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By: Sarju Shah - Posted on Friday, May 23, 2008

A solid year's gone by since we ran our last Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3 graphics comparison. The differences between the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 have diminished with every passing batch of games, but some variation still exists between the two machines. Our first graphics comparison between the two consoles showed that the Xbox 360 looked better on most of the games, oftentimes drastically so. The second graphics comparison showed that the PlayStation 3 looked nearly as good as the Xbox 360 in some games, and actually looked better in a few as well. Now with both consoles well into their respective life cycles, developers have had plenty of time to figure out the nuances required to code beautiful games. With our third batch of games, the two machines seem evenly matched. The two trade blows on various games, each with its own set of advantages.

We've upgraded our capture equipment since the previous installments in the series. We captured all 720p images through an HDMI connection and then resized them for use in the article. The fullscreen shots are, of course, shrunk down to fit onto the Web page. The pixels in the zoomed-in shots are 1:1 representations of the original image captures, but cropped to fit our page width. We compressed the images slightly to make them more palatable for the Web, but they haven't suffered too much in terms of quality for it.

Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed is a great example of what a next-generation game should look like, with well-rendered environments that are nicely shadowed and filled with intricate details. The game looks beautiful on both systems, but we did notice that the Xbox 360 has sharper textures with better 3D-depth simulation readily noticeable in the flat cobblestone streets. Edges look great in both games, as do graphical effects such as shadows, smoke, and lighting. The extra time it takes to install the game on the PlayStation 3 doesn't seem to give the console any benefits over the Xbox 360 in initial or subsequent loads of the game.

Xbox 360       Playstation 3      

Xbox 360       Playstation 3      

Xbox 360       Playstation 3      

Xbox 360       Playstation 3      

Xbox 360       Playstation 3      

Xbox 360       Playstation 3      



5777 Comments

  • MTMind2

    Posted Oct 12, 2008 1:22 pm GMT

    hi swift18, wheres half life? was it in one of the other comparisons. do u have a link mate? oh yeah and fear too. and u posted the same thing 3 times.

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  • MTMind2

    Posted Oct 12, 2008 1:21 pm GMT

    @ amulbocus

    thanks for being a good sport mate, yeah dr yassem. but really i dont think hes got egg on his face cause he only said he was speculating all the time about mgs4 on the 360, he didnt say it was a fact or anything. so im giving him the benefit.

    but mate, i dont get what you said about gow3, cause gears of war 3 is not announced for the ps3, its god of war 3 officially announced for the ps3. gow3 - same initials but different game. gears of war 3 on ps3 is just speculating too like mgs4 on 360, and it was the analyst micheal patcher last year who said he thinks gears of war 3 would come to the ps3.

    i think u got the games mixed up mate. i even googled the internet to check and theres no gears for ps3.

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  • MTMind2 posted Oct 12, 2008 3:25 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    MTMind2

    Posted Oct 12, 2008 3:25 am GMT (hide)

    anyone here anymore? wheres the 360 vs ps3 topic with half life in it?

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  • MTMind2 posted Oct 6, 2008 12:18 pm GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    MTMind2

    Posted Oct 6, 2008 12:18 pm GMT (hide)

    @ amulbocus

    thanks for being a good sport mate, yeah dr yassem. but really i dont think hes got egg on his face cause he only said he was speculating all the time about mgs4 on the 360, he didnt say it was a fact or anything. so im giving him the benefit.

    but mate, i dont get what you said about gow3, cause gears of war 3 is not announced for the ps3, its god of war 3 officially announced for the ps3. gow3 - same initials but different game. gears of war 3 on ps3 is just speculating too like mgs4 on 360, and it was the analyst micheal patcher last year who said he thinks gears of war 3 would come to the ps3.

    i think u got the games mixed up mate. i even googled the internet to check and theres no gears for ps3.

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  • MTMind2 posted Oct 5, 2008 10:12 pm GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    MTMind2

    Posted Oct 5, 2008 10:12 pm GMT (hide)

    if u want mido lol

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  • mido321 posted Oct 5, 2008 10:06 pm GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    mido321

    Posted Oct 5, 2008 10:06 pm GMT (hide)

    ps 3 wins lol

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  • MTMind2 posted Oct 5, 2008 8:05 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    MTMind2

    Posted Oct 5, 2008 8:05 am GMT (hide)

    hi swift18, wheres half life? was it in one of the other comparisons. do u have a link mate? oh yeah and fear too. and u posted the same thing 3 times.

