Is it true that PS4 will have better graphics/peformance PC

[ShintaiDK]

BF4, 900p on PS4 and bad quality. BF4, 720P on Xbox One and bad quality. PC wins hands down.

/thread.

 

[wand3r3r]

Medium/High end PC > any console period.

In a couple years low end pc > console.

Yes the consoles will be highly optimized, and will do things the PC cannot do with such weak hardware. They are no match for the brute force doubling of power in the PC every few years.

 

[NTMBK]

BF4, 900p on PS4 and bad quality. BF4, 720P on Xbox One and bad quality. PC wins hands down.

/thread.

That PC had a pair of 7970s in it, don't forget.

Consoles will generally get more performance from the same hardware, and the performance that they get out will improve over time as developers get more familiar with the hardware tricks. (Just go compare the first and last Gears of War games to get an idea of how one developer learns to make the most of it.) The first generation of games is always especially bad, because developers are often working to uncertain specifications, and using developer tools that aren't even finished, trying to hit a very tight launch deadline. I mean come on, Perfect Dark Zero (a 360 launch title) looked like this:

So yeah, it depends on how good your PC is. I certainly expect the next-gen consoles to give better visuals than my current PC. But if you have an overclocked Haswell and a 290X? Perhaps not. And the console's performance will gradually increase over time, whereas my PC's really, really won't.

 

[Cookie Monster]

That PC had a pair of 7970s in it, don't forget.

Consoles will generally get more performance from the same hardware, and the performance that they get out will improve over time as developers get more familiar with the hardware tricks. (Just go compare the first and last Gears of War games to get an idea of how one developer learns to make the most of it.) The first generation of games is always especially bad, because developers are often working to uncertain specifications, and using developer tools that aren't even finished, trying to hit a very tight launch deadline. I mean come on, Perfect Dark Zero (a 360 launch title) looked like this:

So yeah, it depends on how good your PC is. I certainly expect the next-gen consoles to give better visuals than my current PC. But if you have an overclocked Haswell and a 290X? Perhaps not. And the console's performance will gradually increase over time, whereas my PC's really, really won't.

No one denies that you'll be able to extract more performance out of the hardware in a given console. However the given console hardware is already pre-dated and is physically the limit of that console.

I think a good analogy is... for instance give an average professional basketball athlete all the help he can get. The best coaches, the training etc. Sure the guy will do better than his peers, but he will never be a Kobe Bryant or a Lebron James. An HD7850 class GPU will never surpass a GK104/Tahiti let alone a GK110/Hawaii. You can't extract more out of nothing because the hardware is fixed and i.e. has its theoretical peak.

By next year, we are going to see GPUs based on 20nm process technology along with an influx of 4K gaming and Gsync capable monitors. The desktop PC will always outpace a console and graphically be superior because of the available horse power. Most demanding titles on a console actually run at a lower resolution then upscaled (or just at 720P) where as desktop graphics are always dealing with 1080p, 1200p, 1600p and now 4K res.

And on a side note, most videocards recieve anywhere between 10~50% performance (Id say an average of 25~30%) gains for most titles throughout its life cycle thanks to driver/game/bugfix updates.

 

[5150Joker]

Let's see if consoles can ever look this good:

 

[Barfo]

Let's see if consoles can ever look this good:

Of course they will...just wait for the PS5.

 

[BrightCandle]

No one denies that you'll be able to extract more performance out of the hardware in a given console. However the given console hardware is already pre-dated and is physically the limit of that console.

Actually I do contest this, in the strictest sense. While its true that the developers do get better visuals out of a console through its lifetime it comes at the cost of something else. The extra visuals do not come just out of "optimisation" they mostly come after sacrificing something else like antialiasing, lighting and the big one is resolution. Early games rendered nearly 2-4x as many pixels as the games that came later and most of the later games use a much cheaper post processing technique. They also all started using deferred rendering to decrease the cost of lighting.

