ATI engineer says 360 will outperform PS3

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ATI: Xbox 360 will outperform PS3

"I think PS3 will almost certainly be slower and less powerful," says graphics guru Richard Huddy; backwards-compatibility explained.
In an interview with Web site bit-tech.net, ATI Developer Relations Manager Richard Huddy waxed technical about Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 360 and ATI's role in the machine. The 360 will be using ATI's Xenos graphics processor, and Huddy's job is to chat with potential developers and help them develop the tools that best use Xenos' capabilities.


With regards to the console's architecture, Huddy says, "It's way better than I would have expected at this point in the history of 3D graphics." He sees the unified pipeline, rather than segregated pixel and vertex engines, giving the 360 a huge a huge advantage in accessible processing power.

Huddy goes on to shed some light on backwards compatibility. Each Xbox game is written with specific Xbox hardware in mind, and the 360's move to PowerPCs and ATI graphics doesn't jibe with the Xbox's Intel chips and Nvidia graphics processors. To add to the difficulty, the 360 wasn't designed for backward-compatibility early on in development.

To solve this, Microsoft has implemented the use of emulator programs that will allow the Xbox 360 to play Xbox games. According to Huddy, "emulating the CPU isn't really a difficult task. ...the real bottlenecks in the emulation are GPU calls--calls made specifically by games to the Nvidia hardware in a certain way. General GPU instructions are easy to convert--an instruction to draw a triangle in a certain way will be pretty generic. However, it’s the odd cases, the proprietary routines, that will cause hassle.” Once complete, the Xbox emulators could come pre-loaded on the unit's hard drive or will be downloadable via Xbox Live.

Huddy also dispels the notion of the PlayStation 3's higher graphics clock speed (550MHz versus the 360's 500MHz) means that Sony's console will outperform the Xbox 360. He believes that its ATI's unified pipeline that will make the biggest difference between the Xbox 360 and PS3. ATI archrival Nvidia, who is providing the RSX graphics processor for the PS3, has chosen not to go the route of a unified pipeline.

"This time around, [Nvidia doesn’t] have the architecture and we do, so they have to knock it and say it isn’t worthwhile. But in the future, they’ll market themselves out of this corner, claiming that they’ve cracked how to do it best. But RSX isn’t unified, and this is why I think PS3 will almost certainly be slower and less powerful."

By James Yu, Tim Surette -- GameSpot
POSTED: 06/10/05 07:19 PM PST
 
I am curious to see how both systems loading speeds are, I think xbox won over the ps2 in that category

I dont wanna wait 30 mins for a fmv sequence
 
Every time I read stuff like this I'm amazed it's given press. Do you really expect an ATI guy to come out and claim the RSX is better than their chip? Nothing about MHZ means much anymore. The Power PC chip is a monster at that speed and the Xbox has 3 of them. They've offloaded so much from the graphics card with their architecture compared to the original Xbox.

I don't think when all is said and done you're going to see huge differences between the PS3 and Xbox 360. The first party stuff is going to be incredible on both sides and anyone doing cross development is going to be working on Renderware or the Unreal Engine, well, the majority anyways. You're not going to see a huge difference.

When you look at probably the 3 best console exlusives at this point (For graphical prowess.) Resident Evil 4 for the Cube, God of War for the PS2 and Forza Motorsport for the Xbox they're all on a level where the mass market they couldn't agree on which was the best looking. If you asked non-gamers, they certainly wouldn't be able to tell you with a majority percentage.

The same is going to be true next generation. First parties will program for the machines strengths and the weaknesses will be muted; result, it will all look spectacular. There's a reason why MS dropped Oddworld and Psychonauts, they didn't show off the prowess of the Xbox like they thought they should. Both great games, both great looking but they didn't "look" like Xbox games.

The days of MHZ, pixel count, polygons etc. are truly behind us. It's all about the artistry now, not the hardware. You're getting to the point on hardware where to max out a consoles specs you're going to be pushing the budget level of a major studio motion picture, $15-20 million minimum. I'm sure that PS3 and 360 could do the graphics of the original Toy Story and certainly run the CGI work of the Jurassic Parks and the remade Star Wars trilogy and look at how much that work cost.
 
I'm not buying much of anything that either side is saying. They'll both look great and will only get better over time.

The fact that the PS3 is coming out (at least) 6 months after the 360 would suggest it would be slightly more powerful just based on general principle - but it's probably not going to be that big of a difference anyway. I've said before it may even be closer than the current XBox-PS2 gap...with the roles reversed this time, obviously.
 
Who really cares ??....lol. I bet most people are going to end up owning BOTH systems anyways. I'm sure they'll both have their good and bad features.
 
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