Gamespot editors have just published a second iteration of their comparison of XBox 360 and PS3 graphics, wherein they post photos from identical games from each of the two systems. In December 2006, one year post-360 release and just after the November 06 PS3 release, Gamespot conducted a similar comparison. The December 06 comparison concluded:
- “The Xbox 360 had better graphics in almost all the games we examined.”
- “[T]he Xbox 360 games generally offered better framerates.”
The result of Gamespot’s June 07 comparison? While the PS3’s game graphics have improved, the 360 still offers the better graphics of the two systems. In detail, after the jump.
Here’s the editors’ June 07 conclusions:
- Xbox 360 offered better antialiasing (cleaning up jagged lines) overall
- Xbox 360 offered better texture quality overall
The games compared are Armored Core 4, Def Jam Icon, NBA Street Homecourt, Virtua Tennis 3, Oblivion, Spider-Man 3, and MLB 2K7. Click the links to see the comparisons. Note too, as I’ve mentioned before, Bethesda provided higher-quality character models for the PS3 version of Oblivion, and is rolling out an automatic update for the 360 providing the same higher-resolution models displayed on the PS3 version. The one game where the PS3 had value-added, unsurprisingly, was Oblivion–and that added value pertained mostly to the sharper textures, which after Bethesda’s upcoming automatic update for the 360, will be mooted.
The results of Gamespot’s latest comparison are unsurprising. Despite the to-do’s attempting to compare the XBox 360 Xenon processor’s teraflops processing power to the PS3’s Cell teraflops performance, game developers largely agree that the 360’s Xenon is the far easier processor to program (“[unlike with the Cell,] porting between multi-core PC platforms and the Xbox 360 will be fairly trivial”), and its three powerful general purpose microprocessors offer more flexibility to programmers than does the Cell’s single main processor/seven specialized processors combo.
Those concerned about number crunching power are missing the bigger picture: the two systems are, overall, on par with each other. As Sega Racing Studio boss Guy Wilday said just last week: “We’ve sat [programs we’ve developed for each platform] side by side and you’re really hard-pushed to tell the difference. I think that’s a testament to where you are with both platforms.” The PS3 offers a more innovative design but is difficult to program, Wilday said, while the 360 is powerful, very simple to program, and has excellent programmer support.
As Anandtech deduced (a must-read for those who want to understand the two systems) early in the game when conducting a technical analysis of the relative merits of the finalized motherboards of the two systems in great detail: any performance difference between the 360 and the PS3 is basically “a wash.” Each system has its merits, however, specifically the PS3’s ostensibly “greater” processing power, due to drawbacks in Sony’s implementation, leaves the PS3, as the sum of many processors and parts, basically equivalent (performance wise) to the 360’s very flexible and programmer-friendly implementation of the 3-core system.
So if the systems offer essentially equal performance, it comes down to three things: the online experience, the games, and the price. Reasonable minds can differ, but for my money, the 360 is still offering consumers the best buy in each of those categories.
Lime out
Armillary Observations 
I would say that the systems are very similar right now, but as the programmers get used to the PS3 at the end of the console war the games will start to look slightly better than the Xbox 360.
Fake! Apparently lots of game studios (not Bethesda or Team Ninja) do not spend lots of money and time on optimizing performance on the PS3. It’s all about optimization. Compare Doom3 on Mac, a dual 2.5 Ghz G5 Powermac with a ATI X800 and 3 gigs of ram easily outperformed any Intel PC in 2005, but still Doom3 had it’s glitches. Bad optimized code for a particular system = bad performance.
Oblivion clearly looks better and loads faster than on 360, Ninja Gaiden is no comparision either. Smooth and quick, and not one single drop in framerate ever.
George:
Granted, your first paragraph. That’s indisputable.
Second paragraph: again, the Oblivion issue Bethesda has already said it would address in its upcoming automatic update for the 360’s version of Oblivion (remember, it was made for the 360 first, and was tweaked, post publication, for the PS3 release; the 360 will get that tweak soon). Gaiden–not for the 360, as far as I know.
