Hoping for a great game, I know it's going to look amazing.

i think they threw the ps3 ram in their just to make the systems seem more balanced in positives and negatives. I know the 360 does have more ram available to the overall system. BUT its funny how games like Killzone 2 MGS 4 FF13 Gran Turismo 5 R&C all have WAY better textures and graphics and i see NO ram limitation with those games what so ever. This is BS and they are just trying to find an excuse to make the ps3 look as if it has just as many flaws as the 360. Dont get me wrong i love my 360(dying for Mass Effect ATM) and i love my ps3(uncharted!!!) but in terms of power the ps3 wins.

As much as I don't want to seem biased, I do have to agree with Koolaidsred1.



Each time any Developer tries to say something unflattering about one Console, they try hard to appear impartial by digging for apparent flaws in another Console.



For example, if they say something bad about the 360, they will try hard to find something bad about the PS3 as well, and vice versa.



Pretty crummy way to try and appear impartial if you ask me. After all, it's not as if they are dissing any Console by identifying any obvious flaws. And they don't have to feel obligated to appear impartial by finding something to bash on the other Console as well. I'm guessing this particular tactic comes from Games Companies' PR, though.

At least it sounds like the development for Assassin's Creed on the DS is going smoothly.



lolassassin'screedontheds

AC is being developed on the most powerful system of all time, the super nintendo. Believe it or not, if you open your PS3 or XBOX 360, youll find 3 Super Nintendos wired together in both of them. The SNES has been holding back for years, now it shows it's true power.

You make some very good points as well. But if you look at upcoming or already released Sony exclusive titles, they ALL offer something new in terms of processing physics and with even more upcoming titles the ps3 is also showing great visuals to go along with it.



In terms of graphical power i know the 360 is great especially when you look at games like Mass effect and Gears, but thats all they are increasing is graphics. Meaning look at resistance i know the little things don't mean THAT much but look at the great shattering windows. Look at Motorstorm's mud effects, F1 rain effects, Killzone had TON's of enemies on screen compared to Gears, Heavenly Sword had the most gorgeous visuals with thousands and thousands of people on screen at the same time, ..... You see my point? Sony Cell cpu keeps being put in question by 360 fan boys because they are very ignorant and do not see the overall picture of Sony's titles and the little things unaccomplished on the 360. Whether the 360 can do them or not is yet to be seen.



Please do not see me as a fan boy. I own all 3 consoles (got the Wii 2 weeks ago). I just look at all the facts and I made my judgment after fairly trying all 3 consoles. They are all great in their own ways, but from what i have seen so far by a console which has been out 1/3rd the time as its main competitor its constantly taking HUGE leaps in terms of physics, graphics, and SUPERB processing power.

Hey man,



I'm not saying I doubt that the PS3 is better in terms of pure processing power. I'm of the same opinion myself.



However, I'm not that well-versed technologically to state with any degree of certainty that the PS3 is the superior machine. I do admit that, taking into account what has been achieved on PS3-exclusive games so far in terms of graphics and physics, it does seem as if the PS3 has far more capabilities. For example, I have observed that the 360 is woefully inadequate as far as long draw distances are concerned, while the PS3 just excels in that area.



Be that as it may, I am still not willing to go out on a limb and state flat-out that the PS3 is far superior. I just don't know enough about the technology involved, nor have I worked on it. I still say, wait and watch is the best strategy, and that only the future can bear witness to which Console is more powerful (even though, in the grand scheme of things, that question is quite inconsequential , don't you think? :) ), although I do believe you will turn out to be right eventually.



Regards,

Thinker/MTK

its not that simple. When you put a game on a disk you need to put the WHOLE game engine on the disk which takes up alot of space. And another part that takes up alot of space would be the cities audio and videos, Not necessarily chapters. Look at old games like Final Fantasy X which has countless hours of gameplay but fit on 4.7 gb.

If you are basing your opinions of how powerful a system is on breaking windows and mud effects then you should try harder.



