Next Gen will drag the Tumor on for Gaming. It's Bleak?

[antwan]

I never said those games were PC exclusives, I said they are multiplatform games. Multiplatform means they are PC games as well as console games.

You said "PC games" have low production values. I'm pointing out that most "PC games" are in fact multiplatform games with high production values. Picking the one or two AAA games a year that don't immediately come to consoles (<5% of the AAA PC games market) to draw the conclusion than PC gaming is inherently inferior to console gaming because "PC games have lower production values" is quite frankly ridiculous.

PC gaming is not "inherently inferior to console gaming", you can play most multiplatform AAA console games often immediately at release, other times a few weeks/months or years after. But with higher framerate, better resolution, anti-aliasing, texture filtering and whatnot.

Exclusive PC games though? Aside from the occasional Blizzard game (we actually had 2 in within 1 year this time! :-0), my point stands.

About 14 years ago, PC gaming had it's golden age. It's own AAA games. own genres. Games that were created for the platform, not ported over. Strategy games flourished. Many great FPS were developed. The best racing games were on pc. And so on.
Also, at the time, PC games had great production values.
Compare that to 2012.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

PC gaming is not "inherently inferior to console gaming", you can play most multiplatform AAA console games often immediately at release, other times a few weeks/months or years after. But with higher framerate, better resolution, anti-aliasing, texture filtering and whatnot.

Exclusive PC games though? Aside from the occasional Blizzard game (we actually had 2 in within 1 year this time! :-0), my point stands.

You've changed your point.

Most PC games are low budget; which means that they can often have good (unoptimized) graphics, but you will always see that the animation, the camera motion, voice acting plus other things like story or gameplay sort of destroy the overall illusion.

No mention of exclusives there. 'Most' PC games are probably exactly the same games as the console games (excluding indie titles) only, as others point out, rendered better.

 

[antwan]

It's not really better visuals (measured in shaders, AA method and fps) when1 comparing console to pc; it's just better overall games, and often overall better presentation.

Most PC games are low budget; which means that they can often have good (unoptimized) graphics, but 2.you will always see that the animation, the camera motion, voice acting plus other things like story or gameplay sort of destroy the overall illusion.
Witcher 2: case in point.
Run that game on 6 monitors at the same time. The animation would still look like something resembling a PS2 era game. Some animations even look like PS1 era games, running up stairs for example.

again: 3."the Tumor" is PC fanboys not paying for games, and the few remaining PC developed titles suffering heavily as a consequence.

Read the bolded parts, I didn't change my point.

1. beter overall games and presentation > obviously I was not talking about the multiplatform games, as they are the same games which have the same presentation
2. animation, voice acting, story, and so on destroying the illusion > obviously I was not talking about the multiplatform games, as they have the same animation, voice acting and story
3. PC fanboys not paying for games and the few remaining PC developed titles suffering heavily > you will probably say something like "all games are developed on PC, you didn't state "exclusive!!!"" and I'll give you that. But read it in the context: how would (zum Beispiel) GTA4 suffer because of PC fanboys not paying for it? It was released more than half a year later on PC; obviously I was not talking about the multiplatform games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Read the bolded part, I didn't change my point.

Except that animation, camera motion, voice acting, yada yada, is exactly the same as in the console games. the PC is no worse off. COD, BF3, Batman, etc. aren't using cheap content on PC.

 

[cal_guy]

i think it's all about the art style.
Take GOW3 for example;
take away one of the best anti aliasing methods in existence and what do you have?
Borderline CG character models.
It's not about the polycount or texture resolution. It's how you use it.
The witcher 2 IMO looks worse when you up the resolution. The awkward character modeling and character motions only become more apparent.

If you're referring to the models during the game engine cutscenes then yes I would agree with you GOW3 models are superb. In-game not so much.

 

[Nesh]

If you're referring to the models during the game engine cutscenes then yes I would agree with you GOW3 models are superb. In-game not so much.

You are wrong because there are many real time interactive cut scenes where the model is zoomed automatically up close and his detail is still superb.

 

[antwan]

If you're referring to the models during the game engine cutscenes then yes I would agree with you GOW3 models are superb. In-game not so much.

Sorry, same model

edit:

You are wrong because there are many real time interactive cut scenes where the model is zoomed automatically up close and his detail is still superb.

correct! You actually don't even have to enter a cutscene; in many areas you can just get real close to the camera and go like: "is this what Kutaragi intented?? "

 

[fearsomepirate]

Except that animation, camera motion, voice acting, yada yada, is exactly the same as in the console games. the PC is no worse off. COD, BF3, Batman, etc. aren't using cheap content on PC.

Then PC fans cry about the "consolization of PC games." What they want are the assets associated with AAA console budgets and the graphics associated with PC exclusives. There just aren't that many publishers who can sell enough PC-exclusives games to justify that level of production more than once in a blue moon.

 

[cal_guy]

Sorry, same model

edit:


correct! You actually don't even have to enter a cutscene; in many areas you can just get real close to the camera and go like: "is this what Kutaragi intented?? "

The character movements and animation aren't really all that good though. (which was your issue with Witcher 2)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Then PC fans cry about the "consolization of PC games." What they want are the assets associated with AAA console budgets and the graphics associated with PC exclusives. There just aren't that many publishers who can sell enough PC-exclusives games to justify that level of production more than once in a blue moon.

I'd argue it's been more the PCification of consoles. FPSes and Unreal Engine games see their roots more in the PC than the console staples of platformers and kart racing.

Games are games. An interpretation of PC game or console game is in the eye if the beholder, unless the mechanics are obviously different (eg. mouse based strategy turned awkwardly into a thumbstick pointer strategy).

