Recent Comments:
Will the iPhone be undone by its keyboard? {Engadget Mobile}
Jun 12th 2007 5:47PM But the treo is a terrible terrible phone. Everything about it sucks. I have a 700p, most of the other people in my office also have treos (a couple 650ps, one 680p, several 755ps, and a few other 700ps). Every single one of us hates them. We have them because we need them, but we hate everything about them. They are all buggy as hell, they crash all the time, they suck to type on, they have very little internal storage, they are dodgey with SD cards, their batteries are crap, and they are utterly worthless as phones. A few of us have verizon, most have cingular (now AT&T I guess) and one person has T-mobile. Regardless of the carrier, the Treo can't keep a signal. Almost any other phone will have full signal while the treos sit at one, or zero bars. We've all had moments where inexplicably, we can't make or receive phone calls, but we can still check email and send IMs. Perfect EvDO signal, but I can't make a call? WTF? The treo is a terrible phone, it sucks in so many ways. I use mine a lot, every day, I couldn't live without it, but the second I see a way out, I'm going for it. I define suffering as being dependent on a treo.
Black on black: Xbox 360 Elite vs PS3, which is more 1337? {Engadget}
Apr 26th 2007 10:27PM @kevin again
Also, as far as DVD9 goes, what most games are doing is to use an entire core for decompression because the data on the DVD9 has to be so heavily compressed to fit, and the DVD drive doesn't really provide enough bandwidth to keep up, so the heavy compression helps there too in getting the data off the DVD and into memory. The bandwidth is artificially increased because (similar to how an MP3 works, only lossless) the data rate doesn't need to be as high since the data gets expanded by the CPU. Same reason GoW is so short, all that beauty takes up space. The 360 would be well served by a higher capacity drive. The only real problem with Blu-ray in the PS3 is the transfer rate, the 8x DVD drive in the 360 is faster than the 1.5x Blu-ray drive in the PS3 (10MB/s vs 6.75MB/s), but the PS3 is guaranteed to have a harddrive and with compression the Blu-ray speed becomes a moot point.
Black on black: Xbox 360 Elite vs PS3, which is more 1337? {Engadget}
Apr 26th 2007 10:09PM @kevin
Nope, the 360 has a tri-core processor and each core has two execution threads. It's not nearly as fast as 6 real cores (and if you program like you've got 6 real cores you'll be sorry). It's like the HyperThreading in the P4, it's good for some things, terrible for others.
Black on black: Xbox 360 Elite vs PS3, which is more 1337? {Engadget}
Apr 26th 2007 10:05PM @kevin
Since you obviously haven't read my posts, I'll point out once again than I'm a developer on the 360 and was on the original xbox as well, not the PS3. Which is why I said in my previous posts that the system that has the best games is a different story. I program games for the 360, and obviously I want them to be good, but that doesn't mean I pretend that it's the most powerful platform, it means I make the most of it. The PS2 was far from the most powerful last round, but it destroyed the competition. Power isn't everything, and there's no reason to argue about it because it is all based in real facts.
Black on black: Xbox 360 Elite vs PS3, which is more 1337? {Engadget}
Apr 26th 2007 9:51PM @kevin
Saying that "the graphics card makes the graphics" shows that you don't understand graphics programming. You could make a full 3D HD game on the PS3 with the RSX disabled. You could make something that looks just as good, or better, than any current game using a software renderer as long as you've got the CPU power. The GPU accelerates graphics, and we now offload much of the work to it, but it is by no means necessary, especially if you have a lot of CPU cores to play with. Additionally, you can enhance what the GPU is capable of by using the CPU if it's not overburdened with other things.
Black on black: Xbox 360 Elite vs PS3, which is more 1337? {Engadget}
Apr 26th 2007 9:45PM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox#Technical_specifications
Read. Also, in the quote you found, where does it say that the xbox's processor was in-order? It doesn't, because it wasn't. It wasn't heavily modified at all, and it's not quite as watered down as a celeron. The chip is a pentium 3. If you STILL don't want to believe, go get an xbox and take it apart. The Pentium 3 in the xbox performed just like a pentium 3, because it is a pentium 3. Do you even understand the difference between a Celeron and a Pentium? I sure hope you don't think they're different architectures as you seem to. The Xenon performs nothing like a pentium 3, the Xenon is far more powerful and performs far faster than a Pentium 3.
Also, the RSX is closer to a souped up 7900 than a watered down 7800.
There's something about how your brain takes information and combines it that is just off somehow.
Black on black: Xbox 360 Elite vs PS3, which is more 1337? {Engadget}
Apr 26th 2007 8:46PM @Zeus
I don't know why I'm bothering but...
