PS3 "play while downloading" not ready for Europe release

[J-Dizzle]

Just spotted this (http://www.gamesradar.com/gb/ps3/game/news/article.jsp?sectionId=1006&articleId=20070228123716437015&releaseId=20060314132311609002) over at Gamesradar.

The upgrade will hopefully allow you to navigate away from the download in progress screen, and perhaps use other XMB features like photo viewing or watching downloaded movies. But, according to information acquired by industry blog Innerbits.com, it won't allow you to play a game while your download continues.

It seems as if they haven't managed to quite come up to Xbox standards in time for March. I believe the 360 only pauses when you take a game online.

They don't even seem to be confirming that you will actually be able to move away from the download screen while it's downloading.

As the article says, it's likely to be fixed soon.

[Grimmjow]

It's funny, a co-worker and I was talking about this, it seems everyone is putting a twist on the interpretation of whats actually going on. I've heard of "theories" ranging from this to xbox like features. Looking @ the information I have it seems to have xbox like features.

[jBusy]

As the article says, it's likely to be fixed soon, but I do find it surprising that the PS3 needs so much resource for background downloading when the 360 doesn't!!
The Xbox 360 didn't have background downloading when it first launched.

[Kamalot]

The Xbox 360 didn't have background downloading when it first launched.
I don't think anyone is arguing that...

He said..."I do find it surprising that the PS3 needs so much resource for background downloading when the 360 doesn't!!"

[Johan]

Background downloading is a great convenience. Hopefully, they get this squared away. It's worth the effort, as it's very useful.

[Gorvi]

This seems to only be a rumor at this point, but that would be unfortunate if it turns out to be true. As it is, it's not too big a deal to me to start a download and then go do something else when they only take half an hour at the most. If they were getting longer than that, this would be a very big deal.

[Telefrog]

Right now, the way the 360 background downloading works is pretty good. It only pauses if you play a game online and then resumes once that's over. (Some games access the online pipe regardless of the mode you play like Saint's Row and Gears of War.) If Sony can't get it right, it's not a deal-breaker, but it's pretty annoying. It would really limit HD movie sales over the Sony store that's for sure.

[Kamalot]

This seems to only be a rumor at this point, but that would be unfortunate if it turns out to be true. As it is, it's not too big a deal to me to start a download and then go do something else when they only take half an hour at the most. If they were getting longer than that, this would be a very big deal.
Depends on what you are downloading.

Ms. Kamalot and I purchased an HD TV show on the 360 marketplace the other day. We settled into the sofa, browsed the episodes and purchased one. While it downloaded, we browsed the other videos already on the 360, catching up on some music videos we hadn't seen yet, and some game trailers. We also got in a little Assault Heroes (http://www.assaultheroesgame.com/). After 15 min or so, the show was ready to watch.

I could see a LOT of people not bothering to download movies or shows if they were forced to leave their system on the download screen.

[KidCactus]

I could see a LOT of people not bothering to download movies or shows if they were forced to leave their system on the download screen.
I agree. I have a related "problem" with downloading things from Live Marketplace. Even though I can download in the background, it too often feels like it takes forever to download things, so instead I just don't download it. Sure, I can go do other stuff meanwhile, but that doesn't make it go faster...

[Kweli]

Not ready for europe release? They make it sound like its ready and available in north america?
Last week i downloaded the F1 demo and i couldnt do anything for the 30 minutes it took to download.....

Made me appreciate my 360 a bit more

[J-Dizzle]

My second successful news post. I'm so very very proud.

The comment I made about the 360 achieving this and the PS3 not doing (which seems to have been removed, but that's OK :D ) wasn't intended to big up the 360 over the PS3. I just found it strange that a piece of functionality which I would have assumed was pretty much the same on both systems couldn't be achieved.

Of course this is only an issue assuming that the article is correct and they will allow you to do some things while it's downloading but not play games. (In other words they have a go at it but can't replicate currect XBOX functionality).

I would have thought that in areas such as this anything the 360 can do the PS3 can do too.

Could be that come March they don't change the functionality at all.

