*spin-off* Console Hardware Holding Back PC Graphics?

[pjbliverpool]

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

Are you actually trying to say that its limitations of PC gamig hardware capability (not igp's, real gaming GPU's) that have held it back from exceeding console graphics to date? And only with the launch of DX11 are PC's finally on par with consoles technically?

If so then thats absurd. Sure consoles have had advantages in some areas and always will even with DX11. But that doesn't in any way put them on par with modern gaming PC's capabilities wise.

The reason for PC graphics being equalised to console graphics is 100% business related. Simple fact is that no developer cares to leverage the power of modern PC gaming hardware because the market is so small compared with consoles.

If a developer decided they did want to leverage that hardware. You can rest assured they would not be restricted by the API or anything else you mentioned to console only level graphics.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

If the consoles were twice as powerful, PC graphics would be much better. Thats all I'm saying.

Not the case. The lowest common denominator is always what the target market has in their computers. Which is super slow DX9 graphics nowadays...

Look at WoW. Would it have normal mapping and advanced shadows if the X360 graphics system was twice as fast? No, because the devs look at hardware sales and surveys and calculate the size of the userbase they need from this data.
SIMS aims for a large audience as well, hence no gfx trickery there either.

If there was a hundred million SLI Geforce combo sold and in use, then would PC graphics look better. But very few hardcore gamers are out there, and even most of the ones buying FPS games don't have too fast machines so they also have to make stuff like COD scale down to their systems as well.

So please don't blame the consoles.

 

[Neb]

Are you actually trying to say that its limitations of PC gamig hardware capability (not igp's, real gaming GPU's) that have held it back from exceeding console graphics to date? And only with the launch of DX11 are PC's finally on par with consoles technically?

In all the latest CE3 videos the PC running editor was on WinXP as evident by the screen. DX9.. of course CE3 is also DX10 ready and will have DX11 support. And interesting to note that all DX10 exclusive/designed for effects are completly absent in CE3 techdemo. So perhaps DX9 is enough to drive what consoles can do feature wise in realistic scenarios.

If so then thats absurd. Sure consoles have had advantages in some areas and always will even with DX11. But that doesn't in any way put them on par with modern gaming PC's capabilities wise.

The important thing to remember is that a feature aint worth nothing if it cant be used in a game with decent speed. Even if a brute force approach is much less optimised if the hardware still can do it at playable speeds then it is usable. You need GPU CPU processing punch.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

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).

Making such a game costs 2-5 times as much as the past generation (particularly before Doom3 and the normal map revolution). Sales have been stagnating at best, but more likely declining considerably. So it's a lot harder to make money on a game that requires top of the line PC hardware. See Crysis.

So it's a purely financial reason and hasn't got anything to do with the consoles.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Not the case. The lowest common denominator is always what the target market has in their computers. Which is super slow DX9 graphics nowadays...

Look at WoW. Would it have normal mapping and advanced shadows if the X360 graphics system was twice as fast? No, because the devs look at hardware sales and surveys and calculate the size of the userbase they need from this data.
SIMS aims for a large audience as well, hence no gfx trickery there either.

If there was a hundred million SLI Geforce combo sold and in use, then would PC graphics look better. But very few hardcore gamers are out there, and even most of the ones buying FPS games don't have too fast machines so they also have to make stuff like COD scale down to their systems as well.

So please don't blame the consoles.

What about Bioshock, CoD4, Dirt, Grid, NfS, GTA4, Farcry 2, Gears of War, Lost PLanet, Assassins Creed... the list goes on and on.

All of these games would have looked better if the consoles were twice as powerful as they are now. Do you think the PC versions of those games then would have looked identical to the current PC incarnations and would not have matched the console versions? It seems like one hell of a coincidence that virtually every cross platform game out there has the PC version look virtually identical to the console version if whats determining its graphics is not the consoles themselves, but rather legacy PC hardware.

Making such a game costs 2-5 times as much as the past generation (particularly before Doom3 and the normal map revolution). Sales have been stagnating at best, but more likely declining considerably. So it's a lot harder to make money on a game that requires top of the line PC hardware. See Crysis.

So it's a purely financial reason and hasn't got anything to do with the consoles.

Of course it has, as I said above, PC graphics are constrained to what the consoles are pushing out. Why they are contrstained to what the consoles are pushing out is not the subject matter of my argument (if it were then I would be agreeing with you completely). My argument is that PC graphics are tied to console graphics and hence being held back by the consoles hardware capabilties.

