How awesome is Final Fantasy XIII going to be? Well, if the amount of processing power has anything to do with the game's quality, it's going to be just about as awesome as the PS3 can stand. According to Square Enix producer Yoshinori Kitase, the highly anticipated RPG will use "nearly 100%" of the PlayStation 3's hardware power (as said in a recent interview with Dengeki PlayStation 3).
The PS3 being pushed to its limits ... well, that sounds interesting to say the least. Kitase also said that there will be no disc swap issues for the PS3 version because of the system's Blu-ray drive and hard drive space. As far as how development's coming along, the producer said that "The game's development is currently going well ... we are finishing up the tail end of the development." Exciting news if you're waiting with bated breath, yes? I hope the game will be as good as it is beefy...
[Via CVG]
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Contest:
8:20 AM on 03.31.2009
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it's still going to suck.
the final fantasy franchise has been ruined.
The game looks awesome, actually, all the Final Fantasy XIII games look awesome to me.
Square Enix is so out of touch, it's both hilarious and not funny at all.
Seriously? No, really... seriously? You actually believe that? Running a system to 100% automatically means bad coding, framerate issues, and lockups? Really?? So, running a system to 100% couldn't possibly mean efficient coding in order utilize all available resources to provide the maximum visual experience that the PS3 can deliver?
Wow. Just .... wow.
Please do me a favor and never enter the Information Technology field.
And I dont think I gave dtoid permission to use my picture for this article....
That dudes back looks unreal, jesus.
Uncharted 1 was at around 60% of the PS3's power.
Cry xbot cry.
VII was also pretty emo at parts for the record.
Please, for the love of {insert deity} ... SPY-V and Ray Tarded, DO NOT under any circumstances enter the high-end, non-Windows Information Technology field. It would be way to much of a reality check for you.
that aside this is a dumb story. No offense Colette.
I'm not arguing that it all comes down to the engine. Having a bad engine is no different than garbage-in, garbage-out or having a stupid, DB newbie saying, "Duh, let's have an index on *every* field in the table!"
But to just assume that 100% or near-100% utilization is automatically due bad or inefficient coding is ridiculous. Yeah, I know, I'm comparing real-world IT to a game console, but the underlying principles are the same. There's nothing to say, until the game comes out anyway, that the developers aren't actually utilizing every ounce of power that the PS3 can provide. After all, they're not programming for Windows, so they might actually understand being efficient. (Yeah, I went there.)
I'm sure it's primarily market-speak at this point, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that the programmers are doing what they say until such time as I see the final results. Atari 2600 coders pulled off some remarkable games with only 4K or 8K of memory! Let's see what these programmers can pull off before determining if it's BS or not.
In a game you never know what is gonna happen on the screen. The player will always find a way to push the limits even further the you did. If your game is already bursting the system in standard use, the only thing this will lead to, is a choppy framerate and/or crashes.
Also this is a full of shit statement anyway. As is commonly known the 360s graphics chip might have a high failure rate, but it is still more powerful than the PS3s which will ensure that PS3 games will never look signifficantly better than the 360 games. And to all of you little PS3 fanboys who still believe in the processing power of the Cell. Once again. It is NOT possible to use the Cell for graphics processing for a number of reasons. First: The Cell does not have shader units and therefore can not process graphics at the necessary speeds
Second: The Cell is generally too slow. While a very powerful CPU the Cell does not compare to the processing power of a GPU. If you don't believe me, just look up GPGPU on wikipedia.
Third: It is impossible to use two pocessors for Graphics processing in the current setup of the PS3. The only incidence in todays graphics technology, where 2 Processors render one game, is in PCs called SLi or Crossfire and only works because you use two identical chips.
So why am I writing this. Because of the 360 port that is. As I just established the only thing where the PS3 is better than the 360 in terms of speed is it's CPU. Unfortunately the calculations on the CPU are the thing that is the hardest to scale back, because those calculations have to happen, if you want the game to behave the same way than the PS3 version. So in order to work properly on both consoles the used processing power has to stay under the maximum capabilities of the 360s triple core PowerPC CPU, which in return means it can't possibly max out the Cell.
Also in modern games the GPU is the limiting part. Ask any hardcore PC-Gamer and they are going to tell you that in order for your game to work better on your PC you at first have to get a good graphics card. The power of the Cell pretty much is not needed in current generation games. A game that requires the processing power of the Cell would be very complex. And the first thing it would need is a far more powerful GPU to display this complexity.
