idk if someone commented on this before, but from my experience and my talking with game developers, a huge difference between the consoles and PC's is that the games made for the consoles are ment to run on ONE set of hardware with one graphic setting compared to pc games that are ment to run on a ginormous list of hardware, with a huge list of customizable graphic settings.
my two cents
my two cents
It isn't a good test for either of them. Capcom hit the visuals they wanted on all of the platforms, it isn't pushing any of the systems. I really like the psuedo cell shaded graphics, but they are not a good display of anyone's capabilities.
If a PC game was maxing out an i7 it would require an i7 to run, seriously think about that. What potential audience would you have at that point? That is one of the advantages fixed hardware has, you can push ever bit of it to the edge of its capability, on the PC if you do that you end up with the overwhelming majority of people not able to play the game. Also, input lag has nothing to do with how many threads you are running unless something is horribly broken in the code. UC2 is pushing all 7 cores on Cell, and it doesn't have any issues at all.
If you honestly believe that, you don't know much about graphics engines. Rage will use the first multiplatform engine build by id, we'll see how badly it 'loses' to UE.
That is for each SPE, there are 6 SPEs and 1 PPE, just the SPEs give 153.6GFLOPS, more then double the fastest i7(and that is ignoring the PPE).
In theoretical terms you are absolutely right. But in reality the most impressive game we have seen on PCs is still two years old. The raw technology is absolutely on the PC's side, there is absolutely no question there, the issue is the game aren't using it.
Seriously, you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about in the vaguest sense if you honestly believe that. Shift isn't in the league of Forza3 in terms of visuals, it is actually extremely poor- not to mention it is a vastly inferior game.
Study up a bit on GPU architectures and how MSAA works, then make some comments. It's actually very, very easy to see in games, I suppose if you were borderline legally blind you could do a very simple comparison, fire up something like Fallout3 on both the PS3 and 360 and toggle back and forth between the systems. Yes, the 360 still has easily visible aliasing, but it is certainly much better off then the PS3.
Something wrong with your TV? I can't think of a 360 game that runs at 1080p on my TV off the top of my head, they all run at 720p, a few PS3 games run at 1080p, but not too many. Some titles do scale- and it is more common on the 360 then the others, but it is certainly less common then you are making it out to be.
Ports are going to look better on the PC, there really isn't a question there. If it can run on the PC at all, the raw power of the GPU is going to allow it to be run at a higher resolution with hgher AA/AF then its console counterpart.
I would agree that any remotely reasonable video card could handle any of the ports at a lower resolution then the consoles operate at with AA.
No.
Cell has 7 cores, I was ignoring the PPE as it can be entirely dedicated to scalar ops allowing the SPEs to focus on FP tasks. The fact that you can utilize as many(actually more) threads on the i7 isn't the problem, it is simply too slow in terms of raw FP performance to do some of the things Cell is capable of(in particular physics calculations). PCs can get around this using PhysX, but that seems to get the ire up of a lot of people when they do.
I was speaking in terms of UE being the most succesful license engine. Renderware was massive last generation.
I own a 360, PS3, Wii and a gaming PC and I can tell you from experience that the PC absolutely destroys them in terms of graphics for the games I've seen. I played both the 360 and my PC on a Full HD screen. I turn up the graphics to 1920 by 1080 for the PC with as much aa as it'll run with and I choose to upscale the 360. Upon comparing the two systems, I'll tell you, the picutre on the PC is just so crisp and clean that it looks breathtaking. Keep in mind that my system isn't even cutting edge(Q6600@3Ghz, GTX260 C216) and it had little trouble at 1080P completely maxed out. Btw, I haven't even tried Crysis yet on the big screen nor have I seen what the top of the line games for consoles can do. I compared games that were on both the PC and 360 such as Far Cry 2, Bioshock, Left 4 Dead. Btw, Left 4 Dead on a PC running at 1080P on a 53" television looks amazing. I didn't keep my PC hooked up to the TV because I need this computer for productive work as well and I much prefer using a monitor for everyday activities.
well of course it destroys the wii
lol some games will look better on the PC, especcially if ur bleeding edge, however i have to say, i enjoyed the C&C games n the 360 better cause i think it looks betterOriginally posted by: aequasi
well of course it destroys the wii
lol, obviously the Wii gets destroyed. I was just saying that I have all the systems of this current generation so I'm not horribly biased towards PC.
