Graphics issue

[Minimaul]

Even on a 4.0 ghz turbo i7 Saints Row 2 will run slow because it was optimized for Xbox 360's 3.2 ghz. So, I think we are both looking at different things. You're talking about THEORETICAL performance. What I'm saying is that a game optimized for a specific machine, needs less wiggle room. Example. Let's build a PC with the exact same specs as an Xbox 360.

3.2 ghz Triple core processor
512 mb ram
Ati Radeon x1800

Now, let's play Skyrim at 1080! Uh oh! Well, we might be able to run it at 720.....at 15 FPS......no shadows.....no AA.....or reflections......it still crashes....almost always. So, you are definitely correct that our modern PC's are faster then home consoles from 2005, but raw power doesn't always equal better performance. Look at ID's game Rage. It runs better on consoles, no matter how much power you throw at it, because bad code cannot be just strong armed through those cores. You can run it at higher resolutions, and bump a little more out of it, but you'll still get stutters, and horrible texture pop in. Not because of lack of power, but because of bad development. So we are really debating two different things. Your talking about power, and I'm talking about games being coded correctly.

1. You can't compare the 360's processor cores to PC cores just on clock speed alone. The 360 has PowerPC cores, the PC has x86 cores - the architecture is massively different. No matter how you rephrase it, the 360's 3.2GHz cores are _not anywhere near as powerful_ as any available x86 processor at 3.2GHz. They're _simpler_ to make them _cheaper_. It turns out that CPU isn't where most games bottleneck though, that's usually the graphics. Saints Row 2 runs badly on PC because it was really badly ported and does not make proper use of the PC's high frequency timing. It is a bug, pure and simple. It's not because it's optimised for 360, it's because the porting team really fucked up and didn't have a clue what they were doing.
2. Consoles only render Skyrim at 720p anyway. If you're running at 1080p on a Console, it's really drawing it at 720p and then upscaling. So a comparison between 720p and 720p would be fairer.
3. a X1800 will actually give better Skyrim performance than that anyway - and the console graphics levels fall somewhere between the PC Low and Medium levels - EXACTLY where the x1800 sits for approx 30FPS performance.
4. Your Rage example is yet another reason why I keep saying "sensibly coded" or "well written". A really badly written game will run like ass, no matter what on.

I'm not claiming that a game that is clearly a bad console port is going to magically run better on PC - as I keep saying, it needs to be sensibly written for PC. What I'm saying is that consoles are far less powerful than current or even contemporary PCs, and that they are massively holding back gaming as a whole. Developing solely for consoles and then at the last minute doing a half-assed port to the PC is always going to show PCs in a bad light. Games that are developed on all three major platforms (PC, PS3, 360) from the start inevitably run or look better on PC. I'd love to see some games primarily developed for PC show what the platform is really capable of.

 

[tonicmole]

I would love to see a full blown PC game developed for mid to high end PC's, BUT......the cost would far out way the possible in come. Blizzard/activision have the money to develop AAA games exclusive to the PC. Instead we get Diablo 3.....uhhhgggg......EA could do the same, but we get Sims 3......Really, without consoles PC gaming would be nothing but a bunch of point and click RPG's and flight simulators.

I prefer PC gaming, and see Steam as my console of choice. However, I'm wise enough to realize that without consoles we'd never move forward. We'd still be gaming on mouse and keyboards, and games would look like butt and all be point and click. It's not about cpu, or gpu power, it's about an economic situation that allows developers to push forward. PC gaming does not generate the revenue needed to develop advanced games. The current games push what is financially possible. Saints Row the Third's development was cut back because THQ ran out of money, not because it was for a console. Even with the HUGE leap in console power on the horizon, I doubt we'll see much in the way of a leap forward. It's just not financially viable. The cost of development has exceeded the possible return. So, either more people need to buy games, or we find a way to reduce the cost and time of development.....neither is likely at this point. The gaming bubble has burst, so we probably will see far fewer people buying console or PC games, and far more buying iPhone games. Also, the tools for developing games isn't decreasing in cost at the same speed as advancement. We've hit a wall, and it has nothing to do with consoles. It's capitalism.

 

[Minimaul]

I would love to see a full blown PC game developed for mid to high end PC's, BUT......the cost would far out way the possible in come. Blizzard/activision have the money to develop AAA games exclusive to the PC. Instead we get Diablo 3.....uhhhgggg......EA could do the same, but we get Sims 3......Really, without consoles PC gaming would be nothing but a bunch of point and click RPG's and flight simulators.

I prefer PC gaming, and see Steam as my console of choice. However, I'm wise enough to realize that without consoles we'd never move forward. We'd still be gaming on mouse and keyboards, and games would look like butt and all be point and click. It's not about cpu, or gpu power, it's about an economic situation that allows developers to push forward. PC gaming does not generate the revenue needed to develop advanced games. The current games push what is financially possible. Saints Row the Third's development was cut back because THQ ran out of money, not because it was for a console. Even with the HUGE leap in console power on the horizon, I doubt we'll see much in the way of a leap forward. It's just not financially viable. The cost of development has exceeded the possible return. So, either more people need to buy games, or we find a way to reduce the cost and time of development.....neither is likely at this point. The gaming bubble has burst, so we probably will see far fewer people buying console or PC games, and far more buying iPhone games. Also, the tools for developing games isn't decreasing in cost at the same speed as advancement. We've hit a wall, and it has nothing to do with consoles. It's capitalism.

That's funny, because I'm sure that shooters were developed on PCs before they migrated to consoles

Remember Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Duke 3D, Quake anyone?

