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Xbox 360 vs. PS3: GTA IV graphics comparison

By Sarju Shah on 29 May 2008

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 — particularly in how they render graphics.

One of the most important games to come out in recent history, Grand Theft Auto IV is a game that will make people buy a console if they don't have one. If there are any benefits present in either version, it might be enough to tip the scales when a late adopter is wondering which console to get.

Visually, the two games differ slightly. A large part of the difference emanates from their colour palettes, which is evident regardless of weather or time of day. From the second set of images, on a technical level, the 360 renders the Ether billboard with better clarity, but then it falls behind the PS3 when it comes to cleaning up the chequered stripping of the Burger Shot. The PlayStation 3 also keeps up with its blurrier look, but it's not as apparent, considering that the game looks only slightly less blurry on the 360.

Neither of the machines run the game smoothly enough to confer an advantage, given that moving the camera quickly or speeding through the city makes both versions hiccup from time to time. The PlayStation 3 has a nearly 10-minute-long installation sequence, which helps slightly in terms of in-game loads. However, saved games take equivalent periods of time to load on both machines. If we had to definitively pick a version, we'd go with the 360's rendition of the game for its crisper visuals, but we wouldn't be dejected if we had to play the game on the PlayStation 3.


Xbox 360    Playstation 3

Mouse over the game console name to view the comparison


Xbox 360    Playstation 3

Mouse over the game console name to view the comparison


Xbox 360    Playstation 3

Mouse over the game console name to view the comparison


Xbox 360    Playstation 3

Mouse over the game console name to view the comparison


Have you noticed differences in the games you've played on the PS3 and Xbox 360? Tell us your opinion about which machine is winning the console war below in the talk-back or leave us a message on the forums.

Topics: games, gta iv, playstation, ps3, xbox 360, 360, xbox, console, game, comparison

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Comments (66)

  • drive commented on 09/06/2009 13:30 Report abuse

    gta iv for ps3 looks wash out 360 looks dark and has nice texture

  • mathematics professer commented on 20/05/2009 16:40 Report abuse

    The PS3 owns the xbox36, due to it's spectacular graphic display and speed. The PS3 in game play, it's visual effects are much better and clear compared to the xbox360 console. The PS3 also has blue-ray the sate of the art system. Xbox36 has the worst game graphics visualy in game play with an unacceptable amount of light. LATERS

  • NailYnTow commented on 01/03/2009 23:04 Report abuse

    you know, i have to say. i have only just recently got myself a ps3. i have had the xbox 360 premium since release, and now have the elite.......damn red ring. now someone said earlier that HDMI would make the xbox360 look better. and you know, they are right. i mean when i bought my elite.....i was playing assasins creed at the time. got it home, plugged it in and what a better picture in comparison to the HD component of the premium. now as i said, only got a ps3 recently. the 1 game i played and still am playing is uncharted.....and its awesome. yeah there are a few texture pop in's, but rarely, and when they do pop in they look really nice. anyway back to topic.....GTA i am yet to play on ps3. i have it on 360 and yes it is "very pretty". however...the pop in on that is not rare at all. which is annoying, but i can accept it just the same way as i did in mass effect. THE GAME IS MASSIVE, and now game developer is flawless you know. but still, the graphics were not as good as i was hoping in some cases. granted, the scenery is really nice....when looking at the stuff far away...but up closein the city...some of it looks a tad washed out of colour and the picture is general (in my eyes) looks a bit grainy sometimes. again i havent played the ps3 one to compare ok...i was just a little let down when i got gta on release day to see that it didnt look as good as i was hoping. if you ask me, i think the issue we have here is the fact that both console are still finding that hidden potential in performance. i mean MGS4 for ps3.....AWESOME!!! and game like fable 2 on xbox 360 again...AMAZING! full of colour, and almost flawless in the delivery of the experience. in that respect i do feel that the game developers are maybe need moaned about rather than the console. we need more colour in the game rather than a kinda constant grey wash filter that we see in game a lot. games like gears of wars you need that kinda thing cos its war.....and dirty and really is used to good effect....but for game like gta or battlefield....its kinda ruin it. esspecially when it the same kinda colour scale no matter what the scenery. now i love both consoles. i love the power (that i have seen) of the 360. it is epic, and the online community is well established, but i also love the ps3 from what i have seen so far. i mean i am now only buying games that are not online, (or crap online lol) for the 360.....as of course the ps3 online is free. which i see as a HUGE benefit to some people who play games. and so far the service has been good. i play little big planet online aswell as GT prologue. and its good fun. i just dont see the point in paying %uFFFD40 for something that you can just use for free on another console, playing the same game that looks very little different. but hey that is just me. both console are awesome, but where one is weak, the other is strong. plus, you need both. i mean the exclusives to each console are just awesome so you need both console to really enjoy it all. i mean little big planet is fun, uncharted:drakes fortune is really awesome and of course MGS4!!!! and of course you have Halo 3, Gears of war 1 and 2, fable 2.............you cant really miss out on any of these surely! well i cant anyway lol

  • Mrhobo commented on 23/02/2009 17:00 Report abuse

    Well for this to be a really fair test it would have to be on the same tv in person (same 2 tvs) side buy side with both runing hdmi then we will see the ps3 kill the xbox also the last few xbox games feel so old graphic wize

  • chris commented on 21/02/2009 10:32 Report abuse

    all this info and the screenshots have been taken off gamespot.

