Back to General and Gameplay Programming

Which console is the best?

Tomokka · 2006-12-11T03:39:07

Yesterday i was arquing with my friend about which console will deliver the best games, meaning best graphics, ai, etc. We focused mostly on the 360 and ps3 because the wii is undoubtedly the least powerfull one. I dont know mutch about these consoles ( only what i have read) but i have come to the conclusion that ultimately 360 will be the better one. I wrote this post here because i wanted to get a real developers opinion and there is no General discussion here. My reason for picking 360 are: The memory it has is unified 512 which allows developers more freedom. The ps3 has 512 split in 2 memory pools. The 360 has a better gpu. The gpu ps3 has is a tweaked version of the g70 while the gpu in 360 uses new technology and seems to be better in everyway. The one advantage ps3 has is the cell, but from what i have read the cell is only better in theory, and it seems to be a real bitch to program. Also the 360 seems to have the advantage when it comes to a.i because of 3 general purpose cores, against ps3 1 general and 6 spe:s. Like i sayed i know very little about these consoles and my opinions are reflected from what i have read other people saying. Can somebody who knows give their opinion about the matter?

General and Gameplay Programming Programming

Started by Tomokka December 06, 2006 04:27 PM

38 comments, last by Kylotan 17 years, 4 months ago

cronodragon

122

December 09, 2006 08:38 PM

Quote:Original post by Tomokka

If the cell is well designed for games then why cannot we get the cell prosessor for pc yet? I mean its obvious thats where ibm wants to go with the cell.

That would mean all the PC's operating systems must be ported to the new processor, probably Linux will do it, but I wonder if Microsoft would spend their money on such development.

BrianL

530

December 10, 2006 12:16 AM

You mean like that physics card that came out? It was sure a success. ;)

Granted, the sdk to use it wasn't general purpose, but the hardware served some of the same function as I understand it.

Buster2000

4,310

December 10, 2006 07:47 AM

Having chatted to programmers from places that have used the 360 dev kits and from chatting to a few guys from Sony UK.
I did notice a couple of things the guys who used the 360 were able to write their code and run it and in their words "It just worked better than they imagined"

The guys from Sony on the other hand told me they started by porting PS2 code onto the PS3 and only managed to get around 5FPS.

The general feeling is you can just write code for the 360 and get good results, whilst the PS3 really takes some clever coding to get the best out of it.

Kylotan

10,510

December 10, 2006 10:33 AM

Quote:Original post by outRider
I don't completely agree with your opinion on the potential parallelism of games, but that's another discussion altogether.

Perhaps, but it is certainly relevant to how I understand the original question - if it's impractical to get all the hardware at something approaching 100% efficiency, then ultimately the quality of the hardware gets less important relative to the quality of the tools.

With that in mind, I'd be inclined to bet on the 360, because MS's toolchain is supposedly much smoother than Sony's, and Sony's hardware has traditionally been a bit esoteric from what I can gather, making it harder to optimise for. So it may well be that the PS3 is theoretically superior but practially inferior.

Quote:To that end, I don't think the Cell is a bad design at all, I think it's an excellent design provided you don't try to use it like a single processor or symmetric multiprocessor with shared memory.

Certainly - both are good designs, but will require different approaches to get the best out of them. And I don't think C++ or the existing APIs and libraries lend themselves well to proper distributed processing, unfortunately.

Kylotan

10,510

December 10, 2006 10:45 AM

Quote:Original post by Tomokka
Can you tell me your opinion which console is the most powerfull one. I dont mean which console has the most peak performance or theoretical power but which console can deliver the most power to games.

I can't give you the clear answer you're looking for, because nobody knows for sure. :) Personally I think early 360 games will beat early PS3 games, but later on PS3 games will beat 360 games, once programmers get to grips with the PS3's architecture. But it may be the case that games do not lend themselves to that architecture and that crossover point is never reached.

It's worth pointing out that I am neither a 360 or PS3 expert, just someone with experience of MS and Sony tools, with an education that covered high performance hardware.

Quote:If the cell is well designed for games then why cannot we get the cell prosessor for pc yet? I mean its obvious thats where ibm wants to go with the cell.