haha, ok, well another example i have to say is GT5, i honestly dont (imo) think that there is a better looking game
I mean, I'd assume that racing games have the upper hand as far as making a game look good simply because you can't really stop and stare upclose at certain things. With an FPS, everything has to look good otherwise whatever doesn't look great looks terrible up close. In a racer, the resolution of a lot of textures could therefore be lower and still look okay since a lot of textures you can't even see up close. Anyone have any idea whether or not this statement is at least partially true?
as good as an idea as that sounds, every video/screenie/denmo ive seen or played of GT5 is stunning. minus the spectators
Ben, What games have used the SPE's on the cell? I haven't seen updated information on this point in a while, but for all the theoretical power of the cell, games on the PS3 basically use the general processor and the GPU with the SPE's doing nothing. SUpposedly they were capable of doing physics calculations but I've read nothing concrete on that point.
So the PS3 despite high raw computational power ends up not being a greatly efficient gaming platform as it has a relatively weak general processor and very weak graphics processor. NO amount of overhead on the PC and tweaking for PC can bridge the gap that has been growing since the ps3 was released.
I have a xbox 360 and a HTPC hooked up to the same TV. I even compared rainbow 6 vegas 2 on both running at the same time switching between screens. I've closely monitored the jaggies and other graphical irregularities that modern GPU's cure so effectively. My mid range htpc with 4770's crossfired is miles beyond the 360. For curiosity, I am going to get call of juarez 2 for 360 and compare it to the PC version.
This argument was plausible a few years ago but with the 5800 series and core i5/i7, it's a nonstarter.
So the PS3 despite high raw computational power ends up not being a greatly efficient gaming platform as it has a relatively weak general processor and very weak graphics processor. NO amount of overhead on the PC and tweaking for PC can bridge the gap that has been growing since the ps3 was released.
I have a xbox 360 and a HTPC hooked up to the same TV. I even compared rainbow 6 vegas 2 on both running at the same time switching between screens. I've closely monitored the jaggies and other graphical irregularities that modern GPU's cure so effectively. My mid range htpc with 4770's crossfired is miles beyond the 360. For curiosity, I am going to get call of juarez 2 for 360 and compare it to the PC version.
This argument was plausible a few years ago but with the 5800 series and core i5/i7, it's a nonstarter.
You also have to take into account that pretty much every game on both the consoles and PC looks better on the PC. I really don't care if the best looking game is on console or PC as long as for the most part games look better and play better on the PC, which they do imo. I mean, aren't most games pretty easy to run at 1080P on a GTX260-HD5870 with the exception of a few PC exclusives and I assume a few horribly coded games? The consoles have trouble running 1280 by 720 sometimes, even on my PC 720P is a joke, even in Crysis.
lol 1080p isnt even that hard to run at, its 1920x1080, the 5870 will support at least 2560x1600 on one monitor... a lot of people might get confused cause they are running the resolution so high on the computer that they have to tune down the settings, that they think it looks better on a console
KZ2, GT5, UC, UC2- pretty much anything exclusive is going to use them along with any port that uses multiple cores on the other systems. How heavily they are used has come down to the particular title, UC2 being the only one that I am aware of that is using all of the cores.
Any game that uses more then two cores on the PC wouldn't run at all if it only used the PPE on Cell. Cell's cores are powerful, but they aren't 3x more powerful then a multi core PC chip per core. As far as confirmation on the SPEs handling physics, it has been explicitly documented since around a year prior to the launch of the PS3. You aren't likely to see updates as it is a given and very simplistic to do(it is very straightforward).
This seems to be where people are having a disconnect. PC games have been in a decline in terms of visual quality since Crysis. The high point for PC graphics was 2 years ago. The technology can increase by orders of magnitude over what we have now, if devs don't use it all it is going to give you is more AA/AF, not better game graphics(just cleaner).
As I have mentioned, repeatedly, every port is going to look better on the PC. Every. Single. One. If a game is capable of running on the PC, it isn't using everything the consoles offer and vice versa. The only way to compare the capabilities is by looking at the platform exclusives- for any of the systems.
And that won't change with this generation for certain. Anything that can run on the PCs is going to have an edge if you have higher end hardware as the code base needs to be able to run on lower end PCs. Anything that can run across multiple platforms is never going to push any particular platform to its' peak potential.