Finally, the Virtua Fighter and EA news releases tell us that, in fact, the 360 versions will have better graphics and/or better framerates (though, granted, the VF comparison is really the Oblivion issue–post-release optimization which benefits the second console’s version).
Lime
The problem for the PS3 and it’s fanboys is this.
1. Sony put out fake CG renders at the 05 E3 claiming them to be in game footage. These were infact FAKE. So nothing on the PS3 looks anything like the E3 demos. But this is nothing new for Sony. It showed E3 demos of PS2 games which were infact GCI FAKES as well. Remember how the PS2 was so powerful that it was banned from export to China because they might use it for missile technology? LMAO…
Last generation the Xbox, Gamecube and Dreamcast were all more powerful than the PS2. Sony tried to pull the same trick this gen.
2. The fact of the matter is that the games (RR, FEAR, etc) that have been released for both systems (360 & PS3) have looked better on 360. The fanboys cried that the reason was that they were just ports from the 360 to PS3 and were bad ones. “Wait untill games get coded for the PS3 first, then you will see the power of the Cell”. Well now we are starting to see this in games such as VF5. After being ported from the PS3 to 360 the game looks better on 360.
3. The fanboys also cried that the developers have had longer to work on the PS3 and therefore the second generation 360 games will of course look better. However the frist generation xbox games looked better than second generation PS2 games. Why? Because the xbox was more powerful .
So we are now nearing 12 months of PS3. After 12 months of 360 development we were given “Gears of War” GOW is the best looking console game to date. As we near the 12 months of PS3 NOTHING comming out around that date looks anything as good as GOW.
All of these facts point to the 360 being more powerful and the PS3 being just an overhyped peice of kit.
Sad but true.
ps3 has games that are starting to look better than 360 games… take Lair for example… and also Metal Gear Solid 4… the only real reason that ps3 games now can’t compare to 360 games is because 360 got a one year head start… developers are used to programming for 360 now… so they can program for the 360 much more easily… ps3 has only been out for 7 months… so it hasn’t reached it’s full potential yet… not only that, but the cell/rsx combo is harder to program for than the 360’s hardware… the cell is a highly advanced piece of hardware… it’s gonna be harder to program for… the rsx isn’t as good when it comes to shading to the 360’s xenos, but it can perform much better than the xenos when combined with the cell… it’ll take some time for developers to get used to the ps3, but when they do, the games will look and play alot better than 360 games… face it.. 360 has reached its limit… ps3 started 7 months ago and the graphics are catching up fast to the 360… pretty soon the ps3 will soar above the 360 in terms of graphics… the online play may be better on 360, but the ps3 will get there over time… ps3 started bad, but will end on top… that’s my guess anyways…
Anyone remember Sony’s “Emotion Engine”, how revolutionary and powerful it was supposed to be, compared to general-purpose CPU’s such as Xbox’s 730Mhz Pentium 3? The time came when it was revealed, in benchmark comparisons, that Sony’s Emotion was the least performer, based on sheer processing power, when compared to the general-purpose CPUs found in both the GameCube and Xbox.
I prefer Microsoft’s philosophy of making gradual improvements to the technology available in that generation. Technology of which game-developers are already accustomed to. This prevents Microsoft from over-promising and under-delivering like Sony.
We will probably see more of Cell in the future. However, I stay my faith with the Xbox 360’s Xenon for it has proven itself several times to perform how Microsoft said it would perform.
360s are the best
I agree with Chris and Edward.
Unless you are a true Sony Fanboy, an unbiased person should be able to see through the Sony hype-machine. In-your-face Kutaragi tried to convince gamers that PS3 is worth selling your unborn child for. Well, the developers and their products have spoken. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are at best on par, and quite frankly, I put the 360 ahead.
