PS3's graphics critically analyzed -- verdict is "niiiiiiiice"
by Nick Doerr 
{ Oct 24th 2006 at 12:30PM }
Let's first get this out of the way: the guy who wrote the original article (Dean Takahashi) is a graphics freak. Loves them. "A kind of obsession," he says. The PS3, he says in that regard, doesn't have perfect animation but "it's pretty darn good looking." He also says (not us! He said this! Don't shoot the messenger!) "If you'll recall, Microsoft had high hopes that Sony's first-generation games would look cruddy." I bet they were hoping that, because, you know, it's not the gameplay that matters. Not at all (sarcasm).Mr. Takahashi continues to say how the PS3 games are looking quite nice, even for first-generation games! He even went so far as to say, "by and large, the games I saw looked BETTER than Xbox 360 games." Oooh, that's a pretty lofty claim. But, he said, not all the games were necessarily worth the price difference in the consoles. Ridge Racer 7, he says, looks far better than Ridge Racer 6 for the 360. Also looking better than the competition is Resistance: Fall of Man. Falling short of expectations was the build of Virtua Fighter 5 -- not quite as pretty as DOA4 for the 360 (and with those ladies, who'd argue?). Lair is also looking good, but Takahashi didn't focus on graphics, possibly because it's way too early to decide. Anyway, overall, we can get pumped up for the PS3 (again...) and know that we'll get a few very enjoyable titles at launch and early next year.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
SuicideNinja @ Oct 24th 2006 1:58PM
It's kind of obligatory to say: shouldn't Ridge Racer 7 look better than it's predecessor, no matter which console? Not that anyone should care about Ridge Racer...ick...how about GT?
Other than that, the only truly positive comments were for Lair and Resistance. Aren't those games a given? I kind of expect these to be upper tier games especially since they aren't multiconsole. That's usually how it works.
What's great is that all games on both consoles will look like crap in SD. Whining will undboutedly ensue from SDTV owners after they get their hands in this HDTV-required generation.
Adam @ Oct 24th 2006 2:58PM
Of course the PS3 has nice graphics.. who doubted that??
dudeugotnochanceinhell @ Oct 24th 2006 3:14PM
the xbox is going to get eaten alive man.
Josh @ Oct 24th 2006 4:24PM
Except none of those games run in 1080p.
Seriously, how many games on PS3 run in 1080p? Two? All I can think of is Gran Turismo HD and Virtua Tennis 3. Maybe NBA 07, but maybe not. Please correct me if I am wrong on any of this.
Rich @ Oct 24th 2006 4:18PM
@2 WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!?! 360 FTW! Everyone knows that the cell is garbage and that dvds are way better than blu-ray. Plus the ps3 doesn't have sweet games like DEAD RISING!! I mean do you know how hard it must have been to put that many characters on screen all with the AI of a retarded squirrel, plus all those weapons!! YOU CAN USE ANY PIECE OF BLOCKY GARBAGE ON THE FLOOR AND USE IT AS A WEAPON!! IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT!! And everyone knows that ps3's online is going to suck cause its free... Even though its going to have everything that xboxlive has, its really going to suck because nothing can be good when its free....
god i hate 360
R:FoM > GoW ~~~ there i said it
Josh @ Oct 24th 2006 4:58PM
Okay, I did a little research, and the only 1080p games I could find are GTHD, Virtua Tennis 3, and NBA 07 and NBA 2K7. That's it. Three of them are basically ports from PS2-quality games, so it makes sense that they can run in the much increased resolution of 1080p on the PS3. As for VT3, I don't think that game is particularly graphically demanding on the system, so that makes sense, too.
Jeez, they're all basically sports games.
