John Carmack: PS3/Xbox 360 are "Far From Tapped Out"

[iniudan]

Was John Carmack, not for the longest time, talking about their limitations and how there was little more to be done with them at many a convention? The 7th generations consoles as near as I can tell are stagnant. GTA V was the last game that squeesed any last juice out of the consoles, and did a damn fine job if I must say so myself. That is not to say that great games cannot still be made on them, far from it. Merely that there is little, if any, wiggle room left to push the boundaries of technology on them.

Yes, he think there is limitation, if you compare to a PC for example, but that doesn't mean the hardware capability have been fully tapped out.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Make a triple A game in 1080p resolution running at 60fps with less than 10ms of input lag and then tell me that the old consoles aren't tapped out.

He did. It was called Doom.
No, really, Doom was programmed on a PC running 1080p and the FPS was limited by hardware only and could reach 60. No significant lag at least when i played it.

You know exactly what I mean. There's really no need for that smart-arsery.

 

[chikusho]

But why would it be better to stay with shitty old hardware that requires optimization for relatively light tasks when new hardware exists? The fact of the matter is that the PS3 and 360 are woefully under powered at this point. What possible advantage do we get from sticking with outdated hardware?

The fact of the matter is that the 360 and the PS3 were not powerful enough to be program and forget machines, not even for very simple games. The Xbone and PS4 are in that territory for games like Super Meat Boy or Castle Crashers.

The fact of the matter is that indie games are far and away more successful and popular on the PC. And, on the PC, they need to optimize and cleverly design in order for the game to work on many types of different hardware that's older and less powerful than what you find in a ps3 or 360. Sorry, but that argument doesn't fly.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

I for one agree with him. It's a bit of a Catch 22. I think the new consoles were released at least half a year too early, but the Xbox 360 and PS3 have both had a brilliant run and were probably looking forward to their retirement. I think as gamers we were well served by the last generation. *salutes*

 

[DrOswald]

But why would it be better to stay with shitty old hardware that requires optimization for relatively light tasks when new hardware exists? The fact of the matter is that the PS3 and 360 are woefully under powered at this point. What possible advantage do we get from sticking with outdated hardware?

The fact of the matter is that the 360 and the PS3 were not powerful enough to be program and forget machines, not even for very simple games. The Xbone and PS4 are in that territory for games like Super Meat Boy or Castle Crashers.

The fact of the matter is that indie games are far and away more successful and popular on the PC. And, on the PC, they need to optimize and cleverly design in order for the game to work on many types of different hardware that's older and less powerful than what you find in a ps3 or 360. Sorry, but that argument doesn't fly.

You are just wrong about that.

1. While it is true that PC indie games are more popular that has far more to do with audience composition than relative hardware specs.

2. Indie games have not had to shoot as low as 7th gen specs for years to be virtually universal for PC. Even games originally made for the consoles like Fez and Castle Crashes have recommended specs far above what a 7th gen console could offer. This is because optimization to that level is not needed.

3. During the 7th gen getting a game released on the PC was easily within an indie developers grasp. Even if the consoles were more powerful for a few years they were still by far the harder to develop for and far less lucrative platform for a number of other reasons. The PC is the platform of choice for the indie developer because of the ease with which one can develop for the PC. This ties into my point: It is easier to develop for more powerful hardware and that is a good thing.

But even if all the above were not true you did not address the one point I actually had.

Having more powerful hardware to develop on makes games easier to develop. This is good. If you disagree, please explain why.

 

[Vivi22]

Basically, my point is that more powerful hardware doesn't necessarily mean that the costs rise proportionally. Having 5-6GB of usable RAM compared to 256MB makes the programmers and other people's jobs much easier, not having to constantly adjust every factor in an effort to avoid going "over RAM".

Trouble is developers always say that at the start of every generation. Give companies 2-3 years tops and they'll be running up against the limits of the hardware again without optimizing and resorting to clever tricks to fool you into thinking the game is bigger than it is. Development will get more expensive. It's basically an indisputable fact of AAA gaming. We have never had a generation where costs didn't rise spectacularly with the new hardware, and this generation isn't going to be any different. Sure, AAA development doesn't have to get more expensive. And the US doesn't need to keep spying on every human being on the planet. Neither of those is going to stop any time soon though.

