Ex-Harmonix Developer Has Words For PS3

Cygnus · 10-28-2007, 10:58 PM

Jason Booth, a former designer at Harmonix, has some pretty harsh words for the PS3 and explains why he thinks it will continue to have sub-par ports and developer difficulties. I included the entire post in case some jobs block the link. Now this is a pretty informative and detailed

http://jbooth.blogspot.com/2007/10/p...-and-spin.html
I read various game forums from time to time, and often see gamers complaining about 'lazy ports' to the ps3. They often mention how the ps3 is the most powerful game console and blame developers working on the console for doing a bad job. Sony has all of these people duped by impressive marketing spin, and I'm often amazed at how potent this type of rhetoric proves to be. For those unaware, I'm going to break it down simply and explain exactly why ports to the ps3 will never be as good as their 360 counter parts, and why most ps3 exclusives will likely continue to suck. First, lets debunk a few common misconceptions:

"The PS3 is more graphically advanced than the 360"

Fill rate is one of the primary ways to measure graphics performance - in essence, it's a number describing how many pixel operations you can perform. The fill rate on the PS3 is significantly slower than on the 360, meaning that games either have to run at lower resolution or use simpler shader effects to achieve the same performance. Additionally, the shader processing on the ps3 is significantly slower than on the 360, which means that a normal map takes more fill rate to draw on the ps3 than it does on the 360. And I'm not talking about small differences here, we're talking roughly half the pixel pushing power.

"Ok, fine, but the cell is like, super powerful"

In theory, sure, but in reality it doesn't work out that way. Game code simply doesn't split well across multiple processors. You can probably find a way to split a few things off fairly easily - put the audio on one processor, animation on another; but generally the breakup is always going to leave several of the SPUs idle or underutilized. On top of that, it's usually not CPU speed that restricts the visuals in games - it's fill rate.

"Uh, Blue Ray!"

Great for watching movies, but not so great for games. Getting data off the blue ray drive takes about twice as long as it does to get the same data off the 360's DVD drive. That translates into longer load times, or god forbid if your streaming from disk, tighter constraints on the amount of data you can stream.

"But it's got a lot more space than DVD"

Ok, you got me there - it does have a lot more space, and there is the potential to use that to do something cool, but thats unlikely to be realized in any useful way. There are tons of compression techniques available for data and I'd personally rather be able to get my data faster than have more of it. Most developers who use the entire Blue Ray drive are doing it to work around other problems with the ps3 such as it's slow loading - for instance, in Resistance: Fall of Man, every art asset is stored on disk once for every level that uses it. So rather than storing one copy of a texture, you're storing it 12 times. If you took that entire game and removed all the duplicate data, it would likely fit on a DVD without any problem. They do this to speed up load times, which, as I pointed out before, are painfully slow on the ps3. So in this case, the extra space is completely wasted.

"Once developers figure out the PS3 they'll maximize the hardware and it will be amazing"

I suspect a small number of PS3 only developers will optimize the hardware to do something cool. However, this will be an exception to the rule, and will likely involved game designs that are specifically designed for the hardware and funded by Sony. If those will prove to be fun or not is another question.

Most of the performance centric research into the PS3 has been around making it easier for developers to get the same level of performance you get out of the 360 naturally. For instance, some developers are using those extra SPU's on the cell to prepare data for the rendering pipeline. Basically, they take the data they would normally send to the graphics chip, send it to an SPU which optimizes it in some manner, then send it to the graphics chip. So, once again we see an 'advantage' in hardware being used to make up for a disadvantage in another area - a common theme with the ps3. And this introduces an extra frame of latency into the equation, making controller response slower.

So, the common theme is this; developers must spend significantly more time and resources getting the PS3 to do what the 360 can already do easily and with a lot less code. Lets look at how this translates into practical realities for a moment:

Why the PS3 version often pails in comparison to the 360 version, and why exclusives often suck:

As outlined above, getting equivalent performance out of the PS3 requires a lot of work unique to the platform, and in many cases, even with all these tricks, you still won't see equivalent performance. Thus, many ps3 games have simplified shaders and run at lower native resolutions than the 360 versions. On top of this, there is shrinking incentive to do this work; the PS3 isn't selling.

The code needed to make the PS3 work is most likely only useful to you on the PS3, as the types of tricks you need to do to make the thing perform are very unique to the platform and unlikely to be useful on any other architecture now or in the future. These issues all stem from unbalanced hardware design, and any future hardware that is this unbalanced will likely be unbalanced in a completely unique way.

