Next gen console's effect on PC gaming graphics

[Nvidiaguy07]

Been hearing a lot of talk about specs for the new xbox and ps3, and from what i hear, they are unimpressive. According to what ive heard, they are about as powerful as mid to high end PC's right now.

If most games are designed for the least common denominator, then is this really bad news if i was expecting PC games to actually start taking advantage of really powerful graphics cards?

When the 360 and PS3 came out, they were just as - or even more powerful than most PC's, so games ot substantially better looking. Games havent gotten that much better looking since then, and TBH, games on my 360 dont look THAT much better than on my PC with all settings cranked up.

Not saying im not happy with how games look now, because weve probably reached a point where it almost doesnt matter anymore, but I said the same thing 5 or so years ago, and now seeing how much better graphics have gotten, i want more!

As a PC gamer, is this a good thing or bad thing that next gen consoles are going to be all that impressive spec wise.

The only good thing i can think of is that PC's surpass consoles by so much that more games are designed specifically for the PC, and they look freaking awesome. Steam's 10ft interface takes off, and mid-to-high-end PC's start to appear in living rooms. The PC is now considered the "best console", and people start to moce away from consoles, and embrace PC's as their media hub/gaming device.

2 years from now when these consoles come out - gamers will have the choice of a 400 gaming console - or a 600 dollar PC, that can do way more, and produce much better graphics. This is why i hope a steam box - or steam box spec is released to push PC gaming as mainstream.

 

[Childs]

When the 360 and PS3 came out, they were just as - or even more powerful than most PC's, so games ot substantially better looking. Games havent gotten that much better looking since then, and TBH, games on my 360 dont look THAT much better than on my PC with all settings cranked up.

What game do you have on 360 that looks better than the PC version? I would even say that when the 360 and PS3 came out, they were already eclipsed by then current PCs.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

When 360 came out, it was about the same as a mid to higher end PC. If you go and play any game on 360, and then play it on PC, theres not that much of a difference. Ive played BF3, MW3, Portal 2, mass effect, nba2k12 (looks better on 360), saints row 3 is about the same, and probably a whole bunch more.

Not saying they dont look better on PC, because they do, but just a little bit better due to higher res, and AA and all that crap. The games are designed for lower spec consoles, and then ported to PC. If 360 and ps3 were higher spec, then PC games would look way better.

 

[Cerb]

Been hearing a lot of talk about specs for the new xbox and ps3, and from what i hear, they are unimpressive. According to what ive heard, they are about as powerful as mid to high end PC's right now.

Hasn't this always been the case, or worse? It's not an excuse for poor quality on another platform. Sure, we want pretty games on the PC, with all our graphics hardware and CPU cores (not shiny games, though! Bloom and soft focus need to DIAF), but the excessive mediocrity cannot be pinned on the consoles. It's a matter of corporate and consumer culture. The likes of EA, Ubisoft, and Activision have not been producing for the PC nearly the kind of quality as the likes of L-5, Atlus, and Square for the DS and PSP, which can't hold a candle to the PC in any technical respect. They could, but it seems that a few good games slip through, much more than there is any effort to make good games. Zenimax and THQ, IMO, seem to be doing a decent job, as American companies go.

When the 360 and PS3 came out, they were just as - or even more powerful than most PC's, so games ot substantially better looking. Games havent gotten that much better looking since then, and TBH, games on my 360 dont look THAT much better than on my PC with all settings cranked up.

Neither the XB360 nor PS3 were as powerful as high-end PCs of the time. Mid-range CPUs stomped all over them, the CPUs were starved in terms of access time on the 360, memory bandwidth was a bottleneck on both consoles' GPUs, and low amount of memory on them forced everything to look fuzzy, even before blur AA or bloom got added.

And, games have gotten insanely better looking since then. Bethesda games alone look like trash on the consoles, compared to a modded PC install (and, if you're going to play them w/o mods, you should just get an XB360). TW2 looks far far better, as well.

2 years from now when these consoles come out - gamers will have the choice of a 400 gaming console - or a 600 dollar PC, that can do way more, and produce much better graphics. This is why i hope a steam box - or steam box spec is released to push PC gaming as mainstream.

