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Blur Developer: "PS3 Port Is Coming On Quite Well"

We still haven't left the PS3 port woes behind us, as anyone who has compared the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Bayonetta can tell you.

However, Bizarre Creations swears they won't fall into the same traps when it comes to their upcoming high-octane racer, Blur. They admit to using the 360 as the lead platform for the project - I just heard about a million PS3 owners groan simultaneously - but as project lead Jed Talbot told Develop, "unlike other projects," the porting process from the 360 to the PS3 is "progressing well." Talbot admits that it's tricky but he still hopes we won't be listing Blur in the same category as Bayonetta or The Orange Box. Said Talbot:

"The PS3 port is coming on quite well. I personally don’t play it that much because [lead designers are] on the thin-edge of development, trying to look at other things like how balanced the gameplay is. But we’ve got all the technical guys creaming over the PS3, and they’re saying that both versions work as well as each other."

The problem tends to lie in the RAM allotment for things like audio, as outlined by audio manager Nick Wiswell. Normally, the studio uses about 5% of the 360's 512MB of available RAM for audio production, which is just about enough size to fit in the PS3's audio memory allocation, which comes in at around 25MB. Said Wiswell:

"But the PS3 has its other difficulties as well, to do with compression formats. So we do ultimately end up with slightly less memory on the PS3 to play with, but at the moment every sound in the 360 version is in the PS3 version. There’s no difference between them so far."

Well, okay, but that's just the audio part. What about the rest? Most importantly...the frame rate. They say they aren't quite finished yet, but they're really looking to deliver a PS3 version of the game that won't fall short in comparison to the 360 version. PS3 owners have long since grown tired of that and up until Bayonetta in January, many thought those days were long gone. Yeah, well, not when we still have ports; let's just hope Bizarre knows what they're doing, here.

Related Game(s): Blur

3/2/2010 9:09:01 PM Ben Dutka

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Comments (55 posts)

djbool
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 9:32:56 PM
Reply

even with those challenges, I still enjoy beating the crap out of Bayonetta

Agree with this comment 1 up, 2 down Disagree with this comment

cLoudou
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 9:43:39 PM

Thumbs ups just for the hot Eve avatar.
Me wants a new PE for PS3.

Sorry off topic.

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to_far_apart
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:07:26 PM

Agreed. Can't help but enjoying beating the crap out of Bayonetta.

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sonic1899
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:50:38 AM

....how can you 'beat the crap' out of Bayonetta when you can't even fight her? :S
Last edited by sonic1899 on 3/3/2010 12:54:48 AM

Agree with this comment 4 up, 0 down Disagree with this comment

Jawknee
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 9:45:20 PM
Reply

Don't believe you. Ports are worth less then the Blue Ray they are burned on.

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frylock25
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 8:37:53 AM

remember port is a four letter word. maybe we should ban it on the site. like when someone drops the f-bomb. Ben will have to censor himself ;)

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Kowhoho
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 9:51:21 PM
Reply

Never should have even uttered the word "port."

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to_far_apart
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:06:03 PM

Let's get the list out.

What does that make now? Umm 100 games?.. and counting..

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NoSmokingBandit
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:15:38 PM

"Port" is the reason i'll be getting this for PC. Unless they pulled an Infinity Ward and ported the 360 version to PC. Then i'd be pissed.

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FxTales
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:02:23 PM
Reply

Are most or all multiplatform games done for the 360 first?

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NoSmokingBandit
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:16:48 PM

Yes, but thats because the 360 is the lowest common denominator. Anything that runs on the 360 can run on a PC or PS3, but the opposite is not always true.

The irony is that the PS3 is more powerful but ends up getting an under-performing port. This is why i usually stick to exclusive games.

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Highlander
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:38:44 AM

Don't forget that most of the developers of multi-platform games have had the 360 hardware for a year longer than the PS3. Their dev teams started with the 360 and they have head to transfer people to the PS3 over time, or start new teams. For a lot of them the platform of choice is the platform they have the most experience in - the 360.

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sonic1899
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:55:16 AM

@TheHighlander
But even with the one-year head start, you would've thought that developers had gotten used to the PS3's hardware by now...

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Ben Dutka PSXE [Administrator]
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 10:50:21 AM

Actually, most developers design multiplats simultaneously for both platforms now.

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FxTales
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:21:29 PM
Reply

Ah ok I see thanks for that. I thought it was mainly a popularity thing.

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cLoudou
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:40:20 PM

I also believe that it's cheaper and easier to port rather than to develop for the PS3.
Darn cheap, lazy Devs.