What has happened in a positive way is they have continued to search for cheaper algorithms that achieve effects that faster machines could do. The various techniques for ambient occlusion or shadows or mirror effects. All got cheaper and somewhat worse versions on the consoles so that they could continue to look somewhat like that produced on a faster machine without the actual hardware. They aren't really optimisations in the strict sense as they are less accurate than the better algorithms, but they did nevertheless do a decent job of bringing better visual effects to ageing hardware.

When it comes to the xbone and the PS4 we will likely see a similar trend. Gradually the resolution will decrease and various other effects will be "cheapened" to get new effects that modern hardware can do that they don't have the compute power for. They will cheat more and more as time goes on to attempt to keep up with the hardware as it progresses on the PC. What is concerning is that already we are seeing the PS4 and the xbone have to reduce image quality compared to a high end gaming PC. They are already behind and that is a stark difference to when the xbox 360 came out where it looked better than the PCs of the day.

 

[Majcric]

Actually I do contest this, in the strictest sense. While its true that the developers do get better visuals out of a console through its lifetime it comes at the cost of something else. The extra visuals do not come just out of "optimisation" they mostly come after sacrificing something else like antialiasing, lighting and the big one is resolution. Early games rendered nearly 2-4x as many pixels as the games that came later and most of the later games use a much cheaper post processing technique. They also all started using deferred rendering to decrease the cost of lighting.

What has happened in a positive way is they have continued to search for cheaper algorithms that achieve effects that faster machines could do. The various techniques for ambient occlusion or shadows or mirror effects. All got cheaper and somewhat worse versions on the consoles so that they could continue to look somewhat like that produced on a faster machine without the actual hardware. They aren't really optimisations in the strict sense as they are less accurate than the better algorithms, but they did neither less do a decent job of bringing better visual effects to ageing hardware.

When it comes to the xbone and the PS4 we will likely see a similar trend. Gradually the resolution will decrease and various other effects will be "cheapened" to get new effects that modern hardware can do that they don't have the compute power for. They will cheat more and more as time goes on to attempt to keep up with the hardware as it progresses on the PC. What is concerning is that already we are seeing the PS4 and the xbone have to reduce image quality compared to a high end gaming PC. They are already behind and that is a stark difference to when the xbox 360 came out where it looked better than the PCs of the day.

This. I agree and never understood why people don't notice all the sacrificing.

 

[el etro]

ok...what is wrong with the ps4 that it wont allow it to play above 1080p?.

is it the weak hardware?

To do horsepower comparisons(a thing that is not exactly but will give a good idea of what i'm want to explain you), ps3 processor have between 1/3 and 1/4 of the power of a Haswell i7(Core i7 4770k). ps3 graphic processor have about to 1/9 of graphics horsepower of a Radeon HD 7970 and 1/12 of graphics power of a Radeon 290X. And GPU power only increase four times going to ps4.

Ps3/360 don't even play games at 1280x720, they do a good scaling work to make them better at forced 720p/1080p resolutions. (See beyond3d.com forums for more info).

For the next years ps4 hardware is enough to push very good gameplay at 1920x1080(upscaled or not). PC Graphics next standard will be 2500x1600/2500x1440(And $300 graphics cards are already capable of play every game at this resolution).

Mind this: consoles receive an adaptive work and PCs have "raw" graphic details.



OBS: Finished my post one minute after the Maintenance.

 

[NTMBK]

Let's see if consoles can ever look this good:

And was that running on your PC? The one with $2000 worth of graphics cards in it? Yeah, I'm not surprised that something 5-6x as expensive as a PS4 gives better graphics.

 

[Erenhardt]

Yeah what about it. Even with that the PC GPU has up to 30 times more brute force power, higher resolution, more features, coding direct to hardware cannot make up for the deficit because the PS4s hardware is SUBSTANTIALLY worse. Then again the PS4 is 400$. I'm sure it will be a fine console FOR THE PRICE, in fact I plan on getting one because I prefer consoles for fighting games and certain competitive games. And frankly most of my buds have consoles but not PC's. Anyway, to question whether it will match a modern powerful PC? Hell no it won't.