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  • Swift18

    Posted Oct 4, 2008 8:48 pm GMT

    Oh And i was talking about Half life

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  • Swift18

    Posted Oct 4, 2008 8:32 pm GMT

    Does any one notice how the particle effect in the ps3 version are better and more full? Or am I just crazy. Look at the smoke in pic 4 and 5. Personally considering the situation in the game at that time I think 360 seems to have a continuity issue because if somethings about to go critical I expect a lot of deep smoke. But this is a trend. Check out the comparison with FEAR the explosions and dust and dirt effects are a lot more full and realistic.

    Not to mention when u look at something further and further away it starts to blur that's why i don't really like anisotropic filtering to be to high because it always seem weird to me. Personally I liked how the ps3 version looked and in comparison I like it better it also seems to be richer in color.

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  • Swift18

    Posted Oct 4, 2008 8:30 pm GMT

    Does any one notice how the particle effect in the ps3 version are better and more full? Or am I just crazy. Look at the smoke in pic 4 and 5. Personally considering the situation in the game at that time I think 360 seems to have a continuity issue because if somethings about to go critical I expect a lot of deep smoke. But this is a trend. Check out the comparison with FEAR the explosions and dust and dirt effects are a lot more full and realistic.

    Not to mention when u look at something further and further away it starts to blur that's why i don't really like anisotropic filtering to be to high because it always seem weird to me. Personally I liked how the ps3 version looked and in comparison I like it better it also seems to be richer in color.

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  • Swift18

    Posted Oct 4, 2008 8:30 pm GMT

    Does any one notice how the particle effect in the ps3 version are better and more full? Or am I just crazy. Look at the smoke in pic 4 and 5. Personally considering the situation in the game at that time I think 360 seems to have a continuity issue because if somethings about to go critical I expect a lot of deep smoke. But this is a trend. Check out the comparison with FEAR the explosions and dust and dirt effects are a lot more full and realistic.

    Not to mention when u look at something further and further away it starts to blur that's why i don't really like anisotropic filtering to be to high because it always seem weird to me. Personally I liked how the ps3 version looked and in comparison I like it better it also seems to be richer in color.

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  • aniteshchand

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 7:32 pm GMT

    All the good games have better graphics on the PS3.

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  • MTMind2

    Posted Sep 26, 2008 1:53 am GMT

    thats true division_9, and cause they multiformat i bet they are not pushing the hardware like what some exclusive games can do.

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  • division_9

    Posted Sep 21, 2008 5:15 am GMT

    Most of these games youre moving too fast to notice the small difference.

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  • MTMind2 posted Sep 20, 2008 5:03 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    MTMind2

    Posted Sep 20, 2008 5:03 am GMT (hide)

    hi amulbocus, yeah dr yassem, cause i wanted to read what he said, did he say mgs4 is coming to the 360? but what i meant was where are all the old posts that used to be here? i cant find them. this page says there are 5750 comments, but i can only see the most recent ones, about 40. when i first came here there were like 100 pages of comments or something. so i was wondering if i'm missing something or if gs have deleted them.
    ***edit***...its ok now, all the pages have come back, so it wasnt me it was gs all along. i can read the old posts now.

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  • amulbocus

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 2:53 pm GMT

    MTMind2 - I think your referring to Dr Yassem, i dont know where he is either, probably still trying to clean the egg off his face. Its been a couple of months since this debate started, but its well and truly finished now, thanks to sez-who : ). Anyway roll on killzone 2, and Crysis Warhead (PC game, but in a league of its own, even PS3 cant touch it, although the Cell has a chance to get close).

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  • MTMind2 posted Sep 18, 2008 9:22 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    MTMind2

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 9:22 am GMT (hide)

    amul & sez - what, where, how? please help guys, i can't find them. where did he talk about mgs4? i thought he was an alright person from the posts i read so far. have gamespot deleted all the old posts or something?, cause i can't find them. i can only see this page, there are no page numbers i can click on anymore. maybe i'm being dumb and missed the obvious? am i doing something wrong or are the old posts really gone now?