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Highlander
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:25:32 AM

It's not cheaper and easier because porting to the PS3 is actually not easy. It's probably easier to port a game from the PS3 to the 360. Several developers have actually suggested that games that re made first for the PS3 and then back ported to the 360 typically result in superior version on both platforms compared to a game that starts on the 360 and get's ported up to the PS3. Of course most multi-platform developers started first with the 360 because it had a year in the market before the Ps3 arrived, and that's been a hard habit for them to break.

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cLoudou
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:31:06 AM

I stand corrected.
Well played, Highlander.

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Highlander
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:37:23 AM

NP. It's a common misconception.

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dkmrules
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:39:08 PM
Reply

Why did Sony go with the 256 mb of RAM???? They were already loosing money in the beginning, they could have stuck at least 1+ gigs of it in the PS3...

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NoSmokingBandit
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:48:57 PM

Its 512mb ram. 256 for the GPU and 256 for the CPU. The GPU can use the CPU ram, but not the other way around. The GPU ram is XDR, which has a bus of 3.2ghz (aka "HOLY SH!T THATS FAST" ram).

The ps3 is plenty capable. Santa Monica said they found the memory system easier to work with than the PS2, and GoW3 is using a ton of memory.

Sony could have put another XX amount of ram in the ps3, but it doesnt need it. Consoles arent like PCs. The XMB takes up a mere 50mb of ram. Compare that to any version of windows which will use at least 512mb to load efficiently (not counting disk paging).

Look at it this way: Sony put the most advanced CPU to date in the ps3, with the biggest storage option available (blu ray), one of the most efficient ram architectures (XDR) for the GPU, and many other little bonuses (ie bluetooth controllers vs RF on the 360). If sony thought the ps3 needed more ram they would have put it in there. They obviously arent concerned with keeping costs down (see: $600 launch price), so they must have determined 512mb was enough. And im pretty sure Sony knows what they are doing.

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Highlander
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:36:10 AM

To add to what the bandit posted, Sony recently announced that it has reduced the memory footprint of the OS to 50MB which is the smallest it's been so far. So developers now have more space than before for their games. (360 reserves 32MB for the OS)

On top of that the 360's 512MB of memory is unified memory, but depending on the screen modes used it's soft partitioned. So from a software point of view there is always a limit to the amount of memory that can be used. However because it's unified it's all the same kind of memory, relatively ordinary and comparatively slow DDR2 memory IIRC.

On the PS3 the limit is set the same every time regardless of the screen modes chosen. Within the PS3 all memory access is routed through the RSX chip anyway. The RSX actually has access to both the XDR and GDDR video memory. So in the PS3 the GPU can access all 512MB of memory if needed. BTW one correction for Bandit's excellent post. the XDR memory is in fact used by the Cell, not the GPU. So that super fast memory is the system memory not the graphics memory. For the graphics I believe that they went with relatively ordinary GDDR3 memory.

People often throw around memory numbers of the two consoles as if they matter. The truth is that in the end, for a game that renders in 720p the consoles are approximately equivalent from a memory perspective, except that the PS3 has XDR RAM which is really, really quick.

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NoSmokingBandit
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 9:07:54 AM

Thanks for that correction, it was late at night and i was typing quickly ;)

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Temjin001
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:50:07 PM
Reply

I can't help but be skeptical of the game. Bizzare has years of experience developing for 360, and just now they're working on PS3. The compression format issue cropped up for Bayonetta as well. ATi chipsets use a 3Dc compression algorithm that is unique from Nvidia's. Basically, expect compromises to be made for the PS3 version.

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SirLoin of Beef
Thursday, March 04, 2010 @ 2:01:15 PM

BioWare's experience with the 360 (and lack of for the PS3) made some people worry about DA:O not being good on the PS3 and, from what I've read, it was a good version of the game.

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BikerSaint
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 10:52:55 PM
Reply

Well, I was looking forward to this game...until they said 2 sentences.......

"But we’ve got all the technical guys creaming over the PS3, and they’re saying that both versions work as well as each other."

AND........

"There’s no difference between them so far."

Well, both versions SHOULD NOT be working the same, as the PS3 version should be MUCH better since it IS the MORE capable machine.

The Sony version should be carrying some mighty hefty balls, compared to what's being castrated out of MS's boxer shorts.

AND.....that's going to be the whole frigging problem in a nutsack!

The time for excuses was back in 2007, and that's long gone now, so either let us reward you for making it "BETTER", or just don't bother at all.

Miracle-Gro, anyone????


