Shader effects X360 / PS3 (Marvel Alliance) *changed

[MixedGuy]

They shouldn't be. At elast, not if they come from a PC/DX background. It's the same shader language(s) games have used for years. Designing SM3.0 shaders is something new to worry about that some teams won't have experience of, but that's a uniform problem across XB360 and PS3. And these shaders are the same across platforms to - they can run the same shader code with a recompile I believe.

So do you think the questions the developers ask Microsoft is about SM3.0 development and performance and thats it?

 

[3dcgi]

I bet if they had asked someone at Microsoft what type of questions they get about PC game development they'd mention shader performance as well. Just because you write a shader in a high level language doesn't mean it will be optimal for all GPUs. It takes time for developers to learn how to squeeze every bit of performance from an architecture. The good news for consoles is they are static platforms which gives developers time to get good at writing optimal code.

 

[-tkf-]

4) Sony still gives special benefits to companies that have exclusive features on the Playstation version of the game and this is part of an advertising push to make the PS3 look better.

They should have done this on the PS2 as well or was it Microsoft that should have done this for the XBOX

 

[Fox5]

They should have done this on the PS2 as well or was it Microsoft that should have done this for the XBOX

Both companies did. Even in the PSX days Sony often required exclusive features for multiplatform games, and Microsoft did it to lesser extents with the Xbox but they still had "special edition" ports of ps2 and pc games.

 

[Acert93]

Im guessing the reason can be as simple, as xbox360 edition of the game simply ran out of shader power to actually do motion blur along with the other effects.

Possible, except the developer doesn't say that; instead they say it has to do with a difference in how shaders are handled:

a developer told us that it was due to the PS3’s ability to handle shaders differently than what can be done on the 360

The effect sounds pretty basic (already seen on more intense titles) and the title itself is only a port of a last gen title, so you wonder what the issue could be? They don't note a lack of performance, but instead noted a difference in shader handeling. (The PS3 (1080p) version seemed to have frame issues whereas they say the 360 (720p; Any AA? If so tiling?) was solid, although they expected that to stabalize on the PS3.)

It would be interesting to learn more about their issue, specifically. The game isn't too hot looking imo and the effect doesn't appear to be out of the norm or especially taxing. Since this is a port, maybe the NV2A<=>RSX synergy helps? Or possibly they are using MSAA on Xenos and tiling and ran into some issues with tiling+distortion through porting their old renderer?

 

[Dr. Nick]

I'm surprised that you guys a debating the use of shader effects in this game. After seeing screenshots of it I am I find it amazing that you guys aren't discussing it on merits of gameplay alone because graphically it looks...meh.

Now to get back on topic both pieces of hardware might be able to do the effect with good performance but that doesn't mean that it was written in the same way to do so.
On the Xbox 1 in Ninja Gaiden 1/Black there is this weird distortion effect that happens when you run on walls in the survival stage of the final Master Ninja Tourney/Missions. This effect is supposed to allow you to use the walls in combat and to keep your view unobstructed on pretty much any part of the stage. It looks great on the Xbox 1 but for some reason on the Xbox 360 it looks like garbage and makes seeing through the walls, like you could on the Xbox 1, very hard. I'm not sure if it is just crappy emulation, which if you think about it running Xbox shaders shouldn't be a problem, but chance are the effect was coded with Nvidia hardware in mind. It doesn't mean the Xenos can't do the same effect; it probably just can't use the same code to do it...well. IMO that is what this is all about. Isn't this also true about the way ATI and Nvidia hardware approach doing Subsurface Scattering on the hardware? ERP am I incorrect in thinking this?

 

[ninzel]

Why must you guy's so this to yourself. Threads like this are like black holes sucking the fun out gaming,never to be seen again. Masochists the lot of ya.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why must you guy's so this to yourself. Threads like this are like black holes sucking the fun out gaming,never to be seen again. Masochists the lot of ya.

We're not here for gaming. We're here for the tech!

 

[PiNkY]

Honestly,I haven't even looked at the screenshots, but for first gen games, I suspect lots of spare SPEs will be used for post processing, simply because the task is embarasingly easy to parallelize, while using them on any kind of complex problem introduces you to all the wonderful tribulations of parallel programming.

 

[Oboro Shogun]

Is Marvel Alliance even a good enough looking game to use as a visual comparison? The Wii version looks close enough to the 360 and PS3 to assume the consoles are much closer in power than they really are, but we know the difference. This game doesn't come close to tapping either system I'd say.

 

[LunchBox]

^
That is quite true.



It could also be in the efficieny of their code in squeezing performance on the consoles.


Since I'm assuming they are using the same engine throughout with slight mods...