Halo 3 has breakable windows, trees that bend and move if you hit them or rub up against them in a vehicle, water that makes splashes and ripples with each individual bullet you shoot into it.



Gears also had breakable windows, couches, chairs, armoirs and many other things as well...crackdown everything can be broken, into multiple stages of "brokeness"



N3, a launch game, has 1000's of enemies onscreen as well....as does dead rising.



At this point, the only place that the systems differ in are in terms of graphics and game stability, and in all reviews 360 comes up on top in that area....





Now as far as memory goes, the main problem isn't that PS3 is lacking in memory (although it is by abit) it's that the memory is split into two and that you can only access a certain amount of memory from certain areas. It boils down to having 256 MB for system/program use and 256 for Video....now you can access the video memory for use as system memory, but it's very cryptic and slow....so if a developer has made a game that needs 350mb for system resources and the rest for video (or vice versa, but most memory is spent on system resources) then they are going to run into problems when it comes to making the game run smoothly on the PS3.....hence the reason so many PS3 games have horrible framerates.



The games you listed that work so well on PS3, as said, are first party titles. They did not build their game, then try to make it fit into a PS3....they built their game knowing the limitation of the PS3 and therefor didn't have the same hurdles. Then again, none of those games even look close to gears of war of mass effect quality...and that's the reason...

your twisting the meaning to my words. Resistance has the BEST looking glass breaking by FAR.(i don't even like resistance so please don't call me a fanboy it was rated perfectly on GS) And is the Visuals of the zombies or the bad guys in N3 decent in anyway? not at all. The AI in N3 was atrocious. You could stand in front of 2 guys battling it out and they would never kill one another, or you can have 1 bad guy in front of you and he will stand still and swing once a minute. (and i know because i made the terrible mistake in purchasing the game)



Now halo 3 i believe does have terrific game play and i haven't gotten around to buying it just yet but i have played multi player at a friends house but visually or physically what ground breaking elements were there?Great game none the less but im speaking of capability in hard ware.



Now you have the nerve to say Nothing on Sony's console comes even close to matching Gears or Mass Effect? I didn't even find Killzone 1 to be anything special but i still played it and beat it through as i do with most games even if i find them decent. Killzone 2 beats Gears and Mass Effect in visuals. Mass Effect may have better player models but just look at the HUGE difference. Killzone 2 has graphics Superior to Gears, and has more then 5 or 6 enemy characters on screen at once with a hell of alot more going on. Mass Effect does look terrific but so far i haven't seen more then 4 to 5 enemies on screen at the same time. Same with Gears you face 6 guys and kill them then to you take 5 more steps then 5 more spawn. I wonder why they couldn't have those enemies already placed on the map?Another title is Uncharted Drakes fortune. Have you seen the visuals to that game? The character physics? And all the hell thats going around at the same time?



Also when im talking about games im only talking about !st party titles because thats when the companies need to really make their console shine. And as far as im concerned the only one being innovative with their visuals are Sony and thats because the 7 core cell processor allows them to and please don't disagree because you know how to read and 7 is alot more then 3 and every first party ps3 game has shown the use of the cell whether it be very simple use which can most likely be done on the 360 ex(windows, mud) It shows how much further the ps3's cpu can go within the next few years. Now i know i sound really biased but please don't think i am. I am a fan of all consoles. Software wise i love them all. You give me a good game i buy it whether it be halo 3 mass effect killzone 2 heavenly sword or cooking mama for wii if its fun i buy it. But in terms of power the ps3 seems to show a HELL of alot more potential.

Please don't believe people online just because they say what you want to read, look for sources which CONFIRMS what they say first. What you've just quoted is 100% BS.



Please read this (it was also reported here on QJ);



http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2007/05/09/ps3-memory-footprint/



"the PS3 operating system takes up 52 MB of main memory and 32 MB of graphics memory (84 MB total). As a comparison, the Xbox 360 still only uses 32 MB of shared memory for all its system utilities."