Where did that came from?

 

[HisDivineOrder]

This is the first generation of console to come out without a clear performance advantage over the highest end PC's for a month or so. It's interesting, but it's because neither MS or Sony (or of course Nintendo) spent the money to build their own tricked out part. Nor were they willing to take a huge hit per unit sold.

So ultimately, they bet less on the next gen because they sense--as most sense--that the consoles are coming the end of their usefulness. Even now, just in front of a next gen console race, they're talking up platforms and not consoles. They're building up platforms, not devices.

Sony even admits they're looking at introducing Sony gaming to all devices they can, not just their own. Because eventually that's what's going to happen to the consoles; they're going to transform into services, like Netflix or Google Play. I can't wait for a time when I won't have to make a $400 investment to play the latest Uncharted or Halo or Mario Kart.

That's a gaming future worth living in. I think Steam'll bring that to us.

But to answer your question, no, this gen can't keep up with the high-ish end of PC's. There WILL be some teething problems when next gen games meet 4K resolutions and people find they're having to move back from insane levels of AA and/or settings, but that's more people just being used to having excess.

 

[MeStinkBAD]

Does anyone here understand that hardware is only as a good as it's software?

I recommend taking a gander at an indepth visual comparison of GTA V on the PS3 and 360, and how it compares to GTA IV. The hardware hasn't changed but visuals sure have. I suppose we can speculate that a version running on a top-end PC gaming rig it would look far better still. Of course we can't compare it until a PC version is released, and as far as I know, it has not.

It doesn't come down to who has the better hardware. It comes down to the better software. PC gamers think in terms of hardware when comparing. If something doesn't run fast enough or at a high enough resolution, they do the only thing they can do. Throw more powerful and expensive hardware at it. From the developer's point of view (PC/Console/Mobile/etc), you find ways to accomplish more with less.

 

[bystander36]

Actually I do contest this, in the strictest sense. While its true that the developers do get better visuals out of a console through its lifetime it comes at the cost of something else. The extra visuals do not come just out of "optimisation" they mostly come after sacrificing something else like antialiasing, lighting and the big one is resolution. Early games rendered nearly 2-4x as many pixels as the games that came later and most of the later games use a much cheaper post processing technique. They also all started using deferred rendering to decrease the cost of lighting.

What has happened in a positive way is they have continued to search for cheaper algorithms that achieve effects that faster machines could do. The various techniques for ambient occlusion or shadows or mirror effects. All got cheaper and somewhat worse versions on the consoles so that they could continue to look somewhat like that produced on a faster machine without the actual hardware. They aren't really optimisations in the strict sense as they are less accurate than the better algorithms, but they did nevertheless do a decent job of bringing better visual effects to ageing hardware.

When it comes to the xbone and the PS4 we will likely see a similar trend. Gradually the resolution will decrease and various other effects will be "cheapened" to get new effects that modern hardware can do that they don't have the compute power for. They will cheat more and more as time goes on to attempt to keep up with the hardware as it progresses on the PC. What is concerning is that already we are seeing the PS4 and the xbone have to reduce image quality compared to a high end gaming PC. They are already behind and that is a stark difference to when the xbox 360 came out where it looked better than the PCs of the day.

I always thought that is what optimizing meant.

That is why I always get annoyed at how so many call all the Crysis games poorly optimized. Why do we need the dev's to weaken the graphics, so their PC can play at Ultra settings? Just turn down settings themselves and self optimize the game.

 

[Arkaign]

Does anyone here understand that hardware is only as a good as it's software?

I recommend taking a gander at an indepth visual comparison of GTA V on the PS3 and 360, and how it compares to GTA IV. The hardware hasn't changed but visuals sure have. I suppose we can speculate that a version running on a top-end PC gaming rig it would look far better still. Of course we can't compare it until a PC version is released, and as far as I know, it has not.

