Modern Graphics Cards vs. Game Consoles

[cmdrdredd]

Lol @ consoles. I have my pc hooked up to my 7.1 home theatre system and LCD btw son.
Sound is fed through a creative x-fi via toslink optical cable too.

And you think talking like a gangster makes your point? Please...

Most of your post is pretty good, except the part about better quality games. I have to disagree with that. You can say consoles have games like uncharted or final fantasy or GT5, but then PC has games like Starcraft, Stalker, WOW, GTR. The Best games are multiplatform anyway and those look better on the PC. Mass effect, Dirt 2, BC2, etc.

Uncharted 2 looks okay, but its badly let down by some of the textures. FF13 looks better.

Also you can mod PC games. So quality can be improved. My mod folder for GTR evolution is larger than the game folder.

This is going off topic anyway, Hardware and graphics wise, the consoles lose badly.

Stalker and Wow are not quality...I don't care if wow has 5 bazillion players. It's only a timesink to me. Stalker is buggy, laggy and unoptimized.

 

[Bearach]

Yeah but then how do you use the mouse and keyboard? uncomfortably that's how...

Does your receiver have analog inputs? Many of the new ones remove that because of HDMI connectivity...

I would not use a gamepad on a PC for a game I buy for PC. I buy PC games over console games because there's times when mouse is superior (FPS games).

You gaming on your console with a keyboard and mouse? No, a gamepad. So when you're wanting to play a game on the sofa (like on a console) you can still do that.

Yes, there is many ways to connect a computer to a sound system, analog and digitally too. Can't say there is no way to connect a PC up. If you can connect a console to your device, you can a PC.

That's your own choice but there is nothing stopping you from doing so. All consoles have over PC's is their ease of use and exclusive games.

 

[narsnail]

Why on earth would you use a mouse/k-board on a console? While I agree that reaction times and accuaracy are much worse on gamepads, I couldnt see myself playing Black Ops on my PS3 with them. I wouldn't be fair and it would be just plain awkward.

 

[taltamir]

Most of your post is pretty good, except the part about better quality games. I have to disagree with that. You can say consoles have games like uncharted or final fantasy or GT5, but then PC has games like Starcraft, Stalker, WOW, GTR. The Best games are multiplatform anyway and those look better on the PC. Mass effect, Dirt 2, BC2, etc.

indeed, generally speaking, the "best" (as in, most popular, not the ones I personally enjoy most) games will be ported to all platforms because they are successful enough to justify the cost. And when that happens they look best on PC, and give you the freedom to choose your input method and output location.

Saying console games are "better games"? that is elitism. And that isn't a fact, its a subjective judgement call, personally I find console exclusives to be not as good. But that is my own personal opinion and not a fact, it is a subjective judgement call that differs from person to person.

OILFIELDTRASH
Lol @ consoles. I have my pc hooked up to my 7.1 home theatre system and LCD btw son.
Sound is fed through a creative x-fi via toslink optical cable too.

And you think talking like a gangster makes your point? Please...

that wasn't gangster talk

No it's elitism. It doesn't matter how good your PC is if the games aren't there.

My argument wasn't "don't buy a console", it was "consoles provide inferior graphics quality".
I find it utterly pathetic that consoles have to resort to exclusivity contracts to make you play on their inferior hardware in an inferior quality to what you could have otherwise had. But that is no reason not to play at all, indeed if there is a game you MUST have and it is exclusive to some platform or another then go ahead and buy it and enjoy. It doesn't make the console less of an inferior product, it just makes it an inferior product that you are forced to use (if you want said game)

 

[-Slacker-]

That's your own choice but there is nothing stopping you from doing so. All consoles have over PC's is their ease of use and exclusive games.

The what in the where? How exactly are consoles easier to use than computers? And why does having exclusives over the pc matter, especially when the pc has exclusives over the consoles too?

 

[Bearach]

The what in the where? How exactly are consoles easier to use than computers? And why does having exclusives over the pc matter, especially when the pc has exclusives over the consoles too?

There is no Windows to worry about with a console, no drivers to worry about, nor many settings for graphics so yes they are easier.

They do have exclusives which make them more attractive but doesn't make them such for me though it does for some.

 

[Wizlem]

Yeah but then how do you use the mouse and keyboard? uncomfortably that's how...

Does your receiver have analog inputs? Many of the new ones remove that because of HDMI connectivity...

I would not use a gamepad on a PC for a game I buy for PC. I buy PC games over console games because there's times when mouse is superior (FPS games).