Sony initially planned for the Cell to perform double-duties as the GPU, but when that didn’t pan out, they opted for the RSX chip. This esoteric design was borne more from sheer pride than pragmatism. Sony again overhyped and underdelivered. Except this time, they didn’t have first mover’s advantage. If MS learned one thing from the Xbox, it was that a sizeable head start is key to success. And unlike the Dreamcast, MS has plenty of $$$ to pour on developer resources. With a sizeable base, chances are higher that a developer will pour more resources on the 360 version than the PS3. Its simple economics. The 360 also has BETTER development tools, and is easier to develop for (as previously mentioned).
The results speak for themselves. So get off your soapbox fanboys, and seek the truth. PS3 isn’t bad, but til’ now, the 360 is just better. Hardware malfunctions withstanding.
1.metal gear soild 4 2.tekken 6 3.kill zone PS3 4.Ninja Gaiden Sigma 5.Heavenly Sword 6.God of war 3 7.Lair 8.the getaway 3 9.Resistance: Fall of Man 10.Time Crisis 4 with Guncon 11.Gran Turismo HD 12.Unreal Tournament 3 13.Haze 14.WarDevil Enigma 15.socom navy seals PS3 16.Infamous 17.Ratchet and Clank 5 18.Formula One 19.Eight days 20.Monster Kingdom ps3
ps3 n 360 are both the same .the thing is if u know the value of money buy a360 n if u are filthy rich buy a ps3
The 360 has Halo 3, Bioshock, and Mass Effect coming by the end of the year. I just don’t see how the PS3 can survive another holiday season 3rd in sales (and realisticly it WILL be last again). The hype for Halo alone (over 800,000 people played the beta alone) is building again with announcents like 4-player co-op. Then there’s the Wii’s astounding sales numbers that continue to impress. Granted the PS3 does have Metal Gear, Ratchet, and many others, but these games don’t sell to the average consumer like Halo, Madden, or GTA, all of which are available on the 360 (Sorry I had to say that, Peter Moore annoyed the hell out of me when he kept repeating it lol). Unless the PS3 can magically surmount the competition this fall it will find itself in a dark corner without much hope of crawling out, and bad rumors such as Lair being dealyed due to some bad reviews aren’t helping. I know I’ll be purchasing a 360 this fall, and I’m glad I waited because I was leaning to the PS3 until now. I couldn’t have predicated Sony failing this badly, but fail they have, and the only way they have a ghost of a chance at surviving is too admit they made an error and attempt to correct it with better exclusives and updates. I still woon’t count Sony out yet though, they have led videogames for an impressive number of years, but the current outlook reveals that the torch has been passed either to an old favorite (nintendo) or a young gun (microsoft), we’ll know by the end of the year.
Wow so many fanboys it’s sad to see how these multi-billion dollar company’s got you promoting there products like a crackhead on a mission. Has anyone forgot that this is about being a gamer not a bias fanboy. Both consoles are great, I enjoy them both..Granted I enjoy 360 better, but in the near future that may change. Both consoles have there positives & negatives. Get over it, you could argue till your blue in the face, noone will ever win this debate. Just save up and buy both consoles, that way you can have the best of both worlds.
the whole graphics debate is a bit confused here. admittedly im no expert and i have no idea of the processing and graphical power here, but it seems to me that a lot of console fanboys are just as clueless.
has anyone yet noticed that to achieve “better graphics” the 360 simply makes everything shiny, whores out a whole lot more bloom and increaces the contrast a little bit.
take a look at halo 3 and see how evry surface has shine on it. hmm… interesting.
However though this is how gaming seems to be going these days and isnt really so much of a bad thing.
strangely though despite the obvious bennifits visually the ps3 is going against these trends trying to aim for realism as opposed to “nice looking graphics”. and by realism i mean when i look outside i dont see fluffy brown clouds around every object i see.
one game that popps up again and again in 360 fanboys arguements is gears of war. they use it as an example of “high quality” graphics. true it looks amazing. but it runs off the unreal 3 engine wich runs on most mid range pc’s and should hardly prove to be much of a struggle for a “next generation” console.
despite what most people seem to think it is actually the engine and what the game designers have done that determines the graphics of a game on a capable machine. eg porting c&c ‘s SAGE 1 engine to 360 will not make it look like company of heroes.
