November 5, 2007Devs Problems: Lack of memory on Sony PS3 and storage on Xbox 360
Posted by The Ori
What will possibly be the only major problem for developers for both consoles in the near future?
1). Lack of memory on the PS3 (How the Cell CPU accesses it).
2). Lack of storage space on the Xbox 360 (Optical of course, not HDD).
Watch out for that one (#2). It will be here sooner than you think, if not already.
But everyone, just bear this in mind. The Xbox 360, for all the badgering it gets, is really quite a powerfull piece of kit. It has 3 seperate PPC CPUs, which basically equates to 6 hardware threads. It has more memory to play with, a superior GPU, and superfast bus rate.
All the BS talked about Gears Of War pushing the 360’s limit is almost toss. Sorry. It was only running on two thread system, and; even that engine was very buggy and “heavy” at the time. If not totally overated in its own right as well.
Honestly, if MS decided to put some form of a HD disc in it, Blu Ray, or HD-DVD, the damn thing would be almost future proof, with the exception of the over heating, of course. As it stands, the PS3 only has the storage space over the 360. Its not anymore “advanced” at all, and in many ways, slightly less.
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I know this was the case with Assassin’s Creed. They had lots of trouble to try and fit it on one disc, while the PS3 version was suffering from memory loss.
I have a feeling that the 360’s optional HD-DVD drive will be a necessity in the near future.
It was also because AC has like 5 different languages.
I’m glad to see Microsoft retaining superiority over Sony in the GPU and the hard drive areas, as the Xbox did to the PS2
you are completely right powerslave & the good news is m& is already working on new compression software as a matter of fact Fable 2 devs compressed the textures down to 1% of their original size with no quality loss
This smacks of fanboyism, the 360 has a lot more against it than just its disc drive (which will NEVER be replaced with an HD drive). First off, the GPU is hardly superior, just different, and since the rest of the 360 is just a dumbed down PC, you are simply not going to see better visuals out of it. The architecture was old before it was implemented, and that was the whole idea, to give developers a platform they were already comfortable with, something that was already optimized.
This was MS’s stated strategy, to make a console that was right for the present, versus Sony’s strategy of making something that was more future proof, and had a lot of potential (and since the memory problem is easily overcome the more devs understand the Cell, its a much more minor problem). Time will tell who has the better strategy, but lets not fool ourselves. There’s nothing future proof about the 360. It’s strength is in it’s relationship with developers, not its hardware, which we all knew from the start was done on the cheap.
It’s NEWS, not “fanboyism” (nice made up word). I own both the PS3 and XB360, so it’s fans of both. This is simply news, not religion, so don’t get all damaged over it.
I think Billy makes a very good point though.
I agree totally with what u say.
Ok, the original thread talked tech, and basically sense. Youre thread talks no tech and basically just licks sony’s butt.
The PS3 is NOT future proof, simply because it will never really get off the ground in a big way. Its already failed. You dont need ultimate tech superiority to be future proof. Hell theyre still selling GBA’s and PS2 is still Sony’s biggest seller. The psp is much more powerful than the DS, yet which is more future proof, the DS of course.
Youre talking tosh!
dumbed down pc… me thinks i can smess a sony fanboy.
come do some resarch before u post the 360 runs on power pc chips (if anything its a super powerfull mac) Mercury Computer Systems use the cell processor in blade and other server systems (to run windows os (jumped up pc) and toshiba are looking to use them in high def tvs as they are good for GENERAL VECTOR AND MULTI MEDIA uses and not in advanced 3d intensive tasks.
as for storage problems on 360 opticle media, as previously mentioned more extreme lossless compression is already being worked on and used. in much the same way that the sega dreamcast proved that with a decent amount of memory to decompress textures (4meg as apposed to the ps2 paltry 2meg and no ability for decompression, yes that is why the dreamcast games always looked brighter and much more refined than the ps2 pointelist inspired efforts)the 360 will hav no problem keeping pace with games siz (rember sony boys filling a blueray disc with pointless pre rendered cut scenes, just to justify the storage medium doesnt make it better lol.
unfortunatly for sony, microsofts biggest assets are is readily available and extremly good librarys, not to mention a great support team to help you with any issues that pop up. ohhh and dev support = great and plentifull games.