Finally, there's the problem of resources. Game Development is, at it's heart, a resource management challenge. Given finite resources, do I have these five engineers work on optimizing the PS3 version to look better, or do I use them to make the game play better and fix bugs? Do I change my design to fit with what the PS3 hardware does well, or simply run the game at a slightly lower resolution on the PS3 to make up for it? Developers striving to push the PS3 hardware have often sacrificed their game in the process.

This post might come across as a lot of Sony bashing, but it's just the reality from the trenches. Sony let their hardware be designed by a comity of business interests rather than a well thought out design that would serve the game development community. They are going to loose hard this round because of it, and I hope that in the next round they take lessons from this round and produce a more balanced and usable machine.

ragemaster68 · 10-29-2007, 01:36 PM

Interesting read.

Razor05 · 10-29-2007, 01:45 PM

It's good to hear things right from the devs.

Mase · 10-29-2007, 02:17 PM

This is what most media outlets have been saying for a while now. Its just typical Sony proprietary technology, The first party games will always fair better because Sony is personally dropping cash and making better use of their own dev kits.

Although others have stated the same thing we must remember this is only one persons opinion and perhaps he was scorned by Sony (like so many others) where he gave the above interview.

phearcat · 10-29-2007, 02:17 PM

I think it sad and also funny how all these teenagers who obviously have no clue at all what goes into the development on the PS3 and 360 are totally attacking this guy.

I think Sony does have a lot of people fooled into thinking the PS3 is so much tehcnically superior to the 360. If it really was we would not be seeing all these poor ports to the PS3 you really can't keep blaming it on "lazy programmers".

Mase · 10-29-2007, 02:40 PM

I think the question is when is Sony going to help out, I mean they recently came out stating the problems with 3rd party games and basically asking for forgiveness but when are they going to step in and help. Stating the obvious is not going to make a great port, they need to take some actions and help out.

brian451 · 10-29-2007, 02:59 PM

i truly believe the ps3 will go down in time as one of the all-time worst technology blunders...time will reveal it to all for what it really is

heyman421 · 10-29-2007, 03:09 PM

look at the sega saturn.

the thing had 8 processors, was insanely powerful for it's time, but nobody knew how to write software for it.

Seems mighty similar.

LHD · 10-29-2007, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heyman421

look at the sega saturn.

the thing had 8 processors, was insanely powerful for it's time, but nobody knew how to write software for it.

Seems mighty similar.

I was just going to post about that. The saturn was very powerful but multiplatform titles seem to always be better on PS1. I just got a saturn from ebay as a matter of fact.

junehhan · 10-29-2007, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phearcat

I think it sad and also funny how all these teenagers who obviously have no clue at all what goes into the development on the PS3 and 360 are totally attacking this guy.

I think Sony does have a lot of people fooled into thinking the PS3 is so much tehcnically superior to the 360. If it really was we would not be seeing all these poor ports to the PS3 you really can't keep blaming it on "lazy programmers".

It's funny how people love to play armchair quarterback, when they are completely oblivious to what is involved in the production process. However, this is exactly what has been echoed by numerous people already, including some high profile developers. People have been just brainwashed into thinking that the Cell is the alpha and omega of game processing, when it requires talent and still doesn't make up for a inferious GPU, which is what the limiting factor is when determining graphical performance.

Cygnus · 10-29-2007, 10:11 PM

Yeah devs have been saying this for years but this was the first time I read it explained this detailed. Due to the popularity of PS2, sony could get away with their console being hard to develop on. That is not the case this time around, at least not so far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lilmase1153

This is what most media outlets have been saying for a while now. Its just typical Sony proprietary technology, The first party games will always fair better because Sony is personally dropping cash and making better use of their own dev kits.

Although others have stated the same thing we must remember this is only one persons opinion and perhaps he was scorned by Sony (like so many others) where he gave the above interview.

bboncorr · 10-29-2007, 11:44 PM

you know there was this guy named bboncorr who used to come to this forum all the time. i faintly remember him saying the exact same stuff before the ps3 even launched. man i wish i would have taken that guy more serious because all that stuff he said is now being reported by devs from so many different companies.

Steve44 · 10-30-2007, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bboncorr

you know there was this guy named bboncorr who used to come to this forum all the time. i faintly remember him saying the exact same stuff before the ps3 even launched. man i wish i would have taken that guy more serious because all that stuff he said is now being reported by devs from so many different companies.

