The Next-gen Situation discussion *spawn

[function]

The xbox version ran on CryEngine 3 compared with CryEngine 2 on the PC. Huge efficiency gains there by all accounts.

Yeah, the PS360 need a heavily threaded engine to perform comparably to a dual core, dual thread PC CPU from the late 'noughties'. That certainly wasn't Cryengine 2! It couldn't even max out two threads on two cores.

This is only relevant in PC only games. If you are writing a PC only game and want the largest audience, you need to target a much lower base spec.

Yeah, I was talking about PC exclusives from around the time of the PS360 launch and, I guess, around the DC, PS2 and Xbox launches. Despite the raw power of high end PC gamer systems, PC exclusives couldn't afford to target only the console beating stuff. Crysis tried, but it's horrible inefficiency (despite the bullshit claims about amazing quad core support) has kind of muddied the waters regarding just how demanding it was vs how cutting edge it was.

Cross-platform titles don't have that issue, and that's the future for PC games. If you're writing a PC game, target the consoles as well and have them as your minimum spec. There isn't going to be a case where the PC target is lower than the console spec and high-end PCs are going massively underutilised.

Not now, but when the PS360 came out they were well ahead of the curve for most gamer systems. If next gen consoles can use some kind of unavailable-in-PCs APU based acceleration there may be a lot of lower end PCs excluded by minimum specs. If you can remember the amount of butthurt when PC minimum specs for games like Assassins Creed and GTA were released, and the even higher specs required to match or exceed the console experience, you can expect some angst in 2014. I don't expect it to be as bad as it was in 2006/2007 though, due the advancement in PC integrated graphics and the sheer power of PC gamer CPUs.

 

[almighty]

If you can remember the amount of butthurt when PC minimum specs for games like Assassins Creed and GTA were released, and the even higher specs required to match or exceed the console experience.

That's bullshit, GTA4 was such a crap and bad port it's not even funny, even phase cooled 5Ghz CPU's and the fastest GPU on the planet couldn't get decent performance from GTA4.

It got better with patches but Rockstar shot themselves in the foot with that one, and yet they wonder why it was pirated so bad on PC.... It just wasn't worth the money.

 

[function]

There are lots of PC ports were the PC needs two fat CPU cores and 2GB of ram to match or beat the console versions. The difference is that now people are used to it, so there are no longer keyboards, mice and Fatal1ty headsets dissolving under floods of salty tears.

(The goalposts have moved now to claims that PC minimum specs represent a better version of the game than the consoles get, as if publishers are so stupid that they'll try and exclude PCs that can run a game at a level millions of console owners are prepared to pay > PC $$ for.)

 

[Inuhanyou]

Point is, regardless of whether or not you think the evolving specs of PCs are better or the fixed hardware of consoles is better. Both provide ample choice to a demographic of gamers who care about both causes.

In this specific generation however, console hardware has become advanced to the point where a majority of developers can develop a game's base for the lowest common denominator and still get great results on PCs without looking like something out of the 19th century. That is how 99% of games have been shaped this gen and why everyone should be excited for the jump in base fidelity the 720 and PS4 provide.

 

[metacore]

almighty , the point is, there was much more of these crap ports, especially in somewhat advanced games, to name a few: sainst row, first just cause in sandboxes , lack of bad company or force unleashed in "advanced" phisics department. Add to that nearly lack of eyecandy excluzives and return of investment of that "only 700$" ( little more ) was a bit silly. If not for that crysis , really silly.


As upgrade cycles are slowing on pc side, and this console are still around with games build around it , maybe it's worth to look how these gpus are doing today as it is still reality for many. I still have box with penryn e7200@3GHZ with 8800gts and here are two frpased screens with blops 2(low settings at 1024/768 noAA, uber sttuter on top of that 17 fps)

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18784158/New folder/shot0002.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18784158/New folder/shot0001.jpg

>2 x xenos in bandwidth, filrate, texel rate. "revolutionary" dx10, effectivness etc...
Man could hope that it is future proof, but now consoles are getting crysis 3 and mighty g80 (or many younger laptops) is left out( No matter what cause: overhead,drivers profiling and desire to push upgrades etc). Point is, i know we are on b3d and all like numbers, but skyhigh paperspec don,t allways tell the story, and on a pc side you never know what adventures might bring new year

I don't expect it to be as bad as it was in 2006/2007 though, due the advancement in PC integrated graphics and the sheer power of PC gamer CPUs.