Why? PC gaming isn't dead. Certain companies and journalists like to talk about it like it is, but just like consoles and phones, B&M is just becoming marginalized. Steam and GoG, at least, have certainly not complained one little bit, and while they may not release tons of details about sales, when they do it's nothing to be sad over.

Ive played BF3, MW3, Portal 2, mass effect, nba2k12 (looks better on 360), saints row 3 is about the same, and probably a whole bunch more.

So, because console games ported for people who want everything on the PC aren't different enough, therefore all PC games must not be different? On top of that, why should the graphics be the primary factor, anyways? When was the last PC game that could make you go check your doors and windows like Persona could (FYI, its graphics were pathetic in PSX terms)? When was the last slow thinking PC game that kept you up at night like Myst, Riven, or Syberia? When will there be a commercial managerial "sim" like Dwarf Fortress, complete with spiffy 3D graphics of partying dwarves and starving elephants?

We have technical limitations for PC games, but the bigger problem is just like Hollywood's: they are spending large amounts of money to try to get the most low-hanging fruit, rather than trying to create great games. Enough people consume what they offer that they have no reason to bother creating better games.

 

[Kalmah]

A good thing could come out of this if the graphics capabilities aren't enhanced that much. Games won't be able to sell just on graphics alone because of this; making gameplay itself more important. Well, unless everybody is content on getting call of duty 83 rehash.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

Hasn't this always been the case, or worse? It's not an excuse for poor quality on another platform. Sure, we want pretty games on the PC, with all our graphics hardware and CPU cores (not shiny games, though! Bloom and soft focus need to DIAF), but the excessive mediocrity cannot be pinned on the consoles. It's a matter of corporate and consumer culture. The likes of EA, Ubisoft, and Activision have not been producing for the PC nearly the kind of quality as the likes of L-5, Atlus, and Square for the DS and PSP, which can't hold a candle to the PC in any technical respect. They could, but it seems that a few good games slip through, much more than there is any effort to make good games. Zenimax and THQ, IMO, seem to be doing a decent job, as American companies go.

Neither the XB360 nor PS3 were as powerful as high-end PCs of the time. Mid-range CPUs stomped all over them, the CPUs were starved in terms of access time on the 360, memory bandwidth was a bottleneck on both consoles' GPUs, and low amount of memory on them forced everything to look fuzzy, even before blur AA or bloom got added.

And, games have gotten insanely better looking since then. Bethesda games alone look like trash on the consoles, compared to a modded PC install (and, if you're going to play them w/o mods, you should just get an XB360). TW2 looks far far better, as well.

You have a point, but until theres incentive to develop graphically awesome games for the PC, well just be playing slightly better ports. So best case scenario for PC gamers would be a) have powerful consoles, so the least common denominator is better - resulting in better games. OR b) have more people adapt the PC (via steambox, or other way of getting the PC in the living room as the main gaming machine) so more money will be there for devs to make good games for PC.

When 360 came out, it was pretty impressive. MS and Sony sold their consoles for a loss for a long time because of it. I know when the 360 came out, it had a similar GPU as a midrange PC one. The one on the next 360 and PS3 would be considered mid-range NOW, so 2 years from now it will be extremely old.

I know games do look better, but i feel like consoles are really whats holding PC games back, and new next gen specs look especially bad - not good news for PC gamers.

Why? PC gaming isn't dead. Certain companies and journalists like to talk about it like it is, but just like consoles and phones, B&M is just becoming marginalized. Steam and GoG, at least, have certainly not complained one little bit, and while they may not release tons of details about sales, when they do it's nothing to be sad over.

If a "steam box" came out, it would encourage lots of people who would never consider PC gaming to try it out. Mass appeal is the one thing that will benefit PC gaming the most. Most people would just buy a 360 and be done with it. If they knew they could buy a system that was better than the 360, had mostly the same games, and was easy to set-up and all that, i could see it selling.

 

[BD231]

Not saying they dont look better on PC, because they do, but just a little bit better due to higher res, and AA and all that crap. The games are designed for lower spec consoles, and then ported to PC. If 360 and ps3 were higher spec, then PC games would look way better.