And over time, optimization doesn't cost nearly as much since people learn the hardware. Trying to figure out how to optimize something for hardware you've never worked on before is a lot more expensive and time consuming than hardware you've done three or four games on and have basically maxed out at that point.

 

[Saulkar]

Was John Carmack, not for the longest time, talking about their limitations and how there was little more to be done with them at many a convention? The 7th generations consoles as near as I can tell are stagnant. GTA V was the last game that squeesed any last juice out of the consoles, and did a damn fine job if I must say so myself. That is not to say that great games cannot still be made on them, far from it. Merely that there is little, if any, wiggle room left to push the boundaries of technology on them.

Yes, he think there is limitation, if you compare to a PC for example, but that doesn't mean the hardware capability have been fully tapped out.

What is the difference between limitation and hardware capability to you? (note: I do not know how to word this without sounding like a jerk so please do not interpret this as an attack because that is never my intent) The way you word your interpretation of limitations makes it sound as if there is still a minute chance of pushing the hardware more, your statement surrounding capability seems to reinforce this? Or by capability do you mean that good games can still be made on it despite the total inability of pushing the hardware anymore?

 

[chikusho]

Having more powerful hardware to develop on makes games easier to develop. This is good. If you disagree, please explain why.

Never said anything of the sort. My original point remains: Hardware focus = bad for the industry.

Also, to adress your point, I guess I can quote what tdylan said earlier in the thread,

To the cynic in me that sounds like "come on! We finally understand the current tech to the point that it's most cost-efficient for use to develop for it, and instead of letting us reap the rewards of all the time we spent figuring it out, we now have to learn a new tech."

Yes, I do see the frustration: you open a business in Spain, but you have a difficult time building a repoire with the locals due to not fully understanding the language. Right when you become fluent in Spanish, someone decides "we're shipping you to our new start-up in Germany."

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Well, it's not like you guys have to stop developing for the 360. Microsoft has made it clear that they still plan on supporting it still for a little while. And even further, they've had like 8 years on the last gen. It really is time to move on.

 

[octafish]

Hey John can the PS3 or 360 support the Occulus Rift? No? Then those consoles are DEEAAAAAAD! Now get back to work on our cheap VR headsets. Thank you.

 

[iniudan]

Was John Carmack, not for the longest time, talking about their limitations and how there was little more to be done with them at many a convention? The 7th generations consoles as near as I can tell are stagnant. GTA V was the last game that squeesed any last juice out of the consoles, and did a damn fine job if I must say so myself. That is not to say that great games cannot still be made on them, far from it. Merely that there is little, if any, wiggle room left to push the boundaries of technology on them.

Yes, he think there is limitation, if you compare to a PC for example, but that doesn't mean the hardware capability have been fully tapped out.

What is the difference between limitation and hardware capability to you? (note: I do not know how to word this without sounding like a jerk so please do not interpret this as an attack because that is never my intent) The way you word your interpretation of limitations makes it sound as if there is still a minute chance of pushing the hardware more, your statement surrounding capability seems to reinforce this? Or by capability do you mean that good games can still be made on it despite the total inability of pushing the hardware anymore?

Basically if I go in more concrete term, limitation is raw hardware spec, thus what the hardware can actually do. Capability is code optimization for software compiled to run on said hardware, in other word trying to push what it can do the among the limitation, which in the case of Carmark, tend to be further then most, has he is a genius hacker.

But I might also been not been expressing myself correctly also, English is not my first language.

 

[Saulkar]

Was John Carmack, not for the longest time, talking about their limitations and how there was little more to be done with them at many a convention? The 7th generations consoles as near as I can tell are stagnant. GTA V was the last game that squeesed any last juice out of the consoles, and did a damn fine job if I must say so myself. That is not to say that great games cannot still be made on them, far from it. Merely that there is little, if any, wiggle room left to push the boundaries of technology on them.

Yes, he think there is limitation, if you compare to a PC for example, but that doesn't mean the hardware capability have been fully tapped out.

