GameSpot's 360 vs PS3 Graphics Comparison Part3 Options

[Xbox-Scene]

GameSpot's 360 vs PS3 Graphics Comparison Part3 Posted by XanTium | May 26 23:28 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From gamespot.com: [QUOTE] A solid year's gone by since we ran our last Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3 graphics comparison. The differences between the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 have diminished with every passing batch of games, but some variation still exists between the two machines. Our first graphics comparison between the two consoles showed that the Xbox 360 looked better on most of the games, oftentimes drastically so. The second graphics comparison showed that the PlayStation 3 looked nearly as good as the Xbox 360 in some games, and actually looked better in a few as well. Now with both consoles well into their respective life cycles, developers have had plenty of time to figure out the nuances required to code beautiful games. With our third batch of games[Assassin's Creed, Orange Box, GTA 4, COD 4, Burnout Paradise, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, NFS Pro Street, Madden 08], the two machines seem evenly matched. The two trade blows on various games, each with its own set of advantages. Conclusion After going through another eight games, we've found a few trends that follow both of these consoles around. Outside of Rainbow Six Vegas 2, our findings didn't show any drastic differences in image quality between the two consoles--nothing compared to what we found when we compared first-generation games in our original comparison feature. The PlayStation 3 generally lags behind the Xbox 360 in high-quality textures and the depth/normal maps that go with them. However, in the same games, the PlayStation 3 sometimes comes ahead with better shadowing and antialiasing. Games on the PS3 do tend to be blurrier than their Xbox 360 counterparts, but the PlayStation 3 games can look just as good as the Xbox 360 games when developers put some effort into it, as is evident with both Grand Theft Auto IV and Burnout Paradise. Overall, the PlayStation 3 outputs visuals that are either on par with the Xbox 360 or only slightly behind. [/QUOTE] Full Story: gamespot.com (8 pages)

[cabose369]

in almost every pic in there the 360 looks better... in NFS the details are a lot more noticeable and shadows are better, in cod4 the details on the face (facial hair) you can see each individual strand on the 360 whereas its blurred on the ps3, r6v3 look wayyyy better on 360, gta4 slightly better on 360 but by very very little, madden tie, burnout pretty much tie, orange box a bit better on 360.

[NoFace]

Thank goodness this isn't another article claiming that the PS3 has far superior graphics

[anonim1979]

The Gamespot comparison is ... weak
They didn't compare framerates, pictures are small and LQ, and more important - they played SAFE - pu$$ie$.

You want to read real one and not the one where big site don't want to anger advertiser?

Try Eurogamer:

11th comparison - you will also find links for 10 previous:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=134315

Also MUCH better pictures, like those from Orange Box:
HL2 X360 vs PS3
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=89373

http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/article...5/Ep2_3.jpg.jpg

Here you can SEE diferences easily.
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/article...0/TF2_2.jpg.jpg


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If you want Assassins Creed comparison:

I recomend "Direct download" option and full screen viewing.

PS3 vs X360 - tearing of screen on ps3 is horrible:
http://www.gamersyde.com/leech_5356_en.html
(7MB small avi for framerate comparation)

2nd 360/PS3 comparison, retail version
http://www.gamersyde.com/leech_5418_en.html


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Eurogamer on GTA4:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?artic...7829&page=4

Grand Theft Auto IV: PS3 vs. Xbox 360 Special
Article by Richard Leadbetter

Frame Rate Tests

So far, aside from the different visual approaches, there's not much to tell the two games apart. But the one difference I couldn't help but notice was the sense that as well as possessing a higher resolution, the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV runs noticeably smoother than the PlayStation 3 code.

What is clear is that both versions adhere to no specific frame-rate. They'll pump out as many frames as they can, roughly averaging out to around 30fps (though it can go higher). However, the amount of time any given frame will stay on-screen is variable, leading to a very inconsistent look. Compare and contrast with, say, Project Gotham Racing 4, or Criterion's Black - both examples of games with a rock solid 30fps refresh rate. In terms of GTA IV, its basic inconsistency means it's really difficult to say whether one version drops more frames than the other just by trusting your own eyes. A more scientific approach is needed.

In previous face-off features, where I've felt that it's relevant, I've always mentioned the difference in refresh rate, but now I can show you how I do it. Essentially, the basic method is simple - capture every single frame that is output over the HDMI port in a lossless format, then examine the capture to check for the amount of unique frames. Digital Foundry's coder programmed a very useful little tool that does that count for me; useful considering the first test is based on a video with over 16,000 frames.

For GTA IV, I performed six tests on a varied amount of material. All of the game's cut-scenes are based on the same engine as the gameplay, so a variety of them were chosen, both indoors and outdoors, and of varying lengths. As the cut-scenes are rendering identical scenes on the fly, it's the best test I could come up with. In all cases, the respective 3D engines will be dealing with 100 percent identical source material.

Links to compressed versions of the test material are provided, but please bear in mind that there's some pretty hardcore swearing. Oh, and possibly some spoilers.

Test One: Game Intro
360: 31.990fps
PS3: 26.460fps
See it on EGTV.

