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[PS3Scene]

PlayStation 3 Development Still Problematic For EA Posted by XanTium | 31-1-2008 23:23 EST

From kotaku.com: In today's EA investor conference call, CEO John Riccitiello was asked by analysts whether the company's PlayStation 3 development process had caught up with its Xbox 360 development process, an issue that had led to delays at a number of publishers. "Not quite," Riccitiello said, adding "There's no doubt that Electronic Arts, along with many other publishers, had some challenges essentially meeting the technical specifications effectively on the PlayStation 3." Yes, we do remember The Orange Box, John. The EA head called the PlayStation 3 "a little bit more challenging development environment for us." Those challenges, according to Riccitiello were becoming less and less of problem over time, ending with "but there still remains some catching up to do on the engineering side for the PS3." Full Story: kotaku.com

[Parre86]

Seems to me that EA and many other developers did not expect that the next gen consoles would be better than the older consoles. Exepected a mouse, got a raging bull.

I think they should have educated their staff on the PS3 platform by now. It's been over a year since the PS3 release and i guess they had development hardware long before that.

This post has been edited by Parre86: Feb 1 2008, 11:56 AM

[m_hael]

it has nothing to do with education... to educate you have to know the info in the first place. This isn't an education, its R&D... plain and simple.

[Verity]

QUOTE(m_hael @ Feb 1 2008, 03:46 AM)

This isn't an education, its R&D...

Totally.

The thing is, to get the most out of PS3 requires difficult parallel-programming techniques.  Most programming techniques are perfected on the PC before migrating down to the game consoles.  But right now, even with Dual-Core machines being common, most PC programmers don't know how to use parallel processing.  ANd debugging parallel code is a total b!tch.  Most of the guys with any parallel processing experience to speak of are scientists with big server iron.

So now, we've got two rather cutting-edge hardware consoles (XBox 360 and PS3) with heavy parallel processing power, but a very low population of programmers who can really make use of it.  At least the Xbox 360 provides uniform memory and three completely similar PPC cores.  The PS3 is a quirky monster with its asymmetrical Cell chip (main CPU vs SPE's) and the horrifyingly complex RAM space: half GDDR3 and half XDR each with different performance characteristics.  Sure, under the right circumstances it can be powerful but at a disproportionate amount of man-hours of design and debugging.  When you're in the business of creating and pushing games out the door to sell, the PS3 is heavily hampered by its weird and schizophrenic design.  And crappy tools. And an OS/Hypervisor which takes up one-third of your available XDR RAM.

Anyone dealing with these systems knows that Microsoft's tools are far far better than Sony's, allowing MS developers to knock out Hi-Def titles left and right (even if they don't take advantage of all three PPC CPUs).  Not surprising that XBox 360 is taking the lion share of the Hi-Def gaming library, where Sony is left relying desperately on their second-party publishers to save them, announcing delay after delay.

This post has been edited by Verity: Feb 1 2008, 05:52 PM

[Parre86]

QUOTE(m_hael @ Feb 1 2008, 02:46 PM)

it has nothing to do with education... to educate you have to know the info in the first place. This isn't an education, its R&D... plain and simple.

If there is lack of knowledge i'd say they need education. Ofcourse they cannot educate their employees themself. Did your mother teach you everything so you didn't have to go to school?

All i'm saying is, they should know how to utilize the PS3 (more then what they do) by now.

[dasbooter]

My feeling is, which may be totally wrong, of course is that Sony needs to really follow through on providing every bit of info to the developers and really help them out. In general it seems that Sony starts with a bang(good idea) but fail to really put the nail in the coffin when it comes to getting things done.M$ of course has tons of experience making there own little worlds and then making everybody fit it into it so I am sure they have in place all the tools to help developers. What you want to be Vista compatible then u have to do this this and this some of this experience probably helps them with the 360. I really hope Sony throws there weight behind the ps3 and blu ray in 2008, it just seems like there is so much potential in this console.

[m_hael]

just a small heads up to the posters above.

I worked for EA on low level ps3/360 until very recently when they closed the studio I was at.

I am one of those few people who know how to program for ps3 & 360 in terms of PPU, SPU & GPU.

You cannot teach was is not yet know, this isn't education until the information is known and thus it falls under R&D. Some information is known and is being disseminated, much is yet to be discovered, even by Sony.