Rich @ Oct 24th 2006 4:39PM
Im pretty sure ridge racer does too... might be wrong. But truthfully i never expected the first wave of games to run in 1080p. Im sure we will see a lot more after Q1 07
serb @ Oct 24th 2006 5:51PM
@josh-Except none of those games run in 1080p.
yet they still look better than 360 games.....sad
Marco Cano Jr @ Oct 24th 2006 6:03PM
Oh my god, was that a South Park Quote? Tell me I'm not the only one who got that.
Caramella Bongo ... how are you today? @ Oct 24th 2006 6:16PM
Ridge Racer 7 is 1080p 60 fps.
Resistance did get a downgrade..but, im willing to bet that if the devs had more experience with the hardware it could have been done. They're probably only using 50% of the potential of the hardware (ie. optimising code for it).
asdf @ Oct 24th 2006 6:37PM
I don't know if you guys been keeping up with the news lately, but I think I need to go over a few things. 1080p has been too OVER-HYPED. Don't get me wrong, but 1080p has nothing to do with graphics or even the theory behind it (Better resolution = Better Graphics). You need to realize that for Both Systems (Yes That included that almighty powerful PS3) can barely handle 1080p, mainly due to the RAM deficit (512 MB, Cmon?). Resistance; The Fall of Man had to been scaled down from 1080p to 720p because of RAM. The only reason why the Xbox 360 has 512 MB is because of Gears of War which would also have difficulties pulling off 1080p. (Imagine 360 with only 256 MB, lawls). Every time, developers think of developing the game in 1080p, they have to sacrifice something else, such as graphics, fps, and anti-aliasing just to achieve the high resolution. Obviously for simple games, you don't need too, but we're talking games like Halo, Resistance, Lair, Gears of War. Now, you will say, why the hell 1080p then.
1.) I sorta blame Sony for making such an abrupt change for the current technology (I know tech is advancing fast, BUT NOT THAT FAST). They're marketing key point was the astonishing 1080p support by the PS3. It was rivaled by the recently announced Xbox 360 1080p support. But I think it's irrelevant to talk about that now.
2.) Both, MS and Sony, will pretty much be only able to pull off movies with 1080p. And please don't start saying that PS3 is a super computer and will annihilate anything thrown at it. Everything has its limits. PS3 might be slightly powerful, but not that much. Even if you guys think that these are just "first-Gen" games for PS3.You need to realize that so is Gears of War which was in development for more than 2 years now, before the freaking Xbox 360 was even announced. To mean, 2nd Gen games mean that they came out from the same developer twice who already had experience with the first gen game and had better understanding while developing the second gen again, hence better graphics, coding, etc.
P.S. I kinda understand why people are starting to refer to 720p as the "sweet-spot" since it's a equilibrium that balances fps, graphics, AA and resolution as opposed to 1080 which just has even better resolution and nothing else. (Same goes for resolutions lower than 720p). That's why, 1080p support for Xbax 360 is good, but I don't think it's needed THAT much. (Why do you think they haven't released earlier, well maybe because HD-DVD drive is coming out (1080p Hello?) which sorta implies that this resolution is more for HD-DVD movies than the actual games)
Scot @ Oct 24th 2006 6:43PM
Wait a minute... Ridge Racer 7 looks better than Ridge Racer 6???
NO FUCKING WAY!!!
Who would have thought that a game that comes out a year later would look better than its prequel???
This guy, Dean Takahashi, is a freakin genius.
And why would PS3 games look better than 360 games? Maybe its because that a large number of 360 games have come out several months before now were still first gen xbox 360 games. Now that the second gen xbox 360 games are here, the gap between 360 games' graphics are going to jump even more than they did before. Look at games like Gears of War, Lost Planet, Forza Motorsport 2, and Halo 3. All except GoW is still in progress and the graphics can be updated and will look better by their release, to say the PS3 is better looking than all current 360 games is true, but ya gotta look ahead sometimes.
@josh... i wouldn't complain if i were you, the 360 currently has no games on 1080p either. At least the PS3 has one launch game that runs native 1080p. Thats just like complaining that the PS3 only has 1 HDMI cable while the 360 has none.
