PS3 specs, facts, speculations and rumours !

[BizioEE]

Originally posted by fastson
Yeah quite a difference compared to the rushed PS2.

Very limited software support back then, I read even the manuals were incomplete.

This is how its supposed to be done.. They bought SN Systems, they have Epic, Havoc, AEGIA, Speedtree etc. on board.

Btw, a cool tidbit from the official Killzone forums.

 

Posted by the lead tester.

Thanks Fasty   ....let us know everything please !

[BizioEE]

Words from Factor 5 !

Watching the Show Dragon

The thing most people probably came for, though, was the dragons. Worch had little to say about the actual game he has been working on – now titled Lair – though he used the models all throughout the lecture. One of the key models was a maquette (built by Peter Konig at Massive Black, the man behind the Dragonheart models); another, a digital render. The final version used in the game, Worch said, was a blend of the best parts from each: a practical body and limbs, and a digital head, tail, and wings.

He played a recent extremely high-resolution trailer in real-time, occasionally pausing to swing the camera around or turn on or off various effects. To be fair, the scene in question was clearly a cut-scene, calculated to show off just how many polygons the PS3 can throw around; it\'s still a lot of polygons, though.

Each model, Worch claimed, contained somewhere between 100,000 and 170,000 triangles. Each had a bunch of other special maps and lighting applied, and the main character was built up with "over ten textures". He compared this to an estimated 10,000 for characters in Gears of War and other recent high-res games. The high-res models, meanwhile, that got dithered down to produce the in-game models, ran up around 5,000,000 triangles.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051007/waugh_01.shtml

just to show a hors-d\'oeuvre of PS3 polygons capabilities...


and...Rogue Squadron developer hiring for further PS3 projects !!!

Factor 5, the US development house behind such Star Wars hits as Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike and Rogue Leader, is advertising for new PS3 development positions on its website - prompting us to ponder just what they might have in the works.
Factor 5 is already working on an original and platform-exclusive game for PlayStation 3 called Lair which is an intriguing dragon-themed game, featuring lots of cool looking winged reptiles. However, with a bunch of openings available for experienced devs, including a senior game programmer, it looks like Factor 5 has something else big in the works.

Of course, we\'d love to be able to tell you that it was a PS3 version of the splendid Rogue series, but that would be utter speculation; and since the dev mentions in its advert that it\'s "now developing original properties for the next generation of console systems", that would appear to rule out a further Star Wars title.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/front_index.php?
(look at the NEWS)

Any bet about the new Factor 5 project ?

[BizioEE]

as Fasty already made it clear

"as for the PS2 vs PS3 development question. I was chatting to Michiel and he was telling me how crazy-easy it was compared to the PS2 and how much quicker things have been going for them. I will take his word on that"

PS3 seems to be not as complicated to write for as we\'ve all been led to believe !

read this...

Possession and the art of PS3 programming

I spent much of last December writing a preview of PS3 zombie shocker, Possession, for the Official PlayStation 2 magazine. The game is a mouth-watering mix of survival horror adventure and squad-based shooter, with you commanding a ravenous undead army against a city stuffed with civilians, cops and soldiers.

The magazine is now out on the shelves, so I can finally talk about meeting up with Possession developer, Volatile, and chatting about what it\'s like to write games for Sony\'s next-gen hardware. At the time, the team were working with an emulator rather than a full PS3 dev kit, but already seemed comfortable with the peculiarities of the multi-processor behemoth.

Of course every developer is going to have a different take on PS3, but this is what one of them had to say...


First of all, as with Killzone developer Guerrilla in a recent online Q&A sesh, they were happy to point out that PS3 is not as complicated to write for as we\'ve all been led to believe. Apparently, the machine\'s use of Open GL as its graphics API means that anyone who\'s ever written games for the PC will be intimately familiar with the set-up. In fact, PS3 employs a cut-down version named Open GL ES, which is even simpler - as Volatile\'s lead PS3 programmer, Lyndon Homewood explained:

"ES is designed for things like set-top boxes and mobile phones, where you want the fundamental graphics but don\'t need some of the fringe stuff that Open GL has. Because you\'ve got that on PS3, it\'s going to be much easier than the PS2 to get something up and running - there are hundreds of books out there for it, so you can do your background reading. All the documentation is there."

We also got onto talking about how PS3 will deal with Cg - a version of the programming language C, which allows developers to code for advanced graphics processing units, specifically in the area of 3D shaders. (You can read more about Cg here and here).

http://developer.nvidia.com/page/cg_main.html

"The graphics capabilities of PS3 will, I think, be slightly above the absolutely top-end graphics cards on the PC, but you\'ve got much more processing power in the box so you\'re going to see a lot more physics, a lot more generated geometry. With water ripples, for example - they\'re pretty much algorithms, you have a flat plane of triangles and you run some sort of mathematical algorithm over it to generate a surface rippling effect - well, you will have the processing power to do these sorts of generated geometry effects On PS3. You could actually put one chip aside just to do that..."

