The proof of this is the fact that Call of Duty 4 runs at a resolution of only 640p on both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. This may be “equal” in terms of what is displayed on the screen, but the FACT is that Call of Duty 4 is putting a much larger burden on the PS3 than it is the Xbox 360.

Confirmation of this can be seen in the large number of games that “run smoothly at 60 frames per second on the Xbox 360, but struggle to run at 30 frames per second on the Playstation 3.” That was a quote from Gamespot.

It’s simple math: The Xbox 360 can display approximately 500,000,000 polygons per second, compared to 275,000,000 polygons per second for the Playstation 3.

Multi-platform games use what is called a “Lowest Common Denominator” form of programming.

Basically, what this means is the developers start out by saying to themselves, “We need to develop a game for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3.”

Then, the developers put limits on how many polygons they are going to put on the screen, and they determine what framerate the game will run at as a result of that number.

When the developers multiply the number of polygons displayed on the screen by the number of frames being displayed each second, they examine what that number is. Multi-platform games can NEVER display more than 275,000,000 polygons per second, or else they can’t be released for the Playstation 3, since the PS3 cannot display more than 275,000,000 polygons per second.

As a result, developers are often conservative with the number of polygons being displayed with multi-platform games, especially with the poor reputation of inconsistent framerates that the Playstation 3 has acquired over time.

It basically comes down to these THREE factors:
If a multi-platform game running at 30 frames per second on the Playstation 3 uses 250,000,000 polygons or less, it gives the developers the ability to allow the Xbox 360 version to run at 60 frames per second, since 500,000,000 is double the number of 250,000,000.

If a multi-platform game running at 30 frames per second on the Playstation 3 uses over 250,000,000 polygons per second, it means the Xbox 360 version is also forced to run at only 30 frames per second. This is an unfortunate situation, because it means the Playstation 3 will be using 90-100% of its power by displaying somewhere between 250,000,000 to 275,000,000 polygons per second, while the Xbox 360 will only be using 60% of its power, since the Xbox 360 has so much more polygon power.

If a multi-platform game is intended to run at 60 frames per second on the Playstation 3, the Xbox 360 version will also run at 60 frames per second. The Playstation 3 version will be limited to 275,000,000 polygons per second. The Xbox 360 will also be limited to 275,000,000 polygons per second, due to the fact that 275,000,000 is the Lowest Common Denominator. This is unfortunate, because it means the Playstation 3 version will be using between 90% to 100% of the systems power, while the Xbox 360 will be using only 60% of the systems power. Call of Duty 4 is an excellent example of this situation.

The Playstation 3 only transfers data at a rate of 54MB per second as a Blu-ray player being used for movies. When it comes to gaming, there are hardware “bottlenecks” that the Playstation 3 faces, which allows the PS3 to transfer data at a rate of only 9MB per second. The Xbox 360 transfers data at a rate of 16MB per second.

The Official Playstation Magazine wrote an article about the longer load times of PS3 games shortly after the Playstation 3 was launched. The only time the PS3 does not have to deal with either noticably or significantly longer load times is when the game is placed on the PS3 hard drive. Sadly, it often takes over TWENTY long minutes to write the game onto the PS3 hard drive. Even when a PS3 game is written onto a hard drive, the load times between Xbox 360 games and PS3 games is virtually identical, as we saw in Devil May Cry 4 and Grand Theft Auto 4.

Gamespot has conducted a Graphics Comparison between the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 each year since the Playstation 3 has been available. Xbox 360 has been declared the winner of the Graphics Comparison each of the three years: 2006, 2007, 2008.

2008 shows that the gap in performance continues to get bigger, in favor of the Xbox 360. Here is the hyperlink that shows the newest comparison–one the Xbox 360 easily defeats the Playstation.

Also, the Xbox 360 uses 10MB of eDRAM. This new form of RAM technology is something that even Windows Vista-based PCs do not yet take advantage of. The next release of Direct-X on the PC will start to take advantage of eDRAM technology for gaming, but it still hasn’t happened yet.

This just goes to show you how incredibly far ahead of its time the Xbox 360 Unified-Shader GPU/Multi-Core CPU design is.

Thanks to Mike Zoran

Written by Daniel for Product Reviews
In Sections: Gaming, Sony Playstation 3, Xbox 360
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As we reported the other day, the pricing model for Equipt will be $69.99 per year and you get a lot of software for the money that can be accessed by up to three computers.

Circuit City have got the exclusive rights to Equipt beginning mid-July and it’s hoped by Microsoft that the convenience of Equipt will stop some Office users moving towards the open source or free software route.

There is a lot of competition for Microsoft and that’s why this new service was needed to keep them in the game, as IBM is offering Lotus Symphony free and also other brands have similar free Office software packages.

The sales results for Office products have shown a downward pattern and the last quarter saw Office products among consumers drop 39%.

Will you use the new Equipt subscription service or do you have another favorite?

Written by Daniel for Product Reviews
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Today we hear that a U.S. judge has ordered Google Inc to hand over YouTube user data to Viacom Inc, this has caused outcry from some web users because of privacy fears.

Viacom owns MTV Networks and Paramount and they are currently in the middle of a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube.

What would worry some YouTube users is the fact that the Southern District of New York Judge wants information on users IP addresses, what videos they watched, usernames of YouTube viewers and more for evidence.

The difficult part is being able to ensure personally identifiable information is secure and to comply with the court order, some blogs are claiming that this order will violate the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act.

Viacom has said in a statement that they have no plans on identifying individual users and just want to show video piracy patterns in the court case against YouTube.