Because that processor is not designed with the same instruction set as the IBM PC architecture, meaning they're not trivially interchangeable. The fact that instruction sets (and architecture) differ across the platforms also means it's very difficult to form any kind of reasonable comparison. Specialised instruction sets and architectures are more efficient for the task they're specialised for - which is why graphics cards are more useful than just adding a second CPU.

TravisL742

100

December 10, 2006 10:49 AM

I'm going by sales, so I'd go with the Xbox 360. So far, in sales, the PS3 did the worst.

Statistics: (November Sales)
Wii : 476,140
PS3 : 196,580
360 : 511,300

Everything that has a beginning has an end.

Tomokka

122

Author

December 10, 2006 12:30 PM

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
Quote:Original post by Tomokka
Can you tell me your opinion which console is the most powerfull one. I dont mean which console has the most peak performance or theoretical power but which console can deliver the most power to games.

1. I can't give you the clear answer you're looking for, because nobody knows for sure. :) Personally I think early 360 games will beat early PS3 games, but later on PS3 games will beat 360 games, once programmers get to grips with the PS3's architecture. But it may be the case that games do not lend themselves to that architecture and that crossover point is never reached.

It's worth pointing out that I am neither a 360 or PS3 expert, just someone with experience of MS and Sony tools, with an education that covered high performance hardware.

Quote:If the cell is well designed for games then why cannot we get the cell prosessor for pc yet? I mean its obvious thats where ibm wants to go with the cell.

2. Because that processor is not designed with the same instruction set as the IBM PC architecture, meaning they're not trivially interchangeable. The fact that instruction sets (and architecture) differ across the platforms also means it's very difficult to form any kind of reasonable comparison. Specialised instruction sets and architectures are more efficient for the task they're specialised for - which is why graphics cards are more useful than just adding a second CPU.

1. Ok thanks. If the ps3 will become more powerfull, do you think the difference will be huge or prity marginal? I mean i heard this same talk with ps2 and xbox. PS2 had more than 2 times the peak performance of xbox and still xbox was the more powerfull one.

2. It just seems pointless for ibm to release a new prosessor only to use it in consoles and supercomputers. I mean intel and amd are doing killer profit by making and selling new chips to pc every few years with a nice price tag. I doubt ibm gets a good profit if any profit by having the cell inside the ps3.

Kylotan

10,510

December 10, 2006 05:11 PM

1. I have no idea. You're really chasing after a simple answer to an incredibly complicated question. Anybody who claims to be able to give you a straight answer to this question for you to give to your friend, is lying. :)

2. Consoles and supercomputers are actually very good markets to be in. Fighting it out with Intel and AMD on the other hand is a pretty risky business, as IBM have found out to their cost in the past.

Tomokka

122

Author

December 10, 2006 07:21 PM

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
1. I have no idea. You're really chasing after a simple answer to an incredibly complicated question. Anybody who claims to be able to give you a straight answer to this question for you to give to your friend, is lying. :)

2. Consoles and supercomputers are actually very good markets to be in. Fighting it out with Intel and AMD on the other hand is a pretty risky business, as IBM have found out to their cost in the past.

1. Sorry for chasing you. I just read and hear so mutch about this subject that i really would like to know which is the right answer :). But i guess you are right, there isnt one.

2. As i understand it console hardware is somewhat different than pc hardware. They strip down the parts so that they can save in cost. This with the fact that Sony co produced the cell, i got to wonder if ibm is getting any money from the cell being inside the ps3. To me it seems like imb is trying to advertise the cell so that one day they can bring it to the pc markets. I dont really know what kind of a profit you make with supercomputers, but Intel is the worlds biggest chip maker and they seem to make their money from pc chips.

Kylotan

10,510

December 11, 2006 03:39 AM

Just because the biggest chipmaker makes PC chips, doesn't mean you can't make very good money elsewhere. Probably 90% of the computer processors that get sold are nothing to do with the Intel architecture, and end up in mobile phones, washing machines, car stereos, whatever. Also consider that it's quite handy to be able to sell a product when someone else - in this case Sony - does all the marketing for you. Finally, the cell processor was designed to work with a specific architecture, which the standard PC doesn't have.

Which console is the best?

This topic is closed to new replies.

Popular Topics

Recommended Tutorials

Which console is the best?

This topic is closed to new replies.

Popular Topics

Recommended Tutorials

Reticulating splines