PS3 is in big trouble

[doobiwan]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32171

You end up with a console with half the triangle setup rate of the 360, a crippled CPU that is a bitch to program, and tools that are atrocious compared to the 360. To make matters worse, you have an arrogant set of execs telling us that twice the price is worth it for half the power, a year late. If it isn't already too late, Sony had better do something about this recto-cranial inversion or it may very well sink the console

Uh oh! (Evil Wii60 fanboy grim)

Love it, Console Wars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYf4-CFLp0k&search=console wars

 

[mancombseepgood]

Yeah

Let's see how nintendo do it...

Sony had their day 2 rip us off...

 

[stoke]

PC FTW !
Now ... just gotta make it uber quiet, light and portable. Oh ... and cheap.

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

Let $ony go down the drain for all I care - their "price is not that expensive" mantra is totally disgusting

 

[lilDeath]

when I read the subject I was like
/DOH!!

 

[ShockG]

The Inq. Again.

Triangle rate is meaningless in comparing Xenos and the NV47 that powers PS3. There's no cross platform development for these two consoles so PS3 has a custom ICD/API and not a DirectX like API as with 360.

This allows the RSX to do alot with very little. Indeed the 128-bit bus to the frame buffer is death to fill-rate, but with the 70GB/sec+ sysytem bandwidth, they may be able to texture straight from the memory and only keep local mesh in the slower frame buffer. Stranger things have happened. Esp considering that PS2 only has 4MB, it did amazing things. Now with a GeForce 7800/7900 in the core it'll be good enough to provide HD content gamming at high frame rates with the visuals to add.

The 48 pixel shader of the 360 is indeed a major advantage, but the RSX inherits dual issue fragment shaders like the 7800, and they could be de-coupled from the tex samplers , so when doing straight maths they can do 48 single cycle instructions like the 360, but also have the ability to do vertex texture better than Xenos. But I'm just speculating here, could very well be that the PS3 is indeed screwed.

 

[doobiwan]

The way I read it It looks like the RSX performance is ~2/3-80% that of the 360, but that's not the problem. Worst case, I reckon he PS3 overall, will run at 2/3 the 360. At the end of the day, to the average consumer they will appear comparable.

The issue is going to be development time and cost. ShockG, you probably much more familiar with the issues than me, but having 8 CPU/SPU's + a GPU all reading data directly out of Main memory as primary storage has gotta hurt!

 

[Darth Garth]

I heard the same complaints how the PS2 sucked and was difficult to program for and how the dev tools from Sony sucked ... or the Emotion Processor was a pile of crud and it could not do anti-ailiasing without jumping through hoops compared to the XBOX or GameCube but guess which console sold millions upon millions ???.

At the end of the day numbers thrown about by fanboi means nothing as the market will ultimately decide and the companies will simply make their games perform on the platform.

Marketing is the key and Sony knows how to hype it up ... this time it is more difficult as they now have far more capable competitors to contend with than last time around.

The question is are people willing to cough up $$$ for the PS3 when they see the Wii and XBox 360 for cheaper ???.

 

[doobiwan]

You're right t.d. Developers will make it work, by hook or by crook.

Sony still have PS2 momentum going for them, but when a rumour like this breaks mainstream it'll hurt. Compound that with a situation on launch day where you opposition is 1. Cheaper, 2, Available, 3. Already got gorgeous 2nd Gen games out, I think this is going to be a ding dong round of the console war. I just hope we, the consumer reap all the benefits

 

[ShockG]

Yeah I suppose you're right. Looking at it that way 76GB/sec is no where near enough unless they have a QOS like system where if the GFX core requires more bw then it gets like 50% (38GB/sec would be more than enough for the targeted size and number of outputs RSX has) all other times it drps that to 25% which is still workable at 19GB/sec. :/

I'm just thinkin' that they could pull all texture data from the main memory, but load all mip-maps to GFX core and fragment programs. Since these are inhenrently smaller than source texture and frag program are not going to be 1MB in size (That would be a very, very, very long shader) this is not going to be a problem. Assume for one time that the shader is say 1KB, the caches and register space provided in the fragment units probably 4X that (this is possible because no texture data is stored in te fragment if Texture sampler is de-coupled from ALUs) size. This would work pretty well.

You can keep shader programs very close to the core, but don't have to share bandwidth with texture data which just takes up loads of bandwidth.

