Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

The trouble with open sourced media website like youtube is you have the right to free speech and to voice your opinions anonymously, which in some ways can be fun or also disruptive.


Im apologizing firstly because I have ben a member of the forum for a long time and wanted to redirect my post instead of re typing it, although its open for topic of course.


I love to watch youtube and to me it’s a tool of the 21st century where common knowledge, and expert advice is shared. You do however find that advice and knowledge is falsely advertised and commented on to the point of disruption and confusion for others. Some of these people can be referred to as trolls, others just with no understanding of the topic in question.

My reason for making this is to highlight my point which is shared by a majority to the minority, and to try and educate people from my experience and knowledge.


My expertise is in Computer Graphics, and Commercial Art. I’m 39 Years old. I have a long line of qualifications, and I have built computers since I was about 19 years old. I have a knowledge of programming in literally all formats but do not claim to be the best, and I really don’t need to program in my line of work.


When I was 15 Years old the only thing you could buy that could play games was a home Computer. It was considered the best as there was nothing to compare it to. Back then the battle was between an AMIGA 500, or an ATARI ST, which were both similar price, but one was better in terms of performance.


My Choice was the AMIGA. It was my first true Home Computer, and Games machine. Today you see similar battles between Sony and Microsoft with games consoles. You also get comments from people who choose to game using a PC who claim it is superior, so the argument escalates.


Anyone now who is 15………….who has a desktop computer will no longer have one in 5 years. The desktop computer as we all know it as it has evolved is being replaced by faster and more convenient technology.
As an example, the TEGRA K1 Processor is already showing benchmark testing that can reproduce PS3 Graphics performance on a handheld device, It’s not only faster than the PS3 but the Xbox360 combined. The TEGRA K1 is the first in its generation that will allow mobile gaming at the level we see in Console gaming.


The Playstation 4 has nothing to prove, In fact Sony have made such a focus on the gaming community that they will truly revolutionize our whole world of entertainment as we can’t imagine yet.


With the introduction of Morpheus, and Wireless motion tracking in 2015 we will see that SONY will dominate the market in Entertainment. Some people will argue that Oculus is better because it’s designed for the PC. If you speak to the founder and creator of Oculus you will find his idea was not based on PC gaming, and he is actually working with many companies to make his idea’s become mainstream. Including SONY, who in actual fact started their Morpheus project a year before the OCCULUS project started.
You will never see another Xbox again.



If they redesign it, it will no longer be viable to be called an Xbox. The war is officially over between the consoles. In fact if Microsoft want to they could release something to rival the console market, but they are falling behind in all technology now, especially with companies like Google, even Companies like Amazon who you wouldn’t expect.


You have to ask yourself why are these companies winning over such a large company……and the simple answer is cost. You are paying for a name and a franchise, and at the end of the day this is what my point is.
I bought watchdogs recently. I got it on the PC and PS4, I played it in Ultra on PC and as it was on PS4. The only difference was on the PS4 it was played through my 65 inch LED, and on the PC it was on a 28”ASUS.
I don’t wear glasses, but as an Artist I rely on vision to do what I do. I could not tell the difference between the 900 pixels the PS4 was displaying to the 1080 pixels on my monitor.



Now people have argued the toss with me on this but missed my point entirely, and my main point being before I continue is that “I have no problem with PC’s”


I have had people tell me that they can build a PC to play Watchdogs for the same price as a PS4. I don’t know who they buy their components off but it isn’t going to happen. I’ve worked it out that to play it at Ultra just for the PC alone would cost close to £800.no keyboard, mouse, or monitor and the bare minimum and have to overclock everything.


My main argument is not everyone has £800 to spend just to play a game……that’s not that dissimilar from the PC version. But it’s very hard to get that across to people.


I had one person tell me he was running it on a PC spec older than my old Quad core……It’s not true, it won’t bloody run it simple as.

I just want this post here in case anyone decides to spend money to play Watchdogs, or any other game they will consider better……….theres no such thing as better.

It will be weird to lose the desktop PC to what will replace it, only people of my age group will understand that, but its going to happen……so where does it leave the PC? And the PC Gamers?


