The Next-gen Situation discussion *spawn

[Platon]

Always good to see proof next gen exists.

Since the pic is kinda small, it appears to be a bunch of current gen dev kits. Certainly X360 ones.

Its seems that there are both xbox and ps dev kits there, but indeed, good to see that next gen is "around the corner"...

 

[Nesh]

I always thought that Sony gaming phone was a spectacular idea, just poorly executed, because that thing quickly had horribly outdated hardware and they never iterated on it. Where was the Experia Play 2 with updated specs? It never existed.

Have a sneaking suspicion now I could be wrong though. People may just not want the added complexity of buttons on their phone at all.

I think it would have been a good idea for MS to position Windows Phone as "the" gaming phone/OS. However they might have tried to do that. MS is pretty stupid though, lol.

I dont think its the complexity of the buttons the issue. The buttons actually remove some complexities away. The button layout is simple. Its as simple as holding a nes controllwe. I have Xperia Play and there are various reasons why it wasnt a success and why its not the gaming phone people were expecting.
Its heavier than other phones, the specs are outdated and feels slow after a while, phone's memory is very small and gets filled up pretty quickly, the performance of the phone is unstable and some apps crass often, there are some issues with the browser such as when a video window is very big in an internet page, it doesnt leave much room to use touch to scroll, its thick and not a very pretty phone compared to the slick and thin designs of new models, its not an eye catcher, it wasnt marketed well enough and since its games arent the best to watch due to outdated specs, people are not attracted to its gaming potential.
If Xperia Play came with better specs and great games that showcased it, people would have opted for it as a real gaming phone. But it fails to communicate that

 

[DieH@rd]

Just saw this retweeted by digital foundry

https://twitter.com/CHSundberg/status/269005697860132864/photo/1

Excelent, Just Cause 3 will be epic.

 

[wco81]

Its seems that there are both xbox and ps dev kits there, but indeed, good to see that next gen is "around the corner"...

I would have rather seen this a year or two ago, skip the whole Kinect and Move thing to pad out this generation.

 

[DoctorFouad]

yeah yeah definitely only on paper, many reasons.


succces of durango/orbis an all this "next gen" will be very important for AAA oriented developers. Moreso than graphical parity (not "framebuffer parity") of pc version( Pc marketd drifted away from AAA in comparison to last transition ...).I bet we will see many situations like just cause, GRAW, bad company etc when pc version was lacking significant feauters/was late outrageous port. Basicly, in many cases i expect soft touched last gen versions for pc, not for technology sake, but marketing/small target base on pc sideExlusives will be out of reach for budget reasons no matter how many fans we screw in pc case.
And i feel there might more of them, sonys and ms studios are growing quickly... and in this day and age will be main selling points

In addition to that, last transition devs had to learn how to deal with all these mulicore/mulithreded paradigm and even shaders in case od sony developers. This time it will be easier to bring out the performance quickly.


So yes there will be cards with paper spec much higher, especially when maxwell arrives year after... Just like last time , in many cases underperforming(x1000/7800 in graw/jc, few performing better(if game is pc port need for speed etc.)Soon after that we'll hear about new API needed (of course on another round of cards), which should bring "revolution" in pc side , but in practice will be used to make up for inefficiencies and allow second and third generation of durango/orbis games to come to pc and that 2014 cards will fade out.


This vision is somehow grim for tiny bit of pc graphics enthusiast left in me. Sadly, considering all of this, and remembering how this gen unfolded (eg. after seven years we don't have anything remotely on a scale of FEAR on pc which came out 4 years after last consoles), IQ gap will shrink again, an multi platforms are mostly uprezzed console ports.

For me this is like being happy, that in 2006 i can play quake 3 in my native monitor resolution....

If these situation is going to repeat i'll gladly see those fancy new cards only in b3d discussions.

It is strange but console gamers felt the same with the PC game crysis in 2006, they purchased a new highly advanced console (ps3) only to discover a couple of months later that there exists a PC game which cannot run in their console and they wont see anything as graphically advanced in all future years of their conole life....that was frustrating, it killed the enthusiasm for nextgen console graphics right away, even uncharted1 didnt seem that advanced anymore... it was a sad period for console gamers....

of course that changed when console gamers find out that crysis was an anomaly in the pc world, an exceptional weird case that wasent repeated for many years until today....so they enjoyed again their Halos, killzones, gran turismos, forzas, mass effect, assassins creed, bioshock, gears of war, uncharted,....etc knowing that these console games have nothing to fear technically from any PC game of the day, and keeping in mind that Crysis was indeed an exception, an anomaly...