Source: Read

Written by Daniel for Product Reviews
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With AMD’s 780G chipset getting a lot of good press Tweak Town thought they would give the ASRock A780FullDisplayPort Motherboard a hands-on review and the results have been covered over 13 pages.

In their final thoughts they said, “ASRock’s latest series of boards have been reasonably impressive, however we still have a few issues with the layout of this particular board. First, the locations of the power connectors need a bit of work. Even for a cheap board, it’s still not acceptable.

ASRock has managed to bring some good prices to the market with their latest series of boards; while we didn’t get the full retail package with this board, we aren’t expecting a huge amount of additional features in the box. What was disappointing was not having the DisplayPort card included, which eliminated this from testing.

Overall, the board has good potential for a HTPC as long as you’re not after 5.1 audio or HDMI”

Read the 13 page review.

Written by Daniel for Product Reviews
In Sections: Computer Hardware, Computers
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As an owner of both 7th generation consoles I know how good both these systems are and also I personally use them for different types of gaming, the PS3 gets used more when I am on my own and the Wii when we have guests.

PS3 Daily looks at the features of both the Wii and Playstation 3, they take a look at the inside of these machines and what makes them tick.

If you do not own either of these games consoles and are thinking of buying one, remember that your choice of the Nintendo Wii or Playstation 3 will boil down to your gaming habits and, of course, your budget.

If you’re a casual and family oriented gamer then the Wii is a cost-effective solution, but if your gaming tastes involves high performance and graphically rich gaming then the Playstation 3 is an altogether better solution. Read PS3 Daily’s take on what’s more popular of the two.

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By mid-July the consumer software subscription service will be at around 700 US based Circuit City stores and will include MS Office, Windows Live One Care, Messenger, Photo Gallery and other applications.

Microsoft Equipt will cost $70 per year and although this is not a complete move to the subscription model by Microsoft, its still welcomed.

Having bought MS Office in the past I know just how much this can cost and the thought of getting so much included in such a small fee makes this option very desirable.

We are hearing that Equipt will include subscription versions of Student 2007 and Office Home; you will also get easy subscription removal and unlimited e-mail support.

Sadly we have no dates of a similar subscription service to countries outside the United States.

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This new law has seen an increase on Bluetooth headset sales, especially from Plantronics, as drivers are going made trying to snap up one of these Bluetooth headsets, just to comply with the new laws which came into effect in California and Washington State on July 1.

As sales have now increased, Verizon Wireless store in San Mateo, Calif. has had to add a whole new section just for these headsets. Aari Jethmal, Verizon Wireless store manager has said “The shelves have been cleared and restocked and cleared and restocked.”

The new law which stipulates if you drive while talking on your handheld cell phone, you will then face stiff penalties.

Plantronics along with other Bluetooth headset makers has welcomed this new law, this headsets used to be in low demand but it just shows how one law can change the fortunes of a gadget.

Source

Written by Peter for Product Reviews
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The moment Nvidia announced expectations of lower revenues; their stocks plummeted as much as 25 percent. To make matters worse they have also said to expect a charge of around $200 million to cover the costs of defected Nvidia chips.

This charge will cover returns and repairs that have affected some laptop GPUs to overheat and fail. The lower profit has been predicted due to all the different factors and does not look like a long-term problem for Nvidia.

At first the Nvidia chipmaker was expected to make $1 billion in its second-quarter but this figure has now been taken down to around $875 million. Still not bad considering the current market and problems.

Source: Read

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Well Mozilla must have known something, as they had asked there users to try and make them hold the record for the most software downloads in 24 hours.

The thing was at the time the Guinness World Records had no such record, but Mozilla had campaigned to allow this new record.

Well it now seems that Guinness officials have decided to accept Mozilla’s final count of 8,002,530 downloads for Firefox 3.0 in 24 hours. We can now say that Firefox 3.0 is a record holder.

When Mozilla launched their latest Web Browser last month, at their busiest time their servers had to handle at least 9,000 downloads per minute.

The previous version of Firefox had 1.6 million downloads in 24 hours; version 3.00 beat that in just 5 hours.

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Here is what they thought of both sets of headphones, “It really is a tough choice between these two units here, because each has features that I would like to see in the other one.

If SteelSeries put in some more responsive driver units to deal with the volume issues, then they would be my firm recommendation.

The Razer Piranha on the other hand overcome the volume issue by going with a different style of ear pad sitting directly on the ear itself. However, it is unfortunate that this can lead to the dreaded head pinch and ear burn with extended use. Furthermore, the microphone placement is an issue; it would be nicer to have a bit more flex and stay with it to ensure you can get it near the mouth.

Now, here is what it can mean for you. If you are a hardcore gamer who spends lots of time with the cans on your head, I would have to say go with the SteelSeries. The sheer practicality of these units means that you can wear them comfortably for hours on end, and they give a great range of delivery so you won’t miss a cuss.

If you are more of a casual gamer or you just like the shiny blue things (I fall into this category), then the Razer is more for you. Don’t get me wrong, the Piranha is still an excellent gaming headset, but it suffers from two major stopping points that can mean the difference between a few hours on COD4 and an all night marathon. The head pinch factor can leave you a bit sore after a few hours and the units’ inability to pack down into a smaller size can lead to breakage when packed in with the rest of your gear.

The conclusion is that both units will give you superb auditory performance and both are solid brand names that are reliably pumping out one solid product after another. The choice really comes down to your preference and style.”

Written by Peter for Product Reviews
In Sections: Electronics, Headphones
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