The Official PlayStation 3 Thread

Discuss the Playstation 3 in here.
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vectaman
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The Official PlayStation 3 Thread

Post by vectaman »

Okay, lets see how far this one goes. First thing's first: Anyone else got a PS3? IMO this machine rocks. Great graphics even on standard TV (and obviously even better on HD compatible set), easy to use PlayStation Network which is free to access, great downloadable content (which is actually displayed in Rands), and btw the controller is actually facinating with its motion sensing capabilities.
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Post by ICE-VaPa »

Still deciding if i want a PS3 or an XBOX 360. ;(
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Post by ZeroS »

Heard there's gonna be a price cut.

Might decide to get it later on. Depends which games come out on which platforms.
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Post by PsyCLown »

Hmm, iv played on a 360...its rather cool. IMO, there is nothing special about the 360.

I wanna check out the PS3. It uses blu ray, right? :P
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Post by ZeroS »

That's correct soldier.
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Post by WiK1d »

Where's that chop who said PS3 games are gonna cost R1000 cause I wanna kick him in the head please.
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Post by Spicy-McHaggis »

WiK1d wrote:Where's that chop who said PS3 games are gonna cost R1000 cause I wanna kick him in the head please.
Same here!

There was this guy on the AMD forums a while back whoim also mentioned the same thing of PS3 games being 1K...

Stil rather have XBOX 360...

But het thats probly only personal choice...
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Post by Mikdog »

I got a Wii. The graphics are a bit kakky, but the motion-sensor thing rocks my socxorz, and all that stuff that ends with 'z'.

Considering selling my XBOX 360. Might get a P$3 down the line when the price drops to about 3k, and games become a helluva lot cheaper, like the platinum titles and stuff.
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Post by Y0da »

XBox 360 has better graphics imo but no real bells and wistles. I also heard that the PS3 development kit is apparently not very user friendly. That will limit the amount of titles for the PS3 if true.
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Post by Pollynator »

Dude this thing costs R6299 @ Reggies and it doesn't even come with the HDMI cable that costs an extra R300.

Heres a deal at makro for a Bravia and PS3.

Makro Braivai and PS3 Deal

no meantion of HDMI cable, hopefully they not assuming that the PS3 comes with it. :roll:
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Post by maestro_za »

Kinda weird ja.

The PS3 only comes with a component cable, a bit of short sightedness or a money making racket! :?

Unfortunately that is how they make $, the games and accessories is where the long-term profit is made.

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Post by Zaa »

Unlike the Xbox, the PS3 can use any HDMI cable. So I fail to see how its a money making racket.
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Post by maestro_za »

If you look at the XBox 360 Premium, it comes with the HD/VGA cable albeit that its not a full digital connection. But rather a converter.

And I still don't understand why console makers see fit for only one controller in the package. The retailers themselves bundle it when they're running specials.

In that sense its a money making racket. :wink:

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Post by Mouba »

Zaa wrote:Unlike the Xbox, the PS3 can use any HDMI cable. So I fail to see how its a money making racket.
The fact that it's got a Blu Ray drive, and an HDMI output but no cable makes it a money making racket in my eyes.
It does'nt matter that it can use any HDMI cable, you still have to go out and buy one.....!!
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Post by Squirly »

It's also an overpriced barbie doll when it comes to consoles. The Cell is a parallel calculations power-house, but falls over with branching code. It's the exact opposite of the 360 and PC processors, basically working more like a GPU. ie, it can make pretty things really fast, but it sucks in arb code like AI. Then there's the fact that PS3 owners can't get add-ons like the horse armor like 360 owners. Why? Because they split the 512megs of memory in two, one dedicated to system the other for graphical purposes. And 256 megs aren't enough for a lot of games nowadays. This thing is a hyped up Bluray player with gaming options.

Did I mention that it's overpriced?
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Post by Zaa »

So then how does the PS3 version of Oblivion come with Nights of the Nine already on? You go on about the hardware specs as if you develop for the thing, or maybe you just read one of the articles written by Xbox fanboys? Clueless...
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Post by Squirly »

*shrug*

Guess I stepped on a toe. Miiiaaaau.