I hope the Crysis PC anomaly wont happen again to spoil nextgen consoles launch and first months of existence, I dont want to buy a new console to find out in 2 moths that a PC game exists that blow out anything my console do and can do in its 10 years future lifetime...thats frustrating...sigh...


I am fine with Quake2/ Half Life 2-Doom3 / kind of technological PC revolution happening after several years of console release dates, but 2 months, seriously ? I hope not...

and yes I am a fanboy console gamer and glad to be. (and by the way the next naughty dog / guerilla / santa monica / polyphony digiital nextgen game would blow away anything PCs can do in 2013-2014)

 

[function]

It is strange but console gamers felt the same with the PC game crysis in 2006, they purchased a new highly advanced console (ps3) only to discover a couple of months later that there exists a PC game which cannot run in their console and they wont see anything as graphically advanced in all future years of their conole life....that was frustrating, it killed the enthusiasm for nextgen console graphics right away, even uncharted1 didnt seem that advanced anymore... it was a sad period for console gamers....

The Emperor's New Crysis.

Most console gamers didn't give a shit about Crysis, both when it was "utterly impossible" on consoles and when it turned out that consoles could actually run it pretty well, even on a first gen multiplatform port of the engine (this led to a whole new dumper truck of bullshit and hyperbole from Cevat Yerli).

The goalpost shifting from Crysis fans as screenshots of console versions improved and improved features were added was almost as epic as the constant downgrading of expectations of Wii U hardware by Nintendo fans.

 

[Rangers]

The Emperor's New Crysis.

Most console gamers didn't give a shit about Crysis, both when it was "utterly impossible" on consoles and when it turned out that consoles could actually run it pretty well, even on a first gen multiplatform port of the engine (this led to a whole new dumper truck of bullshit and hyperbole from Cevat Yerli).

The goalpost shifting from Crysis fans as screenshots of console versions improved and improved features were added was almost as epic as the constant downgrading of expectations of Wii U hardware by Nintendo fans.

I dont know if you'd call it pretty well...there are definitely major major cutbacks. It all goes back to that never ending debate what exactly constitutes a machine "handling" a game. Can be argued both ways for Crysis.

 

[DoctorFouad]

I dont know if you'd call it pretty well...there are definitely major major cutbacks. It all goes back to that never ending debate what exactly constitutes a machine "handling" a game. Can be argued both ways for Crysis.

I agree, when you cut texture resolution by half (1024*1024 in best case scenario for the console version VS CONSTANT 2048*2048 textures for the PC version) I wont call it myself handling pretty well....

crysis was impressive for its time not because (as some people would love to believe) the complexity and size of the environment (for consoles Shenmue for dreamcast, GTA3 on PS2 did that years before) it was impressive because of the VERY HIGH QUALITY assets used for the game which used every bit of any GPU power you through at the game. so it is debatable that if you cut the quality of those assets, are we talking really about the same technical achievement ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It is strange but console gamers felt the same with the PC game crysis in 2006, they purchased a new highly advanced console (ps3) only to discover a couple of months later that there exists a PC game which cannot run in their console and they wont see anything as graphically advanced in all future years of their conole life....that was frustrating, it killed the enthusiasm for nextgen console graphics right away, even uncharted1 didnt seem that advanced anymore... it was a sad period for console gamers....

You've an odd view of console gamers. Maybe that's how you felt, but most console gamers were pretty oblivious to PC games and were delighting in their Gears and Uncharted and wowed at the graphics. There was no misery or disappointment, and no deflating of next-gen enthusiasm.

I hope the Crysis PC anomaly wont happen again to spoil nextgen consoles launch and first months of existence, I dont want to buy a new console to find out in 2 moths that a PC game exists that blow out anything my console do and can do in its 10 years future lifetime...thats frustrating...sigh...

