But hard drive is its biggest advantage, says Monster Madness producer.
The PS3's 256MB of memory, half that of the Xbox 360, is the biggest challenge developers face when making games on Sony's console, Monster Madness producer Lee Perez has told VideoGamer.com.
Perez, who has worked closely on the development of Monster Madness and upcoming DS game Ninja Town, said that while the PS3 has half the memory of the 360, its Cell processor can in theory allow developers to "offset" those problems.
AdvertisementSpeaking specifically about the unique challenges PS3 development presents, Perez said: "The biggest thing is the memory. The PS3 only has 256 megs of memory. The 360 has 512 so you have twice the memory when you load a level. Now the offset to that is the Cell processor, so if you understand and your engine can understand how to use the multiple cores in tandem you can offset that. Theoretically you can do a lot more, especially if you have a lot of physics objects because it's very math intensive, not memory intensive. So finding that sweet spot where your game does well in both and it takes advantage of its individual skills is tough."
Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia, which is built using the Unreal Engine 3, was originally released on Xbox 360 and PC in June 2007. A PS3 version, Monster Madness: Grave Danger, is set for release in Europe in September and promises to improve upon many of the problems of the original game.
Perez said that while the PS3 had allowed developer Psyonix Studios to "up some of the textures" for the PS3 version of Monster Madness, and that updates to the Unreal Engine 3 in the past year have "made working on both platforms a lot easier", porting the game to the PS3 proved challenging.
"It was originally designed for the 360 which has double the memory so we had a lot of other objects and things going on," he said. "And then we had to force it to work with half the memory. In hindsight that wasn't taken into account. So a lot of retooling in the engine and how those objects are handled had to be done in order to work."
Perez, however, said that while the 360 enjoys double the memory of the PS3, it suffers from a lack of a hard drive. "On the reverse the other advantage the PS3 has is the hard drive. Everyone has a hard drive. So you can do the hard drive game install so you have a permanent cache of games. You can kind of do that with the 360 but it's only a temporary cache. You can't permanently save stuff to the hard drive. So you don't get any long term benefits of loading the levels. That's why in GTA it doesn't have that texture pop and the rendering pop the 360 does. But the 360 since it has double the memory you don't get as much slowdown sometimes. So it's a wash at the end almost."
He added: "That's why some people think if Microsoft and Sony got to together and made one console it would be the ultimate utopia. But that's far-fetched."
Update: We believe Lee Perez is talking about the PlayStation 3's GPU, which has access to 256 MB GDDR3 RAM, not the system's combined 512 MB RAM. In contrast the Xbox 360 features 512 MB GDDR3 RAM shared by the CPU and GPU. We've contacted publisher SouthPeak Games for clarification.
Monster Madness: Grave Danger is set for release in Europe in September 2008.
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truBlue wrote at 15:30 on 16 June 2008
Actually, the PS3 does have 512 mb. 256 dedicated to system, 256 dedicated to video. Only Sony new this gen memory requirements would be this large as Epic had to educate M$ on upping their 360 from total memory of 256 to the 512 they released.
B4st1on wrote at 15:37 on 16 June 2008
Get your facts straight ! Ps3 has also 512 megs of memory, but in 2 banks.
You just proven that you do not do your research. -1 for credibility.
WDino wrote at 15:44 on 16 June 2008
Any one think sony might use the HDD for memory, like on pc???
Scabby Sid wrote at 16:04 on 16 June 2008
it means system performance RAM not storage memory.
also the other 256 is incorporated into the GPU so is not acceissible for the system processes.
Brian wrote at 16:13 on 16 June 2008
I don't think the amount of memory is that big of a deal. The only reason it would be is if you make a 360 game and want to just make a quick port to the PS3. But it has been proven a lot now that the smart way to do it is make the game for the PS3 and port to the 360. Not only does this make the PS3 game better but it makes the 360 game better than it would have been.
All consoles have their issues. Just think how expensive consoles would be if they had no issues. Sony set their memory up a certain way and if used properly there is no problem. The fast memory helps with this too.
Anonymous wrote at 16:16 on 16 June 2008
"Any one think sony might use the HDD for memory, like on pc???"
That's virtual memory you're talking about and no, it would be too slow. First, the standard PS3 hard drive runs at 5400 RPM. Even at 7200 RPM it would be too slow but 5400 RPM just wouldn't be good enough. It's possible they use the hard drive to cache some things. A lot of PS3 games are being created to put part of the game on the hard drive. That at least speeds some parts of games up. I doubt it helps much with limited RAM problems though.
