Crytek: PCs Are a Generation Ahead of Consoles

[uc.asc]

To be fair, it's true. But we're looking at two budget ranges here.

£200-300: Console
£300-600: PC

I have an idea, take the money that would be spent on a console and add it to your PC budget.

Well...okay YEAH, if you know what you're doing that's a fair direction to take. For example, I COULD spend upwards of £300 on the Xbox Super-Elite Big Black C*** or whatever they're calling it, but instead I'm throwing that into a high end gaming PC.
BUT the problem is, people are aware of how to do this. Or that they even can.

Just look at what Dell is advertising as a 'gaming pc'. The alienware brand goes between £2000-3000+ at high end ... and those use 5770 graphics! That's tiny by todays standards.
The highest graphics card I've seen in an alienware is a GTX 460 and those sell for about £130! Where does that extra few thousand come from? Donuts?

Moral of the story; the industry knows most people are ignorant of PCs, so they jack up the price and make it all look more complicated than it is.

Yeah, that's true. And it's probably why consoles and PCs haven't converged already, since they're basically identical.

I have a dream that console manufacturers switch to making PCs, current console users will know that such PCs can run games, and once they find out how much better the experience is consoles as we know them die forever.

Won't happen, of course.

 

[PhiMed]

If memory serves me correctly, CryEngine was a pretty inefficient game engine. That's why people were able to reproduce graphics similar to Crysis using much less memory and processing speed. Considering how wasteful his company seems to be with processing power, maybe this guy isn't the best person in the world to comment on what this console generations is capable of.

Addressing his point, though, I'm okay with graphics and sound capabilities where they are right now. Developers have become so obsessed with the appearance of their games that they've forgotten to make the games fun or to think of new mechanics to make their games unique. I'm tired of playing Generic Shooty Video Game 1574: The Game. Moving to the next generation will only make the development cycle more expensive, which will make innovation more risky and less likely.

The 8-bit console generation lasted a really long time, and when you look back on the innovation of that gen, it's pretty impressive. Maybe it's time for the hardware to stay where it is for a bit so that game makers can catch their breath, reflect on the fact that they're supposed to be making games, not really pretty moving pictures, and think of reasons we should give them our money other than "Check out our Graphics! Kaboooooooooooooom!!!!!".

 

[XT inc]

Here is my whole deal in a nutshell. I want to love Pc games, I really do. However No matter how over powered my pc is my games are choppy. Then you find out the game isnt optimized for quad core or your radeon Hd 4850 can run WoW on ultra settings by leaps and bounds and yet it won't.

I love my console because games just work no fuss no muss. I never have to bother with screen tearing or having the lesser experience to have good frame rates. I mean really I just want to install it and play it on settings that are rig acceptable.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

So the developer that produces games that are usually the top of the "Look how amazing our Graphics are!" for the PC says that limitations of consoles in terms of graphics are holding everything back?

Trollbait is trollbait, is it not?

Well, Crytek, while you do have very lovely graphics, have you considered working on your gameplay any? Your games aren't exactly the stalwart triumphs of Gaming, you know, especially since Gaming isn't about graphics--graphics are nice, but if I just wanted graphics, I'd go watch a movie.

 

[floobie]

So the developer that produces games that are usually the top of the "Look how amazing our Graphics are!" for the PC says that limitations of consoles in terms of graphics are holding everything back?

Trollbait is trollbait, is it not?

Well, Crytek, while you do have very lovely graphics, have you considered working on your gameplay any? Your games aren't exactly the stalwart triumphs of Gaming, you know, especially since Gaming isn't about graphics--graphics are nice, but if I just wanted graphics, I'd go watch a movie.

Yeah, that about sums it up for me as well.

Some backstory should clarify my position. I've had my current gaming PC for going on 3 years now. It is the absolute first gaming PC I've ever owned that can still run NEW games MAXED OUT after owning it for more than half a year. And it's not like I splurged when I bought it. It was a very aggressively "mid-range" system at the time. And, of course, the only developer that has ever been able to stump my lovely, cheap, long-lasting, run anything, gaming PC has been Crytek, with the likes of Crysis.

