Crytek: the PC is "a generation ahead," but PS3 and 360 holding it back

[princeton]

mccartercar said:
In terms of the current console generation; The only thing that is optimized hardware wise is power usage, heat output, and durability. From the first fat ps3 at launch until the newest slim there is not one spec changed that increases or decreases throughput of any data, other than heat transfer. The same goes for the current generation of xbox360.
This means that software developers have to carefully manage memory, gpu ,cpu resources. Its very sad to think of how devs are forced to squeeze allocated resources to the tiny bit of ram in each console. A good example would be John Carmack's interview at Quakecon, talking about RAGE and the obstacles and challenges of managing resources in the tight constraints of console hardware.
One of the few positive sides to having one hardware specification is being able to learn it thoroughly and use new techniques and optimizations in firmware updates that helps free up precious few resources on an aging platform.
I prefer my own dream of console hybrids that are upgradeable al a carte. Radeon 6990 upgrade via Light Peak dongle anyone?.....daydreaming again..8X

It will ALWAYS be impossible to download hardware. It breaks the laws of...physics? I believe so

 

[maddmatt02]

Treetops said:
I can run a wii simulator on my computer and have like 5 of the newest games loaded at the same time and my computer wont break a sweat, the xbox 360 or ps3 can barely handle 1 game. Computers are constantly getting better but consoles only get better every 5-8 years, so yeah right now they are on the low end.

well, I own a wii and a PS3, and by the way the wii games look compared to COD:BO(newest game I got), my PS3 could probably handle 5 wii games also. now realize I am NOT trying to say my PS3 can keep up with top PC's, because I have seen FC2 on both my PS3 and a PC and its not the same. but stretch the display from a ~20" lcd monitor to my 50" DLP and Im sure it wont look quite so good(plus my tv doesnt support 1920x(whatever number goes here... lol)

either way I know a PC will kill my PS3, and I plan on building a ncie gaming rig next year, but Ill still keep my consoles for big screen multiplayer fun with friends. I cant expect my friends to go build 1000 dollar computers as well just so we can play multiplayer games...

 

[Tekkaraiden]

I love it when developers state the obvious. If they feel so bad about the state of pc gaming why did the opt to make console versions? Oh wait because they can make a lot of money.

 

[Guest]

I'm astonished how dumb people are....really...I'm really REALLY disappointed in my fellow man.
/rage

 

[chaboi390]

princeton said:

mccartercar said:
In terms of the current console generation; The only thing that is optimized hardware wise is power usage, heat output, and durability. From the first fat ps3 at launch until the newest slim there is not one spec changed that increases or decreases throughput of any data, other than heat transfer. The same goes for the current generation of xbox360.
This means that software developers have to carefully manage memory, gpu ,cpu resources. Its very sad to think of how devs are forced to squeeze allocated resources to the tiny bit of ram in each console. A good example would be John Carmack's interview at Quakecon, talking about RAGE and the obstacles and challenges of managing resources in the tight constraints of console hardware.
One of the few positive sides to having one hardware specification is being able to learn it thoroughly and use new techniques and optimizations in firmware updates that helps free up precious few resources on an aging platform.
I prefer my own dream of console hybrids that are upgradeable al a carte. Radeon 6990 upgrade via Light Peak dongle anyone?.....daydreaming again..8X

It will ALWAYS be impossible to download hardware. It breaks the laws of...physics? I believe so

When I looked at that, i just LOLed....

 

[negroplasty]

princeton said:
Pfft. More like 3 gens ahead. IMO the 4000,5000 and 6000 series cards are each a new generation of hardware. Where as the xbox runs a slightly modified 7600GT.

The Xbox 360 runs an ATI chip, not nVidia. Perhaps you are referring to PS3?

 

[Guest]

the reason the pc gaming have been stagnat for the last two or three years is becase of home consoles. there a lot of talk about having a 10 or 15 years lifespans on home consoles but the hardware and software is moving to fast to bring out new consoles with that long of lifespan. the should keep with a 5 to 7 years lifespan or it will be to outdate to play the best games on the consoles.

