PS3 Oblivion Approaching PC Quality Visuals

After taking a beating in Gamespot's side by side Comparison of Xbox 360 and PS3 graphics, Playstation 3 owners may finally have something to hold over the 360 fans. Both Gamespot and IGN have previews posted yesterday that talk up the graphics and performance improvements over the 360 version. Load times and texture quality and draw distance have been improved, as well as 'new shaders dedicated to rendering the foreground cleanly with sharper details, so rocky landscapes now have craggy appearances instead of smooth, non-distinct surfaces,' according to IGN. They end with the ultimate hype, 'screens from the PS3 version should approach those from high end PCs running Oblivion, which is an impressive feat.' How is this possible? Gamespot reports that 'Oblivion will make extensive use of the PS3's hard drive by caching multiple gigabytes of data, which seemed to help with load times from what we saw.' While there are no official reports of this making it into the new 360/PC expansion Shivering Isles, a rumor on the Gamespot preview says that 1up might have the scoop

via /.