Rich @ Oct 24th 2006 6:53PM
@11 "to say the PS3 is better looking than all current 360 games is true, but ya gotta look ahead sometimes."
hmm so the PS3's graphics wont get any better then what they are now?? OK
Take a look at the videos of FF13 and let me know what you think...
Caramella Bongo ... how are you today? @ Oct 24th 2006 7:36PM
asdf:
fyi, MS came out with 36o first; there could have been a good deal of life left in the xbox/ps2 era, but, nooo, they wanted first mover advantage.
Its their own problem that they cant do 1080p native even with second gen games coming out. They shouldnt have rushed to market.
asdf @ Oct 24th 2006 8:49PM
Xbox 360 can do 1080p Native (YES NATIVE, NOT UPSCALED), they games can't rofl. Has nothing to do with a rushed console.
Caramella Bongo ... how are you today? @ Oct 24th 2006 8:51PM
One year after its release, ... name one (non-XBL) game that is 1080p native.
N30N @ Oct 24th 2006 9:06PM
There was a time that I may have considered getting a 360, but fanboys are the reason for turning me completly off it, if Sony flops, I'm going Nintendo ;) I'm sure thats what the Japanese will certainly do :) No doubt.
Alternativly I could just stick to PC, with the likes of Crysis and other titles, would there be much need to purchase another console. If Xbox fanboys think that by slagging off the competition it is going to get some more converters to the 360, they should think again :)
Tom @ Oct 24th 2006 10:10PM
I need a computer scientist to explain something to me.
Given that:
1. The Xbox 360's GPU has a maximum polygon performance of 500 million triangles per second.
2. A polygon is ATLEAST 1 pixel in size, therefore it's true to say that the Xbox 360's GPU has a maximum polygon performance of ATLEAST 500 million pixels per second, if not more.
3. A single frame is 1920×1080 pixels, for a total of 2,073,600 pixels in each frame.
4. If a game with this resolution is running at 120 frames/second, then the console running this game would have to put out a minimum of (2,073,600 x 120) = 248,832,000 pixels/second.
I two questions:
1. Why would any machine need to be able to display 500 million polygons per second we could only see about 250 million polygons per second?
2. Why is it we can even discern individual polygons? Shouldn't they be so small (each polygon is one pixel in size) that everything looks perfectly smooth?
Scott Krueger. @ Oct 24th 2006 10:57PM
#11 asdf
The Problem Here is that you beleive Everything you Read on the Internet. Microsoft is Bombing the Internet with False info to make you beleive 1080p is worthless for Gaming.
1) Both systems can do 1080i. There is NO EXTRA MEMORY NEEDED TO PULL OFF 1080p. They are the Same resolution (1080 lines)
The Difference is How it is drawn on the Screen. The i in 1080i is for Interlaced, which means to draw odd lines on 1 scan and even on another scan.
Translation 1080p will be "Faster" than 1080i. 720p is "Faster" than 1080i.
So to say that the PS3 will not be able to do 1080p is False. Just because Resistance Fell to 720p, does not mean that this will be the norm. (Resistance Fell... Catch that one...)
This much I can tell you is True. One Year of Technology is HUGE. Any game developed for both systems will share the same artwork, The PS3 will generally have Higher Frame Rates and Sometimes Higher Resolution. This is the way it was for the XBox over the PS2, I owned both so I can tell you that is the way it was. I own a 360 so when I get my PS3, I will verify that this trend is reversed.
#4 Rich
Love the Sarcasm.
chimp o death @ Oct 24th 2006 11:53PM
I thought this dude was going to seriously debunk the "PS3=360 graphics(more or less)", but he didn't offer much.
"Ridge Racer 7: Namco's title looks better than last year's Ridge Racer 6 for the Xbox 360." Others have mentioned that they'd expect it to look better than last year's version. If namco was still calling the PS3 version Ridge Racer 6, the comparision would be more apt.