Yea this is the same stuff that people have been talking about time and time again since before the PS3 launched. Yet we still get the other side (other developers) that tell us how the PS3 is better.
Why is it that when someone posts articles FROM the developers with POSITIVE news for the PS3 it's not a legit source?
Yet you're very own 360 nut, RAZOR05, says "It's good to hear things right from the devs." haha oh lord.

Anyways,
One could say this guy isn't credible either! We all know that the PS3 and the 360 are very similar in output, correct? Right now, with the PS3 being out for 1 year and the 360 being out for 2 years, they are very similar visually. (please don't tell me no about that one).
Well, then why does the articles' author says,
"Additionally, the shader processing on the ps3 is significantly
slower than on the 360, which means that a normal map takes more fill rate to draw on the ps3 than it does on the 360. And I'm not talking about small differences here, we're talking roughly half the pixel pushing power."
Really? PS3 has half the pixel-pushing power? Does anyone else notice this big difference?
Not A Credible Source

Other reactions to his unpublished blog.
Playstation Home will compete with his new company, so the PS3 is his enemy at the moment. With this as the backdrop, it's hard to lend any credence to his technical arguments.

"For those unaware, I'm going to break it down simply and explain exactly why ports to the ps3 will never be as good as their 360 counter parts, and why most ps3 exclusives will likely continue to suck."
What a classy guy. low fill rate = games suck. alert the presses!
what would you know about it? all of harmoniax games looks like shit

"Fill rate is one of the primary ways to measure graphics performance - in essence, it's a number describing how many pixel operations you can perform. The fill rate on the PS3 is significantly slower than on the 360, meaning that games either have to run at lower resolution or use simpler shader effects to achieve the same performance. Additionally, the shader processing on the ps3 is significantly slower than on the 360, which means that a normal map takes more fill rate to draw on the ps3 than it does on the 360. And I'm not talking about small differences here, we're talking roughly half the pixel pushing power."

so that is why bad looking games like halo 3 is only 640p on 360 and awesome looking games like uncharted is 720p on ps3? :lol

you have no idea what you're talking about

"The fill rate on the PS3 is significantly slower than on the 360"
If you want to take advantage of the "fill rate" on the 360 you have to reduce the resolution on your games. Hello Halo 3, hello Grand Turismo HD 4 real :-)

I see some very fundemental flaws in your piece and that makes is seem like blatant trolling.

But you also said that "many ps3 games have simplified shaders and run at lower native resolutions than the 360 versions". The latter part just isn't true. Most PS3 games run at 720p. The ones that don't, run at 1080p. Very similar to the 360, except for the fact that a couple 360 games (like Halo3 and PGR3) actually run at LESS than 720p. There have been no known cases of PS3 games running at less than 720p.

I totally agree with your comments concerning the PS3 having certain hardware problems/issues. But then name me one games console ever released that didn't.
I just think your being overly harsh. It is clear that in terms of hardware design MS focused there energies on the GFX chip, whilst Sony focused there energies on the CPU. As a result each system has it's own set of advantages and disadvantages... What is clear based on the games released for both systems so far is that they are both capable of displaying fantastic graphics. In my opinion it is not the hardware that is the problem now, it's the imagination of the developers/publishers that needs upgrading.

ANYWAYS, for those that STILL don't believe this guy is a f 'n nutsack....
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...1&postcount=65
This has nothing to do with Rockband or Harmonix.

Originally Posted by f_elz:
This guy has worked on GH I/II and Rock Band. Left Harmonix in September to join a new startup, Conduit Labs.

From Conduit Labs' Website:

Quote:
Why can't we do more together online?
In the real world we get together to dance, play hoops, even skydive out of planes. Online we can add people to buddy lists, but there are few options when we actually want to create, compete, and play together.
This is the start of Conduit Labs. We're building cool social entertainment destinations for you and your friends. We are bored of the same old social networks, virtual worlds, and MMOs. We've been doing this kind of thing for a long time, so we're trying something new. Drop your email below to see what's up.

Sounds like he's pissed because Playstation Home is going after the same idea as his start-up...and with a lot more money and manpower behind it, too.

Steve44 · 10-30-2007, 08:27 AM

Oh yea...