I find myself wondering whether, because of the slightly restricted PS3 memory architecture, the games take up all the memory which doesn't allow any free to manage the download, whereas the 360 can keep a little back. Perhaps it's the games that takes up heaps of resources and not the download process itself.

I find it hard to believe that downloading data takes up significantly more resources on the PS3 than it does on the 360.

[J-Dizzle]

Not ready for europe release? They make it sound like its ready and available in north america?
Last week i downloaded the F1 demo and i couldnt do anything for the 30 minutes it took to download.....

Made me appreciate my 360 a bit more

I believe that Sony had made comments suggesting that they were going to make the PS3 dashboard more multitasking in time for the Europe release. There's a link in the article I referenced.

This article was making the point that this might not be true after all.

As someone said above; the 360 couldn't do this on release, but it can now since a firmware patch. I think the point was that Sony were hoping to have it ready in time for the European batch of machines to be shipped.

[Kamalot]

My cellphone can download and play an MP3 file while I am browsing the web. You'd think that the PS3 could save a file to disk in the background. I simply hope that Sony decides to make this a priority as it makes a big difference from the user's perspective. It sucked when the 360 couldn't download in the background, and it still sucks a year later when the PS3 can't download in the background.

Congrats on the news post J-Dizzle. :D

[Gorvi]

Depends on what you are downloading.

Ms. Kamalot and I purchased an HD TV show on the 360 marketplace the other day. We settled into the sofa, browsed the episodes and purchased one. While it downloaded, we browsed the other videos already on the 360, catching up on some music videos we hadn't seen yet, and some game trailers. We also got in a little Assault Heroes (http://www.assaultheroesgame.com/). After 15 min or so, the show was ready to watch.

I could see a LOT of people not bothering to download movies or shows if they were forced to leave their system on the download screen.

Oh, I'm not saying I don't see the benefit in it, I definately do. Personally, it's not a big deal to me to just set something up to download and go do something else. Of course, the PS3 doesn't have anything to download yet that takes more than half an hour (the biggest download is ~700MB), so it's not a huge issue yet. Now, if (when?) there is content out there that's much bigger, this wll be a larger issue.

[Grimmjow]

w00t for cell phone multitasking!

[the soUL TRAder]

You had me at:

PS3....not ready.

It's like biting into an undercooked brautwerst, it looks good browned on the grill, but the inside makes you gag.

Come on Sony-put it back in the oven and finish it.

[wyeast]

Actually, this is about the same level as Live as far as downloads & gaming... sorta. Just that they prioritize the download over the gaming, where the 360 will pause the download if you game over Live. *shrugs*

[Grimmjow]

Actually, this is about the same level as Live as far as downloads & gaming... sorta. Just that they prioritize the download over the gaming, where the 360 will pause the download if you game over Live. *shrugs*

exactly, if they can atleast come to a similar level of doing those features, it would please alot of people. (pause when MP games are in pogress)

[TrackZero]

You had me at:

PS3....not ready.

It's like biting into an undercooked brautwerst, it looks good browned on the grill, but the inside makes you gag.

Come on Sony-put it back in the oven and finish it.

Ohhh nice and witty. Saves me from having to come up with my usual drek.

[Headcase]

I believe that Sony had made comments suggesting that they were going to make the PS3 dashboard more multitasking in time for the Europe release. There's a link in the article I referenced.

This article was making the point that this might not be true after all.

Maybe they can delay the European launch again to save face ;)

[Chameleo]

now if you could connect to your PS3 from a wireless hotspot with your PSP; and then initiate the download so it'd be done when you got home...........

that would be the next step.... : )

[Kamalot]

now if you could connect to your PS3 from a wireless hotspot with your PSP; and then initiate the download so it'd be done when you got home...........

that would be the next step.... : )
I would welcome that, but sans the PSP. A web page to let you start downloading the demos/shows/movies to your home system (360/PS3/etc) would be most welcome!

[the soUL TRAder]

Ohhh nice and witty. Saves me from having to come up with my usual drek.

Thanks for the props, but I wouldn't want to deny the EvAv community their normal heaping of your wit, but there does seem plenty of threads lately that need a little biting sarcasm, so I look forward to what you post there.

