PS3 General Discussion

[Mr Deap]

...And in a funny, ha ha moment of the day:

I'll see you soon baby..

 

[DuckRacer]

Uhh..emulation?

The same way the 360 offers anti-alaising and 720p for all backward compatible games?

💡 💡

But wouldn't that take too long to emulate every single game? Or is there something that I'm not getting?


(If I sound clueless, forgive me, and blame the crap sleep.)

 

[KENJIusa]

Final PS3 dev kit information
by Bhavin Shah
This past week, a number of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) came to an end, and developers are finally revealing more and more about their upcoming PlayStation 3 titles.

As a result, a number of gaming news websites have discovered that Sony has been shipping out final development kits over the past few weeks.

This has come from SEGA's PS3 day, where Full Auto 2: Battlelines was demonstrated on final hardware.
The first interesting point is that the final dev kits run very quietly, and do not produce as much heat as earlier development hardware.

Up till now, developers have been using the wired PlayStation 2 controller. However, the final dev kit provides bluetooth support, and Pseudo Interactive said that they were able to drop in wireless support for the controller literally days before SEGA's PS3 day.
Switching between wireless and wired was also very easy. All that is required is a standard USB A-to-B cable. If you unplug the cable, holding down the PlayStation logo on the controller for a couple of seconds will re-synchronise it with the PS3. The controller was smart enough to remember which unit it was connected to previously, especially in an environment with multiple PS3 dev kits.

There were eight final dev kits all connected to the PlayStation Network. There was no lag whatsoever during the online play, although IGN suggests that this could be due to the presence of an 80GB hard drive in each dev kit, allowing each system to stream information simultaneously.
Pressing the PlayStation button brings up the menu, which is almost identical to the PSP's menu. Known as the Cross Media Bar (XMB), the menu featured similar icons such as settings and game options.

It reassuring to see that final dev kits are being shipped ahead of schedule. At the PlayStation Business Meeting back in February, Sony's schedule suggested that the online network wouldn't be ready until September.

www.ps3land.com:

 

[Jeremy Ricci]

But wouldn't that take too long to emulate every single game? Or is there something that I'm not getting?


(If I sound clueless, forgive me, and blame the crap sleep.)

Not really, because Sony has a check list they put out for every console, this ensures developers follow certain procedures so that games are backwards compatible. There are rare instances when these things don't happen, but it is rare indeed.

You may not know, although the PS2 did feature PS1 hardware, the "OS" was emulated, and this is why they were able to "smooth out" the textures on PS2 hardware. They added additional coding to the OS which told the EE to render the images, but perform an extra step in order to achieve "smoother" textures (though I didn't much enjoy it).

Same can be done for PS1 and PS2 games. The PS3 will simply have additional instructions in order for the RSX to render the images with AA at a higher resolution.

Though, there *will* be some games where this will not work for, as is always the case with hundreds of different engines and what not. But, cases will more than likely be rare and few.

 

[slackbladder]

I'm assuming the way the info on connected players is displayed on the menu screen isn't going to be the final layout because it'll look horrible. I guess the GUI for the game isn't needed for most of the development time spent on a game?

 

[Mr Deap]

Final PS3 dev kit information
by Bhavin Shah


There were eight final dev kits all connected to the PlayStation Network. There was no lag whatsoever during the online play, although IGN suggests that this could be due to the presence of an 80GB hard drive in each dev kit, allowing each system to stream information simultaneously.

www.ps3land.com:

This part of the article make absolutely no sense.
From when does an hard drive help to get no lag in an online games?

10 Reasons Why You Should Not Buy an Xbox 360

By Paid to be Hated
Aug 17 2006 10:33AM



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the hype that has been created over the newest generation of gaming consoles, it’s no surprise that even the small time gamers are wondering if they should take the plunge. Most stores were sold out even before its release (thanks to preorders) and the stores that weren’t only had a handful for the day of its release. People actually started camping out the day before the release to make sure they got one, only to be disappointed that there were none left. This drove gamers to new level of desire and soon they started popping up on eBay; some for as much as a 1000 dollars. If you lay the hype aside and look at what’s left you get my top ten reasons why you shouldn’t buy an Xbox 360.


1. The cost. Why anyone would pay as much as 1000 dollars for a video game system is beyond me. Even if it’s something you’ve got to have, wait a couple of months for the supply to increase and the demand to decrease and at least then you’ll get a better price. Another consideration for this situation is the release of the new Nintendo and the new Playstation in the near future. These releases will obviously make the price of the Xbox 360 drop to a more reasonable amount.

2. The release of the new Nintendo and the new Playstation. Why buy a system when two other new ones are coming out and you could want one of those ones? You should always wait to see what system you want before spending the amount of money they want for an Xbox 360. Not to mention we all know the Playstation 3 is going to blow them both out of the water.