Apparently, you can argue anything if you misunderstand everything anyone says and just plain ignore or are unaware of certain facts. If I felt so inclined I could output to my tv via hdmi with sound and use a controller on my couch. However, I think my desk/chair/monitor is the more comfortable option. I don't see why you wouldn't use a gamepad on a PC if that's the most useful method of control.

I think the only reason to use a console is if you're into the xbox live stuff. I have a 360 and I almost never use it even though I game quite a bit. I can hardly stand to look at the low quality graphics for the few games I tried which require you to look off into the distance(Need for Speed:Undercover/Modern Warfare 2).

 

[CuriousMike]

Several generations behind, but...
You can write directly to the hardware on consoles -- DirectX / Windows is a layer that can minimize to the metal programming.

Who wants to spend months of additional work to optimize performance for the latest PC graphics hardware when the percentage of ownership is so low? You want the game to run on where 80% of your buyers are going to be; the people who spend $300 on their graphics cards can enjoy their high-res and 32x AA --- but you're not going to get ridiculously better lighting or super-duper high res textures or higher poly models or more animations -- obviously top end PC's can do all that, but again -- what economic incentive do I have as a company to put all that extra effort into a single port.

Excepting the normal Blizzard / Valve duo, the PC is an also-ran for companies. It just doesn't make economic sense to target the PC as a lead sku.

 

[-Slacker-]

There is no Windows to worry about with a console, no drivers to worry about, nor many settings for graphics so yes they are easier.

So you consider the above to be any sort of impediment to playing a video game? What's so hard about installing windows and the required drivers? I can only assume your gripe with these things is the amount of time it takes to do them, because, otherwise, they don't require you to be computer-savvy, or anything like that. But then, if wasting time is your issue, what about the time you waste while waiting for a game to load on a console?

Also, isn't having a lot of settings for graphics a GOOD thing?

 

[busydude]

Also, isn't having a lot of settings for graphics a GOOD thing?

Not necessarily.. they can be overwhelming sometimes. Just learning about different kinds of AA's is a daunting task in itself.. Look at Taltamir's AA thread.

So you consider the above to be any sort of impediment to playing a video game? What's so hard about installing windows and the required drivers? I can only assume your gripe with these things is the amount of time it takes to do them, because, otherwise, they don't require you to be computer-savvy, or anything like that. But then, if wasting time is your issue, what about the time you waste while waiting for a game to load on a console?

Why do most prefer Auto transmission to Manual? What is so hard in pressing the clutch, shifting to 1st, apply slight throttle and slowly releasing the clutch?

There is a reason PC gaming is a niche..

 

[Red Hawk]

Drivers can be an issue on older cards. Cards from back in the 7000/X1000 generation can have a bunch of compatibility problems with modern games -- the games need newer drivers, while newer drivers aren't really made for older cards and can cause problems. I encountered this myself with an old GeForce 7300 GT (not good either, I know, but it was the best my non-tech expert dad could find that was compatible with AGP. As I recall we had an 8800 GT in our hands...only to find that our old clunker computer didn't have PCI-E). And that's another thing -- if you don't know what you are doing, graphics card installations can be a mess. With a console, you plug it into the power socket and the TV's line in, put the disc in, and play. No compatibility issues or complex setup. Very simple.

 

[Bearach]

So you consider the above to be any sort of impediment to playing a video game? What's so hard about installing windows and the required drivers? I can only assume your gripe with these things is the amount of time it takes to do them, because, otherwise, they don't require you to be computer-savvy, or anything like that. But then, if wasting time is your issue, what about the time you waste while waiting for a game to load on a console?

Also, isn't having a lot of settings for graphics a GOOD thing?

My gripe?! I game on a PC not console... but I know people whom consider that not easy and thus choose a console over a PC. They don't want to call their "PC Guy/Gal" in whenever they run into trouble.

I also don't find it hard to install Windows nor drivers either, my argument was that there was nothing special about sitting on your sofa gaming with a console, as you could do the same thing with a PC.

Lots of settings for graphics is a good thing to me, and to you it would seem... but not everyone, some people like to just play the game. Someone not savvy will look at it and just think... huh?! What the hell, I just wanted to play the stupid game.

Consoles aren't just for these people, but that is one area in which they have won the most over. Finally, no I don't consider them things to be an impediment to *me* but I do to *others*.

