also needed.... Regarding MGS2, maybe it was due to fillrate, maybe not. It was a port to begin with, not one of the best ports either. However when things where ported from Xbox to PS2 things where different.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
I disagree. The ps2 had an advantage largely because it was lead platform for many games. And we saw the same for GameCube with re4 and things like splinter cell for Xbox.
It wasn't down to ps2 inherent advantage over the other consoles that games had better experience. This was back in the day where a lead platform game actually meant the game had to come out different on other platforms to account for that and the same was true for generations before. It stopped being true in 7th gen for the most part...outside of Wii
Mikami may have disliked certain manufacturers but he's a big boy, he got over it
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I don't necessarily disagree, but could you provide an example? Personally, I think the best looking PS3 games are probably Infamous 2, Last of Us and Uncharted 3, but they all have pretty terrible frame rates. Compare that to Halo 4, Gears 3 (excluding the cut scenes) and Rise of the Tomb Raider performance wise, and I don't think there was any huge advantage for either system once you got to the upper levels of graphics for exclusive games.
Nothing on 360 ever looked as good as the Uncharted sequels, Killzone 3, TLOU or God of War 3/Ascension. I may even be forgetting some others.
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