part of what makes the 360 and unreal 3 engine look nicer than the other games is their use of bump and parallax mapping making the render seem much more detailed and 3d than it actually is.
these last two techniques are not generally used much with the ps3 upsettingly and are the keys to the 360’s “graphical” sucsess making a big difference in image quality. (see the oblivion ps3 / 360 images and see how the stones in the walls look much more 3d on the 360)
here is a suprise for the 360 fans. Unreal 3 is being released onto ps3 in a little whiles time and suprisingly what engine does it run on?
unreal 3…
suprising how identical it looks to gears of war huh?
mabe with a little less bloom but that aside oh well.
kinda shoots down 360’s superiority a bit.
one thing that annoys me is the way that the ps3 has the ability to do the shading operations neccasary for parralax and bump mapping as seen in unreal but doesnt in the titles i have seen sofar or in the same quality.
(as seen in oblivion.)
it may seem asif im a ps3 fanboy but im not. had a ps2, but to be honest if i had the money i’d probably buy a 360, just for fun.
i’m bored of writing now.
i could go on and on but oh well.
BocaRican seems to generally have evrything sussed follow his idea.
or if all else fails simply buy a pc.
From a pure graphics stand point you really need to compare the 360’s ATI Xenos and PS3’s Nvidia RSX GPU designs. Afterall, the vast majority of processing tasks required to render the graphical content of a game are performed by these processors, not the main CPU. Hence the relative performance of the 360 and PS3 multi-core CPU’s is not significant.
Although not massively dissimilar in terms of traditional graphics performance measures (eg texture fill rate & polygon count), the Xenos has an edge in terms of its shader implementation.
Shaders are basically the program elements that developers use to create graphical effects such as lighting. The more shaders that are used in a scene, the richer the graphical content. They come in 2 varieties – pixel & vertex shaders, and traditionally these are processed by the GPU using separate shader units. More recently, graphics hardware manafacturers (nvidia/ATI) have found it is more efficient to implement unified shader units that are capable of performing both pixel & vertex shader operations. This allows the hardware to be utilised more effectively. For example, in a non-unifed architecture, if a particular scene requires a disproportionately large number of pixel shader operations to be processed, then the vertex shader units are not utilised 100% and vice versa. The Xenos has such a unified shader architecture and is one of the first GPU’s to use the new design. Unfortunately for the PS3, the RSX does not adopt the unified architecture.
This combined with the fact that the Xenos has a slightly longer feature support list than RSX (putting it somewhere between Direct X 9 & 10 compliancy) would suggest it is the more future proof or advanced in design.
Despite this superiority, in reality the average gamer is unlikely to be able to see much of a difference, as the general performance of the GPU’s is very similar. In my opinion, the 360 wins through virtue of the fact that it has come to market 18 months prior to the PS3 with an essentially an equivalent if not slightly better graphics system. 18 months is a relatively long time period in terms of graphics hardware development, and judging by the similarity of the Xenos & RSX GPU’s, it is dissapointing that the PS3 has not been able to significantly surpass the 360 in this area (such as by providing full Direct X 10 compliancy). It seems likely the manafacturing issues associated with Sony’s Cell processor are the reason for this delay.
By effectively loosing the graphics technology race, Sony can only hope to regain the advantage by leverging the power of the PS3’s Cell processor to out perform the 360’s CPU in the AI/Physics department. However, this has yet to be realised.
Great comments, Rob, this helps us non-techies by trade put the differences in perspective.
HL
suppose sony were kind of doomed from the start.
dx10 makes stuff look a lot nicer and more effeciently
having that gave microsoft a big lead on sony so their was little chance they would give it over to their main rivals sony.
seems like a bit of sabotage on microsofts front.
see the advantage for yourself.
mabe fake may not.
havnt seen it in action myself
waiting for my new pc
you idiots really dont know that no platform can equal and surpass ps3 in graphics, too bad you poor children
i agree i think the 360 have better graphics .,, i own a ps3 but i decided to sell it because of it poor games .,., i know we as a gamers have to wait for sony to come out with good games but we didnt buy the ps3 just because of it blu ray player but because of the games and apperantly theres not good games for it right now and theres no way that we gamers going to wait two years until they figure it out how to use new ps3 technology., im not saying that 360 win ., i know ps3 have better technology and at the end it will have better better graphics but i think the 360 now give you more games interesting games and powerfull graphics and i know that can do more ., just look the graphics right now bioshock looks so real the water everything now thats a game we can see how much powerfull the 360 can be., and i know it can do more much more then that.