Actually you could even sample from the disc/Harddrive which is slow, but at least there you don't have the limitation of Vram and its paltry 128-bit bus.

 

[useless]

/off topic

@ShockG - notice your RAM size on your sig is kinda... too big?

/on topic

overall i think Sony is rushing the PS3 so they can grab a share of the market which Ninty will now contest with the X360 when its out. for now the Wii looks like a better buy alongside the X360 simply coz its a dedicated gaming machine and not an expensive blu-ray prototype.

 

[Darth Garth]

PS3 will now have the complete PS2 chipset onboard since their software PS2 emulator is not ready yet ... no wonder the damm thing will costs a bazillion $$$.

I doubt they will ever pull it off.

The software emulator for the Xbox 360 ain't too wonderfull I read with a few specific titles supported.

 

[bb_matt]

Well, a razor handle without the blades is useless ...

It will come down to the games - every new console to hit the shelves, needs a good few "must have" games and it helps if it has a back catalogue from early models, which Sony has in spades.

Also, don't forget the FUD issue here - it is in the best interests of the other console developers to fuel negative sentiment toward the PS3.

 

[useless]

the supported list of the Xbox emulated titles runs into the >100 mark, where did you get the "few specific titles" idea from?

from experience Halo 2 and all other emulated games look better @ 720p than on the original Xbox.

it aint common marketing sense to emulate Xbox games which are available on the X360 too so not ALL games will ever be emulated FYI.

As for the PS3 having built-in PS2 hardware, why not also add an espresso machine and increase the cost. this way fanboys will have something that actually works to brag about.

 

[Darth Garth]

the supported list of the Xbox emulated titles runs into the >100 mark, where did you get the "few specific titles" idea from?

How many of the 100 are actually premier titles like Halo and not useless stocking fillers like Dead or Alive Beach VolleyBall ???.

 

[useless]

lol.. now you are adding "premier titles" to your statement? make up your mind please as to what exactly you refer in your ORIGINAL post.

 

[Darth Garth]

lol.. now you are adding "premier titles" to your statement? make up your mind please as to what exactly you refer in your ORIGINAL post.

I made up my mind as what gamer cares about k@k like this on the compatibility list ???.

Cabela's® Big Game Hunter™ 2005 Adventures
Cabela’s® Dangerous Hunts™
Cabela’s® Outdoor Adventures™ 06
Cabela's® Deer Hunt™ 2005 Season
Cabela's® Deer Hunt™ 2004 Season
Barbie™ Horse Adventures™ Wild Horse Rescue™
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™
Scooby Doo!™ Night of 100 Frights
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events™

So strip the list of useless fluff and fodder like this and it does not look too great.

 

[doobiwan]

What do you mean it doesn't do espresso!?! Now i'm defintely not getting one, sheesh.

And Extreme beach Volleyball is a VERY important title! Rumble Roses XX is the whole reason I want a 360

Although Gears of War also appeals . . .

This update from Joystiq:http://www.joystiq.com/2006/06/05/rumor-ps3-hardware-slow-and-broken/

(Update: The misunderstanding evident in the linked story relates to the distinction between local video memory and local system memory. The slow read speed under discussion is indicative of the feature's lack of utility. This is even reflected on the slide's statement: "No, this isn't a typo ..." A contact at Sony confirmed this telling me, "Again I cannot imagine a situation where you have any SPU reading from the RSX local memory." Nothing to see here, folks.)

 

[useless]

@T.D. - sure, but why not look at what k@k the PS2, the PSP and the GC have in their current listing too? thing out of the box dude, coz the same compatability list is going to be available for the PS3 when its out.

Besides, many people who have the X360 didnt really get rid of their Xbox and use it either as a media center or to play the "premium" titles not in the emulator list.

Its win-win situation for the Xbox owners. BTW, do you own one to make such a fuss anyhow?

@Doobi - rumble roses is kinda like soft pron... reminds me of that BMX game with naked chicks...

 

[Vexx007]

Aaaah the good 'ol console fanboys flaming

People, a simple question. Have you seen a PS3 run? No.
Have you seen a Wii run? No.

So dont judge it untill you, or anybody else for that matter, has seen it running. The 360 IS available and it is THE BEST console available AT THE MOMENT. If it will be the best of the 3 remains too be seen. IMHO the one with a cappucino maker wins