Battlefield BC 2 faceoff. [PS3 vs PC]

Can someone explain how the PS3 version can look the same, or in some aspects even better than the PC version?

PC edges: Better water & AA.
PS3 edges: Better shadows & brighter textures.


DigitalFoundry- Battlefield: Bad Company 2 PS3 vs. PC Face-Off

PlayStation 3 goes up against an all-powerful i7/GTX295 PC in this Bad Company 2 comparison video.

So, i7 CPU + GTX295 = CELL + RSX?

 

Maybe because its really hard to fully optimize a game for PC as there are so many different setups you can use and PS3 only use one hardware setup regardless of being a Fat or Slim version.
Drivers also play a big role on PC too.
Either way i think BF:BC2 will be best multiplayer wise on PC as more people actually owns it. xD

Also the RSX is a modified Nvidia Geforce 7800 or something. xD

 

PC should have vastly superior LOD management, especially with texture filtering.

After watching the video, yes the PC has the better LOD. The shadow roughness is a bit worse on the PC at high impact angles where it begins to artifact (a common problem on any and every platform), but the shadows themselves show up more detailed at longer distances. PC looks to be employing a larger amount of particles in smoke and explosions. Water does seem alot better looking on PC, water is much deeper and richer looking. The differences are honestly quite negligible unless you really pick them out, so I guess it's just a good indication of great programing on DICE's end for the PS3. Though we well know that an i7, HD58xx equiped desktop has probably 6 or so times the actual basic graphics pushing power of the PS3, and the Cell BE and console optimizations really can't make up for that (that is, if DICE used the Cell for any rendering), unless you limit the rendering to 720p which of course is the 360 and PS3's rendering sweet spot, while a PC can be running full 1080p, better AA, and LOD while still probably hitting 50-100% framerate. The problem I heard with the BC2 PC Beta though was that the game was very CPU dependent, if that is the case, then we can see a problem with the PC getting those much higher framerates unless the person is running a decent quad-core.

 

Because they optimize the game far more on Consoles and just hope people have the hardware to run an un-optimized game on PC?

Look at Borderlands, doesn't even have an option for AA in game for PC. How ridiculous is that?

 

Also, Consoles can't play on 32 person maps, they are limited to 24

 

Unreal engine has no AA

 

PC optimization is an expensive endeavor, especially across three different rendering APIs (DX9,10, and 11) and across countless hardware configurations. What is nice to reflect on is that Nvidia and ATi can make optimizations in their driver code to better render individual games, much like DICE can make optimizations on their end as to what goes into the API to get translated into the driver and into the GPU. That's alot of software to get through before rendering.

 

Ahh that explains it then.

Considering Consoles are using I believe modified 7800 and a modified X800, the developers must have to work so much more to optimize a game to look good and run good. Also helps when you are viewing the games on a 40" HDTV vs a 20" LCD for PC. I think game developers just choose whichever they see the most money to gain, and I barely know any PC Gamers now except online or on forums like these. Everyone I know play on console.

Apparently being a couch potato is cool, but sitting in front a PC is nerdy. That's what I was told.

When I see videos like these, I have no faith that DICE spent any time to make it look better on PC. They claimed BC2 wouldn't be a console port, but that video says it all. Lying to PC fans again, sweet.

 

BC1 and 2 are on DICEs own Frostbite engine, not Unreal 3.x.

As for how the game is received on PC, I have a feeling it will do very well.

 

BC2 > MW2

Going tonight in a few hours to grab my copy have to wait for the wife to get home to watch the kids.

 

I have the game already and I can say that the whole game looks better on the PC maxed out than on the PS3. This is the PC versions I got.

 

You can play maxed out with those specs?

 

Well I think the PC version should be the best choice if you have a PC that can handle it and there are no outstanding factors. Just because it has a server browser and higher MP player cap. Mods of course will be awesome too. I could hardly care less about graphical nuances unless they were really jarring.

 

Yeah I'm wondering the same thing.

 

You'd be surprised how powerful a GTX 260 is.

 

He meant that there is no AA option in Borderlands since it is Unreal based

 

I know this isn't a thread for my Q but I didn't want to start a new thread just for that. Can I play Bad Company 2 singleplayer offline? I'm going on a trip where I will have no internet connection...

 

Man, so much wrong with this comparison.

Firstly, it is at a lower resolution. Any modest PC setup could do better than the RSX + CELL, if allowed.

Secondly, this only implies, at best, that parts of the game were designed from the ground up to work ideally on the console hardware without much room to scale further on PC hardware when it came to the visual department. Big deal. People who have actually played both versions know the difference. Magnus72 from the M1730 forums played this at full resolution, maxed out on his M1730, and he gave the demo a shot on the PS3. The PC version clearly had a greater level of detail and definition; his personal pick.

Also, Unreal Engine does support anti-aliasing. Where it doesn't support anti-aliasing is when the engine is employing deferred rendering. Anyway, that's another discussion for another time. F.Y.I.: There is a steady growing list of U.E. 3.0 games that do use anti-aliasing, including the console-favourite, Gears of War.

Edit:
And yes, AA can be implement in Borderlands using the newer 190-series drivers. There's even an AA compatibility code within Nhancer, incase people require using the feature.

I have the same machine as him, and with 8800/9800m GTX SLi cards, I can run every single game on the market. The exceptions being true PC killers like Crysis and STALKER, and even those when tweaked run just fine. There's seriously no logic that implies a solid PC design using twin 256-bit 8 series cards with an entire army of unified shaders working in concert, loosing out to the much more challenged console hardware. If people actually think about the power of even some of these older cards, they'd realise that a majority of games should be quite easy to run.