You could eliminate an awful lot of cost from development budgets by not having to try to cram games on to consoles which can't really cope with them

Most art for games is produced in a far higher resolution than gets shipped on consoles or even PC - there's a lot of space to improve there without actually putting any more production effort in.

 

[tonicmole]

PC's definitely give developers the chance to experiment in ways that are impossible on consoles....but the customer base doesn't exist to justify the huge budgets needed to really use our hardware. (I think Valve's Steambox could change this.) Not to mention everyone is chasing the WOW money train. I think our best hope for a full on PC geared game would be Ubisoft. They are power addicts. They are the only current developer interested in next gen consoles. Everyone else believes that the cost vs return just won't work if games go to a "Next generation". Have you seen the gameplay footage of their new game, "Watchdogs". Damn dude, it looks pretty sweet. Ubisoft still say's it's on Xbox 360, PS 3, and PC. Ubisoft would be the kings of console development. They can do a lot, with very little hardware.

Developers have JUST now dropped support of single core Processors. We need a PC generation jump. Their is not a single PC game that isn't designed for 2.0 duel core, 512 mb gpu. (actually I've seen one or two move forward like Far Cry 3, but not by much.) Developers think that higher spec'd games are just not financially viable.

As far as HD textures, that's not really doing anything but choking up frame rate (at most it'd be nice to have all objects have 1024 resolutions). More important is advanced animation systems, particle effects, and decal quantity. Things that still cause the average PC to stumble. A lot of the things that we want in a next generation games just isn't possible to achieve in a 2 year development cycle. Sure, they could reduce compression, but that really isn't going to do much. In the end if they did make all these advancements, very few PC's would be able to run them. The average PC gamer is still running duel core processors, low end 1 gig gpu's (gt 620) or old high end 512 mb (gtx 9800). Very, very few of us are in the quad core mid range gpu or up camp. By the time PC gamers all get up to power the next gen consoles will have quad cores, 2 gig gpu's. Our only hope is that the Steambox, or one of Valves many Lenix based gaming PC's will give people an affordable way to get into advanced PC gaming.

Today I'm getting new hardware!!! I'm wicked excited. I'm stepping up to a Geforce 650 ti, and a 3.2 ghz i5. So, basically I'm going all new. New motherboard because I have the old intel core socket, DDR 3, PSU upgrade......Bwahahahahahaha! The next generation begins now!

Doom.....that was along time ago. Now PC gaming gives the community MMO's and monthly subscription fee's to play really bad RPG's......All I'm saying is that the problem is far beyond just consoles. It's that developers are more interested in World of War craft versus pushing advanced hardware. PC gaming once moved gaming forward. Doom, Elder scrolls, Wolfenstien, Doom 3, so on and so forth, but since 2005 PC gaming has become nothing but MMO's. In fact since 2005, we have to wait for Console developers to make technological jumps before PC developers will even think about it. Not because consoles are holding us back, but because PC developers have become lazy, and are riding on the idea of what once was. We still use Crysis for benchmarks.......jesus, that game looks like a PS 3 launch game, yet uses five times the resources.

UPDATE: I got a 2 gb EVGA GTX 660 SC edition. I'm super excited about that.....and a 700 watt psu. Didn't get a new cpu though. My intel core quad will have to cost a little while longer. Saints Row the Third runs balls fast though.

 

[Tommy Vercetti]

Consoles have always led the way, mainly because they are so cheap, universal, specifically geared for gaming and so simple that any "average Joe" can use one.

Meanwhile pre-built PC's are rather expensive ripoffs and many people do not know how to source well priced components let alone build their own computer. Many people do not even know how to use one properly!
This is because the PC world is a forever rapidly landscape. The last time I heard, computers were doubling in computing power every 18 months.

From the developers point of view, consoles are easier to make games for, as they all use the same standard hardware and software.
Where as the trusty PC comes in all shapes and sizes and configurations and they are always changing.

2 or more Cores?
I could be wrong, but more than 2 cores are not really needed for gaming, sure I got a quad for the hell of it, but extra cores currently only come in handy for "more than normal" number crunching,
i.e "brute force" code breaking.

I will agree on this though:
A good PC has way more modding options will ALWAYS kick the ass of a console in terms of gaming potential!!!

 

[tonicmole]

Consoles have always led the way, mainly because they are so cheap, universal, specifically geared for gaming and so simple that any "average Joe" can use one.

Meanwhile pre-built PC's are rather expensive ripoffs and many people do not know how to source well priced components let alone build their own computer. Many people do not even know how to use one properly!
This is because the PC world is a forever rapidly landscape. The last time I heard, computers were doubling in computing power every 18 months.

From the developers point of view, consoles are easier to make games for, as they all use the same standard hardware and software.
Where as the trusty PC comes in all shapes and sizes and configurations and they are always changing.

2 or more Cores?
I could be wrong, but more than 2 cores are not really needed for gaming, sure I got a quad for the hell of it, but extra cores currently only come in handy for "more than normal" number crunching,
i.e "brute force" code breaking.

I will agree on this though:
A good PC has way more modding options will ALWAYS kick the ass of a console in terms of gaming potential!!!

I agree. Though that is not how it has always been. I think that's where we all come together. Like Minimaul points out, Doom, Elder Scrolls, Witcher, the MMO, competitive multiplayer....all came from the flexibility only PC's offer.

The weirdest thing is that, now the roles have changed. Uncharted, Kill Zone, Gears of War, Batman Arkham City, all developed for the console. The PC get's Witcher........and Diablo 3. OH MY GOD! I just realized something. We talk about what PC gaming should be.....between all of us we have enough skill and PC power to build the greatest PC game ever....but we don't. Hell, Unity, when used right, can pull off some impressive stuff. I guess the problem with PC gaming is that we are waiting for someone else.