Harmonix Dev Jason Booth Says Crazy Stuff
Large beardy man slates PS3

Unless so-called Blog Of Booth has been hacked by Microsoft, long time Sony third party developer Jason Booth has woken up on the wrong side of bed, forgotten his Cornflakes and trod in some dogshit on the way to the car. And then blogged about Sony to make up for it. It's a great read, if only to highlight exactly why companies like Harmonix don't make games with good graphics.

Booth:"The fill rate on the PS3 is significantly slower than on the 360, meaning that games either have to run at lower resolution or use simpler shader effects to achieve the same performance. Additionally, the shader processing on the ps3 is significantly slower than on the 360, which means that a normal map takes more fill rate to draw on the ps3 than it does on the 360. And I'm not talking about small differences here, we're talking roughly half the pixel pushing power."

Two words, Booth: Halo 3. 640p. Well, that's four words, but we're using roughly half the numerical range. He also waffles on a bit more about fill rate, a bit on how Blu-ray is rubbish and why more disk space is a bad thing. He finishes on a high, though, proclaiming most PS3 exclusives will suck. We're wondering where he's been for the last year, when everyone was watching games like Uncharted, Killzone 2, GT 5, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Little Big Planet in motion. Unrelated: his new company, Conduit Labs, is making some online virtual world thing where people can interact and play together.

I mean, he's the dev, so I guess he'd know best, but he can't spell committee, so who cares?

Steve44 · 10-30-2007, 08:41 AM

So....tell me, IS THIS PERSON CREDIBLE?

10-28-2007, 10:58 PM	#1
Cygnus The Bringer of Balance Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 6,766	Ex-Harmonix Developer Has Words For PS3 Jason Booth, a former designer at Harmonix, has some pretty harsh words for the PS3 and explains why he thinks it will continue to have sub-par ports and developer difficulties. I included the entire post in case some jobs block the link. Now this is a pretty informative and detailed http://jbooth.blogspot.com/2007/10/p...-and-spin.html I read various game forums from time to time, and often see gamers complaining about 'lazy ports' to the ps3. They often mention how the ps3 is the most powerful game console and blame developers working on the console for doing a bad job. Sony has all of these people duped by impressive marketing spin, and I'm often amazed at how potent this type of rhetoric proves to be. For those unaware, I'm going to break it down simply and explain exactly why ports to the ps3 will never be as good as their 360 counter parts, and why most ps3 exclusives will likely continue to suck. First, lets debunk a few common misconceptions: "The PS3 is more graphically advanced than the 360" Fill rate is one of the primary ways to measure graphics performance - in essence, it's a number describing how many pixel operations you can perform. The fill rate on the PS3 is significantly slower than on the 360, meaning that games either have to run at lower resolution or use simpler shader effects to achieve the same performance. Additionally, the shader processing on the ps3 is significantly slower than on the 360, which means that a normal map takes more fill rate to draw on the ps3 than it does on the 360. And I'm not talking about small differences here, we're talking roughly half the pixel pushing power. "Ok, fine, but the cell is like, super powerful" In theory, sure, but in reality it doesn't work out that way. Game code simply doesn't split well across multiple processors. You can probably find a way to split a few things off fairly easily - put the audio on one processor, animation on another; but generally the breakup is always going to leave several of the SPUs idle or underutilized. On top of that, it's usually not CPU speed that restricts the visuals in games - it's fill rate. "Uh, Blue Ray!" Great for watching movies, but not so great for games. Getting data off the blue ray drive takes about twice as long as it does to get the same data off the 360's DVD drive. That translates into longer load times, or god forbid if your streaming from disk, tighter constraints on the amount of data you can stream. "But it's got a lot more space than DVD" Ok, you got me there - it does have a lot more space, and there is the potential to use that to do something cool, but thats unlikely to be realized in any useful way. There are tons of compression techniques available for data and I'd personally rather be able to get my data faster than have more of it. Most developers who use the entire Blue Ray drive are doing it to work around other problems with the ps3 such as it's slow loading - for instance, in Resistance: Fall of Man, every art asset is stored on disk once for every level that uses it. So rather than storing one copy of a texture, you're storing it 12 times. If you took that entire game and removed all the duplicate data, it would likely fit on a DVD without any problem. They do this to speed up load times, which, as I pointed out before, are painfully slow on the ps3. So in this case, the extra space is completely wasted. "Once developers figure out the PS3 they'll maximize the hardware and it will be amazing" I suspect a small number of PS3 only developers will optimize the hardware to do something cool. However, this will be an exception to the rule, and will likely involved game designs that are specifically designed for the hardware and funded by Sony. If those will prove to be fun or not is another question. Most of the performance centric research into the PS3 has been around making it easier for developers to get the same level of performance you get out of the 360 naturally. For instance, some developers are using those extra SPU's on the cell to prepare data for the rendering pipeline. Basically, they take the data they would normally send to the graphics chip, send it to an SPU which optimizes it in some manner, then send it to the graphics chip. So, once again we see an 'advantage' in hardware being used to make up for a disadvantage in another area - a common theme with the ps3. And this introduces an extra frame of latency into the equation, making controller response slower. So, the common theme is this; developers must spend significantly more time and resources getting the PS3 to do what the 360 can already do easily and with a lot less code. Lets look at how this translates into practical realities for a moment: Why the PS3 version often pails in comparison to the 360 version, and why exclusives often suck: As outlined above, getting equivalent performance out of the PS3 requires a lot of work unique to the platform, and in many cases, even with all these tricks, you still won't see equivalent performance. Thus, many ps3 games have simplified shaders and run at lower native resolutions than the 360 versions. On top of this, there is shrinking incentive to do this work; the PS3 isn't selling. The code needed to make the PS3 work is most likely only useful to you on the PS3, as the types of tricks you need to do to make the thing perform are very unique to the platform and unlikely to be useful on any other architecture now or in the future. These issues all stem from unbalanced hardware design, and any future hardware that is this unbalanced will likely be unbalanced in a completely unique way. Finally, there's the problem of resources. Game Development is, at it's heart, a resource management challenge. Given finite resources, do I have these five engineers work on optimizing the PS3 version to look better, or do I use them to make the game play better and fix bugs? Do I change my design to fit with what the PS3 hardware does well, or simply run the game at a slightly lower resolution on the PS3 to make up for it? Developers striving to push the PS3 hardware have often sacrificed their game in the process. This post might come across as a lot of Sony bashing, but it's just the reality from the trenches. Sony let their hardware be designed by a comity of business interests rather than a well thought out design that would serve the game development community. They are going to loose hard this round because of it, and I hope that in the next round they take lessons from this round and produce a more balanced and usable machine. __________________ Toshiba 57H81 Kenwood VR-616 Comcast DCT6412 III XBox 360 GamerTag Sec0nd2N0n3