[bapenguin]

I agree. I have a related "problem" with downloading things from Live Marketplace. Even though I can download in the background, it too often feels like it takes forever to download things, so instead I just don't download it. Sure, I can go do other stuff meanwhile, but that doesn't make it go faster...

Marketplace has been horribly slow lately. It took me something like 3 hours to download the MLB2k7 demo which is about 1 gig. I downloaded the C&C 3 demo from Fileshack in about 1 hour, which is also a gig.

Time to upgrade the tubes MS!

[rein]

Marketplace has been horribly slow lately. It took me something like 3 hours to download the MLB2k7 demo which is about 1 gig. I downloaded the C&C 3 demo from Fileshack in about 1 hour, which is also a gig.

Time to upgrade the tubes MS!

I've noticed that too. Heck, it wouldn't even load the media section for me yesterday. At first I thought it was my connection until I asked a friend if it was being slow for him too. I'm sure it will be corrected soon enough.

[BlackPete]

Unfortunately for Sony, multithreading is not going to be a trivial issue to resolve on the PS3, so it may be a while before they can sort this out.

Either way... I probably could live without this -- I could start a download, reach for the INPUT button on my TV remote control to watch TV for a while... etc. Or play WoW. Or play on the 360 :D

[Kamalot]

You know, I keep hearing Sony talk about how EASY the Cell and PS3 are to program for. You'd think that if it was so easy to program anything you wanted for this Supercomputer, that they'd already have something as trivial as multitasking a download handled already.

Can the PS3 not multitask?

[DoubleUranium]

You know, I keep hearing Sony talk about how EASY the Cell and PS3 are to program for. You'd think that if it was so easy to program anything you wanted for this Supercomputer, that they'd already have something as trivial as multitasking a download handled already.

Can the PS3 not multitask?

The Cell only has one general purpose PPC core. While it's SMT capable, as the controller of the 8 SPUs, it's probably fairly hard to do downloading on it while also playing a game.

[Kamalot]

The Cell only has one general purpose PPC core. While it's SMT capable, as the controller of the 8 SPUs, it's probably fairly hard to do downloading on it while also playing a game.
Hmm.

How does the 360 manage it?

Edit: Seriously! Can someone explain this to me? Can't they just assign one of the SPUs to handle downloading a file? I thought that one of them was always assigned to the PS3 interface with another one always available on backup.

[DoubleUranium]

I don't really enough to answer definitively, I just know the general architecture. Downloading on a SPU could be tricky since it's memory is compartmentalized. I imagine it's easier on the 360 just to allocate 1 of the 6 general purpose PPC cores to downloading/etc.

[BlackPete]

Hmm.

How does the 360 manage it?

Edit: Seriously! Can someone explain this to me? Can't they just assign one of the SPUs to handle downloading a file? I thought that one of them was always assigned to the PS3 interface with another one always available on backup.

Without getting technical (if you're really interested, arstechnica.com can explain in much greater detail than I ever could):

The 360 has three cores, whereas the PS3 only has one. Despite what Sony would like you believe, a SPU is _not_ a general purpose CPU, and it shouldn't be thought of as one.

The best metaphor I can think of is to treat the SPU like a floating point processor -- great for what it's meant to do but pretty poor at anything else.

[BlackPete]

I imagine it's easier on the 360 just to allocate 1 of the 6 general purpose PPC cores to downloading/etc.

Minor nitpick: The 360 has 3 cores with 2 SMTs per core for a total of 6.

[Kamalot]

Without getting technical (if you're really interested, arstechnica.com can explain in much greater detail than I ever could):

The 360 has three cores, whereas the PS3 only has one. Despite what Sony would like you believe, a SPU is _not_ a general purpose CPU, and it shouldn't be thought of as one.

The best metaphor I can think of is to treat the SPU like a floating point processor -- great for what it's meant to do but pretty poor at anything else.
Cool. This is very helpful. Thanks. I was under the impression that the cores could be programmed to do just about anything...

[Evil Avnovice]

No excuses, Sony.

When Microsoft released their first major bi-yearly dashboard update, active downloads made browsing Xbox Live Marketplace a lot less tedious, since gamers were no longer stuck staring at a "x% complete" screen.

Put it in there through any means necessary.