You get what you pay for. If you want the quality of a £1000+ PC game, buy a £1000+ PC. Or £600 PC versus a £300 console. Or whatever. The only way what you want could ever come to pass is if PC developers cap their PC games to limit them to console quality (1080p, 4xMSAA, 30 fps dropping frames here and there, yada yada), which is a ridiculous thing to hope for that'll never happen. Battlefield 4 on a good PC rig will look better than on console and there ain't nothing the consoles can do about it as long as they are priced less than a PC with hundreds of watts of dual GPU and an i7 CPU that alone costs as much as an entire console.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

it was impressive because of the VERY HIGH QUALITY assets used for the game which used every bit of any GPU power you through at the game.

I would really, really like to see the day when a texture's quality is not determined by its resolution. A mildly processed 2048*2048 digital photo is not high quality in my book.

Yes there were good things in Crysis, but the art direction has always been somewhat uninspired, starting with the nanosuit design. Most of the 'big' console games had far better visuals overall.


Not to mention how the game run terribly on most 2006-level PC hardware, and how it turned out to be because of some serious programming issues.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Battlefield 4 on a good PC rig will look better than on console and there ain't nothing the consoles can do about it as long as they are priced less than a PC with hundreds of watts of dual GPU and an i7 CPU that alone costs as much as an entire console.

90-95% of video game customers won't be able to tell the differences. A lot of people thought COD Black Ops was running at 1920*1080... If you point out some of the more obvious issues like downgraded texture resolution, they might realize it's there, but the majority sill won't have anyone to do that for them.

The difference between Wii and X360/PS3 games was the kind that was easy for them to spot, but even that had a lot to do with the lack of comparable genres.

 

[tuna]

90-95% of video game customers won't be able to tell the differences. A lot of people thought COD Black Ops was running at 1920*1080... If you point out some of the more obvious issues like downgraded texture resolution, they might realize it's there, but the majority sill won't have anyone to do that for them.

Do you have any kind of stats to back this statement?

 

[almighty]

I would really, really like to see the day when a texture's quality is not determined by its resolution. A mildly processed 2048*2048 digital photo is not high quality in my book.

Yes there were good things in Crysis, but the art direction has always been somewhat uninspired, starting with the nanosuit design. Most of the 'big' console games had far better visuals overall.


Not to mention how the game run terribly on most 2006-level PC hardware, and how it turned out to be because of some serious programming issues.

Crysis art design was fine, maybe today it looks a bit naff but when it released and even years after it was still top notch and it even holds up well today in my opinion.

Crysis is still CPU limited and has been for a few years now, draw back of only running on a few threads.

And I had it running at 1920x1080 in 2006 with a pretty much steady 30-40fps.

And I would really like to know what 'big' console games look better overall because I've not seen a single console game that has asset quality that is as high in quality and more importantly, as consistent as it is in Crysis.

 

[DoctorFouad]

You get what you pay for. If you want the quality of a £1000+ PC game, buy a £1000+ PC. Or £600 PC versus a £300 console. Or whatever. The only way what you want could ever come to pass is if PC developers cap their PC games to limit them to console quality (1080p, 4xMSAA, 30 fps dropping frames here and there, yada yada), which is a ridiculous thing to hope for that'll never happen. Battlefield 4 on a good PC rig will look better than on console and there ain't nothing the consoles can do about it as long as they are priced less than a PC with hundreds of watts of dual GPU and an i7 CPU that alone costs as much as an entire console.

I dont agree with that, PCs have of course more processing power than consoles but that dosent mean that all this power would be used by developers, Crysis was an exception, an anomaly as I explained in my pprevious post;

In fall 2005 there was simply not a single PC game thats running as high quality assets as gears of war or call of duty 2 (xbox360), whatever PC you bought at that time you wont get the same quality graphics.

another example is gran turismo 5 prologue in 2007, you can buy at that time any PC you want even at 10.000 $ even a PC that is 10 times more powerful than ps3, but you cant run a PC racing game at the same quality assets.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

In fall 2005 there was simply not a single PC game thats running as high quality assets as gears of war or call of duty 2 (xbox360), whatever PC you bought at that time you wont get the same quality graphics.