What is the difference between limitation and hardware capability to you? (note: I do not know how to word this without sounding like a jerk so please do not interpret this as an attack because that is never my intent) The way you word your interpretation of limitations makes it sound as if there is still a minute chance of pushing the hardware more, your statement surrounding capability seems to reinforce this? Or by capability do you mean that good games can still be made on it despite the total inability of pushing the hardware anymore?

Basically if I go in more concrete term, limitation is raw hardware spec, thus what the hardware can actually do. Capability is code optimization for software compiled to run on said hardware, in other word trying to push what it can do the among the limitation, which in the case of Carmark, tend to be further then most, has he is a genius hacker.

But I might also been not been expressing myself correctly also, English is not my first language.

Well at the moment, as far as I know, familiarity with the consoles has allowed optimisation has hit its ceiling and in order to do more you must rely on essentially hacks and smoke and mirrors to accomplish greater feats but even that has limitations. One example off the top of my head is how seamless cars from a distance morph from cubes into increasingly more detailed cars in GTA V but only because it is streaming from both the console and disk at the same time. So yes, with clever programming and hacking you can do a little bit more but there is always, always a tradeoff.

 

[Strazdas]

Make a triple A game in 1080p resolution running at 60fps with less than 10ms of input lag and then tell me that the old consoles aren't tapped out.

He did. It was called Doom.
No, really, Doom was programmed on a PC running 1080p and the FPS was limited by hardware only and could reach 60. No significant lag at least when i played it.

You know exactly what I mean. There's really no need for that smart-arsery.

I was merely pointing that you dont need powerful hardware to run 1080p and that he already did it as you requested. Heck, WiiU runs 1080p.
The last gen consoles cannot run 1080p. They are physically incapable to do this output. Best they can do is run upscaling, which doesnt mean real 1080p. You cant run a single frame picture in 1080p on them simply because of hardware limitation.

sounds about right; I think most designers whining about not having more power fell into the category of "didn't know how to optimize or be efficient with design." If someone is whining about power more than likely they're trying to disguise their ineptitude and incompetence. Especially when it'd proven ad infinitum that you don't need cutting edge tech to make great games.

I got a childhood friend who went into IT and was recently actually programming a sattelite of all things. What he always says about optimizing is that "you dont need more power. you just need better optimization". Thats programming though and there is no way to go around power when it comes to graphics, but as we will probably agree graphics are secondary.

Well, no. More power makes it necessary for games to use that power, which requires even more optimizing and even more being efficient with design which takes even more time and even more money.

If that was true every PC exclusive would must use your pc completely and fully. it does not. in fact, if you were to buy a mid-range graphic card right now you will find that most games dont even tap half of its potential unelss you go above console resolutions (and im not even talking about not going ultra low graphics)

And the entire point is that we've been at that point for a long time, and would continue to be at that point without new consoles.

No, we have not. 5 years ago our hardware struggled with relatively simple path-finding algorithms. We now have 32 times more powerful hardware. You can write a complex path-finding for AI and it would run. On old consoles you couldnt create "smart" enemies because it simply couldnt handle them. In fact it couldnt handle not-completely-suicidal-moron enemies if you placed more than a few at a time. simple reason being not enough RAM.

My original point remains: Hardware focus = bad for the industry.

Then why do you argue for focusing on old hardware when you can have new hardware so powerful that you no longer need to make "working on it" a priority?

To the cynic in me that sounds like "come on! We finally understand the current tech to the point that it's most cost-efficient for use to develop for it, and instead of letting us reap the rewards of all the time we spent figuring it out, we now have to learn a new tech."

You have been reaping such rewards back in 2010, even before that. Now what you are doing is beating a dead horse with electric stick and hope its muscles havent atrofed far enough yet.

 

[chikusho]

Well, no. More power makes it necessary for games to use that power, which requires even more optimizing and even more being efficient with design which takes even more time and even more money.

If that was true every PC exclusive would must use your pc completely and fully. it does not. in fact, if you were to buy a mid-range graphic card right now you will find that most games dont even tap half of its potential unelss you go above console resolutions (and im not even talking about not going ultra low graphics)

A PC-game must work on as many configurations of hardware as possible.
This thread is about consoles. The very consoles which will just restart the horse-race of needless technically impressive graphics.

