Consoles are maybe good for pc gamig?

[tindale]

Whether you can tell the differance between a PS3 and a PC is just like any other field of expertise. Many people can't tell the differance between a £5, £100 or £100 bottle of wine, some people find the cheap stuff undrinkable.

I notice a small differance between PS3 and PC (and things like 8x AA get a lot less important from the other side of the living room), but I was visited earlier in the year by a mate who works for Sony doing graphics for PS3 games, and he nearly wet himself at how good GTA4 and Crysis looked on a reasonably high spec machine. Is it worth all the extra cash though? I guess that's up to the customer, it's no different to asking whether a Bentley is worth ten Mondeos.

Also, I've yet to see anyone get their entire music and DVD collection into a games console, or to use it as a freeview reciever with hundreds of hours of recorded tv on it. These things cost you peanuts once you've got a PC, and I just love that fact that I only have one box under my TV.

 

[unknownsock]

I don't know how you cant tell the difference between ps3/xbox and a PC.
PC is obviously better. I always found the textures and improvement of AA a massive benefit.

Generally speaking, they are just dumbed down pieces of ****.

 

[Cannaton]

But awesome graphics with 8xAA do not equal good game. I play games on both PC and 360 and I see no reason why I should shun the Xbox just because I have a powerful gaming PC. There have been many games on the 360 that I have played that *Could* have had better graphics on the PC, but, did that make them any less enjoyable? No.

I think consoles can be good for PC games if they give games developers a profitable and flexible platform on which to develop, that means the PC isn't shafted with dreadful ports. Unfortunately I think that at least for the forseeable future we won't be seeing any big PC exclusives, mainly due to the global financial situation.

 

[unknownsock]

But awesome graphics with 8xAA do not equal good game. I play games on both PC and 360 and I see no reason why I should shun the Xbox just because I have a powerful gaming PC. There have been many games on the 360 that I have played that *Could* have had better graphics on the PC, but, did that make them any less enjoyable? No.

I think consoles can be good for PC games if they give games developers a profitable and flexible platform on which to develop, that means the PC isn't shafted with dreadful ports. Unfortunately I think that at least for the forseeable future we won't be seeing any big PC exclusives, mainly due to the global financial situation.

I should have said that in a different way but i did not mean geameplay :/
I mean graphically.

Personally i think some genres suit a console better, such as racings games imo.
But some suit the PC better, which just happen to be my type of genre.

 

[Alex74]

...Unfortunately I think that at least for the forseeable future we won't be seeing any big PC exclusives, mainly due to the global financial situation.

Or because most PC games end up at least on the 360 as well.

Any game I think of as PC franchises with games coming soon, Alice, SupCom 2 (not strictly though, given SupCom 360), MechWarrior..
I imagine they'll all end up with at least 360 versions simply because it's an added market. There's no reason not to develop for the console as well..

 

[Cannaton]

Or because most PC games end up at least on the 360 as well.

Any game I think of as PC franchises with games coming soon, Alice, SupCom 2 (not strictly though, given SupCom 360), MechWarrior..
I imagine they'll all end up with at least 360 versions simply because it's an added market. There's no reason not to develop for the console as well..

Thats what I meant though, because margins need to be greater, developers are much more tempted to produce a multi-platform title these days. Whereas in the past, it was possible for smaller independent developers to focus entirely on PC.

 

[Kainz]

 

[Uriel]

I think they're pretty handy when they're first launched. The original Xbox suddenly kicked PC gaming into using DX8.1 features that had been hardly used previously (even though the tech had been in gfx cards for a while). The PS3 and 360 have made Shader 3.0 or equivalent and textures designed for 720p the standard for cross platform development.

The trouble is, a few years down the line stuff that uses the 360 or ps3 as a baseline is going to look more dated. It comes in cycles and I think PC games (PC-centric developers like Crytek and Valve aside) get a shot in the arm with each console cycle.

 

[KNiVES]

Didn't Epic say that making Gears of War really helped them get the UE3 engine to run well on PCs? They've had to make the engine's first proper game run on a console, and the knowledge they received from that resulted in games like UT3 running really smooth for the graphics they have.


Crytek is currently saying the same thing - they have been forced to move Crysis to consoles because it's not been doing well on the PC (not as well as they would have liked) but they're now perfecting the art of getting a monster engine like Cryengine3 to work well with limited specifications.

It's peculiar seeing some PC gamers struggling to swallow it like a bitter pill, consoles may be the bogeyman for some but they have their advantages in that PC developers ply their trade on them and come back with enhanced knowledge on how to make their games run better on inferior specs.

 

[Cooper]

Until 2012-13 when a new generation of consoles appear which will most likely be based on the latest version of DX11, PC graphics in games are at a DX9 level dead end.

Sure, they get a few DX10 or 11 tweaks here and there, but there wont be anymore games like DOOM 3 or Crysis built from the ground up to push PC gfx to the limits.

