Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent Comments by Tom Bramwell

And WHY OH WHY EG did you give this an 8? GamesTM gave the 360 version a 7 and even that was them being generous.

Is there anyone left to trust with reviews nowadays?

Anyone still interested in one of the most soulless franchises?

"To be fair mate, Ninja Gaiden has always looked good and if you compare the age old Xbox1 game with the PS3 update, you'll find the difference is a bit shameful.

PS3 screens Xbox1 screens

Not a hell of a difference at all ..."

There's not a lot of previewers agreeing with you on that one... But the art direction of NG was always terrible and no amount of pixels is gonna change that.

""The real battles between different gaming platforms will be fought with exclusive games"

I would have agreed with you last gen but with a larger number of so called 'exclusives' becoming multi-plat this gen I'm not sure if you're right. I mean If these shoddy PS3 ports continue, will I really still buy a PS3 just for say FFXIII (if that stays exclusive, which I doubt) even though 90% of the PS3's titles are available on the 360 and are marginally better? Not so sure tbh... "

Uhmm, he mentions exclusives and then you start about multiplatform games? There will be less, I agree but that's kind of besides the point... More than ever, exclusives will show the strengths of the respective platforms as they all have radically different hardware capabilities this time around, far more differentiated than last gen.

More than ever, exclusives will show the strengths of the respective platforms as they all have radically different hardware capabilities this time around, far more differentiated than last gen.

I actually think the exact opposite. They are technically different but so powerful that I cannot think of something that extraordinary the other console cannot come up with too in one or another way. The difference was enormous in the former generations - one console mode 7 and the other not. Then CD medium vs cartridges. After that came online. But now? When it comes to 360 vs PS3 both are online, both are very powerful and what any of the two can do better the other one can possibly do the same; Maybe a bit limited but there is nothing that one console can do that the other cannot.

Kato: Wrong again, the PS3 and 360 may have different hardware but the difference in their capabilities is not what I would consider "radical" at all. I won't bother going into detail as Der_tolle_Emil has already covered it for you.

I take it you're a skilled coder who has explored the possibilities of both consoles to the extreme, hence knowing what their true capabilities are. I also understand you are able to show me some concrete evidence that backs these claims.

Because in any other case I think you are just another fanboy who reads too much game news and thinks that quotes from random developers at such an early stage of both consoles lifecycle are something you can draw conclusions on. Even conclusions that would hold true for the next five years.

Now that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 specifications have been announced, it is possible to do a real world performance comparison of the two systems.

There are three critical performance aspects of a console:

* Central Processing Unit (CPU) performance.
* The Xbox 360 CPU architecture has three times the general purpose processing power of the Cell.
* Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) performance
* The Xbox 360 GPU design is more flexible and it has more processing power than the PS3 GPU.
* Memory System Bandwidth
* The memory system bandwidth in Xbox 360 exceeds the PS3's by five times.
RSX GPU

* 550 MHz
* Independent vertex/pixel shaders
* 51 billion dot products per second (total system performance)
* 300M transistors
* 136 "shader operations" per clock

The interesting ALU performance numbers are 51 billion dot products per second (total system performance), 300M transistors, and more than twice as powerful as the 6800 Ultra.

The 51 billions dot products per cycle were listed on a summary slide of total graphics system performance and are assumed to include the Cell processor. Sony's calculations seem to assume that the Cell can do a dot product per cycle per DSP, despite not having a dot product instruction.

However, using Sony's claim, 7 dot products per cycle * 3.2 GHz = 22.4 billion dot products per second for the CPU. That leaves 51 - 22.4 = 28.6 billion dot products per second that are left over for the GPU. That leaves 28.6 billion dot products per second / 550 MHz = 52 GPU ALU ops per clock.

It is important to note that if the RSX ALUs are similar to the GeForce 6800 ALUs then they work on vector4s, while the Xbox 360 GPU ALUs work on vector5s. The total programmable GPU floating point performance for the PS3 would be 52 ALU ops * 4 floats per op *2 (madd) * 550 MHz = 228.8 GFLOPS which is less than the Xbox 360's 48 ALU ops * 5 floats per op * 2 (madd) * 500 MHz= 240 GFLOPS.