Test Two: Clean Getaway
360: 28.624fps
PS3: 23.452fps
See it on EGTV.

Test Three: Final Destination
360: 35.262fps
PS3: 29.041fps
See it on EGTV.

Test Four: Station Face-Off
360: 26.076fps
PS3: 26.081fps
See it on EGTV.

Test Five: Rigged to Blow
360: 26.712fps
PS3: 23.781fps
See it on EGTV.

Test Six: Ivan the Not So Terrible
360: 33.798fps
PS3: 28.313fps
See it on EGTV.

So the results clearly show that over the course of the entire clip, 360 out-performs PlayStation 3 in all but one of the six scenarios presented here. Indeed, on the longer vids we're seeing a good 17 to 18 percent variance. Tests on gameplay (playing through the same mission, but not rendering identical scenes, obviously) saw a similar range of variance too. For example, the 'Ivan the Not So Terrible' stage has a nice range of in-car, on-foot, rooftop and cut-scene action. 30.704fps average on a 360 runthrough, compared with 26.522fps and 26.274fps on two separate PS3 captures of the same mission.

The bottom line is that no matter what material I put through the detector, 360 came ahead in all tests, sometimes dramatically so.


However, it is worth bearing in mind that the frame-rate detector can only produce an average rate. By looking at the other comparison videos in this piece, you'll see that by and large the games generally run at the same speed. However, when the engine struggles to cope, the frame-rate falls and it drops harder on PS3, hence bringing down the overall average.

One curiosity I found was that the PS3 version has v-lock enabled, whereas 360 can produce the odd torn frame. This might be seen to skew results in 360's favour were it not for the fact that, typically, a torn frame is only on-screen for 1/60th of a second before v-sync is re-established. Therefore, it's not likely to affect the overall result, and is certainly not an issue during gameplay. The hosted clips are from the 360 version by the way, in case you want to check.

Truth be told, it's not really the visual differences as such that gravitates me slightly towards the 360 version; it's just that the game runs more solidly on the Microsoft platform, and when the frame-rate does drop, it's not quite so jarring as it is on PS3.
And Finally...

After almost two thousands words of technical discussion, the bottom line is that it's clear that Rockstar had some issues matching the basic performance of the Xbox 360 game on the PS3 hardware. Lower resolution, zero anti-aliasing support and a more variable frame-rate are the bottom line.

On the one hand, it's a touch disappointing that Rockstar's USD 100 million budget couldn't extend to optimising the experience to match Xbox 360, especially when you look at a game like Burnout Paradise that doesn't require a mandatory installation, has a basically rock solid frame-rate, and is technically identical cross-platform.

That said, it's patently clear that Rockstar hasn't handed in a lazy conversion here. Creative decisions have been made to compensate for the technical limitations, and by and large they really work, to the point where you sometimes wonder why they couldn't have been applied to the Xbox 360 version too. PS3 GTA IV looks absolutely fantastic, and even factoring in zero anti-aliasing support and a lower resolution, in many scenarios it looks as good as the 360 version, if not better.

I've not addressed the freezing issue being reported on the game, of course. I'll have to leave that to the people affected as - try as I might to coax the code to fall over and die horribly - GTA IV behaved impeccably for me on both systems. But the chances are that by the time you read, a PS3 patch will be out and about that should sort out those who've been affected. A 360 update after that, please, complete with a tweakable option to use the PS3 post-processing modes. Now that would be interesting.

and more...

This post has been edited by anonim1979: May 27 2008, 07:19 AM

[0794]

Overall, the PlayStation 3 outputs visuals that are either on par with the Xbox 360 or only slightly behind.

even though the "summary" is that the PS3 is either equal or slightly behind the 360 in visuals - there is no excuse this far from release that the PS3 should continue to do so relatively poor repeatedly in numerous graphical comparison studies - especially in the cross-platform games...even if the average gamer does not notice the difference.

we all know the PS3 hardware has the ability to perform. and, yes, this is more of a technicality as there is way more to a game than visuals and both consoles continue to please gamers worldwide - regardless of what these "studies" report...

[wilson2010]

interesting article...

for me, casual gamer, the only reason to buy a PS3 is the blu-ray drive. nothing else. it took sony soo long to release the system and its been out long enough for developers to achieve some better looking games than on the 360 but wait there are none.

like the guy before me said, the system has a lot of potential but its being wasted atm...

i wouldnt care so much if the ps3 fan boys didnt toot their own horns and hyping the performance so much prior to the release

[Rickets06]

I actually enjoyed the PS3's rendition of AC... I also liked the lighting effects a little more in PS3 Halflife 2 (the grabber looks better IMO)

The PS3 just doesn't have the games (yet)
It's probably capable of much more it just doesn't fit with todays games.

[eduardor2k]

I actually enjoyed the PS3's rendition of AC... I also liked the lighting effects a little more in PS3 Halflife 2 (the grabber looks better IMO)

The PS3 just doesn't have the games (yet)
It's probably capable of much more it just doesn't fit with todays games.