 

[hassaan]

I think the way forward to this problem should be the development of a drive that reads directly from the disk without the need of installing the game. Casual PC gamers hate the hassle of installing the whole game. On top of that the cost of good computer hardware is way to high compared to consoles which are available at a fraction of the price.
Companies should figure out a way to increase the fun factor in PC gaming.

 

[ruben1992]

He is just so right "respect"

 

[ajd007]

chaboi390 said:

princeton said:

It will ALWAYS be impossible to download hardware. It breaks the laws of...physics? I believe so

When I looked at that, i just LOLed....

I believe that in the future (I give it 50 years or so) we will all have 3D printers, so that when we want a new product we will just buy the data that encodes it, download it through the internet and construct it from scratch. So, no it doesn't break the laws of physics

Regarding the article itself, this stuff is not new information. Considering that the xbox 360 and ps3 were designed 5 years ago and they only cost about $300, its a no brainer that they're a generation behind. Try building a gaming rig today for $300. What kind of performance would you get?

With that said, though, I agree that its a tragedy developers have not focused much on the pc given that it has orders of magnitude of greater capabilities. However, I think that a big part of the problem is that it is much easier to pirate a game on the pc than on the console (and I think pc gamers are more likely to pirate and more knowledgable on how to pirate vs your average casual xbox gamer). Thus, PC developers lose an even larger chunk of revenue, so that its just not worth it anymore.

I think a big part of the solution would be to develop a better DRM system that is unintrusive for legitimate buyers (no hoops to jump through, no continuous internet connections, etc), yet still prevents others from pirating the game.

Marketing also needs to improve. When you say videogame, the first thing that comes to mind is an xbox, nintendo or playstation. People need to start seeing their pcs as another medium for gaming A possible argument is that its cheaper as it doesn't require buying a console and the vast majority of people already have pcs at home.

 

[bugejakurt]

I think Crytek should worry about code optimization on different systems for the game to run smoother on most PCs and to reduce bugs. What are they complaining for? More graphics because of the PC version? So they expect users to have the latest Graphics card to support all this graphics with the latest CPUs on the market? How many people have the latest technology?

 

[uttaradhaka]

I agree completely. The PC gaming landscape changes on a yearly basis, while the console generation lasts for 10 years.

Consoles are going to seriously hamper the advancement of PC gaming in the future as well.

 

[Guest]

Actually, the Xbox runs off A modified ATI X1900 / X19xx, I rember this info very well, I had just got A X1950xt when the xbox frist came out. Was Amazed @ the X1950xt and more Amazed at the xbox at the time, However if you go by the X19xx info .. their Has been the X19xx / HD 29xx / HD 38xx / HD 4xxx / 5xxx and noiw we are at 6xxx. Whats odd too me is the if you look at RAGE running on the 360 ... it looks REALLY good for A game running off the x1900.

 

[Johny47]

negroplasty said:

princeton said:
Pfft. More like 3 gens ahead. IMO the 4000,5000 and 6000 series cards are each a new generation of hardware. Where as the xbox runs a slightly modified 7600GT.

The Xbox 360 runs an ATI chip, not nVidia. Perhaps you are referring to PS3?

I'm very sure that the PS3's 'RSX'(reality Synthesizer) is a modified version of the 7900GT(has 256MB of GDDR3) and the 360 uses a modified ATI chip of some kind.

I've been gaming on PC since I built my own budget gaming PC(just had a decent dual core, 9400GT and 2GB DDR2) about 2 years ago now and since around Vista was released I knew that the PC was going to leave consoles in the dust with newer technology because of Direct X, you could easily notice this with multiplatforms more than anything and not just the higher resolution but added graphics settings with DX10.

Now the PC is on DX11, the main thing is tesselation that adds so much depth and realism it's just so far ahead of what the consoles can do(they run at DX9c I think).