I mean, 1080P is roughly twice the res of 720P and 2560 by 1600 is roughly twice the resolution of full HD 1080P which would mean that people are already gaming in resolutions 4x higher than their console counterparts. Just look at this benchmark for instance:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=14
Running COD4 at 2560 by 1600 with 4xaa doesn't even require that much graphics horsepower whereas the 360 doesn't even run the game in 720P. That ought to put things into perspective. Keep in mind that that article is old, meaning there are better cards out now and drivers probably improved further increasing performance. Even an 8800GT could probably play that game at that res. and a card like the 4870 did it with ease.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=14
Running COD4 at 2560 by 1600 with 4xaa doesn't even require that much graphics horsepower whereas the 360 doesn't even run the game in 720P. That ought to put things into perspective. Keep in mind that that article is old, meaning there are better cards out now and drivers probably improved further increasing performance. Even an 8800GT could probably play that game at that res. and a card like the 4870 did it with ease.
Ben, then lets compare apples to apples. FPS vs FPS, RTS vs RTS, RPG vs RPG, Racing vs. Racing, etc...
And like I said before, I really don't care personally if the best looking game is currently on PS3, 360 or PC because one day those graphics will be outdated. I care more about running a majority of games better than the consoles will because I like high resolutions and aa as well as high frame rates. Like you said before Ben, games for the most part will always look better on PC because of the sheer hardware and graphics really are so subjective. Put someone in front of both Crysis and Unchartered 2 and they really could say either one looks better.
edit: Sorry that I just posted three times. My bad guys.
edit: Sorry that I just posted three times. My bad guys.
FPS- Crysis, KZ2, GoW2- PC wins(360 last)
RTS- PC wins by default, RTS is a dead genre on consoles
RPG- What is a decent PC RPG graphics wise? For the consoles you can use FF, I think the best PC RPG I have seen coming is Dragon's Age which is also on the consoles.
Racing-Shift, GT5, Forza3- PS3 wins, next is XB360 with the PC very far behind in last
Missing Action type games, where I would put UC2 against anything I can think of on the PC or 360, Platforming where I'd have to give the edge to the PS3 again(R&C), Adventure where Heavy Rain obliterates anything I've seen in the genre, MMOs where a slew of PC games kill the best the consoles have to offer in the near future(FFXIV may improve this, but that will hit the PC also), Fighting games where I would say the consoles have an edge, although IMO the by far best fighting game to come out in a long time looks better on the PC(SFIV).
Pretty much PCs have FPS, RTS and MMOs locked down, the consoles have pretty much everything else. In terms of sales, consoles have been killing PCs even in the FPS genre which makes it so we unfortunately aren't seeing the boundaries of the PC pushed due to ports.
Yeah, but for the most part, console games don't look good at all. Sure you have UC2, KZ2, GOW2, Forza 3, GT5 which look great, but other than that, the graphics on 360 and PS3 aren't great.
im gona have to go ahead and disagree on the RTS front there...
unless you show me hard facts, im gona say that RTS's have been doing great on the 360. and they look good too
and for racing, Shift actually looks better on the 360, it was developed for the 360.
Oblivion is a great RPG, and yes it wins on the PC
and for FPS's, its not fair to put crysis there lol, but w/e its true, so i guess i have to aggree
and there have been rumors of porting ToR and Huxley to the 360, which could be awesome.
And either AoC or Tabula Rasa, i cant remembr, but i think those last two flopped, as im sure the other two will
You are using conditional language for all of this. UC2 "would" use all core? The point isn't use of cores, the point is effective use of cores and effective use of computational power. A lengthy article (chip architect i believe) explained that Cell was a massively powerful processor for specialized computational needs BUT NOT for gaming. Following up articles that I've read have stated developers find coding to use the cell's SPE's.
Also, the theoretical computational power of cell being theoretically used as a graphics processor is WORTHLESS when you consider the fact that the computational power of the latest ati/nvidia gpu's dwarfs cell AND is specialized for graphics.
So empirically and theoretically, PC >>>> console.
Also, I don't own a PS3 but it's my understanding that equivalent xbox360/ps3 games look better on Xbox360. 360 has the more powerful gpu.... not a big surprise.