Probably not, there are definitely plenty of dev teams that focus on PC features. If consoles got more powerful hardware we'd be looking at PC features being added like " AA and all that crap ".

 

[Fire&Blood]

Unfortunately, even fewer games will be PC exclusives and the quality of future PC titles will depend on the ability of the consoles as they will likely be the primary target platforms, that I agree on with you.

Assuming the next gen console graphics match dx11 but don't make the cut for dx12 and assuming that titles start hitting dx11 limitations soon, then it depends on when dx12 drops and how much of a difference it makes. I still think no existing game has hit dx11 limits and it might be awhile before they do, so console titles should stack up nicely for some time to come.

The 360's ability was comparable to the 7800GTX and IIRC, that GPU was launched shortly after the 360. No matter when the next gen consoles actually come out, they will perform similarly to mid range/high end GPU's at launch, giving them ~2 years equality on AAA titles. If the next gen consoles are indeed 2 years away, that gives them 4 years of closely trailing PC title quality before fading off. Argument that high end PC's will overrun the consoles a lot sooner is invalid because consoles don't cost $1500 and at the console price range, at launch ($600 or below) you simply can't build an entire computer from scratch to offer similar performance, the GPU needed to match the console eats the budget, let alone the other components. For the price of a console you may be able to upgrade an older computer though.

To clarify, console ability does dictate the quality but it doesn't really obstruct it that much. It's doubtful graphics would be much better if the PC were the exclusive gaming platform and even if that's the case, it's not the console ability that's holding the PC back, it's the console revenue.

 

[Cerb]

You have a point, but until theres incentive to develop graphically awesome games for the PC, well just be playing slightly better ports.

Until masses of gamers stop buying mediocre games and mediocre console ports (often of mediocre console games), that's what most game development monies will go to. I made a point to bring up the DS and PSP specifically because the hardware is so weak that they can't make graphically impressive games. Yet, I'm playing SMTS2 right now, and it's quite good (DS1 was better, and I wish they'd have more depth on the Nintendo titles, but it's still pretty fun nonetheless). Graphics matter, but they are secondary, and much more than that is being sacrificed, these days.

I contend that what is holding back PC gaming is a combination of our mindless consumer culture, and shareholder value driving the development of products that the shareholders themselves do not buy or use, not consoles. PC graphics need to be scalable. Good PC games allow for this. They scale up to kill high-end systems when they come out, but may run well enough on a $500-600 PC, too. We don't see that with ports most of the time, because it's easier to not bother.

Going a bit wider in scope, the cultural issues are also holding back console gaming. Everything but human faces tends to be fuzzy. Bad blur AA and upscaling are common. Slideshow fighting is common. Bloom and DoF make almost any game they have ever been used in nearly unplayable. You don't even need to bring up PCs, and none of this crap is in any way necessitated by the console as a HW platform.

Ports are then yet another issue. We wouldn't even call them that if they would develop the game for the PC from the start. A great example would be the The Witcher 2. It's a good multiplatform game. A Windows development branch, from the start, given equal priority with the 360 branch, will prevent console port issues from coming into existence. Worrying about the PC experience late in development, making the PC version an also-ran, and porting after it's done for the console, all make for an inferior game.

When the game content is all fuzzy, so it can fit in <200MB VRAM, then there was laziness involved on the PC development side. But, more often, it's lesser issues that are really annoying. When moving with the mouse is all jerky or rough, or you have forced-on look acceleration, you feel the console port lack of quality coming through. When the game gives you a mouse cursor to use, but the menus take many clicks, and you must scroll a few items at a time, you feel the console port lack of quality coming through. When you can't enable real AA, or turn off evils like DoF or bloom, you can feel the console port lack of quality coming through. Consoles don't do any of that to the games. Image quality is just one aspect of what can and does often suffer.

If PC development was given equal importance, graphics would, if a game would benefit, be allowed to look rather grand, in comparison with the console version. Along with that, all the other issues could be dealt with rather elegantly.

