• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Shifty article on PS3 programming vs 360 programming

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

FudgeNuggets

Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2006
Location
Gone Racing
http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=116728&AFC-HSUIT&ATTR=DIGG

Either I'm reading this wrong, the author doesn't write very well and is making it look like he's saying the 360 uses an Intel chip instead of separating the two or this article is a bunch of BS.

As Phoenix Wright would say: OBJECTION!!!!

Perhaps when saying it is 22Xfaster than the Intel Chip and inferring Intel=360 they're comparing it to the Xbox1?

The Xbox360 uses a tri-core PowerPC chip. The PS3 uses a single core PowerPC cell chip which aside from being 2 cores short of the 360, uses SPEs which are kind of like DSPs(digital signal processors) that are assigned to certain tasks.

This would mean the CORE programming (being the PPC CPU) is the same and the difference is 3 cores vs 1 core and 7 SPEs. I think whoever wrote this article has some facts mixed up.
 
OC Noob said:
I don't even have to read it. After a subscription to gamepro I am familiar with the crap they put out and call a magazine.

Technical articles in mags like that are intended to convey some simple fact to the reader (like the Cell being difficult to program for, which it is) and then they stretch a few reasonably valid points to a several page article. They aren't usually wrong, but they are rarely provide an satisfactory explanation of what they are saying which can be somewhat misleading.
 
FudgeNuggets said:
http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=116728&AFC-HSUIT&ATTR=DIGG

Either I'm reading this wrong, the author doesn't write very well and is making it look like he's saying the 360 uses an Intel chip instead of separating the two or this article is a bunch of BS.

As Phoenix Wright would say: OBJECTION!!!!

Perhaps when saying it is 22Xfaster than the Intel Chip and inferring Intel=360 they're comparing it to the Xbox1?

The Xbox360 uses a tri-core PowerPC chip. The PS3 uses a single core PowerPC cell chip which aside from being 2 cores short of the 360, uses SPEs which are kind of like DSPs(digital signal processors) that are assigned to certain tasks.

This would mean the CORE programming (being the PPC CPU) is the same and the difference is 3 cores vs 1 core and 7 SPEs. I think whoever wrote this article has some facts mixed up.

Dude, It's GAMEPRO. What the hell are you doing reading GAMEPRO anyway? It's written by 12 year olds FOR 12 year olds. You're a grown man!

It's like me debating with those ten year old over at Gamefaqs.com...
 
rainless said:
Dude, It's GAMEPRO. What the hell are you doing reading GAMEPRO anyway? It's written by 12 year olds FOR 12 year olds. You're a grown man!

It's like me debating with those ten year old over at Gamefaqs.com...


Digg and Gizmodo pointed to it....
 
The article is comparing the Cell to a Woodcrest as it is one of the fastest normal CPUs, and not everything has to be Xbox vs Playstation. It's rather nice to sometimes see comparisons outside of the norm. Anyway there are other articles out there that say basically the same thing about the speed. (If you program for them properly the SPEs are extremely fast, however to do that requires much more code and is often not practical.)


Sony Response to the article.
Now, it’s not without challenges:
1) SPUs are not ‘normal’ processors like the PPU. There is a trade-off between performance and versatility. A Ferrari is not the best car for a visit to Home Depot…
2) If you are porting:
If your game starts on Xbox 360 you will have to re-engineer aspects of the game to run properly on PS3. This means additional effort. Some developers have been complaining about this but I don’t believe we can solve that. Xbox 360 is a different machine with good, but lower powered hardware in a different architecture. Developers have to view them as two different machines not as a common platform.
3) If your game has heavy online use:
XBL provides more and better standard libraries for online gaming to developers. For the same features on PS3, developers have to do some extra work. We’re catching up, but there is a difference.
 
Last edited:
rainless said:
Dude, It's GAMEPRO. What the hell are you doing reading GAMEPRO anyway? It's written by 12 year olds FOR 12 year olds. You're a grown man!

It's like me debating with those ten year old over at Gamefaqs.com...

Dude, it's GAMEFAQs! What the hell are you doing reading the Gamefaqs forums?! It's written by 13-year-old fanboys FOR 13-year-old fanboys. You're a grown man!

;)

Gamefaqs is good for one thing and one thing only: Walkthroughs. Beyond that, you get dumber if you read it.
 
rainless said:
It's like me debating with those ten year old over at Gamefaqs.com...

Debating + Gamefaqs? What are YOU doing over there posting anything intelligent LOL? Gamefaqs aka Gamespot is terrible. But yeah like ONI said it's decent for launch and some info minus posting.
 
>HyperlogiK< said:
Technical articles in mags like that are intended to convey some simple fact to the reader (like the Cell being difficult to program for, which it is) and then they stretch a few reasonably valid points to a several page article. They aren't usually wrong, but they are rarely provide an satisfactory explanation of what they are saying which can be somewhat misleading.

For the most part its all game stuff in the mag and that is suposed to be their specialty, but they are... were terribly biased, but that was a while ago and perhaps they aren't crap anymore.

But I was refering to the poor quality of their gaming info, not the article in question or anything technical.

There are a handful of gaming mags like GamePro and PC Gaming (now Games for Windows that you can get for free or $5 a year, for good reason:D
 
Back