Increasing Technology & Gaming

[qasdfdsaq]

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.

[Tezcatlipoca]

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.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

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.

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..

Originally Posted by Qtx

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 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.

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.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by idi banashapan

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.

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 ----------

Originally Posted by Stuart

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..

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.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

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.

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..

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Stuart

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

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.

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..

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.

[peanut]

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.

[Qtx]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

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.

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.