Then why do you argue for focusing on old hardware when you can have new hardware so powerful that you no longer need to make "working on it" a priority?

See the aforementioned horse-race.

You have been reaping such rewards back in 2010, even before that. Now what you are doing is beating a dead horse with electric stick and hope its muscles havent atrofed far enough yet.

Let's just say I'd rather listen to a really good guitarist play his instrument well than see who can make the most noise at a full orchestra.

 

[Strazdas]

A PC-game must work on as many configurations of hardware as possible.
This thread is about consoles. The very consoles which will just restart the horse-race of needless technically impressive graphics.

Let's just say I'd rather listen to a really good guitarist play his instrument well than see who can make the most noise at a full orchestra.

No, it does not have to work on as many configurations as possible. In fact there are plenty of games that dont work on old and obsolete confogurations (like the old consoles). time has moved on.

Technically impressive? perhaps if you mean that its impressive they can do such graphics with such technical limitations. Needless? millions of gamers disagree with you there.

I would prefer a good guitarist play a good instrument instead of radioactive plan full of holes though.

 

[chikusho]

A PC-game must work on as many configurations of hardware as possible.
This thread is about consoles. The very consoles which will just restart the horse-race of needless technically impressive graphics.

Let's just say I'd rather listen to a really good guitarist play his instrument well than see who can make the most noise at a full orchestra.

No, it does not have to work on as many configurations as possible.

... as many configurations as possible.

...as possible.

If a PC game only works on one configuration it's going to reach such a limited audience that no pricing structure in the world could support the development cost.

Technically impressive? perhaps if you mean that its impressive they can do such graphics with such technical limitations. Needless? millions of gamers disagree with you there.

Millions of gamers are also tired of the regurgitated bullshit that has been flooding the industry for the past generation.

Besides, the sliding scale of technology makes it almost impossible to focus on a feature set early during development. While new technical implementations and clever tricks get discovered in the hardware the design has to change, which makes game projects into a mess up until the last few stages of development. Knowing the hardware, the tools and having a clear goal from the onset shortens production and improves the product no matter what you are making.

Also, technical limitations has led to some of the most impressive, most important and best implementations of gameplay throughout the history of the medium.

I would prefer a good guitarist play a good instrument instead of radioactive plan full of holes though.

This sentence... is unintelligible.

 

[Lightknight]

Well, he's right, but that doesn't make the ps3/360 any less obsolete. You've got to think of these things as platters that are intended to hold things. The bigger the platter, the more you can hold. All we're getting with the ps4/XBO is a much bigger platter and that will only help us.

Add that to the fact that they've moved to a unified x86 environment and we've got a much simpler way to put things on it. No more development sacrifices to figure out the PS3's stuff or painstaking ports. It even removes any conceivable excuse the next MS/Sony console would have regarding backwards compatibility for the next gen.

It's really the way things should be and everyone will benefit from it. Even if there's still more for him to get out of it, other developers have been scraping the bottom. From GTA V to Skyrim. Even the Last of Us had some interesting limitations but it was clearly one of the prettiest games I've ever seen if not the prettiest one.

 

[DrOswald]

Having more powerful hardware to develop on makes games easier to develop. This is good. If you disagree, please explain why.

Never said anything of the sort. My original point remains: Hardware focus = bad for the industry.

Well, I think we must have just misunderstood either other then. I agree with that statement with one caveat: Excessive hardware focus = bad for the industry.

But developers that want more power are not necessarily excessively focusing on hardware.

Consider this: 8th gen (2013) tech is about an order or magnitude (10x) more powerful in most respects than 7th gen (2005-2006). In some ways it has advanced even more (Memory and hard drive space in particular.) And that is only in the things that have direct comparisons to last gen. We have advanced in many ways that the old hardware just cannot deal with.

Also consider the move to x86 architecture and moving to more standardized computer parts in general. This will make porting between consoles and PC vastly easier. In fact, the last generation was infamous for being so damn hard to develop for. It is only because of their weird hardware and architecture that it took developers so long to figure them out fully. This generation will have a much, much quicker acclimation period. In fact, developing for the Xbone or PS4 should be very close to developing for a PC. People have already been doing this for many years which means the acclimation period will be even shorter during this cycle.