So in short: Square-Enix's claim is full of shit and they should keep the fanboy propaganda to themselves.
If you really want to see what can be done with 4k of memory than look at this file: http://www.scene.org/file_dl.php?url=ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2008/assembly08/in4k/deep_science_by_fairlight.zip&id=508375
I love the Assembly demos.
That's exactly it, you're comparing real world number crunching IT to gaming. In the real world your measure is how long an operation takes to run whereas in gaming your measure is how smoothly everything continues to run. When one sees 100% usage, it's most likely the system actually wants to use more than the 100% that's available and you get slowdowns as a result of the bottleneck. If everything was written to run at EXACTLY 100% then that's another issue, but there will in reality be up and down fluctuations. Every time you try and go above 100% something (i.e. framerate) has to give as a result. Other than explicit loading sequences (in which case it is like number crunching), you really don't want to see 100%.
Assembly demos are mind-blowing! I want to see those demo groups come out with games! We'll see the major publishers with their jaws at their pasty ankles.
@specter620:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with 100%. The problem lies only if a command execution requires more than the 100%, and that is due to bad coding or bad resource allocation. But as long as the coders understand their limitations and push the system to the max within those limitations, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Maxing out the CPUs just means they coded it to 'ok' levels and then just turned up the number of particles on screen :).
Uncharted didn't use 100%
MGS4 didn't use 100%
Killzone2 didn't use 100%
Ratchet & Clank didn't use 100%
LittleBigPlanet didn't use 100%
And guess what, they all rocked!
I'm sure it helps to make a game look pretty but it doesn't mean instant succes.
I'm more exited about Level 5 games nowadays.
1) The Blu_Ray disc drive
2) The hard disc drive
3) The Cell Processor
4) The Graphics Processor
5) The memory
6) The ethernet adapter
7) The DS3 controller
8) The Blue Tooth Headset
If a game uses all of that hardware, isn't it using 100% of the PS3 hardware power. I mean, am I missing something here?
I'm missing something here aren't I ???
Leave it to SE to give the ps3 fanboys the perfect reason to start more flamewars with the "microshitting fagtarts"
"I have to agree with SPY-V and Ray Tarded in a game you do not push the hardware to its absolute limits. That's just a bad idea. Especially on a console, where the bottlenecks are plenty and power is scarce. That especially applies to the PS3 which is so full of bottlenecks it's ridiculous. "
Programming for consoles is a different beast than programming for a PC. Since the developers know exactly what kind of hardware they will be utilizing (as opposed to the PC where you can have a variety of different specs), they can safely utilize more of the system's resources, and optimize around any system specific bottlenecks. There are all kinds of ways to program around bottlenecks in a system to get better performance.
"In a game you never know what is gonna happen on the screen. The player will always find a way to push the limits even further the you did. If your game is already bursting the system in standard use, the only thing this will lead to, is a choppy framerate and/or crashes. "
Which is why QA is essential!
"Also this is a full of shit statement anyway. As is commonly known the 360s graphics chip might have a high failure rate, but it is still more powerful than the PS3s which will ensure that PS3 games will never look signifficantly better than the 360 games."
You can't counter a "full of shit statement" with another completely "full of shit statement". If you examine the specs for each GPU, they are roughly equivalent in terms of performance. The Xbox has some slight advantages with memory bandwidth, but to say that that PS3 games will never look better than Xbox games is simply ridiculous. If you knew anything about software development, you would understand that software optimization is much more important than hardware specs. A game with more optimization effort put into the 360 would come out on top, however a game more optimized for the PS3 would end up looking better.
"Once again. It is NOT possible to use the Cell for graphics processing for a number of reasons. First: The Cell does not have shader units and therefore can not process graphics at the necessary speeds"
I'm going to make a leap here and assume you've not written a single line of code for the PS3, so I call you out for being completely unqualified to make these kinds of statements.
"Second: The Cell is generally too slow. While a very powerful CPU the Cell does not compare to the processing power of a GPU. If you don't believe me, just look up GPGPU on wikipedia. "
Bzzzt!! Again, completely uninformed. The Cell is not slow at all. CPU and GPU architectures are completely different and have completely separate purposes. The reason GPUs are much faster for things like SETI@Home is because the architecture of these chips is more efficient for the types of calculations being used. This doesn't mean they are generally the faster chip, it means they are faster for that particular purpose. Plus, if you want to look solely at chip speed, the PS3 GPU is clocked at 50Mhz higher speed, but that's irrelevant.