With the number of transistors being slightly larger on the Xbox 360 GPU (330M) it's not surprising that the total programmable GFLOPs number is very close.


The PS3 does have the additional 7 DSPs on the Cell to add more floating point ops for graphics rendering, but the Xbox 360's three general purpose cores with custom D3D and dot product instructions are more customized for true graphics related calculations.

The 6800 Ultra has 16 pixel pipes, 6 vertex pipes, and runs at 400 MHz. Given the RSX's 2x better than a 6800 Ultra number and the higher frequency of the RSX, one can roughly estimate that it will have 24 pixel shading pipes and 4 vertex shading pipes (fewer vertex shading pipes since the Cell DSPs will do some vertex shading). If the PS3 GPU keeps the 6800 pixel shader pipe co-issue architecture which is hinted at in Sony's press release, this again gives it 24 pixel pipes* 2 issued per pipe + 4 vertex pipes = 52 dot products per clock in the GPU.

If the RSX follows the 6800 Ultra route, it will have 24 texture samplers, but when in use they take up an ALU slot, making the PS3 GPU in practice even less impressive. Even if it does manage to decouple texture fetching from ALU co-issue, it won't have enough bandwidth to fetch the textures anyways.

For shader operations per clock, Sony is most likely counting each pixel pipe as four ALU operations (co-issued vector+scalar) and a texture operation per pixel pipe and 4 scalar operations for each vector pipe, for a total of 24 * (4 + 1) + (4*4) = 136 operations per cycle or 136 * 550 = 74.8 GOps per second.

Given the Xbox 360 GPU's multithreading and balanced design, you really can't compare the two systems in terms of shading operations per clock. However, the Xbox 360's GPU can do 48 ALU operations (each can do a vector4 and scalar op per clock), 16 texture fetches, 32 control flow operations, and 16 programmable vertex fetch operations with tessellation per clock for a total of 48*2 + 16 + 32 + 16 = 160 operations per cycle or 160 * 500 = 80 GOps per second.


CPU
The Xbox 360 processor was designed to give game developers the power that they actually need, in an easy to use form. The Cell processor has impressive streaming floating-point power that is of limited use for games.

The majority of game code is a mixture of integer, floating-point, and vector math, with lots of branches and random memory accesses. This code is best handled by a general purpose CPU with a cache, branch predictor, and vector unit.

The Cell's seven DSPs (what Sony calls SPEs) have no cache, no direct access to memory, no branch predictor, and a different instruction set from the PS3's main CPU. They are not designed for or efficient at general purpose computing. DSPs are not appropriate for game programming.

Xbox 360 has three general purpose CPU cores. The Cell processor has only one.

Xbox 360's CPUs has vector processing power on each CPU core. Each Xbox 360 core has 128 vector registers per hardware thread, with a dot product instruction, and a shared 1-MB L2 cache. The Cell processor's vector processing power is mostly on the seven DSPs.

Dot products are critical to games because they are used in 3D math to calculate vector lengths, projections, transformations, and more. The Xbox 360 CPU has a dot product instruction, where other CPUs such as Cell must emulate dot product using multiple instructions.

Cell's streaming floating-point work is done on its seven DSP processors. Since geometry processing is moved to the GPU, the need for streaming floating-point work and other DSP style programming in games has dropped dramatically.

Just like with the PS2's Emotion Engine, with its missing L2 cache, the Cell is designed for a type of game programming that accounts for a minor percentage of processing time.

Sony's CPU is ideal for an environment where 12.5% of the work is general-purpose computing and 87.5% of the work is DSP calculations. That sort of mix makes sense for video playback or networked waveform analysis, but not for games. In fact, when analyzing real games one finds almost the opposite distribution of general purpose computing and DSP calculation requirements. A relatively small percentage of instructions are actually floating point. Of those instructions which are floating-point, very few involve processing continuous streams of numbers. Instead they are used in tasks like AI and path-finding, which require random access to memory and frequent branches, which the DSPs are ill-suited to.

