Are PCs holding back the console experience? (Witcher3 spawn)
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Deleted member 11852
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They only comment on observable evidence, not nonsenseJust wait for the DF article
Silent_Buddha
Legend
And yet they demanded the comparison video be taken down because it proved all of that to be false, except perhaps for the slightly better textures.
Maybe, they are in panic scramble mode now to try to put in something for PC to make it different than consoles now that there is a shitstorm over it.
And compared to the stuff that was taken out purely for console reasons? It's pure crap. Resolution is obvious and not engine related. Framerate is obvious and not engine related. Draw distance it just a setting.
Thus far that only leaves slightly better textures and hairworks (which the PC/PS4 comparison video showed to be worse than PS4 version hair).
And for that we lost...
- Level of horizon detail (essentially the draw distance had to be completely tuned down to tax the consoles less)
- Volume based translucency
- Ambient occlusion and foliage density / tree count
- Flexible water simulation / tessellation we resorted to a (script texture effect similar to most games than physical based simulation)
- Ground/building tessellation
- Forward lit soft particles (this is the fire, smoke, fog that you would encounter while going through thick terrain into open space)
- Real-time reflections in the water are completely off and replaced with a cheaper render solution estimator (this is a primary reason blood splatter was also removed from water)
Although perhaps we got some of that draw distance back. Fuck you consoles. Pardon the language.
Regards,
SB
Would I be allowed to have that as my sig
In a way we are lucky to even have consoles to support massive games like GTA5, Elderscrolls, BF4, Witcher series , Fallout, new Deus Ex series by Eidos, Farcry, Mass Effect series, etc and to push graphics forward and scope of games forward. Lets say if there were no Nintendo to revitalize the console industry (and neither any of its competitors (eg MS, Sony, Sega, 3D0) who came as a result of Nintendo's success), besides the few possible exceptions like we see with Crytek and Dice, the vast majority of developers would be currently targetting PCs with lower specs than a 7750 or 7850 if there were no Nintendo and its competitors to revitalize the console market and bring hundreds of millions of gamers to consoles. We just had the average pc game's graphics bar raised with the release of XO & PS4.
There is no way games like (the upcoming) Fallout4 or GTA5 could be funded or even have half the budget they currently have they are without consoles.
No expensive art budgets, no expensive innovative face mocap tech, inferior character animation, smaller less detailed sandbox games, no celebrity voice acting & mocap (if thats your thing).
Instead of an Elderscrolls game graphically beautiful for its time (eg elderscrolls skyrim) you'd have a game less than half the size, probably with graphics something along the state Word of Warcraft was circa 2011 perhaps though with higher res texture, in order to support a wider pc audience like Wow was.
There is no way games like (the upcoming) Fallout4 or GTA5 could be funded or even have half the budget they currently have they are without consoles.
No expensive art budgets, no expensive innovative face mocap tech, inferior character animation, smaller less detailed sandbox games, no celebrity voice acting & mocap (if thats your thing).
Instead of an Elderscrolls game graphically beautiful for its time (eg elderscrolls skyrim) you'd have a game less than half the size, probably with graphics something along the state Word of Warcraft was circa 2011 perhaps though with higher res texture, in order to support a wider pc audience like Wow was.
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I still don't understand why we assume that if consoles didnt exist all those console gamers wouldn't want to play games anymore.
Cost and complexity. The kid who picks up a £200 console and FIFA and GTA isn't intrinsically going to be served similarly by a £500+ PC with Windows (yet). They remain two different platforms for two different audiences, even if the content is the same. Like video disc versus VHS, maybe.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
Consoles aren't sentient decision making beings though... There are reasons why the consoles have weak hardware, (one more so than the other) and there are reasons why multiplatform devs mostly target these as the base and PEOPLE made all of these decisions. Unfortunately many business realities override the wishes of people who have relatively high performance PC rigs like me and many of you. I think blaming consoles is easy but in the end not making much sense. Imo it's not all that bad. Witcher 3 looks nice and PC-versions will still have some advantages. Perhaps this console gen don't last as long as the one before and VR could give PC some room to flex its muscles in the coming years.
I agree. VR requires very high resolution and doubles the performance hit which will only bring down the rendering quality, not improve it.
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Deleted member 11852
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If you take the consoles out of the gaming landscape, and ignore the dumb assumption that without consoles people would buy gaming PCs instead, game budgets would plummet because developers and publishers are now serving much smaller market. PC sales already a fraction of console sales. PC games cost less and are far easier to pirate.
