Crytek: PCs Are a Generation Ahead of Consoles

[[Gavo]]

]

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.

The thing is, you don't need that. I invested in a good PC...two years ago. I can still run everything to the max.

This.
Also if you work out the actual costs of owning a home pc and a console, you'd be very surprised.
Rough math here: Console, 400 dollars after taxes, before additional accessories so about 500 - 600 depending on what you get.
Everyone on this forum has a computer obviously, Many of who probably purchases store pre builts so lets say 500 - 600 dollars.

You've effectively spent anywhere from 1000 to 1200 dollars on a console and a pc that can't play much of anything. with that much money you could've built a gaming pc that would blow an xbox out of the water and still serve as your home pc. Excluding the obvious exclusives most games are on pc as well.
It's much harder to argue cost of pc gaming when you work it out, and since Steam is always going nuts with sales, the cost of games in general is much lower than it would be for consoles.

Also, you pretty much need a computer these days. As for the price of a gaming PC, it's rather cheap, if you build it on your own. I recommend a friend to help you if you can't.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Actually it's nothing like that because PC games are built on API's the programming is exactly the same, the only difference in hardware of the same generation is processing speed, PC hardware is not accessed directly Its why DirectX and OpenGl exists because the hardware is so diverse it was a pain back in the old days of having to program for certain hardware, back when we had stuff like Duke3D soundcard support was a nightmare now it is not a problem

That's how it works in theory. In reality, implementations of APIs are big, complex things which are filled with bugs, flaws and other quirks.

 

[MR T3D]

all the snitches hatin on crysis calling it a tech demo ought to at least either try the demo, see how it runs, and/or watch a let's play of it.
Its more than your average FPS.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

but then your admitting defeat

Nope. I am rejecting the premise that you are capable of participating in anything resembling a debate in the first place. I find it funny that you bring up evolution, because you're in the exact same position that creationsist are: you're trying to aruge when what you really need to do learn.

 

[MR T3D]

but then your admitting defeat

Nope. I am rejecting the premise that you are capable of participating in anything resembling a debate in the first place. I find it funny that you bring up evolution, because you're in the exact same position that creationsist are: you're trying to aruge when what you really need to do learn.

this is coming from the guy whom took a (somewhat weakly) supported argument with "u wrong", you are not any better, and if you think you are, then you're worse.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Yes, that's you and if you are willing to find out, listen to what the devs reasons are to actually delay releases of big games months after people on the console enjoyed it.

You still haven't answered my actual question why devs delay it. It's not because to 'count' because why should they? They want instant money for their product, most logicial thing to do would be releasing every game on every platform on the same time.

Btw, don't feel threatend or think I am hostile, it's not my intention.

Simple. Making games for PC is HARD. If a game works on one PS3, it will work on all of them. If a game works on one gaming rig, that DOESN'T mean it will work on another.

Basically, a dev develops the game on a computer, then specializes it for a console. Back when computers were less diverse, they could put out the PC version while they ported it to console. Nowadays, they're done porting it to console but only STARTED figuring out why it works on a GTX 280 but not a GTX 260 (and making it work).

Actually it's nothing like that because PC games are built on API's the programming is exactly the same, the only difference in hardware of the same generation is processing speed, PC hardware is not accessed directly Its why DirectX and OpenGl exists because the hardware is so diverse it was a pain back in the old days of having to program for certain hardware, back when we had stuff like Duke3D soundcard support was a nightmare now it is not a problem

Quick question: How come Batman: AA rejected my computer until I replaced the motherboard with a slightly better one?

Did it give an actual message or just not run because no game even touches the motherboard in programming, the motherboard only handles the I/O of hardware, the Bios hasn't changed since the 70's

It's the same reason why DirectX games like say the orginal Deus Ex runs on my my computer without any need for software emulation

deus ex DirectX 7.0a year of release 2000

9800gtx D3D 10.0 YoR 2008 / windows 7 YoR 2009 D3D 11.0

Still runs on the hardware without need for software emulation like the Old Dos games do now since they predate the first DX included with Windows 95 and thus need a program like DosBox to emulate the old hardware enviroment when games were made for specific Hardware, specific Soundcards like maxis or soundblaster had to be programed for individually

 

[Signa]

What's really holding things back right now is the tools that we use to make games. Something like 80% of games today is the art: textures, meshes, backgrounds, whatever. They all take A LOT of time to produce. If there was some way to streamline that part of the production, games could be made cheaper and prettier.