and yes it is worth paying for live if you want to enjoy your online experience, something apple have done with .mac, give us the rite stuff and we will pay (its less than the price of a decent game, and can extend the life of existing title you own hugely.
well thats my thoughts for the day.
sony boys feel free to started flaming now.
but as batfink used to say “my wings are like a shield of steel, you cannot harm me”
p.s dont take life so seriously its all supposed to be about games.
p.p.s yes i have a ps1,psp and 2 ps2’s as well as a 360
and i play mostly on the dreamcast and the 360, as fed up replasing lasers on ps2 lol
Dont be offended because I disagree, not anyone that disagrees with you is a hater, anyone reasonable enough can understand your point and im sure you can understand other’s and respect their points of view as I respect yours, but do not encourage flaming, there are as many ps3 haters as there are xbox360 haters.
Anyways, I agree with bily’s point of view, the xbox360 is not next gen, there are computers far better than the xbox360, more expensive ofcourse.
And the PS3 even having supercomputer-like speeds has been having problems with devs getting used to the superior technology lately, the slight superiority of the 360’s GPU can easily be surpassed when the Cores on the PS3 are used correctly as far as I know, if you want to compare, Foldin@Home is an example of this, if I recall, medical research advanced for a decade the other day with just 600,000 PS3’s processing and the results are being studied as we speak, it reached the speed of over every person in the world solving 750,000 math problems per second. Hopefully more games will take advantage of this potential, games like Haze are just the beginning.
Ion, ok, its IS a next gen CONSOLE!! if you look at the xbox , and the xbox 360, then its pretty obvious to ANYONE that the unit itself, the live system, the menu etc, IS next gen. Sonys idea of going with a built in Bluray drive may yet break it not make it. Perhaps they should have waited for the inevitable multi platform drive.
The PS3 is having dev issues yes, but theyve had MORE than long enough to get to grips with the hardware. I personally do not feel cell processors are the future, not one iota! And when the xbox game out, it was deemed next gen, and for a console it was!! there were more powerful PC’s available then too, so youre argument is……..really pretty pointless as we are talking of in home consoles NOT pc systems. Comparing the 2 is like comparing a car to a bike. THeyre made for different reasons and different applications.
Another thiung, hell if you know how to “fix” the ps3 problem, go program for em, cos noone else seems capable.
2 great games on the ps3, and really nothing mind blowing yet. All the talk about how great LAIR was gonna be?…they just havent delivered. As a company Sony really should not be trusted
Microsoft are playing theis exactly right, by the time Sony gets to grips and the devs start bringing out greeat titles (though Im not convinced they ever will) hardware and chip costs will have dropped, MS will have a new system more powerful
MS still wins the tech game, although I think its pretty much irrelivant. The Sony games just suck., Im no fanboy, hell I loved sony, but I hate their constant lies since the ps2 launch, all they have fed the public is BS
An optional drive will NEVER be a neccesity, add ons kill a system if theyre required……learn from Sega on that one!
Game developers wont go near making a game that requires an add on
multiple discs is the way regarding that
hell taking out a disc and putting another in dont bother me, Still do it on the pc constantly.
You guys are so dumb. Right, a split 3 core CPU is better than a combined 8 core CPU…memory size is not an issue. You guys realise that to compress data makes the CPU have to decompress it and to decompress it takes time. The higher the compression, the longer the loading time. You guys can sit there waiting for your “superior” system to load and get RRoD while I jump right into a game.
1st, there are NINE cores in the Cell, One PPE, and Eight SPEs, one reserved incase of one SPE failure off the assembly line. The PPE is a general purpose CPU like the XB360’s, but is used as the controller in the CPU.
So, apparently you do not know the difference between a SERIAL processing unit -vs- a parallel one, so you really do not have a grasp on the technology. PS3- You have to SPLIT the code over the 6 SPEs (you only get SIX for games, READ UP!!!). It amazes me how people speak without doing the research. You cannot COMBINE all 8(9) cores, again you only get SIX to use for game apps. The SPEs do not have CACHE! They have what is called “Local Stores”, not Cache - and the way they access memory is not as “shared” as XB360. Look, I have BOTH consoles, and the fact is, PS3 is losing developers because of the complexity. Look at Ace Combat!!! A Sony platform exclusive, jumped ship to XB360. Guitar Hero III? Not for PS3, for XB360 and PS2. Why? Do your research dude. There is NO combining of any cores (thus the PROBLEM at hand), there are 9 cores - one is a general purpose CPU, but acts as the memory controller. The other eight are SPEs, 6 are for games, the 7th SPE is reserved.