3. The system is designed to maximize HD qualities and if you don’t have an HD television it’s not much different than the previous Xbox. You can always hook it up to your computer monitor for better graphics (if it’s not ancient), but then you have a much more limited viewing area and the inconvenience of being at your computer (or disconnecting your monitor to move it when you want to play).

4. Microsoft’s prying eyes are everywhere. When you use the internet connection to do any of the thousands of useless things offered on the Xbox 360 live it tracks your stats, achievements, what you’re playing, how long you’re playing it, with whom you’re playing, if you’re buying or renting games, even what time you started playing it. I don’t know about you but I think Microsoft collects too much information already, and the idea that they are tracking me like a lab rat gives me the willies.

5. The DVD player the Xbox 360 boasts doesn’t really boast anything except mediocre-ness. You would expect from such an expensive system that’s main bragging rights come from amazing graphics to have spent more time and money on the DVD player. It doesn’t compare to the video game graphics; you’re better off with your current model of DVD player.

6. The Xbox 360 overheats easily. The amount of heat the Xbox 360 output is astonishing. The fans are noisy and obviously can’t handle the demand of the system. Overheating obviously leads to your Xbox dying and your going through the hassle of getting it fixed (hope you bought that warranty). You can try and avoid this problem (notice I said try) by making sure its open on all sides for ventilation and turning it off frequently, but good luck.

7. The game titles are very limited compared to other systems. Unless you like fighting, sports, or racing, there isn’t much out there for you. There are especially few titles for children. I definitely wouldn’t consider it a family friendly system (unless you family is compromised of nothing except men in their 20’s)

8. In order to get all the features you have to spend more money on a hard drive or buy the more expensive version of the Xbox 360. Most people are confused with the multiple packages for sale and who wouldn’t be? Who wants to spend 300 dollars on a system, another 100 dollars on games, and an unprecedented amount on accessories, to take it home and find out it stinks without the hard drive?

9. The power brick is larger than an Xbox game package and not that much smaller than the console itself. It is gigantic and weighs in at a hefty 6 pounds. Why should that matter you ask? Well for starters its bulky, requiring more room for your other wires. Secondly, that’s 6 pounds plus gravity pulling on the back of your system (another reason for a glitch, though probably more long term). Thirdly, it gets incredibly hot as well and with it being so large it’s going to touch all of your other cords and wires and heat them up as well.

10. Customer support is a joke. You would think with all the complaints of glitches and dying machines (especially with overheating) that Microsoft would put some warning labels on the box or in the manuals on how to avoid said problems. At the least they could offer some upgrades to the systems glitches but when all is said and done it is left to be written, blogged, and complained about with no real solution

When everything is said and done Microsoft has an excellent idea with the Xbox 360; but it remains an idea. Until the glitches are fixed, the prices go down, and it becomes more family friendly, it remains a waste of money, brain cells, and blood pressure medication.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/51236/10_reasons_why_you_should_not_buy_an.html

 

[DuckRacer]

Not really, because Sony has a check list they put out for every console, this ensures developers follow certain procedures so that games are backwards compatible. There are rare instances when these things don't happen, but it is rare indeed.

You may not know, although the PS2 did feature PS1 hardware, the "OS" was emulated, and this is why they were able to "smooth out" the textures on PS2 hardware. They added additional coding to the OS which told the EE to render the images, but perform an extra step in order to achieve "smoother" textures (though I didn't much enjoy it).

Same can be done for PS1 and PS2 games. The PS3 will simply have additional instructions in order for the RSX to render the images with AA at a higher resolution.

Though, there *will* be some games where this will not work for, as is always the case with hundreds of different engines and what not. But, cases will more than likely be rare and few.

Ok, thanks for explaining. 👍

 

[Tornado]

From when does an hard drive help to get no lag in an online games?

It's actually explained in the very part you bolded. Similar to the Earthlink ISP, the HDD would cache a lot of the graphics, memory space and etc. needed to, say, load a map in an FPS; which would allow the PS3's resources to rely exclusively (or close to) on the action in the game.

 

[Mr Deap]

It's actually explained in the very part you bolded. Similar to the Earthlink ISP, the HDD would cache a lot of the graphics, memory space and etc. needed to, say, load a map in an FPS; which would allow the PS3's resources to rely exclusively (or close to) on the action in the game.

The ping affect the lag in games, not the hard drive. A 7200RPM hard drive just go twice a the disk drive. instead of waiting 30sec, you'll wait 15sec.

Here a view of my WD 2000GB 7200RPM 8MB of cache.

What affect lag is when there's not enough RAM(Random Access Memory, in big, overwrite non stop). This is what is needed to not make the texture reload on the disk or the hard drive. Keep in mind that game nowaday aren't PS2 quality texture where the maximum is 4MB. Now it goes around 200MB & more. That bolded text is crap.

