If your machine was capable, yes. But games weren't designed for your particular PC build, and generally weren't targeting a stable 60 fps on the majority of machines. They also didn't balance workload well, at least in the games I played. So in something like Neverwinter Nights, if I disabled vSync I had runaway screen tear at times and smoother gameplay other times. If I enabled vSync, the framerate would plummet at times. No amount of tweaking settings could get a stable 60 fps at all times (these days we'd talk about soft lock and vSync on runaway framerates, unlock it when below 60 fps). Contrast that with BG: DA on a much less powerful PS2 that was a constant 60 fps, no tearing, because it was designed to run at such on fixed hardware. That's why I tended to prefer console play back then. Console games by design tended to favour fixed refresh in a way PC games just couldn't.
For any machine, you just had to configure it for the performance you wanted. If you had a lower end machine that just meant you had to sacrifice some IQ.
It's basically the difference between.
1. Fixed platform, fixed graphics. This is what you're going to get and you can't get anything better or worse.
2. Variable platform, variable graphics. We'll provide you with everything you need to take advantage of your platform at whatever speed and/or quality you desire.
There's benefits to both systems. If you don't want to muck around with settings, [1] is safer and less hassle than [2]. But [2] can always attain what [1] can if needed/desired. But [1] can never attain what [2] provides.
As to the problems with Neverwinter, there's also myriad examples of console games that couldn't maintain consistent performance. So to point to Neverwinter and say that's representative of PC gaming would be as incorrect as pointing to something that was inconsistent on PS2 (like Shadows of the Colossus) and saying that is representative of console gaming. Or Heavenly Sword on PS3. Same situation for any console generation. There's always games that don't perform consistently. Same goes for PC. But on PC there's generally ways to mitigate it or remove the inconsistency entirely. Although there are situations that arise where a combination of software (like say Half-Life 2) plus hardware implementations of Vsync with certain graphics hardware would offer less than optimal performance. But on other hardware (from the same graphics vendors!) would perform smoothly with Vsync on. But then that would be better than say the game not being consistent and no way to change it.
And with your Neverwinter example. What if it was like Shadow of the Colossus. Inconsistent performance with Vsync on. That would be your only option, even if you would have preferred on average a higher framerate. That hypothetical console version would give you no options. But on PC you could turn off vsync and adjust settings.
Of course, that means mucking around with settings. Not something everyone likes to do. And then we're back to the benefits of having a console at the cost of being able to configure graphics/performance to where you'd like.
Regards,
SB
