EA Vice President says PS4 and Xbox One are a generation ahead

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smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
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I think coding to the metal goes a lot farther than people want to admit. Being able to optimize your calls to the GPU and CPU can make it so much more efficient. Removing having to make a call to DirectX that then makes a call to the GPU, all through a PCI bus and a software layer saps performance.

Get an 8-core AMD CPU and a 7790 and compare it to how console games look when this launches @ 1080p. And continue to compare it as the consoles mature. That specs that we know are deceiving.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
I think coding to the metal goes a lot farther than people want to admit. Being able to optimize your calls to the GPU and CPU can make it so much more efficient. Removing having to make a call to DirectX that then makes a call to the GPU, all through a PCI bus and a software layer saps performance.

Get an 8-core AMD CPU and a 7790 and compare it to how console games look when this launches @ 1080p. And continue to compare it as the consoles mature. That specs that we know are deceiving.

I'm waiting for confirmation from a 3rd party that every game will even be at 1080p full time. There was zero mention of that yet. I think it's possible though, and quite honestly I expect nothing less at this point.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
Ugh, they've been going back and forth on this topic in VC&G for over 1,000 posts, and it's littered with absolute garbage, speculation and utter bullshit. If you guys draw galego into this flippin' sub-forum, I'm going to be pissed. :mad:

Frankly, I can tell you outright that the comment is completely inane, because how the hell do you define a PC generation. NVIDIA just launched their GTX 780 today and Haswell launches early next month, so does that mean the "next generation" is practically already here? :p

I'm disappointed in you folks. :colbert:

I think coding to the metal goes a lot farther than people want to admit. Being able to optimize your calls to the GPU and CPU can make it so much more efficient. Removing having to make a call to DirectX that then makes a call to the GPU, all through a PCI bus and a software layer saps performance.

Get an 8-core AMD CPU and a 7790 and compare it to how console games look when this launches @ 1080p. And continue to compare it as the consoles mature. That specs that we know are deceiving.

Do you really think that developers are going to spend all the extra time that it takes to write architecture-specific code for everything?

Also, the Killzone demo already showed that they weren't even using the GPU for any compute operations as all physics calculations were running on the CPU.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
86
Ugh, they've been going back and forth on this topic in VC&G for over 1,000 posts, and it's littered with absolute garbage, speculation and utter bullshit. If you guys draw galego into this flippin' sub-forum, I'm going to be pissed. :mad:

Frankly, I can tell you outright that the comment is completely inane, because how the hell do you define a PC generation. NVIDIA just launched their GTX 780 today and Haswell launches early next month, so does that mean the "next generation" is practically already here? :p

I'm disappointed in you folks. :colbert:
Well, possibly the console generation domination was short lived. =3

Do you really think that developers are going to spend all the extra time that it takes to write architecture-specific code for everything?

Also, the Killzone demo already showed that they weren't even using the GPU for any compute operations as all physics calculations were running on the CPU.

You're right, we don't know that all developers are going to optimize the heck out of console games. But, look at something like the PS2. Launch titles looked okay at the time, and by the end of its life (well, more like the start of the 360s life because the PS2 will never die!) the games looked amazing for such old hardware. PC games don't age as well because you can optimize and optimize and optimize to the point of you can make up for the lower specs. If someone were to do this at launch, it would blow people away. But development doesn't work like that, unless Sony and MS sent John Carmack a dev kit 6 months ago, we won't get such a launch title.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
As far as this PC vs console thing goes. A console will always have a set limit in the hardware. The hardware only has so much power available and you will eventually hit the wall. How long will it take to hit the wall is the real question. Could be years, could be a few months before a first party studio finds the limits. PCs always evolve. The 8970 could beat the GTX 780 that just launched. Haswell CPUs coming, Maxwell GPUs next year.

