PS3 vs Xbox 360

[getlowdogg369]

Ok, I am a die hard Xbox fan but I'm not choosing any sides for this case. I am now neutral. I heard that PS3 has the Blu-ray disc capability... Is it worth it? I mean, how is it any better then 1080i high-definition? That's all my television supports up to! Also, I heard the Xbox 360 DVD drive add-on provides 1080i. Isn't that just as good? If Blu-ray is better in some way, why doesn't Microsoft release an external Blu-ray DVD drive like they released the external high-definition DVD drive? Can you just rip the Xbox 360 apart and manually install the Blu-ray DVD drive? Hey, I'm a former modder! Please replies before I kill my Xbox 360.

[getlowdogg369]

I've got an article directly off the Xbox website and inserted it into a Microsoft Word documentation. I've highlighted all the things I thought might be important to you... I'm pretty much going with the Xbox 360!

[shido]

Originally Posted by getlowdogg369

Ok, I am a die hard Xbox fan but I'm not choosing any sides for this case. I am now neutral. I heard that PS3 has the Blu-ray disc capability... Is it worth it? I mean, how is it any better then 1080i high-definition? That's all my television supports up to! Also, I heard the Xbox 360 DVD drive add-on provides 1080i. Isn't that just as good? If Blu-ray is better in some way, why doesn't Microsoft release an external Blu-ray DVD drive like they released the external high-definition DVD drive? Can you just rip the Xbox 360 apart and manually install the Blu-ray DVD drive? Hey, I'm a former modder! Please replies before I kill my Xbox 360.

Honestly, that question depends on your preference of games. If you like games like Halo or Gears of War, then obviously the Xbox 360 is your best choice. If you like Japanese RPGs and titles such as Devil May Cry, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, or Final Fantasy (not the online one), then you'd probably like the PS3 better. Can't comment on online functionality just yet, as the Playstation network is still largely untested.

If you're really serious about the HD movie thing, I'd honestly say you'd be better off with Blu-ray on the PS3. Simply because it decodes the advanced audio codecs and can output in HDMI. The HDMI is important for future-proofing purposes - if ICT happens to be enabled on future releases, HDMI will allow you to view them in HD, while component output will be limited to 540p if I'm not mistaken. Of course, if your tv doesn't support HDMI, then you'd be out of luck regardless, but if you go the PS3 route, you'd only have to replace the tv, instead of having to replace both the add-on and the tv as you would if you went the Xbox 360 route. As for Microsoft releasing a Blu-ray drive in the future... I think that will only happen if HD-DVD is completely killed off by Blu-ray. Blu-ray does have an advantage in terms of movie studio and hardware manufacturer support thus far, but with the amount of studios releasing on both formats, and Universal being the one major studio firmly in HD-DVD's corner, I don't see them being completely wiped out any time soon.

[56@Yamamoto]

Hello getlowdogg369, all of their claims in the document have been already outdated. But they have leave it only to insist.
If you bring yourself to try to examine them by yourself, you will notice that facts are different. Or if you try to ask about each of them on this forum, somebody will tell them you kindly.

It is your special privilege that think and judge. Good day.

[dobyblue]

The add-on for the 360 only has an optical out, so you're stuck with lossy DVD-Video quality audio; Dolby Digital and DTS at best.
You're missing out on Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, LPCM, DTS-HD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
I don't know about you, but having good audio is just as important as having good video, one is not complete without the other.
For movies if you want the full experience you go with the PS3 or if you want to experience HD DVD properly you go with a standalone Toshiba. The HD DVD add-on for the 360 is a poor way at best to enter the HD realm. You won't know what you're missing, but when you finally figure it out you'll wish you had put that $199 towards a real HD (HD DVD or Blu-ray) player.
To top it off you can get 90% of all movies ever made with Blu-ray, you can only get about 25% with HD DVD.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by getlowdogg369

I've got an article directly off the Xbox website and inserted it into a Microsoft Word documentation. I've highlighted all the things I thought might be important to you... I'm pretty much going with the Xbox 360!

Well you highlighted this:

The first to market was HD-DVD and the second (indeed already out in Japan) is Blu-Ray. After two years of deliberation, Microsoft made its choice and decided to back HD-DVD.

OK, we know that. But even this, Blu-ray still have way more support.

In fact, with the Blu-Ray launch in Japan, the discs are being created at single-layer 25 Gigabyte capacity, which is half of the originally intended 50 gigabytes.

Old story. Per day only SONY is releasing 60 000 of its 50GB [DL] discs.
Panasonic will deliver 100GB discs soon.
TDK demoed 200GB prototype.
Blu-ray is bigger! It was ever bigger!

Because Blu-Ray discs are encoded near the very top layer of the disc with limited protection, the data is literally at higher risk to damage. Conversely, HD-DVD maintains physical protection similar to standard DVD.

