PS3 vs 360 Drive Speed Question

[Shifty Geezer]

Why can't they use the HDD? You've set this limit that they aren't to install anything to HDD, yet if they do, load times could be kept lower. What's wrong with that? Isn't that a better option than adding another couple o' hundred bucks to the price tag to fit a 4x BRD drive in there, if that was even possible?

 

[Todd33]

Oh well......I just hope devs can find a way to work around this handicap.

Which handicap it that? I own both consoles and their is no noticeable difference in load times, both have a range of long and short load times, it depends on the games.

 

[Neb]

Oh well......I just hope devs can find a way to work around this handicap........coz I definitely don't want FF13 to be a snail(should be AT LEAST under 10 seconds).

But the PS3 has the HDD to use as a swapfile/cache for better loading times. Also if you can install a large part of the game then that is good if you have scratched discs. Think about the HDD as a wheelchair!

 

[Rockster]

But the PS3 has the HDD to use as a swapfile/cache for better loading times. Also if you can install a large part of the game then that is good if you have scratched discs. Think about the HDD as a wheelchair!

Both consoles have this.

 

[Neb]

Both consoles have this.

Of course but devs developing for xbox360 can't assume that all xbox360 users have the HDD version/bought HDD. So they can make the game load faster for thoose with HDD but not use it for stream textures/assets as that would force the ones with no HDD to need one to play the game. :smile:

 

[Blade47167]

Summary of points for the PS3:
-Use streaming method (like what Lair uses)
-Certain games like Oblivion use redundant data to cover up for slow Blu-ray drive.
-2x Blu-ray is faster than minimum of 12x DVD but slower than its maximum
-CAV versus CLV
-A 4x Blu-ray drive is needed to eclipse the XBOX 360 DVD drive (min. & max.)
-PS3 could have been the "SPEED KING" of optical drives for next-gen consoles if they used a 4x Blu-ray drive.......but I guess costs, time and tech difficulties were problems.....so Sony used the 2x Blu-ray drive instead

That's too bad . If Sony used a 4x drive, then we wouldn't have this debate.....but I guess nothing can't be done and the limitations/constraints are too heavy atm.

Then you misread most of the info lol.

The only place where PS3 is slower than the 360 is with Seek times or Single Layered disks.

All 360 games are double layer tho so the speed is pretty much equal if not slower than the PS3 drive.

So no worries about the PS3 being slower once the devs get a better grasp on the hardware.

 

[Todd33]

I think quite a few 360 games are single layer. Is there a database somewhere?

 

[Mmmkay]

I think quite a few 360 games are single layer. Is there a database somewhere?

Nothing official like, but you can find that information out by googling in the right places. Seems most exceed a single layer. Just a random selection I found:

Project Gotham Racing 3 	NTSC 5.31 GB
Dead or Alive 4 		NTSC 6.66 GB
Call of Duty 2 			NTSC 5.20 GB
Perfect Dark: Zero 		NTSC 4.82 GB
Fight Night 3 			NTSC 3.16 GB
Kameo: Elements of Power 	NTSC 5.39 GB
Full Auto 			NTSC 3.24 GB
Oblivion 			NTSC 5.83 GB
Gears of War 			PAL  5.23 GB

I'd guess out of that lot Fight Night Round 3 and Full Auto are single layer titles.

 

[Todd33]

Thanks Mmmkay, good info.

 

[assen]

The only place where PS3 is slower than the 360 is with Seek times or Single Layered disks.

All 360 games are double layer tho so the speed is pretty much equal if not slower than the PS3 drive.

So no worries about the PS3 being slower once the devs get a better grasp on the hardware.

Plain wrong, the raw transfer speed is lower from Blu-ray.

 

[DJ12]

I'd guess out of that lot Fight Night Round 3 and Full Auto are single layer titles.

I remember reading when the 360 first came out that all games, whether they needed dual layers or not, would be on dual layer dvds as they are harder/more expensive to pirate.

 

[archie4oz]

It's been done, by our own member too:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=913202&postcount=55

Fished up my old post eh?

I remember reading when the 360 first came out that all games, whether they needed dual layers or not, would be on dual layer dvds as they are harder/more expensive to pirate.

Indeed that is the case. Also DVD's suffer from steeper penalties from layer changes than BD-ROMs do. BD drives (and HD-DVD drives for that matter) both also (by nature of the interactive movie requirements) have better support for concurrent seeking/transferring from two different addresses on the disc.

 

[Blade47167]

Fished up my old post eh?

Indeed that is the case. Also DVD's suffer from steeper penalties from layer changes than BD-ROMs do. BD drives (and HD-DVD drives for that matter) both also (by nature of the interactive movie requirements) have better support for concurrent seeking/transferring from two different addresses on the disc.