It starts with management at the publishing companies. There is no reason that every game released for the PC and XB360 cannot be made to look, feel, and play like it was natively developed for a Windows PC. Some do, many don't. But, as long as people will pay $50 in the millions for a port that feels like it's a port, and not raise hell about it, the situation is not likely to change.

On the bright side, digital distribution is giving outlets to smaller development companies, willing to take risks, and without uninterested stockholders influencing them. If enough people will be willing to buy games that aren't ported from consoles, and/or start getting disgusted with the craptasticness of games being the same on the PC as on a much more limited device, better graphics can become more common.

My point is that what we need is to give publishers incentive to develop natively for the Windows PC, and by and large, we aren't. Developing a game primarily for the console will limit graphics, and also gameplay, when released for the PC. If a game won't benefit to be graphically detailed, it shouldn't be. If it can, however, it should be. If it was developed for the PC and XB360, side by side, without the 360 being the preferred platform, then there would be no reason not to give it plenty of graphical detail. Leave the console version with lesser maximum detail textures, and different sets of shaders, and call it a day. It's going to be more expensive, that way, though. If you must choose between a good PC release, and a few pennies-worth of stock prices, the pennies will usually take priority.

 

[Veliko]

As much as a graphics whore that I am, I have to say that the fact my graphics card seems to require upgrading less often is quite nice.

 

[Udgnim]

while graphics are nice to look, I've gotten to the point where I really just care about gameplay and that graphics are just a vehicle to help demonstrate gameplay

something like this looks so basic and simplistic in gameplay & graphics, but it's beautiful to me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFfeV5leVmI

 

[Throckmorton]

Can high end PCs even run Crysis fluidly yet? I see people complaining about games not pushing PC capabilities, year after year. But you can build a high end gaming PC and easily find games you can barely run at 30fps. And it's not like the games look that great, they just have technical flashiness to try to make up for poor artistic design.

 

[Dkcode]

Great posts Cerb! Sums up my thoughts and articulates far better than I could put down on paper.

 

[MrDuma]

the main problem in games these days is the fact that developers don't tweak them enough to get the best with minimum resources...

 

[BD231]

My point is that what we need is to give publishers incentive to develop natively for the Windows PC, and by and large, we aren't. Developing a game primarily for the console will limit graphics, and also gameplay, when released for the PC. If a game won't benefit to be graphically detailed, it shouldn't be. If it can, however, it should be. If it was developed for the PC and XB360, side by side, without the 360 being the preferred platform, then there would be no reason not to give it plenty of graphical detail. Leave the console version with lesser maximum detail textures, and different sets of shaders, and call it a day. It's going to be more expensive, that way, though. If you must choose between a good PC release, and a few pennies-worth of stock prices, the pennies will usually take priority.

Nope. Consoles would obliterate PC's if they used high end GPU's, no graphics API or bloated OS to contend with resource's. But like you said, a penny is a penny.

 

[imaheadcase]

Well, it will come to a time when a person won't notice a difference between a console and a PC in graphics quality. Its inevitable. Only so much you can do with graphics for the eye to not really care for the subtle differences. Its already happening to the older generation of gamer, we see graphics now vs when we was growing up (in the mid 30s early 40s) as peaked to a extent. Who played doom 1 and thought the graphics was awesome..raise of hand!


However, its not graphics that separates consoles and PC gamers. Its depth and what you can do.

People always say gameplay > graphics. That is what a PC shines at is the depth you can make a game, if the developer chooses, a PC game will FAR surpass a console game because of all they can do with one.

Many examples of PC games that have so much depth, because made specific for the PC.

The problem as many have stated is that its just easier to make for consoles, does not mean the PC is dying, just means you have fewer developers who are putting effort in PC games like in the golden days that those of us in the 30s early 40s remember.

When I hit around 50 years old, i hope i have the patience to play games still, i know now i don't have the patience to sit down and play hours on end like in my youth 10+ hour game sessions in a MMO. But, 30mins of game play on whatever is popular at that time be it a console/pc/ or direct brain induced game set to my like from a pill. Game on

 

[shortylickens]

I am much more concerned about the past couple gen's effect on game play.