Blu-ray now uses "Durabis_2" - this is the best protection. Its even more reliable than those protections used on DVDs and CDs.

Blu-Ray utilizes not one, but two different forms of Copy Protection, adding an extra layer of protection and complexity that just didn't appear necessary.

Just didn't appear necessary, but its just not a problem anyway... And studios like it, hackers dont fear it

Content providers (movie studios) for HD-DVD are nearly unanimously using the brand new VC1 compression technology, whereas Blu-Ray providers are sticking with the ten-year-old MPEG 2 compression that has been used on standard DVDs. With VC1, HD-DVDs are able to compress much higher quality video into a significantly smaller package.

Proven opposite. Blu-ray uses VC-1 now.

HD-DVDs are already available to manufacturer in both single and dual layer (15 GB and 30 GB respectively), whereas Blu-Ray has not yet made available its dual-layer disc.

Proven opposite. BD is 50GB and 100GB soon.

Mandatory for all HD-DVD players is a secondary video decoder (not available for Blu-Ray). This allows the disc to play separate video streams, which on its own completely changes the opportunities available for bonus features.

I cant say anything about this , but Blu-ray have also long list of cool features.

[JTK]

If you're not a PC gamer, you want to own both systems as a gamer.

If you're a PC gamer, as I am, the 360 is completely redundant. Pretty much all of those games will end up on the PC ultimately, and in better form to boot. Even the Halo games end up on the PC. I know Gears of War will. Anything from Bioware will. Fable, etc.

So, the 360 literally became the odd man out for me when the PS3 showed up and I traded it in towards the PS3.

[dobyblue]

Wow this article explains a lot of the rubbish I've been reading on Amazon.

[Maximus]

I know M$ spreads a lot of FUD but this is worse than anything I've seen yet. If Sony ever released anything like this all of the AVS'ers would be all over it in a second!

[getlowdogg369]

Originally Posted by Dave

Well you highlighted this:



OK, we know that. But even this, Blu-ray still have way more support.



Old story. Per day only SONY is releasing 60 000 of its 50GB [DL] discs.
Panasonic will deliver 100GB discs soon.
TDK demoed 200GB prototype.
Blu-ray is bigger! It was ever bigger!



Blu-ray now uses "Durabis_2" - this is the best protection. Its even more reliable than those protections used on DVDs and CDs.



Just didn't appear necessary, but its just not a problem anyway... And studios like it, hackers dont fear it



Proven opposite. Blu-ray uses VC-1 now.



Proven opposite. BD is 50GB and 100GB soon.



I cant say anything about this , but Blu-ray have also long list of cool features.

Thanks, that helped me allot! Can you pelase answer my one question?

Originally Posted by getlowdogg369

If Blu-ray is better in some way, why doesn't Microsoft release an external Blu-ray DVD drive like they released the external high-definition DVD drive? Can you just rip the Xbox 360 apart and manually install the Blu-ray DVD drive?

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

I know M$ spreads a lot of FUD but this is worse than anything I've seen yet. If Sony ever released anything like this all of the AVS'ers would be all over it in a second!

Anyone who knows MS's history at all over the past 20 years or so knows that FUD against their competitors is one of their trademark tactics.

Ask the folks at Novell right now about MS and FUD.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by getlowdogg369

Thanks, that helped me allot! Can you pelase answer my one question?

I doubt it. Though if/when BD does win the format war M$ could just release a BD external drive like the HD drive they released.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by JTK

Anyone who knows MS's history at all over the past 20 years or so knows that FUD against their competitors is one of their trademark tactics.

Ask the folks at Novell right now about MS and FUD.

Don't even get me started on M$'s oh so obvious way of trying to sue Open Source into submission, because they can't compete with the innovation of the Open source community .

It is Novell's fault for even entertaining a possible partnership with M$ though, i thought everyone in the world knew that they could not be trusted. The only thing that was holding M$ accountable was the EU courts and now it looks like they have been paid off like their American counterparts.

[Sc430man]

I currently have both systems. The PS3 is now in my theatre room with the 360 in the office connected to a smaller 30" LCD. I enjoy both sytems but am firm in my belief that Blu-Ray will prove victorious. Both will offer fantastic games that the other will not. Still, none equal my high end PC for gaming and never will on the same titles. To say one is better than the better is mute at this time. Both are excellent and both brings advantages to the table.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Sc430man

Still, none equal my high end PC for gaming and never will on the same titles.

I believe the PS3 is more powerful than ANY consumer computer. If that holds true, the games on the PS3 could (and should) bypass the gaming performance of a high end PC.

[Sc430man]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

I believe the PS3 is more powerful than ANY consumer computer. If that holds true, the games on the PS3 could (and should) bypass the gaming performance of a high end PC.

