So is this the generation where PC's are surpassed forever?

[Unknown Soldier]

Can a console do Word, Excel, Visio, CAD, etc?

No!

Well since a PC can do that and a load more .. there's no ways a console will be better. A PC can always be upgraded etc to meet the latest ever increasing standards .. where as the console has standards and the games are designed to those specific standards.

I would also love a mouse and keyboard to be designed for the console. I just hate playing FPS games on console.

US

 

[Apoc]

Can a console do Word, Excel, Visio, CAD, etc?

No!

Well since a PC can do that and a load more .. there's no ways a console will be better. A PC can always be upgraded etc to meet the latest ever increasing standards .. where as the console has standards and the games are designed to those specific standards.

I would also love a mouse and keyboard to be designed for the console. I just hate playing FPS games on console.

US

He is talking of being better at games (and btw, i have run linux on the xbox). And I play my console FPS with keyb+mouse, so send a love letter to the guy who invented the SmartJoy Frag.

 

[John Reynolds]

Everyone keeps citing 1 GB of system RAM as standard in a few years. That's wrong. With Longhorn, it's going to be 2 GB of RAM by next year.

 

[Dave Glue]

Everyone keeps citing 1 GB of system RAM as standard in a few years. That's wrong. With Longhorn, it's going to be 2 GB of RAM by next year.

Depends if DDR-2 finally starts to drop or not in price, me thinks. Bear in mind 256 megs still hasn't been officially "confirmed" for Xbox2, granted with GDDR-3 512 megs is not like purchasing regular DDR at NewEgg now, but I'm not sold that the next consoles won't have more than that just yet.

I have to say though it is encouraging that at least one of the major players in this is MS from a PC gamers perspective. While I've advocated they could have done more to make PC gaming more newbie-friendly than in the past and have certainly done my fair share of bitching with regards to the non-ports (would Halo2 PC really have impacted Halo2 Xbox sales that much?), they at least seem to be making a strong push to bring PC gaming into the mainstream with Longhorn.

Longhorn is really the wildcard in all of this, we still don't know exactly how Aero/Aero Glass will look, or what kind of GPU horsepower will be required to really show it off. While the PC has had numerous reasons for its decline (at least in terms of retail visibility) as a game platform over the past few years, a significant reason (IMO) is the abundance of $400 boxes with no AGP/PCI-E slots. Dell is a prime culprit in this - go to their home section and try and find a desktop with a PCI-E or AGP slot. Chances are they start at $900 for such systems, when in fact those $500 boxes are perfectly adequate for most modern games - the problem is they don't have any expansion. Intel integrated video is OK as long as you have a choice to upgrade it if you want to, but most OEM's don't give you that option. Longhorn may finally be the bait to get more casual PC users actually interested in the video hardware on their machine. They see their neighbour with a 6800 running Aero Glass smoothly with tons of nice effects, as compared to their desktop running in Tier1 graphical mode which would basically be XP's interface with nice fonts.

Hopefully that will act as the carrot on the stick, and GPU manufactuers can trumpet a score of 8,000 "AeroBenchmarks" to entice those who normally wouldn't think twice about what GPU is in their system. Remember when Winbench 2D was actually used as selling point?

With high-res OLED displays (fingers crossed) coming in the future as well, there will be far more reasons to make the PC's video performance a paramount feature rather than just an accessory that only kicks in when you load Far Cry.

 

[skilzygw]

so do you think IBM with the cell processor, can they be an alternative pc cpu? Maybe running a new OS Warp OS?

it would be interesting but prob not huh.

 

[KimB]

I have to say though it is encouraging that at least one of the major players in this is MS from a PC gamers perspective. While I've advocated they could have done more to make PC gaming more newbie-friendly than in the past and have certainly done my fair share of bitching with regards to the non-ports (would Halo2 PC really have impacted Halo2 Xbox sales that much?), they at least seem to be making a strong push to bring PC gaming into the mainstream with Longhorn.

Well, the reason why you have exclusive titles is so that people buy your console. If every high-profile game that MS made for the X-Box was co-developed for the PC, MS would make less money (since they get royalties for games...and getting more people to purchase their consoles means people buy more games).

That said, I personally think it's a real travesty that Microsoft purchased Bungie. Halo would have been so much better had it been first developed for the PC (Yes, I know, Bungie was primarily a Mac developer, but they were supposedly planning to release on the PC first).

 

[WaltC]

Couldn't agree more. The word i would use to describe Half Life 2's graphics are "flat and lifeless". That's perhaps because i recently watched the latest U3 engine video's.

Heh... Well, then I shudder to think what you might say about Doom 3's graphics (although I'd likely agree with you)...

BTW, I've already picked up HL2--um, where did you say I could find Unreal 3, again? (I think I missed that.) Imagine that--and here I was thinking a U3-engine game wouldn't see the light of day before '06--some 18 months to two years after I picked up HL2! So give, where can I buy this masterpiece?