 

[lacktheknack]

Yes, that's you and if you are willing to find out, listen to what the devs reasons are to actually delay releases of big games months after people on the console enjoyed it.

You still haven't answered my actual question why devs delay it. It's not because to 'count' because why should they? They want instant money for their product, most logicial thing to do would be releasing every game on every platform on the same time.

Btw, don't feel threatend or think I am hostile, it's not my intention.

Simple. Making games for PC is HARD. If a game works on one PS3, it will work on all of them. If a game works on one gaming rig, that DOESN'T mean it will work on another.

Basically, a dev develops the game on a computer, then specializes it for a console. Back when computers were less diverse, they could put out the PC version while they ported it to console. Nowadays, they're done porting it to console but only STARTED figuring out why it works on a GTX 280 but not a GTX 260 (and making it work).

Actually it's nothing like that because PC games are built on API's the programming is exactly the same, the only difference in hardware of the same generation is processing speed, PC hardware is not accessed directly Its why DirectX and OpenGl exists because the hardware is so diverse it was a pain back in the old days of having to program for certain hardware, back when we had stuff like Duke3D soundcard support was a nightmare now it is not a problem

Quick question: How come Batman: AA rejected my computer until I replaced the motherboard with a slightly better one?

Did it give an actual message or just not run because no game even touches the motherboard in programming, the motherboard only handles the I/O of hardware, the Bios hasn't changed since the 70's

It's the same reason why DirectX games like say the orginal Deus Ex runs on my my computer without any need for software emulation

deus ex DirectX 7.0a year of release 2000

9800gtx D3D 10.0 YoR 2008 / windows 7 YoR 2009 D3D 11.0

Still runs on the hardware without need for software emulation like the Old Dos games do now since they predate the first DX included with Windows 95 and thus need a program like DosBox to emulate the old hardware enviroment when games were made for specific Hardware, specific Soundcards like maxis or soundblaster had to be programed for individually

It complained of .NET framework. Which was odd, as the demo worked fine.

 

[lacktheknack]

this is coming from the guy whom took a (somewhat weakly) supported argument with "u wrong", you are not any better, and if you think you are, then you're worse.

It would have helped your point if you had typed this in English.

Don't even DARE going all Grammar Nazi on us. You've made at least one mistake yourself, one mistake is all it takes to kill a Grammar Nazi.

 

[Supernova2000]

Oh right, so the PC is so far ahead that it's games barely take up 1/4 of a shelf at my local Gamestation?

 

[Pilkingtube]

there's a grad student in my lab who runs every game at maxed out graphics settings, 60 FPS minimum, with an insane resolution. I'm forgot exactly what it was, but it was higher than 1920x1200. The individual components combine for a cost of about $2400, according to him.

was that including the monitor,mouse, keyboard,ect ?

Nope. Just the tower. He also uses only one brand of wireless mouse the keyboard. The keyboard that he uses isn't even in production anymore, but apparently it's the only wireless keyboard that lets him hold down more than 3 buttons at once. His entire rig is totally decked out. If I counted everything including the tower, I would say it's around $5000. But that's kind of unfair, because he's got an epic array of 10 GPUs (pretty sure they're all the best of the Radeon HD 6800 series), and only uses two for gaming and the rest for his project.

soo that friend of yours .... does he like work for the military and shoot missiles at enemy targets with his orbital Ion laser satellite? i dont see any other reason to have a super computer .....

Quantum computation simulations. Not sure about the details of his project, but apparently the calculations are fairly simple stuff involving huge ass matrices. So having a lot of really good GPUs (which they use to run lots of parallel calculations) is much more efficient than trying to get supercomputer time.
One of the little "side" projects he has is finding ways to factor numbers by setting parameters and minimizing the Hamiltonian. Never realized factoring was so difficult.

I was under the impression that only nVidia had CUDA technology, AMD have it now too? Surely he would want to use their higher end professional cards rather than the lower end consumer cards if that is the case.