Mornelithe wrote at 16:19 on 16 June 2008
As stated above, the PS3 has 2 types of memory. 1x 256Meg DDR3 @ 700 Mhz dedicated to the GPU, and 1x 256Meg XDR @ 3.2GHZ dedicated to the CPU. Whereas, the 360 has 512Meg of RAM shared between the GPU/CPU, of course, keep in mind that some of this memory is always in use for the OS and In-Game options.
Bottom line, imo, both systems fudged the pooch on RAM. Should've been at LEAST a gig in each box. At least. I've no idea what they were thinking, as the original PS3 blueprints indicated 4x 256m XDR sticks were to be used. I'm assuming that cost was a factor...but still...given 4-8g+ system RAM allowed for PC's, not including any onboard memory on the GPU...seems quite a bit low to me.
Morne
RoH wrote at 16:20 on 16 June 2008
The PS3 has 2 memory pools 256-CPU and 256-Video, both pools can share data (or act as one 512 memory pool), but the 256MB CPU pool is clocked lower then the 256 Video pool.
joe7 wrote at 16:40 on 16 June 2008
Mornelithe: I agree.
Must have been a price factor _that time_, as given current price of memory anything below 1-2Gigs should be considered as ~joke :)
Doesn't really matter if it's a console or PC, games needs textures (etc)..
joe7 wrote at 16:46 on 16 June 2008
Btw: would be a nice option to add 512MB or a gig of ram for $50 or something, but then you are in PC-world, out of nice and stable 'all hardware have this and nothing more' consoleness :)
Ofc developers could detect memory and use better textures or config etc, but they simply don't care..additional cost of development, time, blabla..not for consoles (yet? :) )
Mark wrote at 18:10 on 16 June 2008
Obviously an article written by an imbecile, and published by morons.
BOTH the 360 and PS3 havd 512MB of memory. If anything the much faster XDR memory in the PS3 is a huge advantage.
Still I suppose posting crap like this gives you website hits, and that's what it's all about these days..
Daz wrote at 18:39 on 16 June 2008
This is funny coming from someone who made a crappy game on the 360....its the PS3 has such 'limitation'...then why do have have mind-blowing looking games like Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank:TOD, and MGS4....you just don't know who to code and program that well for the PS3...that what it sounds like to me, just like the rest of these other devs that cry that the PS3 is too complex to program for (Hi EA!). People need to toss that theory out the window at this point in the game...and also, the guy is wrong as people pointed out...the PS3 has 512, just in 2 banks...duh!
OMEN wrote at 18:52 on 16 June 2008
so i wonder why GTA4 on ps3 never loads and GTA4 on 360 load every time.
e38e5
RecoN wrote at 18:59 on 16 June 2008
I agree wit daz partly, games like uncharted and MGS4 are crucial evidence to gamers that the PS3 may have limitations but its no excuse for crappy games. If COD4 can look as good, and MGS4, on the PS3 then why aren't all the games reaching that high level, the only answer is down to the game devs.
Sorry but making statements about the PS3's bad points isn't going to justify the shite games being made for it. Think dev's do need to stop putting blame game on sony when there not reaching deadlines. If there finding it hard get in touch with other devs who have had good experience with it.
As I really enjoy the 360,r i am getting fed up with lazyness, when its clearly been proven great games can always be made for PS3.
NO EXCUSES!! Cos now it's becoming unacceptable.
OMEN wrote at 19:03 on 16 June 2008
i shloud get lee's job or some one else,cuz hes an idiot who talks crap without realy knowing stuff.
or hes just some other fanboy from xbox who has fanboyotitys.
OMEN wrote at 19:08 on 16 June 2008
RecoN
cod4 was made in PS3 and prted to 360.
The Antifanboy wrote at 21:30 on 16 June 2008
You again Yin-poole, with the mis-information??? Geezzz, the Playstation 3 has 512 in total memory, in fact the divided memory can be shared between the CPU and GPU. It is up to the developer to bridge the extra memory, either way, BOTH systems have the exact same amount of memory. There is NO issue with the RAM, it is developing for the Cell architecture 8 core processor if you haven't already read this yet. Thanks for updating us, too little too late.
The Antifanboy wrote at 21:35 on 16 June 2008
Only this guy would post an opinion from the lame studio that brought us Monster Madness. Lame, let us know when you get an interview with someone who has even the slightest idea about what they are talking about. Check out Battlefield: Bad Company, that game looks slightly better on the PS3 than the 360. ONLY slightly, but its a definate improvement from a few months ago, and the potential is still untapped being that the PS3 is still only a year and 7 months in the making. If it weren't for falsely reported articles like this the site wouldn't even get a single visit.
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