At least some of us here at B3D undestand that when simulating one large complex cityscape full of unique detail, you can't rightly manage the same level of image fidelity as one can with a notably smaller and simpler environment.
Oh, I understand. Call me when that game comes out, though. Particularly the 'full of unique detail'. If I'm in Bohan (Bronx), on street level, you're telling me that what's happening in Alderney (New Jersey) should impact the game's performance?
GTA games are not simulations. Do you actually believe that scenes that are off-camera and more than a few blocks away are even being considered for gameplay purposes?
We're not talking about bad performance when taking a helicopter and then regarding the entirety of the city. We're talking about some pretty constrained scenes.
And, since you don't want to understand, I'm not saying GTA4 should match Crysis graphically, but why is it that it's unreasonable to expect that they look close if they have similar requirements?
Seems more like you are reaching for a point here, I doubt it will take more than a year before we see hardware that will run the game nicely with all the options cranked. Regardless, my point is I'll be glad to have those options there when I do upgrade to such hardware as the game won't look as dated then as it would if Rockstar had limited had just axed the higher settings and renamed medium to high so no one could whine about the highest options being too much for current hardware.
Who's saying they should have limited the options? You guys keep repeating that, but
no one's saying that. What I'm saying is two things, and really they're just one thing if you think about it:
1) At medium, which according to Rockstar is where state-of-the-art machines should be, the game doesn't look that great. Better than the console version, but
that's setting the bar awfully low.
2) At highest the game still doesn't look so great. It doesn't look like a late 2008 PC game... how do you expect it'll look like a 2009 or 2010 game, when the hardware is out?
Visually? The shear number buildings, vehicles, characters and such all interacting within a single environment is rather spectacular even at the console quality settings. In those regards it far tops Crysis' couple dozen vegetation modules, with little more handful of unique buildings enemies, and a few different types of vehicles and such in each map. Beyond the visuals, the soundtrack notably more impressive than those of the Crysis games, as are various other aspects of the game.
Soundtrack? Soundtrack is assets, it's art. Are they using advanced tech for sound, or are you trying to deflect the argument? And again, seriously, do you think that anything in GTA4 exists when you can't see it? Do you think there's real persistence in the game? The following statement is very important: in terms of interactivity and persistence GTA4 is
not really far ahead of San Andreas. The city is far more realized, certainly, but again, this is art, not tech.
Multiplatform games have to be designed around the limitations of the lowest common denominator. Such games can't rightly be built around the strengths of the PC, but rather can only make use of them for superficial enhancements. With that in mind, I'm happy to get to play the game with better framerate and better visuals than I can get from my consoles. There is no getto in that.
You don't even understand what I'm saying. DMC4 came out for PC, its requirements were astoundingly low even when running at ridiculous settings... because, well, consoles ain't so powerful compared to modern PCs. That's should be benchmark for console ports.