Based on measurements of running next generation games, only ~10-30% of the instructions executed are floating point. The remainders of the instructions are load, store, integer, branch, etc. Even fewer of the instructions executed are streaming floating point—probably ~5-10%. Cell is optimized for streaming floating-point, with 87.5% of its cores good for streaming floating-point and nothing else

Bandwidth
The PS3 has 22.4 GB/s of GDDR3 bandwidth and 25.6 GB/s of RDRAM bandwidth for a total system bandwidth of 48 GB/s.

The Xbox 360 has 22.4 GB/s of GDDR3 bandwidth and a 256 GB/s of EDRAM bandwidth for a total of 278.4 GB/s total system bandwidth.


Why does the Xbox 360 have such an extreme amount of bandwidth? Even the simplest calculations show that a large amount of bandwidth is consumed by the frame buffer. For example, with simple color rendering and Z testing at 550 MHz the frame buffer alone requires 52.8 GB/s at 8 pixels per clock. The PS3's memory bandwidth is insufficient to maintain its GPU's peak rendering speed, even without texture and vertex fetches.

The PS3 uses Z and color compression to try to compensate for the lack of memory bandwidth. The problem with Z and color compression is that the compression breaks down quickly when rendering complex next-generation 3D scenes.

HDR, alpha-blending, and anti-aliasing require even more memory bandwidth. This is why Xbox 360 has 256 GB/s bandwidth reserved just for the frame buffer. This allows the Xbox 360 GPU to do Z testing, HDR, and alpha blended color rendering with 4X MSAA at full rate and still have the entire main bus bandwidth of 22.4 GB/s left over for textures and vertices.

CONCLUSION
When you break down the numbers, Xbox 360 has provably more performance than PS3. Keep in mind that Sony has a track record of over promising and under delivering on technical performance. The truth is that both systems pack a lot of power for high definition games and entertainment.

However, hardware performance, while important, is only a third of the puzzle. Xbox 360 is a fusion of hardware, software and services. Without the software and services to power it, even the most powerful hardware becomes inconsequential. Xbox 360 games—by leveraging cutting-edge hardware, software, and services—will outperform the PlayStation 3.
Lastly, we were sent updated spec numbers on the Xbox's numbers, and we spoke with Microsoft's Vice President of hardware, Todd Holmdahl, about the Xbox 360's final transistor count.

Another bit of information sent our way is the final transistor count for Xbox 360's graphics subset. The GPU totals 332 million transistors, which is spit between the two separate dies that make up the part. The parent die is the "main" piece of the GPU, handling the large bulk of the graphics rendering, and is comprised of 232 million transistors. The daughter die contains the system's 10MB of embedded DRAM and its logic chip, which is capable of some additional 3D math. The daughter die totals an even 100 million transistors, bringing the total transistor count for the GPU to 232 million.

@ TRUTH

This nonsense was tiring a year ago, right now it's kind of sad. I'm very sorry you're so insecure about the capabilities of your precious 360 that you feel the need to revert to this kind of worthless display of its potential power. I advise you to go play some games instead of cut and paste bullshit from one site to the next.

@Kato

There’s little use in comparing stills. If you don’t mind I’d rather listen to people who’ve actually seen the game in motion.

As for the art direction, that remains a matter of taste, I agree. Personally, I don’t think anything created by Team Ninja is beautiful.

“I won't bother going into detail as Der_tolle_Emil has already covered it for you.”

I don’t agree on that one at all. The CPUs of PS3 and 360 are very different, much more than the CPUs of xbox and PS2, let alone the Wii. The 360 uses a more traditional multi-core processor while the Cell has a radically different design (with all its pro’s and cons). Code optimized for the one will yield terrible results on the other or will simply not work. The different powers of these two consoles don’t necessarily have to translate in graphical quality differences (not important at all in my book but easiest to spot and therefore unfortunately the focus of most discussions) but if both consoles’ strengths are properly tapped, I expect to see differences in gameplay.

