The Next-gen Situation discussion *spawn

Dr Evil said:
But yeah those PC-parts aren't seeing the kind of visuals they should. New consoles should help with that.
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I think this is the key point, and is the reason that we should expect to see the same sort of generational leap in graphics with the next consoles.

How many times has it been said that consoles are holding back PC gaming? PCs have tremendous power and the top of the line components are freaking nuts, but is anybody really tapping into those resources or are they just scaling up (sloppily, most likely) existing assets?
 
RancidLunchmeat said:
I think this is the key point, and is the reason that we should expect to see the same sort of generational leap in graphics with the next consoles.

How many times has it been said that consoles are holding back PC gaming? PCs have tremendous power and the top of the line components are freaking nuts, but is anybody really tapping into those resources or are they just scaling up (sloppily, most likely) existing assets?
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But PCs themselves are also holding back gaming. We´re only now starting to move away from DirectX9, and combined with all the abstraction layers, having to run on very many different systems, and the crazy concept that you write for an abstraction layer, and then a company like Nvidia or AMD are going to put optimisations for each and every game in their drivers, is not helping the PC to achieve its full potential. Consoles are much more free from these shackles in theory (even if in practice sometimes multi-platform engines are used that negate this advantage sometimes), so that if you put the same hardware into a closed box, and can write software that takes full advantage of that box, that in itself should give a considerable performance increase over a PC running the same hardware.

Also, stuff like CPUs and GPUs not being able to work together on the full pipeline for many things because the latency is too big doesn't help PC's achieve their full potential either. The 360 and PS3 can do that much better.
 
was puttering around internets and saw this from sweeney back in 2009

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/tim-sweeney-larrabee-unreal-engine,9223.html

Unreal Engine programmer thinks Larrabee could have been something cool.

Zoom

Intel's decision to shelve its graphics chip development project codenamed Larrabee caught some off guard. While the project was often delayed and didn't appear to compete on the same level as the best that AMD and Nvidia have to offer, it did have flashes of brilliance that could have changed the way many thought of GPGPUs.

Epic Games' Tim Sweeney, best known for his work behind the popularly used Unreal Engine, told Bright Side of News why he was excited about Larrabee.

"I see the instruction set and mixedscalar/vector programming model of Larrabee as the ultimate computing model, delivering GPU-class numeric computing performance and CPU-class programmability with an easy-to-use programming model that will ultimately crush fixed-function graphics pipelines," Sweeney said, adding that Intel's technology would be revolutionary whether sold as an add-in card, an integrated graphics solution, or part of the CPU die.

GPU makers today may boast about how many Teraflops its chips can pull off, but Sweeney says that focusing on pure performance "misses a larger point about programmability."

"Today's GPU programming models are too limited to support large-scale software, such as a complete physics engine, or a next-generation graphics pipeline implemented in software," Sweeney told bsn. "No quantity of Teraflops can compensate for a lack of support for dynamic dispatch, a full C++programming model, a coherent memory space, etc."

Stay tuned for more reaction.
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interesting for the conspiracy theorists lol.

though i must admit whenever somebody starts talking about physics my eyes kinda glaze over.
 
Arwin said:
But PCs themselves are also holding back gaming. We´re only now starting to move away from DirectX9.

Also, stuff like CPUs and GPUs not being able to work together on the full pipeline for many things because the latency is too big doesn't help PC's achieve their full potential either. The 360 and PS3 can do that much better.
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They are only now slowly moving from DX9, because the consoles are still DX9 hardware. Even now that high number of PCs are equipped with DX10 and higher GPUs, the PC market alone is not large or viewed as lucrative enough to warrant huge investments aside from few exemptions. Once the next consoles come out and hopefully manage to kill the old gen swiftly, we should see the devs starting to develop for higher configuration specs.

I agree that closed box console environment brings huge!! (/Trump) benefits, but the differences in hardware power between a high end PC and the old consoles is way too big for that to matter too much at this point in time. I mean those next gen demos we saw like the elemental demo, 1313 and that Square one were running on a high end, but still reasonable PC-configuration. The games could pretty much be looking like that today.
 
