Zidane-
PS2's theoretical b/w limit for the gpu is significantly higher than that Geforcefx is say'd to have....
It has eDRAM with a 2560 bit bus, I don't think many people would have argued with you that it would retain its b/w edge for a very lengthy time.
PS2's theoretical fillrate limit is about half that of the Geforcefx... even though the Fx is coming nearly 3 YRS later...PS2's theoretical geometry limit is about a fifth that of the Fx... even though it's 3 YRS later and at doubling per every 6months of pc gpus(according to nvidia) it should already be at least an order of magnitude above the ps2....
Can it run Doom3?
The ps2 is competing against what many call a watered down GF4(which should at least be 8XGF1 according to nvidia), and although it is indeed outdone outside of pixel/texture effects the ps2 doesn't lag too much behind.... and this is so even though this xbox is a FIXED PLATFORM.... IOW has the same benefits as the ps2....
You really think the PS2 is competitive with the XBox in terms of visuals? I expect casual gamers not to be able to spot the rather large differences, but not people here.
Marco-
That screen is actually realtime rendered (but obviously supersampled, the actual game will not be antialiased like that)
Realtime on what, a GSCube(isn't that its name?)?
Randy-
I think you know very well that my personal setup isn't a Wintel, at all, but I take it you wanted to "out" me here at B3D? Real classy.
I know that we have had discussions before but I couldn't remember where, was it at AI? If so, no need to extrapolate on your comments
most from 1st tier vendors, but I guess they all suck the same if not built by you, right?
If by 1st tier you mean junk like Dells and Compaqs, yes, they suck. If you are talking about Alienware and the like, then those don't suck(they are actually very well made).
C'mon, now! Are you really satisfied with the explanation that if someone ever has a problem with a PC, then that PC must invariably be a POS, and if it isn't, it is invariably the fault of the nimrod user? Certainly, those situations are sometimes the source of difficulty, but invariably???
Pretty much, as long as you don't catch a virus(the digitial or user kind
) or have hardware failure, then a well built PC running a non Win9X OS shouldn't have much in the way of problems. Look around these boards and see how many people have issues with their rigs(on the PC forums), and see how many of them they built and have never really had any problems. You will certainly run in to buggy software every now and then, but that is certainly no fault of the PC.
By citing that the GS does not have the buzzword features bullet point by bullet point as the GF1, they reason that the GS is therefore less than GF1.
Trilinear filtering isn't exactly a current running buzzword feature. That was something that should have been a given basic feature in 1998, and yet most PS2 games use bilinear filtering(if they use proper texture filtering at all). If it was 'free' or close to it on the GS, it would be utilized and eliminate an ugly visual artifact. Anisotropic filtering is also nothing new, and aids in reduction of texture aliasing which is something the PS2 needs desperately, again, far from a current bullet point. Dot3 and EMCMs could be utilized quite a bit by a lot of PS2 titles to enhance their visuals yet they aren't that practical to implement either. I'm not touching on PixelShaders and the like, which themselves have been around for closing in on two years nor anything comparable. I am looking at features from the PS2's launch timeframe which would have aided a good deal in enhancing the PS2's visuals. If the GS had the raster feature set of the GF1 there would be virtually no difference between it and the currently best looking XBox titles available.
Despite that, we can see the GS actually holding its own (albeit not necessarily ahead of the game outright) against current hardware that is several generations ahead. This is about on-par with people who buy a computer simply by the Mhz number of the processor.
It really doesn't though. The PS2 can't compete looking at its best titles vs the XBox's best. I'm using the GF1 as it has a like vintage.
Phil-
Now, while I do admit it's a very fine looking game [Mafia], at least inside the buildings, my friends PC ran the game with a GeForce 2 Ultra along with a PIII 800 MHz. Now, on highest settings this game run smoothly most of the time with occasional hickups on the inside levels. Outside, the framerate is worse. Given that he's running a GF2 Ultra, I really can't see this run smoothly on GF1 hardware.
The feature the GF2U has over the GF1 is speed, it helps you crank up the reslution. Run the game at 640x480(which I have mentioned numerous times, using console res
) and see how it plays on a GF1. Also- how much RAM is your friends rig packing? The game needs 512MB to run smoothly(I upgraded to 512 because of Mafia, mad a
huge difference).
Given that this game doesn't run smooth on a GF1 at the quality of those screens you posted, it doesn't really support your arguement of GF1 being as good as PS2 hardware.
GTA3 doesn't run smooth on a PS2 either
What PS2 does pretty nicely though are so many other things and that's where it really shines. Restating an example, I really don't see a game like MGS2 running fluid on GF1 hardware, even if the devs tried to max out GF1's feature set.
Throw Doom3 at the PS2
Megadrive-
In an ideal world, PS3 would have one CELL/EE3 as the CPU (or if it's going to be a group of CELLs, i don't know) that is balenced between FP and integer performance. this CELL or CELLs does not have to feed the GS3 with T&L caculations at all.
That would be an interesting setup, although they would have to pull a MS and eat a sizeable loss to get it off the ground. Certainly a CELL dedicated to graphics paired with a GS3 would make for some nasty visuals.
(which I dislike the more I play it)