10-29-2007, 01:36 PM	#2
ragemaster68 Day Watch Join Date: May 2006 Location: Ontario Age: 25 Posts: 560	Interesting read. __________________ HT: LG 60PG70 Winegard Squareshooter UHF Antenna Denon AVR-1909 7.1 Receiver - New Toy Polk CSi3 Centre Technics SB-A16 Fronts (10" Woofers) Aiwa SX-AV900 Rears Viewsat Ultra FTA Receiver ------- Blu-ray Movies - 140 and counting Detailed movie list at DVD Aficionado. ------- Gaming: Xbox 360 - "RE" Elite - Jasper - 18 Games Playstation 3 - 60gb - 2 Games PSN ID: Larcenous1 Gamertag: Bausko -------

10-29-2007, 01:45 PM	#3
Razor05 HD = 65 beautiful inches Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 3,274	It's good to hear things right from the devs. __________________ Panasonic TH-65PZ850U Sony KDL37XBR6 Panasonic TH-37PX50U Cambridge Audio Azur 640R & 740C Paradigm Studio 60's, 20's, CC-590 & Seismic 12 Panasonic DMP-BD35 Toshiba HD-XA2 & A35 Motorola VIP1200 Monster HTFS1000, PB2100 AA 1154a Xbox360 Prem(2) & Halo3 LE + HD-DVD GT: Razor59 Sony PS3 slim GT:Razor_59 Sony PSP

10-29-2007, 02:17 PM	#4
Mase Way of the Samurai Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Tempe,Az Posts: 2,517	This is what most media outlets have been saying for a while now. Its just typical Sony proprietary technology, The first party games will always fair better because Sony is personally dropping cash and making better use of their own dev kits. Although others have stated the same thing we must remember this is only one persons opinion and perhaps he was scorned by Sony (like so many others) where he gave the above interview. __________________ PlayStation 3 : legnd Killer Xbox 360: Legnd K1ller Steam ID: Legnd_Killer Currently playing Uncharted 2(PS3) Borderlands (360) NBA2k10 (360) COD4/WaW (360)