Very true, but some comments. sony/MSFirrst party studios are growing, and these high quality AAA projects will make the diffrence. in the end of the day only budget is limiting what can be done and in pc realm after 7 years and huge base of capable pc's , we don't se much, especialy in comparision with earlier ( shorter) generations. Seems like we already reached that celling in pc space ,

As for third parties, they will not prepare two different versions for consoles and pc of the same game like medal of honores last gen (dont do it today after 7 years).Funny enough especialy pc excluzive devs don't try.

If this next gen will be extention of current, It will be heartbreaking watching this starcraft expansion running on 10-20tflops rigs, or console ports scretched out on 6 monitors without new assets;/

 

[Inuhanyou]

Well who is going to be able to afford a 10 to 20 tflop rig as a normal set up before 2017? Like who is the target audience? 1% of the enthusiast market? And secondly, does it make sense for the devs to put that much effort into it because of that? Obviously that hasn't been the case except for a few PC games so far. Like i can count them on maybe 1 hand.

What current gen consoles have given previous PC only devs is a base spec to coalesce around instead of having to just guess at an infinite number of configurations. They know what their lowest spec is. Its easier for them to develop using that.

Crytek has said that themselves even being huge tech buffs. Epic is another having moved straight into the console space and seemingly being pretty comfortable with that, maybe a bit too comfortable.

 

[metacore]

well maybe 5-10 is a bit more realistic point is, in later years these hardware will be even more underutilized than this days. Console excluzives presentation will be out of reach for pc only devs for budget reasons , even today it is true , and third partis will be passive to pushing pc for costs/roi /canibalzinig consol version sales etc

I mean even without linear more law jump this time , overall consoles will do just fine on the grapics side. Times when ea was doing two diffrent versions of medal of honor for console an pc on dedicated engines surely wont come back, and we probably won't see few bold fps,rpg,rts every year pushing pcs like in good old times

 

[(((interference)))]

When the 360 came out, could it outperform say 95% of machines on the market (looking at the Steam hardware survey for eg) or not? Perhaps if you also took into account the efficiencies associated with developing for fixed hardware.

I think that's a more relevant metric than looking at whether or not consoles could beat the 1% or less of hardcore enthusiasts' with machines featuring multiple GPUs and liquid cooling.

 

[pjbliverpool]

well maybe 5-10 is a bit more realistic point is, in later years these hardware will be even more underutilized than this days. Console excluzives presentation will be out of reach for pc only devs for budget reasons , even today it is true , and third partis will be passive to pushing pc for costs/roi /canibalzinig consol version sales etc

I mean even without linear more law jump this time , overall consoles will do just fine on the grapics side. Times when ea was doing two diffrent versions of medal of honor for console an pc on dedicated engines surely wont come back, and we probably won't see few bold fps,rpg,rts every year pushing pcs like in good old times

Underutilised is not an objective statement. I have near enough the most powerful single GPU available on the market. I want to run all my games at 1080p / fixed 60fps at maximum details with at least 4xMSAA in 3D. Bottom line is I can't. Most modern console ports at those settings will fall short of a solid 60fps on my system and that's with near enough the most powerful single GPU you can get. Lesser systems would be even further off the mark.

You're arguing that to fully utilise my system a game would need to be made for the 680 as a baseline which would have far better core graphics (true) but my system would only run it at 720p in 2d at 30fps for example. And sure, that's another way to fully utilise my system and the end result would be far better core graphics than say Battlefield 3 maxed out. But who's do say those graphics running at low resolution / low framerate in 2d aren't better than BF3 maxed out (which is still well above any console game) at 1080p in 3d at 40-50fps? It's just different ways of utilising the power but their's no doubt it can all be put to valuable use (depending on your preferences).