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  • amulbocus

    Posted Sep 16, 2008 9:11 am GMT

    Sez-who, thanks for finding that link, that really is the perfect solution to this argument, and hopefull should end it, 360 owners are forced to eat humble pie on this one. Dr Yassem, you have NO argument whats so ever to put on the table now, just accept it with dignity. Ideally for the PS3 everything should be on a single bluray, e.g. if band of brothers HD on a single 100 gb bluray, or Motorstorm 1+2 on a single 50 GB bluray, as long as its a single bluray, its all good.

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  • amulbocus

    Posted Sep 12, 2008 10:20 am GMT

    Dr Yassem - My comments about GOW1 were that it was way to short, this is blatently due to DVD storage issues, the PC version pees all over the 360 version, with GOW3 officially announced to appear on PS3. If its on Bluray, more levels, more HD, more everything for the PS3 version. Dr Yassem, since we last spoke, it appears FF is set to appear on the 360, but in a diluted form, do you understand my point now? Skyrider - Yes the Xenos has a better unified shader architecture as its based on DX10, so images look sharper on 360, but the Cell is akin to supercomputer processing so more than balances this issue. The cell is used by the US military to simulate the digital battlefield, this says it all (before anyone says this forum is about graphics, see Crysis and its dependance on the CPU rather than the GPU for graphics perfomance). HD DVD is dead so forget about HD on 360 now lol, thats for bluray only. Also the PS3 is more akin to PC architecture that the 360 can dream of, its ironic really. e.g open GL nature for game mods, ability to install other OS the list goes on, can you watch a HD divx file on 360, not a chance matey. Overall the PS3 just trumps the 360, remember £££=quality, and the PS3 is more expensive for a reason.

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  • h2owizard

    Posted Sep 8, 2008 3:41 pm GMT

    i honestly dont care which console you guys prefer but i think that the difference isnt big between the 360 and ps3 at all.

    i have all the systems except the wii, including a high end pc btw

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  • alfaresalasmar

    Posted Sep 5, 2008 7:24 pm GMT

    I THINK THAT THE GAMESPOT FORGOT TO PUT THE RIGHT SETTING ON TH PS3 RATHER THAN PUTTING RGB FULL AND SUPER WHITE ON THEY DID THE RGB LIMITED AND THE SUPERWHITE OFF(try it urself) A PIECE OF ADVICE TO GS DONT REPEAT THE MISTAKE

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  • Skyriderlink posted Aug 31, 2008 5:29 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    Skyriderlink

    Posted Aug 31, 2008 5:29 am GMT (hide)

    Both consoles are great 360 is based on the pc components and many programmers are much more familiar with SDKs provided by Microsoft thats where Sony fails to accomplish.Xenos is more powerful and versatile than RSX.I think many consoles fanboys know unified shader architecture where a shader can perform both vertex and pixel operations thats where RSX fails.It can't perform full glory of DirectX 10 due to the lack of Geometry shader.RSX is based on old Geforce 7800 G70 architecture and many says it is roughly comparable to 7800GTX.So xenos is more future proof sadly 360 doesn't have a Blu-Ray drive to please its GPU.Please don't says RSX is more powerful than Xenos.Oh did I forgot to mention DRAM which take xenos to next level.The real area where PS3 shines is its Cell and Bluray drive.So both consoles has its own advantages and disadvantages.Hey stop comparing those two consoles.I have both consoles and awesomely powerful PC so I don't need to worry much.MGS4 really shows what bluray can do and Gears of War show how powerful xenos is.Bare in mind that PCs have no limit too.Elder Scrolls 4 mods show why it better to play on pc.

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  • MTMind2

    Posted Aug 27, 2008 10:30 pm GMT

    @bulletwaster

    i read it, says they are about the same.

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  • bulletwaster posted Aug 26, 2008 4:05 pm GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    bulletwaster

    Posted Aug 26, 2008 4:05 pm GMT (hide)

    If you actually read the stuff at the top it says the 360's graphics are better so stop whining.