Last edited by BikerSaint on 3/2/2010 10:57:46 PM

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Temjin001
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 11:12:18 PM
Reply

Of course Sony was, and is, concerned about hardware costs. And, yes, more RAM could've benefited the PS3. The idea for Sony, or any business, is to provide a product that is both desirable and profitable. The high PS3 price tag can be attributed, and this was well documented, to the early production costs of Blu-Ray components. That, and other components, like the HDD and Cell-tech. Sony was heavily invested in the engineering behind the Blu-Ray format and they suffered a heavy penalty, early on, to have Blu-Ray as the storage medium-another well documented fact. I'm not about to ideologically side with my following statement. But people have criticized PS3 for being a self-interested vehicle to promote Sony's engineering agendas that didn't necessarily have gamers best interests in mind. One has to ask themselves.. Instead of a highly parallelized processing unit, could gamers have benefited from a more conventional RISC cpu, and, instead, beefed up the RSX to something much more powerful? Or how about increased RAM? The technology was out there at the time. Anyhow, I'm happy with the quality of many of Sony's products, and I just wanted to offer up some insight. GoW3 can't come soon enough.

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englishgolfer
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 @ 11:34:27 PM
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unsurprisingly, i'm worried......

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kraygen
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:04:43 AM
Reply

What a bunch of crap, in my opinion you should make the best product you can and then if you want to make it available to people with sub par systems, you lower the graphics to run on said system.

Don't cheat all us gamers by making a sub par game and then try to put it on our awesome machines.

I had a slight interest in this game before now, but I don't want some 360 game, ps3 wannabe on my system.

Only the best for my baby. ;)

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Highlander
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:26:17 AM
Reply

I'll just say this, the folks making Blur need to remember that the PS3 version will ultimately be competing against GT5. So it will be insanely easy to ignore it if it's a crap port.

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Naztycuts
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:33:21 AM
Reply

The business side of me understands why they did it, bu the consumer side of me hates them for it, I wish developers would stop giving us ports from a last gen console. We've all seen what this f***ing thing can do, now stop giving us watered down we're-doing-as-little-work-as-possible games and make our games as good as you originally intended them to be!

Off Topic: How did Rocksteady afford to develop for separate consoles? WB Studios give them a big budget or something?

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___________
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:36:00 AM
Reply

yeah and i thought the days of ps3 games releasing weeks after the competition was also over.
i mean what is this 2006?
DICE GET WITH THE TIMES ITS 2010 NOT 2006 FOR CHRISTS SAKE RELEASE THE GAME SIMULTANEOUSLY!
at least IW were able to have a worldwide launch for each version of the game, and there so insecure they had to have a few cheap shots during the SP campaign.
thats why i hate EA they have no moral standards what so ever, nothings to low a blow for EA.

ok, now that ive vented the steam back onto the article.
ive been looking forward to blur since it was announced because lets be honest were not exactly drowning in car combat games.
and its modern style is really intriguing instead of going the old fashioned cart racing route.
i wish there were more games like BLUR, in fact once criterion have done with making BLACK2 they should make a new burnout game and mold it with blur.
imagine blur and burnout mixed into one.
oooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
now excuse me while i go change.

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OtisFeelgood
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 1:18:06 AM
Reply

A PS3 game that was ported from Xbox = PASS.

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Bloodysilence19
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 1:30:48 AM
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actually got a beta code for blur for my 360 off fileplanet. anyoo i never believe what companies say when it comes to "ports" cause most of the time they do a ok job. the only game thats actually did the perfect port is dante inferno. that game actually look very identical on both 360 n ps3.

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Imagi
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 2:10:24 AM

Not sure where, but I heard that the PS3 was the lead platform for Dante, so the 360 got the port.

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Dustinwp
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 8:48:59 AM

Dante's Inferno didn't have a lead platform. It was simultaneously developed on PS3,PSP,and X360.
Last edited by Dustinwp on 3/3/2010 8:50:56 AM

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Imagi
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 2:12:16 AM
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This game already had fail stamped on it in my eyes, now it has the word epic before that.

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Imagi
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 2:20:00 AM

A little harsh I know, and I do hope to be surprised, but I doubt I will. They should have just created MSR2.

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tanner1
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 3:04:57 AM
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The Ps3 should be the lead platform for every multi plat game. Better results, nicer product, better sales. It aint fuckin rocket science.

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Zorigo
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 5:49:00 AM
Reply

Because split/second is disney, i'm slightly less inclined. even tho Pure did get good reviews and the demo wasn't half bad. I want something serious. Burnout was serious. in a way.
I dont have baited breath for Blur, but ood reviews may swing me. plus a demo. gameplay first hand always helps. thats what got me into burnout paradise which i critcally aclaim so much.

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JackC8
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 6:49:59 AM
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The tagline for the game is "It's a race. It's a battle. It's a racing battle." If they would have stopped at "It's a race", I might have been interested. I'm just not into all this silly stuff with zapping your opponents and crap like that.

And it's a port.

And it's activision.

That's 0 for 3.

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killzone100
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 11:59:15 AM

agreed.

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kraygen
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 2:15:24 PM

Didn't even realize it was activision.

Screw that, I'm boycotting they're crap.