These are Bethesda's words, you digg?
The PS3 and XBOX 360 both has a total amount of 512MB of RAM. HOWEVER: The XBOX 360 has a unified 512MB of RAM, where as the PS3 has it split right down the middle, 256MB of RAM for processing tasks, and 256MB for textures. What's the difference, you might ask? A developer might want to create a scene in a game that's very graphically intensive but isn't really processor intensive. With the XBOX 360, you could easily "assign" 350+ Megs of RAM for graphics, and then the rest for whatever else is needed. With the Playstation 3, you could only use up 256MB of RAM *MAX* for graphics.
Hey, I don't have a console, I don't have first hand experience with it, but then, I'd inform myself before buyng one. Maybe they do have Nights' of the Nine. Maybe it's stunted compared to PC and 360. Who knows? All I know is that this kind of news doesn't bode well for the future of the console in my eyes.
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Post by Slasher »

I cannot believe that the consoles have all those MASSIVE processors and GPU's, and yet they SUCK (yes, SUCK) when it comes to RAM... Come on... It would cost a few hundred more to up it to 1 gig... Why dont they make that expandable?
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Post by Squirly »

Thing is they don't need that much RAM. It's just a console, made (pretty much) entirley for gaming. There's no OS overhead or other ***** going on in the backgorund, just the game. The enitre architecture is based around gaming so it's a lot more efficient than a PC.

Still gets trounced by the new 8 series thogh. :D
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Post by Zaa »

The PS3 version of Oblivion looks better, loads faster and the draw distance is further than the Xbox 360 version. So much for stunted.
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Post by rustypup »

Squirly wrote:The enitre architecture is based around gaming so it's a lot more efficient than a PC.
i'm beginning to suspect this is just marketing blurb aimed at covering up the fact the console is aimed at a user base incapable of finding the power switch if it isn't oversized and brightly coloured, (very mac-like in that respect :P )... at which point we accept that the introduction of an OS could see them being held liable for cruel and inhuman punishment...

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Post by maxxis »

That just made my day.

Post of the month needs to go to you. :lol:
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Post by VoodooProphetII »

Squirly, I must say thanx for that bit of info, although I knew most of it already. It's true about the console being more efficient, which is why they could do with that limited amount of memory. But both the concoles do have an operating system running in the background, but very limited compaired to what we know as an OS, but this is also where the 360 has the upperhand, as the memory used by the 360's OS is far less, or lets just say less then that used by the PS3's OS. With processing power, the PS3 does have the upper hand, but even so, it takes a lot more programming to use the cell processor's power, then to make use of the tri-core cpu used in the 360. Having said that, everything changes with time, and I feel that in time, when developers get behind the true power of the cell, then we'll see the PS3's true colors.

I found this some time back, and it was written by a developer. Here's a quote regarding the two GPU's used in the 360 and PS3:
RSX (PS3GPU) & Xenos (360GPU)

Alright let’s get underway the GPU inside the PS3 is NV47 based which is another name for the 7800GTX. It has 24 pixel shader pipelines and 8 vertex shader pipelines. It’s capable of 136 shader operations per clock and according to Sony it has 256MB of GDDR3 memory at 700MHZ and performs 74.8 billion shader operations per second. Sony also said it’s capable of 1.8 teraflops, which I can tell everyone right now with 100% confidence isn’t true (numbers game) I’m not entirely sure of all the little tricks they used to arrive at such an extreme flops number, but rest assured it isn’t a type of a performance this GPU will ever really achieve. PC videocards such as the X1900XTX have far more raw horsepower than either of the 2 videocards in either console and is pushing a GPU clock speed of up to 650MHZ (some have shipped at 675MHZ) along with 24 more pixel shader pipelines and yet the X1900XTX is just over 500GFLOPS so to even begin entertaining the thought that a less advanced GPU with significantly less raw power could brute force 1.3 teraflops better performance is wishful thinking, but there is no cause to be angry at Sony in this case as they are entitled to market their product regardless of how they choose to do it. As long as they avoid disturbingly untrue statements about the competition its all fair game as far as I’m concerned)

I’m sure some people are wondering how Sony came to the conclusion that the RSX does 136 shader operations per clock or even 74.8 billion shader ops per second? Easy

# The RSX has 24 pixel pipes (each of which performs 5.7 ops) 5.7ops *24 Pixel Pipelines=136.8 shader ops per clock.

# The RSX is clocked at 550MHZ *136 shader ops per clock =74800 (or 74,800,000,000)

There is talk and even an event which took place in Japan in which Sony attended claiming that the RSX will no longer be 550MHZ and it will instead be clocked at 500MHZ and the 256MB of GDDR3 will now be @650MHZ instead of 700. Now there is a lot pointing to this being true, but Sony still hasn’t officially come out and admitted so I’m not sure what to think, but this is a perfect opportunity to see if we learned how to calculate this stuff.

