Why Do Video Games Look Better than Computer Games?

[BDawg]

At comparable resolutions, PS2, XBOX, or GameCube games look many times better than a computer game.

At 640x480 and a disgusting dot pitch (my TV is one of the best at .56), video games look smooth and detailed while a computer game on a 19" monitor with a .24" dot pitch looks disgusting and blocky at 640x480, even with 4x AA.

What's up with that?

 

[kami]

Does your video card have TV out? if so, hook it up and you'll see that it looks just as "smooth" as a console. This smoothness is actually lack of detail though since standard TVs have pretty crummy resolution.

 

[abaez]

uhhhhhhhh what are you talking about. Try playing your console games at 1600x1200 you will notice it.

 

[kami]

Originally posted by: abaez
uhhhhhhhh what are you talking about. Try playing your console games at 1600x1200 you will notice it.

huh? consoles have a set resolution you dolt

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

You are essentially getting free anti-aliasing due to the fuzziness of the TV's image relative to a monitor.

 

[ed21x]

tv blurrs everything, so its kinda like 640x480 with full screen AA

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: kami

Originally posted by: abaez
uhhhhhhhh what are you talking about. Try playing your console games at 1600x1200 you will notice it.

huh? consoles have a set resolution you dolt

not xbox games many games let you play in 4:3 and 16:9 and new games will support different HDTV modes

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: kami

Originally posted by: abaez
uhhhhhhhh what are you talking about. Try playing your console games at 1600x1200 you will notice it.

huh? consoles have a set resolution you dolt

He is old, give him a break

Consoles use 640 x 480 interleaved resolution ( AFAIK, I have been wrong before ) So just about anything looks good. If you hook up your computer to the TV and set it at 640 x 480 and run say, half life you will see a vast improvemnt over a console.

 

[kami]

Originally posted by: Ameesh

Originally posted by: kami

Originally posted by: abaez
uhhhhhhhh what are you talking about. Try playing your console games at 1600x1200 you will notice it.

huh? consoles have a set resolution you dolt

not xbox games many games let you play in 4:3 and 16:9 and new games will support different HDTV modes

it's still 480p...you can't go into a game and say i want to run this at 1280x960 or something. xbox definitely has the best picture quality of the bunch though with its hdtv progressive support

 

[amnesiac]

Originally posted by: abaez
uhhhhhhhh what are you talking about. Try playing your console games at 1600x1200 you will notice it.

That, and remember that console programmers only need code for 1 system, whereas PC developers need to take into account the "lowest common denominator" of the infinite number of PC configurations. Thus, on a console you're guaranteed that it's making full use of all the hardware, while some features might need to be sacrificed on a PC.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: kami

Originally posted by: Ameesh

Originally posted by: kami

Originally posted by: abaez
uhhhhhhhh what are you talking about. Try playing your console games at 1600x1200 you will notice it.

huh? consoles have a set resolution you dolt

not xbox games many games let you play in 4:3 and 16:9 and new games will support different HDTV modes

it's still 480p...you can't go into a game and say i want to run this at 1280x960 or something. xbox definitely has the best picture quality of the bunch though with its hdtv progressive support

on a non hdtv 480p is not possible, and in the xbox menu you can specify if you want it outputed to 720p or 1080i

 

[BillGates]

I think PC games look a lot better than consoles. Of course you gotta have a good vid card to push it and you can crank up all of the settings to the max while remaining at a high resolution.

I played some Bond game on PS2 a week ago with 3 other people on a 32" TV and the graphics were horrible... I had to squint to even make out the blocky head I was even supposed to be sniping.

 

[abaez]

Originally posted by: kami

Originally posted by: abaez
uhhhhhhhh what are you talking about. Try playing your console games at 1600x1200 you will notice it.

huh? consoles have a set resolution you dolt

I meant you can't run a console game above 640, why would anyone run a pc game in 640 nowadays is beyond me.

 

[Lithium381]

Originally posted by: amnesiac 2.0

Originally posted by: abaez
uhhhhhhhh what are you talking about. Try playing your console games at 1600x1200 you will notice it.

That, and remember that console programmers only need code for 1 system, whereas PC developers need to take into account the "lowest common denominator" of the infinite number of PC configurations. Thus, on a console you're guaranteed that it's making full use of all the hardware, while some features might need to be sacrificed on a PC.

my first thoughts were almost exactly that when reading the title....

 

[clicknext]

Originally posted by: BDawg
At comparable resolutions, PS2, XBOX, or GameCube games look many times better than a computer game.

At 640x480 and a disgusting dot pitch (my TV is one of the best at .56), video games look smooth and detailed while a computer game on a 19" monitor with a .24" dot pitch looks disgusting and blocky at 640x480, even with 4x AA.

What's up with that?

Your TV is blurry. When you sit rather far away, you don't notice the blurriness and only notice the nice smoothness.

 

[Deeko]

Monitors are higher quality than TV's. Also, console games are designed to take the hardware to the maximum level possible, at 640x480, so they can have higher polygon counts and all that. Whereas PC games are designed to work on the lowest common denominator video card, these days something about a GeForce2 MX, and at higher resolutions, hence the less detailed games. It all depends on whether you like detail/polygons or resolution.

 

[mpitts]

I think it is hard to beat a PC game in terms of eye-candy.

But I also think it is hard to beat sitting on the couch with your friends and playing Madden 2003, etc.

 

[TranceNation]

Originally posted by: mpitts
I think it is hard to beat a PC game in terms of eye-candy.

But I also think it is hard to beat sitting on the couch with your friends and playing Madden 2003, etc.

oh that's' pretty easy to beat, just pop in nfl2k3

 

[Jmmsbnd007]

You sit much farther away from the TV than your monitor.

 

[erikiksaz]

Thanks to all those people who don't devote a couple hundred dollars to every new CPU/VIDEO card, we don't have more console-lookalike games. Damn those non-computer-junkies!

 

[Braves]

yeah i was gonna say, if your comparing this by hooking up your computer to your TV then it's different

but for me... i just rented madden 2k3 for my PS2, and i thought the graphics were decent
i installed madden 2k3 for PC, cranked it up, and with only a AMD 1.2 t-bird and gforce 2 pro, it looked amazing.. much better then PS2, but mabye that's just my TV

 

[Zeeliv]

and in the xbox menu you can specify if you want it outputed to 720p or 1080i

And how many games currently support either of those resolutions? 1!

All of the current console games are 480i or 480p, with the exception of Street Hoops on Xbox which supports 720p. Don't expect too many more this generation either...

 

[BurnItDwn]

consoles can barely compete with PG games from like, years ago. See if you can find any console game with comparable graphics and detail to Battlefield 1942 or Soldier of Fortune 2.

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: Jmmsbnd007
You sit much farther away from the TV than your monitor.

My monitor isn't 55".

 

[Jmmsbnd007]

Originally posted by: BDawg

Originally posted by: Jmmsbnd007
You sit much farther away from the TV than your monitor.

My monitor isn't 55".

It sure isn't.