Nope. Not even close. Now it is better than MOST computers out there. But my PC is 8800GTX SLI, overclocked DC2 on a 30" Dell able to run just about any game at 2560x1600 with max shaders, soft shaders, 16x everything and still pulls in 40+ FPS with ease. The PS3 does not come close. The PS3 video card code named RSX is essentialy a 7800GTX. Keep in mind that the 7900gtx and now 8800gtx are on the market. The 8800GTX being DX10 capable and those games will comes in waves in 2007 starting with Halo 2. Of course I paid a bit more to build the PC vs the PS3 or 360.
Now the 360 has a very capable video card which is better then the PS3s. It is DX10 capable and equivalent to a R600 video card. Still not 8800GTX territory but very good otherwise. The problem with the 360 is that it is limited to 1080i resolutions vs the superior 1080p resolution of the PS3. The claim is that MS is working on 1080p support for the 360 to remain competitive with the PS3.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Sc430man

Nope. Not even close. Now it is better than MOST computers out there. But my PC is 8800GTX SLI, overclocked DC2 on a 30" Dell able to run just about any game at 2560x1600 with max shaders, soft shaders, 16x everything and still pulls in 40+ FPS with ease. The PS3 does not come close. The PS3 video card code named RSX is essentialy a 7800GTX. Keep in mind that the 7900gtx and now 8800gtx are on the market. The 8800GTX being DX10 capable and those games will comes in waves in 2007 starting with Halo 2. Of course I paid a bit more to build the PC vs the PS3 or 360.
Now the 360 has a very capable video card which is better then the PS3s. It is DX10 capable and equivalent to a R600 video card. Still not 8800GTX territory but very good otherwise. The problem with the 360 is that it is limited to 1080i resolutions vs the superior 1080p resolution of the PS3. The claim is that MS is working on 1080p support for the 360 to remain competitive with the PS3.

I thought today's processors only process in the GFLOP range according to current information. The PS3 is in the TFLOP range. That seems to be much better to me.

As far as graphics cards go, the video card in the Xbox 360 does not have the larger pipelines like the PS3 (twice the size of the Xbox 360's video card). The PS3's video card can process about the same amount of information as the 512MB video card in the 360 per second. The memory in the PS3 runs at a much faster rate than the Xbox 360 or any consumer PC (the PS3 memory runs at 3.2GHz). The PC can have high resolutions but what is higher resolution without more detail? PC games are not created at those resolutions so you don't really get anything extra at that scale (it's just upscaling like the 1080p patch for the Xbox 360).

[Sc430man]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

I thought today's processors only process in the GFLOP range according to current information. The PS3 is in the TFLOP range. That seems to be much better to me.

As far as graphics cards go, the video card memory in the Xbox 360 does not run anywhere near processor speeds like the one in the PS3 (3.2GHz). The PS3's video card can process a greater amount of information than the 512MB video card in the 360. The PC can have high resolutions but what is higher resolution without more detail? PC games are not created at those resolutions so you don't really get anything extra at that scale (it's just upscaling like the 1080p patch for the Xbox 360).

Not sure where you get your information, but you really need to check the sources as it is all wrong.

Where do you compare the memory speeds? What specs do you have or trying to use? Are you trying to discuss pipelines? Be specific because your comment on memory speeds is erroneous at best.

Now the 360 has more pipelines vs the 360, but the PS3 does have stronger pipelines so it is a wash with a slight advantage going to the PS3 in this area. But...the PS3 core cannot compete with the 360 in the image quality area. The only Nvidia product that could compete with ATI in terms of IQ is the 8800gtx-two leaps in front of the PS3. Plus there is the DX10 factor which the PS3 does not support. The 360 does and this is and will be a huge benefit for the 360. Plus the 360 supports HDR , the PS3 does not. This is significant as well. Have you seen CAD3 on the two systems? In fact just about every game I have compared the two systems on-the 360 had better graphics-mainly due to superior lighting effects. Only in NFS did the PS3 take the 360. Not knocking the PS3 as it is in it's retail infancy though they have been in developers hands for a year now. I am sure PS3 titles to comes will exploit some of the PS3's strengths. Taking it further-every game compared on my PC vs the two consoles was an easy winner for the PC.


The PS3 CPU-read CPU not GPU-runs at 3.2ghz. Granted there is more to a cpu's strengths than just clock speed, but based on some of the limited benchmarks available the PS3 at 3.2 is hardly faster than a PIII800 cpu! Now granted the PS'3 strength is in the STE's and the potential is high but efficiency level has yet to be proven other than some claims on the PS3 websites and IBM's marketing. Fact is any console/PC is limited by it's GPU. In fact a few sources have already explained how the Cell processor in the PS3 is not the best choice for gaming even with the limited linear STE's to support it.


