Titanio said:
Cell was designed with physics & simulation as one target workload in mind. We even have seen implicit and explicit comparisons of the systems from this POV from AGEIA, if you really want something more concrete. General simulation would appear to be a genuine strength for PS3, not because they simply wish it to be so.
Didn't AGEIA retracted any comparison that had been made between Cell and the 360 CPU, saying it was without solid foundation as they hadn't benchmarked the 360? If this is no longer the case, there'll be AGEIA's analysis and benchmarks available.
Anyway, how solid is that IBM benchmark that showed something like a 6 vector unit Cell @ 2.4 gHz outperforming a 3gHz P4 by something like 1.3 times in the "real world" test?
But this is besides the point. Cell may be a physics monster that can run games the likes of which the 360 can't closely replicate. I doubt it, but maybe. What I'm not seeing is proof of this in anything that's been described or demonstrated so far. Certainly, hearing in brief detail about a specific game feature (as I first described it probably several pages ago now) isn't enough to think you're seeing something that's only finally possible because of Cell.
I doubt even an experienced developer would feel they could make an assumption like that!
When people dismiss the value of simulation for the advance of the visual, it is an eminently relevant comparison to make. Simulation and rendering indeed will only become more tightly bound going forward.
Has anyone actually tried to dismiss the value of simulation in improving the way a game looks? If they have, I didn't see it but then again I've skimmed a lot of stuff.
I'm more interested in the link between simulation complexity, if you like, and gameplay. I can see some areas where it will improve gameplay simply by what it allows, and others where it probably won't because what defines greatness hasn't been limited by simulation for years, but by the skill of the game designers.
As an area, physics offers potential for multiple aspects of a game, perhaps more than any other technical area in a game. You can use it purely to visual ends, which is fairly low-hanging fruit and should be relatively accessible, or you can use it to heighten immersion or realism or to impact directly on your game mechanic. All of these things contribute positively to the experience. Having more power broadens the pallette for the developer, which is always a good thing.
Which is a long way of saying "physics is great". Yeah, it is, I agree, I love it like a child!
Now we're agreed on that, can you tell me how it's actually going to do the gameplay improving you just alluded to? And why that gameplay would be possible on a PS3 (for the sake of argument) and not on the 360?
I know how a faster graphics card is going to make my experience better. I can imagine better graphics. What about physics? I can image better phsyics. I can image more things being simulated. I can image more interactions. I can image swirling smoke and flowing cloth. I can imagine a thousand trees swaying in the wind while cherry blossom falls, swirls and then rests with complete physical accuracy. Can I image this making the gameplay mechanics of a title more fun ... ?
In some cases, yeah. In some cases, nope. Accurately simulating (not faking) deteriorating road surface conditions in a rally game, so starting order affected your ability to race competetively by a few seconds over the course could be a use for complex, physically accurate simulation. Would it make the game more fun? Not for me, no.
The link between GPU power and graphics is far simpler than between physics processing ability and fun, and that's why I don't like the assumption of the former being used as inferred proof of the latter.
The apparently selective 'ludditism' on display here is quite astonishing. By all means argue against the value of greater simulation capability going forward, but don't dare draw the line at physics if you are to do so.
I think you may be oversimplifying some of the points some people are trying to make and questions they're trying to ask. Sure, there are some people here to whom anything associable with "Sony" or "Cell" is dirty and should be devalued, but likewise there's an air of sychophantism around the word "physics" on some websites at present like it's Stalin and we're in 1930's Russia.
Honestly, I found the drubbing that John Carmack got in certain quaters (after being quite ballsy raising some very good points) to be pretty disappointing. Never came from any developers mind.
