Tech Talk: Castlevania leads on PS3 – targets “identical” port to Xbox 360
Various media publications have started analyzing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and the game looks to be quite impressive. The performance of the title rocks a solid 80th percentile 30fps with occasional dips.
Mercury Steam boss, David Cox recently responded to parity concerns between the Xbox 360 and PS3 version. The studio revealed earlier this year that the PS3 is the lead platform and the game was getting ported to the Xbox 360.
More studios are doing this as it results in the best development cycle across platforms. Its easier to plan out what will be thrown onto the PS3’s seven powerful SPUs, like physics, AI and lighting before coding begins. Developers will often use a custom compiler to dynamically chop-up these tasks and thread them to a specific SPU.
Porting the code over to the Xbox 360 involves combining these different tasks to run all off the same graphics GPU. However, its a bit more difficult to take code from an Xbox 360 and try to rip it apart to offload onto the PS3’s seven SPUs.
A quick and dirty programming trick some studios have resorted to is porting the Xbox 360 code in its entirety to run off the PS3’s constrained GPU without touching the Cell SPUs, often times resulting in sub-par ports.
Porting code from the PS3 to the Xbox 360 is easier but not without its challenges. Since the Cell’s SPUs are capable of achieving a much higher number of operations than the Xbox 360, developers may overshoot performance capacity across platforms.
This may be the case for Mercury Steam’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, as it seems to run at a consistent 30fps with some dips to 24fps on the PS3 but drops even further on the Xbox 360. However, the game doesn’t suffer from any screen tearing whatsoever (0%), which could mean that the game employs active V-sync on the PS3.
Cox did reveal that the Xbox 360 review version of the game suffers from framerate issues and has worked on correcting this for the retail copy.
I’m curious as to how Mercury Steam fixed the framerate issue for the Xbox 360 version. The studio may have changed the Xbox 360 version to use some sort of soft V-sync, which will disengage when the framerate starts dropping dramatically.
This could give the Xbox 360 version a boost in average fps even over the PS3 version, but it might cause occasional screen tearing. This may be a necessary sacrifice to preserve playability.
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38 Responses to “Tech Talk: Castlevania leads on PS3 – targets “identical” port to Xbox 360”
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September 30th, 2010
let us try the demo on PSN then to find out about this so called Uncharted 2 killah, shall we?
September 30th, 2010
Looks like the tables are turning on the Multiplatform ported games eh?
What you on about Uncharted killer? It’s a different game lmao. It’s more like God of War
September 30th, 2010
I think he was talking about graphics.
now Sony’s domination is just going to continue for the rest of this gen. this reminds me of WWI and WWII, the bad guys were wining at first and then halfway through the tables turn!
September 30th, 2010
Castlevania’s graphics better than killzone? LMFAO!!! Not if it’s on the xbox as well Im afraid
September 30th, 2010
Omg what a fucking arsehole I am! I meant to put Uncharted not Killzone lmao! Well still there’s another game that ain’t been beat graphically on the console. No matter what HH says about ODST lol
October 1st, 2010
At least they’re trying to fix the retail version for the 360 prior to launch. Not many other studios would really bother.
October 1st, 2010
Oh Shit don’t tell Twilight. She won’t have anything left to talk about except sales of 3 games.
October 1st, 2010
“A quick and dirty programming trick some studios have resorted to is porting the Xbox 360 code in its entirety to run off the PS3’s constrained GPU without touching the Cell SPUs, often times resulting in sub-par ports.”
Especially this part. She has been told this 50 times and still doesn’t believe or understand it.
October 1st, 2010
Looks like a good game by the way.
October 1st, 2010
Graphically, Castlevania is nowhere near God of War, Uncharted 2 or Killzone 2 graphics.
HH said ODST look just as good as Uncharted 2 but we all know he likes to lie in any way he can in order to praise his precious machine.
October 1st, 2010
It’s nice when every now and then the PS3 has the superior version of a multiplat game. I guess the differences weren’t enough to warrant a distinction in scores from IGN like with The Orange Box or Bayonetta.
Those were very embarrassing moments for IGN.
October 1st, 2010
ING sucks ass
October 1st, 2010
IGN LOL
October 1st, 2010
ING probably does to but I don’t bank with them LOL
October 1st, 2010
Ncaissie,
Hello kratos. I can only go by what I see with my eyes. The reason that I have a Xbox360 is for multi-platform games. The games are usually better then the Ps3 versions of the same games.