Actually I'm pretty sure ALL 360 games have 2xAA, I'm pretty sure it's automatic on the GPU. Also the GPU on the 360 is basically an early prototype of the 2900. Look the reason console games can look good is because the developers know EXACTLY what hardware they are working with. They know all of the specs, they are given all the api, not to mention making games between 360 and PC isn't that hard. To port from PC to 360 or 360 to PC is made incredibly easy by Microsoft.
The console hardware is "behind", but because it is a much more closed environment than the PC it can "keep up" to an extent.
The console hardware is "behind", but because it is a much more closed environment than the PC it can "keep up" to an extent.
as i stated earlier
the 360 came out, what 4 years ago?
of course its gona be behind after 4 years of HUGE technology jumps like the 5870 and the i7 and tripple channel memory and what not
UC2 ships in two week, demo is out now. It does use all cores, but the game isn't at retail level atm, hence, would.
If that is what the article stated, they were very wrong. Anand once stated that Cell was only as powerful as a P4 1.4GHZ, everyone laughed at him so badly he pulled the article. Prior to the PS3 launching a whole bunch of people said there were a whole bunch of things Cell wasn't any good at, and they kept being proven wrong. It is far more difficult to extract peak performance out of Cell then out of the other offerings, but it without a doubt can and is used for gaming in extremely useful purposes. As developers continue to gain experience with the chip, they continue to show new ways to leverage the raw power of Cell. A generalized example- Rage uses streaming from media due to its Megatexturing technology. The PS3's optical drive is fairly slow(normal for BRD) so at first it appeared that this was going to hamper the performance on that platform. Then Carmack realized that if he used the SPEs to decode data from the BRD he could compress the data at a higher rate then he could on the other platforms and achieve significantly improved performance due to this. Not something you would normally think of when talking about gaming processors, but that is how you work with consoles- figuring out how to use all of your available resources, not trying to use simple minded brute force as you are forced to do on open platforms.
That would all be swell, if we weren't talking about a game that came out in 2007 as being the best looking PC title still. Developers are not using the superior features of the PC. That is the reality of the situation. It is great in theory that the PC can do tons of things that the consoles couldn't dream of. I don't play theories, I play games.
Ports tend to, exclusives tend to look better on the PS3. If you push the PS3 hard, it won't run on the 360 because you are going to be pushinig more on to the CPU then the 360 can handle. The 360 exclusives don't show as much of an improvement as it mainly focuses on leveraging the GPU which on a relative basis doesn't have the same level of disparity that the CPUs have.
Everyone knows that PCs have a staggering edge in theoretical power, what we haven't come remotely close to seeing is this power displayed in games. You can enable higher res and AA/AF to higher levels then the consoles support, and that's it. When PC devs start to push more modern hardware the situation will change, but atm it seems they are going to wait until the next generation of consoles before they start to do that too seriously.
MrK6
Diamond Member
- Aug 9, 2004
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When I posted that screenshot, I thought to myself "should I add some comments? Nah, that's pretty obvious what I'm going for there." Evidently I'm wrong, let me elaborate.
So, to add some comments then to correct interpretations, one has to remember this is a two year old game. The PS3 came out what, only a year prior? Yet there is no way that console could handle the complexity nor resolution at which that image was rendered. That's off a single ATI 5870, the age of the hardware really makes no difference for comparison here, as that's an obvious advantage of the PC and not something I was trying to point out. AF isn't on in that screenshot, since Crysis doesn't use AF and POM at the same time. The point of the screenshot is complexity which gives immersion. In the scene, as one races down the mountain in a humvee, this detail is being rendered all around, 360 degree immersion. Consoles can do complex models, that's actually how they give an illusion of decent graphics - create a very detailed character model or weapon model that's on screen most of the time and divert attention from the horrible environments. So here is a screenshot that has basic technologies, all capable of being processed by a console, but aren't due to sheer lack of computing power. Therefore, to answer the question postulated in the title, consoles can't run games that more powerful PCs can't.
That point is that everything in that screenshot outside some of the foliage looks poor. Not stellar, not incredible, not very good, not even mediocre, poor. It is a profoundly bad example unless you are trying to show off resolution or foliage. Crysis can do much better then that.
It is shocking you would bring that up along with this screenshot. The trees, rocks, water and fog all look terrible in this screenshot- exactly what you are stating the consoles are doing. BTW- check out UC2, the character models are actually sub par, it's the environments that have everyone talking.
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