It doesn't come down to who has the better hardware. It comes down to the better software.

I think people will be a bit disappointed this gen if they're expecting similar gains.

With 360 and especially PS3, just like the PS2/PS1/etc, you saw pretty large gains over time as devs learned tricks to extract more performance from the hardware. A huge part of the reason why was how they were designed.

Historically, consoles have been built out and specced using fairly exotic hardware that isn't so close to off the shelf stuff. The CPUs especially have been oddballs that really took some effort to utilize efficiently.

This time around, we're dealing strictly with x86 and GCN/DirectX hardware that has long since been well understood and easy to tap peak numbers from.

I'm not saying that there won't be improvements over time, but with a pretty low ceiling on IPC and bandwidth, you're not going to see miracles. There are fundamental limitations that can only be eased by making significant sacrifices to hit future targets (eg; using upscaling, less AA, no AA, or 'trick' AA, etc, etc).

The previous talk about PS4 equaling two GTX Titans or beating 7970GE Crossfire is just silly talk.

 

[desprado]

If console had this kind of beauty than people wont be spending huge amount of money on pc

 

[Sohaltang]

Ps4 will rape most Pc's, just not most pcs in this forum or other enthusiast / gaming forums. Most people have not upgraded their PC in years as mobile products have replaced them.

 

[bystander36]

Ps4 will rape most Pc's, just not most pcs in this forum or other enthusiast / gaming forums. Most people have not upgraded their PC in years as mobile products have replaced them.

The people with such ancient PC's likely will not be gaming on their PC's.

 

[futurefields]

Actually I do contest this, in the strictest sense. While its true that the developers do get better visuals out of a console through its lifetime it comes at the cost of something else. The extra visuals do not come just out of "optimisation" they mostly come after sacrificing something else like antialiasing, lighting and the big one is resolution. Early games rendered nearly 2-4x as many pixels as the games that came later and most of the later games use a much cheaper post processing technique. They also all started using deferred rendering to decrease the cost of lighting.

What has happened in a positive way is they have continued to search for cheaper algorithms that achieve effects that faster machines could do. The various techniques for ambient occlusion or shadows or mirror effects. All got cheaper and somewhat worse versions on the consoles so that they could continue to look somewhat like that produced on a faster machine without the actual hardware. They aren't really optimisations in the strict sense as they are less accurate than the better algorithms, but they did nevertheless do a decent job of bringing better visual effects to ageing hardware.

When it comes to the xbone and the PS4 we will likely see a similar trend. Gradually the resolution will decrease and various other effects will be "cheapened" to get new effects that modern hardware can do that they don't have the compute power for. They will cheat more and more as time goes on to attempt to keep up with the hardware as it progresses on the PC. What is concerning is that already we are seeing the PS4 and the xbone have to reduce image quality compared to a high end gaming PC. They are already behind and that is a stark difference to when the xbox 360 came out where it looked better than the PCs of the day.

Nicely stated. For example, it's pretty easy for me to tell that in a lot of ways, the lighting system in GTA4 is actually more robust than the lighting system in GTA5.

For example, in GTA4 your car headlights generate shadows from all objects, like the lightpoles, pedestrians, other cars, fences etc... you will see them casting their own shadow when your headlights go over them. In GTA5 these objects do not cast their own shadow, atleast not as much as they did in GTA4. But in GTA5 they have greatly increased the draw distance and amount of objects they can display in total on screen. And they have also added some post-process lighting fx like lens flare etc.. that make the lighting look different and perhaps "newer" and "techier" despite having a less robust shadowing system.

 

[Sohaltang]

The people with such ancient PC's likely will not be gaming on their PC's.

Agreed. That is why they will sell millions of them.

 

[blackened23]

Ps4 will rape most Pc's, just not most pcs in this forum or other enthusiast / gaming forums. Most people have not upgraded their PC in years as mobile products have replaced them.