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almighty said:
This is what the next generation consoles will be competing with, Metro 2033 Last Light


http://i.minus.com/i0ZzlaeEDZ353.gif
http://i.minus.com/ibrNWEMcZ8wnJN.gif
http://i.minus.com/iUTgmSFO5CrxA.gif
http://i.minus.com/ivLjmokAE9quC.gif

All of the above was made from videos of PC gameplay.
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should be a doddle to destroy that imo.

not that it's bad looking, actually very good. just common sense of what's doable on todays ancient consoles vs what next will offer.

thats why i say a pc perfect, 1080p port of crysis 3 should be the low end of next gen. Because that's something that should fit without too much problems on the 7850 class card rumored for PS4. And that alone will be pretty great, but like this gen, we'll end up getting a whole lot more 2-3 years in.
 
Rangers said:
should be a doddle to destroy that imo.

not that it's bad looking, actually very good. just common sense of what's doable on todays ancient consoles vs what next will offer.

thats why i say a pc perfect, 1080p port of crysis 3 should be the low end of next gen. Because that's something that should fit without too much problems on the 7850 class card rumored for PS4. And that alone will be pretty great, but like this gen, we'll end up getting a whole lot more 2-3 years in.
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Crysis 3 is still built with console limitations so it's perhaps not the best game to use, next generation won't be able to handle Metro 2033 like PC can.

You would have to reduce the settings, a single 7850 can't even max the fist Metro game out at 1080p let alone this new game.
 
almighty said:
Crysis 3 is still built with console limitations so it's perhaps not the best game to use, next generation won't be able to handle Metro 2033 like PC can.

You would have to reduce the settings, a single 7850 can't even max the fist Metro game out at 1080p let alone this new game.
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If they build next gen in the same manner current gen, ie advanced..then of course it will run ANY current pc game at max settings 1080p.

People seem to forget when trying to compare consoles to pc that pc gaming is so much less efficient, probably to the factor of 10.

I expect something funky and innovative from at least one manufacturer that will close the gap...if any pc game was ported to a next gen console and done properly, including using the intended bespoke console features..then it would no trouble, I'm perfectly sure of that.

Remember unreal engine 4 has been developed..I can't see that being done without next gen console in mind in 2013..that would be terrible business sense.
 
french toast said:
People seem to forget when trying to compare consoles to pc that pc gaming is so much less efficient, probably to the factor of 10.
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I think that's a gross exaggeration. If true, PS360 would be equivalent to an order of magnitude more powerful PC, which clearly they aren't. The efficiency gains are there, but they are limited, and diminishing I believe, especially with cross-platform development.
 
Arwin said:
But PCs themselves are also holding back gaming. We´re only now starting to move away from DirectX9, and combined with all the abstraction layers, having to run on very many different systems, and the crazy concept that you write for an abstraction layer, and then a company like Nvidia or AMD are going to put optimisations for each and every game in their drivers, is not helping the PC to achieve its full potential.
Click to expand...
Neither is the fact that only a tiny fraction of PC gamers have whatever the current most powerful video card is. What determines the level of PC development is the hardware that potential customers actually have on their desks. You don't see what DX[new] is truly capable of until it's safe for a developer to not support DX[old] without excluding 50% of its potential customers.

And really, if Metro 2033 is the best PCs are doing right now, seven years after the 360 launched, we really are at the point of diminishing returns. The difference between that and the best-looking current-gen console games is nowhere near as big as it as in previous gens (examples: Crysis was 7 years after the PS2 launch, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein was 7 years after the PS1 launch).
 
I still think next generation games will look much better than any PC games out there currently. PC games right now are basically nothing more than higher res version of ps360 games with directx11 topping.
 
almighty said:
You would have to reduce the settings, a single 7850 can't even max the fist Metro game out at 1080p let alone this new game.
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Neither of those were ever developed FOR the maximum settings. The tech behind the game is built and optmised to play well on avarege hardware on medium settings. And still they are not that optmised since they need to use much more generic solutions to run on a multitude of hardware.
The number of consumers capable of running those games on Ultra is too low for any developer to give much thought to. Every effect and feature they offer in the maximum are extremely underoptmised, mostly brute force versions of medium settings effects turned up to 11 without much consideration to cost vs. benefits, or naive implementations of new tech that has multiple oportunities for improvement that are not really looked at for lack of development time.