Why do you need a 58xx or a 3xx with 200GB of bandwidth, when for the next 2 or 3 years the PS3 and 360 are going to be the baseline spec with just DX9 and 25GB worth of bandwidth....

I really cant see me upgrading my 4850 until 2011 at this rate, such a good job its doing with recently released PC ports of console games.....

Unless of course DICE release BF3 and it puts my 4850 on its knees, but even that is likely to use a tweaked version of their console Frostbite engine, which will run perfectly fine on a 4850, im guessing......

 

[McGray]

Couldn't agree more with Cooper.

Devs don't make games for PC's anymore, all we're going to be treated with for the near future are console ports which won't test the majority of our rigs.

And who can blame them?

The console market is bigger, they can charge for DLC, less problems with piracy & hackers....

Oh I long for the day when a huge PC title comes along again.

 

[mame]

Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty 4 are not console ports and were released yonks before the console equivalents.

COD4: Release date(s) 360, PS3, and Windows
NA November 6, 2007
AUS November 7, 2007
EU November 9, 2007
Mac
NA September 26, 2008
Wii
NA November 10, 2009

L4D: Release date(s) November 18, 2008[hide]Windows & Xbox 360:
(retail)
NA November 18, 2008
EU November 21, 2008
Windows: (download)
November 18, 2008
Windows and Xbox 360: (Game of the Year Edition)
May 5, 2009

 

[[TW]Taggart]

in the case of gta 4 yes it is if you have a monstor pc to run it on. if you havent got a dual core forget it, which imo shows it isnt well optimised at all.

Well seeing as all consoles have multiple cores (3 on xbox, 8 on ps3) it would stand to reason a PC will need more than 1 core also. Bad optimisation, not really, there is so much going on in GTA4 that you need the power of multi cores to run it. I think they did a pretty good job and now GTA 4 runs great on PC.

Consoles aren't bad for PC gaming, what is bad is the half assed attempt to port to PC by devs that seem to thing PC is a 3rd class platform.

 

[Phil2008]

you can get a pretty decent 3850x2 for 56 quid. and that will run cod 4 at a higher ress and with higher AF and AA at a better frame rate than the consoles.

But laptops?

The heat is too much of an issue, not to mention the touchpad. It would be terrible if that became the prime focus for pc games input..

Im still using my 2yr 3870 and it runs all games very smoothly at med to high detail in 1280x1024 (inc crysis and shift)..... Here my crysis benchmark and my system is in sig..........

 

[Strife212]

in the case of gta 4 yes it is if you have a monstor pc to run it on. if you havent got a dual core forget it, which imo shows it isnt well optimised at all.

In what aspect? The 360 has 3 cores and the PS3 has a really strange CPU with 7 "cores"

Also lets be fair, 1280x1024 is awful now...

 

[james.miller]

In what aspect? The 360 has 3 cores and the PS3 has a really strange CPU with 7 "cores"

Also lets be fair, 1280x1024 is awful now...

ok, ive alread said i meant quad core, not dual core, but besides that you cant compare apples to grapefruits. the only similarities between a intel core 2 'core' and a cell 'core' as in SPU...is the word core. the spu's are simple logic cores than can munch through certain tasks very quickly, but thaey are not full cores like liek pc cpu's have full cores. the 360's cpu has 3 cores yes, but its a power-pc derived cpu. or more accurately, CELL derived.... they are completely different. You cant take a piece of software and say it will run so fast on y hardware because it runs this fast on x hardware, it just doesnt work like that.

GTAIV is just one of those games that needs a very fast cpu to keep up on the pc.

Well seeing as all consoles have multiple cores (3 on xbox, 8 on ps3) it would stand to reason a PC will need more than 1 core also. Bad optimisation, not really, there is so much going on in GTA4 that you need the power of multi cores to run it. I think they did a pretty good job and now GTA 4 runs great on PC.

Consoles aren't bad for PC gaming, what is bad is the half assed attempt to port to PC by devs that seem to thing PC is a 3rd class platform.

as above

I will get crucified for this but....

I honestly think the whole pc vs console thing has a very simple answer.... Consoles are MUCH better.

Honestly for all the hype I genuinly can't tell the difference between my ps3 hooked up to my 46" LCD tv and a rig that costs in excess of £2000. It's utter ********. Yes I have got myself a good rig but this is due to the fact that, bar the use of Microsoft Office and a couple of other bits of software for uni, my PC is used for games like Football manager and CIV. These are 2 games (and genres) where the console market is not even close to competing in

That honestly is worrying. It's akin to saying you cant tell the difference between SD and HD video. On a 720p 32" creen maybe, but a 46" screen? it should be night and day it really should - i know it was on my old 40" and even more so on my 50", it REALLY shows up everything. Not that the consoels are poor - im honestly quite happy with them - but i cant believe somebody cant tell the different between c console and a high end pc running on what is consider a large display.