Mark Rein on Unreal Tournament 3 performance, mods

As the highly-anticipated shooter Unreal Tournament 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac) nears its PlayStation 3 timed-exclusive debut, fans of the franchise have been pondering just how much performance Epic has squeezed out on the game for their Sony next-gen console.

The reaction towards the hands-on demonstration at the E3 Media & Business Summit was all in favor for the title, especially on the part of IGN, who hailed the game as a runner up under “best PlayStation 3 shooter.” Epic Games‘ vice president Mark Rein sat with Joystiq at the recently concluded Develop Conference & Expo at Brighton and laid down the techie PS3 specifics: the current HD resolution and frame rate that Unreal Tournament 3 could spew.

“720p resolution, which is what we planned to do, and it was running at least 30fps when I last saw it,” said Rein. He commented a while earlier on how well Sony representatives have aided their PlayStation 3 optimization process.

And progress with the PlayStation 3-optimized Unreal Engine 3 was smoother than before – so much smoother, in fact, that Rein stated, “It took us a year [to improve Unreal Engine 3] after Xbox 360 and here we are less than a year after PlayStation 3 and I’d say that today Unreal Tournament 3 runs better on PS3 than Gears did on Xbox 360 at the same point in its development.”

Regarding mods, experienced and aspiring modders will have to consider a platform choice when purchasing Unreal Tournament 3. Even if Epic does succeed in getting mod compatibility to run on the Xbox 360 – a possibility that only Microsoft and its stand on closed Xbox Live can dictate – modders will still have to purchase the PC version to create any mods. Rein assures mods will be playable on the PlayStation 3, but not spruced up on the console.

As the highly-anticipated shooter Unreal Tournament 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac) nears its PlayStation 3 timed-exclusive debut, fans of the franchise have been pondering just how much performance Epic has squeezed out on the game for their Sony next-gen console.

The reaction towards the hands-on demonstration at the E3 Media & Business Summit was all in favor for the title, especially on the part of IGN, who hailed the game as a runner up under “best PlayStation 3 shooter.” Epic Games‘ vice president Mark Rein sat with Joystiq at the recently concluded Develop Conference & Expo at Brighton and laid down the techie PS3 specifics: the current HD resolution and frame rate that Unreal Tournament 3 could spew.

“720p resolution, which is what we planned to do, and it was running at least 30fps when I last saw it,” said Rein. He commented a while earlier on how well Sony representatives have aided their PlayStation 3 optimization process.

And progress with the PlayStation 3-optimized Unreal Engine 3 was smoother than before – so much smoother, in fact, that Rein stated, “It took us a year [to improve Unreal Engine 3] after Xbox 360 and here we are less than a year after PlayStation 3 and I’d say that today Unreal Tournament 3 runs better on PS3 than Gears did on Xbox 360 at the same point in its development.”

Regarding mods, experienced and aspiring modders will have to consider a platform choice when purchasing Unreal Tournament 3. Even if Epic does succeed in getting mod compatibility to run on the Xbox 360 – a possibility that only Microsoft and its stand on closed Xbox Live can dictate – modders will still have to purchase the PC version to create any mods. Rein assures mods will be playable on the PlayStation 3, but not spruced up on the console.