"Some Dev Quotes from Edge on PS3/X360"

[Wunderchu]

New Edge is out, they have a fairly large number of pages covering next-gen hardware - it's the cover story. While I think Edge's own editorial on the matter is a bit of a mixed bag and not that enlightening, there were some perhaps interesting comments from a number of different devs. Believe it or not, this is just a small part of them (they've full interviews with one or two of the devs, and then smaller from more scattered all over the place, some more tech orientated than others) - so I hope it's OK to quote them here:

Mark Rein (Epic)

On PS3 UE3:

"It took less than a week to get the engine up and running, without rendering, with just wireframe rendering - out at Sony's office. The first couple of days the guys were just playing - we had no idea they would come home with a working engine. That surprised us because you know it has a new processor and all. And then once we got the kit it took a couple days to get it rendering, and maybe another week or two to make it fast and efficient and learn our way around it."

On PS3 dev kit:

"Any time we created any content it looked exactly  the same on PC as it did on PS3. The only thing was, even though we had these ass-kicking Nvidia 6800 Ultra SLI systems, when we got the actual RSX card, even though it's not running anywhere near full speed, it was more than twice as fast as our SLI setup."

(over 2x SLI?!)

"It's a Cell processor and an RSX. Those are the main components of PS3. There are going to be other faster things than we had in the devkit. You've heard about their amazing memory bandwidth - this doesn't have any of that. The early kits are fast like that but they have Cell and RSX so it really is a perfect development station for PS3 and anything you run on it is only going to run a hell of a lot faster on final hardware, not slower - you're not going to get any surprises or lose any features".

On X360

"It (non final X360 kit) is about 30 percent right?

We think it's 25% [chuckles] That's why we weren't showing on a devkit. We told them there's no way we're showing our game on a devkit. We have UE3 running on devkits - that's how we got all these licensees - but... we think it's crazy. But we're not a launch title so we have a little extra time."

SN Systems (Middleware):

"The overall impression that we have with developers is that everyone perceives the PS3 to be slightly or significantly more powerful than 360. That's going to make quite a difference, since everyone's pushing high def so hard. High def means a lot more pixels being drawn, a lot more throughput, so that little bit more power PS3 has could be quite significant. But what you have to bear in mind is that peoples' perception of the PS3 is based on what they think they're going to be getting in devkits in probably a few months time rather than on what they have now. And also that the Xbox dev kits are not yet full speed either."

"Currently there are a lot more X360 dev kits out there than PS3, so the natural lead platform right now is Xbox. And if Microsoft can hang on to that, even if PS3 is more powerful, if games are converted from 360 to PS3, they're not going to be inclined to make the most of the PS3's power. But if PS3 devkit volume ramps up, and developers are comfortable enough working with it - there's a lot of "ifs'" in this! - but if they find it easy enough to work from, then they'll make it the lead platform and then that bit of power will make a real difference."

"If one machine is much easier to develop for than the other, it could have a significant advantage in early titles. Microsoft's earlier start may help it but it remains to be seen if that lead will last as developers take on more PS3 development. I don't think it's yet clear whether one of the next-gen machines will be easier to develop for than the other."

On Cell:

"Since these different parts (SPEs) can all access their own memory at full speed simultaneously, it should give the PS3 a significant performance advantage if you can program to take advantage of this. Just how big an advantage this really is remains to be seen, and will be down to good tools and clever programming by the game and middleware developers"

Andrew Richards of Codeplay (Middleware):

"The move from singlecore to multicore CPUs is going to be a major disruptive change. For launch titles, developers will just run the main C++ code on one core processor and try to farm out processor intensive work to other processors. This will work for a while, but not forever. It's too labour intensive and doesn't scale."

I won't quote everything here - buy the mag! - but these were the more interesting quotes I found..

[source: http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=55531 ]

Elsewhere, ATi apparently thinks the jump from the alpha X360 hardware at E3 to final hardware is more like 2x, not over 3x as MS suggests. But the same rep (Richard Huddy) also makes some very silly comparisons with PS3 - doh - but I guess he has too.

[source: http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=55531 ]

[Menge]

interesting.

it seems it isn't difficult at all to develop for the PS3, huh? this could turn out to be pretty interesting for Sony.

aaaand.... something's wrong with the XBOX 360... ATI says 2?.... MS says 3?.... Epic says 4?... weeeei:p :p

guess we'll have to wait and s:) :)

[SkaterAustin]

hmm, im just sitten back till september for ps3 at tokyo game show. But this adds to my theory and also on g4tv (not my favorite show by anymeans or network) they had the insomniac studios guy on there and he was talking about the ps3 dev kit and was saying it was easy to design for and has A LOT of power compared to current dev kits (aka xbox 360).

Like I keep saying im holding off lot of it is just talk and rumors.

[OrangeSoul]

Fact 1: He says RSX is two times as powerful as SLI. 2 weeks ago we got the news from Sony itself the RSX chip hasnt even been made yet, and this interview in 2 months old. Either its a misqoute or miscommunication.

Fact 2: The current PS3 development kits are a 2.8 Ghz Cell (which is more powerful than 2x2.5 Ghz G5) and a SLI 6800(which is more powerful than X800 but same as Crossfire X800) so its basically wrong to say PS3 is substantially more powerful than Xbox 360 because the Cell chip is finalized by Sony while they are just waiting for Taping out RSX which will be done in August. The Xbox GPU was taped out in december last year and has gone through testing up until now, the same process will go through with the RSX which is based on the G70 according to the words of Mark Riegn

Fact 3: Mar Reign is a supporter and sponsor of Nvidia. Do you actually think he will favor ATI openly? and not favor Nvidia Openly?