 

[Dave A]

The ping is the time it takes to send data to another computer or a server and the time it takes for the response to come back, by caching more data you don't have to send as much, so it will take less time for the data to go and for the reply to come back. You are right about RAM, but a lot of games now are caching data onto the HDD as well, it's all about optomising, some streams of data can be just as effectivley cached onto a HDD as they can RAM, whereas others might be better on the RAM, I can't think of any case where the HDD caching would be better, but good enough to be considered as good, I don't see why not.

 

[Mr Deap]

This is the first exclusive PS3 game gameplay video, Untold Legend in HD.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?type=mov&id=12500

 

[KENJIusa]

Look fun, especially with two players co-op Does this game have two players mode?

 

[Mr Deap]

Look fun, especially with two players co-op Does this game have two players mode?

I don't know.

 

[El Gigante]

Jeez, is that really a PS3 game? It looks pretty crap.

 

[Mr Deap]

Jeez, is that really a PS3 game? It looks pretty crap.

I guess you don't have good eyes.

The character is very well animated as well as the monsters. There's shadow mapping on everything, even the squeleton parts flying around when hit.

Except for that, yeah the game look dull.

 

[DuckRacer]

Jeez, is that really a PS3 game? It looks pretty crap.

The animations and all are good, but I agree, the graphics in general aren't on par for a PS3 game.

 

[El Gigante]

It doesn't look particularly spectacular. I've seen graphics just as good on PC and 360.

 

[LaBounti]

And there's nothing wrong with that. FIRST GEN game. If it looks no better than 360 games thats fine. It looks nothing like a PS2 game, thats what matters. Its an action RPG and it will be a decent game for fans. The 360 doesn't even have an Action RPG yet. Not trying to defend the game but the concept that its a first gen game with a deadline.

 

[Mr Deap]

It may not seem so, but Untold Legend have better graphic than Oblivion overall on my view.

 

[Jeremy Ricci]

The reason Untold Legends doesn't look "good" is because the art direction is terrible, but I assure you, the "technical" goodies are on par, or beyond many PC titles and even a lot of 360 titles. IT's just that the design is really bland.

 

[slackbladder]

Yeah, the detail in that level shown is extrememly low. There's nothing there, just a bare enviroment. I've seen pics of areas that look far better and with far better detail. Perhaps it's still an unfinished level shown.
This game reminds me of the "Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance" and "Champions of Norrath" games which I kinda' enjoyed.

 

[El Gigante]

Yeah maybe that's just a test level or something, but Assassins' Creed looks a lot better.

 

[Jeremy Ricci]

Assasins Creed looks better because it takes on a different art direction.

Art direction is the most important part of a games visual appeal.

Katamari Damacy isn't visually impressive, but that's because it takes on an entirely different art direction.

It just depends what kind of look the develoeprs are aiming to put on.

 

[El Gigante]

I suppose you're right, It's just that that's not what I expected a PS3 game to look like.

 

[LaBounti]

You can say that about 75% of the 360 games...... I dont really complain though it s still better looking than Xbox.

This game reminds me of the "Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance" and "Champions of Norrath" games which I kinda' enjoyed.

Made by the same team. They dropped the Everquest theme for some reason. worked better IMO with more classes.

Edit: I have to add Untold Ledgends for PSP took 5 months from stat to finish to make. I think some of the same is going into this one. But UL2 for PSP looked better since we are focusing on graphics.

http://darkkingdom.station.sony.com/ explains a little about the graphics and how it has evolved over time.

 

[slackbladder]

Made by the same team. They dropped the Everquest theme for some reason. worked better IMO with more classes.

Ah, that would explain it. Thought I noticed a certain simularity.

 

[KENJIusa]

This is another PS3 user interface video from IGN, enjoy
http://media.games.ign.com/articles/693/693580/vid_1638884.html👍

If my eyes were not lying to me, 1080p option was available when he chose component video input

 

[DuckRacer]

You can do 1080p with component cables, it's common knowledge. Just look on the official PS3 site.

I'll edit this post when I get to the PS3 part.

EDIT, saw that part, and I was hoping to see some more of the web browser, but oh well. I'm not that big of a fan of the PSP-style dashboard/OS, however.

 

[KENJIusa]

Yes, I know, just a little reassure for those whose TVs without HDMI. My TV also has no HDMI and can only go up to 1080i, but I am happy with it

 

[LaBounti]

I'm not that big of a fan of the PSP-style dashboard/OS, however.

I like it, its a breeze to go from setup>photos>music>video>game>web>friends>chat etc, I dont think its anything like a "dashboard" more like a desktop with mouse and keyboard support for it. The XMB is a great system that keeps things clean, easy to find and quick access to everything including instant thumbnails. Its more intuitive and much better than the 360's dashboard.