And the OS memory footprint hasn't changed since then on the PS3. Equally, the 360's memory footprint has ALWAYS been 32MB Techni, it has never been higher than that!



Look up ps3 memory footprint on google and you'll see this info is confirmed all other the internet! Those are the facts my friend, don't listen to what people say on forums unless they can provide proof, and yes, that includes me. :)



@Thinker - You and Koolaidsred1 ignore the fact that the lack of RAM compared to the 360 IS an issue which has caused problems for devs on the PS3 (especially multi-format games), and has been stated time and time again. It is one of a number of the reasons why some devs feel it's best for multi-format games to focus on the PS3 version first and port to the 360 rather than the reverse.



So my problem with your arguement is that you're suggesting the memory issue is only a trivial point being exaggerated by the Assassin' Creed devs to appear balanced and unbiased. But given that RAM has been mentioned numerous times before by other devs as a problem on the PS3, then I don't believe it's simply a trivial point being brought up regarding PS3 development. 52MB is a significant loss on a console with 512MB in total.



As for overcoming the ram limitations, I'm not going to argue about what can or cannot be done, but what I would say is that console SPECIFIC methods for overcoming limitations is something which in more applicable to EXCLUSIVE games, not multi-format games. You've also been around long enough to know this Thinker. ;)



As for power, I'm paraphrasing what I've read from numerous developers, including programming geniuses such as John Carmack (who says it has a little more under the hood for devs able to take advantage of it). So I think we can all agree the PS3 is not twice as powerful as the 360 (as suggested during E3 2005), but instead is very similar to the 360 in terms of power (with the PS3 having a slight edge overall). That's the impression I've got from devs *working* with both consoles.

You make very solid points and i do agree with most of them regarding the ram. The point is if a game whether exclusive or not can run flawlessly on the Sony console (oblivion) and ran even better (more development time i know not comparing it like that) with its limited amounts of ram how come developers cant take more time and stop B!!ching about ram? So far all Great and dedicated developers have shown that this so called "limitation" can be over come and they have not complained one bit. Then you have other developers which bash the ps3 because of ram.



Now with killzone 2 i disagree with you. Visually it may not be as good as we saw in E3 2005 but the graphics are still top notch all though they don't compare to Crysis. My point with Killzone 2 compared to Gears is look at the environments, look at the number of different stuff going on screen at once, you have thunder bolt attacks from actual enemies controlling it somewhere, you have tons of bad guys on screen, superb physics, and destructible environments and at a pretty smooth frame rate. So overall yes i do find killzone to be very impressive i just hope the gameplay matches it as well.



Now in terms of power you have to be an idiot to think the ps3 is twice as powerful lol. As i have said before i think the cell allows the ps3 to handle alot more stuff going on within a game whether it be 3000 enemies on screen all with great detail and decent AI or great AI and people working extremely well with their environment. I even forgot what company it was that claimed the Cell CPU can handle 4d(which does exist its time) and they showed computer hardware handling 4d and it was truly amazing how items begin to rust over time and how rain affects will effect would and so on. Graphic wise as you said i tihnk Sony's console may have just a slight edge over the 360 but its amazing what the cell cpu allows for.

No, you are behind the times.



http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2007/08/21/ps3-180-sdk/



The 1.80 SDK has been in developers' hands for a few weeks, and we can now report on the latest progress of the Sony system utilities and their memory usage. On this front, the 1.80 release has been nothing but good news for developers (and indirectly, consumers). This release heralds both a slew of new features, and, as anticipated, improved memory consumption.



First, both the main memory and graphic memory footprints have been reduced, reaching a new low of 48MB and 24MB respectively. That's a 12MB reduction since the 1.60 release. The extra memory is sure to be welcome by developers.



Your figures were complete BS.

"...Then you have other developers which bash the ps3 because of ram."