First off, yes the original xbox had a Pentium3 in it, I know, I MADE GAMES FOR IT! If you don't feel like taking my word for it, use google, or wikipedia. I work on the 360 right now, I have a dev kit, right here, on my desk. I know the specs in and out, and what it's capable of. Also, you're crazy, dividing the clock speed between cores on the CPUs? The 360's cores are all at 3.2Ghz. The Cell is running all of it's cores, as well as cache and main memory at 3.2Ghz. They are not divided. Also, that extra cache on the 360 is actually a pain in the ass. As a result of the coherent cache between cores we've had severe issues with cache thrashing. The GPU in the 360 is not the same as the R600 (which BTW, I am well aware of). It is based on the design, but it is not the same. It has features that will not be in the R600, and it lacks some that will be in the R600. Yes, the R600 is more powerful than the 7800 as well as the 8800, but the Xenos is not. The 10MB eDram is actually a neat trick that allows us to do tricks with the video like FSAA with no cost. That is actually used to make up for the slow/shared video memory vs the PS3's dedicated memory. In terms of sheer graphics capability however, the PS3 is still more powerful. As far as the In-order execution, it's not a huge deal, they decided on it after testing it's effect on real game code. The compiler takes care of most of it and optimizes our code for the CPUs, we don't have to do magic to get it to work. There are best practices, but it's not like "everything I know about programming PC games is worthless!!! o noes!!!" You want to know what's hard to program for? Jakks (those little joysticks that plug into your TV, I did a Jakks game last winter). They are far more of a PITA than the 360 or the PS3.
You can continue to make up whatever you want, or read articles by people who made up whatever they wanted, it won't make it true.
Black on black: Xbox 360 Elite vs PS3, which is more 1337? {Engadget}
Apr 26th 2007 8:13PM @Zeus
Do you realize you sound crazy? As I said in my last post which was directed at you, you know just enough to be dangerous. And like I said before, I don't know where you get your information, but it's wrong. I'm not pulling things out of the air, making things up, nor working for Sony. I do work for a game company however, as a programmer. I actually work on 360, so technically I know more about that than the PS3, but I pay attention at programmer meetings so I also know a thing or two about the PS3. I own both consoles at home as well. Also, the 256GB/s is for the 10MB of eDram only, it's not for regular graphics memory (which is shared). I'm not going to bother arguing this any farther since you obviously don't want to know.
Black on black: Xbox 360 Elite vs PS3, which is more 1337? {Engadget}
Apr 26th 2007 8:01PM @Zeus the God
I'm sorry, you've just been spouting completely false information all over the place and it really bothers me. It's like you know just enough to be dangerous. You make ridiculous assertions (like comparing the Cell and Xenon to pentium,2,3...even with no technical background you should be able to remember that the original xbox had a pentium3 in it, and was far less powerful than the 360). I'm not sure where you've heard all of this information, but it's all wrong. The Xenos does not "mop the floor with the RSX." Nor did Microsoft do some form of magic while Sony used an "off the shelf" chip. Both Sony and Microsoft used modified versions of off the shelf chips, and they are roughly on par in terms of power. Also, with the Linux assertions. "Linux was made to run on a PC with a 'proper PC processor'"? WTF? Linux runs on pretty much everything. WTF is a "proper PC processor"? Are you saying Linux was designed for Pentiums? I've personally run Linux on SPARC, PPC, and Alpha, and ARM. It runs on a lot more than that. My 8 CPU UltraSPARC E4500 sitting under my desk here running Gentoo Linux probably doesn't fall under "proper PC processor" in your book. Linux runs just fine on a PS3, not only a lot faster than a Pentium3, but faster than dual P3's or even a P4. You don't seem to know what you're talking about, I really wish you would stop. The PS3 is a lot more powerful than the 360, it's a fact, it's not very hard to understand.
Black on black: Xbox 360 Elite vs PS3, which is more 1337? {Engadget}
Apr 26th 2007 7:41PM You've got it backwards. The PS3 as a whole is more powerful than the 360. The Cell processor is more powerful than the Xenon. The RSX is more powerful than the Xenos. The PS3 has more than twice the main memory bandwidth of the 360 and many many times the processing power. These aren't assertions or arguments, they are facts. Also your assertion that "Until they refine this type of processor in PCs, it will go nowhere in consoles." is completely invalid as neither the Xenon nor the Cell are used in PC's (although both are based on PowerPC, which you see in Macs, which aren't exactly known as gaming machines). This isn't really a point worth arguing about since it's based in fact. The only reasons there are any questions about the power differential between the 360 and the PS3 are marketing, misinformation, and misunderstanding. Which has the best games is a completely different question, but there's no question about raw power.