And with 'PC's are limited because of consoles thing' I don't think so because exclusive PC games should really push ahead of what multiplatforms can show. Crytek said that PC version of Crysis 2 will be much more 'superior' in every way than the consoles so who cares =P

 

[TeamworkGuy2]

There is a lot to say from every angle. I have very little experience with consoles, and my PC is fairly old, so I can't play anything newer than the AoE 3 (@ low) or Battlefield 2 (@ medium).
What I have seen is that console games get the better deal, developers work much harder on console games. PC hardware equal to XBox 360/PS3 hardware, can't play games that are graphically equivalent to the XBox 360/PS3. This happens mainly because PC developers have to take all possible hardware into account and have to spend more time on compatibility than on actual gameplay.
It would be cool to see PC developers move ahead in graphics and physics, but I would by far prefer if developers would concentrate on getting the most out of current hardware, and not waste resources. Some games take up ~2GBs of Memory and max out 2 CPU cores, this leaves people with older hardware out in the cold...

P.S.
When the next generation of consoles come out, it is going to be like night and day between the old and new.
Imagine what developers could do with an "XBox 720" (Imaginary name for the next gen XBox) if that "XBox 720" had a Radeon 6870 or nVidia GTX 460...

 

[princeton]

Johny47 said:

negroplasty said:

princeton said:
Pfft. More like 3 gens ahead. IMO the 4000,5000 and 6000 series cards are each a new generation of hardware. Where as the xbox runs a slightly modified 7600GT.

The Xbox 360 runs an ATI chip, not nVidia. Perhaps you are referring to PS3?

I'm very sure that the PS3's 'RSX'(reality Synthesizer) is a modified version of the 7900GT(has 256MB of GDDR3) and the 360 uses a modified ATI chip of some kind.

I've been gaming on PC since I built my own budget gaming PC(just had a decent dual core, 9400GT and 2GB DDR2) about 2 years ago now and since around Vista was released I knew that the PC was going to leave consoles in the dust with newer technology because of Direct X, you could easily notice this with multiplatforms more than anything and not just the higher resolution but added graphics settings with DX10.

Now the PC is on DX11, the main thing is tesselation that adds so much depth and realism it's just so far ahead of what the consoles can do(they run at DX9c I think).

And with 'PC's are limited because of consoles thing' I don't think so because exclusive PC games should really push ahead of what multiplatforms can show. Crytek said that PC version of Crysis 2 will be much more 'superior' in every way than the consoles so who cares =P

Sorry guys I had the xbox and ps3 chips mixed up. I thought xbox was nvidia and ps3 ati but then I remembered xbox has that modded ati with better AA performance.

 

[Guest]

It's all laid out in terms of raw processing power. It doesn't make sense to compare the PC in terms of "console generations" and vice-versa.

Yet that's exactly what people in this thread and the actual article were doing. The original point was that the PC is far ahead of consoles to the point where an entirely new gen of consoles would be its equivalent. Then of course people started making *****ic comments about how "PC is x gens ahead because ATI has released three new graphic card revisions since the 360 came out" or whatever, as if it's actually quantifiable. Not only that but no, you can't simply use processing power as a method of comparison, since consoles are purpose built for running games and PC's are multifunctional and run a high level OS and various background services in addition the game you're running.

There's a reason people post as guest guys. They don't to gain a reputation of being a retard on one account so they stay anonymous.

Maybe you should have done this yourself as well then. Of course, it could be that they don't see the point in signing up to a new website every time they come across a news article that's worth commenting on, when there's a perfectly useable guest post feature.

 

[Cota]

I had always gamed on PC, since i left my N64, and every single time an awesome game strikes the market, i make my friends QQ because they play PS3/Xbox, PC games can be moded and excuse me for this.... but the gameplay can flow faster. Also add the ability to update your performance and stay in the generation of the best gaming experience, srry PS3/360.... its not me its you!

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Yet that's exactly what people in this thread and the actual article were doing. The original point was that the PC is far ahead of consoles to the point where an entirely new gen of consoles would be its equivalent. Then of course people started making *****ic comments about how "PC is x gens ahead because ATI has released three new graphic card revisions since the 360 came out" or whatever, as if it's actually quantifiable. Not only that but no, you can't simply use processing power as a method of comparison, since consoles are purpose built for running games and PC's are multifunctional and run a high level OS and various background services in addition the game you're running.