If the RSX is clocked at 500MHZ*136 shader ops per clock that would make the new shader operations per second for the RSX 68 billion instead of the original 74.8 billion weakening the GPU’s performance, but I guess we wont truly find out till the PS3 releases because if anyone has noticed Sony has never posted the RSX clockspeed on the official ps3 site nor did they re-iterate the RSX clockspeed at E3 06. The RSX has 20.8GB/s of video memory bandwidth from the GDDR3 ram. The RSX has an extra 32 GB/sec writing to the system's main memory. If the RSX can fully utilize the memory system it can achieve pushing out 58.2GB/s worth of pixel rendering to memory. The RSX is pretty much a 7800GTX class GPU in some cases its worse in some cases better, nothing that is really new. Now the same can’t be said about the 360’s GPU at all.

Now the 360’s GPU is one impressive piece of work and I’ll say from the get go it’s much more advanced than the PS3’s GPU so I’m not sure where to begin, but I’ll start with what Microsoft said about it. Microsoft said Xenos was clocked at 500MHZ and that it had 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines (48 unified shader units or pipelines) along with a polygon performance of 500 Million triangles a second.

Before going any further I’ll clarify this 500 Million Triangles a second claim. Can the 360’s GPU actually achieve this? Yes it can, BUT there would be no pixels or color at all. It’s the triangle setup rate for the GPU and it isn’t surprising it has such a higher triangle setup rate due to it having 48 shaders units capable of performing vertex operations whereas all other released GPUs can only dedicate 8 shader units to vertex operations. The PS3 GPU’s triangle setup rate at 550MHZ is 275 million a second and if its 500MHZ will have 250 million a second. This is just the setup rate do NOT expect to see games with such an excessive number of polygons because it wont happen.

Microsoft also says it can also achieve a pixel-fillrate of 16Gigasamples per second. This GPU here inside the Xbox 360 is literally an early ATI R600, which when released by ATI for the pc will be a Directx 10 GPU. Xenos in a lot of areas manages to meet many of the requirements that would qualify it as a Directx 10 GPU, but falls short of the requirements in others. What I found interesting was Microsoft said the 360’s GPU could perform 48 billion shader operations per second back in 2005. However Bob Feldstein, VP of engineering for ATI, made it very clear that the 360’s GPU can perform 2 of those shaders per cycle so the 360’s GPU is actually capable of 96 billion shader operations per second.

To quote ATI on the 360’s GPU they say.

"On chip, the shaders are organized in three SIMD engines with 16 processors per unit, for a total of 48 shaders. Each of these shaders is comprised of four ALUs that can execute a single operation per cycle, so that each shader unit can execute four floating-point ops per cycle."

48 shader units * 4 ops per cycle = 192 shader ops per clock
Xenos is clocked at 500MHZ *192 shader ops per clock = 96 billion shader ops per second.
(Did anyone notice that each shader unit on the 360’s GPU doesn’t perform as many ops per pipe as the rsx? The 360 GPU makes up for it by having superior architecture, having many more pipes which operate more efficiently and along with more bandwidth.)

Did Microsoft just make a mistake or did they purposely misrepresent their GPU to lead Sony on? The 360’s GPU is revolutionary in the sense that it’s the first GPU to use a Unified Shader architecture. According to developers this is as big a change as when the vertex shader was first introduced and even then the inclusion of the vertex shader was merely an add-on not a major change like this. The 360’s GPU also has a daughter die right there on the chip containing 10MB of EDRAM. This EDRAM has a framebuffer bandwidth of 256GB/s which is more than 5 times what the RSX or any GPU for the pc has for its framebuffer (even higher than G80’s framebuffer).

