Kevin Spiess - Thursday, July 30th, 2009 | 10:17AM (PT)
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PC version potentially tops, of course
While the game is not done yet, so far, legendary games graphics guru John Carmack has had a hard time getting the PS3 version of Rage to run as well as it does on the Xbox 360, and PC.
In a talk with Edge Magazine, Carmack said that the "PS3 lags a little bit behind in terms of getting the performance...the rasteriser is just a little bit slower - no two ways about that."
Unfortunately, the performance gulf between both console versions is right now, fairly massive. The Xbox 360 version is running at about twice the speed that the PS3 version is. The Xbox 360 version can maintain around gaming PC levels of performance, with 50 to 60 frames per second, while the PS3 manages to run only about 20 to 30 frames per second.
If there is anyone that knows game graphics it is John Carmack -- a virtual game engine wizard with many titles under his belt, probably best known for his innovations in the game Doom. You could actually hold Carmack personally responsible for launching the entire First Person Shooter category of games, as his vital, hands-on programming work were responsible for the forefathers of the genre, such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake.
"The RSX [PS3 graphics processor] is slower than what we have in the 360. The CPU is about the same, but the 360 makes it easier to split things off, and that's what a lot of the work has been, splitting it all into jobs on the PS3," Carmack went on to tell Edge Magazine.
The PS3 version will benefit however from the Blu-ray drive: the game will be able to fit on one disc. For the Xbox 360 and PC versions, it is looking like Rage will come on 4 DVDs -- frighteningly, this game will probably require over 30GB's of hard drive space to fully install on a PC.
Makes sense. They are trying to render a massive world on a system with an extremely fast and powerful CPU, but an extremely weak GPU and small amount of system ram. This has been the case for almost every multiplatform game this generation. You cannot design a game to its full potential on both systems, because they have such differences, especially the PS3, for which you have to specifically tailor your game for.
The potential for a game to run better and look better on the PS3 exists, but you cannot do that for the PS3, and for the 360, and get your game out in a decent amount of time.
Perhaps the developers of Rage have to learn more education from genius developers of God of War and Grans Turismo 5 how to utilise the PS3's full potential on the aforementioned game. The most important thing is it takes time to fully understand RSX and Cell engine and the most contradictory thing is developers do not have money or time to learn new techniques in developing new games.
Geez, I'd love to see that big big game on one Blu-ray disc, otherwise, 4 DVDs for one game is really astounding, you need good housekeeping skills to keep things in order in your gaming room, don't you?
I think cheesysoapopra made a good point. If the game was only going to be on PS3 they probably could have done some stuff much differently and had it work okay. But since it is cross-platform, they can't use those exclusive PS3 methods.
Ya 4 DVD's is pretty crazy. Apparently, the working copy at id is a full terrabyte large , with all the images uncompressed.
As time goes on im certain that they'll get it working at a playable framerate. id are new to the PS3 unlike first party developer like Polyphony digital. I think on close inspection the PS3 version will look the worst, but I doubt it'll be noticeable by the majority of players, and it still seems like it'll be a great title on all platforms.
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The potential for a game to run better and look better on the PS3 exists, but you cannot do that for the PS3, and for the 360, and get your game out in a decent amount of time.
Geez, I'd love to see that big big game on one Blu-ray disc, otherwise, 4 DVDs for one game is really astounding, you need good housekeeping skills to keep things in order in your gaming room, don't you?
Ya 4 DVD's is pretty crazy. Apparently, the working copy at id is a full terrabyte large , with all the images uncompressed.