So who won the "most PROVEN powerful" award PS3 vs. 360?

[claudio]

Ok, we all know 360 is way ahead of the PS3 in terms of sales and games,

but after all these years do we even have a winner on which system is PROVEN more powerful?

thats right, i dont care about what the papers say about computer architecture, numbers and shit,

i want PROVEN most powerful, through real games that have been released so far.

we all know that regular xbox was proven more powerful than ps2, you can see that in games like dead or alive ultimate which is impossible on a ps2,

so is there any clear evidence though games out now of this in current generation which show a system truly superior to the other?

on a side note, im member 577, and this website now has almost 2000 members! im happy to see this site has quadrupled in members since i joined. every time i check back in i see new people with almost as much posts as i have or even more!

[Bootaaay]

It's still incomparable, both systems have games that have pushed their respective limits, but they all have very different looks & styles. For instance, Motorstorm 2 is one of the most vivid & fast-paced racers this gen, and theres really not a single 360 exclusive racer that can compare in the same way graphically, but Forza 2 still looks great - on the other hand, Fable 2 on the 360 features a very vibrant colour pallete and great graphic fidelity that is leaps and bounds over other similar PS3 rpgs, but Valkyria Chronicles carries a very unique graphical style also.

Give it another year or so, both consoles have a great list of exclusives for 2009 and it's these that will push the respective consoles further from each other in graphical terms - it'll certainly be interesting to compare Heavy Rain & Alan Wake.

[claudio]

good points!!! hope 2009 sets them apart,

everyone dont forget to vote at the top of the page! thanks.

[masonyes]

ps3 has better stats/capablities, not to mention innovation. It's only limitation is the difficulty to design which will be overcome. Much like the xbox 1 which had superior stats, it won the in that regard.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Ps3 especially considering how game developers talk about it (Naughty Dog, Kojima Productions, etc)

[Metalcrack]

The PS3 has the much better processor, which was supposed to revolutionize gaming, computing, blending, chopping, and everything else electronic, but has an inferior memory architecture and worse GPU. Blu-ray has the storage capacity to house more data, and uncompressed audio, but is overall a slower drive.

The 360 has an infinitely adjustable memory structure for developers to tweak as neccessary, and the better GPU. It has DVD-9 for optical storage, so less storage than PS3, but is a faster drive.

Those are measurable stats.

So far, both systems have their standout graphic titles, Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted, or Gears of War 1/2, Fable etc. The multi-plat titles that have been compared head-to-head have leaned towards the 360, but there hasn't been a clear winner.

Last gen, Xbox was clearly more powerful, but lost the war to PS2 because of the library. I can't tell yet what will happen this gen.

[Cronson]

Yeah, I think the only way to argue either way is with exclusives, but in reality, we probably won't be able to really know the answer to this question until near the end of these system's lives. Gears 2 and Fable 2 definately show off the 360's power while I agree that Valkyria's art style is amazing. I think Kill Zone 2 is also going to be a game to demostrate the ps3's potential.

So far I have taken this away from the current generation war:
1. Both systems have had some crippling software issues (Fallout 3 on PS3, Castle Crashers and Fable 2 on 360).
2. The install time upon first starting up a new PS3 title is fairly annoying. I think this is a result of using a first or second generation Blu-Ray drive (1x or 2x probably).
3. The 360 failure rate was much worse than the ps3's. I think the red ring of death with have meaning for along time.
4. With development costs sky rocketing, and the economy, we might not see a game that fully uses all of the PS3's power. From what I have read, it sounds like development time is much longer on the PS3. This will probably be the reason the 360 continues to outsell it.

Let me know what you guys think; these thoughts are just my opinion.

[Niode]

on a side note, im member 577, and this website now has almost 2000 members! im happy to see this site has quadrupled in members since i joined. every time i check back in i see new people with almost as much posts as i have or even more!

That made me laugh, I'm member number 10. Which is insane when you think about it. I've been a member here longer than Mozgus or even Duct. I'm not trying to show off or anything, it just makes me laugh just how long i've been using this forum and the amount of joy I've gained from it.

Back on topic:

If judging solely by ports the 360 wins. Skate looked and played better on 360. Bioshock was the same. GTA IV bogged down when loading some of the more complex parts of the city, which was to be expected on the PS3 given the fixed system ram limit and the slow drive. This isn't really a fair test due to most of these games being developed for the 360 first.

You can't really get an apples to apples comparison like you could with the PS2 to Xbox comparison since most of the multi platform games were developed in tandem and it's obvious where certain games were scaled down on the PS2.

Also the system specs are very similar as well. The 360 uses a PowerPC triple core processor clocked at 3.2GHz with each core capable of simultaneous multithreading. Which means the 360 can process 6 threads at once. This is the same as the PS3s CELL which is an 8 SPE chip with 1 disabled to improve chip yields and 1 reserved permanently for the hipervisor. Each SPE is capable of processing one thread at a time. Like the 360 it is clocked at 3.2 GHz.

Where these systems differ is the memory architecture. The 360 uses a unified memory architecture where the systems total available ram (512MB GDDR3) is available to both CPU and GPU. So developers can optimise code in the most flexible way possible. Either using it for texture cache for high detail scenes that are rendered by the GPU to complex scenes requiring use of both processing units. The PS3 on the other hand is limited to 256MB XDR for the Cell and 256MB GDDR3 for the RSX. On paper the 360 has the largest amount of memory bandwidth but whether this can be achieved in real world scenarios is a different matter.

So all in all they are pretty closely matched on paper.

I see no reason why a game like Metal Gear Solid 4 couldn't be ported to 360 since they both use practically the same architecture (the Cell is completely compatible with PPC after all) and the GPUs aren't that far away from the graphics cards based on the R500 (ATi) and G70 (nVidia) cores used in conventional PC cards. I would prefer Metal Gear Solid 4 on multiple DVDs rather than having to wait 10 minutes for the next chapter to be installed anyway so storage isn't a concern. I think the only reason it's not getting ported is because Sony have forced Kojima-san not to.

Hmm... To summarise, on paper the systems aren't that far apart but it's hard to compare games on different systems since they both have equally good looking games.

[Cronson]

Niode, I think you have a point. Even though its pretty subjective to look at multiport games and compare them, it probably is the best way to decide which system uses more power.

[claudio]

Niode, I think you have a point. Even though its pretty subjective to look at multiport games and compare them, it probably is the best way to decide which system uses more power.

not necessarily,

some developers just dont want to put the work in for more complex architecture,

look at super nes vs. atari jaguar for example, the jag was WAY more powerful than the snes,

but the developers used the extra 16 bit chip inside the jag (which was originally intended to only help the other chips tell what to do) to make their games and not mess with the 64 and 32 bit chips do to complexity and lack of understanding and tools/hardware atari left the developers.

ive seen alot of jag games that are impossible to do on a super nes, battlemorph blows star fox out of the water, but this is one of very few games that touched what the jag can do. (dont forget starfox cheated with the super fx chip)