Of course, in the end it’s up to the developers to make the most of the architectures and that will probably take a while, especially in the case of PS3 and Wii. So, as it’s the most traditional, most multiplatform games will probably be based around the 360. But I’d be surprised if a year from now, we’ll still be regularly seeing poor ports like the Double Agent one. Like Der_tolle_Emil said, there’s enough processing power to compensate for it.

But the platform exclusives (Mario Galaxies, Alan Wake's, Halo's, LittleBigPlanet's, Gran Turismo's, Ratchet's, etc.) will be the games to show the respective platform's powers and those will probably be the ones that will prove decisive when making the buy decision.

Like to point out i actually own a 360 and PS3(my brothers), and like to compare the system due to constant bull Sony keep telling everyone. Remember Sony's two main launch titles: Motor Storm & Resistance had been in development for 2yrs, with access to Sony's development tools. The PS3 is in fact almost the same age as 360. The PS3 development has had extra time to get the most out of the system thanks to manufacturing delays for bluray parts - this delaying it in retail - NOT game development. Actually the the delay gave them an extra 1yr+ of time to get more out the system. You can keep saying the system is just released and unable to show it's potential; but, the truth is it has had a longer development time to show the it's so call 400x more powerful then PS 2. Hasn't delivered as yet - but Motor Storm had 2 yrs development time - good but not amazing!

Like to point out i actually own a 360 and PS3(my brothers), and like to compare the system due to constant bull Sony keep telling everyone. Remember Sony's two main launch titles: Motor Storm & Resistance had been in development for 2yrs, with access to Sony's development tools. The PS3 is in fact almost the same age as 360. The PS3 development has had extra time to get the most out of the system thanks to manufacturing delays for bluray parts - this delaying it in retail - NOT game development. Actually the the delay gave them an extra 1yr+ of time to get more out the system. You can keep saying the system is just released and unable to show it's potential; but the truth is, it has had a longer development time to show it's so call 400x more powerful then PS 2 (claimed by Sony). Hasn't delivered as yet - but Motor Storm had 2 yrs development time - good but not amazing!

Oh! wasn't it Sony who keep boasting there systems are so powerful. Sony also got shamed at Japans electronics 2006 show, claiming Lcds were better then plasma and the best for HD, untill Pionner, Panasonic, Phillips proved them sooooooo wrong - classic Sony hype/lies.

@ Kato

“I didn't compare screens to imply that the PS3 game will be crap, rather to show that NG has always been visually impressive and that at a glance the Xbox1 screenies held up disturbingly well against the new version. Remember we're talking about Xbox1 not the 360, so I just expected to see instant and vast improvement visually on the PS3 screens...but I didn't.”

I repeat: It’s no use to look at stills. But if it makes you happy, please continue to do so.

“No, seriously, what differences do you expect to see? Exactly what is it you believe the PS3 can do that you believe the 360 cannot or visa versa?”

If the CPU architectures are radically different, they’ll each have their own strengths and weaknesses. If developers start to exploit those, rather than putting all their effort in trying to replicate what they created on the one on the other, I think we will be pleasantly surprised. Just look at LittleBigPlanet for example.

It’s very clear that Wii and PS3 ask more from developers than 360 does, as they stray more from the beaten path of game development. At first that will be daunting, but they might open up roads to things previously inconceivable. In the end, it’ll all be up to developer creativity (so don't expect too much from Ubi and EA).

@ Xiphos

Your logic is as broken as your style. It's stupid to buy a PS3 (or any console for that matter) right now if all you want to use if for is play FF XIII or any other not yet released title. But a console is an investment: costs now, benefits spread out in the future. So the potential should always factor in your buy decision.

TRUTH seems to think that only PS3 launch titles were in development for 2 years. That's not a Sony exclusive. You can bet your sweet beehive that MS exclusive launch titles on X360 were in development for 2 years or more.