And that is only looking at the tech side. Art also makes a big difference to the ultimate look of a game. And art too is constrained by the consideration of the medium and low settings version of a game. Artists just can't go too crazy as stuff needs too look similar on all specs.

fearsomepirate said:
The difference between that and the best-looking current-gen console games is nowhere near as big as it as in previous gens (examples: Crysis was 7 years after the PS2 launch, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein was 7 years after the PS1 launch).
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Its because this gen is lasting longer than the past ones. You just pointed out another evidence of how influencial the console cycles are to the whole industry, even the pc-centric segments are affected.
 
milk said:
Neither of those were ever developed FOR the maximum settings. The tech behind the game is built and optmised to play well on avarege hardware on medium settings. And still they are not that optmised since they need to use much more generic solutions to run on a multitude of hardware.
The number of consumers capable of running those games on Ultra is too low for any developer to give much thought to. Every effect and feature they offer in the maximum are extremely underoptmised, mostly brute force versions of medium settings effects turned up to 11 without much consideration to cost vs. benefits, or naive implementations of new tech that has multiple oportunities for improvement that are not really looked at for lack of development time.
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Completely agree with you. If you look at the min specs of PC games, even great looking ones like Witcher 2, the minimum requirements are all around a ATI 38xx GPU, a high end GPU but from 2008. I'm not a believer in engines that are that scalable (38xx series to 78xx, vastly different architectures, orders of magnitudes in performances). When the min spec is a 7750 GPU, then we'll see next gen games.
 
milk said:
Its because this gen is lasting longer than the past ones. You just pointed out another evidence of how influencial the console cycles are to the whole industry, even the pc-centric segments are affected.
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Metro 2033 is not a cross-platform game. I don't buy that the consoles affected its development. You're never going to see the budgets on PCs that you see on consoles because of the lower sales.
 
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user542745831 said:
You might perhaps wanna read the following interview for example:
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The way PC gamers go on about the game, and no one I know has ever even mentioned it, I never realized it got a 360 port. My mistake. Earlier points about overall visual fidelity still stand.

P.S. There are much quicker ways to communicate the existence of a 360 port than telling someone to read an interview.
 
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fearsomepirate said:
Metro 2033 is not a cross-platform game. I don't buy that the consoles affected its development. You're never going to see the budgets on PCs that you see on consoles because of the lower sales.
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You are pointing out one game, which is a rare example of pc-centric AAA game these days (that if you ignore the fact that it will get a console port anyways) I say cosole cycles have a big impact in the entire gaming industry, and output of pc games is included.
But if you wanna look at this one game isolated from everything else, yes it was impacted by the length of this console generation indirectly. Most of the technology used in a game was initially conceived by different studios, many times competing studios, but the techniches spread and become common knoalege. Aside from that, there is simply a certain expectation to what is doable and what is not on a videogame, how much is enough to be impressive, how much is too little. That bar is raised with time, but it get enormous bumps every new console generation. Well, none of these bumps has happened in the last 7 years, hence you are so impressed by Metro´s graphics, which would look trivial if xbox1080 was already out for 3 years. If that was the case, Metro would be looking even better. Much much better I might add.
 
milk said:
You are pointing out one game, which is a rare example of pc-centric AAA game these days (that if you ignore the fact that it will get a console port anyways) I say cosole cycles have a big impact in the entire gaming industry, and output of pc games is included.
But if you wanna look at this one game isolated from everything else, yes it was impacted by the length of this console generation indirectly. Most of the technology used in a game was initially conceived by different studios, many times competing studios, but the techniches spread and become common knoalege. Aside from that, there is simply a certain expectation to what is doable and what is not on a videogame, how much is enough to be impressive, how much is too little. That bar is raised with time, but it get enormous bumps every new console generation. Well, none of these bumps has happened in the last 7 years, hence you are so impressed by Metro´s graphics, which would look trivial if xbox1080 was already out for 3 years. If that was the case, Metro would be looking even better. Much much better I might add.
Click to expand...

STALKER games are PC centric and have pushed the PC forward...
 
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