“From a pure graphics stand point you really need to compare the 360’s ATI Xenos and PS3’s Nvidia RSX GPU designs. Afterall, the vast majority of processing tasks required to render the graphical content of a game are performed by these processors, not the main CPU. Hence the relative performance of the 360 and PS3 multi-core CPU’s is not significant.
Although not massively dissimilar in terms of traditional graphics performance measures (eg texture fill rate & polygon count), the Xenos has an edge in terms of its shader implementation.
Shaders are basically the program elements that developers use to create graphical effects such as lighting. The more shaders that are used in a scene, the richer the graphical content. They come in 2 varieties – pixel & vertex shaders, and traditionally these are processed by the GPU using separate shader units. More recently, graphics hardware manafacturers (nvidia/ATI) have found it is more efficient to implement unified shader units that are capable of performing both pixel & vertex shader operations. This allows the hardware to be utilised more effectively. For example, in a non-unifed architecture, if a particular scene requires a disproportionately large number of pixel shader operations to be processed, then the vertex shader units are not utilised 100% and vice versa. The Xenos has such a unified shader architecture and is one of the first GPU’s to use the new design. Unfortunately for the PS3, the RSX does not adopt the unified architecture.
This combined with the fact that the Xenos has a slightly longer feature support list than RSX (putting it somewhere between Direct X 9 & 10 compliancy) would suggest it is the more future proof or advanced in design.
Despite this superiority, in reality the average gamer is unlikely to be able to see much of a difference, as the general performance of the GPU’s is very similar. In my opinion, the 360 wins through virtue of the fact that it has come to market 18 months prior to the PS3 with an essentially an equivalent if not slightly better graphics system. 18 months is a relatively long time period in terms of graphics hardware development, and judging by the similarity of the Xenos & RSX GPU’s, it is dissapointing that the PS3 has not been able to significantly surpass the 360 in this area (such as by providing full Direct X 10 compliancy). It seems likely the manafacturing issues associated with Sony’s Cell processor are the reason for this delay.
By effectively loosing the graphics technology race, Sony can only hope to regain the advantage by leverging the power of the PS3’s Cell processor to out perform the 360’s CPU in the AI/Physics department. However, this has yet to be realised.”
*************************************************
To me this long-winded explanation proves one thing. If it takes this much tech knowledge to analyze the difference in graphics or whatever else between the 360 and the PS3, then that means there is little or no difference between both systems. But the thing is, Sony claimed that it will absolutely blow the 360 out of the water, and consumers were given the impression that the difference would be night and day. We all know the real story. So far, 99% of the games that were released for both consoles look and perform better on the 360, though admittedly not by much. Here’s the thing. If the Wii had the power and graphical capabilities as an Xbox 360, why would I pay $400 for a 360 when I get can the same experience from a $250 console? Of course, the Wii is not in the same league as the 360 or the PS3. But I pose the same question for PS3 supporters. Why should I shell out $600 for a gaming console when I could get a console for $400 that even has slightly better graphics and performance ? But we all know what the typical response will be. It goes something like, “just wait until the developers learn how to unlock the potential of the PS3.” In that case, I will wait. There’s no reason to buy a PS3 today when its potential is not going to be unlocked for another year or two. To me potential=non-existent today.
The fact remains the X-Box360 is running at it’s full potential where as the PS3 is not even close, The PS3 will come out on top like it or not, end of discussion.
