Developer claims consoles aren't powerful enough to run Star Citizen

[Scorpus]

Eric 'Wingman' Peterson, a developer at Cloud Imperium Games, believes that the current crop of game consoles simply aren't powerful enough to run the studio's upcoming crowd-funded title, Star Citizen.

In an interview with PC-Gaming, Peterson was asked why Star Citizen was only seeing a release on PC, rather than on consoles as well. He responded by saying "first and foremost, consoles couldn’t possibly handle a game like Star Citizen", before elaborating that "next-generation consoles cannot be compared [to PCs], their internal components are already older than what I could add to a gaming PC today."

Despite the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 not having enough power to run Star Citizen, Peterson said that the game will still run well on mid-range gaming rigs. The online component of Star Citizen will support between 50 and 70 players so that these types of machines don't get overwhelmed and hamper the overall experience.

However, gamers who have a top-end system will be able to take full advantage of their CPUs and GPUs through spectacular visuals, provided from the title's use of a modified version of Crytek's fourth-generation CryEngine. "We wanted to create a game that showed everyone the capabilities of PC", Peterson said.

For many years, PC gamers have had to suffer through mediocre console ports, which often failed to exploit the power of PCs and sometimes were poorly optimized. Peterson acknowledged this issue in the gaming industry, but with Star Citizen focusing on PC and PC only, there's no chance of a shoddy port.

Star Citizen currently sits on over $48 million in crowd funding, and is set to be fully released sometime in 2015.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/57409-developer-claims-consoles-arent-powerful-enough-to-run-star-citizen.html

 

[Rippleman]

Did he mean to say "our code is not optimized"?

 

[oldikes]

So hes one of those "PC-Master-Race" guys (especially when you consider the beginning of the trailer). Its a shame that people dont seem to understand what you can do for older hardware when you are making a game for one set of hardware. I mean, look at some of the games they released for last gen....not impressive as PC of course and thats not what im trying to say, but considering the fact they were hardware that was meh in 2005...

THAT BEING SAID, I am friggin excited for this game. or at least to see how it actually turns out.

 

[madboyv1]

For sure, consoles will not be able to run Star Citizen in it's full glory, or even on the higher settings, but with code optimization I would imagine there should not be any issues running it on current generation hardware, especially since similar optimization will almost be required for smooth playback. Of course, Star Citizens code is not optimized at this point in time, but one questions to how much they'll actually do... considering it's running off a PC branch of the CryEngine, not very much...

PC Master Race~

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I'm pleased to see a studio batting for the PC but that doesn't mean to say the game will never see a console, that could be detrimental to their bottom line. That said, if it's mulitiplayer or online only then I couldn't give a stuff about it.

 

[Stanky]

Seems people think they know what they're talking about when they throw around the term 'code optimization'.

How the hell does anyone know how optimal their code is? Maybe their code is tight but they want to throw in every feature they can think of?

Anyway, people can shut up about code. This guy knows more about the hardware demands and software capabilities than anyone here could.

 

[Guest]

Put a titan or R9 290x into your console, problem solved.. *LoL

 

[IPFR33LY]

I'm pleased to see a studio batting for the PC but that doesn't mean to say the game will never see a console, that could be detrimental to their bottom line. That said, if it's mulitiplayer or online only then I couldn't give a stuff about it.

They don't have a bottom line. The thing about crowd funding is that they get their money up-front to pay for the game. If they don't make any extra off the top (Which I cannot see happening) then it'll still be a successful game because it wouldn't have lost any of the capital it used to produce the game.

 

[rub900]

Console fan boys unite. Take form of a puddle. ...

 

[Ranger12]

The game look pretty awesome at the E3 reveal. Haven't really kept up with it. The only things I didn't like were the awful pew pew sounds the lasers made and when the enemies spawned the game instantly became that horrible game of cat and mouse where you both go around in circles over and over and over and over until finally someones circles catches up with the other persons circles and then that awful pew pew sound again... There has to be a way to make a dogfighting game that doesn't consist of hours of tandem circling.

 

[Resp1ra]

Put a titan or R9 290x into your console, problem solved.. *LoL

so you mean make a steambox

 

[Rippleman]

Seems people think they know what they're talking about when they throw around the term 'code optimization'.

Have you seen the code to make that judgement? If you have seen the code and made that judgement, are you qualified to make that judgement? If you have have seen the code and made that judgement and are qualified, could you be wrong?

Moral of the question: I could be wrong. But you could be too.

 

[wiyosaya]

I'm pleased to see a studio batting for the PC but that doesn't mean to say the game will never see a console, that could be detrimental to their bottom line. That said, if it's mulitiplayer or online only then I couldn't give a stuff about it.

There is a single player mode.

 

[Guest]

PC the King.

 

[Guest]

Did he mean to say "our code is not optimized"?

No.

Its a shame that people dont seem to understand what you can do for older hardware when you are making a game for one set of hardware. I mean, look at some of the games they released for last gen

Games released for the last-gen consoles ran at 720p or lower, 30 FPS or lower, and with graphics settings severely scaled back compared to the same games on PC. There is nothing impressive in the last generation of console games to someone used to playing on PC, and nothing that supports that "optimization" offers as big an advantage as you're trying to make it seem. The consoles run those games barely faster than a 2005/2006 PC (say, Conroe or Brisbane CPU and a GeForce 7800/7900 or Radeon X1800/X1900 series GPU) would run them.