Thanks to the efficiency of the 360 GPU’s unified shader architecture and this 10MB of EDRAM the GPU is able to achieve 4XFSAA at no performance cost. ATI and Microsoft’s goal was to eliminate memory bandwidth as a bottleneck and they seem to have succeeded. If there are any pc gamers out there they notice that when they turn on things such as AA or HDR the performance goes down that’s because those features eat bandwidth hence the efficiency of the GPU’s operation decreases as they are turned on. With the 360 HDR+4XAA simultaneously are like nothing to the GPU with proper use of the EDRAM. The EDRAM contains a 3D logic unit which has 192 Floating Point Unit processors inside. The logic unit will be able to exchange data with the 10MB of RAM at 2 Terabits a second. Things such as antialiasing, computing z depths or occlusion culling can happen on the EDRAM without impacting the GPU’s workload.

Xenos writes to this EDRAM for its framebuffer and it’s connected to it via a 32GB/sec connection (this number is extremely close to the theoretical because the EDRAM is right there on the 360 GPU’s daughter die.) Don’t forget the EDRAM has a bandwidth of 256GB/s and its only by dividing this 256GB/s by the initial 32GB/s that we get from the connection of Xenos to the EDRAM we find out that Xenos is capable of multiplying its effective bandwidth to the frame buffer by a factor of 8 when processing pixels that make use of the EDRAM, which includes HDR or AA and other things. This leads to a maximum of 32*8=256GB/s which, to say the least, is a very effective way of dealing with bandwidth intensive tasks.

In order for this to be possible developers would need to setup their rendering engine to take advantage of both the EDRAM and the available onboard 3D logic. If anyone is confused why the 32GB/s is being multiplied by 8 its because once data travels over the 32GB/s bus it is able to be processed 8 times by the EDRAM logic to the EDRAM memory at a rate of 256GB/s so for every 32GB/s you send over 256GB/s gets processed. This results in RSX being at a bandwidth disadvantage in comparison to Xenos. Needless to say the 360 not only has an overabundance of video memory bandwidth, but it also has amazing memory saving features. For example to get 720P with 4XFSAA on traditional architecture would require 28MB worth of memory. On the 360 only 16MB is required. There are also features in the 360's Direct3D API where developers are able to fit 2 128x128 textures into the same space required for one, for example. So even with all the memory and all the memory bandwidth, they are still very mindful of how it’s used.

I wasn’t too clear earlier on the difference between the RSX’s dedicated pixel and vertex shader pipelines compared to the 360s unified shader architecture. The 360 GPU has 48 unified pipelines capable of accepting either pixel or vertex shader operations whereas with the older dedicated pixel and vertex pipeline architecture that RSX uses when you are in a vertex heavy situation most of the 24 pixel pipes go idle instead of helping out with vertex work.

Or on the flip side in a pixel heavy situation those 8 vertex shader pipelines are just idle and don’t help out the pixel pipes (because they aren’t able to), but with the 360’s unified architecture in a vertex heavy situation for example none of the pipes go idle. All 48 unified pipelines are capable of helping with either pixel or vertex shader operations when needed so as a result efficiency is greatly improved and so is overall performance. When pipelines are forced to go idle because they lack the capability to help another set of pipelines accomplish their task it’s detrimental to performance. This inefficient manner is how all current GPUs operate including the PS3's RSX. The pipelines go idle because the pixel pipes aren't able to help the vertex pipes accomplish a task or vice versa. Whats even more impressive about this GPU is it by itself determines the balance of how many pipelines to dedicate to vertex or pixel shader operations at any given time a programmer is NOT needed to handle any of this the GPU takes care of all this itself in the quickest most efficient way possible. 1080p is not a smart resolution to target in any form this generation, but if 360 developers wanted to get serious about 1080p, thanks to Xenos, could actually outperform the ps3 in 1080p. (The less efficient GPU always shows its weaknesses against the competition in higher resolutions so the best way for the rsx to be competitive is to stick to 720P) In vertex shader limited situations the 360’s gpu will literally be 6 times faster than RSX. With a unified shader architecture things are much more efficient than previous architectures allowed (which is extremely important). The 360’s GPU for example is 95-99% efficient with 4XAA enabled. With traditional architecture there are design related roadblocks that prevent such efficiency. To avoid such roadblocks, which held back previous hardware, the 360 GPU design team created a complex system of hardware threading inside the chip itself. In this case, each thread is a program associated with the shader arrays. The Xbox 360 GPU can manage and maintain state information on 64 separate threads in hardware. There's a thread buffer inside the chip, and the GPU can switch between threads instantaneously in order to keep the shader arrays busy at all times.

