Playstation 3

[Arshad]

One is interlaced, one it progressive. Progressive is better.

720p looks better than 1080i.


Er.. progressive is only better than interlaced at the same resolution. Sure, some content may look the same on both, but there is plenty of hi-def content that clearly looks better when you have more than double the pixels, with significantly higher horizontal resolution. I was at CES where Faroudja was demo'ing their downconvertor which was playing back 1080i and 720p content side by side, where both looked equally good to the non-discerning eye. HOWEVER, it depends on the choice of content .. and where there is very fine detail, 1080i will still be superior.

In terms of temporal resolution, the ATSC spec, which lists the 18 formats used for digital television does define a 720p that runs at 60fps, which will clearly be better than 1080i at 30fps (specifically when you have fast motion).

Having said all that, it's not like most HDTV's on the market play anything beyond 720p anyways, so it's a bit of a moot point right now

 

[NetViper]

Having said all that, it's not like most HDTV's on the market play anything beyond 720p anyways, so it's a bit of a moot point right now

On top of that, the HDTV standard broadcast is 1080i or 720p. I don't expect broadcasts in 1080p anytime soon, if ever.

 

[Arshad]

What do you think these units cost to make? My guess is between $1200-$2000 each.


No, significantly less than that, but yes it will definitely be higher than MSRP at launch. Eventually through cost reductions and process change and volume they'll be able to bring their bill of materials cost down, but at the outset I expect all of them to be losing money on the HW, and making it up on the SW.


I was gonna say... u being the ATI rep around here, u should be in the xbox 360 fan club.


Well... you know I've never personally been a big fan of Microsoft. At the same time, I've been a huge fan of the playstation and some of their licenses like Gran Turismo, so I'll definitely be picking up a PS3 even if it's just to play GT5. There aren't any other Playstation specific titles that I particularly care about, but I did the same thing when I bought N64 just to play Zelda. I'll just have to ignore the fact that it has our competitors graphics in there

As far as XBox360, yeah I'll definitely be picking it up -- after all I was involved in part of the initial bringup of the development HW I agree though, that launch video was HORRIBLE. Not only was it too teenie-bopperish, it also did not show off any of the next-gen graphics! After seeing that, I certainly wouldn't be waiting for the next XBox with any anticipation! Check out the images from the link I posted above .. that's a better indication of what the HW is capable of!


Twice the graphics performance of 2 6800Ultras in SLI for the PS3 :O not bad. So when are we gonna see these next gen GPUs for the PC?


The graphics and CPU's on all 3 consoles are pretty amazing (Nintendo announced their next gen console today too -- Revolution), but you have to be careful about the performance claims. eg. they aren't necessarily talking about fill-rate bandwidth, but mathematical performance (which is more important going forward anyways). This is easy to do because future gen HW can throw more shader ALU's on each pipeline without necessarily increasing the texture fetch or fillrate bandwidth, and still get a big jump in performance. As far as when are we going to see this level of GPU's in PC's: Very soon

 

[0ctan3]

the new playstation.... looks familiar :biggrin:

 

[Arshad]

the new playstation.... looks familiar

Bahahaha! BTW, all three consoles have announced that they will be backwards compatible with current gen games.

 

[NetViper]

This is easy to do because future gen HW can throw more shader ALU's on each pipeline without necessarily increasing the texture fetch or fillrate bandwidth, and still get a big jump in performance. As far as when are we going to see this level of GPU's in PC's: Very soon

Now I just read an article the other day that said the technology in Xbox360 is way more advanced than the current ATI cards and that we probably wouldn't see that level of power for at least another year. Is that not the case?

 

[akira3d]

the new playstation.... looks familiar

Bahahaha! BTW, all three consoles have announced that they will be backwards compatible with current gen games.

Actually, this isn't entirely true.

The PlayStation 3 is fully backwards compatible with previous PlayStations...and will directly play the disks from the earlier systems.

The Revolution is fully backwards comptible with previous Nintendo systems (all the way back to the NES)...but cartridge based games are only available via downloads. No mention on the price of playing these older games...at least their Internet service will be free.

The Xbox360 is partially compatible...only will play specific hit games (i.e. Halo) directly from the current Xbox disks. Microsoft has been pretty vague on which titles will make the cut because apparently each game will have to be specially emulated (from what I've heard, the switch from nVidia to ATI graphics technologies is the primary reason Xbox360 will not have full backwards compatibility).

All three systems will achieve backwards compatibility via emulation (unlike the PS2, which also contains the original PlayStation CPU), so there's always the possibility that older games will actually look better running on the newer hardware. It should be interesting to see how these emulators are implemented...hopefully they'll up-res rather than upscale the older games to take advantage of HD!

 

[sgvnsxrated]

Here's a pic I took of the PS3 while I was at E3

 

[Arshad]

from what I've heard, the switch from nVidia to ATI graphics technologies is the primary reason Xbox360 will not have full backwards compatibility


I'll need to look further into it as I've never done any XBox dev work, but my understanding is that they're both using DX, so the GPU shouldn't really impact it. The GPU in XBox360 can emulate everything that the NV2x in XBox1 could do, and much faster as well. If anything, I'd be concerned about the x86 to PPC emulation. If I recall correctly, the original was based on a P3/733Mhz so it's not trivial to emulate in real-time across the board.