Next generation compared to the current generation PC's will use thinner, more efficient API's, the baseline (intergrated) performance will be much closer to the mainstream performance, consoles will sit further down the overall PC performance scale than ever before and development costs will be higher than ever making cross platform ports more attractive.

All of this makes it more likely that the trend of games being released on all platforms including the PC will increase rather than reverse like you seem to be suggesting.

Sure their will still be console exclusives and the days of high end PC exclusives like Crysis are indeed over. But there's no reason not to expect exactly what we have seen this generation in terms of the vast majority of none console exclusives appearing on the PC in an improved form. Add to that higher resolution/image quality/framrate and the ability to run in 3d, all of which PC's should be able to offer from day one this generation and I don't see where all the pessimism is about.

Next generation console games will look amazing. If you want them to look even more amazing with higher image quality, better framerates and maybe even 3d, then you can buy a more expensive, more powerful PC and do just that. Hell, because of lack of driver support you may even have to upgrade that PC once or twice over an 8 year period to retain (and extend)the ability to play the latest games in this better format despite your original system remaining more powerful on paper than the consoles (as per your BLOPS2 example which is an extreme exception IMO and I'd definately question how up to date the drivers are in that system given that such a system will rip through Crysis 2 no problem).

 

[pjbliverpool]

When the 360 came out, could it outperform say 95% of machines on the market (looking at the Steam hardware survey for eg) or not? Perhaps if you also took into account the efficiencies associated with developing for fixed hardware.

I think that's a more relevant metric than looking at whether or not consoles could beat the 1% or less of hardcore enthusiasts' with machines featuring multiple GPUs and liquid cooling.

Indeed. With only say 2-3% of "gaming" PC's being equal or more powerful than the 360 when it launched there were still quite a lot of cross platform ports which got the same graphical treatment on the PC that they did on the consoles. That trend has of course exploded across the following 8 years to a point today when virtually all big 3rd party releases have a PC version.

When the new consoles launch that metric will likely be more like 20-30%. Add in the increased development costs making cross platform development more atractive than it was in 2005 and it seems highly likely that the PC will be getting plenty pf cross platform games at full next gen quality from day 1. As ever we might not see core graphical improvements in the PC version straight away, that usually takes time to start appearing but it should be a lot faster this generation than it was in the last.

To put it simply, on day 1 of the new generation of consoles launch, the power relationship between PC's and consoles will be at a similar position to what it was in 2006/2007 last generation.

 

[Arwin]

I was about to post the same ghing as squilliam. When researching what PC to buy, I came across several articles (and there have been discussions here too) where itwas pointed out that one of the biggest bottlenecks currently on PC lies in the inefficient way the CPU and GPU interact. Consoles have traditionally done much better here comparatively, and it should be expected that the next gen HD consoles will have improvements in this area.

Of course high end GPUs will start to overtake them soon enough regardless, even if it is simply because they have a bigger power draw budget and can target high end consumers willing to pay. They can basically recreate the whole console on a card, except that they will be able to use higher end components as soon as a year out or sooner.

 

[almighty]

Well who is going to be able to afford a 10 to 20 tflop rig as a normal set up before 2017?.

7950 Crossfire can get you close to 10 Tflop with a slight over clock so 20 Tflop by 2017 will not be that difficult as we'll have single GPU's hitting over 10 Tflops before then.

 

[function]

Indeed. With only say 2-3% of "gaming" PC's being equal or more powerful than the 360 when it launched there were still quite a lot of cross platform ports which got the same graphical treatment on the PC that they did on the consoles. That trend has of course exploded across the following 8 years to a point today when virtually all big 3rd party releases have a PC version.

When the new consoles launch that metric will likely be more like 20-30%. Add in the increased development costs making cross platform development more atractive than it was in 2005 and it seems highly likely that the PC will be getting plenty pf cross platform games at full next gen quality from day 1. As ever we might not see core graphical improvements in the PC version straight away, that usually takes time to start appearing but it should be a lot faster this generation than it was in the last.

