DescentBB

Prediction for next generation consoles:

"PS3 will provide graphics indistinguishable from movies," said Mr Florin.

Indistinguishable? Even though I'm confident that we'll see some amazing things from both the next generation Xbox's and Playstations, I think that statement is more hype than anything. As a matter of fact, Sony has a history of that when it comes to touting their console's power and then not living up to that hype.

Indistinguishable from Pixar movies maybe...

ill say its true when i can see it with my owne eyes

Will Robinson wrote:Indistinguishable from Pixar movies maybe...

Well, the old ones like Toy-Story maybe. I really doubt they wil have any of the fluid dynamics that Finding Nemo or The Incredibles has.

I've not seen the graphics on ps2 yet!!! Think i'm lagging behind a bit?

x2 (seems a lot of that going on lately)

I think it'll be close but graphics in cinema is always changing and always getting better. Even though games gradually get better for each new console as they progress they eventually hit a wall.

Movies aren't limited to the same hardware as console games are.

woodchip wrote:Prediction for next generation consoles:

"PS3 will provide graphics indistinguishable from movies," said Mr Florin.

I think they said that about the PS2 as well.
CG sequences may be indistinquishable, but not actual gameplay.

well, with the kind of power they're talking about, I'm tempted to beleive them
http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell0.html
equivalent of 20 Opteron processors.

Heh, they are attacking the PC the same way so many others have tried before and failed. The PC wins the fight because it runs everything, this will make a good console but it won't beat out a PC unless it can replace absolutely everything a PC can do and can keep up with PC development.

yea

I seem to remember back when the ATI 9700 was first coming out (3-4 years ago?)that with the new DX9, games would be photo-realistic. So far I haven't seen any of that yet. The big hype was half life and how the characters would look almost human. I'm still waiting.

I find HL2's actors very realistic, especially the facial animations.

the PS3's graphics will be indestinguishable from your PC's graphics .

Krom wrote:Heh, they are attacking the PC the same way so many others have tried before and failed. The PC wins the fight because it runs everything, this will make a good console but it won't beat out a PC unless it can replace absolutely everything a PC can do and can keep up with PC development.

True. But from what I've heard the Cell processor would be fast enough to emulate PC software without a reduction in performance; in addition, PC CPU development has just hit a roadblock. The scene has been practically static as of late, although hopefully the dual-core thing will change that.

Nonetheless, with near supercomputer-level computing power, fluid dynamics would be very easily within the realms of possibility of this thing.

I'm not sure I'd tout it as a 'PC-killer' either though... I just wouldn't be surprised if the PC starts using the same technology.

If it is worthwhile technology, it will be assimilated, that is the other reason you can't beat the PC.

Once consoles become more like PCs in the Online market, including HDs for patches and such I think as far as games are concerned, the PC might have some probelms there as for the most part consoles don't need new hardware to run games.

That is still probably a long way off but already some online console titles have been a big success. You can't deny that further refinements on online console gaming and titles playable online will become the future of console gaming.

Theres rumors spreading of the Cell architechture ousting x86 within the next few years. Scary.

That's stupid. I'm not sure if they meant it would be as good as CG, or as lifelike as movies in general, but it's total hype on both counts. Couple of things: when ILM renders say a CG yoda, it takes a loooooooong time even for just one frame. They have render farms (tons of computers) to render these frames, so its absurd for Sony to claim they can match this quality in REAL TIME.

Reminds me of nVidia's launch of the FX line. Cinematic graphics must be the latest buzz words.

I've seen a couple of the screenshots for PS3 games that are in the works (only 2 have been released, one of a very real-looking car, another of a football player being tackled, and you can see the expression on his face. But even seeing those pictures, the game designers (and possibly the president of the PS3 division) don't believe the graphics will be like that all the time. The bigwig the magazine I was interviewing even said so himself. Basically, they are saying that the PS3 will be CAPABLE of rendering CGI movies that are even better than the abilities of the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie were supposed to be (though the movie WAS nearly indistinguishable from real characters, it just wasn't quite right). It could also be possible that in things like the Madden games, when you go to instant replay, the imaging will somehow be in a better resolution than the play itself occurring. But like BigSlide said, with these advancements, that just means that it will take longer for the games to be made, and a near-guarantee for the manufacture that spends that much time on it that they're going to get a massive load of cash off of the game. I *would* love to see what Namco will be able to do with the Xenosaga franchise when it hits PS3, as I'm sure Episode 4 will be coming out some time in the PS3 cycle. Also, they are saying that the PS3, when released, will probably run around $500 (or, they could just do what they are doing with the PSP, and selling it for really cheap ($200 compared to the cost of making it being like $400) and hoping they make up their profits in the software/video games they sell.

Stupid wrote:(or, they could just do what they are doing with the PSP, and selling it for really cheap ($200 compared to the cost of making it being like $400) and hoping they make up their profits in the software/video games they sell.

That didn't exactly work for Microsoft (they take about a $100 hit on every Xbox they sell).

PS3 has got a lot of hype, but it's all about the gameplay, not eye candy.

haha, so jmeat, in otherwords it will be great - but this will have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CONSOLE.
brilliant

BigSlideHimself wrote:That's stupid. I'm not sure if they meant it would be as good as CG, or as lifelike as movies in general, but it's total hype on both counts. Couple of things: when ILM renders say a CG yoda, it takes a loooooooong time even for just one frame. They have render farms (tons of computers) to render these frames, so its absurd for Sony to claim they can match this quality in REAL TIME.

ILM doesn't have this technology.

When the processor is done, we'll see what really happens. And no, it isn't better for everything. But it is designed for this sort of use, thus it could well be a lot faster. Real-time? I doubt it; at least not for quite some time yet. But it could push the boundaries of what you can realistically do in movie CG and make it a lot faster to render.

Now there is one other thing. Even if this technology is every bit as powerful as the best predictions make it out to be, we're not getting cinematic-quality graphics in games from the console; at least not for a fair while after it's released. Why? Because of art direction basically; that amount of detail takes inordinately long to get right.

It'll make stuff a lot better, yes, and ray-traced lighting may finally become possible. But one can't ask for perfection so soon.

Frankly, as long as the graphics are noticeably better than whats around on consoles today I'll be happy with it cause as J said, it's all about the games & gameplay.

DCrazy wrote:That didn't exactly work for Microsoft (they take about a $100 hit on every Xbox they sell).

I would beg to differ. I don't have the numbers, but Microsoft is a business and they wouldn't continue a line if it didn't have some profitable outcome. It may be they lost money on the X-Box (but I doubt it), but in the end they're gaining more market share.

Microsoft takes a hit for every X-Box console they sell, but they make it back in the games.

Krommy is exactly right. The X-box is whats known as a loss leader. MS takes a hit on the machine but then every X-box causes the owner to go out and buy how many games? Then there are the internet on line gaming fees.
I'll let you bright math majors figure out the net profit on average MS makes one game machine.

You don't even need any real mathematical skill for it... just the statistics... i.e. how many games people buy, mean prices, etc.

I'm not sure why you guys are talking about the cell processor, when ps3's graphics will be provided by something akin to the latest geforce gpus.

also those bs screenshots from ea are just renders and have no solid connection to ps3 graphics...hell dev kits havnt even been sent out(maybe slightly old news but this was true a month ago).

its all about e3 this year, with all three consoles on display. im pretty excited about these nextgen consoles...heck it might be the first time i buy a console at release.

I noticed that - the Cell processor isn't doing graphics...

Might be doing physics though.