 

[-Slacker-]

My gripe?! I game on a PC not console... but I know people whom consider that not easy and thus choose a console over a PC. They don't want to call their "PC Guy/Gal" in whenever they run into trouble.

Meh, I'm not going to argue that the vast majority of the clientele for ... well ... everything, not just video gaming hardware, can't be bothered to learn how to use what they pay a lot of money for, or are just plain droolers ("lolz, it just workz lmao"). The thing is, a console's os is made almost entirely for gaming, so it stands to reason that you go through less steps to install a game and play it, whereas a pc os is made for a whole bunch of different stuff.

Lots of settings for graphics is a good thing to me, and to you it would seem... but not everyone, some people like to just play the game. Someone not savvy will look at it and just think... huh?! What the hell, I just wanted to play the stupid game.

Shouldn't be too hard to spot an option named "settings" in big letters, and right on the main menu. If one has even an ounce of curiosity at all, they'll click it. From there on, it should be pretty intuitive: "Hmm ... do I want the object detail on "low", or does "high/very high" sound better ,durrr"

Dunno, just doesn't seem all that hard to me. Just like Apple, these type of companies have spent a lot of time and effort spoon feeding us the illusion that their products "just work", as opposed to a normal pc, in which case you need to be a hacker to get it to do what you want.

 

[suiken_2mieu]

Wow, such heated arguments. I actually read this whole thread. Most of you are saying the same things over and over again.

I'm not going to argue that playing on a PC is better (or not). Both consoles and PC's have things going for them. Though I can tell you that the line between the devices are blurring (features wise). While PC's will always have the upper hand in raw performance, consoles will always have the ease of use.

Try getting someone who exclusively plays on consoles move to a PC to game. They tend to be overwhelmed with all the initial configuring, updating, and UI options. Using a mouse for more than browsing on the internet seems foreign to them (because it is). In hind sight, it's really not that more complicated, unless something goes wrong, to pick a game on steam, load it up, pick your resolution / graphics settings, and then game. But, unless you have a real strive to learn something new, it's mind boggling. "I cant just pop the disc in and play?"

I'm getting off topic. My point is, it's just easier to get to gaming on a console (because it's a dedicated gaming device) then on a PC (multi-use device that can do everything). Console are adding more features, but still keeping to the ease of use philosophy. The other thing, it's a thousand times easier to get a Console Lan party going then a PC Lan party. Consoles are compact, have a bevy of connections, and run on MAC addresses, rather ip addresses. No worry about configuring ip's. It's just nicer. It's plug and play for the most part.

 

[tannat]

Yeah but then how do you use the mouse and keyboard? uncomfortably that's how...

Does your receiver have analog inputs? Many of the new ones remove that because of HDMI connectivity...

I would not use a gamepad on a PC for a game I buy for PC. I buy PC games over console games because there's times when mouse is superior (FPS games).

I have my computer connected to a LCD screen at a table in one room and to a 1080 beamer and the "big" sound system in another room. I always use beamer, never the LCD anymore. Better sound, graphics quality and flexibility than any console. Not to mention the 5x better loading times as compared to a PS3.

I am a sucker for comfortability. That's why.

 

[Powermoloch]

i use both pc and console...

for the meantime as for console FPS multiplayer, COD:BLOPS is still the rage for me. But as for single player / RTS / etc, nothing beats a good PC machine.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Pc gamers are smarter. When I see a console gamer I think of either a young kid that his parents bought a xbox for or the 35 year old that doesn't work, collects welfare checks, and sends his girlfriend to work while he plays Madden. Usually the computer gamer has his own place, a decent job, money for nice stuff such as a gaming pc. Elitist? Damn right. Spent more on a motherboard than your parents spent on your xbox. Yeah my graphics card is as heavy as your whole console too.

 

[Arsynic]

There's more to a system than just the speed of the GPU.

For me the biggest drawback of consoles is the small amount of memory. The XBox360 has only 512MB of RAM. And that RAM is used both as system memory and video memory. I have double that amount of memory just on my videocard ! Which is already 2-3 years old. I believe the prices of memory are now under 10 euros per Gigabyte of DDR3 ? Such a shame that those consoles can't make any use of it.

I like games where I can roam around through a huge world. Games with huge maps. Some engines use a "cell based" engine. Or load content on the fly. But even then, it is often noticable when an engine does that. Look at an old game like Thief-1 and Thief-2. They had huge levels. When Thief-3 was released, it was also available for consoles. As a result, the developer had to cut up the maps in 2 or more smaller maps, with loading screens between them. Terrible. And the maps were already a lot smaller than they used to be in T1 and T2. All thanks to lack of memory on consoles. Which then impacts multi-platform games.