The XB360 3-core (each core with 32MB L1 Cache + 1GB Shared L2), 6 thread CPU, is a General Purpose, which executes code in parallel, and can run out of order code, PS3 cannot; XB360: No need to SPLIT code over cores either. PLEASE PLEASE read up? I am no advocate of either side, but still… Your post was completely void of real truth. I only post the NEWS posted by sources who SPEAK to the developers, they are the ones squawking, not us.
BOTH consoles have more powerful CPUs than any home computer on the market right now. The 9.6Ghz 360s, and the 3.2Ghz (Prototype ran at 4.66Ghz) PS3. NO PC on earth that sells to the public is near 10Ghz like 360! Even though the CELL CPU can run at 4.66Ghz now, they have it at 3.2Ghz, it is more powerful than any other CPU. IT is capable of speeds past 6Ghz too, with the 65nm one being produced. The GPU is the bottleneck in the PS3 too, not the CPU really. It only has 256MB to work with, where as with 360, since the CPU has the L1 and L2 cache, more system memory can be used by the GPU, as the PS3 memory is limited by BOTH by CPU (256MB) and GPU (256MB). Xb360 has the 512MB of unified shared memory, the PS3 has two sets of 256MB, one for the CPU, and one for GPU only, and poor memory mapping schemes.
Developers haven’t jumped ship, look at when the likes Ace Combat went into development. It made business sense to start it on a machine they already had the development kits for.
I have both systems. If the 360 is superior then why isn’t it streets ahead of the PS3?. Games like R&C/Drake/MGS/GT5 all show what the system can do. To me Drake really stands out with lush and dense graphics. If you look back at when the 360 came out the games were not mind blowing. It will take the developers time to fully understand the machine, remember the PS2!!!
The PS3 hasn’t failed, if you think that then your an idiot. There’s more than one country on this planet.
Funny how you put words in I didn’t say, like I think it was FAILING? I never said that, so you’re the, whatever it was you said I am; and don’t start the name calling, or you’re outta here! I am only stating the griefs that are expressed by developers, so don’t get on my case, that was a legit new article. The 360 has the superior performance, on how it does more with less, and has the superior architecture. PS3 may, one day, come out on top, but they’re already going to be TWO years behind! Not my fault, that’s just the way it is.
I didn’t directly call you an idiot I was referring to a person further up the postings which was why I started a new comment rather than reply to yours directly!!
I have also read stuff from developers that state they can do more things with the PS3, so I guess it depends who are saying these things. How is the PS3 two years behind??? so your telling me the likes of R&C/Drake/COD4 are not on par with the 360??
ori thanks bud! yes people have said they could do more with the ps3 (but you missed out the section where they said that the dev tools and librarys are not up to the job) without decent tools it takes years to figure out ways of getting code to run properly. leaving devs an easy choice of consol to dev for. the ps2 was awful it has taken 8 years or so to get games half as good as the dreamcast managed.
its a bit like me giving you a formula 1 car with no traction control or driver aids (ps3 finiky engine and hard to get up to speed) and saying set me a hot lap. it would take you years to get up speed, if however i gave you a skyline and advanced driving lessons(xbox360 with dev tools) you would be a damn site quicker out of the box.
by the time the f1 car is fully up to speed a new skyline would be ready this time even quicker and ready to go.
I mean, 2-years behind in ORIGINAL game development. I do not count PORTED games, because they are not ground-up writes. There are probably a handful, or two, of games that are ground up writes, the rest are ports. XB360 titles, are ALL original code games, no ports. Maybe one or two? Still, not anywhere as NEAR as many as the PS3 has, and that’s a shame.
COD4 is a Port, I think, it is an Xbox360 title. All COD titles are PORTS to PS3, as they are XBOX original titles.
Anyhow, this can go on FOREVER, so whatever. You can research all the developer comments, they’re all over the net, so you’ll see if you look.
