xbox 360 holding madden back?

[MrMosinNagant]

Quote: Originally Posted by schnaidt1

so ill admit i was wrong on the twice as powerful part referring to ps3 vs 360. but i am right on how much disc space there is. that disc space can hold more cut scenes, animations, stat banners, highlights, game modes, features, basically everything except commentary from my understanding. and being we are just now starting to get features we been expecting in this game for 6 years. i asked the question. is disc space why? which does indeed directly fall on the ps3. someone said why are 2k bball an fifa so good. well. way less ppl on field/court at once. way less body/ body contact. which ill admit, those are hard to get right. and if we were too look too find a reason why madden is soo far behind other than blaming devs cuz i didnt wanna get in trouble. i asked if it was disc space being the problem. no more needed discussion on ps3 vs 360. this is supposed to be about madden. if history repeats itself, which we all no it does. anything new added next year will be a result of something being removed from this years game....correct??

Way less people on the field? there's 22 players on the soccer field.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrprice33

I thought I clicked on OS...why am I at ign's boards? Couple of additional things. One-people from EA claim the 2 games are developed separately (ie not ported) so the codebase is different for each game. This was stated repeatedly by one of the devs in the NCAA forum. Two-EA mandates feature parity across the two main platforms. What this means is that the PS3 version of the game cannot ship with something that the xbox360 version doesn't, and vice versa. A user has to be able to go into a store and pick up the game for either platform and get the same basic experience. Three-There are some ways in which the PS3 is less powerful than the 360, namely in terms of VRAM. The poster who stated that they both have 512mb of ram is correct. However, the big difference is that the 512 on the PS3 is split 256 for video and 256 for the system, while the 360 has a shared 512mb, most of which gets dedicated to video. Big difference as the 360 can almost always go above 256mb of memory, while the ps3 caps out at that level. Four-The 360 is much easier to develop for, as its main system architecture is closer to a PC than the PS3. A PS3 lead SKU could potentially be a worse performer, depending on the familiarity and skill of the developers. Obviously PS3 exclusives by companies that get assistance from Sony (Naughty Dog, Insomniac, etc) create games that look generally better than any 360 exclusives made by **** or Bungie/343, but Sony hasn't been willing to engage third parties in the same way as their exclusive devs in order to fully implement the power of their system.

Don't know how I missed this post lol.

In any event, like the previous poster I responded to, you also have misinformation in your post. Namely, the way that the PS3 allocates RAM, and your assertion that Sony doesn't provide 3rd party devs with necessary tools and support. But again, this isn't IGN, so I won't get into it.

[mrprice33]

Quote: Originally Posted by Only1LT

Don't know how I missed this post lol. In any event, like the previous poster I responded to, you also have misinformation in your post. Namely, the way that the PS3 allocates RAM, and your assertion that Sony doesn't provide 3rd party devs with necessary tools and support. But again, this isn't IGN, so I won't get into it.

I provided a link with where I got it from and I've heard it explained many times on gaming podcasts. If I'm wrong, educate me.

edit: I thought it was explained very nicely here...

Kelemit
10-15-2007, 05:38
Here you go. Think of the ram / cpu / gpu issue something like this.

PS3 has two doodle pads (or notepads / scratch pads) to work on. And two people to work. (actually, one of the two people is actually 8 people, 1 boss (PPU) and 7 secretaries (SPU).

The 360 has ONE doodle pad and TWO people working on it. (and ONE of those 2 people is actually a 3 headed person with only 2 pairs of hands).

When the ps3 wants to do work, it can work on the doodle pad and do its work, and everything seems to work well, BUT, even you want to know whats going on, you have to look at 2 different pads. Which can be a pain, and a bit hard to know whats going on. And not only that, the Cells doodle pad has to feed 1 boss and 7 secretaries. There are "special" issues involved with that, and I won't go exactly into it unless others ask.

The 360 works and when it works, its ok, for a while. But, one has to decide how much of the doodle pad each worker gets? Do we split it in half. 256 for GPU and 256 for CPU? Do we only give 100 to CPU and 412 to GPU?

This is ONE of the problems for PS3... if we build a game on 360 and give the GPU 412mb space on the doodle pad... how on EARTH can we fit 412 mb worth of doodles on the 256 mb pad that the ps3 GPU has???