[Parre86]

QUOTE(m_hael @ Feb 2 2008, 05:21 AM)

just a small heads up to the posters above.

I worked for EA on low level ps3/360 until very recently when they closed the studio I was at.

I am one of those few people who know how to program for ps3 & 360 in terms of PPU, SPU & GPU.

You cannot teach was is not yet know, this isn't education until the information is known and thus it falls under R&D. Some information is known and is being disseminated, much is yet to be discovered, even by Sony.

If it isn't known how come some studios makes incredible games and EA + some others still just can't do it?

[m_hael]

checkout burnout (one of the few EA games to Lead on Ps3).

you HAVE to remember... that the industry is closed from a studio to studio point of view. Information is not freely shared between then and likely never will be. Naughty dog made some efforts to share some of their knowledge (far from all I might add) and that was good in general however for most companies they have several issues

tech built on 360
ps3 R&D is expensive
what they know about ps3 requires a rewrite of their exist tech.... again... expensive.

so you see some developers who are leading on ps3 (or have significant funds) doing well... others console themselves into the fact that ps3 IS expensive for various reasons and make it a lesser priority. Others still fail to see the light and attempt a direct 360->Ps3 port and fail in various ways.

[Bubbalynch]

Ya know, I don't have enough knowlege on the technical side of this convo to even have a logical opinion. But I can only wonder why the hell Sony created such a complex machine for gaming.

Surely there must have been someone (one of the creators of the PS3's hardware/software) that had to scratch their head and say... "how the hell is this thing gonna work???" before mass production of the console.

It just seems odd to me in that aspect. Were they not focused enough on the 'gaming' side of the console or what? Im sure I'm way off with this rant, but to me its like the PS3 is some sort of advanced super technology that will never be understood in regards to tapping into it from a gaming point of view.

Anyways, good read fella's. Very interesting indeed.

[eduardor2k]

QUOTE(m_hael @ Feb 2 2008, 05:21 AM)

just a small heads up to the posters above.

I worked for EA on low level ps3/360 until very recently when they closed the studio I was at.

I am one of those few people who know how to program for ps3 & 360 in terms of PPU, SPU & GPU.

You cannot teach was is not yet know, this isn't education until the information is known and thus it falls under R&D. Some information is known and is being disseminated, much is yet to be discovered, even by Sony.

Since you worked for EA, tell us which platform is eassier to use the full power of the console? you should know?

[m_hael]

neither is easier to use "the full power of" .... I believe what you're wanting is validation of your opinion and its likely that for 90% of cases I'd agree.

the 360 is easier to program for, easier to use from a tools standpoint and easier to understand from a hardware standpoint.

however... the full power of a system is a entirely undefinable concept. It all boils down to HOW you use the systems and not to what degree you use them.

I'll try to analogize the problem.

The systems have a maximum number of operations they can do per frame... imagine that as being $1000, now with your $1000 go make a meal for 100 people, in Location X.

Xbox 360 - location X = an LA suburb, McDonald's every 100yards, a million chain stores/restaurants, god forbid you'd even have Mexican fast food joints.

Ps3 - location X = the natural section of a "Whole Foods" store. A million types of each and every vegetable on the planet, every meat you could want and spices you've never heard of. Everything is possible yet nothing is easy... oh and you have 1 pan to cook with and the cashier/staff doesn't speak your language.



Now with the information and assumptions above... feed each person a burger with fries and ketchup. The code for 360 would essentially say

* Go to McDonald's

ps3 however would be

Fries
* Add oil to pan, bring to 400F
* Peel potatoes
* Cut potatoes into fries
* Fry potatoes until golden brown

Burger
* Mince the beef
* Combine with spices/bread onions etc
* mold into burger pattie shape
* sear in the pan until cooked to spec

Ketchup
* Prepare 20lb of tomatoes
* Reduce down to a paste
* Add spices and corn flower

Bun
* Flour, eggs, yeast ... you get the picture.


Now ps3 has spu's... simple execution units that can do small self contained tasks VERY quickly, they all have the same resources (not shared) and operate completely independent of each other. Imagine them as Soux Chefs. Completely external to the main processor (PPU) but completely controlled by the PPU. The PPU can give the spu's work to do but it is for all intents and purposes "The boss".

