Draw calls and the future of PC gaming ports

NirK · 4 Apr 2013 at 10:07

The title should be changed to : PS4 marketed as "perfect gaming PC" by Epic VP

Skyboat · 4 Apr 2013 at 21:31

Having a next gen console using x86 architecture is definitely a plus point for future PC games, however don't expect that the PC will have vastly superior graphics to the PS4's counterpart for quite a few years yet. It will be the same story as this generation.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 4 Apr 2013 at 22:08

Skyfall said:
This Unreal 4 demo thing has really thrown a pooper into my excitement for the PS4...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=24058817&postcount=12

Epic Dev said:
Hello. I'm one of the engineers that worked on this demo.

The biggest changes actually came from the merging of two separate cinematics, the original Elemental and the extended Elemental we showed at PS4's launch event. Each had different sun directions and required some compromises to join them. This resulted in some major lighting differences that aren't platform related but were due to it being a joined cinematic. Another effect, in the original you could see the mountains through the door where in the merged one we made the view through the door white since the mountains outside were no longer the same. Same deal with the mountain fly by. The old mountain range doesn't exist in the new one. These changes from the merge make direct comparisons somewhat inaccurate.

Feature wise most everything is the same, AA resolution, meshes, textures (PS4 has tons of memory), DOF (I assure you both use the same Bokeh DOF, not sure why that one shot has different focal range), motion blur.

Biggest differences are SVOGI has been replaced with a more efficient GI solution, a slight scale down in the number of particles for some FX, and tessellation is broken on ps4 in the current build which the lava used for displacement. We will fix the tessellation in the future.

V4NT0M · 4 Apr 2013 at 23:02

Slightly more at ease

NirK · 5 Apr 2013 at 08:14

I honestly dont think this draw call thing will make any difference. The PS4 even is still quite seriously underpowered compared to a decent PC. I think that the only area we will see a big shift in the PC games is that we will need more Vram... The things which are handled by CPU and GPU will still easily be handled by a PC... Depending on if the PS4 runs games at 1080p or 720p.

spoffle · 5 Apr 2013 at 08:45

NirK said:
I honestly dont think this draw call thing will make any difference. The PS4 even is still quite seriously underpowered compared to a decent PC. I think that the only area we will see a big shift in the PC games is that we will need more Vram... The things which are handled by CPU and GPU will still easily be handled by a PC... Depending on if the PS4 runs games at 1080p or 720p.

This talk about porting needs to stop because people have no idea what they are talking about.

Porting isn't really something that actually happens for one.

Additionally, I wish people would stop with the direct hardware comparisons between PCs and consoles because it doesn't work like that.

For argument's sake, say the PS4 has an off the shelf 7850 in it, it would be able to achieve greater graphical fidelity than a 7850 in a PC. The PS3 is capable of very impressive visuals considering the ancient hardware it uses because making a game that's tailored to a single set of hardware, without the overheads that come with PCs makes for much greater efficiency.

NirK · 5 Apr 2013 at 08:51

Hmm well if that is aimed at me I spent half a thread a while back trying to explain this fact about PC and console hardware not being equal.... However there is only so much that can be done on the PS4 and the fact that even a current high end PC is around 4x as powerfull will more than make up for these considerations if you have something like a 7970 or GTX670 ... As I said before though this depends on if the PS4 will be running games at 1080p or 720p.

I mean really though the visuals on the PS3 are pretty poor by todays standards... It is more about masking the limitations of the hardware well..

spoffle said:
This talk about porting needs to stop because people have no idea what they are talking about.

Porting isn't really something that actually happens for one.

Er what? Porting is extremely relevant to PC games...

d_brennen · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:02

People have to remember, PC forumites and their custom PCs do not represent the "majority" of anything. Has anyone looked at what PC stores actually sell?

NirK · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:08

But can those people even be classed as PC gamers?

Personally I would class PC gamers as gaming enthusiasts who are willng to pay for decent hardware... Maybe not a GTX680 or a 7970 but something like a 660ti or a 7950... Not the people that play counter strike 1.6 or WOW on a 10 year old PC...

But I have no doubt at all that a PS4 game would not run well at all on a PC with comparable hardware to the PS4... My point was that PC hardware is very far ahead of the PS4 already and it is not even out yet... The only thing that is significantly different to current PC is the amount of available Vram.

spoffle · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:10

A 7970 or GTX680 isn't nearly 4 times as powerful as a Pitcairn GPU (7850/7870) they don't even pass the twice as powerful mark.