It is quantifiable vis-a-vis GPU processing power, since the GPU architecture on consoles and PCs is more or less identical (moreso on the PS3, whose RSX GPU uses a traditional vertex shader + pixel shader approach). A console also runs similar to a PC, with a discrete CPU & GPU unit, as well as RAM and an HDD, and there's also an OS running, so the comparison is pretty valid upto a point, especially given the fact that the OS on consoles is so much less feature-packed and resource-intensive than on a PC, and yet a PC is always able to net better performance due to better hardware.

It's always been the case and it will remain so; image quality on consoles will continue to lag behind that capable on PCs. Also, games are usually far easier to port to consoles (at least for the X360) once they've been developed for the PC.

 

[princeton]

Guest said:

It's all laid out in terms of raw processing power. It doesn't make sense to compare the PC in terms of "console generations" and vice-versa.

Yet that's exactly what people in this thread and the actual article were doing. The original point was that the PC is far ahead of consoles to the point where an entirely new gen of consoles would be its equivalent. Then of course people started making *****ic comments about how "PC is x gens ahead because ATI has released three new graphic card revisions since the 360 came out" or whatever, as if it's actually quantifiable. Not only that but no, you can't simply use processing power as a method of comparison, since consoles are purpose built for running games and PC's are multifunctional and run a high level OS and various background services in addition the game you're running.

There's a reason people post as guest guys. They don't to gain a reputation of being a retard on one account so they stay anonymous.

Maybe you should have done this yourself as well then. Of course, it could be that they don't see the point in signing up to a new website every time they come across a news article that's worth commenting on, when there's a perfectly useable guest post feature.

That must be why the majority of guest posts are incorrect in every sense,

 

[Guest]

Just because of that comment I will create a new account to comment against that. I do post often as a guest, but if that is how you feel, I will make a real account. earlier it was posted that people don't make real accounts(by you) because they feel embarrassed to post their opinion. I am the complete opposite. I will post, from now on, under the name yRaz, look for me.

 

[yRaz]

here, just for you(princeston), i made an account. I hope you feel proud of yourself since you piss me off enough to go through all the trouble of registering.

 

[Burty117]

haha! welcome yRaz, to techspot i'm glad you joined, I'll now take your comments into consideration when you have something to say rather than if you posted under the guest account.

 

[Guest]

It's always been the case and it will remain so; image quality on consoles will continue to lag behind that capable on PCs. Also, games are usually far easier to port to consoles (at least for the X360) once they've been developed for the PC.

That was never in question. The dispute was over princeton's eccentric and offbeat ideas about graphics card series being analogous with console generations, as if they're even remotely comparable, and then using that as a basis for some "PC is 3 generations ahead of consoles" argument, which is obviously laughable to anyone. A perfect example for the case that maybe some people should be using a guest account to save embarrassing themselves with hilariously wrong comments. The irony.

 

[yRaz]

Guest said:

It's always been the case and it will remain so; image quality on consoles will continue to lag behind that capable on PCs. Also, games are usually far easier to port to consoles (at least for the X360) once they've been developed for the PC.

That was never in question. The dispute was over princeton's eccentric and offbeat ideas about graphics card series being analogous with console generations, as if they're even remotely comparable, and then using that as a basis for some "PC is 3 generations ahead of consoles" argument, which is obviously laughable to anyone. A perfect example for the case that maybe some people should be using a guest account to save embarrassing themselves with hilariously wrong comments. The irony.

I have a hard time agreeing with that. There are so many features that come with each generation of videocards that it I would have to say going from X1900 series to HD 6X00 series is ATLEAST 3 generations ahead. consider DX9/10/11. Also, tessellation as-well-as eyefinity and the like. To say that PC's are 4-5 generations ahead is outlandish, but 3 is reasonable. Do not forget Moore's law, to which consoles do not apply