Define high end PC. Does that include Quad SLI Titans with 4.5Ghz 3930k and 32GB RAM? That's a ridiculously expensive system and probably overkill for pretty much everything related to gaming. Still...it's an undefined phrase "high end PC"
 
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Dumac

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,391
1
0
I think coding to the metal goes a lot farther than people want to admit. Being able to optimize your calls to the GPU and CPU can make it so much more efficient. Removing having to make a call to DirectX that then makes a call to the GPU, all through a PCI bus and a software layer saps performance.

Get an 8-core AMD CPU and a 7790 and compare it to how console games look when this launches @ 1080p. And continue to compare it as the consoles mature. That specs that we know are deceiving.

Nobody is denying that you'll get more performance from a similar computer, but that isn't a high end computer.

See below:

Define high end PC. Does that include Quad SLI Titans with 4.5Ghz 3930k and 32GB RAM? That's a ridiculously expensive system and probably overkill for pretty much everything related to gaming. Still...it's an undefined phrase "high end PC"

Bump that up to 64GB ram (not that it really matters) and a 5.4ghz processor, not to mention a huge SSD slab for load times. "Coding to the metal" can't beat simple numbers.
 

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,501
12
0
You can't really compare console and PC gaming because they're two different animals. I consider PC to be more of a hobby. It has the luxury of being able to evolve over time, but lacks stability and costs more. Not all gamers want to fart around with the hardware or underlying software. They just want to put the disc in and go.

I will say the PS3 does have a few games that still impress me. Maybe not to the degree of Bioshock Infinite or Skyrim with the high res texture pack, but definitely not bad for a 7 year old system.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
I will say the PS3 does have a few games that still impress me. Maybe not to the degree of Bioshock Infinite or Skyrim with the high res texture pack, but definitely not bad for a 7 year old system.

Eh, if you're used to PC games, it's hard to ignore how terrible console games look. The problem is that it's really easy to overlook them because of how far you sit away from the TV. I was watching a video of The Last of Us on my PC, and while the game is good looking for a current-generation console game, it's really bad looking compared to PC games. It's just so hard to ignore the very low resolution textures and all of the jaggies (mostly the prior).
 

ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
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What he's also forgetting is that in 5 years (or 10 at the rate things are going), they will look like complete ass compared to PC's, but of course, they will also be holding the PC back more or less like they do now. I welcome this new gen, so we can get some better (if any) ports.
 

raasco

Platinum Member
Feb 6, 2009
2,638
3
76
You can't really compare console and PC gaming because they're two different animals. I consider PC to be more of a hobby. It has the luxury of being able to evolve over time, but lacks stability and costs more. Not all gamers want to fart around with the hardware or underlying software. They just want to put the disc in and go.

I will say the PS3 does have a few games that still impress me. Maybe not to the degree of Bioshock Infinite or Skyrim with the high res texture pack, but definitely not bad for a 7 year old system.

I feel that if you take game price savings into consideration, pc's are actually cheaper over time. While I own a PS3, 360 and a gaming PC, the majority of my games are for the PC because of prices. Humble Bundles and Steam/Amazon sales are outstanding, not to mention GMG or GoG.
 

BladeVenom

Lifer
Jun 2, 2005
13,365
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That's strange, because there are few companies who sell more games than them. I guess Apple knows shit about phones and MS knows shit about OSes as well right?

Maybe you should learn to read. I said the people in charge.

Tim Cook couldn't design a phone himself, and Steve Balmer can't program an OS.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
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Maybe you should learn to read. I said the people in charge.

Tim Cook couldn't design a phone himself, and Steve Balmer can't program an OS.

Except they know enough about the market and the direction of the company to have it create such things. You think Balmer just sits around doing nothing? You think Tim Cook doesn't make decisions or have final say on what gets released?
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
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Except they know enough about the market and the direction of the company to have it create such things. You think Balmer just sits around doing nothing? You think Tim Cook doesn't make decisions or have final say on what gets released?

Well it's more generalization than anything. Do you think the suits at EA actually play games like you do? Sure the programmers probably mostly do, but their direction comes from businessmen seeking profits (nothing wrong with that of course), so the info at the top is more PR-speak than anything close to the truth.