As for porting, porting doesn't actually happen. Seriously, games aren't made for console then "ported" to PC. A PC build of a game is always a PC build.

What really happens is that development of the PC version is deemed complete as soon as the console versions are done, where they don't bother with adding that additional polish on top, or rather the basics that a PC gamer would expect like a variety of graphics, sound and control options.

Most people seem to think that if a PC game has low res textures, it's s console port, or more recently any issues with the PC version of a multi platform game is because it's a "port".

This is untrue. It's as a result of lazy development because realistically, games aren't really made for a console and then ported to PC. Even the usage of the term "console port" by those who should know better is a product of laziness.

NirK · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:26

Well yes but console port is just what people call it... At the end of the day the console version is defining what PC gamers are getting..

I meant the whole system such as a overclocked ivybridge and a 7970 would probably be 4x more powerfull than a PS4. But you are right the PS4 GPU is actually not that bad compared to a high end PC. Maybe 2-3x then. Still even twice the power is a lot.

spoffle · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:45

NirK said:
Well yes but console port is just what people call it... At the end of the day the console version is defining what PC gamers are getting..

Well it doesn't make it right for one, and as I said, any issue with a PC release of a game is "because console port". People are seemingly unable to accept that consoles aren't to blame for everything that goes wrong with a PC game.

Despite that, the vast majority of multiplatform releases, the PC version is still the best out of the lot.

I meant the whole system such as a overclocked ivybridge and a 7970 would probably be 4x more powerfull than a PS4. But you are right the PS4 GPU is actually not that bad compared to a high end PC. Maybe 2-3x then. Still even twice the power is a lot.

The overheads cut that right down, add to the fact that most games aren't very optimised for multi-core processing as well, which is where a lot of performance will come from.

The vast majority of PC games will run well with a 7870/7850 on a PC, so one in a console is going to be quite powerful, even if a 7970 is twice as fast, the differences in effeciency mean that the PC's extra power is wasted.

As I said before, you just need to look at how PS3 games look relative to the hardware they have, and then apply that to the PS4. The PS4's specs are a massive jump up from what the PS3 has, it's only going to be a positive thing.

Better consoles mean better multiplatform releases, with higher production values and so on.

d_brennen · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:47

NirK said:
Well yes but console port is just what people call it... At the end of the day the console version is defining what PC gamers are getting..

I meant the whole system such as a overclocked ivybridge and a 7970 would probably be 4x more powerfull than a PS4. But you are right the PS4 GPU is actually not that bad compared to a high end PC. Maybe 2-3x then. Still even twice the power is a lot.

PC games have to work on a wide range of hardware if a dev wants to sell more than 1000 copies. Console games have 1 target config. See Uncharted 3 and compare to running a game on a 7900GT

e: spoffle beat me to it

FrenchTart · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:54

spoffle said:
The overheads cut that right down, add to the fact that most games aren't very optimised for multi-core processing as well, which is where a lot of performance will come from.

I mostly agree with your points but this one struck me as slightly incorrect (not the first statement, the part after).

Single threaded performance is exactly where an Ivy Bridge CPU will walk all over the CPU inside the PS4. AMD's IPC has lagged behind Intel's for many years now. If anything, multithreading is something that will reduce the gap in performance between a high end Intel CPU and that within the PS4.

I'm not an Intel fanboy btw - I really miss my old Athlons. I also appreciate that this one fact doesn't make the rest of what you said invalid.

spoffle · 5 Apr 2013 at 10:09

FrenchTart said:
I mostly agree with your points but this one struck me as slightly incorrect (not the first statement, the part after).

Single threaded performance is exactly where an Ivy Bridge CPU will walk all over the CPU inside the PS4. AMD's IPC has lagged behind Intel's for many years now. If anything, multithreading is something that will reduce the gap in performance between a high end Intel CPU and that within the PS4.

I'm not an Intel fanboy btw - I really miss my old Athlons. I also appreciate that this one fact doesn't make the rest of what you said invalid.

This is what I was actually getting at, because games now aren't very well optimised for multi threading, Sony will be pushing multithreading heavily meaning direct comparisons to hardware now aren't particularly valid since a lot of games don't really make full use of all the cores a PC has to offer.