Steam…………which is what im letting off after reading comments on Youtube. In a few years people will have a box that’s media friendly and interchangeable. It will be as small as a Playstation 4 and will run PC games through the Steam Network. But you certainly wont have a tower system under your desk with liquid cooling to play games in ULTRA settings.


The Desktop PC as you know it, and also I know it, will only be used to play, test and develop Games for perhaps another 10 years before its technology has reduced that a whole room of developers can squeeze in my office.

Anyway…….i said enough, im sure people will throw abuse at me.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Is this just an addon to http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/35641775-post1.html

I must admit that was back in November 2013, before the consoles came out, but the difference now is the new consoles aren't as good as everyone hoped.

A part of me is glad that the new consoles are losing ground, just to give the PC a bit of a boost they need. But I'm also disappointed at the same time.

Because of the new consoles not being up to scratch I decided to get a newer PC, ok it cost a lot more but that's besides the point. My PC isn't just about gaming, but I have the option now and it's great at everything else I want to throw at it. So for me the PC is incomparable to a console and will always will be.

If you've played Watch Dogs with a 7800 card, maybe you should get a better card or PC to see the difference then report back. As for using consoles on your big screen, well TV out and using an AV takes care of all that for me, I ain't tied down to my monitor at all for PC gaming. What I don't understand is why someone has got Watch Dogs on the PC and on the PS4 if there's nothing different between them. So that begs the question of either did you buy both versions or did you download one. But again that is another point in where PC will rule, people do download whatever there is and don't need to fork out £50 for a game which is a whole different topic altogether.

PC's have taken a hit, not because of console but more from tablets, gaming will always (if you can afford it) be better on a PC, consoles do have their place too but something has gone downhill for them as I can't see the XB1 lasting 5 years as it stands.

I say there is life in the desktop PC yet. But the same goes that if you buy a desktop PC from the high street, you probably won't be expecting to run the latest games on high let alone ultra settings, so for some paying out for a desktop could be seen as a waste of money compared to a console. But pay out a bit more and there is no compassion at all.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Consoles came out many years before that. The Atari 2600 was released in 1977 and that was a second generation gaming console. The Nintendo NES console was in the shops in 1986 and the Sega Megadrive in 1990. Then we had the things like sega saturn, original playstation and Nintendo 64 around 1995.

Being a similar age I had a Commodore Vic 20 and a Commodore plus 4 and 64 before having an Amiga but so glad it came along, even if the 1MB memory upgrade was the size of a brick :D The Atari ST and Amiga fanboy wars were the first I remember.

At one point in time PC's outperformed consoles quite a bit but these day's theres not a huge amount in it as you say. Not a significant difference anyway when it comes down to how the game looks and plays. Sometimes games are good looking but the actual game play sucks. If we look back at how crappy some of the early console or computer games looked, yet they kept us hooked and playing for ages.

Now tv's are bigger and some people have decent home cinema systems, it's preferable to play on the big screen and on the comfort of the sofa rather than sitting at a pc on a smaller screen. The steam box makes sense but if the hardware can't be updated then it essentially becomes a console anyway. Just one that runs pc games.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Console vs PC - it boils down to personal preference and finances really. If I were to buy a Console, it would be an expensive FIFA machine as I much prefer FPS games with a keyboard and mouse. And being that the only non-FPS game I play is FIFA, I'm better off with a PC. Plus, for me, the PC allows me to do much more (easy internet browsing, music, Office app stuff, virtual machines, et cetera). A console is simply not designed for that. So although a console is cheaper, a PC is far more versatile. As I work in IT, a computer continues to hold more positives for me over a console.

Consoles win, in my view, for convenience and cost. A console owner can literally turn the machine on and play. They will never have to fiddle with hardware or software. that's a big plus.

I do believe however, that PC gaming still does look better. Consoles get around crappy looking graphics by using a bloom effect on everything. In my personal opinion, I'd rather game on a PC where things look sharper and there is no cap on resolution (1080p).

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Maybe not in the bottom end like bog standard 1080p with a midrange card, but the whole point of PCs is that they're extensible.

