djskribbles
Legend
I'm no tech wiz, but by the sounds of it, console development is actually helping PC development in some ways.
*spin-off* Console Hardware Holding Back PC Graphics?
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I can see why you would say that based on that video, he does say that the console optimisations are being fed into the PC side which is obviously a good thing.
But its still a sad fact that console limitations are holding back the development of PC graphics and so overall, consoles are definately hurting PC graphics development more than they are helping it.
He does say that they have a separate console team which came up with many new optimizations. These got merged with what the PC team was doing. So it seems like having console versions in this case is actually speeding up improvements on the PC versions at least with regards to frame rate, since there are many more people tackling the problems (two full teams instead of just one PC team). The substantially more money to be made with console versions has allowed them to hire more brain power, which in turn helps the PC version as well. This is a good thing no?
Well, if the engine's multiplatform support is as good as it looks, than it may help PC gaming, and indirectly PC graphics beyond the optimizations.
To me it sounded more like "the new console programmers have managed to optimize our engine so that it finally started to run well on PCs as well".
Oh yeah its definatly a good thing in that regard. But then for example, if Crysis 2 on the PC is basically the same as the console version as happens with most other cross platform games then the consoles will be responsible for holding back graphics progression again. Certainly performance will be better thanks to them but I would rather an amazing looking game at 30fps than a console looking game at 150fps.
It might not happen at all with Crysis 2 but its certainly happening all over the place with other games.
My point is though that if PC graphics weren't so closely tied to console graphics, there would be no need to get excited about CE3 since the PC would have lots of other exlcusive games which already pushed its technical boundries.
ShadowRunner
Veteran
If there is tons of money waitng to be made by pushing graphics on PC then that is what would happen. PC graphics are being held back by money primarily.
Well yeah, because its all been diverted to the consoles.
Indeed. They produced Crysis without much regard for optimisations, with the stance that 'they can just buy a faster GPU or three'. But once they were given the constraints of the consoles, they had to think in terms of incredible efficiency, which produces better efficiency, which would mean better results for a given piece of PC hardware too. PC gamers should rejoice, as their platform will benefit from the lessons of console gaming!
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Well it already runs good however more optimisations for PC architecture and visual uppgrades are welcome. Many where expecting to play it at 1080p at launch however that was hard to achieve but sane resolutions of ~1440x900 or around that was no problem nor is it today. Heck I enjoy all 3 games full tilt at that res and 4xAA (4870/4890). It is also interesting to see that Crysis Wars is getting optimisations and improved tech where as Crysis and Warhead are "done" as in not getting more patches. Maybe some bits from CE3.
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The "limitation" of a large consumer base provides more resources but more poignently: the PC market is what is holding back PC game development. Blame brand new $700 dekstops and notebooks with GPUs 20% the performance of 4 year old consoles...
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brain_stew
Regular
Well the only recent game to do that (Crysis) was a hugely successful multi million seller that managed to fund huge studio growth. No one knows if there's money to be made doing that until they try it, the most recent example suggests that there is.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
Crytek's head honcho already said in a previous interview that they never made money on Crysis for the PC. He said something along the lines of it not being a commercial success even though it sold over a million, whereas Warhead was (obviously as it was dirst cheap to make in comparison).
He also did say that it was the very reason that Crytek HAD to come to consoles.
Just as someone else previously said in this forum, the things holding back PC gaming are heavily underpowered integrated graphics solutions, piracy (arguably) and dirty DRM applications.
All in all, for most developers looking to actually make money from non MMO projects/casual shovelware, consoles are just that much more appealing. (Well unless you're Gabe Newill and have a platform like Steam
)Well they said Crysis broke atleast even and Warhead was a financial success. Of course Crysis cost more due to R&D for CE2. Games after that of course will be much cheaper as the base is already done (CE).
I dont think he said that, let me find the interview later.
But words like this from Crytek:
Says what I said before. Crytek was already starting to make CE3 to support consoles aswell... that is 2006 and Crysis was launched autumn 2007.
Regardless of the underlying reasons (which I haven't tried to touch upon), PC graphics are still being made with console limitations in mind and hence the technical limitations of the consoles are holding back PC graphics.
If the consoles were twice as powerful, PC graphics would be much better. Thats all I'm saying.
Yes its great that the PC is getting highly optimised engines thanks to the consoles. But there's no deying the fact that those engines are not pushing the PC's limitations (as evidenced by very high framerates on even modest hardware) compared to what the PC would be getting if its graphics weren't tied to the capabilities of consoles - regardless of the reason for that attachement.
The first was direct feed, this is off screen. Off screen always looks better but oddly a lot of people don't seem to recognize that fact. I said earlier in the thread that this looks like the same footage to me. And yeah, it looked great back then too! In this instance though we have got to see a little more of the scene's which has helped to impress me a bit more.
But that's been true of PCs for as long as PCs have been around, due to the fragmented nature of the install base. Few developers target High-End. Most target some vague sense of middlingness so that Joe Public with whoever-knows-what graphics card can still play the game. I'd say that lessons learnt from the consoles will improve the average PC experience for all but the serious PC gamer who makes an effort to stay abrest of technological progress. And those serious PC gamers should be used to having hardware features that aren't being used, let along maximised, because that's the way it's always been bar a few rare exceptions (seems to me anyhow). The chief reason to upgrade to high-end GPUs isn't to enable new features, but to render the same thing in higher resolution with more AA and AF. Few developers are going to sweat over implementating tesselated mesh morphications on DX11 hardware when 99% of the install base is DX10 or lower!
There is a lot of empty talk in regard to console limiting PC etc.
For instance directx 11 bring Pc on parity with the 360 in regard to multi threaded rendering, Console holding PC back?
Or console rendition prevent post processing or others effects to be achieved through compute shader?
A lot of the pc limitation indeed come from heterogeneous environment from API to GPU features
For instance directx 11 bring Pc on parity with the 360 in regard to multi threaded rendering, Console holding PC back?
Or console rendition prevent post processing or others effects to be achieved through compute shader?
A lot of the pc limitation indeed come from heterogeneous environment from API to GPU features
But its far worse today than it ever has been before. In the past, even last generation it was relatively easy to find PC games, often exclusives at this point in the console life cycle that were pushing beyond what the consoles are capable of (in some cases they got watered down ports but they were far from equivilent).
Today though virtually every game is almost identical across all platforms. This is 4 years into the console cycle with PC GPU's of easily 5x the raw power available (and a new generation set to double that in a couple of months).
Crysis was one of the few games this generation that went beyond consoles as so many did in past generations and now its looking at least possible that even its sequel will be equalised to console capabilities and not the much improved capabilites of the PC since the original launched.
I don't think there is any doubt at all that PC graphics have been reigned in this generation compared to previous generations in relation to console graphics.
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