 

[shini]

You're right! 300 pounds is just the starting price, when I factor in accessories and a monitor, it looks more like £500-600.

Console is definitely the way to go only £250! Oh, but now I need a tv, that's another £200 oh, and I guess if I buy a console, I'll also need to buy a cheap computer, can't play games ALL the time, that's at least another 200-300 pounds.

So if I shop conservatively, find bargains, or just get outright inferior tech, I'll probably save around 50 quid over building a moderately-priced PC. But the CONSOLE is so much cheaper.

This.
I don't get why people say consoles are so much cheaper compared to a gaming PC when a console is a totally avoidable expense but a decent PC is needed for lots of other things aside gaming. Sure, I spent a lot on my current PC, but it's not like I could have avoided upgrading my old one for much longer. If I didn't care about gaming how much would I have saved? I can say one thing: I'd have saved nothing on accessories and monitor. If I never played a PC game ever again I still would have bought this monitor, expensive as it was.

Someone said that parents wouldn't buy a gaming PC for their teenage kid, but they might buy a console. (I'm too lazy to check the previous pages again and quote that post.) This surprised me. It's been years since I was a teenager, but generally speaking this hasn't been my experience with my parents (who were confused when I wanted a PS2 because "what does it do? you just use it to play games on TV? why not play on your computer? what's an 'exclusive'?") and my coworkers.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

oh look, a fanboy who can't defend his point of console supremacy. your just as bad as that little girl who ran around here not long ago saying "everyone is wrong and i am blocking everyone" when she said the sun revolved around the earth and got banned by moderators for not perpetuating thoughtful debate. give up and go home if you can't make a thoughtful non-juvenile rebuttal, fanboy.

Yeah, this is about where I figured you'd end up.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Don't even DARE going all Grammar Nazi on us. You've made at least one mistake yourself, one mistake is all it takes to kill a Grammar Nazi.

You should have either a semicolon or a period where that comma is.

 

[Pingieking]

I was under the impression that only nVidia had CUDA technology, AMD have it now too? Surely he would want to use their higher end professional cards rather than the lower end consumer cards if that is the case.

I don't know the details, so I can't really comment. I'm an experimentalist, so I have very little idea of what he's doing and how he's doing it.

I'll go ask him about it sometime.

 

[lostzombies.com]

Yeah, we know. [http://www.gametrailers.com/video/unreal-overview-unreal-engine/707835]

Ultimately, PC gaming won't ever be as big as console gaming, but console gaming's reliance on motion controls will probably make PC gaming bigger.

Wait............console gaming has a reliance on motion controls?

 

[jamesworkshop]

there's a grad student in my lab who runs every game at maxed out graphics settings, 60 FPS minimum, with an insane resolution. I'm forgot exactly what it was, but it was higher than 1920x1200. The individual components combine for a cost of about $2400, according to him.

was that including the monitor,mouse, keyboard,ect ?

Nope. Just the tower. He also uses only one brand of wireless mouse the keyboard. The keyboard that he uses isn't even in production anymore, but apparently it's the only wireless keyboard that lets him hold down more than 3 buttons at once. His entire rig is totally decked out. If I counted everything including the tower, I would say it's around $5000. But that's kind of unfair, because he's got an epic array of 10 GPUs (pretty sure they're all the best of the Radeon HD 6800 series), and only uses two for gaming and the rest for his project.

soo that friend of yours .... does he like work for the military and shoot missiles at enemy targets with his orbital Ion laser satellite? i dont see any other reason to have a super computer .....

Quantum computation simulations. Not sure about the details of his project, but apparently the calculations are fairly simple stuff involving huge ass matrices. So having a lot of really good GPUs (which they use to run lots of parallel calculations) is much more efficient than trying to get supercomputer time.
One of the little "side" projects he has is finding ways to factor numbers by setting parameters and minimizing the Hamiltonian. Never realized factoring was so difficult.

I was under the impression that only nVidia had CUDA technology, AMD have it now too? Surely he would want to use their higher end professional cards rather than the lower end consumer cards if that is the case.

CUDA has really been replaced now with the Directcompute added into Dx.11 and thus both temas Red and Green support it