PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

[Malacite]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

Less RAM being used on the OS = more RAM for games (can help with things like keeping the frame rate stable with a lot of action going on)

[Coinspinner]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

For comparison, the 360's OS takes 32 MB. Till now the 360 has had a large lead in terms of available memory.

[Ziero]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

Poor sony....

How about given a year to see how Xbox did things, you release your console with some thought next time. Not saying Microsoft did things the best way, just saying sony completely ignored them (specifically when it came to the online side of the house) and they're still paying the price. people complain about paying 60 bucks a year for online access, but that's less than a buck 50 a week, well worth the additional services you get compared to sonys.

Not to mention ...
-home was a failure
-ps3 was hard to program at first
-more money
-waaaaay late on the playstation store

With that said, I bought FFXIII for the PS3, and heavy rain, and uncharted, and I bought CoD2 for the PS3 after owning it on the xbox. I love the PS3, I just hate sony i guess.

Wait, huh? What additional services do you get from XBL? Cross game chat? I mean, what else does XBL give you over PSN? And how was Home a failure? It's still pretty populated and sees plenty of use considering that it's an over glorified social networking system on PSN. And what exactly is late about the PSN? It's always stable, secure and updated weekly without the need to pay for anything.

MS took a chance in releasing their system a year early despite it's glaring, system breaking fault because it would give them a massive lead in the Next Gen system race. And it did, but the price for that headstart was a massive failure rate. I'm glad Sony didn't follow MS's lead and release a system that had over a 30-50% failure rate. Though Sony does move slow with it's bigger updates, they always said this system would be made for the long run.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

Wait, huh? What additional services do you get from XBL? Cross game chat? I mean, what else does XBL give you over PSN? And how was Home a failure? It's still pretty populated and sees plenty of use considering that it's an over glorified social networking system on PSN. And what exactly is late about the PSN? It's always stable, secure and updated weekly without the need to pay for anything.

Stable? No, download times are dreadfully slow depending upon when you access the network. I've had a download of FFVII take upwards of two hours and I've had it take 45 minutes, too. That's a pretty big difference, I must say.

Just because Home gets used doesn't mean its good, either.

MS took a chance in releasing their system a year early despite it's glaring, system breaking fault because it would give them a massive lead in the Next Gen system race. And it did, but the price for that headstart was a massive failure rate. I'm glad Sony didn't follow MS's lead and release a system that had over a 30-50% failure rate. Though Sony does move slow with it's bigger updates, they always said this system would be made for the long run.

360 is still in the #2 slot last I checked and leaps and bounds beyond Sony in market penetration much thanks to PS3 taking at least three years to get started.

PS3 came along and raised the stakes with development costs, forcing most devs to go and stay multi-platform. They force unnecessary upgrades on the consumer while 360 and Wii did not. They forced a new format on the market which people are still reluctant to invest in since the visual quality leap is barely noticable.

360 came out with a plan for its network, a vision they had based off the original Xbox Live. Those subscribtion fees the users pay? Some of that money gets floated out to developers as an incentive to keep games running in tip-top shape on their network.

Sony does not make that effort and offers developers no incentive to fix their online games right away. The online network is free and, clearly, you get what you pay for - nothing or, at best, sloppy seconds. If I wanted to play any major multiplayer game that wasn't under the Sony brand, why the hell would I want to play it on PSN?

As for the weekly updates, they're pitiful. Sony does not make a good effort in getting out the old titles people want for PSOne classics. The support for PSPGo on their part has been terrible. We're talking about a service that makes Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection look good.

Even Netflix is going to be a better option than the PSN movie channel.

Oh, and PS3 doesn't play PS2 games. Interesting for a console that's marketed as doing everything.

[Malacite]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

For comparison, the 360's OS takes 32 MB. Till now the 360 has had a large lead in terms of available memory.

Thing is, this was always technically a myth and still is. Though it's true the PS3's OS uses up more memory, out of that 512 that the 360 has only half of it is dedicated to the GPU. PS3 is designed in such a way that Cell can actually use up all of the system's 512 memory if need be. I've yet to see any specific examples where it can/has done this, but the fact remains it can do so if need be.

---------- Post added at 12:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 PM ----------

360 is still in the #2 slot last I checked and leaps and bounds beyond Sony in market penetration much thanks to PS3 taking at least three years to get started.

Only in North America, and the gap is closing fast. Watch PS3 sales sky rocket next month with God of War 3 on the horizon.