EDIT: to put it another way, many people often say that they can't wait for the next generation of consoles so that PC graphics will finally move forwards again. Hell even many high profile developers have said PC graphics will not progress much further until the next generation of consoles. Why is this if PC graphics are not tied to console graphics?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Of course it has, as I said above, PC graphics are constrained to what the consoles are pushing out. Why they are contrstained to what the consoles are pushing out is not the subject matter of my argument (if it were then I would be agreeing with you completely). My argument is that PC graphics are tied to console graphics and hence being held back by the consoles hardware capabilties.

I agree with everything you said, not just the quoted part, but it is what it is and it's probably only going to get worse and worse for the PC in the future. Consoles might not get so big generational upgrades anymore and the generations last longer, not to mention the Wii business model has been so successful that it might influence Sony and MS in the future. Resources are continuing to be put into consoles in an increasing fashion and it seems more games are going to stay console exlusives or the very least become timed exclusives.

You chose to ignore the whys in your angle, but the whys are only going to get bigger and bigger.

 

[obonicus]

Not the case. The lowest common denominator is always what the target market has in their computers. Which is super slow DX9 graphics nowadays...

But part of the point is that it hasn't always been this way. People have always had slow cards and systems, but it used to be that game makers would target the high-end of PC gamers. It's what id did, it's what Epic did, it's what Crytek did. Hell, if you go 10 years back it might get even worse, with a bunch of devs that are console-focused today making games that the vast majority of PCs of the time would never be able to run.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

All of these games would have looked better if the consoles were twice as powerful as they are now.

Yes - but that's because these are not PC games. These are console games that have been ported to the PC. Their entire development and game mechanics have been based on console gaming and the release on an additional platform is a bonus.

Just as Doom3 for the Xbox was not a console game, but the console port of a PC game. And Halo has been converted into a console game, that's been ported to the PC too. See the logic here?


Crysis, a purely PC game, has in no way been constrained by console graphics, which is why they have to redo a lot of the tech to port it now. And it looks like they're basicaly transitioning to a console studio as well, and if I'm right their next game will have console based game mechanics.

Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 will be the same. Blizzard is taking a lot of risk here with the graphics requirements, although I'm sure that you can dumb them down a lot to get it work on an average notebook. But they too are in no way limited by console capabilities and still they don't really try to push the envelope.

EDIT: to put it another way, many people often say that they can't wait for the next generation of consoles so that PC graphics will finally move forwards again. Hell even many high profile developers have said PC graphics will not progress much further until the next generation of consoles. Why is this if PC graphics are not tied to console graphics?

That's because PC gaming is almost entirely dead, at least the high-end kind of it. Without the consoles there wouldn't even be games like what you've listed above.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

But part of the point is that it hasn't always been this way. People have always had slow cards and systems, but it used to be that game makers would target the high-end of PC gamers.

Again:
Making such a high end game today costs 2x-5x as much money, and sales have probably dropped, so it's almost impossible to be profitable this way. And it's not a charity...

Quake3 was a high end game, it required a 3D accelerator. Id recalls that it's their most returned game ever, from people who had no such hardware - so it sold about 5-600K altogether. At that time it was enough to still make a profit, but today it'd kill the studio.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The fact that some people are mad that the console space is holding back PC graphics shows how irrelevant the PC space has become.

If the games don't push the hardware, don't buy the hardware. Buy a lower end PC and supplement it with a console.

 

[obonicus]

Again:
Making such a high end game today costs 2x-5x as much money, and sales have probably dropped, so it's almost impossible to be profitable this way. And it's not a charity...

Quake3 was a high end game, it required a 3D accelerator. Id recalls that it's their most returned game ever, from people who had no such hardware - so it sold about 5-600K altogether. At that time it was enough to still make a profit, but today it'd kill the studio.

I know all that. You're saying that the lowest common denominator would always be the limiting factor, though, and I'm saying that it hasn't always been like that. It used to be that whatever power consoles were at, it didn't really matter -- at best, they were getting the port, at worst it'd be PC-only. Yes, the market has changed, yes, the market was never that big to begin with. But that's exactly my point, things have changed.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

It has always been like that! But how many you needed above the lowest then and now has changed significantly, can't you see? So they have to keep lowering the bar of entry!

 

[obonicus]

It has always been like that! But how many you needed above the lowest then and now has changed significantly, can't you see? So they have to keep lowering the bar of entry!