And thats what bugs the hell out of me. Sites like gamespot & some 360 blog posted articles discussing how the 360's drive was faster but didn't break the numbers down anymore than to just say all disks run at 12x. So very few people actually know the truth.

I even seen a CNet article were some guy posts that the disk is read the entire time at 12x. Never mentioned that CAV drives slow down in the middle of the disk or the fact that double layers are slower than single layer disks.

 

[Todd33]

Fished up my old post eh?

But it was a great post!

This thread has a lot of good info, unlike most "technical" articles found on the web.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

And thats what bugs the hell out of me. Sites like gamespot & some 360 blog posted articles discussing how the 360's drive was faster but didn't break the numbers down anymore than to just say all disks run at 12x. So very few people actually know the truth.

I even seen a CNet article were some guy posts that the disk is read the entire time at 12x. Never mentioned that CAV drives slow down in the middle of the disk or the fact that double layers are slower than single layer disks.

And every casual in the world actually thinks that the PS3 will have 2x better graphics than the X360 because of silly media stories.

It all evens out

 

[aaaaa00]

BD drives (and HD-DVD drives for that matter) both also (by nature of the interactive movie requirements) have better support for concurrent seeking/transferring from two different addresses on the disc.

Er. There's still just one physical optical head in the drive, regardless of DVD, HD DVD, or BD.

Anytime you seek anywhere on the disc you're going to incur a penalty on the order of 50-100 milliseconds. So I'm not sure how there's specifically better support for "concurrent seeking/transferring" in BD and/or HD DVD.

Last I checked the T10 MMC6 Specification (used in both SCSI and ATAPI) section 4.5, BD used the same basic command set as all the other optical drives. (BD has a couple extra things, mostly to query and set BD specific things.)

 

[ballsweat]

it would be interesting to know the speed of the wii's drive.

anyways, in the long run, the ps3's use of bd-roms will be the right decision.

the x360, is still ultimately the slower loader, b/c it can't stream games off of the hd.

i think that the 2x bd-rom drive read speed of the ps3 ultimately don't matter since they have a hard drive to fall back on.

they definately should make shenmue 3 on the ps3 instead of the x360. that's one game that would definately not be as good on the 360 due to the medium storage and speed.

 

[aaaaa00]

the x360, is still ultimately the slower loader, b/c it can't stream games off of the hd.

This is incorrect. Games have always been free to cache and stream data using the hard drive if it is present. They must be able to run without a hard disk, but there's no rule that says they cannot take advantage of one if present.

There is easy to use support in the XDK for developers to transparently use the hard drive for caching.

They basically have to add a few API calls to the game, and that's it.

Gamefest Unplugged (Europe) 2007: XDK Redux - New Features and Tools for Xbox 360 Developers

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...13-8852-4af9-bb07-65309374043f&displaylang=en

File Caching Basic Usage

• Call XFileCacheInit at title start
• Clear cache during development
  • Use AppVersion to invalidate cache
  • Provide testers method to clear cache
  • XFILECACHE_CLEAR_ALL during init
• Call XFileCacheShutdown before launching another component
• That’s it!

File Caching Process

• CreateFile calls intercepted
• File in cache…
  • Reads transparently redirected to HDD
• File not in cache…
  • If hard disk present
    • File queued for copy to HDD
  • Title reads from game disc
• Caching works in the background
  • Files copied in small pieces

File Cache Control

• Use XFileCacheControl
  • Useful during cut-scenes
• Exclude Files
  • Use XFileCacheControlFiles
  • List of directories and/or file extensions
    • Exclusion rules applied on every open
    • Keep list to O(dozens)
  • Avoid caching streaming audio/video and rarely-used content

Preloading the Cache

• Use XFileCachePreload
  • Directory or path
  • Wildcards allowed
• Or call XFileCachePreloadFiles
  • Provide a list of files

The rest of the slides are at the link.

 

[Squeak]

The BR drive is faster.
The main culprit with loadtimes is not the actual spooling of data off the disc, it's moving the reading head to where the data is. This is why redundant data is so important and why the BR drive is faster, despite its marginally lower Mb per second rate.

 

[woundingchaney]

May be off topic in the technical aspect but may be relevant. Did an interview with the Dirt developers for the PS3 version. They state a 15%-25% (approx) reduction in load times on the PS3 version. While this isnt due to the presence of the hdd it is done through decompression assistance by Cell along with tweaking streaming done on the BR disk. They didnt elaborate on the issue but while they felt the BR drive is in essence slower in streaming capability the decompressing ability of the PS3 along with disk capacity can make for a potentially faster load.



-although they state "Due to time" which is quickly becoming the mantra for enhanced capabilities revolving around multi-plat titles on both sides of the fence.