"Resistance: Fall of Man: .... It looks better than any shooter on a console so far. I'll have to get a good look at Gears of War to see which one really looks better." So you don't KNOW if it looks better? Maybe you should have found that out BEFORE you wrote your article pal, since that would have been, like, the real news.
"Sega's Virtua Fighter 5: This title was showing on a smaller screen, one of the retail kiosks with a Sony Bravia flat-panel display. It didn't look nearly as good as the titles on the bigger screens. It was pretty smoothe. But it frankly didn't look as good as Dead or Alive 4 on the Xbox 360." I'm not sure if the mention of the small screen is meant to imply that a) it would look better on a bigger screen or b) it was on a smaller screen because it would have looked worse on a larger one. Yet again, comparing to last years game, although 360 comes out on top(?).
"NBA 2K7: This game is a worthy comparison to the NBA 2K6 title last year on the Xbox 360." This year's PS3=last years 360.
"Call of Duty 3: This game looks just like the Call of Duty 2 game that debuted on the Xbox 360. " See above.
"Lair: ...it looks fantastic." A clear statement about a game that looks great, at least.
"Madden NFL 07: This game didn't impress me with its looks. It seems much like the Xbox 360 version." Back to parity with the 360 version.
"Need For Speed Carbon And Gran Turismo: I got only cursory looks at these games. I thought that Ridge Racer 7 looked better than both of these, and that Carbon looked better than Gran Turismo. Then again, I saw both Carbon and Gran Turismo on smaller flat screens." Hmm. Since GT is one of the 1080p poster boys, the fact that the multi-platform Carbon supposedly looks better is just plain weird.
So at the begining of the article, he says "By and large, the games I saw looked BETTER than Xbox 360 games." How is this supported bu his actual write ups on individual games? The only one that he goes on record as superior to the 360 is Ridge Racer 7, and his main comparitive is last year's game.
All in all, this article was pretty much a non-event. We should get pumped up because this dude says the PS3 launch window titles mostly look as good as last year's 360 titles? Next time, maybe wait until you have something of real substance to tell us, Dean.
Knoxin @ Oct 25th 2006 4:27AM
ok this 720p vs 1080p is a wack storey check this link,
http://ozymandias.com/archive/2006/10/21/Clarifying-Thoughts-on-High-Definition-Game-Rendering.aspx
i know its a 360 web site but the logic is true.
and to 16, if you speak to a ubi soft rep they will tell you that the new splinter cell is 1080p and there is a miss print on the back of the box. so it 1080p ready for update, i think there is one more as well, i will look when i get back to work ;-)
P.s i am still waiting of rthe ps2 too do toy storey 2 like graphics major qoute from sony, there as ways over promise ?
till i see them side by side playing the same game i will wait to commet on who's the better console
coolbreeze06 @ Oct 25th 2006 9:41AM
Tech improves quick. The ps3 has been cooking for 1 more year than the 360 so you know it's gonna be mo' hot!
Knoxin @ Oct 25th 2006 12:12PM
Hot is right aka overheating lol
sony never had a ps3 aka year extra to develope
but i am not going to rant who is right or wrong cause i have't played on a ps3 have you ?
PS2 Game Cheats @ Oct 25th 2006 1:22PM
Oh come on the PS3 is going to be much better than the Xbox, and Playstation has always had more of a range on games
Knoxin @ Oct 25th 2006 2:02PM
as i said have you played on one so how can u tell me its better ?????????
aka Playstation has always had more of a range on games
yes but ms opend a tin of worms with releasing theres a year early and geeting rid of the exclusive hehe
game makers make more money with 2 or 3 console's than one,
assaians creed was sony exclusive lol it was show cased on a 360 dev kit.
but as i said HAVE U PLAYED ONE TO TELL ME ITS BETTER
ozymandias @ Oct 25th 2006 7:39PM
I have a question. If technology moves fast, and the ps3 is better because the tech is 1 year newer than what's in the 360, what new components were added to the ps3 in that year? I believe the official system specs were released in 2005. The reason the ps3 didnt launch in 2005 was because the cells yeilds sucked and blu ray wasnt ready. Also, developers had dev kits and offical specs in 2005, so first gen ps3 games have been in developement as long as second gen 360 games. why then, do they look as good as 360 games and not better? so to reiterate:
1.What new technology was added in 2005 to the ps3?