 

[wuliheron]

The big bottlenecks in graphics today are gpu compute and raw bandwidth issues, both of which Intel and AMD claim they'll have resolved by 2014. Otherwise you might as well be pissing in the wind. A $400.oo console can have the power of a $1,000.oo PC because it doesn't have a complex operating system like a PC and the video games are written specifically for it's hardware.

Right now PC gaming rigs have the advantage because the current generation of consoles are aging, but when the next generation comes out the tables will be reversed. PC gaming rigs will likely have to wait a year or two before the technology to emulate the consoles becomes affordable. It used to be PC gaming rigs lead the way, but these days its all about the money and gaming rigs just can't compare to consoles and portables for market share. AMD and Intel will be releasing their low end offerings and high end portable offerings before addressing the PC gaming market.

 

[marmasatt]

the main problem in games these days is the fact that developers don't tweak them enough to get the best with minimum resources...

Not to be argumentative (and I know I'm in the PC Gaming forum) but I am simply amazed at what they can do with the architecture from 7 years ago. I AM a graphics whore for my pc games and I frankly don't understand how games can continue to look as they do on this current console hardware. It's like all of the heavy hitters continue to put their resources into optimization. Have you seen what MW3 looks like on a graphics card from 2005?! I believe it is peaking a bit but I don't get how their still able to do it.

 

[darkewaffle]

Hey there "consolitis" thread, is it that time of the month again already?

 

[Red Storm]

Not to be argumentative (and I know I'm in the PC Gaming forum) but I am simply amazed at what they can do with the architecture from 7 years ago. I AM a graphics whore for my pc games and I frankly don't understand how games can continue to look as they do on this current console hardware. It's like all of the heavy hitters continue to put their resources into optimization. Have you seen what MW3 looks like on a graphics card from 2005?! I believe it is peaking a bit but I don't get how their still able to do it.

Designing for (and getting the most out of) a single specification is a hell of a lot easier than designing for a variety of systems that could be running any type of hardware.

 

[Anteaus]

It's actually not that big a deal. They only need enough to do 1920X1080 with some AA/AF, and even then it only needs to look better than last gen to make console gamers happy. When you don't know what you're missing, it's easy to be impressed.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

The big bottlenecks in graphics today are gpu compute and raw bandwidth issues, both of which Intel and AMD claim they'll have resolved by 2014. Otherwise you might as well be pissing in the wind. A $400.oo console can have the power of a $1,000.oo PC because it doesn't have a complex operating system like a PC and the video games are written specifically for it's hardware.

Right now PC gaming rigs have the advantage because the current generation of consoles are aging, but when the next generation comes out the tables will be reversed. PC gaming rigs will likely have to wait a year or two before the technology to emulate the consoles becomes affordable. It used to be PC gaming rigs lead the way, but these days its all about the money and gaming rigs just can't compare to consoles and portables for market share. AMD and Intel will be releasing their low end offerings and high end portable offerings before addressing the PC gaming market.

Right, so if they put as much effort into making MW3 look awesome and take advantage of all its power as they put into making it look pretty damn good on the 360, PC games would look better.

My point was that that usually is the case (consoles being equal to awesome PC's at release), but projected specs show that this definitely wont be the case this time.

My point is that the 360 being awesome helped PC graphics out, and without it, we wouldn't be where we are today (unless PC gaming gained popularity in that time instead). When the 720 is released with average specs, it wont help push cutting edge graphics, it will stifle it for some time.

and like other said, i agree that graphics arent everything, but my main reason for playing some games on PC vs 360 is because i expect better graphics, and there really isnt that much of a difference (even now - the 360 was released in 2005, and it still looks good).

This is the article i read yesterday: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...he-console-industry.ars?clicked=related_right

 

[Cerb]

Nope. Consoles would obliterate PC's if they used high end GPU's, no graphics API or bloated OS to contend with resource's.

But, they don't. The use GPUs with limited memory bandiwdth and limited total VRAM. GPU processing power would probably have been enough on the last generation, if they had double the bandwidth and 8x the RAM.

 

[Anarchist420]

I don't know, but I don't expect 4x RGAA or better to be mandatory on consoles, ever. 1080p will be, but 4x RGAA won't be.