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2006/01/27/possession_and_the_art_of_ps3_programming.html

have a nice reading...

The funny thing is though.... the Cg language was very much hyped by Nvidia back in the days of NV30 (Geforce FX5800) and but of course aimed at pro users of 3D programs to code shader language.

We all know how the pc games market picked up DX9 Direct 3D.

So it seems Cg is trying a revival on PS3 graphics coding ? lol.

I do believe PS3 graphics will be powerfull though. Just watch Cebit in march for the launch of Nvidia\'s 7900 cards and it might give a hint about PS3 visuals.

Originally posted by Unicron!
Hey Fastson can you post a link of the boards where the lead designer talks?

Sure.

Here is the forums: http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board?board.id=killzone

Topics:   ASK THE DEV TEAM - PART X (lost track of the count) ;-) and YET ANOTHER "ASK THE DEV TEAM" THREAD...

Here is where motherh (Guerrilla Lead Tester) mentions what I quoted earlier.
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=killzone&message.id=71586&view=by_date_ascending&page=69

If you go a few pages back you\'ll see some posts by one of the programmers are Guerrilla (his username is Michiel and his posts are IMO the most interesting).

Thanks for the articles Biz. The PS3 does seem a lot “nicer” compared to PS2.

thanks

[BizioEE]

Originally posted by Unicron!
thanks

Yep ! thanks Fasty !:)

Official PS3 specs

The main XDRAM is clocked very fast @ 3,2 Ghz. I don\'t understand then why the main memory bandwidth is a mere 25,6Gb.

[Titan]

Sweet. And it says spring 2006? Its getting released then?

maybe in japland... but I doubt even that

[Viper_Fujax]

yea, i think the "spring release" is just a marketing strategy. People on the verge of getting an xbox360 will hold off and think "ill just wait a couple months for a better ps3"...then spring comes and they delay it till christmas and people will be like "i waited this long..might as well wait till christmas"

September is the word.

[BizioEE]

Nvidia\'s RSX graphics chip for the PS3 is done  !

...and A Clue From Nvidia On PlayStation 3 Schedule :

Graphics chip maker Nvidia reported today that it doesn\'t anticipate any royalties from Sony during the current fiscal quarter which closes at the end of April. In a conference call, Chief Financial Officer Marv Burkett made the statement. Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO, said that he couldn\'t talk about the schedule for the PlayStation 3. He said that Nvidia\'s RSX graphics chip for the PS 3 is done and the company has production silicon for it.

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/02/a_clue_from_nvi.html

Now let\'s wait and see when Sony will decide to show us all the details of the beautiful GPU


and...

GDC 2006: PS3 Keynote Announced
Phil Harrison to speak about going "Beyond the Box."

February 16, 2006 - The official GDC newsletter has announced that Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President, Phil Harrison, will be holding a keynote address on March 22. To focus on the creative, technical, and business opportunities that PS3 presents, the hour-long presentation will be titled "PlayStation 3: Beyond the Box" and is expected to be one of the most popular keynotes of the Game Developers Conference.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2289&Itemid=2

[BizioEE]

Nvidia Hints No PS3 In Spring !

In a conference call yesterday, Nvidia mentioned that it did not expect to earn any royalties from Sony during this fiscal quarter which ends in April. No royalties mean no manufacturing of PlayStation 3 components, and therefore no PS3, at least not by April. Sony has continued to tout a Spring 2006 release for the PS3, but at the Taipei Game Show today Sony seemed to waver, saying instead that the console would launch “in 2006.”

No playable PlayStation 3 games are on hand at the Taipei Game Show, so eager gamers will have to wait for E3 to see the console in action. It seems a Spring 2006 launch is certainly not likely for the console, so stay tuned for a more concrete announcement on a release date as soon as it is available.

http://news.gaminghorizon.com/media2/1140232380.3455.html

I want PS3 perfect, with no rash launch games, and perfect balanced hardware with nice "final touches" ...maybe the end of May or june for Jap ? or Fall ?...who knows...let\'s wait and see...

Newest rumor is Sept 16 fot Japan and Sept 21 for USA, with Europe seeing a November Launch.

These dates strike me as believable. Sony is already producing PS3 components and IMO will be ready for final assembly soon. This gives them time to stock pile units and explode onto the scene with a large library of games and plenty of systems.

It also allows Sony plenty of time to re-stock stores for the Holiday season. If all goes well I believe Sony will smash every launch day sales record.