I'd hate to be a gamer in a world without the economics that cross-platform development affords. PC gamers would, sure as shit, not have GTA V because there is no way the five year long development budget could be recouped from GTA V PC sales
And let's be realistic, if it wasn't for the similarities between PS4/XBO and PCs then PC gamers may not even have GTA V. This could easily have been a repeat of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption on last gen.I think it's a pretty dumb argument in the first place to pretend that a market without consoles were the PC is no different than it is today could even exist in the first place. Obviously if consoles didn't exist, the PC gaming experience would be wildly different to what it is today and possibly not all that distinguishable from consoles at all. For certain the likes of Steam machines would be far more prevalent. I also find it dumb to assume that every person who games on consoles today - many of whom are ex-PC gamers anyway - would simply give up on gaming just because PC's are bit more expensive (at console level performance) and not as idiot proof as consoles are. Obviously the gaming market would be smaller than it is today but it would also be far larger than the current PC only market and that's working off the dumb assumption that the PC wouldn't have evolved to fill that simplified gaming experience gap in the market if consoles didn't exist.
So yes the market would be smaller, but we're not talking by an order of magnitude or anything close, and with only a single platform to develop for and support, and with all the industries talent focused on that one platform, the industry wouldn't need as large a market to sustain the same level of quality and scope in it's games that it does today.
Perhaps we still wouldn't see ultra high budget games like GTAV (but that is far from a foregone conclusion) but regardless of whether we would or not, if the only platform out there was the scalable PC, there would no doubt be more focus on pushing the technology envelope in games than there is today. And I'm defining the technology envelope here as the state of the art in gaming technology. Pughing the limits of a 4 year old mid range GPU is not the same as pushing the technology envelope.
Fortunately, with VR on the horizon and the power it's going to require at presence levels, PC's should soon be a platform where boundaries are being pushed again.
You mean the similarities born out of the fact that the consoles are virtually 100% built from PC components? If we're being realistic and facing reality then we may as well acknowledge that without PC's driving technology forward, current generation consoles would be lucky to be capable of PS3 level visuals right now.
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Deleted member 11852
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That would be a dumb argument, glad I didn't make it. I think it's certain that the PC games market today would be different today if consoles waned around the dawn of 3D (PlayStation/Saturn/N64). For a start all those console games that wildly outsold PC games put a lot of money into the hands of developers and publishers.
That would also be a dumb argument. I didn't make that one either. Steam came in for Half-Life 2 in 2003. It may not even have existed if consoles hadn't happened because Steam was created to serve games made by developers and funded by publishers who made a lot of money from console game sales.
You'll need to elucidate because I don't see why this is obvious. Consoles made 3D gaming a cheap mainstream form of entertainment. Without those who knows where PC 3D gaming technology would be. It could certainly be far behind where it is now and with a smaller market.
I see PC boundaries being pushed now. The Witcher 3 looks outstanding. And VR on PC will be better for having people working on VR on consoles because the more people trying to solve any given problem is better for everybody.
Yes, isn't that what I just said?
Consoles increase the size of the gaming market, thereby its profitability, beyond what we would have without those machines. And you know what? PC and console gaming will benefit from profits brought in from mobile gaming too.
Without the development of consoles and the TV interface developed for them, there wouldn't have been any impetus for PC's to emulate the experience. So it's not 'for certain' by any stretch. Quite possibly if consoles didn't exist, the gaming landscape would consist of PC gaming progressed from the 1990s with installs and a start menu full of game entries and a mess of logins. Point being, it's impossible to guess with any accuracy what might have been. The only sane discussion is around what has happened, the pros and cons that do exist. Whether they would or wouldn't exist in another console-free timeline is a matter of science fiction, not forum discussion.
This argument is pretty emotionally loaded and rather silly. No-one's saying consoles would be better off without PCs nor haven't benefited, so your retort is misplaced.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
Beat me to it. Whether people like them or not, consoles showed that more complicated [3D] gaming could (and should) be an entertainment medium not dictated by fucking around with .ini and config files. It's had an influence on the PC games market even if PC gamers don't want to see it.
Heh well the ini and cfg horrors were mainly a DOS thing. Playing games on machines that were in reality business machines with barely any audio visual hardware. Apple could've saved us from that but they had no marketshare. Windows 95 mostly ended it.
I get a kick out of console haters and PC haters. I don't understand people like this. I've always been into both consoles and computer games...
I get a kick out of console haters and PC haters. I don't understand people like this. I've always been into both consoles and computer games...
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Deleted member 11852
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Nope, my PC gaming experience began with Windows 98 and I recall having to mess around with config files. I remember Rollercoaster Tycoon crashing because I had a gamepad attached and having to tweak config files for some idTech engine games. If you wanted a custom resolution in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 then you had to edit the config file. The old .ini text files may mostly be XML files now (almost every Ubisoft game) but the need to dip into them to tweak settings beyond the UI is still a thing. There are websites dedicated this.
Apple platforms are no better, they just have different issues.
And if you wanted a custom resolution in a console game ?
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