10-29-2007, 02:17 PM	#5
phearcat Me So HD Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: The OC Age: 39 Posts: 698	I think it sad and also funny how all these teenagers who obviously have no clue at all what goes into the development on the PS3 and 360 are totally attacking this guy. I think Sony does have a lot of people fooled into thinking the PS3 is so much tehcnically superior to the 360. If it really was we would not be seeing all these poor ports to the PS3 you really can't keep blaming it on "lazy programmers". __________________ 50" Pioneer Plamsa pdp-5070hd HDTV XBox 360 Elite (HDMI) w/HD-DVD XBL: Phear Cat Nintendo Wii HD DVD: 41

10-29-2007, 02:40 PM	#6
Mase Way of the Samurai Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Tempe,Az Posts: 2,517	I think the question is when is Sony going to help out, I mean they recently came out stating the problems with 3rd party games and basically asking for forgiveness but when are they going to step in and help. Stating the obvious is not going to make a great port, they need to take some actions and help out. __________________ PlayStation 3 : legnd Killer Xbox 360: Legnd K1ller Steam ID: Legnd_Killer Currently playing Uncharted 2(PS3) Borderlands (360) NBA2k10 (360) COD4/WaW (360)

10-29-2007, 02:59 PM	#7
brian451 High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 163	i truly believe the ps3 will go down in time as one of the all-time worst technology blunders...time will reveal it to all for what it really is

10-29-2007, 03:09 PM	#8
heyman421 Blu-ray is Betamax 2.0 Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 494	look at the sega saturn. the thing had 8 processors, was insanely powerful for it's time, but nobody knew how to write software for it. Seems mighty similar.

10-29-2007, 11:44 PM	#12
bboncorr High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 4,418	you know there was this guy named bboncorr who used to come to this forum all the time. i faintly remember him saying the exact same stuff before the ps3 even launched. man i wish i would have taken that guy more serious because all that stuff he said is now being reported by devs from so many different companies. __________________ Living Room pioneer kuro plasma PDP-5010FD (9.9) Denon 4308CI (9.5) B&W 683's, HTM61, 685's (9.0) Sony PS3 (9.0) Sony BD-S350 (9.5) HSU VTF-3 MK3 sub (9.0) Harmony 1000 (9.5) XBOX360 + HD DVD (9.2) Nintendo Wii (7.5) Netflix Roku (9.0) Gaming Room 60A3000 (8.7) Halcro ssp200 (10. perfection) Deftech BP7004, C/L/R2002, BP2X (8.7) Sony Remote Commander (7.0) Toshiba HDA35 (7.9) Samsung 1400 (5.0) Bedroom Panasonic TH-42PZ85U (8.7) Tivo HD (9.7)

10-30-2007, 08:27 AM	#14
Steve44 Super Moderater Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Washington D.C. metropolitan area Age: 28 Posts: 1,045	Oh yea... Harmonix Dev Jason Booth Says Crazy Stuff Large beardy man slates PS3 Unless so-called Blog Of Booth has been hacked by Microsoft, long time Sony third party developer Jason Booth has woken up on the wrong side of bed, forgotten his Cornflakes and trod in some dogshit on the way to the car. And then blogged about Sony to make up for it. It's a great read, if only to highlight exactly why companies like Harmonix don't make games with good graphics. Booth:"The fill rate on the PS3 is significantly slower than on the 360, meaning that games either have to run at lower resolution or use simpler shader effects to achieve the same performance. Additionally, the shader processing on the ps3 is significantly slower than on the 360, which means that a normal map takes more fill rate to draw on the ps3 than it does on the 360. And I'm not talking about small differences here, we're talking roughly half the pixel pushing power." Two words, Booth: Halo 3. 640p. Well, that's four words, but we're using roughly half the numerical range. He also waffles on a bit more about fill rate, a bit on how Blu-ray is rubbish and why more disk space is a bad thing. He finishes on a high, though, proclaiming most PS3 exclusives will suck. We're wondering where he's been for the last year, when everyone was watching games like Uncharted, Killzone 2, GT 5, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Little Big Planet in motion. Unrelated: his new company, Conduit Labs, is making some online virtual world thing where people can interact and play together. I mean, he's the dev, so I guess he'd know best, but he can't spell committee, so who cares?

10-30-2007, 08:41 AM	#15
Steve44 Super Moderater Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Washington D.C. metropolitan area Age: 28 Posts: 1,045	So....tell me, IS THIS PERSON CREDIBLE?

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