Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma: PS3 Not So Superior After All
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Oct 26, 2009 05:58 JST
- Tags: Comparison, Ninja Gaiden, Oppai, Ports, PS3, Technology
The upgraded PS3 port of Ninja Gaiden 2, Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma, was hailed as a huge graphical upgrade over its Xbox 360 original, but close observation reveals some very substantial compromises had to be made to accomodate the PS3’s differing capabilities, which some would say have resulted in a certain amount of downgrading…
Detailed analysis reveals that the the game was very heavily optimised for the Xbox 360 and had to be cut back in certain areas for the PS3 port, even as it was enhanced in other areas:
Team Ninja’s original code is based on exploiting all of the inherent strengths of the Xbox 360 platform, the intention being to push out as many polygons as possible based on the Microsoft console’s unique architectural advantages. A like-for-like copy at the same performance level would’ve been an almost impossible job to produce on PS3.
Team Ninja’s original performance quest was so completely single-minded that it actually resulted in a game that ran at a sub-HD resolution on Xbox 360. Native 720p was dumped in favour of an 1120×585 resolution combined with 2x multi-sampling anti-aliasing.
Using a 32-bit pixel format and a 32-bit z-buffer, the frame could be entirely rendered within the Xbox 360’s ultra-fast eDRAM before being copied out to main RAM. Indeed, if our maths is right, Team Ninja’s selected framebuffer format uses 99.975 per cent of the available eDRAM.
The performance benefits are obvious: Ninja Gaiden 2 copes admirably with a vast amount of on-screen enemies and relatively complex environments.
…
The Sigma team’s solution to these problems is quite ingenious. It simply rebuilt the whole game completely from scratch with its own engine, “remixing” Ninja Gaiden 2 to play more to the strengths of the PS3 hardware. It’s a situation only seen before a handful of times in previous cross-platform projects (Oblivion and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars spring to mind).
Right from the outset, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 impresses. There’s a palpable resolution boost, for starters. The original sub-HD 1120×585 res on Xbox 360 is substituted for 1280×718 on PS3: essentially full 720p aside from pixel-thin black lines.
There’s even proper bona fide 2x MSAA included too, to reduce jagginess – though when the engine is stressed, edge-smoothing is dispensed with to maintain frame-rate.
It seems making multiplatform releases for the PS3 and Xbox 360 is a far more fraught process than developers tend to admit, with developers often taking shortcuts resulting in ports which are less than optimised.
This is sure to come to the fore with the upcoming release of Final Fantasy XIII, a graphically spectacular game many have suggested is being graphically downgraded on the PS3 to ensure an identical Xbox 360 release…
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Seems like a pretty huge difference to me. Like 2 generations of 1 game.
The upgrade is a downgrade. Well, more of a sidegrade. LOL
Who cares, it's all about jiggling boobs.
+1
I think it's an upgrade and a downgrade
but i like the upgrades better, the downgrades seem minimal.
c'mon, Ayane and motion controlled jiggling FTW! Obvious winner = PS3
Why are all of the pics from cutscenes?
The pics are from cut scenes because regular game play wouldn't be identical side by side.
Ninja Gaiden
lol
Does this really matter?
Well there won't be the usual fun if there isn't a war like always on this kind of topic... Let me see your RAAAAAAAGE consolefags !
raawwwwrrrrrr, ps3 are bettaaaarrrr!! :D
nah. not worth raging over, although i'm not really a raeg-fag. XD
they should've just upped the boob-size and everyone would have been happy.
agreed
Somewhere, I have screenshots of a game from ten years ago where it appears the designers "spent" most of their polygon budget on the lead female character's breasts.
Her breasts were (for the time) beautifully smooth and shaded -- and the lines of her arms were straight where they should have been curved -- as if someone had done a "connect the dots"-type drawing.
The only way a game is going to truly look "the same" across different architectures is if the programmers implement some sort of horrible "least-common denominator" design. Nobody will be happy with the results (ugly and slow) of that.
totally
inb4 console war faggotry
inb4 inb4...
damn.
Anyone who deals in console wars is dumb and poor. They support their own machine because they don't have enough money to buy the other one and are insecure about the fact that they might have made the wrong purchase.
Wrong, ur the dumb and poor. You don't even have taste at all. If you know investment you won't say that. We support one console 'coz the other console is shit. I ain't gonna spend another dollar on a shitty console 'coz the company made that console breaks all the time.
They complain PS3 is expensive but it doesn't break as much as the 360. Tell me, w/c is more expensive? Spending on an expensive console once or buy more than one of the same console bec it breaks all the time?
I agree. I got the Xbox360 about 2 years ago and had it break down many times. After it scratched up most of my games( with me not moving the console )I got rid of that piece of shit. I was dumb and poor, but now that the PS3 is cheaper and smaller, I might have a chance to get back into console gaming.
The lesson of the story:
Buy consoles from companies who have had many years of experience in the console gaming field( Sony and Nintendo )
Give Microsoft a couple more years and they MIGHT get it right.
Don't buy a console until after a year or two it is released.
