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Mercenaries 2 Tapping Only 30% of the PS3's Potential |
Listed in: PS3 Tags: Pandemic Studios, playstation 3 updates, Sony
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In a Q&A session done on the official Mercenaries 2 forums, Lead Designer Scott Warner has revealed that Mercenaries 2 - like many other games shown at E3 - is only tapping 30% of the Playstation 3's potential. Seeing how this game features such a vast, dynamic world with very nice graphics (judging from the early screenshots), this is a rather impressive fact. But it also brings up this question: Why don't they tap the full potential just now? Perhaps there are certain constraints only developers can understand, but I see no reason not using that leftover power, to, for example, improve the destruction aspects of the game even more, or add a bunch of effects. I think there was a similar comment made in regard to Gears Of War on the Xbox 360 and that statement struck me as equally odd. Maybe someone will explain this mystery to me.
The Q&A session also revealed a few other interesting facts - for example, that the freeplay content (optional missions and such) will be vastly expanded from the original game, and ragdolls will be introduced.
So far, Mercenaries 2 is definitely shaping up to be a great game. I absolutey loved the first game, but I always felt that it really needed the power of next-gen consoles to fully realize it's over-the-top ambitions of complete mayhem and destruction. Apparently, the time has come.
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Comments
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Here's hoping that the PS3, and also the X360 and Wii, have talented developers that can push games to their limits.
Too bad we have probably another 2-4 years of fanboyism until we see what can REALLY be done on the consoles.
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It takes years for developers to learn how to push new console hardware to the limit. Consoles are always running at 100%, but figures like 30% represent how efficiently the game uses the hardware. The more the developers learn about the hardware, the more efficient the code and therefore the better the performance.
"but I see no reason not using that leftover power"
It doesn't work like that, since it's not as if the power is just sitting there unused, developers have to create game engines which are able to push the hardware further, hence tapping into more of the console's available power.
Think of it in this way, if you ask two programmers to write a program to perform a simple task on a console, the result may be two completely different approaches to the same problem. When running their programs, they both appear the same, but one program may perform the task faster than the other because a more efficient approach was used.
Now imagine putting thousands of programs together to create the code for a game, you now have thousands of possible areas which could be improved to increase game performance and therefore making more efficient use of the hardware. Some of these improvements will occur as the game is being optimised, but time is limited.
Therefore once a game is finished, developers will take what's they've learned and use it to improve the performance of their next game, and then the next game and so on.
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The truth is, the devs can't use all the power because they cannot code well enough the new engines to run them, you have to wait a couple of years for full use of the potential. Like the ps1, 1st game is around ff7? best graphics with ff9? and on the ps2, 1st game around fantavision(is this really a game?) and orphen, and after a year in 2001 you see games like ffx, gta3, mgs2, and now you see games with graphical performance like MGS3 - subsistance using 100% of what the ps2 can give, so in 2-3 years the games will be using about 70-80% of the full potential, and then you'll see the differance between the ps3's power and the x360 lack of performance...
give some time to devs and you'll be rewarded with super graphical performances =D
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You had to spoil a good post with a silly comment like that. :(
You know, not everything has to be a console war. ;)
Anyway since you brought it up, in 2-3 years time, developers will be using more of BOTH console's potential, so you're still not going to see much difference graphically.
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I'm guessing you saw a MAJOR different between the ps2 and the xbox?
if not. STFU! stupid fanboy.
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http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/612/612066p1.html
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"I'm guessing you saw a MAJOR different between the ps2 and the xbox?
if not. STFU! stupid fanboy."
He's right you know.
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Well in 3 years probably M$ will be launching another console so I am not worried :D.
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Even a simple process like this one which adds numbers infinitely on every SPE is probably no using the full power of the machine.
for (1 - 7 SPEs){
addJob(*addnumb ers);
}
addNumbers(){
while ( true){
1+1;
}
}
Give them time to optimize and develop their own methodologies and they will up their power usage of the machine. They will never use 100% of the power however.
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I loved the first Mercenaries, and I hope that 2nd will be equally great (with improvement to next-gen standards of course).
About X360 - PS3 difference, if Lair is a launch title, then you will be able to see the difference from the very beginning of consoles life cycle. And after some time the difference will become greater.
In 2007 PS3 will completely dominate the market, just like PS2 did, with titles like next Gran Turismo, MGS, FF, Heavenly Sword, VF, TEKKEN, DMC, RE5 and some other BIG titles. PlayStation brand has more system sellers than Nintendo or XBox, and it doesn't seem to change at all, since best X360 games so far are multiplatform (excluding PGR3 which is the best X360 exclusive game).