COD4 has been developed from the ground up on each system thats why it’s running properly and smoothly. I hate the developers that cant be bothered to port games properly, it’s just lazy.
well,everyone knows XBOX 360 games will look better then ps3 games throughout it’s lifetime.Look at Alan Wake it blows any game i seen on the ps3 out the water.Overall the
XBOX 360 has more power,and the ps3 will keep lagging behind since the 36- has unified memory while the ps3 has parallel memory which is much harder to program for also sony limits it’s devs. memory usage while u can use all of the 360s internal memory so in the end the 360 is the winner n p.s. the ps3 is also a form of a PC and it doesn’t match powerful PCs either like crysis can’t run on either console for example .
Not only are you wrong, but you will be PROVED wrong when Unreal Tournament III comes out in a couple months. Not only will it look better than Gears of War (hailed as best on 360), but it’s on PS3 too, and not a port.
this is a really biased comment about the ps3, the ps3 only has problems with ported games because they try to use the ram like on 360 but should use the cell chips. if the chips were used the games would run better on ps3 since chips are faster and theres 9 of them to be used. publishers just want to make money compare exclusives then ps3 alot better especially for only one year out.
Not, it is NOT a biased comment, is TRUE. Most the PS3 games are ports, that is just the way it is man.
1st, there are NINE cores in the Cell, One PPE, and Eight SPEs, one reserved incase of one SPE failure off the assembly line. The PPE is a general purpose CPU like the XB360’s, but is used as the controller in the CPU.
So, apparently you do not know the difference between a SERIAL processing unit -vs- a parallel one, so you really do not have a grasp on the technology. PS3- You have to SPLIT the code over the 6 SPEs (you only get SIX for games, READ UP!!!). It amazes me how people speak without doing the research. You cannot COMBINE all 8(9) cores, again you only get SIX to use for game apps. The SPEs do not have CACHE! They have what is called “Local Stores”, not Cache - and the way they access memory is not as “shared” as XB360. Look, I have BOTH consoles, and the fact is, PS3 is losing developers because of the complexity. Look at Ace Combat!!! A Sony platform exclusive, jumped ship to XB360. Guitar Hero III? Not for PS3, for XB360 and PS2. Why? Do your research dude. There is NO combining of any cores (thus the PROBLEM at hand), there are 9 cores - one is a general purpose CPU, but acts as the memory controller. The other eight are SPEs, 6 are for games, the 7th SPE is reserved.
The XB360 3-core (each core with 32MB L1 Cache + 1GB Shared L2), 6 thread CPU, is a General Purpose, which executes code in parallel, and can run out of order code, PS3 cannot; XB360: No need to SPLIT code over cores either. PLEASE PLEASE read up? I am no advocate of either side, but still… Your post was completely void of real truth. I only post the NEWS posted by sources who SPEAK to the developers, they are the ones squawking, not us.
BOTH consoles have more powerful CPUs than any home computer on the market right now. The 9.6Ghz 360s, and the 3.2Ghz (Prototype ran at 4.66Ghz) PS3. NO PC on earth that sells to the public is near 10Ghz like 360! Even though the CELL CPU can run at 4.66Ghz now, they have it at 3.2Ghz, it is more powerful than any other CPU. IT is capable of speeds past 6Ghz too, with the 65nm one being produced. The GPU is the bottleneck in the PS3 too, not the CPU really. It only has 256MB to work with, where as with 360, since the CPU has the L1 and L2 cache, more system memory can be used by the GPU, as the PS3 memory is limited by BOTH by CPU (256MB) and GPU (256MB). Xb360 has the 512MB of unified shared memory, the PS3 has two sets of 256MB, one for the CPU, and one for GPU only, and poor memory mapping schemes.
Whoa, now who’s getting damaged lol? Ignore the fanboys.
“Guitar Hero III? Not for PS3, for XB360 and PS2. Why? Do your research dude.”
Maybe YOU need to do a lil more research ‘dude’, Guitar Hero III IS on PS3, and also the Wii.
Even if it wasn’t, why would you use it in your argument?
I found it quite funny that you think the devs of a ‘music genre’ game are jumping ship due to lack of memory. Lol!
Besides, any devs jumping ship would be because of console sales more than anything else.
Well, I have not seen the G3 for PS3 in stores, but I did see the PS2 version. I did go to the home site, they show a game box for PS3, PS2. Also, I said nothing about Wii, so who cares about that.
I never said they were jumping ship due to lack of memory, it is simply development problems PERIOD. You need more memory too, it seems!! No one can stay on track, you all go off on some other angle.
Case Closed!