Ubisoft: PS3's technical specs 'fit in' for Far Cry 2 despite difficulties |
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While we still have roughly a month before Ubisoft's Far Cry 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PS3) hits retail stores, the developers of the game have explained why the wait will be well worth it.Technical Director Dominic Guay talked about the difficulties they experienced porting the heavily specced game on to Sony's PlayStation 3 and the subsequent pros they found while developing it on the next-gen console.
The biggest problem of developing Far Cry 2 on the PS3 was the fact that a lot of the programmers were daunted by the amount of research and development needed to adapt the game's Dunia engine for the PS3. However, despite that problem, Guay admitted that the PS3 made an ideal technical platform for their game to run on.
Positive aspects of note were the PS3's sheer processing power, harnessed to run the heavy animations the game will be sporting. Also, the console's hard drive and Blu-ray player made it substantially easy for them to fit in every little detail that would bring Far Cry 2 to life.
Guay also noted the strengths the PS3 version had over its PC counterpart, saying that the balance between the PS3's video output and memory size makes the game a more ideal fit. He further explained it by saying:
[...] The notable area where we had to make some tradeoffs is in some assets resolution which had to be brought down from the higher end PC configurations due to memory size difference. However, the good news is that since PS3 players are not outputting over the top resolutions like high end PC users, this is not a big deal. It's somewhat proportional to our video resolution output.
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Comments [refresh]
I've been saying the same thing about putting Crysis on PS3. (not that I care one way or another)
The difference in necessary resources to output at 720p or even 1080p versus 1280, 1440 or 1600p is immense. PCs waste an incredible amount of resources too.. especially those running Vista.
pc gamers that have vista are hardly affected(assumi ng they have a good gpu/cpu etc thats for me anyway) Crysis is alot more demanding then what consoles can handle. Meaning a 360 or a ps3 could handle it but the graphics would have to be downscaled and the island itself. I love my ps3 just as much as the next guy but Crysis feeds off of ram. the 360's 512mb or the ps3's 256 mb is definitely not going to cut it. Example: i have 2 gb of ram and when pc is in ideal 25% of it is being used by vista and other applications. Meaning 1.5gb is free. When starting Crysis (high/very high) that number quickly jumps to +90%. I think the ps3 would have a better port if one is made due to the great processing power but no doubt about it the Islands size would have to be downscaled by alot.
Also your view on 720p/1080p is wrong. 720p + 1280 x 720 its just a resolution just as pc games are played in the same resolutions. Just as you might play a game in 1080p (1920 x 1080) a pc gamer is playing @ 1920 x 1200 and there is very little difference between the 2 except Ps3 + 16x9 and pc is 16x10... That being said what they are saying is in the article is that some pc gamers play at extremely high resolutions because they can but some people play with 128mb or 256 mb cards and cant play at those resolutions so there for they lowered the textures in some areas so everyone could play at a playable frame rate.
Yo, learn more about the PS3. It has 512 total like the 360. Not 256. The difference is that the 360's cpu and gpu share the 512 while the PS3 has 256 dedicated to the gpu and 256 dedicated to the cpu.
I am aware of the ps3's 512mb of ram. But it has 256 mb dedicated to video only and crysis alone requires at least 512 mb to run on high and thats just video memory. The ps3 then has another 256 mb that would be used for the loading of all those other textures and other stuff and that just would be enough. I said the 360 and ps3 wouldn't be able to run it on high or very high but overall the ps3 will most likely have a better chance considering it has a monster cpu. So yea i know my ps3 and im dying for MGS4 which will blow crysis out of the park so please don't think im a fanboy im really just trying to say that there no way it'll run at high/very high on a ps3 or 360. Plus Crysis is also more demanding then Farcry 2. Only thing great about farcry 2 is forest fires.
That's exactly how it is. The two systems have the same amount of ram but use it VERY differently. It's as Canis says and from what I understand each has it's Pros/Cons.
With the PS3, you've got two pools of 256, one used by the GPU (graphics) and the other CPU (processing) and while some initially see the smaller number assume that it's the worse of the two... you must realize the bandwidth that is involved in moving data between each. In the PS3's case you've got two pipe lines, one traveling to/from the GPU's ram to the GPU and another from the CPU's Ram to the CPU.