Also the quality of the textures is an issue in multi-platform games. Textures use huge amounts of memory. So if you're limited on memory, you will re-use the same ones a lot. And you will use less-detailed textures. Oblivion is an example. The retail version has many low-detail textures. We need amateur modders to give us a decent set of textures. Those are a huge improvement of image quality. I wish more multi-platform games would adjust their games for PC a bit more. Melt some maps together to create a bigger world. And include larger textures for PCs.

These consoles have to be in the $200-$300 range at launch, they need to be able to run cool in a dusty house sitting on shag carpet and they have to drop in price quickly. There's no way current PC hardware could meet those requirements.

MS was originally going to launch the X360 with 256 MB of memory but developers protested. Steve Ballmer lamented that it cost them half a billion dollars to do that. What was the cost of 512 MB of DDR memory in 2004?

 

[Arsynic]

its not elitism, its facts. Do cellphones NOT have more or equal ram to current consoles?
did video cards not totally outperform consoles the day they were released and only widened the gap since?
do PCs NOT allow the use of a controller (such as my xbox 360 controller)?
do consoles allow the use of keyboard + mouse?
did PCs not have more than 1080p resolution for about 10 years and more than 720p for about 20?
are consoles NOT producing inferior graphics?
don't consoles only require you to put the disk in?
don't PCs require you to install, then manually download and apply a patch, then configure settings for optimal/desired performance/image quality?
is it not more complicated to set up a PC on your TV?

I said only facts. And I avoided the more incriminating ones. like the predatory practices of buying companies, making their games exclusive, and charging extra for the games on a console (MS & Sony). like shoddy design (RROD on MS), like how their OS is crippled and DRM laden (MS & Sony), like how sony just removed features with each version (support of PS2 games, then for linux booting). Like how you have to buy an overpriced and under performing HDD from the console maker or they will ban your console (MS). Like how MS only provides patches for games if you have a pay subscription to live (edit, this bit is wrong, you must have a live account, but a free account has patch access). And more

Console hardware is locked the moment the manufacturer decides on a part. At that point consoles are almost always more advanced than PCs. However, in the 6 months to 1 year it takes to manufacture and launch the consoles, PCs catch up and exceed the hardware.

 

[taltamir]

Console hardware is locked the moment the manufacturer decides on a part. At that point consoles are almost always more advanced than PCs. However, in the 6 months to 1 year it takes to manufacture and launch the consoles, PCs catch up and exceed the hardware.

I am loath to say never, so lets go with "this is ALMOST never the case".
Name a console that was more powerful then PCs at the time when it came out?
Not only are they not more powerful, but taking an average modern computer at the time and adding a video card that cost the same or less then the console will provide a more powerful machine.
For example, the PS3 came out at 600$, 3 days before the 8800GTX came out at 500$ and greatly outperformed it (unless you paired it with a really old computer... but there is no reason you shouldn't have a decent computer. Even a lot of computer illiterate grandma's in their 50s+ want their computers to be faster when checking their emails and doing the news)

Regardless, your claim was worse, you didn't say "consoles are more powerful then a similarly priced computer at the time of their release", you said consoles are more powerful than ANY computer at the time of their release. This is just patently false.

 

[nanaki333]

i'm moving my brother-in-law to pc gaming slowly. we started with baby steps by putting l4d2 on a pc, and i gave him a 360 controller adapter to use. the pc maps the buttons the same as the 360, so he's making the transition nicely. his first initial reaction was how much better it looked on pc. he's mostly in to FPS games, so when the time is right, we'll put him on a mouse.

 

[NoQuarter]

i'm moving my brother-in-law to pc gaming slowly. we started with baby steps by putting l4d2 on a pc, and i gave him a 360 controller adapter to use. the pc maps the buttons the same as the 360, so he's making the transition nicely. his first initial reaction was how much better it looked on pc. he's mostly in to FPS games, so when the time is right, we'll put him on a mouse.

I was doing a side by side comparison of L4D2 on Xbox 360 and PC since I have 3 monitors for Eyefinity and one of them is also hooked up to my Xbox 360. To get the same graphics level on my PC I had to set every setting to the lowest, resolution at 1280x720, no antialiasing or anything, and all driver options to max performance (ie lowest quality).