Also consider that the previous generation lasted for 8 years. That is nearly a third of my life time, and probably much more for many gamers.

I don't think an upgrade at this point is being excessively focused on hardware. In fact, at this point, I think not upgrading tech would be a foolish disregard of technological innovations that would ultimately be to everyone's detriment, developer and gamer alike.

Also, to adress your point, I guess I can quote what tdylan said earlier in the thread,

To the cynic in me that sounds like "come on! We finally understand the current tech to the point that it's most cost-efficient for use to develop for it, and instead of letting us reap the rewards of all the time we spent figuring it out, we now have to learn a new tech."

Yes, I do see the frustration: you open a business in Spain, but you have a difficult time building a repoire with the locals due to not fully understanding the language. Right when you become fluent in Spanish, someone decides "we're shipping you to our new start-up in Germany."

Carmack has a point, but it really isn't a good one. It is like saying "Man, I just figured out the slide rule! why do we have to move on to graphic calculators now?" Complaining that you can't stick with the old tech, especially when the new tech has been improved in so many qualitative ways beyond just sheer power, seems a little petty. And I don't think that is what Carmack was really trying to say, because he is a smart man. I think he is just expressing a basic frustration that is inherent in software development.

I am a software developer myself and I have experienced the type of pain he is expressing. Quite often you will have worked with a technology for a good deal of time and really figured it out. You enjoy developing for it and you are comfortable with it. But inevitably a new and usually objectively better in basically every way tech is created and you have to upgrade because it would be foolish in the extreme not to, but you would still like to be able to develop in the old tech. Because that is easy and comfortable and you know that there is still so much that could be done with that tech despite it being outdated and obsolete. But if you don't move on to the new tech then a year or two down the road you will be kicking yourself.

 

[Strazdas]

If a PC game only works on one configuration it's going to reach such a limited audience that no pricing structure in the world could support the development cost.

I never said that though. I said that it should not run on as many as possible. Because it is possible to run on every configuration, but that is gonig to beoo too expensive that even if every person i the world bought it it wont turn profit. No. what a PC game should do is run on most standartized hardware configurations (for example use modern GPU drivers, considering that over 99% of PC users use them as well), and ignore the obscure ones (like Asus designed GPUs, i still dread to see another one).

Millions of gamers are also tired of the regurgitated bullshit that has been flooding the industry for the past generation.

Im sorry, i cannot comment on that as i have no idea what you are talking about. can you prove that millions of gamers actually hate what is being put out by the AAA? because sales figures (like 1 billion in 24 hours for GTA5) prove otherwise.

Besides, the sliding scale of technology makes it almost impossible to focus on a feature set early during development.

that is only true if your developement cycle is like DukeNukem - 15 years +. If your developement cycle is clsoer to 2-3 years - as is for most games nowadays, that is not a problem. You may not be able to use the very new thing if you set your features 3 years ago, but then most games wont either. And we saw plenty of awesome games that seemt to be built by slightly aged technology but was still loved (for example team fortress 2). Thing is, you still have to move forward each game and not just have a static feature set for 10 years though. Thats called improvement. And it very much depends on computing power (as i already talked about how calcualting intensive is AI and how last gen consoles simply couldnt do it).

While new technical implementations and clever tricks get discovered in the hardware the design has to change, which makes game projects into a mess up until the last few stages of development. Knowing the hardware, the tools and having a clear goal from the onset shortens production and improves the product no matter what you are making.

Which is only a problem with consoles, and evne then on launch day titles. on PCs the developers are aware of the hardware thier are working for years ahead and even has access to what consumer dont (at least Nvidia sends in its engineers to help, never heard of AMD doing so). Besides, they arent programming for newesrt hardware anyway, they are programming for most popular, which is midrange PCs. And that hardware is already out and about at the time they start developement.

Also, technical limitations has led to some of the most impressive, most important and best implementations of gameplay throughout the history of the medium.

Such as....

This sentence... is unintelligible.

The point being a good guitarist will do better with good instrument than a bad instrument.