"Third: It is impossible to use two pocessors for Graphics processing in the current setup of the PS3. The only incidence in todays graphics technology, where 2 Processors render one game, is in PCs called SLi or Crossfire and only works because you use two identical chips. "
So what, the Xbox can't do that either?
"As I just established the only thing where the PS3 is better than the 360 in terms of speed is it's CPU."
Actually, I believe you said the Cell was slow.
"So in order to work properly on both consoles the used processing power has to stay under the maximum capabilities of the 360s triple core PowerPC CPU, which in return means it can't possibly max out the Cell"
Again, you are completely unqualified to make that statement. You haven't the first clue about how SE is developing FFXII, and from your completely uninformed post you don't seem to know much about software development either, so I have no clue where you are getting this information.
"A game that requires the processing power of the Cell would be very complex. And the first thing it would need is a far more powerful GPU to display this complexity. "
Again, another argument you seem unqualified to make.
Seems like the only one displaying any fanboism here is you.
when i switch my ps3 into linux i'm only using the cell and am locked out of the graphics card but when i run snes or mednafen it runs perfect with no frame rate skips or problems. that comment that i quoted you on is utter bullshit. the cell can and is used to process graphics even if just for software emulation .
Get over it.
If any one knows how to use hardware though, It's Square-enix. All of their games are generally amongst the best looking on the system. In places, FF12 is easily on par with some of the worse looking HD Gen games, which is really a great achievement for the PS2. Making games that look better than PS1 games on DS is a great achievement too, considering the DS is weaker.
Yeah of course you can run simple graphical applications on a CPU. That's exactly the way emulation works on PCs as well, because it's the only way to really emulate a system. But just try to emulate an Xbox or a Gamecube game and you are going to get into trouble as even these games from last gen are going to max out your CPU. (I know they would even on my Core-i7 which is currently the most powerful PC CPU you can get) As of now it is not possible to put just any program onto the GPU, because GPUs are highly optimized chips that first and foremost are designed to display graphics. Hence the G in GPU.
It might become possible once Open CL and DX11 are released though.
But try to even emulate a gamecube or an XBOX game on a CPU like the Core-i7 which I'm currently using,(if you don't know, the most powerful CPU currently on the market) and you are going to realize that the framerate tends to get choppy. That's because CPUS are not designed to display graphics. In return you get a chip that is not exceptionally fast in any field but can handle every calculation you throw at it, which is vital in modern day computing.
Graphics belong to the "embarrassingly parallel" type of calculations, meaning that a lot of similar calculations happen at the same time. In these kinds of calculations you gain the most speed by havin a lot of cores running parrallel to each other and not by indefinately increasing the chip's clock which is not possible because of physical limitations
The cell has 8 cores, seven on the PS3. But in comparison to Intels multi core CPUS they can not work independently from each other. One of the cores the PPE has to control all the others. Therefore it is not optimal for grphics processing.
The PS3's GPU on the other hand comprises of:
24 parallel pixel-shader ALU pipes
8 parallel vertex pipelines
24 texture filtering units
8 vertex texture addressing units
8 Render Output units
which basically rounds up to 72 cores inside of one chip.
These chips are highly specialised and can not operate just any code, like the Cell can. That's why for GPGPU you have to use tricks like DX11's Compute-shader.
With these 72 cores there is actually much more processing power that can be used for graphics processing.
The Cells job on the other hand are the complex algorithms that make up the physics engine, the AI, the game's rules, it's mulitplayer backbone etc.
That is all stuff that will have to exist on the 360 version as well. Otherwise FFXIII would be a fundamentally different game from the PS3 version.
So it is only logical to say that all this code will also have to be managed by the 360's 3core PowerPC CPU. I think we don't have to debate wheter the 360's or the PS3's CPU is more powerful. Of course it's the Cell. And no I never said the Cell was slow. I said that it's graphics processing capabilities are slow in comparison to the optimized GPU of the PS3.
But back to the topic: If the same calculations have to happen on a weaker and a stronger component that means that the stronger component won't be used to it's full potential.
@Aaronf
What you write about optimization is true, but I never said anything else. I'm just assuming that over the lifespan of the consoles games on both systems will be optimized equally and there none of the consoles is going to get a considerable edge over the other. The difference is, Microsoft never said that their games would look better then the PS3's while Sony still tries to sell some mystical power inside the PS3 to gamers which just doesn't exist.