Play a game on triple 4K displays and then come back saying there's not a huge amount in it! Granted, most people can't afford that, but people who could afford a five times faster console than a PS4 can't buy one, because no such option exists.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

My PC has changed since my Signature spec Peanut. So I’m not running Watchdogs on that Spec anymore. However, even if I was it wouldn’t run it, but that’s my whole point. To run some of the latest games PC owners need to keep changing their PC components because every year some new game comes out that requires the PC to be upgraded. The PlayStation 4 was meant to be around for about 5 Years.


I mean look at the old PlayStation 3. Games are still coming out for that, and also when that was released the games at first were pretty poor in comparison to the games released towards the end of 2013. Watchdogs for the PS4 is only the beginning, eventually you will have games that are a lot better, like The Division for example.
If the Division comes out on PC it’s going to require some major PC specs to run it in Ultra, and once again you will find people having to upgrade their PC’s again. People will have already upgraded their PC to play Watchdogs so they can play it in Ultra, so at what point does upgrading PC components to play games become viable?


A Playstation 4 is £350, that’s it, you don’t have to upgrade anything. Granted the games are slightly more expensive, but not by much. And there is no messing around with settings to get the game to look right, you just pop it in the machine, create a party with friends and off you go. With the PC its not that simple.


I truly believe the days of the PC is over. Maybe the Steam box will finally put the nail in the coffin, but to be honest the PC has had a good 30-40 years as we know it. No one wants a big Desktop PC taking up room. So you will find that something small and compact will come along and finally take over gaming as we know it.


People have mentioned that PlayStation have had their day and I disagree on that. I think with Morpheus and the introduction of Move technology that games will go to a new level.


Again I’m not dissing PC owners as I have a PC and I play games on it. World of Warcraft is an example of a Game that can’t be played on a PlayStation because it requires Add ons and key binding. But there’s a limited number of games that require a PC to play like that. Compared to the games available on Playstation.


It’s true that it’s down to personal preference. I prefer playing Playstation on a 65 inch than playing on my PC on a smaller monitor, that’s my preference. But I’m sick of updating my PC every time I want to play the newest title, and theres not that much difference between the two. It all comes down to whats affordable.


I think the Graphics card I have now cost me £280. I bought it last year about 12 months ago, and at the time I could play any game on Ultra. But now Watchdogs has come out its sluggish. So do I spend another £300 on a Graphics card? That’s almost £600 spent in the past year alone just to play games, compared to the Playstation 4 at £350.



Do you guys see my point?


I know a PC does more than play games, obviously. But the Ipad, Galaxy, and Laptops all do the same. It’s only the fact I use my PC for Digital Artwork and Writing letters that I actually keep it. But its not anything I couldn’t do with an Ipad if I really wanted to.


Im going to bookmark this forum post for when the Division comes out in 2015. Just to prove my point that the latest PC build, Hex Core @ 4ghz, 16GB DDR, and a GTX660 will not be enough to run it in Ultra mode.


For the average teenager who plays games, it is not a viable expense they can afford really. My Stepson is a perfect example. He’s 15 and he Plays World of Warcraft. I built him a PC so he could use it for his schoolwork and also made it decent enough that he can play World of Warcraft, Me and his mother spent £600 on the components 2 Years ago, I think the graphics card was £90 which was a mid ranged card. But he kept complaining that the game was laggy and he couldn’t run it on Ultra settings. I told him he just needed to upgrade the graphics card and that a £60-70 card would be enough. I think he was running a Quad Core at about 3.2ghz.


Anyway his Dad just bought him a 2 grand machine with duel graphics cards. A bit excessive just to play World of Warcraft but his Dad is an idiot anyway. But I’m guessing even that will not run the Division in 2015. So for someone like my Stepson, he would have to buy new components to play it.

---------- Post added at 11:25 ---------- Previous post was at 11:17 ----------

I was a big fan of the Amiga, i even got Emulators on the PC to play the old games. So many missed days at school playing WINGS, lol.

but yeah i remember the older consoles as well., and at the time i never had one, my first console was a Playstation really. Although i still played PC as well.