[Coinspinner]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

Thing is, this was always technically a myth and still is. Though it's true the PS3's OS uses up more memory, out of that 512 that the 360 has only half of it is dedicated to the GPU. PS3 is designed in such a way that Cell can actually use up all of the system's 512 memory if need be. I've yet to see any specific examples where it can/has done this, but the fact remains it can do so if need be.[COLOR="Silver"].

I think you're mistaken. IRRC, he 360's RAM is a single pool that can be partitioned between CPU and GPU as the developer wishes. On PS3 it is split into two 256 MB banks which are for the CPU and GPU respectively. Google seems to bear that out... unless things changed recently?

Edit: Also Cell is not the PS3's GPU...

[DakAttack]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

Uh, ok, consoles wars round nine, go!

My only problem with the PS3 is the utter lack of thought put into its firmware and hardware. It allows only one person to log into their IDs at a time, and awards only one person with achievements that two people earn. Similarly, only one person can use the bluetooth headset to chat while playing games, and developers selectively lock their data so you can't bring it to a friend's house. Not that locking the data matters, you've got nothing to move it with, other than USB drives, and, unless you're playing single-player, you most likely wont be able to use that data during co-op. The hardware is so disjointed and lacking. I know this is a personal preference, but the controllers have no weight or bulk, it feels like I'm holding a boomerang. The bluetooth headset is fine, but the tiny little keyboard for text communication is simply dumb. It awkwardly attaches to the top of the controller, and doesn't even connect to it. It has its own on/off switch and can be used more easily without actually attaching it to the controller.

My only grip with the Xbox 360 is that there's only two ports for memory cards, and Xbox Live is filled with idiots.

[Malacite]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

I like how the Dualshock 3 feels. The original Six-Axis was too light though.


And Cell isn't the system's GPU (it's nVidia's RSX chip), but that actually doesn't matter with regards to my statement because of the way Cell was designed. Cell itself is actually quite capable of functioning as a GPU. It can't render anything super complicated on it's own, but it can still function as one. But, again, that's not the point.

The point is how the SPE's interact with the RSX. Cell is set up so that it can designated one of it's 7 available SPE's (the 8th is dedicated to the system itself and can not be used for anything else) can be assigned to a specific task, be it a single character, the wind, some blades of grass, the background music, whatever. It also is unique in that as I said before, it can pull memory from the entire system and direct it at a specific task if needed.

360 doesn't operate that way. The CPU has some memory allocated to it and the rest goes to it's 3 GPU Cores (though for whatever reason, only 2 of those cores are ever used). So while the 360 has more memory upfront, PS3 has more potential memory to be used, and the Cell is actually more efficient anyway because of it's design. I remember seeing the specs on both memory types a while back as well, and PS3 does actually have more over all. I used to have it bookmarked and posted it a while back in another thread, don't really feel like digging it up though or continuing in yet another stupid fanboy war. I own both systems, love them both to death, but PS3 has the better hardware so drop it already lol.

I agree with you Dak though, that they still need to really improve on some of the UI. They need to find a way to allow multiple log-ins like 360 does. Though, at the same time, games that can really make use of that are becoming increasingly scarce with the shift towards online play. It's something that's been pissing me off for some time. It's like the Wii is the only console you can really go to and expect to have some real, at-home party play which is sad.

That's one thing I'll always have to give to the N64 - it was probably the best console ever for splitscreen gaming. Just to make things even more messed up though, PS3 can actually support up to 8 controllers. 7 wireless and 1 plugged IIRC (unless they scrapped that at some point and didn't tell anyone?) yet the only game that allows even 4 people to play together on far as I know, is LBP so wtf? (or at least the only game worth playing lol)

[Coinspinner]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

That's interesting. Go ahead and post the link, or PM if you prefer, I'm curious. This isn't fanboy shit, I just saw something I thought was inaccurate.

[Malacite]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

Found it.

PS3’s RAM and RSX explained - Talk Playstation


and this

ps3 XDR RAM

[Ziero]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

Stable? No, download times are dreadfully slow depending upon when you access the network. I've had a download of FFVII take upwards of two hours and I've had it take 45 minutes, too. That's a pretty big difference, I must say.

I never noticed any problems with DL speed, but then again I haven't DL'd anything more then once or twice to compare it to. But every time I log on to an online game, the connection runs smoothly with no issues and minimal if any lag. And for as long as I've had my PS3, I have only once seen it actually go down unexpectedly iirc. So yes, PSN is stable as it's always up and running and always works when I access it.