I'm hardly pro-AMD either, I've got a 3930K in my main PC, which is hardly on the top of the value for money pile.

FrenchTart · 5 Apr 2013 at 10:14

spoffle said:
This is what I was actually getting at, because games now aren't very well optimised for multi threading, Sony will be pushing multithreading heavily meaning direct comparisons to hardware now aren't particularly valid since a lot of games don't really make full use of all the cores a PC has to offer.

I'm hardly pro-AMD either, I've got a 3930K in my main PC, which is hardly on the top of the value for money pile.

I do think that multithreading will start to matter more but I think the rate of it becoming more important has already been steadily increasing for a good while now. After all, the last batch of consoles were also multicore (and obviously we've had dual/quad/etc core for years and years on PC now too).

I'm probably more of an AMD fanboy than Intel, at least in regards to CPU. Sadly, I can't bring myself to pay out money for a product that is much worse than the Intel equivalent

I have fond memories of the first time I built my own PC with an Athlon 750mhz cpu and my top of the line ATA66 hard drive. Super speed

spoffle · 5 Apr 2013 at 10:31

FrenchTart said:
I do think that multithreading will start to matter more but I think the rate of it becoming more important has already been steadily increasing for a good while now. After all, the last batch of consoles were also multicore (and obviously we've had dual/quad/etc core for years and years on PC now too).

I don't know really, I wouldn't say multi-threading is really there when it comes to the current consoles, as the PS3's CPU was very hard work to get the performance out of, plus as far as I know, it wasn't truly a multicore CPU was it? More like a single core with smaller "helper" cores to offload certain tasks on to, rather than a more traditional multicore CPU that will be in the PS4.

And we certainly have had multicore CPUs available for some time now, however single threaded performance seems to give the most benefit most of the time when it comes to games over slower but a greater number of cores.

Also, a lot of games respond quite well to me overclocking my 3930K, and monitoring the CPU usage, it's clear that a lot of games are taking a preference to more CPU speed over more cores currently. Some games make use of more cores better, and some make use of both, but I'd still say that the majority of games, whilst somewhat mult-threaded, don't make very good use of 4, 6, 8 and 12 threads.

I'm probably more of an AMD fanboy than Intel, at least in regards to CPU. Sadly, I can't bring myself to pay out money for a product that is much worse than the Intel equivalent I have fond memories of the first time I built my own PC with an Athlon 750mhz cpu and my top of the line ATA66 hard drive. Super speed

I certainly enjoyed AMD's greater value for money, and I tended to buy their CPUs pre-core2 days. So I tend to stick with Intel if I'm looking for top top performance, though I do have an AMD PC under my TV with a quad core Phenom 2 (tri unlocked to quad) that is more than good enough.

V4NT0M · 5 Apr 2013 at 10:35

spoffle said:
As for porting, porting doesn't actually happen. Seriously, games aren't made for console then "ported" to PC.

Yes they are.

Thanks.

FrenchTart · 5 Apr 2013 at 10:35

Yup. I had a sempron 140/145 unlocked to dual core for my media machine for a few years. It did well

I do agree that single threaded performance is still the most important. We've definitely already started to see some games that really take advantage of multicore though (even if few and far between). BFBC2 is one example - even dual core really suffered compared to quad (and possibly triple, I haven't compared tricore).

spoffle · 5 Apr 2013 at 10:38

Skyfall said:
Yes they are.

Thanks.

No, they're not, and it's a fact that they're not.

When games are developed, they are made specifically for all the platforms that they are coming out on.

A PS3 build of a game isn't "ported" to PC, they will make a PC specific build. The games will share assets of varying degrees, but this porting thing doesn't really happen.

FrenchTart said:
Yup. I had a sempron 140/145 unlocked to dual core for my media machine for a few years. It did well

Yeah, it's doing very well really, and I've stuck a 6950 in it for some LAN gaming goodness too.

I do agree that single threaded performance is still the most important. We've definitely already started to see some games that really take advantage of multicore though (even if few and far between). BFBC2 is one example - even dual core really suffered compared to quad (and possibly triple, I haven't compared tricore).

Yeah, I noticed Crysis 3 likes to make some good use of the 12 threads on my CPU, it's nice to see high CPU activity in some games, and to be able to see where it's being used too.