Right. To whatever consoles can handle. The lowest common denominator on PCs still isn't a huge factor if you're not the Sims or a Blizzard game or an MMO -- just look at all the terrible ports released that certainly wouldn't run on old machines. The bottleneck is consoles.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Yes - but that's because these are not PC games. These are console games that have been ported to the PC. Their entire development and game mechanics have been based on console gaming and the release on an additional platform is a bonus.

Its semantics really but I disagree. They are on the PC therefore they are PC games. They may not have been released first on the PC and in many cases they may not even have been developed simultaneously on the PC but they still represent the high end PC games market. The only PC exclusives these days, bar the odd exception are the low end games designed to hit the whole range of systems. That doesn't mean they are the "only PC games" left though. The only PC exclusives sure but as a PC gamer, I can assure you they are not the only PC games.

Were once the high end of PC gaming had lots of exclusives, today i has only multiplatform games and console ports. Regardless of the reasons for this, those games, that high end PC gaming market is constrained by console capabiliites.

Just as Doom3 for the Xbox was not a console game, but the console port of a PC game. And Halo has been converted into a console game, that's been ported to the PC too. See the logic here?

I see your distinction between a port, an exclusive and a true multi platform game. I just don't see its relevance to my point. In discussing the best looking game on the orginal xbox would you have discounted Doom 3 because "its not an xbox game"?

Crysis, a purely PC game, has in no way been constrained by console graphics, which is why they have to redo a lot of the tech to port it now. And it looks like they're basicaly transitioning to a console studio as well, and if I'm right their next game will have console based game mechanics.

Yes, this is in complete agreement with my point. As I said earlier, Crysis was one of the last of the "old style" PC games that targetted high end PC's with no regards for console technology. Those types of games were more common in the past but now they are effectively dead. One of my original key points was that even Crytek look like they will be releasing their next game based not on high end PC capabilities but rather based on console limitations. And that will feed through to the PC version. I hope I'm wrong of course but at this stage I'm beginning to doubt it.

That's because PC gaming is almost entirely dead, at least the high-end kind of it. Without the consoles there wouldn't even be games like what you've listed above.

So what? That has nothing to do with my point as I have tried to explain several times. I'm not interested in why the PC's highest end games are basically just console ports. I'm merely pointing out that they are, and as such are constrained by the consoles capabilities.

Lower end games that target the low end market don't come into this because they have always existed. Its only the high end market thats ever pushed PC graphics forward and its this market that has become tied to the consoles.

EDIT: re-reading your point again, I just wanted to point out that without the consoles there pretty obviously would be games like that because the PC would be the only gaming platform and hence all development effort would go into it and all revenue would come from it. In fact if there weren't any consoles then the average graphics for games would be way higher than they are today because they would be targetting the higher end PC hardware, just like they did in the past before consoles started to take over.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Right. To whatever consoles can handle. The lowest common denominator on PCs still isn't a huge factor if you're not the Sims or a Blizzard game or an MMO -- just look at all the terrible ports released that certainly wouldn't run on old machines.

You're still getting it completely backwards.

PC games aren't designed with consoles in mind.

Console games that get ported to the PC are the ones designed with consoles in mind.

And the costs of adding scalability (or making a substandard console version) outwheigh the possible wins from the PC market. Studios are just going for 'found money' when they release multiplatform games on PCs.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes, this is in complete agreement with my point. As I said earlier, Crysis was one of the last of the "old style" PC games that targetted high end PC's with no regards for console technology.

Jut as a reference point, as I haven't followed the PC gaming scene, can you give a few references as a sort of timeline going back however long you feel PCs have had their envelope pushed. It'd also need those games to be compared to the peak hardware of the time and the 'average'. I've played a few PC games since 2000, Morrowind, NWN, Guild Wars, a couple of others, and none was really taxing the hardware of the day like Crysis. In fact Dungeon Seige looked primitive versus BGDA on PS2. So without examples, you can't convince me the PC had a golden era of devs stretching the hardware!

 

[pjbliverpool]

The fact that some people are mad that the console space is holding back PC graphics shows how irrelevant the PC space has become.

If the games don't push the hardware, don't buy the hardware. Buy a lower end PC and supplement it with a console.

At least for the time being there is still a reason to have a reasonably high end PC in that you can get the same games that the console have with better framerates, higher resolutions and some minor graphical tweaks. If these things matter to you and money isn't an issue then PC gaming still has its advantages. The advantages used to be much greater of course but thats the point of the discussion.

 

[joker454]

The bottleneck is consoles.