You are right, i think HL looks better in PS3, you can se clearly that the antialising if working better but the X360 looks damn sharp compared to the ps3.

I would like to know, what technicke is using the ps3 to do antialising.

[Foe-hammer]

It's been confirmed by Quaz51 on the beyond3d forums that for GT4:

PS3 = 1152x640 with no AA
360 = 1280x720 with 2x AA

They overlooked the fact that GT4 for the PS3 is rendered at a considerably lower resolution, at only 1152x640 with no AA. While the 360s version of GT4 is rendered at 1280x720 with 2x AA. That is 184320 less pixels, and 2x less AA. That requires a large performance increase. If they were to lower the 360s resolution and have no AA, then the frames per second would be considerably higher in every circumstance.

This quote sums it up:

After almost two thousands words of technical discussion, the bottom line is that it's clear that Rockstar had some issues matching the basic performance of the Xbox 360 game on the PS3 hardware. Lower resolution, zero anti-aliasing support and a more variable frame-rate are the bottom line.

This post has been edited by Foe-hammer: May 27 2008, 11:35 AM

[Chancer]

The differences are marginal and some of the stuff people don't always notice when playing. I would agree on the actual sharpness of the graphics on the 360. The PS3 on a lot of games seems to have less defined edges. Sometimes this gives a better appearance and on some things it doesn't. One thing is certain the graphics on the Ps3 games that are newer released seem an improvement on earlier ones. I would hope this is a sign that developers are getting to grips with the system.
On both systems I don't really have any games that I look at an think, "Those graphics are crap" but I am sure they exist

[ChrisF]

After almost two thousands words of technical discussion, the bottom line is that it's clear that Rockstar had some issues matching the basic performance of the Xbox 360 game on the PS3 hardware. Lower resolution, zero anti-aliasing support and a more variable frame-rate are the bottom line.

In keeping with other Dev's I'm sure Rockstar deliberately used only 50% of the 'power of the PS3' and left the remainder untapped using all their time and budget for lazy beer drinking and tanning.

I say this now to preempt the ubiquitous quote and subsequent line of logic where some guy comes on and quotes a dev as stating that no one is using the console correctly and tapping more than 50% of the power and then every developer is suddenly branded as lazy. God forbid its hardware architecture and RAM, let's continue to blame all independent instances of software.

That said - both consoles look more than good enough to warrant playing them. I just get tired of seeing the same old crap.

[guvna]

Jees,

Some people are REALLY getting into this "xbox is better than ps3" graphics thing.
What makes me laugh is that there's lots of talk about jagged lines and facial hair and shadows on the crack of someones arse or something.

Quite honestly, if yer sat there admiring how the shadows reflected off of a persons left testicle and writing huge pages of reviews about how superior the xbox renders it clearer than the ps3, rather than jumping up and down, and stomping on thousands of aliens trying to kill you, then you shouldn't be a console owner.
Lets be honest, we're not in the commodore64 vs spectrum era anymore. Both the ps3 and the 360 are pretty much dead on.

Can it not be left at that?

[hamwbone]

Can it not be left at that?

Did you find the internet yesterday?

[chronno]

I love how this article is just after the FLOPS article. The processor in the PS3 is (supposedly) twice the power of the 360 and the GPU is (aegean supposedly) 9x more powerful. The PS3 has so much power and SONY charges so much but no one ever uses it. That's like paying for a Terabyte HDD and putting windows 3.1 on it.

[Shod]

If you were sat playing games on the PS3 you certainly wouldnt be sat thinking "my god these graphics look terrible", because they dont by any means.

Its only when you put the 360 and PS3 side by side in comparisons like this that you really notice any difference. So comparisons like this arent really relevant to the average gamer, only for those who want to look at every minute detail in each systems' abilities.

I struggle to see how the PS3 can really be worse to that kind of degree (RSV 2) on some games when on paper it certainly matches (or beats according to that FLOP article) the power of the 360. I think certainly nowadays it is less to do with how hard the PS3 is to program for (as developers should have got used to it by now, which can be seen by the increasing quality of games), and more to do with the laziness of some developers.

You can understand why, when the 360 is apparantly so much easier to program it makes sound business sense to develop the game as cheaply as possible, and then do a quick port over to the PS3. So I guess I was being a bit harsh calling some developers "lazy" when all they are doing is running a business.

Either way I feel that Sony really lost it (for me anyhow) before the PS3 or 360 were even released. I remember going to my local Gamestation before release with the specific intention to put a deposit down to pre-order a PS3, however when I found out about the price I was put straight off (I think it was billed at £500+ back then).

So I put my money on buying a 360 instead, and I havent looked back since. If Sony decided not to include a Blu-Ray drive and so sold it at a price matching the 360 I would have been a PS3 owner instead. At that point I didnt know a lot really about either system, just the knowledge that either was going to be a step up from my PS2 and roughly what games were being released for each system at launch.

In other words I probably represented the majority of people buying a console, and my decision was made based on price and not by side by side comparisons like this (although based on these articles alone I admit it would have probably influenced my decision)

This post has been edited by Shod: May 27 2008, 04:58 PM