After getting the PS4 i was surprised just how good it was compared to previous versions, but i can see where the Playstation will go in the future, I cant say the same for PC gaming though. Occulus might change all that but again you have Morpheus on the Ps4, so its not like PC will have an edge over PS4.

---------- Post added at 11:57 ---------- Previous post was at 11:25 ----------


I don’t think consoles are losing ground, I think they are just starting to revolutionise gaming, look at Morpheous. PS5 will more than likely be 4K gaming console. You have to look ahead and see where things will be going. PS4 hasn’t even took off yet really, its only 6 Months old, in another 6 Months you will start to see what it’s capable off. I agree though, its disappointing to see that Xbone has fallen behind, you won’t see another Xbox in the future.



I’m not saying PC is better or worse, my point is about the gaming side of it. Ive been having this discussion on Youtube on a few comments of Watchdogs video’s. It baffles me how some people can be so stupid to say the PC is better when it clearly isn’t. Again I’m not dissing the PC, I’ve played Watchdogs on the PC and on the PS4, unless you put them side by side you cant really notice that much difference.
I totally agree though, a PC is not all about gaming.





I have a better card, I just haven’t updated my signature. But I have seen so many comments about Watchdogs on Youtube and I kind of started a Comment War on Youtube about this. So I bought a copy of Watchdogs just to see for myself what the differences are, and to see if my system could run it in Ultra mode. Its not that expensive.


Yes but it’s also Illegal, I mean it’s not like I don’t do it so I’m not going to be a hypocrite. The difference with my PS4 is that all the Games I collect can be sold on at a later date, so I can at least get most of my money back.


For once we agree on something. I think the Tablets have started to eliminate the need for a PC. I saw the gadget show a few months back and they said the same thing. There’s not much need for a Desktop PC anymore and it’s all down to the Tablets, Smartphones Etc.


I’m guessing you’re an Xbox fan, I’ve never liked Xbox, but even I am surprised by them releasing the Xbox, they have completely ruined it. I read somewhere the Xbox is 50% less Powerful than the PS4, but you can kind of agree when you see that they released watchdogs on Xbox at 720p. Don’t forget it’s not even been out long, if it’s having issues running the early games, what’s it going to be like in 2 Years?



I would never buy a PC from a shop, I build my own if I want a PC, but I think people who have desktops now will probably always have one. I’m excited to see Razers “Christine” at the E3 show this year, I saw a glimpse of it on YouTube. But again this is kind of my point that Desktops are dying out. You could argue that Christine is a desktop. But how many people are going to buy them? You would have to compare the sales of Tablets vs The sales of Computers to get any real kind of answer.


Based on everyone I know, I am the only person that uses a Desktop PC, and that’s only because of my Artwork. Oh and my Stepson as well, but the only reason he has one is because of me. I showed him World of Warcraft and he’s hooked.


Aside from the fact I use my PC for my Artwork theres no real reason for me to have one. If this Steam Box takes off you will find the PC will slowly just fade out. Unless of course you have to have one for programming or like myself Art, but these are specialist subjects. The Average Joe Bloggs won’t be buying one or building one.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

I would have to disagree with some of what you say but agree with most.

My old PC I thought was quite good, that was until I got my new one and I don't know how or why I left it as long as I did. The difference is huge in comparison.

The main difference is that people do not want a giant box and a load of computer gear in their living rooms now, that I can understand. But for me that's never been an issue as the PC is a huge part of my life now so my PC/desk is 2ft away from my main TV (So everything is wired in). So I can play games, watch films ( I have no need to buy a blu ray player) all the big screen via the PC (via AV), no need for any kind of network and the PC is central to everything I enjoy and do. I can understand that this isn't a normal kind of set up.

I wasn't getting at you for downloading as it is part of having a PC but it is a main factor too. I couldn't see myself buying a console then paying £50 for a game, good or crap when you can download it in minutes for free.

Before I got the new PC I was geared up to get the latest console but as I said they are under performing and I can't pay out for the games that are on offer at the mo. So went all out on a PC that I hope to last for as long as it can. The gfx card alone is around £500+ so I don't make the same mistake that you (and I) have in the past. But I do also know I will have to update again at some point.