What about PC folk who are tired of upgrading their PC's are bringing the high end level down? I'll use pjbliverpool's hardware as the example. He is clearly a die hard pc gamer. But I look at his sig and see that he's using an 8800GTS. That is a very old video card! In the era of skyrocketing development costs, how can you expect a developer to target high end PC hardware when even PC diehard's aren't using the latest and greatest hardware anymore? I could use myself as an example as well, I use a cheap Ati 4850. I used to be on top of all the latest PC hardware, my chain of video card upgrades was absurd. But over the years the upgrade chain has slowed down dramatically.

Plus if you really want to throw blame, it should be thrown at PC piracy. I could end this entire argument right here if I could run off a list of games that *lost* money based on data that I have been privy to from other publishers. This includes games that are hugely popular, talked about here, and thought by forum goers to have make money since they sold decent numbers of PC units, but in fact many actually lost money due to piracy, and the costs of fighting piracy. I realize that this point is just about impossible to make on a forum as for whatever reason people still believe that millions of torrents have no effect on a companies bottom line. But I'm telling you from absolute fact that *many* PC games lost money, and not just crappy ones, some very loved and very famous games as well.

If you want to throw blame, throw it as the imbeciles that download torrents. They killed PC gaming.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I see your distinction between a port, an exclusive and a true multi platform game. I just don't see its relevance to my point. In discussing the best looking game on the orginal xbox would you have discounted Doom 3 because "its not an xbox game"?

We're not discussing best looking games here, we're discussing the technological vs. financial realities of game development.

One of my original key points was that even Crytek look like they will be releasing their next game based not on high end PC capabilities but rather based on console limitations.

Because they are transitioning into becoming a console developer.

I'm not interested in why the PC's highest end games are basically just console ports. I'm merely pointing out that they are, and as such are constrained by the consoles capabilities.

Which is completely logical, because they are console ports and not highend PC games! So somehow the consoles are responsible for the PC ports not getting extra features? And the lack of sales on the PC platform has nothing to do with it??

Its only the high end market thats ever pushed PC graphics forward and its this market that has become tied to the consoles.

No; it has died out, almost completely, because of financial unsustainability. It has even been predicted many years ago, google diminishing returns in graphics or something like that.

EDIT: re-reading your point again, I just wanted to point out that without the consoles there pretty obviously would be games like that because the PC would be the only gaming platform and hence all development effort would go into it and all revenue would come from it.

And so, we'd only get the SIMS and WOWs.
Cause, you know, people still wouldn't buy SLI Geforces like crazy. Average console users have absolutely no clue, and don't care, about graphics.

In fact if there weren't any consoles then the average graphics for games would be way higher than they are today because they would be targetting the higher end PC hardware, just like they did in the past before consoles started to take over.

No; without consoles the average level of graphics hardware on the PCs would still be the limiting factor, and without advanced hardware sold at a loss in the consoles, the PC market would not even get ports.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Jut as a reference point, as I haven't followed the PC gaming scene, can you give a few references as a sort of timeline going back however long you feel PCs have had their envelope pushed. It'd also need those games to be compared to the peak hardware of the time and the 'average'. I've played a few PC games since 2000, Morrowind, NWN, Guild Wars, a couple of others, and none was really taxing the hardware of the day like Crysis. In fact Dungeon Seige looked primitive versus BGDA on PS2. So without examples, you can't convince me the PC had a golden era of devs stretching the hardware!

I can only really look back as far as the last generation but by this point in the console cycle (in fact well before this point) we had games like Farcry, Doom 3, Half Life 2, XPAND Rally and FEAR was either close or already released. There are probably a few more but its difficult to think back that far beyond the really big titles. This generation we have Crysis, and er Crysis Warhead! Ok STALKER Clear Skys as well but beyond that there is nothing. Everything else is just a high res console game.

The point isn't that those games were pushing PC hardware though, its that there were PC exclusives (or PC first at least) titles that went obviously beyond console graphics. That would be possible today too without pushing the boundries. Afterall, G80 is over 3 years old now and pretty much no games target it as a base for their graphics. In fact the entire pace of hardware progression has slowed down to co-incide with this lack of games. 4 years after xbox launched we were probably on or very near to the 7800GTX.

Anyway, if people don't want to take my word for it that PC graphics are constrained by the consoles, maybe they will take Cevat Yerli's:

http://gamescom.gamespot.com/story/6215393/current-gen-to-last-until-2012-crytek