360 has 3 dual core execution units, they are very similar to the PS3's single PPU. The 360 thus has 6 "bosses", they argue, they fight for control and resouces (all shared) but they can all do any and all of the work.


So the execution would be

PS3
<PPU> - tell spus to execute <Bun, Ketchup, Burger, Fries>
           - wait for them to be done, prepare & serve.

360

<Core0> - go to McDonald's.


So.... from a VERY simple point of view it is "easier" for the 360 Chef to produce those 100 burgers and he'd have plenty of $$$ left for other stuff. Ps3 Chef would produce a much much nicer burger (with the right programmer) and would do so in a similar amount of time with a similar cost. It would simply take longer to generate the plan; the program.

Anyone still reading (hehehe) might notice something.... because the 360 has 6 Chefs and they can all do anything it might prove beneficial to give one control and have the others be Soux Chefs. Give them each their own workspace, pans etc and operate them like an spu soux chef. Thus the plan for ps3 works on 360 too and with very little change. It is this that people who lead on ps3 realize early enough to capitalize on.

Hopefully I was able to shed some light on the issue to those who wish to learn... to those who already knew... I apologize for what is likely an appalling analogy.

[Bubbalynch]

^^ Now THAT is food for thought. Fricken cool man!  (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

[bucko]

QUOTE(m_hael @ Feb 3 2008, 06:47 PM)

neither is easier to use "the full power of" .... I believe what you're wanting is validation of your opinion and its likely that for 90% of cases I'd agree.

the 360 is easier to program for, easier to use from a tools standpoint and easier to understand from a hardware standpoint.

however... the full power of a system is a entirely undefinable concept. It all boils down to HOW you use the systems and not to what degree you use them.

I'll try to analogize the problem.

The systems have a maximum number of operations they can do per frame... imagine that as being $1000, now with your $1000 go make a meal for 100 people, in Location X.

Xbox 360 - location X = an LA suburb, McDonald's every 100yards, a million chain stores/restaurants, god forbid you'd even have Mexican fast food joints.

Ps3 - location X = the natural section of a "Whole Foods" store. A million types of each and every vegetable on the planet, every meat you could want and spices you've never heard of. Everything is possible yet nothing is easy... oh and you have 1 pan to cook with and the cashier/staff doesn't speak your language.
Now with the information and assumptions above... feed each person a burger with fries and ketchup. The code for 360 would essentially say

* Go to McDonald's

ps3 however would be

Fries
* Add oil to pan, bring to 400F
* Peel potatoes
* Cut potatoes into fries
* Fry potatoes until golden brown

Burger
* Mince the beef
* Combine with spices/bread onions etc
* mold into burger pattie shape
* sear in the pan until cooked to spec

Ketchup
* Prepare 20lb of tomatoes
* Reduce down to a paste
* Add spices and corn flower

Bun
* Flour, eggs, yeast ... you get the picture.
Now ps3 has spu's... simple execution units that can do small self contained tasks VERY quickly, they all have the same resources (not shared) and operate completely independent of each other. Imagine them as Soux Chefs. Completely external to the main processor (PPU) but completely controlled by the PPU. The PPU can give the spu's work to do but it is for all intents and purposes "The boss".

360 has 3 dual core execution units, they are very similar to the PS3's single PPU. The 360 thus has 6 "bosses", they argue, they fight for control and resouces (all shared) but they can all do any and all of the work.
So the execution would be

PS3
<PPU> - tell spus to execute <Bun, Ketchup, Burger, Fries>
           - wait for them to be done, prepare & serve.

360

<Core0> - go to McDonald's.
So.... from a VERY simple point of view it is "easier" for the 360 Chef to produce those 100 burgers and he'd have plenty of $$$ left for other stuff. Ps3 Chef would produce a much much nicer burger (with the right programmer) and would do so in a similar amount of time with a similar cost. It would simply take longer to generate the plan; the program.

Anyone still reading (hehehe) might notice something.... because the 360 has 6 Chefs and they can all do anything it might prove beneficial to give one control and have the others be Soux Chefs. Give them each their own workspace, pans etc and operate them like an spu soux chef. Thus the plan for ps3 works on 360 too and with very little change. It is this that people who lead on ps3 realize early enough to capitalize on.