Because of the market. But now console games are getting PC ports because they are made on cross-platform engines, and those PCs will have more power, and whatever consoles get, PCs will run with a higher resolution and higher framerate bare minimum improvement. And AA and filtering. And probably better lighting (degree of GI approximation). You'll get some genres like racing that won't have the investment on PC because the market there isn't as pronounced (GT and Forza are the racer's weapons of choice which are platform exclusives, but the likes of DiRT and NFS get PC ports), but everything else - FIFA, Madden, Gears, Assassins Creed, Bioshock, Borderlands, Elder Scrolls - everything is going to look better on decent PCs. The only area consoles will compete is production values with investment in flagship games, like Sony ploughing money into ND or Quantic Dream to produce games that lack the PC's IQ and qualities but offer a 'bigger' experience.

The days of consoles offering the best experience yet are well and truly over, at least regards visuals. What they do offer instead is value and convenience and infrastructure and better social focus. If the former is of more concern than the latter to someone, that someone should game on PC.

 

[Gubbi]

The days of consoles offering the best experience yet are well and truly over, at least regards visuals. What they do offer instead is value and convenience and infrastructure and better social focus. If the former is of more concern than the latter to someone, that someone should game on PC.

PCs have always had better visuals, if not immidiately after a new console launch, then very shortly after.

3dFX Voodoo ('96) >> PS1/N64 visuals
Geforce 3 ('01) >> PS2 visuals
ATI R300 ('02) >> XBOX visuals
GF 7800 GTX ('05) // 8800 ('06') >> PS360 visuals

What is different this time around is that the number of performance configurations, PC developers need to support, is falling for the first time in two decades thanks to the integration of GPUs.

However, this means the PC mass market is going to be at a significantly lower level of performance than new consoles, because integrated GPUs are going to trail discrete GPUs by half a decade performance-wise.

Cheers

 

[almighty]

I dont agree with that, PCs have of course more processing power than consoles but that dosent mean that all this power would be used by developers, Crysis was an exception, an anomaly as I explained in my pprevious post;

In fall 2005 there was simply not a single PC game thats running as high quality assets as gears of war or call of duty 2 (xbox360), whatever PC you bought at that time you wont get the same quality graphics.

another example is gran turismo 5 prologue in 2007, you can buy at that time any PC you want even at 10.000 $ even a PC that is 10 times more powerful than ps3, but you cant run a PC racing game at the same quality assets.

I strongly dissagree, wasn't the first gears ported to PC not long after it came out on 360?

If I wasn't on my mobile using tapatalk I would make so many examples that prove your claims false

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Crysis art design was fine, maybe today it looks a bit naff but when it released and even years after it was still top notch and it even holds up well today in my opinion.

And in my opinion there was never really anything special about it. So we disagree on this.

Crysis is still CPU limited and has been for a few years now, draw back of only running on a few threads.

AFAIK it had more to do with too many driver calls - a lack of proper optimization.

And I would really like to know what 'big' console games look better overall because I've not seen a single console game that has asset quality that is as high in quality and more importantly, as consistent as it is in Crysis.

Uncharted and Killzone series, Mass Effect series, later Gears games, Halo 4, Journey, Rage... Far better art direction and very high quality assets in all of them.

And once again: a texture's or model's artistic quality is not determined by its resolution at all. By that logic a 1000000*1000000 greyscale noise texture would beat all of them.

 

[DoctorFouad]

PCs have always had better visuals, if not immidiately after a new console launch, then very shortly after.

3dFX Voodoo ('96) >> PS1/N64 visuals
Geforce 3 ('01) >> PS2 visuals
ATI R300 ('02) >> XBOX visuals
GF 7800 GTX ('05) // 8800 ('06') >> PS360 visuals



Cheers

you do realize that PS1 has been released in decembeer 1994 ? (If I am not mistaken no GPU for PCs existed at that time, GPUs started commercialization for PCs in late 1995 at the earliest or debut 1996, correct me if I am wrong) I dont consider 1996 as "shortly after".

same remark regarding release dates of PS2 (march 2000) or Xbox (november 2001), No metal gear solid 2 graphics or Halo1 graphics for PC in that period of timee...

and you forget to mentiuon dreamcast (1998) you dont have virtua tennis, sonic, or soul calibur level graphics on any PC....

 

[DoctorFouad]

I strongly dissagree, wasn't the first gears ported to PC not long after it came out on 360?

If I wasn't on my mobile using tapatalk I would make so many examples that prove your claims false

I would like you gave me some real examples when you have time.