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Dustinwp
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 8:38:45 AM
Reply

Thanks for the info Jed Talbot. I won't even consider renting this waste of time now.

Port=Garbage

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FullmetalX10
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 8:56:21 AM
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I remember some dude at Firstlook saying the same thing to me, but then about bayonetta, so I'm not buying any port crap talk.
Exclusives FTW!!!

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Silent_J
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 9:48:16 AM
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yeah right, we'll see when the game comes out.

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digitalmanAZ
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 10:43:21 AM
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The tone hasn't changed much since the game was delayed last year, and that was BEFORE port talk: http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/5837.html

Again, "this will only make it into my PS3 as a rental...MAYBE!" ... "cause you (Bobby K.) and Acti are not getting my money."

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Brklynty1
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 11:12:01 AM
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I can't take this anymore. Like seriously, why must the PS3 owners suffer the most. Ben said he heard 1 million PS3 owners groan, I saw 1million all do a collective facepalm. Honestly I don't blame Sega for Bayonetta's horendous port, well actually I do since they did it, but I blame platinum games more. A lot of people don't know that Bayonetta was really a 360 exclusive from the start and I'm guessing that's why Platinum didn't want to port it themselves. I just can't wait for Crysis 2, this is when the world will see how beautiful a game looks when its developed for the PS3 first, it is being developed for it first right? XD

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sonic1899
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 12:09:13 PM

I can't blame platinum for messing up on Bayonetta. Looking that their history, Bayonetta was their first multiplat title and not everyone is going to get it right the first time. But Sega was already familiar with how the system worked so they're the ones who should've handled it better.

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Darwin1967
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 1:41:00 PM
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The sentence that really got me was, " I just heard about a million PS3 owners groan..."
Guess the sales potential in that million or so just dwindled significantly. I wish developers would respect the PS3 and it's owner base just a bit more than to keep offering us "ported" games. Blur, I am sure, will be just another game that becomes a blur in our collective memory of games that coulda, shoulda...

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BikerSaint
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 3:25:31 PM
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Shame, and the fact that they went with Darth kotex's Antchrist-vison, the makers of Blur WILL also be very sorry that they chosen to go over to the dark side.

BUT.....young Luke skywalkers, the "FORCE" will always be with me, for as Yoda once said...

"In a used bargain bin, a galaxy from now, find this Blur, I will"

(Now where the hell did I leave my lightsaber?)
Last edited by BikerSaint on 3/3/2010 3:26:20 PM

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rogers71
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 6:06:05 PM

(Now where the hell did I leave my lightsaber?)


I believe Demon Dog has eaten your lightsaber.....The force is strong in that one!!!

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DemonNeno
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 7:19:20 PM
Reply

Gettin all fussy about it resolves nothing. Who cares? If it sucks, it sucks! If you want a better version of it, get a 360 or move on. They are at a much greater loss than we are. We want entertainment and pay for it. They want money that they already vested in their project.

I don't think Blur is anything to go out of my way for to begin with. This just adds to the "eh" of their announcement.

I personally think the PS3 is an odd setup. Saying modern consoles aren't like a PC is ignorant. Actually, they're more like a Mac. All of them running the same specs, no improvision for 3rd party add-on hardware and their own copyrights.

When it comes to gaming, you'll run into bottlenecks. Some have found this bottleneck. The greatest PS3 game still looks inferior to what I can play at 1680x1050 with 2xFSAA and every other filter DX9 can give me on an ancient X2 5000+ BE running 3.0ghz and a 9600GT Nvidia GPU.

RAM matters. Especially when there's less of it. You can preach to me about how different consoles are, but the fact of the matter is simple; The more available (respectably fast) memory you have to implement graphical polygons, the less it'll bottleneck overall performance.

Now, does that mean the PS3 does a poor job? Absolutely not! But there would have been a lot more to harness out of this system if there was? Why isn't there? Well, that's simple. Sony wants people to buy the next gen PS. If the current one is too efficient, then who will want the next one?

At the end of the day, Sony makes the PS3 for profit. At the end of its life cycle, they'll expect their new product to surpass its predecessor. No competition from the old. No loss in profit on the new. Execs are happier that way.

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DemonNeno
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 7:21:04 PM

I forgot to mention that greater GPU RAM would've been the idea. Not general RAM. The GPU RAM would help support FSAA or whatever the the devs little heart desire.

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BikerSaint
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 @ 8:24:09 PM

@Rogers,
Your're right, that must be why DD's DooDoo now has this eerie red glow & a strange hum coming out of it.

Hey, now he ate my frigging slippers too.....

(I $&$%^# hope the force was strong enough to rip him a new a-hole, & he comes down with Athlete's mouth.......*Sigh* I really loved those slippers)
Last edited by BikerSaint on 3/3/2010 8:26:51 PM

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