But that's the problem I see in your arguement Koolaidsred1, they haven't really '*****ed' about RAM on the PS3, they only say it's a problem right now, but it's clear that they expect to overcome it, especially with the help of Sony. :|



"My point with Killzone 2 compared to Gears is look at the environments, look at the number of different stuff going on screen at once..."



But these are two totally different games, where GEoW isn't even a FPS (and will be about 2 years old by time KZ2 is released). A more valid comparison would be with a forthcoming FPS game like UT3, running on an improved version of the same engine as Gears.



From what I'm seeing of UT3, it looks to match Gears graphically but with larger environments, vehicles and many characters on screen (on the PC, PS3 and later, the 360). Halo 3 would be a good comparison too, but it's such a different graphical style that to compare the two games without bias would be difficult (and attract too many fanboys :().



You mention what you see in KZ2, but you don't mention what you don't see. There's only so much available in terms of resources on a console, and to increase in some area means decreasing in others. We can see this in KZ2. Look at any gameplay video of KZ2 and you will notice that all the textures in the game are flat! By flat I mean very little (if anything) is done to the textures. There's no bump mapping, there're no reflections or semi-reflective surfaces, and up close, the texture quality is rather low. All in contract to Epics games full of reflections and reflective surfaces, high quality textures and bump-mapping. The same applies to the lighting, which looks good when shadows are being cast (such as when your gun is fired at a soldier against a wall), but overall light sources look rather weak in the game. For example, instead of bright flashes for lightning, we see grey looking streaks across the sky instead of white flashes. And lights dotted around the environment look 'greyed out' and lacking to me.



This is not a criticism, it's just an observation of the choices they've made for the game, and it fits in well with the war-torn ruined environment for the game. They've compromised in some areas to gain on others. The flip side is that they are enable to up the resolution with effects like AA and motion-blur and are about to add destructable surfaces and other neat touches.



"...i just hope the gameplay matches it as well."



Me too. :)



"Now in terms of power you have to be an idiot to think the ps3 is twice as powerful lol."



Well, I never have, but after E3 2005, countless gamers and journalists believed it to be true for over a year (hence where convinced that the KZ2 video was realtime back then). Trying to convince gamers (especially PS3 fanboys) that this was not true was almost impossible until after the release of the PS3.



"As i have said before i think the cell allows the ps3 to handle alot more stuff going on within a game"



How much goes on in a game is really a balance between the CPU, the GPU, and the system as a whole. The PS3's CPU has an advantage for floating-point operations (about twice the power of the 360), but the 360's CPU has an advantage for running general code (about twice the power of the PS3). The 360 also has a slightly more powerful GPU and more RAM available, the PS3 has more storage on a single game disk thanks to Blu-ray, were not everything can be overcome with multple disks on the 360.



My point is, it's all about balance, and as a result, there will be some games which the 360 can handle better, and other game which the PS3 can handle better.



"I even forgot what company it was that claimed the Cell CPU can handle 4d"



No, Ken Kutaragi started that, and it's a nonsense really. There is no extra dimension that is uniquely possible on the PS3 and nowhere else. If anyone uses the term 4D, it's as meaningless as the term "Emotion Synthesis" was for the PS2's Emotion En

"why were you trying to pass off the total memory footprint as being only 48MB?"



I didn't. My original quote, still readable here



"PS3s OS (as of 1.80) takes up 48 MB of RAM, 360s takes 32 MB. PS3 also reserves 24 MB of VRAM for the framebuffer. 360 reserves an unknown amount whenever the game runs at 720p or higher since the 10 MB of EDRAM is insufficient for 720p."



So you misread. I admitted PS3 reserves that extra 24. I also said 360 reserves another unknown quantity, depending on what resolution it runs at, cause it's 10 MB of EDRAM is not enough for a 720p framebuffer.



And my statement about 360s OS ORIGINALLY using 64 MB came from a 360 developer. And I admitted it uses 32 MB NOW, so don't get so defensive.

