Forums > News > Using all of the PS3's resources is impossible
nullnullnull (1463) on 12/19/2006 3:53 PM · Permalink · Report
1UP is running a story quoting Sony's President of Worldwide Studios Phil Harrison on MTV about the PS3 saying "nobody will ever use 100 percent of its capability". His reasoning was equally perplexing. Apparently no developer will be able to max out the PS3 dues to firmware upgrades and new uses for the Sixaxis controller.
Between the high price, screwy HD display and lack of force feedback I am none too excited about the PS3. However I am still going to buy one. Call me a sucker but I feel an obligation to own every console and handheld no matter how expensive or how wonky. Are there others out there? I wonder If I will be able to get a refund on the unused portion of the PS3.
Riamus (8480) on 12/19/2006 10:35 PM · Permalink · Report
Not use 100% of the capability? Ever? Sure. And we'll NEVER need more than 640k of memory, either. And we'll NEVER use all the space on a CD for a game.
Firmware can only do so much. Only hardware upgrades and prolong the life of something indefinitely. I could upgrade every driver on a computer and all the firmware on the hardware that has firmware over and over and over and it will still not run newly released games 20 years from now. But if I continue to upgrade the hardware, the same computer (or at least the same case, mouse, and keyboard) will still run every game made in 20 years.
Matt Neuteboom (976) on 12/20/2006 12:01 AM · Permalink · Report
I doubt it, unless of course there is some kind of boo-boo in the design that prevents the full use of the hardware.
Given Sony's track record I wouldn't put it past them.
To never use its full capabilities? A bit of exaggeration? Definitely maybe.
Of course, I don't plan on getting a PS3 anyway. The only game that interests me is MGS4, and $660 is not worth it.
D Michael (222) on 12/20/2006 12:05 AM · Permalink · Report
I played on one at a Best Buy. They had NBA07 running. I have to say that it was remarkable gameplay. Of course, the graphics are nice too.
But I don't have HD, so considering getting a decent setup provided I could obtain the system and one game, it comes out to almost $2000 total (it could be less with a very small tv but no thanks).
I wouldn't get HD unless it was for gaming, simply because I never look at a television unless I'm playing a game. For that amount of money I'd upgrade my computer. Now with Gears of War, xbox 360 is looking better all the time.
nullnullnull (1463) on 12/20/2006 4:17 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Trixter wrote--] [Q2 --start flipkin wrote--] Between the high price, screwy HD display and lack of force feedback [/Q2 --end flipkin wrote--]
Screwy display? What's wrong with the display? [/Q --end Trixter wrote--]
For some older HD TVs only support 1080i and not 720p. The PS3 does not upconvert so if the game is 720p native it will downscale to 480p. The XBox will upconvert 720p games to 1080i. Since no games support 1080i on the PS3 yet if you have one of the older HD TVs ( like me ) the PS3 will only display in standard def. Lame really.
Trixter (8952) on 12/21/2006 6:58 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start flipkin wrote--] The PS3 does not upconvert so if the game is 720p native it will downscale to 480p. The XBox will upconvert 720p games to 1080i. Since no games support 1080i on the PS3 yet if you have one of the older HD TVs ( like me ) the PS3 will only display in standard def. Lame really. [/Q --end flipkin wrote--]
Wow, that is incredibly lame. Even a simple stretch of the final rendered bitmap would have been acceptable.
Trixter (8952) on 12/21/2006 7:06 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Zovni wrote--]I just love PR bluff like this. Emotion engine, reality synth, Those Sony guys are the best at pulling bullshit like this. [/Q --end Zovni wrote--]
What REALLY sucks is that the PS3 really does have the most power under the hood, but all this stupid marketing and design choices are going to kill the product before it can get off the ground. One of my acquaintances works for IBM as a Cell processor coder, and some of the stuff he's shown me is beyond amazing. The raw power under the hood of each SPU is almost ludicrous, and the PS3 has seven SPUs available (one is tied up for something, can't remember at the moment).
When people say "it's going to take years to tap the full power" they're not kidding, because coding for Cell is radically different from traditional console coding. Each SPU has crazy power, but only 256KB of RAM accessible to it (not a typo) and you have to manually move data in and out yourself (ie. initiate DMA transfers manually). So the basic coding style is to come up with a small efficient way to do something, like calculate sound occlusion off of a surface, or create normal maps, or whatever... then upload that code to the SPU... then fire it off... then when it's done download the results and do something with them. That's oversimplified but you get the idea. Anyway, multi-CPU consoles have always been difficult to code for: Jaguar, Saturn, PS2... and PS2 only survived because it had a showcase app at launch (Gran Turismo 3).
Zovni (10504) on 12/21/2006 6:03 PM · Permalink · Report
Sounds intriguing. Still I'm quite skeptical at the moment, and as you wrote, multi-processor coding is very problematic (though I hear multi-core is somewhat different). You can't just assign idle threads random tasks and magically expect to get extra performance. The way I see it we are looking at only a few games with extra-long development times making a somewhat decent use of the system technically speaking, and the rest just going the easy route.
Corn Popper (69027) on 12/20/2006 4:14 PM · Permalink · Report
Probably just a marketing ploy to challenge developers to develop better games for the PS3.