I use MSN to chat with friends and the wife whilst she's at work, I couldn't do that on a tablet (I have an ipad), nor would I want to use a console, I think if I wanted to I could list 101 things that a tablet and console couldn't do that a PC makes light work of so I can't compare the PC to a tablet etc.

Gaming is changing and that's good but crap for anyone who has a 'normal' PC, but it's all down to how much you're willing to pay out. But the gains are very nice if you can afford it.

As for consoles losing ground, well they right now. Most people would cringe if they said they have the XB1 as I would too if I had one. I ain't knocking them for what they can do right now but as a whole. The PS4 will certainly gain more popularity over the XB1. And no I ain't a fanboy of the XBOX, nor PC for that matter. I'm just disappointed in the new consoles, early days or not it doesn't change anything.

I can't compare ipads to consoles and PCs, I reckon I've spent more time on Candy Crush than any any PC game but it doesn't mean anything.

Bottom line is that bog stand PCs won't be enough to run games now how they should be run, you can get a cheaper console instead that would be better than a 'normal' PC which is good, I can't knock that. But the price of the games is something that is a problem for most PC owners so they'd rather upgrade to get around this.

In the month I've had this new PC, I've played a lot of Grid 2 which I could play on my old PC, but it's brilliant now with everything maxed out, I've played Wolfenstein and Watch Dogs again all maxed out and it's by far better than the consoles can do. But the point is I do not have to worry anymore (for a long while at least) about specs, nor prices. And I get the added bonus of doing everything I want super quick, painless and a whole lot cheaper.

It's all relative at the end of the day, I couldn't sit there with 1-2 games with the latest console instead of having a pick of whatever I want that comes with having a PC.

Choice - what choice..... PC suits me more than anything else that there is on offer. (By far). Some might say it is a welcome change that things are now progressing with the PC, my old PC could still run things on very high settings up until now and that's about 4-5 years old. Something has to change to make it more next gen and to appeal to a different audience and PC is now starting to do that. No different to the consoles have so you could say the PC will now appeal more because they are even more powerful than ever.

And I ain't knocking your opinion on all you've said either. It's all valid as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

The console argument is great, until you start looking at other things than games. Which is why I have never got a console for myself, and never will.

Granted I spend a very small amount of time gaming, and a lot more on office/productivity programs.
This. Is why PC's will never die, and do n't tell me tablets and smartphones will fill that gap, I have both, and whilst they're ok for really basic stuff, they don't come anywhere near close to a PC for real productivity.

PC = versatility
Console = good for gaming

Oh I should add I have an extremely high spec PC which should at this point in time, be able to do anything any current console can.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Top of the range graphics cards cost as much if not more than next gen consoles.
Consoles rely heavily on game engine optimisation to glean the max from the systems.
My old'ish pc will happily run most modern games on normal to high settings, ultra tho I can forget it.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Two big problems with PC games for sure.

The perhaps sometimes unfair perception that if in doubt developers just bump the recommended specifications up a bit rather than optimizing their code is one of them.

Another one, less well known, is that occasionally DRM is implemented really badly and causes a huge performance hit. Imagine taking 1+1 = 2, turning it into something ridiculously complex like SQRT(((SQRT(10*10))*2)/5) = 2 and you get an idea of the performance overhead that can be introduced.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Another problem with DRM for PC games is that if it's an online authentication, you can't play the game when it falls down.