"This is not mass hysteria amoungst devs Techni, they are not imagining less memory on the PS3, this IS an issue which effects game developement on the console."



I didn't deny that. This is the second time you've completely misinterpreted what I said.



All I said was that you were giving incorrect numbers. And you are.

I thanked you earlier for updating me on the exact figures, so there's no need to resort to pointless insults.



Your figures are wrong. You stated the 360 once required 64MB, and yet you offer no proof, which I know for a fact this is wrong.



Secondly, you stated that 48MB was required for the PS3's OS, and you compare this to the 360's 32MB.



Then you say 24MB is reserved by the PS3 for VRAM and you compare this to the 360's VRAM needs.



This is where it's wrong. On the PS3, 48MB is reserved from main memory and 24MB is reserved from VRAM FOR THE OS not games, and it is THIS which is comparible to the 32MB used by the 360's OS in TOTAL (both main memory and VRAM needs). The 360's OS does not require addition VRAM, and this is confirmed on the same website we got our links from;



http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2007/05/09/ps3-memory-footprint/



"Currently, as of SDK 1.60, the PS3 operating system takes up 52 MB of main memory and 32 MB of graphics memory (84 MB total). As a comparison, the Xbox 360 still only uses 32 MB of shared memory for all its system utilities."



They couldn't make it any clearer than that, 84MB (now 72MB) is required on the PS3 compared to 32MB on the 360, not 32MB plus additional VRAM as you claim!



So all of this memory is lost to games on each console. Any additional VRAM required by GAMES for the video frame buffer(s) comes out of the REMAINING memory.



You just have to read the comments from devs like JC to see that the OS memory requirements on the PS3 is total memory lost to games, which is now 72MB (compared to 96MB when JC made his comment). For the 360, it's only 32MB lost, no more and no less.

You understood and confirmed exactly what I was saying (thanks for showing 10MB EDRAM on the 360 is enough for the OS's video needs).



I admit I was a bit confused over what Techni was saying at first. Because he was comparing the PS3's VRAM usage to a so-called unknown amount of VRAM used on the 360 by the OS (which you've shown to be false), I thought he was suggesting that any VRAM used by the PS3 is also available to games, because that's how it is on the 360 when VRAM is used for frame buffers. As it is, I finally realised he was saying the 360 OS's uses VRAM to because 10MB is not enough for 720p, but as you state already, this is wrong.



Hence I'll repeat what I correctly stated in my post earlier with Techni's revised figures, which is "the PS3's OS takes up 72MB of RAM, compared to 32MB on the 360".



Hence today, the PS3's OS requires 40MB more memory than that of the 360, meaning 40MB less memory for games. Fact!



One last point, I ignored this from you before Techni because the focus was on memory usage, but...



"Also, shared memory means lower throughput. As the bandwidth is now divided. So 360s single bank of ram is a bottleneck."



This is also not an issue. A bottleneck only occurs when there isn't sufficient bandwidth in the system to cope, hence is a potential problem IF the overall banwidth is too low. This is not the case on the 360, and to be honest, I don't think it's for anyone here to decide that it is. If devs are stating this, then fair enough, but they are not, and given the results we've seen so far on the 360 for both exclusive and multi-format games, no-one seems to be having the bandwidth problems you suggest.



Therefore the 360 has more than enough bandwidth to cope with the needs of the CPU and GPU, also helped by the savings in bandwidth achieved through the use of the embedded memory on the GPU.



I look forward to your response provided you're not going throw insults again :).



I only said you were spreading BS because you were wrong, and yet despite all your errors (i.e. saying 10MB EDRAM was not enough for 720p, that the 360's OS uses an unknown amount of VRAM, that the 360's OS used to require 64MB, that the 360's shared ram is a bottleneck) I have never called you ignorant or stupid or anything like that, and I even thanked you for giving me up to date information on the PS3's OS memory requirements.



So please bare that in mind before you reply. :)