 

[hovz]

doom 3 looks much better than half life 2 walt. so does far cry, a bunch of xbox games, a few gc games, even some ps2 ones. time of release is no excuse for hl2s visual mediocrity

 

[trinibwoy]

doom 3 looks much better than half life 2 walt. so does far cry, a bunch of xbox games, a few gc games, even some ps2 ones. time of release is no excuse for hl2s visual mediocrity

Well that's the first time I've seen mediocre associated with HL2's graphics!

 

[hovz]

too many people have bad taste, what can i say

there is NOTHING impressive about low poly environments with pasted on light textures, i dont see how anyone in the world can be impressed by any aspect of the source engine when it comes to visuals.

 

[_xxx_]

HL2 looked MUCH better with cards capable of DirectX9 path, so if you played it with, say, GF FX or such it really did look flat and lifeless. With a GF6800 4xAA 8XAF @1280 or above, it's a TOTALLY different picture.

 

[hovz]

HL2 looked MUCH better with cards capable of DirectX9 path, so if you played it with, say, GF FX or such it really did look flat and lifeless. With a GF6800 4xAA 8XAF @1280 or above, it's a TOTALLY different picture.

i played at 1076 with aa and af on my 9800 pro.

from here on out i declare that hl2 is now known as flat life 2.

 

[jvd]

hovz feels that console games look better than half life 2


Anyway since i haven't played a console game that has looked better than a pc game in about 2 years i will say he is full of shit and is doing his useual crap on the board .


A few months after the xenon launches we will have faster and more powerfull video cards than what it has with more dedicated ram .

THat is only half the equation though . The cpus have to pass the cpus of the consoles which wont happen anytime soon but the dual core athlon 64s , more total system ram and faster more feature rich video cards will allow the pcs to over take the consoles . It has happened ever generation .

As for pcs having to develop for the lowest spec or a wide range of specs that hhappes on the consoles too . Even though the cube and xbox were more powerfull multi system tittles were developed with the lowest system in mind , the ps3

 

[hovz]

hovz feels that console games look better than half life 2


Anyway since i haven't played a console game that has looked better than a pc game in about 2 years i will say he is full of shit and is doing his useual crap on the board .


A few months after the xenon launches we will have faster and more powerfull video cards than what it has with more dedicated ram .

THat is only half the equation though . The cpus have to pass the cpus of the consoles which wont happen anytime soon but the dual core athlon 64s , more total system ram and faster more feature rich video cards will allow the pcs to over take the consoles . It has happened ever generation .

As for pcs having to develop for the lowest spec or a wide range of specs that hhappes on the consoles too . Even though the cube and xbox were more powerfull multi system tittles were developed with the lowest system in mind , the ps3

so the handfull of games that are cross title games wont make full use of the hardware. theres still the ton of other games that will. even far cry is dumbed down because of low end hardware, and thats the best looking pc game to date.

 

[Bjorn]

HL2 looked MUCH better with cards capable of DirectX9 path, so if you played it with, say, GF FX or such it really did look flat and lifeless. With a GF6800 4xAA 8XAF @1280 or above, it's a TOTALLY different picture.

True, but graphics are more then just sharp textures and high quality AA with some shaders slapped on to it. Sure, Half Life 2 really has to be played at a high res to be interesting in the graphic's departement, but it's still just as flat and lifeless imo. Doom3 is better but not a particulary good game. And a bit too low res to really feel like a next gen game.

 

[hovz]

finally someone who realizes high res + aa and af dont make bad graphics good.

 

[jvd]

True, but graphics are more then just sharp textures and high quality AA with some shaders slapped on to it. Sure, Half Life 2 really has to be played at a high res to be interesting in the graphic's departement, but it's still just as flat and lifeless imo. Doom3 is better but not a particulary good game. And a bit too low res to really feel like a next gen game.

So are you like hoz and believes that unreal championship looks better than half life 2 ?

 

[pegisys]

I have to agree the level design in HL2 was nothing special there was no dynamic lights or shadows, using the flashlight didn't even cast shadows but they did make some of the most believable characters in any game they really seemed to have emotions and the water and glass looked good

 

[suryad]

I do agree Half Life 2...well lacked the oomph I felt when playing Far Cry though far Cry did look cartoonish on my ati card. Sigh i really wish ATI launches their sm 3.0 hardware soon so I can upgrade....too bad I cant upgrae my laptop grphx card.

 

[JD]

In my view, an ideal would be to have both a PC and console as not to miss on some good games. I'm primarily a PC gamer but I played GTA3 on a console with a game pad and I loved it. But it's true that console is limited by the TV screen resolution unless you have a high definition TV which are still expensive compared to regular TVs which most households have. Whereas on the PC most have 17" screen these days plus more memory for detail textures. One other thing I like about PC is that games are cheaper. But I do like to play both console and PC games and each system has something to offer.