2.Why do ps3 games not look better if they have been in developement for just as long and are running on superior hardware?
Krazy Koala @ Oct 26th 2006 11:01AM
Why do we need to be told by an "expert" which console's graphics he thinks look better? There are direct-feed high def vidoes and screenshots of these games on the net, look for yourself....Btw, Resistance looks nice, Gears looks better :P
ChiTownMexican @ Oct 27th 2006 2:57PM
Ok, ps3 fanboys, prepared to get raped, Halo STYLE!
aight, ps3 sucks period, most of the games running on 1080p resolution won't be pushing much graphical horsepower as a game runnin on 720p. Games like Gran Turismo is basically an upscaled ps2 game, minor graphical improvements, kept low to run the game on 1080p. Tell me when you see a big difference between 1080p and 720p.
Ristance Fall of Man, is a pathetic attempt to be a halo clone. Online gameplay will never be as good as Halo's, not even Halo 2's, which is even sadder. lol. Graphics in the game are horrible, if you look at most of the textures, their all low-res, most of the enviornment is low-res, featuring flat textures. Check out Metal Gear solid, if you look at the enviorments closely, you can see all the muddy textures. If this is an early sign of what PS3 can do, thats pretty sad.
Just to close things up, PS3 still doesn't have a game of the year on their console, but XBOX 360 does!
Plus XBOX 360 has a better racer than PS3, Forza Motorsport. BTW, the graphics on Gran Turismo are all pre-rendered, lets see if SONY can really show of what the PS3 can do my showing some real-time graphics instead of prettied up pre-redered graphics.
And please don't go by what you saw at E3 2005, go by what you see and play. Cause most of the PS3 games are CG movies, none of them will come close to what they showed at E3 2005. Don't get me started on Killzone 2, cause that was a joke.
Gears of War 2006
Halo 3 2007
PS3 Fanboys, consider yourselves BXR-ed!
Concerned Gamer @ Oct 30th 2006 11:09AM
Are you guys running your computers through your tv sets? Resistance Fall of Man looking like the greatest FPS ever? Are you kidding me? This game looks TERRIBLE. I wouldnt have played in on a last gen system. TERRIBLE Cant even say it and GOW in the same line.
ChiTownMexican @ Oct 27th 2006 3:18PM
oh man, you crack me up, Resistance Fall of Man, "greatest FPS ever", you COULD say that if there was never a Halo or Half-life, or DOOM, or RTCW,just to name a few, but Resistance, don't mean to hurt your feelings, isnt even in the same category as the games i've stated above, in fact its in the same category as Killzone, "Halo Clones"
ChiTownMexican @ Oct 27th 2006 3:23PM
FYI, I am playing my games on a 32" HDTV, LCD, so yea, eat it!
Your comments: oh man, you crack me up, Resistance Fall of Man, "greatest FPS ever",
you COULD say that if there was never a Halo or Half-life, or DOOM,
or RTCW,just to name a few, but Resistance, don't mean to hurt your
feelings, isnt even in the same category as the games i've stated
above, in fact its in the same category as Killzone, "Halo Clones" And yea, the game as terrible graphics, when GOW drops, its gonna look like that game came out a year after all of PS3 games. LOL!
Quote from Mark Rein
”Sony says the next generation starts when they say so. I say, that’s bullshit. Gears of War is the first second-generation game for Xbox 360 and it looks very fine. You will never see launch titles that look this good.”
I think that raps it up just fine!