Hey guys. I know that we, including myself, are completely sick of talking about which console has better graphics, but I came across some amazing pictures on EuroGamer. Because of all the recent talk about the Playstation 3 being hard to code for resulting in laziness by developers really clashes with the following results.

I'd like to first start out by saying that I am completely unbiased here. I do not own a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 console, nor do I plan to get either anytime soon. I did this purely for the sake of research.

All these games run in 720p, and there's one thing they all seem to have in common. The Playstation 3 looks better in every one of them.

This is the way I'll showcase them. I'll describe a certain point in both pictures and ask you to compare them with what your personal opinion is. I'm quite sure you'll notice massive detail differences in Playstation 3's version.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas

I'll ask you to look at the circular structure in the bottom part of the picture, and its surrounding structures. On the Xbox 360, the lights seem to encompass all the textures around it, blocking detail. On the PS3, there is a sufficient amount of lighting, while restricting it to a certain border, leaving room for raw detail. If you look to the left you'll also see the blue glass building is so much sharper on the Playstation.







To be quite honest, I don't know what is going on with the soldier's face on the PS3 in this one, but this is soon excused by looking at the building to the right, and the traffic below.

Tony Hawk's Project 8

In this picture the only main differences are a slightly sharper image on the Sony side of things. The draw distance difference is impressively tilting towards Playstation 3 though, with its CELL CPU really showing what it can do.







In this image it is very difficult to spot any noticeable differences. The only small differences are with the PS3 using a slightly more impressive use of lighting once again, with the back area in the level being far better illuminated on such.

The Elder scrolls IV: Oblivion

I think the lighting aspects of PS3 are shown immensely here. On Xbox, this room is completely dark and blurry, while on Playstation the room is fully illuminated and sharpened up. Be sure to look at the brickwork for another fair comparison.






Another clear picture. Just look at, once again I repeat myself, the use of Playstation's light renders in the background. The improvements in the detail of the creatures face are noticeable as well. I'll point out both its forehead and cheeks as an example.

This post was last modified: 07-07-2007 06:25 PM by TheCosmicFrog.

Nice article. Seems like splitting hairs on most screenshots, however I can certainly see the difference. Not to mention that all of these games were released on the PS3 several months (or in Oblivion's case, up to a year) after the Xbox 360 version, so there was more time to refine the visuals. I'd like to see some cross-platform games that were released simultaneously on both consoles.

Also, at least so far, the best-looking Xbox 360 titles seem to look better than the best looking PS3 titles (namely Gears of War). But then again I've played way more Xbox 360 than PS3 so I'm maybe not the best person to make that assessment.

Wow....

Nice artical dude!!

I always thought that the PS3 had just a little more HD capacity but this is an eye opener...

Great Find dude... Again...

Yeah, a little emphasis on what GlueGun said. Majority of the games showcased above came well after the 360 release so developers had time to do touch-ups here and there. If you want a comparison of both system's power you should wait until something like DMC4 comes out. Or maybe Madden 08.

this will only get worse and worse as the console war goes on. PS3 games will start to look vastly superior to their 360 counterparts. Once they figure out the Cell Processor, it'll be no contest.

^ Completely true

And nice article man!

Thanks guys. I didn't expect this much support! But it is true that at 720p the Playstation can really show how well it sharpens up simple images. We were told from day one that PS3 would have amazing lighting renders and I think these comparisons show it.

The PS3 just looks darker than the 360 lol

If you read through all the games that are in the article, there are some clear PS3 winners and some clear 360 winners. For instance if you look at Oblivion, the graphics are lighter, but are able to show off more detail, plus when you look into the distance within the game you see a lot more. Where as Project 8 is hands down better on the 360.

Absolutely, when the Cell and RSX get utilized, as well as Blu-ray capacity, it will be game over. The 360 has another good year, with some good titles, but the PS3 is going to start to pull away.

Note: The PS3 light rendering looks FAR more realistic.

Amazing that you say that Cloud. The PS3 seems to have far better light renders.

Definitely. I remember Sony showcasing this in a Metal Gear Solid 4, and they were most proud about this over anything else

This post was last modified: 07-08-2007 10:50 AM by TheCosmicFrog.

i'll only atlk about two games.

first R6V: the bloom lighting effect was used way too much on the 360 which is why it makes the scenes looked washed out. they obviously toned it down for the PS3 which is a good thing. the second pic where the soldier's face cant be seen is because on the PS3 version they arent using any sort of lighting inside the chopper. note how on the the 360 there a red tint of light coming from the bottom left corner of the screen which makes his face and body much more visible. one thing that most ps3 games do wrong is the draw distance. although the the scenic view is much more clearer than the 360, it's not a realistic shot, there no depth of field or motion blur. with everything looking sharp, it has a very clinical look to it. that was/is one of forza2's biggest complaints.

oblivion: since its announcement of it coming to the PS3, they made clear that they were gonna polish this game up considerably. i would have been disappointed if there were no dramatic changes at release. the bloom lighting effect on this game, for the 360, was overused beyond overuse, but it did an incredible job of showing off the the world of Cyrodiil when you first exited the sewers. i shoud take an off-screen vid cap of this, but the im positive the awe will not translate well since you have to first experience and be humbled by fighting in a dark dingy dungeon for an hour before you exit to be blinded by this lush and colorful world.

This post was last modified: 07-08-2007 12:24 PM by greaserlee.

I'm amzed you say this, because draw distance basically boils down to raw computing power and clock scycle speed, which PS3 betters in both cases

are we comparing visuals or processing power? does a lighting engine not use processing power?

sure, the 2nd PS3 screen of R6V's cityscape looks clean, but it doesnt look right.

Oh of course it does, but 7 cores of a 3.2GHz sized carriage of horses is really what defines a draw distance in a game, as well as a shed load of RAM

Ultimately, it's how those cores are used. Simple, a 360 to PS3 port doesn't utilize the cores well.

agreed, it's like with any port, if a company specifically creates a game for a systems hardware then that game will look better, but if they get sloppy and create a game for system A and just go rough shot and put it out for system B then it's not gonna be as good.

But they've already said that with PS3 they essentially have to build from the ground up, so maybe they're just lazy about it

PS3 has 1 PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element".
&
Six accessible 3.2 GHz Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs).
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The 7th runs in a special mode and is dedicated to aspects of the OS and security.

source