It appears that I probably pre-ordered the wrong version of this game. It looks like I should have got this game on the Ps3.
October 1st, 2010
Well…cancel the preorder..
October 1st, 2010
Phranctoast,
I will be doing this. Are you getting the collector’s edition of this game or the regular version?
October 1st, 2010
I’m getting the regular version.
Amazon no longer has the PS3/360 version with a $20 credit, so I’ll show around to see. I hear Walmart may still be doing a gift card. I hate Walmart though.
October 1st, 2010
show=shop
October 1st, 2010
I was just wondering if you thought it was worth paying extra for collector’s edition.
October 1st, 2010
I never do. I’m tempted with LBP2 because of the book/game ends.
October 1st, 2010
Unless you’re massive fan of X franchise I say it’s never worth it (there are very few exceptions).
I’m getting the GT5 Collectors Edition because I be a huge fan of the franchise since it debuted on PS1.
LBP2, while not a huge fan I think that’s one of the rare cases where I think it’s worth it (for $80).
October 1st, 2010
Yeah,I was thinking that I could use some of the collector’s edition money towards a new game.
October 1st, 2010
“The reason that I have a Xbox360 is for multi-platform games. The games are usually better then the Ps3 versions of the same games.
It appears that I probably pre-ordered the wrong version of this game. It looks like I should have got this game on the Ps3.”
I wish I had your money to get every m p game twice.
and two TVs side by side to compare them. Must be nice.
October 1st, 2010
“I never do. I’m tempted with LBP2 because of the book/game ends.”
already did LOL
but not for me. Real men don’t play those types of games.
October 1st, 2010
and the resolution and fps reader
October 1st, 2010
COW3 collectors was worth it.
I love the Pandora’s box.
The wife doesn’t though LOL
And I have a bobble head Vault-Tec right here on my office desk. And a cool lunch box.
Haven’t decided what to do with the lunch box yet though.
And If DCUO had one I would be buying it those muther fuckers.
October 1st, 2010
“I have a bobble head Vault-Tec right here on my office desk. And a cool lunch box.”
That one was worth it also, it only cost me $35
October 1st, 2010
LOL me to. only $30
October 1st, 2010
Ncaissie,
You know I don’t buy every game twice. There are demos and I have friends that have both gaming systems as well. I think you’ll probably enjoy this post better:
The Ps3 is the best system in the world. It rules! The Ps3 kicks Xbox360′s ass. Ps3 has the best games. The Xbox360 is a piece of crap. It gets so hot it’s a blazing inferno.
October 1st, 2010
twilight,
I like the cut of your jib.
October 1st, 2010
LOL
October 2nd, 2010
wow, looks incredible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQtzxlZ0IAw shows the game play will look just as good as the cutscenes without a lot of the nonsense like dedicated battle areas you get ported to that put me off FF13. I hadn’t considered it before but i may just get this.
Why the strong Christian connotations though?
October 2nd, 2010
wow, looks incredible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQtzxlZ0IAw shows the game play will look just as good as the cutscenes without a lot of the nonsense like dedicated battle areas you get ported to that put me off FF13. I hadn’t considered it before but i may just get this.
Why the strong Christian connotations though?
October 2nd, 2010
wow, looks incredible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQtzxlZ0IAw shows the game play will look just as good as the cutscenes without a lot of the nonsense like dedicated battle areas you get ported to that put me off FF13. I hadn’t considered it before but i may just get this.
Why the strong Christian connotations though?
October 2nd, 2010
wow, looks incredible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQtzxlZ0IAw shows the game play will look just as good as the cutscenes without a lot of the nonsense like dedicated battle areas you get ported to that put me off FF13. I hadn’t considered it before but i may just get this.
Why the strong Christian connotations though?
October 2nd, 2010
BioShock Infinite – Official Gameplay Trailerwow, looks incredible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQtzxlZ0IAw shows the game play will look just as good as the cutscenes without a lot of the nonsense like dedicated battle areas you get ported to that put me off FF13. I hadn’t considered it before but i may just get this.
Why the strong Christian connotations though?
October 2nd, 2010
oops sorry for the multiple posts, but the upload kept of freezing. is there any way to delete them?