The primary (only, IMO) appeal of their games is graphics. I found the gameplay extremely bland and repetitive after the "oo pretty" wore off about 5 minutes in. I know I'm not alone with that opinion. So, it isn't exactly shocking to hear that Crytek, the developer that pretty much relies on people wasting their money on ridiculous hardware is pushing the PC as the ultimate platform.

 

[Stefan Larsen]

One thing, PC os's use 23% of ram and processor at ALL TIMES.

 

[uc.asc]

One thing, PC os's use 23% of ram and processor at ALL TIMES.

Not entirely accurate.

 

[JTLW]

Anyway! Anybody here know much about PC hardware? Trying to find a compatable motherboard for a new build (i5 760/GTX 470)

If you wanna keep the price down, you can't go wrong with a Gigabyte P55M / H55M. (More or less the same mobo, but the H55M supports the onboard graphics of the i3 and dual core i5s. Not really relevant to you, but worth mentioning.) But if you wanna spend a little more, The Gigabyte P55-UD4 would serve you very well. Have a look for the P55 Asus Sabertooth, as well.

EDIT: The Gigabyte P55-UD5 does support SLI, iirc, which could be useful for yourself in the future. It costs a bit more, though, and doesn't add much unless you are multi-GPU running. Hope that helps!

One thing, PC os's use 23% of ram and processor at ALL TIMES.

Maybe in a weaker system with a hungry OS. Most 500 quid machines with a fresh Windows 7 install won't use anywhere near that, CPU-wise. The CPU more or less idles once it has done loading and starting up all the shit people put in their start up folders. RAM will usually hover between 20% and 40% usage, depending on how much you have. What you clearly failed to understand is that Vista and Windows 7 aren't actually using that RAM. The more you have, the more RAM appears in use. This is because those OSs will pre-load the RAM with programs it thinks you might use. If you want to do something RAM intensive, it clears off what is pre-fetched and lets you do your thing. If you load a program that is pre-fetched onto the RAM, then it starts faster, and you are a happy bunny.

A clean install of Windows 7 one a machine with 4-6GB of RAM shouldn't use more than 15% until you start loading it up with programs.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

For fuck's sake...

If you don't like the technical limitations of consoles, Yerli, then don't develope for them!

What? You want a slice of that big ol' console sales pie? Then suck it up, princess, and accept the limitations that come with that.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

To be fair, it's true. But we're looking at two budget ranges here.

£200-300: Console
£300-600: PC

I have an idea, take the money that would be spent on a console and add it to your PC budget.

Well...okay YEAH, if you know what you're doing that's a fair direction to take. For example, I COULD spend upwards of £300 on the Xbox Super-Elite Big Black C*** or whatever they're calling it, but instead I'm throwing that into a high end gaming PC.
BUT the problem is, people aren't aware of how to do this. Or that they even can.

Just look at what Dell is advertising as a 'gaming pc'. The alienware brand goes between £2000-3000+ at high end ... and those use 5770 graphics! That's tiny by todays standards.
The highest graphics card I've seen in an alienware is a GTX 460 and those sell for about £130! Where does that extra few thousand come from? Donuts?

Moral of the story; the industry knows most people are ignorant of PCs, so they jack up the price and make it all look more complicated than it is.

alienware.... the latest one has these little flaps on top of their box that open up to let out all the hot air. I'm assuming all that extra cash is used to fund the group of guys that sit around in the office to dream up new stupid stuff.

Stupid shit like that is what convinces the ignorant to buy their stuff. I wish the xbox was easier to add a new third party hard-drive like how the PS3 console does theirs.

I bet crytech newest creation is going to crash PCs and consoles alike.

 

[slipknot4]

The thing is, not that many people have super-powered latest tech PCs. You could make a game for such crazy-ass PCs but it wouldn't sell too well.

I bought my PC in summer 2008 for 1300?, haven't changed a single hardware component since and but i still can play every game on the market on highest settings. I wouldn't be able to do that if the developers were pushing the limit in the graphics department.

Again, most people don't have 1300? to just throw away at a gaming rig.
Hell, most people don't even have 700? to throw away at a pc.