  • bhlester commented on 18/02/2009 15:51 Report abuse

    Not sure what idiot wrote this article, but neither is clearly HD rendering. I own both consoles and the detailing is definitely better with the PS3. The only way 360 wins out is the DLC available on Live. Other than that, PS3 beats it hands down (all the little things add up).

  • harveyR8401 commented on 16/02/2009 19:02 Report abuse

    a couple of things 1. the xbox360 doenst have the blueray player 2. u have to pay to play online ($60-75 for 13months) 3. u need to buy the xbox360 Premium or Pro which is a 60 GB HDD. just match the ps3's 80gb hard-drive look @ 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBox_360 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3

  • harveyR8401 commented on 16/02/2009 18:48 Report abuse

    if u have played games like resistance2 online then i think graphics dont matter as mush as gameplay. its soo much fun-ner than gears of war 2 online

  • joel commented on 09/02/2009 11:02 Report abuse

    I just wish all these ps3 fan girls would just go home now.

  • Will_The_Programmer commented on 26/12/2008 18:50 Report abuse

    I don't own any of these but I have done some reserch. XBOX is Unique---PS3 is Original I'm not a hardcore gamer or a fan of these machines but if I were to choose which of the two is is more of worth from your own money, the word will be XBOX360. Graphics: The XBOX 360 is a clear winner. The GPU is more powerful. It has more powerful fillrate, and far more pixel and vertex processing horsepower. Part of the reason is their choice of memory, and architecture of pixel and vertex procesing. I can’t get into details but the same vertex shader will run much slower on the PS3 than the XBOX 360. The 360 also has a clever new way rendering high definition anti aliased back buffers. To accomplish the same effect on PS3 is prohibitively expensive. For this reason I think many games will have no choice but to run in non-HD resolutions on the PS3 version, use a lower quality anti aliasing technique, or do back buffer upscaling. The end result in all cases is going to be noticeably worse image quality. Game Selection: The XBOX 360 has a huge head start here. 1 year is an eternity in gaming. Almost all multi-platform developers have made the XBOX 360 their primary platform due to timing of release-to-market, this means the games will look and perform better on the 360. The PS3 versions will be ports of the 360 versions. (The opposite was true for XBOX 1 vs. PS2). The XBOX 360 is also far faster to develop for due to better development tools (massively popular Visual Studio .NET vs. proprietary, buggy PS3 compiler and debugger), better documentation, and easier architecture (3 general purpose CPU’s vs. 8 specialized processors that require DMA). Timing has also caused all next-gen middleware developers to make XBOX 360 their primary platform, and they will ‘add ps3 support’ as needed. This support will probably be inferior to the XBOX 360’s due to manpower and more importantly, demand. It’s this catch-22 now that will continue to drive the 360 forward and hold PS3 back. The other obvious point here is that right now the Xbox360 already has a very impressive line-up of titles on store shelves; the ps3 just launched, and has virtually nothing of interest. Also, many 360 games are already discounted. PS3 games are all full price since it just launched. Live: Microsoft’s online support with XBOX1 was phenomenal. They built in-house experience, user base, facilities, $$ commitment from executive level (since it proved successful), and most importantly, feedback from 100,000s of XBOX Live subscribers. Playstation 2’s online support sucked. They are now playing catch-up, trying to emulate Xbox’s model. But they had their hands tied just trying to make the PS3 work, it was incredibly ambitious (blu-ray etc.). I haven’t seen it yet, but I seriously doubt the quality will be anywhere to the level of XBOX 360. HD Content: The PS3 comes with one built in (blu-ray). The XBOX 360 offers HD-DVD as an add-on for $200. You probably don’t care about HD-DVD right now. But you will soon (The quality between DVD and HD is comparable to VHS vs DVD, if you have the right TV) so I suggest paying attention to the war that’s begun. There are two formats: HD-DVD and BLU-RAY. Basically if you rent a BLU-RAY DVD from Bockbuster, it won’t play in your XBOX 360 HD-DVD, and vice versa with the PS3. The implications of this format war would require another article on its own. But as far as the consoles are concerned, the XBOX 360 wins because the DVD player is a separate unit. Playing movies is very taxing on the DVD reader, and let’s face it. In 3 years when your PS3 DVD drive goes out due to playing lots of movies (PS2 was notoriously bad about this) you will have to go buy another PS3. With the 360, you’ll just chuck your HD-DVD player, and go buy another one at the store. In 3 years standalone units wlil probably only cost about $99-150. Another point for the XBOX 360, is that I don’t know who will win the format-war

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