Sim City, Diablo III, and now Watch_Dogs have all had big issues at launch because they all require you to be logged in to a particular service to activate the game and also simply to be able to play the game, and each of those services fell on its arse at launch (Origin, Battle.net, Uplay), with some issues taking quite a while to be sorted.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

let's not forget that console graphics don't run games on the equivalent PC 'ultra' settings anyway, they are really only running 'normal' to 'high' PC graphics settings at best, but they mask the imperfections by using bloom and motion blur. people comparing consoles and PCs by stating a top end graphics card costs as much as a console, well, they are not using a fair comparison. that argument is really a moot point.

a top end graphics card will give you far better performance than a console any day of the week. that's why there is a premium price tag on it. a ps4 is using a cut down ATI 7870 - a card you can buy for a touch over £100 when it isn't a cut down version. a console will never perform as well as a £300+ card in a PC with equivalent CPU, but again, this is reflected in the price.

consoles are for convenience and/or limited budget. it's why they do so well. whilst it's true that to keep up with PC technology you really need to be loaded and/or a fool with money, a top end graphics card bought now will last you many a year before something comes along that is unplayable, or at the very least of lesser quality than a current console.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

One good thing about using a PC for gaming is using a mouse for movement, especially in first/third person shooter type games. I will always prefer using a mouse and keyboard for playing those games over a console controller. Seems that option is now coming to consoles though, which is going to make controller users weep :D

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Because there aren't any console games with DRM... :rolleyes:

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Not like that.

Diablo III on console does not use Battle.net, does not require a constant connection, and supports offline play.

Watch_Dogs on console *does* use Uplay, but only *needs* it for multiplayer. You can still play the game if UPlay is down...

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Way to take all the worst examples for PC and ignore any such examples for console.

Uplay games can normally be played offline regardless of if the server is up or not. Even without a disk. The same does not apply to console games. You need either a server or a disk, Uplay on PC lets you play games with neither.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

What are the equivalent worst examples for console, then?

And what was wrong with my examples? The whole point was that those games have those problems on PC and not on console...

I can't think of any console games where server downtime means you cannot authenticate the game in the first place, and cannot think of any console games that do not let you play the single-player mode offline.

The only console games that come to mind as having had anything remotely equivalent are Grand Theft Auto V's GTA Online component and Battlefield 4, both of which had massive server issues at launch (and long after launch for BF4!), however that only affected the multi-player - the server issues did not prevent people from playing the single-player nor prevent them from even activating the game in the first place (as they don't need activating...).



As for needing a server or a disc... Only with disc-based games on the Xbox 360 or Xbox One, which always require the disc to be present. Digital downloads work offline (and obviously have no disc). Not sure what the deal is with the PS3 and PS4.

Microsoft did of course want to change that for the Xbox One originally, and make it so that disc-based games could be played without the disc, so long as you "checked in" online every day, but the backlash killed that plan so it went back to how it was with the 360.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

The problem with such a high end rig is that it's likely not many (if any) games will make full use of it. Purely because it's cheaper to develop for the minimum spec platform then share whatever assets you can, rather than have a few teams working on different sets of assets at different resolutions..

If you look at the computing market as a whole, it's going in circles a little. Back in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, most companies who had any kind of computer had a mainframe and a load of dumb terminals. These got replaced first with Personal Computers (and I mean Personal Computers, although obviously the IBM PC compatibles dominated), then PCs with networking. These got slowly more and more powerful until the average PC got far more powerful than the average user needed. Some PCs (particularly in commercial use) have been replaced with Virtual PCs running on a cloud server somewhere, essentially turning the user's own hardware into a dumb terminal, and offloading the processing to a server somewhere, which is essentially what a mainframe did in the 60s, 70s and early 80s. For things like web surfing, email and instant messaging, people are increasingly turning to tablets and smart phones.

I think, in a few years, people will become disillusioned with cloud services (which can fail in so many more spectacular ways than PCs purely because there is more that go wrong) and viewing the internet on their phone/watch/tablet or TV, and start to come back to some form of desktop or tower computer.

It's the same with consoles. First we had the Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Then, that market failed and we got the first 8 bit home computers. These were gradually replaced by 16 bit computers (Amiga, ST etc), which ultimately lost out to the 5th Generation of consoles (particularly the Playstation and to some extent, the Saturn). Then the PC gaming market came of age, and has endured for a long time, despite stiff competition from the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii. This isn't a complete history of consoles or gaming by any stretch of the imagination, but is intended to illustrate that I believe the gaming market goes in cycles, alternating between consoles and computers.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Agreed. I have a "top end graphics card" from 5 years ago that will still play all the latest games on medium to high settings, producing graphics that are considerably better than even the next-gen consoles. It most certainly isn't a valid comparison looking at consoles vs. top of the range PCs. As I've already said though, the benefit of the PC is if you *want* better then you *can* pay for and get better. On consoles you do not have a choice. End of.