360 is still in the #2 slot last I checked and leaps and bounds beyond Sony in market penetration much thanks to PS3 taking at least three years to get started.

PS3 came along and raised the stakes with development costs, forcing most devs to go and stay multi-platform. They force unnecessary upgrades on the consumer while 360 and Wii did not. They forced a new format on the market which people are still reluctant to invest in since the visual quality leap is barely noticable.

360 came out with a plan for its network, a vision they had based off the original Xbox Live. Those subscribtion fees the users pay? Some of that money gets floated out to developers as an incentive to keep games running in tip-top shape on their network.

Sony does not make that effort and offers developers no incentive to fix their online games right away. The online network is free and, clearly, you get what you pay for - nothing or, at best, sloppy seconds. If I wanted to play any major multiplayer game that wasn't under the Sony brand, why the hell would I want to play it on PSN?

As for the weekly updates, they're pitiful. Sony does not make a good effort in getting out the old titles people want for PSOne classics. The support for PSPGo on their part has been terrible. We're talking about a service that makes Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection look good.

The 360 is far from "leaps and bounds" ahead of the PS3, but that year long headstart and a rough launch from Sony is certainly noticeable. In the end, that's really the only reason the 360 is in the position it's in. Despite it's use of new technologies and format, the PS3 at launch was still far more stable then the 360s were, and if launched side by side, it would have been a much bigger issue. Even today people like to write off the RROD as not being too big of a problem...and then they go out and repair their 360 for the 3rd or 4th time, if not buying a whole new one altogether. So I don't see Sony's usage of new technology as that much of an issue because it's been proven time and time again that great games can be made for the PS3. Especially when you consider that most Devs were going Multi-platform before the PS3 came out. So it's not so much that the "PS3 is hard to code" that caused it (which it is, I'll admit it), it's more of a "we can make more money selling on more consoles" issue.

And as stated before, games run just as smoothly on PSN as they do on XBL, so apparently those devs aren't getting paid enough by MS. Games on PSN are updated and patched just as frequently and effectively as things on XBL...unless it's some XBL timed-exclusive content MS paid for. I've never heard of any rampant hackings or modders on PSN, cheating through online games, but XBL is rife with them(see Mal's topic on the front page). So what exactly is that subscription fee paying for? Cross game chat(which is disabled in some games due to cheating)? Netflix (Which is coming to PSN now that MS's exclusive contract is up)? Early access to demos(because paying to play a free demo a week early is totally worth it)? I mean, every time I ask "what does XBL do better then PSN?" I get the same, weak, barely there responses that ultimately lead to nothing. Both networks allow steady, constantly maintained online gameplay, get free demos, videos, add-ons and new games, but one you have to pay for and the other you don't. PSN is just as strong of an online system as XBL, so where does this massive discrepancy people are complaining about come from?

[Malacite]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

So it's not so much that the "PS3 is hard to code" that caused it (which it is, I'll admit it), it's more of a "we can make more money selling on more consoles" issue.

According to a few developers (I think Insomniac is one of them, forget who else) PS3 is actually easier to code for lol. Forget where I read that though

And I would argue that the PS3 runs far smoother than 360 over all. Yes, XBL is a much nicer interface with better features over PSN, but at least my PS3 never ever EVER lags, rarely freezes or otherwise annoys me with various glitches/hiccups. And it's super quiet too; makes it much more enjoyable when I'm streaming a movie. Even when playing an installed game the sucker is still super loud and it heats up the room something fierce too wtf.

Love both consoles, but I have to give the edge to PS3. If Sony could just replicate some of XBL's key features you'd probably see a pretty massive shift. Then again, it's kinda nice having the majority of douche bags all on one platform

[Firewind]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

To sum up this thread:

"Hey guys Sony have done something minor but positive i nthe long run!"

*Nintendo fanboy rage*

*Microsoft fanboy rage*

*Malacite post that will inevitably get flamed*

"Lol PSN sucks because it's free!"

*Valid Pro-PS3/PSN comment*

*More fanboy rage about PSN sucking because you don't have to pay for it*

"Lol no backwards compatability!"

*Malicite post that did get flamed*

"PS3 is only last in the US!"

*Valid Anti-PS3/PSN comment*

*Valid Anti-XBox live comment*

*Second Malacite post that will inevitably get flamed*

[Malacite]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

>_> all 3 consoles are fun and people should be content with that?

[Firewind]

Re: PS3 gets a RAM boost & more!

And now a third Malacite post that will inevitably be flamed