Thats the MAJOR issue that 360 developers are having with migrating games over to the PS3. In most cases, graphics intensive games will ALMOST ALWAYS have more than 256 mb of the 360 ram dedicated to GPU usage.

Now, as to which is BETTER... well.... heh..

Each has their problems and issues. On a pure speed and ability standpoint.. NUMA (ps3 way) is better. On a "easy to build / use / make" standpoint (easy for humans) UMA (360 way) is better.

Now.. Not only that, the 360 gives a LITTLE bit of leeway to developers to add or subtract to and from the CPU / GPU if the other one needs a bit more, etc.

The downside to the PS3 is complexity and shifting things around. If the CPU needs to work on something, then when its done, the GPU needs to, then you need to send it to the CPU ram, then to CPU, then after the CPU is done with it (the best way if you can do this) is ship it right on to GPU ram. IF you can't do it the best way, then send it back to CPU ram, then shift the WHOLE chunk over to GPU ram. But honestly, I can really only think of EXTREMELY rare cases where this would occur. For the most part, careful / smart developers just need to stream straight from CPU to GPU ram when they are done.

Same goes for the other way around. If GPU is done, then on to CPU.. then you gotta do the same thing. GPU ram to GPU to CPU ram to CPU... etc. It gets crazy when's its bouncing everywhere. to CPU ram to CPU to GPU ram to GPU to CPU ram to CPU to GPU ram to GPU to SCREEN!

This is one of the things that is bad for PS3

For 360. Its nice and easy for human beings. Just do what you gotta, and its done. Ram to CPU to ram to GPU to ram to CPU to ram to GPU... easy. Everything meets at the ram. works nice this way. There ARE issues because of this... example of this is. What if GPU is working on data in the ram and changes it. And CPU picks up that data to work on it. NOW it has OLD data and it DOESN"T know that the GPU changed something. THIS ISSUE is NOT a big deal IF YOU PLAN for it / WORK around it.. but.. it is something you must take into effect.

The BIGGEST issue, though, is bandwidth. (For example) The doodle pad is ONLY so big, and to get 2 people writing on it is a pain. If BOTH the GPU and CPU want to write to it at the same time, they have to shift / accommodate each other. When this happens, how fast they can read the doodle pad and how fast they can write on the doodle pad becomes much slower. (in fact, in half). And, since they cannot read each other's minds, THEY DON"T KNOW when the other one will use the pad / work on it. Again, when this happens, then what was really easy / fast to do 1 second ago, now is taking 2 times as long because you are taking 2 times as long to look at / read / write on the pad.

Again... this is an EXAGERATION.. so don't take it as 100% verified truth. Its just an example.. and yes.. i left alot out.. but its a decent explanation, (i think), for this whole mess.

Kelemit

[mrprice33]

Quote: Originally Posted by schnaidt1

so ill admit i was wrong on the twice as powerful part referring to ps3 vs 360. but i am right on how much disc space there is. that disc space can hold more cut scenes, animations, stat banners, highlights, game modes, features, basically everything except commentary from my understanding. and being we are just now starting to get features we been expecting in this game for 6 years. i asked the question. is disc space why? which does indeed directly fall on the ps3. someone said why are 2k bball an fifa so good. well. way less ppl on field/court at once. way less body/ body contact. which ill admit, those are hard to get right. and if we were too look too find a reason why madden is soo far behind other than blaming devs cuz i didnt wanna get in trouble. i asked if it was disc space being the problem. no more needed discussion on ps3 vs 360. this is supposed to be about madden. if history repeats itself, which we all no it does. anything new added next year will be a result of something being removed from this years game....correct??

The disc space "issue" really only concerns art and audio/video, not code. More disc space could get us more commentary teams, more FMV, higher resolution art (especially field textures), but modes and features are really not what's using the bulk of disc space.

[schnaidt1]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrprice33

The disc space "issue" really only concerns art and audio/video, not code. More disc space could get us more commentary teams, more FMV, higher resolution art (especially field textures), but modes and features are really not what's using the bulk of disc space.

earlier in this thread...page 1. someone said the exact opposite


idk wat to believe haha

[ryan36]

Guys, this has been an interesting thread, but it's not really about Madden. It's just a question "which system is better?" that could plug in any game, I'm closing this