You don't *have* to buy top end PC gear to play games, as you correctly say a mid to low end card will play games just fine on medium settings that are equivalent to what consoles produce. A medium to low end machine can be had for the price of a current-gen console. Price premium my arse.

After all, a 4th gen Haswell CPU is less than £60, mainboard can be had for £40, and a graphics card like you mention for £100 - giving something equivalent or better than the the PS4. Even next-gen games on the PS4 (e.g. Watchdogs) will not run at full HD and is capped at 30fps, whereas a £200 PC can do full-HD and 60fps, or, if you're insanely well off, 4K and/or 120fps.

Hell, even a £60 graphics card will run Watchdogs on the PC in full-HD 1080p and get 50fps, again on the PS4 you're capped at 30fps nomatter what and 900p resolution, on the XBox One even lower.

---------- Post added at 01:38 ---------- Previous post was at 01:29 ----------

So?

Having a PC means you can get a high end rig if you want to.

Having a console means you can't use a high end rig nomatter how much money you throw at it. See above. Watchdogs on the PC will easily run at higher resolution and nearly double the framerate on a sub-£100 graphics card and a machine with overall cost less than a PS4.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Which wasn't my point. I was looking at it from a developers point of view. Software companies, like any companies are looking to maximise profits. One way to do this is cut costs. Developing assets (such as textures) for a game is a major cost, so they may look to reduce that by re-using assets across platforms. Now, developers can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is develop for the platform at the lowest end, and scale the assets to the higher end stuff. The downside with this is that the resulting game will not take full advantage of the underlying hardware in a high end PC. That hard way is to develop for the high end platform and scale the assets down so the low end platform can cope. I think a lot of companies take the former option, and not the latter. I think this is the case because I've seen high end PCs produce graphics that are a lot better than most games manage.

After all is said and done, you can spend as much as you want on a PC (up into the 10s of thousands of pounds should you want) but if software manufacturers are simply porting games from consoles without bothering to work on improving them, you are going to get console quality games on that PC.

---------- Post added at 10:36 ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 ----------

And, possible proof that the computer industry is moving in circles.. Western Digital are now talking about PCI Express hard drives.. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06...ed_disk_drive/.

These sound a lot like the 32 Meg Western Digital "Hard Card" that plugged into an ISA slot on my PC where I worked a few years ago..

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

It is true that some developers are taking the lazy route and developing for consoles and just porting or making slight tweaks to bring it onto the PC. However other developers are specifically developing for PC to maximize their games' ability to make complete use of all high end PC features and then downsizing for console (or ignoring console completely). Some of the biggest MMORPGs are PC only after all.

Again, though, even as a developer, on a console you don't have a choice. You have the hard limit of the current-gen console's capabilities and you cannot develop for platforms above that nomatter what. On PC you can aim as high or as low as you choose. Granted, some just cater for the lowest common denominator but that is by no means universal. And it's not as if all console games make full use of their hardware all the time either, nor do all PC games. Tetris anyone? You are going to get console quality games on a console nomatter what. You might get console quality games on a PC but you also have a choice to not get console quality games on a PC.

PCI express for high-end and superfast drives have been around for many years. I don't see how going to a 16Gb/sec next-gen cabled serial bus is "going in circles" compared to a 16MB/sec parallel non-cableable bus.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Well it's not all going the way of the consoles when it comes to gaming.

http://www.pcgamesn.com/sorry-consol...h-res-textures

Looking forward to this one.

Re: Increasing Technology & Gaming
 

Microsoft sold the idea of porting and re-using code to developers to lower production costs across platforms. If they can use the same code on pc and xbox then the developers save money, so they are going to do it. They can then choose to build on the code and improve things like textures or features. Many do make a lot of improvements but you will always see those that do next to nothing too.

Lazyness, budget, time, expected audience or whatever probably dictates the changes between versions.