PS3 More Powerful

[Mochan]

... but the Xbox 360 is easier to develop for.

Well so says Gaming God John Carmack.

http://www.ps3today.com/Blogs/News/hqs/blr_783.aspx

He is quick to interject though that the PS3 is only slightly more powerful (both in GPU and CPU performance) and that the two are still comparable. The clincher for him, and the reason why he chooses XBox 360, is that it is easier to develop for.

He says his preference will always be ease of development over power.

Anyway, now lets have fun and discuss some specifics:
"I make little nitpicky decisions about say, well, I prefer the symmetric approach that MS has over the asymmetric Cell approach, but you can do great games on either one of them, and I make fundamental decisions based on development tools and depth of documentation, which Microsoft has been superior on,"

As we know, the 360 has three symmetrical cores whereas the PS3 has one PPE that serves as a controller for the 7 SPEs (effectively 6). I think he has come to this conclusion because developing for the three cores will be closer to traditional development for single core machines. Worse comes to worst, you can fudge it by making use primarily of just one core like you would in a single core machine. The other cores can just pick up the slack of extra processor duties outside of the main game thread like loading data off the disk (to cut down on load times) or offset physics and sound processing.

On the other hand, you cannot do this with the PS3, the flow of your game engine will be different because an SPE doesn't work exactly like a normal single core machine and some of the code will be on the PPE (as it controls the code being fed to the SPE).

Carmack mentions it's the development tools but what he specifically mentions is the processor architecture. I get the feeling that a major factor in many developer's preference for development actually lies in the architecture philosophy rather than the development tools. That is, hypothetically, even with the same dev tools, 306 will be easier to develop for for a traditional programmer due to its familiarity and similarity to a single core machine.

What this belies, though, is that if this becomes a trend, then we won't see 360 games ever really making full use of the three cores. Not to say we'll ever see full use of all 6 SPEs on the PS3, though.

[Gadfly2317]

I get the idea that it really has little to do with either power or ease of development for Carmack, but instead the Xbox is a platform a lot of PC gamers and FPS fans have migrated to (this is not a slam of FPS's, for the reading impared member of our community, it's just a fact.) Those other things might be considerations, but the developer would be a fool to not go where his fanbase is largest.

[Mochan]

That's probably just the bottom line of it, as you say. What had me thinking is that Carmack prefers NVidia over ATI, it must suck a bit for him since all his games work best on NVidia cards (since they use OpenGL rather than DirectX). That is probably the reason why he says that the PS3's RSX is stronger than 360's r500 unit.

[theWacoKid]

Nice effin spin control. Carmack mentions dev tools specifically for the xbox 360. He doesn't mention either the cpu or gpu as being more powerful, that's your spin doctoring. In fact, his actual statement on the matter is pretty effin vague.

"PS3 is probably marginally more powerful, in terms of raw flops and graphic operations.” Probably, marginally, more powerful, wow, not exactly a ringing endorsement there, sony boy, for a thread declaring the ps3 more powerful.

And true to form for a sony fanboy you left out the most important point Carmack made.

When you look at these development cycles that stretch over years and years, being 20% easier to develop on is much more important than being 20% more powerful", Carmack said.

I love how you leave that out. Effin classic. Who knows when, if ever the probably, marginally more powerful features of the ps3 will even come into play. But, ease of development is something each and every developer will appreciate from day one. Onto to development tool quotes.

John Carmack: “Xbox 360 has far and away the best development tools”

What part of the above statement don't you understand?

According to Carmack, Xbox 360 is “the best development environment” he’s seen for a console, telling the assembled Quake fans about the usefulness of the development tools and architecture of Microsoft’s next console. Conversely, he expressed doubts regarding the PS3’s hardware architecture, claiming that early work on games for the hardware “will initially be disappointing” and that it will take time for developers to fully get the most out of the machine’s parallel processing power.

"The Xbox 360 is the first console that I've ever worked with that actually has development tools that are better for games than what we've had on PCs," John Carmack, Id's technical director, said in a videotaped announcement.

They've also announced that the 360 will now be their primary development platform. Let's end this crap, your analysis is bunk. The ps3 is the harder to develop for console based on its architecture AND it has inferior development tools, a double whammy! As for your "feelings" on multi-core programming, all I have to say is who the hell cares what you feel?