Want to know why Xenos doesn’t need as much raw horsepower to outperform say something like the x1900xtx or the 7900GTX? It makes up for not having as much raw horsepower by actually being efficient enough to fully achieve its advertised performance numbers which is an impressive feat. The x1900xtx has a peak pixel fillrate of 10.4Gigasamples a second while the 7900GTX has a peak pixel fillrate of 15.6Gigasamples a second. Neither of them is actually able to achieve and sustain those peak fillrate performance numbers though due to not being efficient enough, but they get away with it in this case since they can also bank on all the raw power. The performance winner between the 7900GTX and the X1900XTX is actually the X1900XTX despite a lower pixel fillrate (especially in higher resolutions) because it has twice as many pixel pipes and is the more efficient of the 2. It’s just a testament as to how important efficiency is. Well how exactly can the mere 360 GPU stand up to both of those with only a 128 bit memory interface and 500MHZ? Well the 360 GPU with 4XFSAA enabled achieves AND sustains its peak fillrate of 16Gigasamples per second which is achieved by the combination of the unified shader architecture and the excessive amount of bandwidth which gives it the type of efficiency that allows it to outperform GPUs with far more raw horsepower. I guess it also helps that it’s the single most advanced GPU currently available anyway for purchase. Things get even better when you factor in the Xenos’ MEMEXPORT ability which allows it to enable “streamout” which opens the door for Xenos to achieve DX10 class functionality. A shame Microsoft chose to disable Xenos’ other 16 pipelines to improve yields and keep costs down. Not many are even aware that the 360’s GPU has the exact same number of pipelines as ATI’s unreleased R600, but to keep costs down and to make the GPU easier to manufacture, Microsoft chose to disable one of the shader arrays containing 16 pipelines. What MEMEXPORT does is it expands the graphics pipeline in more general purpose and programmable manner.
But here's the link to the whole article.
http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1
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Post by Squirly »

rustypup wrote:
Squirly wrote:The enitre architecture is based around gaming so it's a lot more efficient than a PC.
i'm beginning to suspect this is just marketing blurb aimed at covering up the fact the console is aimed at a user base incapable of finding the power switch if it isn't oversized and brightly coloured
Well, no, because that's sort of the mentality for every console at launch..like...ever. Think about it, no windows, no other minor programs starting up. Yes it has an OS, but a bare-bones minimum one.

You can't compare specs of a console to a PC simply on hardware. It doesn't work.
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Post by maestro_za »

Hiya

Irrespective of the technical specifications of the PS3 and XBox 360, which are pretty similar in capabalities, they're both consoles.

Think back to the early 90s, there was the SNES and the SEGA MegaDrive. For bragging rights and top dollar gaming, you bought the SEGA 16-bit system. I never had a SEGA, my resources weren't gonna stretch that far but I did play on it at my buddies places. In terms of fun, both systems were great. Mario Brothers on the Nintendo and Sonic the HedgeHog on the SEGA. Man, o man ... the memories.

Later on the PS1 hit the market, then the Dreamcast and then one of my all time favourites the N64. GoldenEye was the most fun I probably ever had on a console.

Games-wise today we have cross-platform titles and a few exclusives on both the PS3 and the XBox 360. I've had the pleasure of playing many titles on the XBox 360, and will purchase one once the cash in my pocket agrees with me.

It took me a while before I got a PS2, there just wasn't a title that caught my attention on its initial launch. The GTA titles, 24, Tekken series and Gran Turismo 4 came along. I told myself, maybe the PS2 aint so bad.

I won't buy the PS3 until much later in its shelf-life. Like I explained above, I wait till the tech matures and the price comes down. Its more economically sound. In any case, my buddies all still have PS2s and a few others have XBox 360s.

So until then, the debate over technology and the like is rather fruitless. All the next-gen consoles have their pro's and con's. You also have your fan boys ... and in a nutshell, it all has its place.

At the end of the day, PCs are the most general purpose platform out there. Consoles, with every release are bridging the gap on multi-purposefulness (not a great work I know :wink: ).

However, a PC is a just that, a Personal Computer. It has its userbase and popularity. The same goes for consoles.

L8r
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