This is a tiresome subject no matter how you look at it. Even if I were a stupid fanboy I'd rather concentrate on the games than just technical data, but that's just because I am a gamer first, (alleged) fanboy second.

The reason I'm not convinced by Sony is due to there constant bull and hype...having both systems, i can see PS3 is not the tech marvel it was hyped to be. Yes! it's early days, or is it ? Like i mentioned before the system is approx the same age as 360 (PS3 delay to manufacturing); but developers had more time to understand the system due to the delay...360 is doing every thing better - esp in games. Nothing on PS3, can match, out do any 1st or 2nd gen 360 titles; Though (PS3) they had more development time!.

Sony's own games 2ys development which was built on SONY'S own development software and assistance: RESISTANCE TO MAN, MOTOR STORM, show the PS3 cell at work - now compare this to the rush work of Kameo (from N64, Gamecube, Xbox 1 then finally hitting 360), PGR 3 (also rushed for release of 360), Dead Or Alive 4, all these had less production time then 2ys sony's titles had, yet still they hold up to Sony's efforts. With many multi format games playing, looking better then PS3 versions - which again had extra time for development.

XBOX 1 debut showed it was a better machine in graphics, game play then PS2 with games like: Halo, Jet Set Radio Future, Dead Or Alive, Rally Champ, and many multiformat games looked, played better then PS2 - which had plenty of extra development time for games.

TRUTH, do you actually believe the nonsense you write yourself?! It's all bullshit and you should know that if you steer away from xbot fansites and do some proper research.

You're either part of MS's viral marketing campaign (but not really doing a good job IMO but maybe that's part of the act), really crazy or a big MS fanboy (which is kind of crazy as well, like any fanboyism is). Either way, your posts make no sense, won't convince anyone and are therefore a bit pointless.

@ Kato

If you find it so boring, please shut up then. Nice of you to try and drag this into a fanboy argument like you always do. The only one blinkered here is you: ever occurred to you that maybe I only respond to your statements that I don't agree with? Not all you write is rubbish, though sadly tainted by that ever present fanboyism.

I don't care if you think i'm a fanboy or not!...i've owned many consoles on each generation (even the 3do & Jaguar), the price of Sony console in which the games should actually play better, look better, have more options - don't, even though they they had more development time. The game's at present are struggling to improve on a system Sony claim (again!) is so much more powerful - WRONG!...Read 'TRUTH12-Apr-07 17:58:43' (above) and you see why Sony's machine will be difficult and not as flexible as 360.

The fact is Sony's claim is looking weaker & weaker on each release: Call Of Duty 3, Splinter Cell, Madden 07, Tony Hawks, NBA Homecourt, Need For Speed,
Ridge Racer: http://www.destructoid.com/ridge-racer-6...

Even those games which have had some improvement eg: Fight Night 3 - have also had detail removed: blur effects, less detail in background, lighting, less crowed in background, odd frame rate stutter etc.

So if i do make a negative mark about PS3 is not i'm a fanboy, it's my personal opinion, just like Sony keeps claiming about the PS3. I think for the price Sony are charging & for a games console they claiming to be the best, and those PS3 fans that it's should be able take criticism; Simply because nothing has proven
PS3 as a gaming machine is the best.

"So if i do make a negative mark about PS3 is not i'm a fanboy, it's my personal opinion"

A negative remark doesn't make you a fanboy, but constantly posting nonsense MS propaganda does. And that's precisely what you're doing (and if that’s your own opinion, it’s rather sad). You need to let go of the stupid people that do the PR for the console manufacturers and focus on the games instead. The current gen up till now is mightily disappointing, with not a single manufacturer having anything on the shelves that substantiates their claims of the greatness of their machines. Just this afternoon I walked into a game store, looked at what's on display and came to the sad conclusion that any gamer would come to: If you want to buy a console for the games, right now there’s nothing that beats the PS2.