Well, this is true to an extent. Most PCs have terrible GPUs and are dell's, HPs, etc that have stuff like GT620 GPUs. Would a PS4 be better than that? Yes. Would a PS4 be better than a 7950/7970/GTX 760/770/780 PC with a modern CPU? No, but of course it costs a ton more.

Also can you guys freaking chill on the high resolution pics? Christ. This thread page is about 20 times wider than normal now. Anyway, I still plan on getting a PS4. The PS4 is better for many competitive games and especially fighting games, not in terms of graphics - but in terms of having tons of people to play with via PSN online and XBLG. And most of my friends have consoles but not PCs. That makes multiplayer gaming with them easy, i'll just get a PS4 to co-exist with my PC. Will it have more GPU grunt than my 780? Not even close, but that doesn't matter. Graphics aren't everything. I'd play most SP games on the PC but honestly, multiplayer is more fun in many games on XBLG (on the 360) because there are far more players and especially for fighting games - the PC doesn't have a fighting game scene, whereas I can hop on XBLG and 400,000 players will be online at any given time. Versus like 1000 online via steamworks.

Both consoles and PCs can co-exist, believe it or not, even if the PC has the potential for more grunt horsepower and better graphics. I know some here will refuse to believe that.

 

[Techhog]

Yeah what about it. Even with that the PC GPU has up to 30 times more brute force power, higher resolution, more features, coding direct to hardware cannot make up for the deficit because the PS4s hardware is SUBSTANTIALLY worse. Then again the PS4 is 400$. I'm sure it will be a fine console FOR THE PRICE, in fact I plan on getting one because I prefer consoles for fighting games and certain competitive games. And frankly most of my buds have consoles but not PC's. Anyway, to question whether it will match a modern powerful PC? Hell no it won't.

I am beginning to think i'm in a troll thread though. I should stop feeding.

I know what you're trying to say, but don't exaggerate for greatly. You could have 4 780s overclocked and it wouldn't be 30x.

PS4 has the graphics potential of a midrange PC. However, you can't ask that here because people here go into fits of rage when the word "console" is mentioned.

 

[Spjut]

Even actual graphics programmers have said that while the PS4 will be great once studios begin doing low level optimisations, it will take time for that to happen.

I don't quite get the disappointment over BF4, since when have games been optimized fully directly at launch?

 

[BrightCandle]

In all the time gaming on PCs are I am constantly disappointed with the specs of gaming PCs built by the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo etc etc. They always seem to package rubbish people don't need (gobs of RAM, high end processors, SSDs, flashy cases, huge hard drives) along with less than top end GPUs. The one thing that the gaming consoles do get right is they push in a lot more GPU performance than anything else, its where they spend most of their heat/power budget.

Most PCs designed for gamers come with mid range GPUs and high end processors, its just kind of daft. This total disregard for a large part of the community for PCs by the big companies for decades has led to a huge number of people learning to build and maintain their own PCs such that the market for selling genuinely good gaming machines has all but dried up.

So what you end up with is shops selling parts and the alternative being consoles and not a lot to bridge the gap in between that is even remotely reasonably priced for their capabilities. Its not surprising the DIY market is perceived by many as too complicated, because by and large it is kind of mad. In a world where computers are getting less functional, more locked down and specific to a purpose than a decade ago it seems a general purpose and more complicated build is very much unwelcome. But the stupid PC markers created the daft situation to begin with IMO.

 

[blackened23]

^That sums it up pretty well actually. When I think of gaming PC's, I immediately think of the DIY scene where everyone has high end GPUs. But that isn't the majority of the market - most folks have rubbish PCs as you mentioned from Dell and HP. And those GPUs they're using are not going to be better in terms of gaming experience than a PS4 in all likelihood, if we're being honest. Most of those systems come with stuff like 5770s and GT620s. If that. HD4400 in many cases.

So it all depends on context basically. Of course a DIY system with a modern GPU/CPU will obliterate the PS4, but I can't forget what the average PC from Dell or HP might have. Certainly not something I would want to game on.