I still had no way to match the full screen blur effect l4d2 uses on the Xbox 360 so I couldn't bottom out the PC platform enough to exactly match the 360 but I was really damn close. It's amazing how awful the console graphics look once you put it side by side with a PC and aren't sitting 8 feet away.

 

[NoQuarter]

Console hardware is locked the moment the manufacturer decides on a part. At that point consoles are almost always more advanced than PCs. However, in the 6 months to 1 year it takes to manufacture and launch the consoles, PCs catch up and exceed the hardware.

Regardless, your claim was worse, you didn't say "consoles are more powerful then a similarly priced computer at the time of their release", you said consoles are more powerful than ANY computer at the time of their release. This is just patently false.

That's not exactly what he said. He said at the time of specification consoles exceed PCs. At the time of release PCs catch up and exceed the consoles.


But I still disagree with his statement. It's pointless to look at how fast it is at time of specification and claim it's faster than anything on the market. Whatever hypothetical processor was created/used for a console (7800GTX in the case of the PS3), even faster GPUs were in the works at the same time for PC (7900GTX released 6 months before PS3 did, and 8800GTX released a week before).


Consoles just move too slow to market to keep up with the march of GPU progress. Even with the very fast turnaround of the PS3 from final spec to market since they chose to add a GPU very late in the design it was still outdated before it hit the market.

 

[taltamir]

That's not exactly what he said. He said at the time of specification consoles exceed PCs. At the time of release PCs catch up and exceed the consoles.

you are right, I fail at reading.

Ok, fair point, at the time the specification is locked (1 year or so before market availability) they tend to be more powerful than current solutions (barring multi GPU setups).
But PC parts follow similar release cycles (with component design choices typically being locked 6-12 months before release; which are spent finalizing the product), for them to actually be inferior by the time of release (which they inevitably are) they have to be inferior to PC hardware in a similar point in it's development cycle.

 

[taltamir]

I was doing a side by side comparison of L4D2 on Xbox 360 and PC since I have 3 monitors for Eyefinity and one of them is also hooked up to my Xbox 360.

I am guessing that is the post processing filter that does "pseudo anti aliasing". It used to be available only on consoles, but beginning with the Radeon HD6### series you can now get it on the PC as well under the name Morphological Anti-Aliasing.
If anyone has an HD6XXX card they can test it with and share the results with us it would be great.

In theory it is lower quality than any other AA method, while being very cheap to apply (in terms of computational power) and has perfect compatibility (as a post processing filter it will work with anything, even pictures / movies).

In practice, Anandtech's supermoderator BFG10K had this to say about the technology:

From my testing MLAA usually incurs a massive performance hit, more than 8xMSAA or 2xSSAA. It also looks vastly inferior to either scheme.

That is interesting. Do you think it is some sort of early driver issue or a fundamental problem of the technology? because this is what anand had to say

MLAA is not a new AA method, but it is the first time we’re seeing it on a PC video card. It’s already in use on video game consoles, where it’s a cheap way to implement AA without requiring the kind of memory bandwidth MSAA requires. In fact it’s an all-around cheap way to perform AA, as it doesn’t require too much computational time either.

For the 6800 series, AMD is implementing MLAA as the ultimate solution to anti-aliasing. Because it’s a post-processing filter, it is API-agonistic, and will work with everything. Deferred rendering? Check. Alpha textures? Done. Screwball games like Bad Company 2 that alias everywhere? Can do! And it should be fast too; AMD says it’s no worse than tier Edge Detect AA mode.

So what’s the catch? The catch is that it’s a post-processing filter; it’s not genuine anti-aliasing as we know it because it’s not operating on the scene as its being rendered. Where traditional AA uses the rendering data to determine exactly what, where, and how to anti-alias things, MLAA is effectively a best-guess at anti-aliasing the final image. Based on what we’ve seen so far we expect that it’s going to try to anti-alias things from time to time that don’t need it, and that the resulting edges won’t be quite as well blended as with MSAA/SSAA. SSAA is still going to offer the best image quality (and this is something AMD has available under DX9), while MSAA + transparency/adaptive anti-aliasing will be the next best method.

I think it's a fundamental problem with the technology given it exhibits similar characteristics in numerous games.

It should be noted that the info from the anandtech article is most likely based on the press info from AMD rather then actual testing; and is merely a description of what MLAA IS rather then testing whether it lives up to its claims. While BFG10K's info is based on testing to see if it can do what it claims.