Any direction a company gets from it's executives is big picture stuff, not details, which is why listening to them and trusting what they say should be filtered through a BS detector. Their actions are purely to increase share prices and investor confidence, nothing to do with what gamers care about.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
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Well it's more generalization than anything. Do you think the suits at EA actually play games like you do? Sure the programmers probably mostly do, but their direction comes from businessmen seeking profits (nothing wrong with that of course), so the info at the top is more PR-speak than anything close to the truth.

Any direction a company gets from it's executives is big picture stuff, not details, which is why listening to them and trusting what they say should be filtered through a BS detector. Their actions are purely to increase share prices and investor confidence, nothing to do with what gamers care about.

I do agree, they don't know the technical side of things that well, the know the direction. And whether gamers want to admit it or not if a company doesn't profit, no games are made. Profits for developers / publishers are directly involved in what gamers care about. As soon as it becomes impossible to make a profit developing games, we stop getting games.
 

Dumac

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,391
1
0
That's strange, because there are few companies who sell more games than them. I guess Apple knows shit about phones and MS knows shit about OSes as well right?

Well, you could argue that EA big wigs don't really know about games as much as about broad market strategy and business tactics.

Plus, he probably should have qualified his statement by saying "EA knows shit about good/quality games".
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Now that I'm older, I'd rather game on a console than PC. After work, I don't want to sit at another desk to play my games, I want to sit back and relax on my recliner. Plus with PC, you have to keep up hardware wise which now I'm getting less and less interested in. Also you'd be missing out on a ton of great console exclusives. I don't mind the worse graphics because graphics can only take you so far.
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
1,377
126
Now that I'm older, I'd rather game on a console than PC. After work, I don't want to sit at another desk to play my games, I want to sit back and relax on my recliner. Plus with PC, you have to keep up hardware wise which now I'm getting less and less interested in. Also you'd be missing out on a ton of great console exclusives. I don't mind the worse graphics because graphics can only take you so far.

Yep, nothing wrong with that. If it's not fun, there's no point. Graphics on a lot of the old stuff I play is horrible by today's standards, but I don't care one bit. At the same time, my gaming PC would be the last thing I'd give up :)
 

TakeNoPrisoners

Platinum Member
Jun 3, 2011
2,599
1
81
When Oblivion came out on the Xbox 360 it was comparable to mid-high PCs at the time.

Launch titles (which Oblivion wasn't by the way so I am throwing the Xbox a bone) on the next generation of consoles will not do much better than mid-high end PC graphics as long as consoles follow the same trends. I see no indication that they will deviate, especially with the anemic (1.6Ghz, not even an Intel arch so per core performance will be abysmal) clock speeds of the CPU and middling graphics hardware.

Consoles just cannot compete with PCs on game performance, sure efficiency maybe later on in the cycle but that isn't what is being discussed.

Here is a source for my Oblivion comparison.

link
 
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chalmers

Platinum Member
Mar 14, 2008
2,565
0
76
Now that I'm older, I'd rather game on a console than PC. After work, I don't want to sit at another desk to play my games, I want to sit back and relax on my recliner. Plus with PC, you have to keep up hardware wise which now I'm getting less and less interested in. Also you'd be missing out on a ton of great console exclusives. I don't mind the worse graphics because graphics can only take you so far.

I'll never understand that comment about relaxing. I'm on my gaming PC right now. I'm sitting in a very comfortable accent chair with a 46" monitor. I'm not sitting at another desk to play my games.

It's pointless comparing PC's to consoles..I'm not sure why people do it. It's a futile, pointless argument. They cater to two totally different markets. It's like comparing an expensive sports car/hot rod to a basic Toyota Camry. Two totally different price points, two totally different types of people are interested in them. I doubt people are doing that in automotive forums, and they shouldn't be doing it here for gaming. The recliner/couch argument I see all the time is retarded though tbh.