 

[Sigfried1977]

The character movements and animation aren't really all that good though. (which was your issue with Witcher 2)

I'd they they are actually very good for the type of game GOW is. Some really nice touches there, like how Kratos actually twists his blades inside the flesh of a big creature to make it turn. It's not as loaded with contextual animations as something like Uncharted3 obviously, but that would more than likely have been very detrimental to its gameplay.

That said, I thing The Witcher 2 is actually animated rather nicely as well. The faces are a little stiff, but as far as Western RPGs go it's still about as good as they come.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I'd argue it's been more the PCification of consoles. FPSes and Unreal Engine games see their roots more in the PC than the console staples of platformers and kart racing.

The modern FPS owes just as much to Goldeneye as it does to Quake.

"Consolization" isn't about mouse vs. thumbsticks. Console games are designed around closed hardware, has a simple interface, and is often played from a fairly large viewing distance. So there are lots of little differences associated with those things that, when you add them up, can result in a pretty clear difference between a "PC game" and a "console game" when something is really tailored for the platform. Obviously, there's a lot of overlap, but I don't think PC gamers were imagining things when they said MW2 was more of a console game than a PC game.

 

[swym]

Compare the early console games released in 05-06 & compare them to the best now on console.
They are not much better at all in 6yrs.

Hello lady!
Look at your old Chief

Now back to me

Now back at your old Chief

Now back to me

Sadly, he isn’t me. But if you give him a few years in cryo and some major engine overhaul - he could smell like me.

I'm on a Warthog!

 

[antwan]

offtopic: "I'm on a warhog, driving into bullshot land" ? :-0
If anything, Halo upgraded their 3dsmax render plugins!
edit: though, if they handed Halo to SOny Santa Monica then it would look like that in realtime!

 

[AlNom]

offtopic: "I'm on a warhog, driving into bullshot land" ? :-0
If anything, Halo upgraded their 3dsmax render plugins!
edit: though, if they handed Halo to SOny Santa Monica then it would look like that in realtime!

You seem to be missing the point of the response to the quoted statement. If you can't see the difference between the two games (beyond just focusing on these screenshots to support ignorant statements, although how you missed the change in how they do lighting is beyond me), then you have some other more pressing issues. If you want more obvious examples in variation between early and current games, there's Gears 1 vs Gears 3, Bad Company vs Battlefield 3... and others. There are pretty big differences in asset quality and rendering, so it's a pretty daft statement for the OP to make.

 

[Billy Idol]

What still totally confusess me even today is how console marketting "bullshots" are considered to look "too amazing" conpared to how the games actually look on console even though they are just the same game with more resolution and aa, but pc games which basically let you play current games at bullshot resolution/aa along with 60fps, improved shadows, texture filtering, ao, view distance, etc, etc, etc, are considered meh. I just don't get it.

The problem for me is the following: I game mostly on PC, typically everything on max at 1080p. But still...even with this, I do not consider this to be bullshot mode. There are still lot's of jaggies around. Of course, IQ is much better compared to console.

But at the end...there are still lots of flaws, still jaggies all over the place, still super low rez textures all over the place when walking close, still lot's of jagged razor like shadows, still lots of unpleasent explosions and effects, foliage and thin geometry...it is much improved to console games...but it is miles away from being bullshots at 60Hz...with all the available raw horsepower of PCs...the quality is indeed: meh!

I just bought ghost Recon Future Soldier and Spec Ops the line...with everything maxed at 1080p, graphcis are meh. Lots of shimmering, lots of jaggies and overall noisy image.

I hope for next gen consoles: focus on AA and shadow quality to deliver near film like quality in this regard. Get rid of the damn jaggies. I hope TXAA brings an improvement and will be adopted for next gen consoles...

 

[antwan]

You seem to be missing the point of the response to the quoted statement. If you can't see the difference between the two games (beyond just focusing on these screenshots to support ignorant statements, although how you missed the change in how they do lighting is beyond me), then you have some other more pressing issues. If you want more obvious examples in variation between early and current games, there's Gears 1 vs Gears 3, Bad Company vs Battlefield 3... and others. There are pretty big differences in asset quality and rendering, so it's a pretty daft statement for the OP to make.

Nah, rather you miss my point.
He is comparing pre-rendered images which (to my understanding) don't even use in-game assets or realtime light renders.

edit: I agree that there is probably a big difference between Halo3 and Halo4 in game. Even though Halo4 probably uses LDR instead of HDR now, and had higher resolution and better AA methods, and what not. The assets certainly have changed and look a lot better now (even without polycount, just the art quality)

He could have also picked this Halo 3 image:

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You are wrong because there are many real time interactive cut scenes where the model is zoomed automatically up close and his detail is still superb.

Really? I think his point stands. Looking at that, the model is obviously low poly. The art direction is decent, of course and can mask much of that. As is the blur filter that they use for AA in the game.

And I'm not even sure the animations are much better, if at all, than the aforementioned Witcher 2. Different? Yes. Better? Questionable.

And certainly the scale and detail of the surrounding scenery isn't even a contest. It's like saying 10% of this games graphics are better than 10% of that games graphics, hence the entire games graphics are better (just please ignore the other 90% of the graphics).

Regards,
SB

 

[nightshade]

Oh dear...are we still not over calling post process AA methods 'just a blur filter' ?
If anything GOW3's MLAA should be the last candidate for that, it's quite phenomenal both in terms of image clarity and edge smoothing. Ofcourse the artstyle helped quite a bit as you don't see a lot of sub pixel edges but in then end that's not what we are arguing about here.

His point was that GOW3's cutscene models are impressive while gameplay model isn't, when infact (as far as I know) they just so happen to be the exact same model.

 

[SteelOak]

Nah, rather you miss my point.
He is comparing pre-rendered images which (to my understanding) don't even use in-game assets or realtime light renders.

You just proved their point.