Infinity Ward is already using all 3 cores for COD2 for the xbox 360 and that's not even a made from the ground up 360 game. One core is dedicated to the AI, a second core to the sophisticated special effects like the smoke system while the third core handles the bulk of the duties. If infinity ward is already using all 3 cores, are you seriously trying to tell me that future titles built from the ground up for the 360 won't. Well, by that logic, developers won't bother with the ps3's vector units like they didn't bother with the ps2's. So, how the hell is the cell ever going to be more powerful the xenon chip, since if they're both going single threaded primarily, the cell automatically loses out in the power front, since it only has half the cache of the xenon.

[Mochan]

He doesn't mention either the cpu or gpu as being more powerful, that's your spin doctoring.

"PS3 is probably marginally more powerful, in terms of raw flops and graphic operations.”

Try again please. If I need to explain to you that flops depends on CPU and graphic operations depends on the GPU, then we have nothing else to talk about.



John Carmack: “Xbox 360 has far and away the best development tools”
What part of the above statement don't you understand?

Well, by that logic, developers won't bother with the ps3's vector units like they didn't bother with the ps2's

I mentioned these, are you effing unable to read?

"He says his preference will always be ease of development over power."
"Not to say we'll ever see full use of all 6 SPEs on the PS3, though."

And for your information on my "putting a spin" on the PS3 being more powerful, that's the headline I got from a freaking 360 news site.

http://www.xbox360news.com/Blogs/News/hqs/blr_782.aspx

I don't even know why I bother talking to you, you're like bull seeing red wherever the PS3 and Nintendo are concerned.

[Jupiter_x]

I mentioned these, are you effing unable to read?

"He says his preference will always be ease of development over power."
"Not to say we'll ever see full use of all 6 SPEs on the PS3, though."

And for your information on my "putting a spin" on the PS3 being more powerful, that's the headline I got from a freaking 360 news site.


Mochan, what's the point! Really?

M$ and Xbox/360 are the BEST, no matter if they are the or least powerful or most powerful...it matters not! There is absolutely no way to change the mind of Xbots or up and coming Xbots (aka: Waco) of this!

You and I know the truth, we know what the best is and what will be! I much like yourself have been experiencing some great "Next Gen" gaming over the last year....and it will only get better!

Let them have their 360's!

[ThaMaskedGamer]

I tried to tell you guys Sony's machine would be harder to develop and that would be a factor in developers migrating from the system. But nooooooo Sony fanboys swore up and down things would be different this time, "oh we got openGL.". So how did I know? Common sense, like a previous article pointed out, MS is a software company Sony is not. MS has had 4 years to sit around and think about what they can do better on the software side, Sony has sat around and thought about how they could build better chips. I think the XBOX GPU might end up being better in practice too from some previous articles I read. MS "consulted" developers and designed it around what they wanted, Sony didn't, so while the Sony GPU is no doubt more powerful, I don't think that power is going to confer an advantage practically. But we will see. Obviously this all comes down to how good the developer is, a great team working on the PS3 will make a game that is better than bad or average developers working on the 360 and vice versa. In the end, it probably won't matter basically the systems are going to be equal in terms of what we see. And this is good for Sony, cause that wasn't the case last generation, so obviously their consumers are going to be a lot more content this time around. The only way this could become a significant advantage is if 360 is so much easier to develop for that a dramatic number of developers jump ship, or if the delays are too significant on the PS3.

By the way, is Carmack saying he won't develop for PS3?

[Jupiter_x]

By the way, is Carmack saying he won't develop for PS3

Well, I hear (Rumor Mill) that he is developing "Super Doom 3" on PS3... :confused:

But I think Carmack will develop for 360 as his primary platform and either port over some games to PS3, or be a "Temporary" developer kind of like Hideo Kojima was for Xbox with MGS 2: Substance.

[slade]

There was another console that Sony made, which was hard to develop for. And that console whupped up on its competition like no other. It'll be the same this time around only Sony actually seems to be making an effort to provide better middleware. Furthermore, developers that made the creme de la creme of PS2 games this gen, should have more of an idea of what programming for a multi-core architecture entails.

[trebor]

Why is anyone surprised that John Carmack of all people thinks the 360 will be easier to develop for? He's a PC game developer, always has been, and the 360 architecture is closer to his comfortable PC environment then the PS3 is. Big whoop.

[Mochan]

Me? I'm not surprised at all! And that's exactly what I said, as well.

[Jupiter_x]

Me? I'm not surprised at all! And that's exactly what I said, as well.


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