Also on your comment on PC games and lack of detail: This is up to the programming team. Has nothing to do with hardware and PC games have an extensive amount of detail in them. Not sure what games you have played on the PC-perhaps you can enlighten us keeping in mind that I have/had owned most of them and the same for the other consoles to compare to when available. This does not even touch on the fact that keyboard and mouse are far superior to any console controls ,especially in FPS games. You just cannot compete with a mouse with a stick.

I would highly recommend you stop using Google and compare the 3 side by side before placing judgment using paper comparisons. I have all 3 and have done my comparisons. Hands down-PC. With ease. No comparison. Not close. Now for the 360 vs PS3 debate based on my experience, for audio-PS3, graphics-360. Both again are great systems and any serious gamer would buy both.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

I edited my statement about the 3.2GHz video memory long before you finished your response (I had a couple of points to make and mixed the two).

Could you enlighten me on how you did a fair comparison between all 3 units (PS3, Xbox 360, and PC)?

Granted there is more to a cpu's strengths than just clock speed, but based on some of the limited benchmarks available the PS3 at 3.2 is hardly faster than a PIII800 cpu!

You should know better than this. One 3.2GHz processor is more powerful than a 800MHz processor. The PS3 has 8. The Floating Point Calculations are above 2 TFLOPs! Can you show me a 800MHz processor/computer that can do 2+ TFLOPs? That should have automatically raised a flag in your head while typing that statement.

Some of the high end PCs have some difficultly playing back Blu-ray and HD-DVD content (remember the laptop tests). The PS3 and still decode ALL the frames of the movie and decode ALL the audio at 1.5x normal speed! That is a TRUE testiment to the PS3's power. Remember the PS3 was originally built to decode and output 2 1080p video streams! All that processing power is still there. Sony just took away the extra HDMI interface and dialed back the video card's ability to save on costs.

By the way, in your comparison, did you try Fight Night Round 3 on both units. The game play is smoother and more natural in movement on the PS3. There is sweat on the backs of the fighters and the sweat is more dynamic when the fighter is hit on the PS3 version. Maybe you just didn't get around to that one just yet.

The fact is computers can not reproduce the physics that a PS3 can because it is not in the supercomputer range yet. That many calculations per second takes many processors working in tandem and Sony knew that. That is why a PC game can not have as many things going on at the same time to give you a richer gaming experience (just like the Xbox 360).

[Blackraven]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

You should know better than this. One 3.2GHz processor is more powerful than a 800MHz processor. The PS3 has 8. The Floating Point Calculations are above 2 TFLOPs! Can you show me a 800MHz processor/computer that can do 2+ TFLOPs? That should have automatically raised a flag in your head while typing that statement.

Unfortunately, it only uses 7 out of the 8 SPEs available. 6 SPEs are used for the PS3 with the 7th SPE used for OS Security. So technically, it has 7 "processors" in use instead of the total of 8 for the first-gen Cell processors.

They omitted the 8th one to improve yields in production.

Who knows though as to whether the 8th core can be activated by Sony or not. It is certain though that later generations of Cell processors will AT LEAST 10 OR MORE processors instead of the current 8 or so.

In terms of graphics, I'd say they iron out as both NVIDIA RSX (7800 GTX-based) and ATI's Xenos as both on the same caliber so far (as both are are not yet maxed out to full potential).

As for CPU, both are 3.2 Ghz so a noob like me can't differentiate. As a tech-geek or a computer expert as to which is better.

As for RAM, 256 MB XDR RAM tends to be for specific purposes while the 512 DDR RAM of the Xbox is for general purpose. Don't ask me though as to which one is better.

For Physics, if Sony still has a deal with Ageia, then PS3 WILL WIN in physics over the competition no doubt.

But however, in terms of drive speed, the 12x Xbox 360 DVD drive beats the 2x BD-ROM drive of the PS3 second to none. This is going to beat a weak point for loading times UNLESS you save cache to the hard drive. Remember that it needed to have 4x speed drive to equal the DVD drive of the Xbox and AT LEAST 6x speed Blu-ray drive to beat the Xbox 360 optical drive. Unfortunately, my predictions were downturned when Sony released a slower drive.

What does this mean? Simple
Until the day when developers start tapping the power of Cell, then the loading times will be slower compared to the Xbox 360. For now (and this applies especially to first gen games till the end of this year), install a cache file to the Hard Drive.

That's a primary reason why Sony included the HDD as a standard feature across the board, to give you the option to decrease the load times of first-gen games by around 50%.

Currently, Ridge Racer 7 loads around 20 seconds (like when selecting Highland Cliffs). That's too long so what I would prefer to do is to go to "Options" then select "Install" and select "Install" again. Wait for 5 seconds and the entire cache file will be saved to the hard drive.

This should save you around 10 seconds everytime you load a map in the game (especially Highland Cliffs).