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PS3 Oblivion Approaching PC Quality Visuals
fistfullast33l writes "After taking a beating in Gamespot's side by side Comparison of Xbox 360 and PS3 graphics, Playstation 3 owners may finally have something to hold over the 360 fans. Both Gamespot and IGN have previews posted yesterday that talk up the graphics and performance improvements over the 360 version. Load times and texture quality and draw distance have been improved, as well as 'new shaders dedicated to rendering the foreground cleanly with sharper details, so rocky landscapes now have craggy appearances instead of smooth, non-distinct surfaces,' according to IGN. They end with the ultimate hype, 'screens from the PS3 version should approach those from high end PCs running Oblivion, which is an impressive feat.' How is this possible? Gamespot reports that 'Oblivion will make extensive use of the PS3's hard drive by caching multiple gigabytes of data, which seemed to help with load times from what we saw.' While there are no official reports of this making it into the new 360/PC expansion Shivering Isles, a rumor on the Gamespot preview says that 1up might have the scoop."
These claims may be true, I care little enough to give them the benefit of the doubt.
But the real advantage of playing Oblivion on a PC is the plethora of modifications. The marginal difference of graphical performance between xbox360, PS3, and high-end PC Oblivion is not really that important.
So this article leaves me asking..."So what?"
And the PS3 isn't a terrible piece of equipment, it's just an expensive one. I wouldn't be suprised to see nice graphics on it, I would demand it.
"How is this possible? Gamespot reports that 'Oblivion will make extensive use of the PS3's hard drive by caching multiple gigabytes of data, which seemed to help with load times from what we saw.'"
This would be very possible on the 360 if they could assure the 360 actually had a hard drive. Unfortunately, this assumption cannot be made due to the hard driveless 360s floating around out there. Not including one of the best features of the XBox on the value edition 360s was a big mistake and it looks like Microsoft is already beginning to pay for it.
I swear, when I first saw the words "PS3 Oblivion" I thought it was going to refer to the PS3's sales record...
I'm confused. I thought that for the first year or so after launch, consoles generally out-performed $2000 gaming rigs, because of the simpler optimization environment of a non-moving target. After a year or so, it seems like Moore's Law kicks in and yesterday's console can't beat tomorrow's $2000 pc.
That PS3 isn't mopping the floor with PeeCee right now is suprising, especially given that its halfway between the cost of a normal console and a new gaming rig (logarithmically speaking). What's more suprising is that the article submitter doesn't agree with my assumption.
This has never, ever been true at anytime. It likely never will. Sony will have shills say such things and other marketoids have said things like that for various other dead systems in the past twenty years. The truth is that when games are compared head to head, consoles just don't match. It is about hardware price, there are no magical cheap chips. You get what you pay for even if you are Microsoft or Sony. If you want to beat a $2000 computer, you need to be selling a $2000 computer. Also even if your chip does cooler things than a chip already out on the market, if it changes the architecture ie. Cell versus x86 or PowerPC it will take years to get important software such as compilers optimized for it as well as a chip already on the market and gone through those growing pains.
The original Xbox was nothing but a cheap PC that was OK performance wise for a $500 PC when it was designed. However, the PC equivalent in hardware actually was cheaper than the Xbox just a few months after the Xbox was released. Now that old Xboxes are dirt cheap, the equivalent PC is more expensive (prices for a computer can't go below about $200 no matter what is in them due to component count and size). Integration/elimination of excess components saves maybe $100 in real manufacturing costs. It was dumb to buy an Xbox and put all that effort into putting Linux on it back then, now it actually makes sense.
If you want to make a console where the price point is below the integration sweet point of $200 based on common components that sells over a million somehow, then you can probably just beat the price/performance ratio of PCs. The Wii is actually pretty close to this where Nintendo is making money and giving people a somewhat reasonable box for the price. The only reason to buy a console is for their exclusive games and the console's simplicity/integration. Kind of like why Apple thinks it can sell Macs for a premium over PCs with the same hardware.
This is not true ...
... do you think a Pentium 4 in the 1GHz range with a Geforce 3 graphics card would be able to run Windows and a game like this?
Consoles outperform a similar aged PCs because the game can be tuned to the exact hardware (it is impossible to optimize a game for a Geforce 6, Geforce 7, Geforce 8, Radeon X800, Radeon X1800 and also cover Pentium 4, Pentum Core Duo, AMD X2, and PowerPC. On top of that console's have historically had a massive advantage in that they have 'no' OS to run and have a much lower resolution.
Just look at the Gamecube's best looking games Star Wars: Rogue Squadren 2 and the Resident evil games
You're right...
...I know which one I'D rather play with!
I think a good analogy would be, while the PS3, 360, and PC are all comparing dick sizes, Wii is walking around in a string bikini and DD size braw...
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.