I think -graphics wise, the PS3 and Xbox 360 are the same. The amount of objects on screen is a different story. The Ps3 trumps the 360 in this category, I recently finished playing heavenly sword and i must say that it is good, towards the end i was fighting thousands of enemy’s on screen at the same time. Resistance Fall of man is like that to, there are hundreds of debris on screen. I believe This is what makes it realistic, and this was probably made possible due to the cell processor in the PS3.
Also have you noticed the nice games coming out for ps3? Drakes fortune, ratchet and clank, haze, unreal- theses are all ps3 exclusives. The graphics on all of those games are amazing to.
I was reading a game magazine a while back, i heard that the cell processor is so powerful that it doesn’t even need the RSX graphics card to do the dirty work. IN current games ( from what i heard) All the RSX does is patches the textures onto the polygons. All of this, to me, sounds believable given the fact that researchers are using the power of the cell processor, not the RSX, to do a huge amount of data crunching.
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
xbox is using 95 % of there power,ps3 is using 35% and its alredy kicking 360’s ass,!!LOL!!
whatever happened to the time when instead of Awsome graphics, we enjoyed a good game with a good story? halo, assassins creed, knights of the old republic, unreal, startrek star fleet academy, duke nukem, half life(the original). what do all these have in common? STORY. as long as the graphics are tolerable and the gameplay is fun and the story makes sense and draws you in, then what more do you need?
to close my point, why are atari, nes, snes, mame, and so on emulators around? because they have games that made the next generation, not because of graphics, but because of gameplay. look into the past and see that games have nothing to do with graphics. it has everything to do with gameplay, storyline.
forget halo. call of duty is the one. don’t care what system its on but its kickass
i agree wit smitty . we now only want games just for the graphic. sheesh
If u ask me
why pay £100-200 more for a slight better graphics, when graphics arnt all u should see in a game, a game is good when its got game play, sure the graphics should b up to date but ther near enoug hthe same and i go for value for money and thats the 360
and the ps3 pic looks fake.
I believe the 360 is way better in graphics and just about everything else. ps3 i had and returned. it just wansnt for me. then again i have spent damn near 800 on optimising my system…GEARS OF WAR BABY!
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“xbox is using 95 % of there power,ps3 is using 35% and its alredy kicking 360’s ass,!!LOL!!”
I’d like to know where you are getting these COMPLETELY ACCURATE STATISTICS [/sarcasm]
I’m not biased by any means, I own all three next-gen consoles. Every game that I have played has looked better on the 360. Now I know that developers “haven’t reached the potential” of the PS3….but I sort of doubt they ever will, from what I here it’s too cumbersome. And by now developers have had ample time to work programming magic. Now mind you, the PS3 games have been improving…but still don’t seem up to par, especially with all those jaggies distorting things. (Something that has plagued every Sony console) MSG4 looks good, but we’ll see about the frame rates.
Enough bickering, I’m gonna go play DREAMCAST!! 😀
well lisen, a dunno wat 2 buy tbh!
a keep changing mymind 2 ps3 to xbox elite
am always changin ma mind
more ma mates have the xbox and sum a gud mates have the ps3.
a prefer the sexbox but 😉
ryt let’s cut to the chase, a ps3 has aBLUE-RAY disk, it holds upto so much graphics becaue of the memory the blue-ray can take. am not sure how much memory it has but alot more that a DVD disk format,
so inturn.. the xbox games “great graphics” is all squeezed in .
the xbox elite’s graphics for fight night 3 is nuffin compared 2 the ps3 ones
all a can say is, it’s ur own choice on wat u want 2 buy init
I own both consoles PS3 and XBOX360, i myself prefer the 360, graphics have always seemed better and the anti aliasing is far more superior, fight night round 3 is undoubtedly better looking on ps3 but u have to remember that the 360 version was out long before ps3’s thus forcing EA to give it a full graphics overhaul why would anyone want to buy an identical game 12 months after being released on 360, c’mon nobody would buy it, but if you look at the ps3 version it has those nasty jaggies not a smooth edge in sight but on 360 totally opposite, also now round 4 is on it’s way all the videos on the net for it are 360 based, i’ve not been able to find a ps3 video to compare it to, or are they trying to hide something? we’ll see.
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