Fact 4: Who is SN systems?? let me tell you : http://www.snsys.com/Products/ They have never supported Xbox in the first place. all thier games are either on Sony console and handhelds or Nintendo console and handhelds

Fact 5: ATI never said its 2 or 3 times more powerful than Alpha kits. They say its 30% of the final hardware. Link me to thier qoutes

Fact 6: http://www.codeplay.com/products/index.html Codeplay already has made a special compiler for the Emotion Engine in C++ while we know Cell is a highly bumped up version of the EE. Codeplay has never made a game on a microsoft system

EDIT: http://www.gamestar.de/magazin/specials/ha...6071/index.html

here is the interview by Richard Huddy to which Edge refers to. Find me where he says the alpha kit is 2x less powerful than Final hardware

Edited July 17, 2005 by OrangeSoul

[jerry]

On PS3 dev kit:

"Any time we created any content it looked exactly  the same on PC as it did on PS3. The only thing was, even though we had these ass-kicking Nvidia 6800 Ultra SLI systems, when we got the actual RSX card, even though it's not running anywhere near full speed, it was more than twice as fast as our SLI setup."

586225083[/snapback]

Stopped reading there. :rofl:

[icecaveman]

Although I'm a fan of the Unreal Engine, Mark Rein is just trying to sell as many licences of the engine as he can, he is not taking sides with anyone.

The Gears of War (x360) demo you saw was running on a dual x86 machine with SLI cards.

[jerry]

Although I'm a fan of the Unreal Engine, Mark Rein is just trying to sell as many licences of the engine as he can, he is not taking sides with anyone.

586225985[/snapback]

Yes, the hype surrounding UE3 engine is 'ginormous' even at this point.

The Gears of War (x360) demo you saw was running on a dual x86 machine with SLI cards.

586225985[/snapback]

Um, no. The UT2007 Demo at Sony E3 conference was run on the 6800 SLI setup. Gears of War was running on dual G5s with a single X800.

[Erich]

I've always been interested in what console code looks like... I'm sure their's probably tutorials around... but I've never really looked that hard. Would be interesting to compare it to C or whatever.

[chroniq]

yeah i agree we have to wait and see what they can do .. i believe that even when they are going to be released we wont be able to see a 4x or even 2x diffrence in quality for titles .. since both systems have really great graphic and cpu sets ..

200th post yay :D

[terryb]

Fact 1: He says RSX is two times as powerful as SLI. 2 weeks ago we got the news from Sony itself the RSX chip hasnt even been made yet, and this interview in 2 months old. Either its a misqoute or miscommunication.

Fact 2: The current PS3 development kits are a 2.8 Ghz Cell (which is more powerful than 2x2.5 Ghz G5) and a SLI 6800(which is more powerful than X800 but same as Crossfire X800) so its basically wrong to say PS3 is substantially more powerful than Xbox 360 because the Cell chip is finalized by Sony while they are just waiting for Taping out RSX which will be done in August. The Xbox GPU was taped out in december last year and has gone through testing up until now, the same process will go through with the RSX which is based on the G70 according to the words of Mark Riegn

Fact 3: Mar Reign is a supporter and sponsor of Nvidia. Do you actually think he will favor ATI openly? and not favor Nvidia Openly?

Fact 4: Who is SN systems?? let me tell you : http://www.snsys.com/Products/ They have never supported Xbox in the first place. all thier games are either on Sony console and handhelds or Nintendo console and handhelds

Fact 5: ATI never said its 2 or 3 times more powerful than Alpha kits. They say its 30% of the final hardware. Link me to thier qoutes

Fact 6: http://www.codeplay.com/products/index.html Codeplay already has made a special compiler for the Emotion Engine in C++ while we know Cell is a highly bumped up version of the EE. Codeplay has never made a game on a microsoft system

EDIT: http://www.gamestar.de/magazin/specials/ha...6071/index.html

here is the interview by Richard Huddy to which Edge refers to. Find me where he says the alpha kit is 2x less powerful than Final hardware

586225650[/snapback]

looks like somebody doesnt like ps3 being the superior console :)

[jerry]

looks like somebody doesnt like ps3 being the superior console :)

586227254[/snapback]

Isnt that ironic since you have the same syndrome and keep making 360win.net posts. :rolleyes:

[terryb]

Isnt that ironic since you have the same syndrome and keep making 360win.net posts. :rolleyes:

586227271[/snapback]

how does neowin spamming 360 "news" = 360 > ps3? :huh:

[jerry]

how does neowin spamming 360 "news" = 360 > ps3? :huh:

586227312[/snapback]

That is your own understanding or else how would you explain those posts of yours ?

[terryb]

That is your own understanding or else how would you explain those posts of yours ?

586227329[/snapback]

ms moneyhat + neowin = no fun for anyone

[jerry]

ms moneyhat + neowin = no fun for anyone

586227338[/snapback]

Way too many assumptions. :rolleyes: If you have any issues, take it up in the Site & Issues forum rather than bickering about it all over the place.

[spIdeZ]

Yes, the hype surrounding UE3 engine is 'ginormous' even at this point.

Um, no. The UT2007 Demo at Sony E3 conference was run on the 6800 SLI setup. Gears of War was running on dual G5s with a single X800.

586225997[/snapback]

No, you're wrong. Gears of War was running on a PC with SLI Geforce 6800s. CliffyB even said so in an interview.