In the 360's case you can allocate w/e ram you want for certain GPU needs (graphics) and then use the rest for other CPU stuff, or change between the two when needed. However with this system, including just one pool of 512 ram, you've got a smaller bandwidth area. With one line coming into the pool for both the CPU and GPU you can't access info any faster that the bandwidth of the lines that provide access to the pool of ram.
Thus while you have the same amount of ram, they're accessed very differently. The difficulties come in when devs use the 360 as the lead development console for their game and get use to allocating w/e they want for CPU or GPU and then using what's left over for the other counter part and when they jump over to deving for the PS3 they are forced with 256 for each. So, it's not to say either is worse... it's just that programmers must thinking differently about them and allocate resources to be handled differently.
Atleast thats how I understand it.
Also, Koolaid. Those specs you speak of they do get affected by the OS, Vista or XP w/e ... tho Vista is much more of a hog, which is running the whole time your PC is. Also, PCs as they are, you are VERY close to your screen and higher res textures are needed more to envelope you with "realism" where as consoles, even with their high output of 1920x1080 in a 1080 setting are demanding, developers can use lower resolution textures because of the extended distance the player is from the set. They also have filters applied that... for some reason is easier to do with consoles and TVs than it is on the PC where things will look better than their actual textures are because of these unique techniques.
Something the N64... never really did all that well. That machine was more or less strict polygons and textures... never knew why... but thats another discussion.
More on, you can't simply look at the Ram of a console vs a PC and say "yep, that won't work because of that" it's simply... not that simple.
You say you know of the PS3's "Monster CPU" but.. I'm going to call you out on that. What developers are finding with the PS3 is that they're able to do quite a bit more with it's SPUs that they wouldn't be able to in a normal CPU architecture and those filtering techniques I spoke of before is something they could pull off thus taking some load off of the GPU. I've even read articles about how some devs are looking into the aspect of steaming textures more than just sending them through the ram as a straight asset. ID's new engine is using such technology and they're able to jam textures with something like 10x the amount of visual data than they could with sending the texture through at a normal "off to the GPU through the ram" process. Producing graphics on par with that of a totally fleshed out PC while using no more, if not less bandwidth that it would take to push through a (currently) normal texture in the normal way it's done by most engines.
Lastly, PC's aren't all standard. Developers must develop their games based on common denominators... such as directX and others that are usually supported by the hardware (graphics cards, processors and so on) and thus they can't take full advantage of your PCs true power ... because they really don't know the makeup of your PC and so they more or less include everything to run on most systems, thus bogging it down further. If games for the PC were made just for specific PCs with specific hardware, you would see much lower system requirements. Thats where consoles come in. You've got a total standard to adhere by and it usually means more solid results in resource management.
how about we wait for the first Cryengine2 title until i say i told you so. I have indeed tested Crysis on XP and Vista and my Vista offers me about a 4-5 frame boost over XP. (8800GT 2gb ram(OCZ) AMD fx60) So my system if more then capable of handling a game on vista just as well as on XP. Crysis on Vista maxed out(mostly anyway) i would average 25fps. On xp i would Average around 30 fps. So is vista really doing a crazy difference? not much at all. I know consoles handle things differently but that doesn't escape the fact that ram is ram. If 1.5 gb of ram is required(not gpu memory thats a different factor) to run the game with a way more powerful gpu then the ps3's how would such a title be capable on the ps3?
Also please let me add in 1 more fatcor.(kind of contradicting to my earlier statement but what the hell idc) I honestly think that Crysis on the pc is VERY unoptimized. Crytek said it would run perfectly on very high with an 8800gts which show what their goals were and it also show that this product was rushed to meet deadlines. So if crytek hyped huge pc game for year and couldn't optimize it correctly what makes you think they will care as much for a port? At most i think a prot would look alittle better then Farcry for the 360 and not just because of system limits but because EA and Crytek love rushing out games now.
I hope Far Cry is good. We all know the horrors the PS3 has had with their Multiplats versions.
I've also read that consoles don't need as much ram, cpu, gpu etc as PCs. It's simply becuase they know what hardware the game will run on, so they can optimize it.
@Koolaidsred1: You are not very bright, are you? Did you even read the two posts above you? And also, the difference between Vista and XP is big. On XP I have 100 fps constantly on Counter strike, but on vista, I only get around 50-70 fps, which isn't good.