In the games I mentioned above we will see how PS3 is the real next-gen console, with astonishing graphics (all of the mentioned), and amazing physics and interactivity with games world.
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Doubtful RastaDator. The difference between the 360 and PS3 is less than that between the PS2 and the XBox, so you're not going to see much difference, including in the areas you've mentioned. Perhaps larger game worlds or more varied textures in total because of Blu-ray, and perhaps higher quality streamed movies or streamed sound, but that's about it.
In 3 years time, you'll probably be saying "Ok, the games may look the same now, but in 3 years from now it will not be a match for PS3 output". ;)
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Great, do point out where we can download GAMEPLAY footage from Lair, since I've only seen realtime scripted cutscenes so far.
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Too many gamers focus on nothing more than the specs and assume that it tells the whole story, but it DOESN'T. Specs on their own tell you nothing about the efficiency of unified shaders vs seperate pixel and vertex shaders for example. Specs do not tell you the actual realworld performance achievable in games.
Hence I place more enthasist on the comments from those with experience of the hardware, i.e. developers, not random gamers on forums, especially those developers working on the 360 and PS3, because they are less likely to be biased and have direct experience of BOTH consoles.
Here's one example (I got the link from someone here a few weeks ago);
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/704/704524p2.html
"IGN: What is it like to program and design the game for Xbox 360 versus the PlayStation 3?...
Magnus Högdahl: The PS3 will have a content size advantage with Blu-ray and a CPU advantage for titles that are able to utilize a lot of the SPUs. The Xbox 360 has a slight GPU advantage and its general purpose triple-core CPU is relatively easy to utilize compared to SPUs. I expect that it will be near impossible to tell Xbox 360 and PS3 screenshots apart."
Here, Magnus even feels the 360 GPU has the edge over RSX, and yet the specs suggests the reverse.
I've read similar comments from other developers too, including those who participate in websites like beyond3d.com (such as DeanoC from Heavenly Sword developers Ninja Theory).
So yes, I stand by all I've said in this thread. However, if you've read comments from a developer working on both consoles who says otherwise, then I'll be interested in the link and hope you will post it here. Thanks. :)
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Secondly, I do recognise the fact that the PS3 is a more powerful console overall because of the additional floating-point power of Cell (on paper atleast). However, I do feel many gamers have an exaggerated view of the difference in power between the PS3 and 360, a view which is not shared by developers working on both consoles. :|
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More NPC's require for polygons and textures...ie. if they vastly increase the number of NPC's, then they will take a graphical hit...and since when do physics have to be much better then HL2 ? Although I admit it would be nicer having more objects interacting with each other....
This generation is so close it is really just about what company/image you want to go with, choose and shuddup
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Again, you missed the point, developers working on the consoles DO know what RSX has to offer, since they have PS3 devkits (many with final devkits!), whereas you and I don't! Hence developers like Magnus from my earlier post, knows what he's talking about because he's talking from direct experience of working on both consoles.
"I was referring exactly to the need to exploit the SPUs power. If devels can get at least 80% of SPUs output, PS3 will be capable to put not only cool textures and good lightning but, many real looking NPC and players, with excellent A.I, reacting correctly to physics events, etc, etc."
And what makes you think that the 360 is any different? Your point hasn't been proven because everything you say there applies in a similar way to the 360 too, since developers haven't even begun to tap into the full power of the 360's multi-threaded 3 core CPU or it's Xenos GPU. You act as if only the PS3 will see improvements over the years and the 360 will not. :|
Stop being blinded by the specs and hype and try listening to what developers are actually saying. The PS3 will be a great console, a little more powerful than the 360, but it's not going to improve over the years with the 360 standing still. The performance of _both_ consoles will continue to improve as developers learn to harness more of their power, and therefore you'll be waiting forever if you think the PS3 is going to pull ahead of the 360 in the way you suggest.
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You can NEVER guarentee against problems. Sony didn't rush the PSP, and yet it had a 'sticky button' problem when it launched in Japan as well as problems with dead pixels on the screen. The PS2 wasn't rushed and yet it also had problems, including the now familiar disc read error (DRE). Nintendo didn't rush the DS Lite and yet it has the hinge problem.
This is the realworld, so even with the delay of the PS3 giving Sony more time, there could still be problems with launch machines. We'll just have to wait and see (with our fingers crossed ;)).
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