I don't agree 'Les' but 360 has shown what next-gen can do: Elder Scrolls, Dead Rising, Gears Of War, Vina Patna, Lost Planet, Fight Night, Ghost Recon 2 (forget the 1st), Command & Conquer, F.E..A.R,...none can be achieved on PS2/XB 1, at next gen standard. Some games are now on PS3, but this year will have many titles that improve - evolve old formulas that just improve the gameplay. At moment PS3 may lack any true single exclusive title to jump to PS3, but i think the 360 has proved next - gen can put a variety of everything and more for gaming...Oh! i do have a PS2, which i still enjoy esp God Of War II.

"I don't agree 'Les' but 360 has shown what next-gen can do: Elder Scrolls, Dead Rising, Gears Of War, Vina Patna, Lost Planet, Fight Night, Ghost Recon 2 (forget the 1st), Command & Conquer, F.E..A.R,...none can be achieved on PS2/XB 1, at next gen standard."

If you mean with 'next gen' standard 'more pixels' I have to agree with you. Otherwise it's as poor a generational shift as I've ever seen. None of those games use the 'next gen' power for anything relevant to gameplay. They're all the same old tired formula's as on PS2/Xbox/GC/PC that we've seen for years now. And I partly blame this on the 'no risk' design of the 360: It's only a small evolution on the original xbox. While this may be great for developers/publishers that don't have to alter the way they create games, I think it's terrible for creativity and in the end for us gamers. This generation was started before it was ready and as a result it's a lost one unfortunately. Maybe some good things will come from the Wii.

LES...i can't see what you really expect from a next-gen system. Games like Elder Scrolls, Dead Rising, do add a next gen feel that only expensive PC could run. Also all previous gen system have always just improved formulas to previous game play from 8bit, to 16bit, to 32bit era, uptill now...Games like Gears Of War may have added 'pixel rate'; but it runs smooth, the A.i is good customed right for the game, the sound effects,atmosphere, etc...all add to the game. There is nothing wrong with improving formulas; Would you rather play Call Of Duty 1 or 3, Burnout 1 or 5, add graphics, sound, A.I, atmosphere to the formulas of game is a good thing. Take typical Fps: shoot - move - shoot; but look what extra console power has bought: Halo, Metroid (Gamecube), F.E.A.R, Call Of Duty 3, Deus Ex etc...all have have just evolved game ideas and use the power available to them with each generation system. With Bioshock, Too Human, Mass Effects, Alan Wake, all coming this year I'm sure though they use ideas from yesteryear, they still add alot more to gaming then could never be achieved on last PS2/XB1 systems. Look at the new Forza 2 coming for 360 - may be just a driving game; but! running at 60fps, beautiful realistic graphics, vastly improve A.I, millions of car options, online trading and racing, great new physics on cars, more tracks, more, more more etc...This is another example haw each gen can just improve not only in graphics. The games listed before, for me, are games only for 'next-gen' systems, simply because games like these would have to be vastly edited down to be played on PS2 or XB1. Though some games are just a evolution of previous titles: Ikari Warriors, Mercs, Commando 'is now' Lost Planet, Dungeons & Dragons 'is now' Elder Scrolls, Doom 'is now' Halo, Metroid, The Darkness etc...it always give a better, experience: Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Resident Evil, MGS( though i think there overrated) - ave just improved formulas due to each generations power.

I don't avoid any questions/remarks. But, like in any debate, I sure as hell am not obliged to react to each and every silly fanboy argument of yours. So please, come up with some good arguments, founded in logic and I'll argue with you, or if they're sound, agree with you.

Wow, I can't count the times you use the word 'tiresome'... But apparently, you're still enjoying yourself our you'd shut up. :-)

There's no contradiction: Ignoring and avoiding are different things. 'Avoiding' would mean I'd deliberately pay no attention to a good remark/question of your side, just to make my arguments look better (which of course wouldn't work on anyone with proper intelligence but it's something often used on this site as is clever use of words and trying to make people convice they said things they didn't). But ignoring a stupid remark or question is the proper thing to do in any debate: you don't waste your own time or that of onlookers.

It seems the one needing to explain things is me...