To put it simply, on day 1 of the new generation of consoles launch, the power relationship between PC's and consoles will be at a similar position to what it was in 2006/2007 last generation.

Just wanted to say that this is how I see things too, and add that while it took till 2011 for mainstream desktop PCs to match or exceed the 360 on the GPU front (Llano and Sandybridge, followed by Trinity and IVB), the chances are that by 20nm AMDs APUs will be getting up to around the kind of performance that we've seen rumoured for the PS4.

If Xbox 3 really does have 8 Jaguar cores then that bodes well for Piledriver and Steamroller too - if you can keep all 8 cores busy then Piledriver is actually a pretty beefy CPU. And if next gen console do go for gobs of slower ram over small amounts of super fast stuff, then I think next gen consoles might be good for the PC gaming market (and vice versa). Consoles and gaming PCs could really do with buddying up more to protect the AAA gaming market and stave of the phone, tablet and weaksauce-nogamer-ultrabook markets.

 

[Inuhanyou]

^ I agree with a majority of you guys above me. We(as in me) console gamers and you PC gamers could really help having a united stand instead of competing. The longer we fight, the more our enthusiast vision of the advancement of technology will lag behind against other competing markets. The PC market alone can't make up the cost for AAA advancement and consoles alone can't either, but together..

7950 Crossfire can get you close to 10 Tflop with a slight over clock so 20 Tflop by 2017 will not be that difficult as we'll have single GPU's hitting over 10 Tflops before then.

I said; "normal set up".


As in, someone who knows nothing about PC gaming, can go and buy a GPU in that range for the same amount of money as an entree to mid level GPU right now. No overclocking, no sli, no crossfire. Even a 7950 by itself is not a "normal set up" to 99% of PC gamers at this point, its 400 bucks bro.

 

[almighty]

I said; "normal set up".


As in, someone who knows nothing about PC gaming, can go and buy a GPU in that range for the same amount of money as an entree to mid level GPU right now. No overclocking, no sli, no crossfire. Even a 7950 by itself is not a "normal set up" to 99% of PC gamers at this point, its 400 bucks bro.

Listen Bro.... a 7950 is very very common in the PC gamer world as its the best bang per Buck GPU on the planet and its sold by the bucket load.

You're talking to the wrong PC gamer...

AMD 5850 ~ 2Tflop

AMD 7950 ~ 3.8Tflop

Nearly a 100% increase in 3 years.

2017 is years away and a single GPU with 10+Tflop is not difficult to imagine.

 

[pjbliverpool]

^ I agree with a majority of you guys above me. We(as in me) console gamers and you PC gamers could really help having a united stand instead of competing. The longer we fight, the more our enthusiast vision of the advancement of technology will lag behind against other competing markets. The PC market alone can't make up the cost for AAA advancement and consoles alone can't either, but together..

This is how I've always felt about the bickering amoungst PC gamers between AMD and Nvidia.

 

[upnorthsox]

Listen Bro.... a 7950 is very very common in the PC gamer world as its the best bang per Buck GPU on the planet and its sold by the bucket load.

You're talking to the wrong PC gamer...

AMD 5850 ~ 2Tflop

AMD 7950 ~ 3.8Tflop

Nearly a 100% increase in 3 years.

2017 is years away and a single GPU with 10+Tflop is not difficult to imagine.

Do you have sales numbers for the 7950?

 

[almighty]

Do you have sales numbers for the 7950?

Of course I bloody don't but your not a PC gamer so you don't go on PC gamer forums so you don't know how popular they are.

Most new builds are running 7950's because they are the price performance champion, people are even buying them over 7870's because the extra cost of a 7950 is easily justified by the extra performance.

You can get a 7950 in the UK for £220....

That's stupid cheap for a GPU that offers 3.8Tflop+

 

[Inuhanyou]

How do you know what kind of sites someone goes on based on their preferred method of gaming?

 

[almighty]

How do you know what kind of sites someone goes on based on their preferred method of gaming?

You're getting very annoying now... always answering back when you like a post...

Overclock.net
Techpowerup forums
Hard OCP forums
OC3D forums

Take your pick....