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  • Dr_Yassam posted Aug 26, 2008 6:12 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    Dr_Yassam

    Posted Aug 26, 2008 6:12 am GMT (hide)

    Still whistling the same old tune I see amulbocus. Interesting

    I'm not going to address the points you've made because it's been done many times already, but I am a little confused by the end of your post. Can you explain what you mean by your GOW1/3 comments? Thanks.

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  • amulbocus

    Posted Aug 26, 2008 6:01 am GMT

    MiltoxBeyond - The bluray issue goes deeper than that. E.g the audio on MGS4 is PCM uncompressed audio, basically TrueDolby and is almost 5-6 GB of data, can you ever see that amount of audio on a 360 dvd game? Also you mentioned that the PS3 has limited GPU processing, the rsx has more raw horsepower than the xenos, so not really a valid argument. The theme here is 'more is better', and more games will be made that are 30-40+ GB in size, so the 360 is massively bottlenecked in this regard, so a game like MGS4 will NEVER appear on 360, there are even references in the game to this effect about bluray, and its hilarious. Bluray 100gb are due soon, so the sky is the limit for ps3, not so for 360 im afraid. In this sense not all games, expecially blockbusters, from the PS3 will ever be able to appear on the 360, although ANY 360 game can appear on the PS3 with a lot left in the tank, maybe even improved with more levels and graphics (elder Scrolls 4 oblivion anyone). GOW3 is set to appear on PS3, it will be very interesting how the versions differ (how short was GOW1, too short lol er DVD maybe the problem).

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  • PunkCJ posted Aug 24, 2008 7:58 pm GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    PunkCJ

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 7:58 pm GMT (hide)

    well... we shall see if the 360's games dont get overloaded at any moment... but people who say that PS3's MGS4 is better... in my opinion Gears of War is the counterpart in shooters for the 360... so don't make this comparison with the exclusives... i have a 360 but that doesn't make me a fan... but people have to say that in summary of this kind of comparison notes the 360 get better over PS3 in graphical... antialiasing is nothing without good textures... thats all

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  • MTMind2 posted Aug 24, 2008 9:57 am GMT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    MTMind2

    Posted Aug 24, 2008 9:57 am GMT (hide)

    "Everyone knows that these are unfair comparisons..."

    But that's only ONE aspect of the graphics, it doesn't effect framerate, content, popup, texture quality etc.

    the argument that by not changing the settings the PS3 graphics are not at their best in terms of brightness and contrast is perhaps a valid one, but that doesn't make the whole comparison unfair.

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  • Mackey18

    Posted Aug 22, 2008 11:50 pm GMT

    Everyone knows that these are unfair comparisons, as someone on youtube found out, (cant remeber video but have a look) the reason why the colours look drained is because companies like gamespot and gametrailers forget one little setting which puts everything how it should on the playstation. If you click on settings then display and look for rgp full they will leave it on limited they should put it to full, i tried it my self there is a huge difference. If you got a hi-def tv put it to limited play a game then put it on full and see the difference.

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  • alagonia

    Posted Aug 22, 2008 6:43 pm GMT

    some games look better in 360 while some others on ps3.it's not able to compare the consoles' capabilities from 10 screenshots.also,if u've noticed, the only difference between some ss is brightness.

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  • muzza2530

    Posted Aug 22, 2008 4:10 pm GMT

    i think most of this is bs. there both great consoles some have better things then others. but what im trying to get at is that these graphics comparsions just seem to point out the lighting to me. so i see this as pointless as u came just change the darkness in the game.

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  • razarocks

    Posted Aug 22, 2008 11:47 am GMT

    I have an xbox 360 and in light of recieving straight a's in my 11th grade exams am thinking of buying a ps3 so as you would have probably guessed i'm no fanboy and look at both the consoles with an unbiased perspective. as far as i see it, the 360 has most of its hardware pulled straigt out of a PC which is a very familiar format for most developers. the ps3 cell processor however has been built from the ground up and is undoubtedly superior to the 360's but is as a result more difficult to make games for. the result: ps3 exclusives end up looking better than the 360's but developers dont think it worth their while to put in more undue effort for the ps3 in the case of multiplayer games. the reduced gap is clearly the result of developers familiarising themselves with the ps3 hardware.

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Xbox 360 Versus PlayStation 3 Graphics Comparison: Round 3

Check out how the latest games look on both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.

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