Star Citizens code is not optimized at this point in time, but one questions to how much they'll actually do... considering it's running off a PC branch of the CryEngine, not very much...

The development of CryEngine 3 was entirely based on making the engine scalable enough to run both on high-end PCs and on consoles, unlike CryEngine 2 which did not scale well on lower-end machines. In other words, using your inadequate words, it was made to be "optimized". Your criticism of Crytek/CryEngine has no basis.

Have you seen the code to make that judgement? If you have seen the code and made that judgement, are you qualified to make that judgement? If you have have seen the code and made that judgement and are qualified, could you be wrong? Moral of the question: I could be wrong. But you could be too.

Irrelevant. You are the one who made the assertion that the code was not "optimized", not him. He only pointed out you have no means or qualification to know whether that is true or not, he did not claim the game is "optimized".
Since you made the assertion, the onus of proof is yours to prove that game is poorly developed. And you certainly can't, so your point is moot.

 

[Burty117]

I've been an avid PC gamer since 2006, right after the Xbox 360 launch. Since then I have owned quite high end machines all built by me, Played quite a lot of PC games and I think I was one of the rare people who could play Crysis at launch and enjoyed it.

[quote="Guest, post: 1415644"There is nothing impressive in the last generation of console games to someone used to playing on PC[/quote]

That being said, I still owned an Xbox (I got rid of Xbox after I was done with Halo Reach) and got a PS3 later down the line (Still play it to this day). Why? Because even as a PC gamer, I am impressed with what they pull out of a console, I still play The Last of Us to this day and I still sit in front of my TV and I'm impressed. Think about it, that game is running on a weird 7 core IBM processor with 256mb of ram and 256mb of graphics memory. That is nothing. Yet they were able to pull out graphics 6 years later that still impress me.

These new consoles can definitely play this game, no doubt about it, a mid spec gaming PC will have 8GB of RAM, both new consoles have that (and more since the OS is optimized for gaming) they have a processor that admit-ably would need some coding effort to make it work effectively without random lag and stuttering. The GPU's could also definitely pull this off as the PC equivalent of the Xbox One GPU can play Crysis 3 in a medium to high graphical setting and be considerably above 30fps.

Difference is, are the developers here, right now, making this game, prepared to sink the time and money to make it work effectively? Hell No! They want it to be a "no compromise" experience which you can only get on the PC. This is why I game primarily on PC, to get the better experience, These guys want to raise the bar, up the ante, what ever you want to call it, they want this to be an experience like when I fired up Crysis for the first time, when something is optimized to run at a "no holds barred" level of detail, you can't really waste time degrading everything to work on consoles.

To sum up, could this game run on the PS4/Xbox One? Most certainly. Would it be a waste of time, effort and money from this particular development team's standpoint? Even more so. And that is why I respect this decision immensely. They are going for the experience, not the money. Since they already know it'll sell well on the biggest platform gaming as to offer.

 

[Jad Chaar]

I am not sure if this is good or not... consoles may not produce as stunning an image as PCs, but they sure do rack in the cash! Look at BF4...its not-to-high-end system requirements and large console compatibility has probably racked in a ton of cash for DICE.

So hes one of those "PC-Master-Race" guys (especially when you consider the beginning of the trailer). Its a shame that people dont seem to understand what you can do for older hardware when you are making a game for one set of hardware. I mean, look at some of the games they released for last gen....not impressive as PC of course and thats not what im trying to say, but considering the fact they were hardware that was meh in 2005...

THAT BEING SAID, I am friggin excited for this game. or at least to see how it actually turns out.

I wonder if it will live up to the hype... the devs have some huge dreams that may take time to bring to life.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Why would any developer want to create an outstanding environment, and then be forced to dumb it down for play on a console? That is killing the image of what the developers want the game to be advertised as.

 

[Burty117]

Why would any developer want to create an outstanding environment, and then be forced to dumb it down for play on a console?

In a word? Money...

 

[cliffordcooley]

In a word? Money...

But yet Apple has made allot of money maintaining a high status quo.

 

[Steve]

Basically if all games were designed to max out current generation mid-range gaming systems at say 1080p then none of them would ever run on a console. Of course that’s not news.

It is nice to see some developers such as Cloud Imperium Games still push the envelope.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Basically if all games were designed to max out current generation mid-range gaming systems at say 1080p then none of them would ever run on a console.

That would be fine by me. And if so, the next console might be worth buying.

 

[Hexic]

Basically if all games were designed to max out current generation mid-range gaming systems at say 1080p then none of them would ever run on a console. Of course that’s not news.

It is nice to see some developers such as Cloud Imperium Games still push the envelope.

Exactly. I want to be impressed. You can't push the line with dated hardware all wrapped up in a pretty box. That hurts not only the graphical qualities, but has the opportunity to squelch development in certain aspects as well.

If it wasn't for MMOs, RTSs and MOBAs, PC gaming wouldn't look as it does now.

 

[Guest]

Well for console users they can always replace models and textures to those like in minecraft, I guess those would run at 120fps @1080p, maybe even add lots of blur and add 3d and other advanced effects

 

[Rippleman]

No.

Irrelevant. You are the one who made the assertion that the code was not "optimized", not him. He only pointed out you have no means or qualification to know whether that is true or not, he did not claim the game is "optimized".
Since you made the assertion, the onus of proof is yours to prove that game is poorly developed. And you certainly can't, so your point is moot.

No, you should read it again.

Quote: "Did he mean to say "our code is not optimized"?" End Quote

It was a question.