@08:24
thats what the warranty is for and seriously... the new 360 models don't suffer from rrods as much as the first generation. I havn't seen any complaints about rrods since the elite came out (of course, only with the new model... the consoles before that are still breaking).
but still... i don't really care about that. I've seen new Mercedes' break down for no reason. It happens... it's out of your/our control. Your PS3 can break too... thank god for warranty. Thank God MS upped the warranty to 3 years. Thank God that MS has such a "good" and fast Support.
Having to buy a new console every 3~4 years is not that bad, even if it breaks down 12 times in those 4 years. Sure, it's annoying... but there are better things to do than just playing videogames.
oh, and btw: i had 1 rrod since the 360 came out. I don't have any warranty anymore on my console now... i never had any problems with my 360 besides that. I never had any probs with my PS3 as well... though, i don't play as much with my PS3 as i do with my 360.
@anon 09:16
If your console happens to destroy your DVDs, give MS a call. You'll get your games back... and just a tip: don't let your 360 stand vertically. It only happens when it stands and when you move your console - so you're the first to say that you didn't do anything.
xbox 360 ftw!
sorry, times up
i want to play game, why give microshit another year or two.
all this console war can go eat shit.
i gonna play my ps3 now than wasting my time typing to stupid xbotfantard / ps3 haters
if i owen all 3 and still proclaim that my PC is 1000x better dose that make me an elitest? or just a PC fanboy? or god?
It makes you a faggot.
+1
"It makes you a faggot."
This.
PC 1000x better? I have my PC but console game give better gaming experience. from long ago (for me since psx era). thing is, the PC doesnt have console style RPG. They dont have Star Ocean 4, God of War 3, Metal Gear Solid 4. I like these games. If i have no console, the only gaming experience of this game i have is frustrated experience, of having to watch the game in youtube
I guess it depends on what you want to determine the superior version.
lol psfags get a "optimized" port of a 2 year old game and even then ps3 can't handle the damn thing
Yeah? Explain why the 360 drops it framerate from 60fps to 40fps and below during those details?
its because the porter got lazy.. lol.
Dont worry the ps3 is not 60 fps to :] .
I'm no fanboy of anything, but the game was optimized for XBOX360, so to make it run on a completely different system they needed to make some adjustments.
by the way, 360 is already a dated system. If you look at the specs, its actually a top of the line trimmed down PC from 2003. PS3 has better hardware, but making games and making ports to it is difficult that is all.
360 - better development software
PS3 - better system's "raw power"
Yeah and the ps3 isn't dated? The ps3 is still a SINGLE CORE processor with an EXTREMELY outdated stripped down model of a 7800 gtx. The best thing with the ps3 is the fast 256 mb of memory and that you can swap out HDD without something propietary. Alas, you have no mandatory installs on X360 though.
@Anonymous 17:58:26:
"Single-core"? Learn to Google.
IBM's Cell contains:
One "Power Processing Element" (think: PPC CPU)
Eight "Synergistic Processing Elements" (think: peripheral processor with self-contained memory)
The PPE and six SPEs are available to game programmers (Sony's XMB makes use of one PPE, and one PPE is either non-functional or intentionally disabled - this lets Sony use cheaper Cell chips).
Only for foldinghome and HD decode :] . Becouse the power of and memory architecture just suck :] . Everyone knows that . This are the main components responsible for graphics .
and yet, despite these changes, I find it a worthy tradeoff.
why? it's simple, Team Ninja didn't abuse the "fuck you" button in this one. (Gatling Rocket Launcher Ninjas anyone?)
The real difference between the two games is that the PS3 version contains two missions that are almost certainly impossible to complete. The game has been out for a month now, and so far not a single person in the entire world has beaten Ultimate Ninja missions 1 and 2, while even the next-hardest missions have been finished by several thousand people.
I'm getting close to the point where those two missions are the only thing separating me from a platinum trophy, so I hope someone gets around to beating them soon ;-)
yeah nice, GAME SUCKS CUZ CUT SCENE HAS LESS MONSTARS LOL Xbox360 OBVIOUSLY SUPERIOR CUZ CUTSCENE.
LUL FAGS WE ALL KNOW GAMEPLAY AND GAME GRAPHICS DONT COUNT IN RATING.
one thing i've noticed is on the xbox version, i don't know what the hell is going on. everything is fucking blurry. the ps3 version i can see the detail. in a still picture i would like the 360 but in game i would take ps3.
i hope you noticed that the game in itself has more victims/enemys on the 360, yes?
They took Cutscenes, because they're easier to compare.
Not being a console fanboi, I'm not getting it. The PS3 screenshots look far superior, in the main fact you can actually SEE the screenshots. They have light whilst the 360 are basically pitch black. Is that the whole joke? Cause you can see thus proving inferior graphics?
Is it just me or are all those pics very blurry?
so 360 version sacrificed details for more fiends on the cutscenes. while ps3 sacrificed less fiends on cutscenes for more textured details and lighting?
i guess it all depends on the person if they want their cutscenes to be filled with fiends or not
ps3 fags must be spewing atm
nope, not really
LOL FAG!!!
This PS3 vs XBox 360 stuff continues to be hugely boring and vapid. Seriously, you've got loli pantsu and you spend all your time fapping about miniscule console differences? I don't want to hear about video games unless it involves character art.
Seconded! I love character art, and looking at scrapped designs and such.
all the ps3 and xbox 360 fanboys need to stfu
and stop making a big deal over little things