Hopefully I was able to shed some light on the issue to those who wish to learn... to those who already knew... I apologize for what is likely an appalling analogy.

I totally agree, and just to add, I'm sure I read when the PS2 was launched most games looked like Dramcast games because they couldn't use the full processing power/best techniques etc. You only get the best stuff near the end of the console life span, look at the Xbox 1 near the end some great games came out for that then and great games are still coming out for the PS2.

It takes ages to get the knowledge, hell it took almost a year for decent 360 2nd gen games to start appear. The stuff you see now on the 360 is amazing because it has been out longer than the PS3 so they obviously know more on the development cycle etc (even some games are starting to look better than Halo 3 now etc etc)...

This has always been the way in console development as far as I know, so I don't see why people are panicking, the PS3 has a few years left yet, and EA has plenty of money to enhance there R&D team/studio.

This post has been edited by bucko: Feb 4 2008, 08:55 PM

[man_the_king]

QUOTE(m_hael @ Feb 3 2008, 12:47 PM)

neither is easier to use "the full power of" .... I believe what you're wanting is validation of your opinion and its likely that for 90% of cases I'd agree.

the 360 is easier to program for, easier to use from a tools standpoint and easier to understand from a hardware standpoint.

however... the full power of a system is a entirely undefinable concept. It all boils down to HOW you use the systems and not to what degree you use them.

I'll try to analogize the problem.

The systems have a maximum number of operations they can do per frame... imagine that as being $1000, now with your $1000 go make a meal for 100 people, in Location X.

Xbox 360 - location X = an LA suburb, McDonald's every 100yards, a million chain stores/restaurants, god forbid you'd even have Mexican fast food joints.

Ps3 - location X = the natural section of a "Whole Foods" store. A million types of each and every vegetable on the planet, every meat you could want and spices you've never heard of. Everything is possible yet nothing is easy... oh and you have 1 pan to cook with and the cashier/staff doesn't speak your language.
Now with the information and assumptions above... feed each person a burger with fries and ketchup. The code for 360 would essentially say

* Go to McDonald's

ps3 however would be

Fries
* Add oil to pan, bring to 400F
* Peel potatoes
* Cut potatoes into fries
* Fry potatoes until golden brown

Burger
* Mince the beef
* Combine with spices/bread onions etc
* mold into burger pattie shape
* sear in the pan until cooked to spec

Ketchup
* Prepare 20lb of tomatoes
* Reduce down to a paste
* Add spices and corn flower

Bun
* Flour, eggs, yeast ... you get the picture.
Now ps3 has spu's... simple execution units that can do small self contained tasks VERY quickly, they all have the same resources (not shared) and operate completely independent of each other. Imagine them as Soux Chefs. Completely external to the main processor (PPU) but completely controlled by the PPU. The PPU can give the spu's work to do but it is for all intents and purposes "The boss".

360 has 3 dual core execution units, they are very similar to the PS3's single PPU. The 360 thus has 6 "bosses", they argue, they fight for control and resouces (all shared) but they can all do any and all of the work.
So the execution would be

PS3
<PPU> - tell spus to execute <Bun, Ketchup, Burger, Fries>
           - wait for them to be done, prepare & serve.

360

<Core0> - go to McDonald's.
So.... from a VERY simple point of view it is "easier" for the 360 Chef to produce those 100 burgers and he'd have plenty of $$$ left for other stuff. Ps3 Chef would produce a much much nicer burger (with the right programmer) and would do so in a similar amount of time with a similar cost. It would simply take longer to generate the plan; the program.

Anyone still reading (hehehe) might notice something.... because the 360 has 6 Chefs and they can all do anything it might prove beneficial to give one control and have the others be Soux Chefs. Give them each their own workspace, pans etc and operate them like an spu soux chef. Thus the plan for ps3 works on 360 too and with very little change. It is this that people who lead on ps3 realize early enough to capitalize on.

Hopefully I was able to shed some light on the issue to those who wish to learn... to those who already knew... I apologize for what is likely an appalling analogy.

m_hael, speaking as a Software Engineer (not for games, ERP software - Oracle Applications, actually), that was one of the best analogies in the discussion about Console pluses/minuses. Thanks a lot for the VERY enlightening read. Kudos!