Nvidia Claims PS4 Is Only as Good as a "Low-End" PC

[Sol_HSA]

Nvidia bashes competitor's products, film at 11..

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Rendering at 30 fps isnt exclusive to everything btw, revengeance on ps3 I believe is 60 fps, and I also believe final fantasy 13 is 1080p?

Nope, FFXIII on PS3 is at 1280 x 720, aka 720p. The 360 version is even lower. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-final-fantasy-xiii-face-off

A lot of games run at sub-720p resolutions. Dark Souls, the CoDs (probably to achieve 60FPS), etc.

The addition of a heavy OS like Windows means you need much more RAM and maybe a better CPU, but doesn't affect the GPU requirements much at all. A fairly weak GPU could easily run most straight console ports at 720p/30FPS at the kind of settings you see on consoles. Games like CoD will easily run at the same 60FPS, too. You do need a slightly better GPU, as the many varied PC set-ups out there mean that games can't be optimized as efficiently. It's difficult to play to the strengths of the hardware when everybody has different hardware.

Still, I agree with your other points. Consoles are still a lot easier to use and a lot more convenient. Better graphics aren't a great reason for picking one format over the other, either, or at least I don't think so. It's all about the games, in the end. I play on PC because I like PC games. That and it was cheaper in my situation, but whatevs, yo.

I also agree that console games still look good but, fuck, I still get blown away by how nice some 6th generation games look.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Still better than my computer and I'm only interested in the new PS4 for the new Sony titles. When something good comes out with the shield I might start wetting myself (doubtful).

 

[srm79]

"we didn't want to do the business [with Sony for the PS4] at the price those guys were willing to pay."

"They didn't want to do business with us at the prices we wanted them to pay"

Nvidia loses out to it's #1 rival, goes on the attack. Seems legit.

 

[srm79]

Double post, dammit!

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

Lets get some facts straight.

> August 2005 - GeForce 7800GT launches, the second-fastest card of that generation next to 7800GTX.
> November 2006 - Playstation 3 launches, using a GPU equivalent power to a GeForce 7800GT (G70 architecture)
> November 2006 - GeForce 8800GT launches, the second-fastest card of that generation next to 8800GTX - exactly onu generation ahead of PS3.

What I'm getting at is that the PS3 upon release was incredibly powerful and comparable to mid/high-end gaming PC at that time.

In order to equal that same pattern, a PS4 must use nothing less than a GTX580 equivalent GPU - and apparently it's using an HD7850 equivalent, a card that is nowhere near as fast as a GTX580.
The 8-core AMD Jaguar CPU being used is also orders of magnitude slower than what Intel have to offer with Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge.

Hardware-wise the PS3 was a force to be reckoned with when it released and it lasted for 7 years. The next console generation is expected to be the last, and they are kicking things off with such sub-par hardware when the progression of technology is accelerating? This is madness.

 

[destroyer2k]

Here are all your answers.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

2 core cpu most used
2-4 gb of ddr is most used
1gb of vram
and the gpu side is not the most spectacular in steam survey

And when you look at your statistic is show ps4 will be more powerful than most of the average pc. Not high end but there is a difference console will be 400-500$ and a better pc will be more expensive.

Now the point of my comment is that if 5% of gamers have a 1000-2000$ pc, does not mean the rest of 95% have the same pc.

Sorry for bad english.

 

[piinyouri]

Well that sounded a touch childish.

Really, he didn't say much at all aside from "I like PC's.
Did I mention all the downsides the PS4 has?
I like PC's."

So, anyone working for a c ompany making statements for it is childish? Hmm.

Nope.
But to me what he said was barely disguised mudslinging.
And please don't pull the PC gamer/console gamer card.
Had this been a console exclusive developer saying the same passive aggressive things, I'd have called them out on it as well.

 

[Bestival]

which launched in March 2012, more than a year and a half ago."

So am I just really dumb and reading this wrong, or does that make no sense?

OT: I think you shouldn't really compare PS4 to PC so much as PS4 to PS3. Most people I know that play consoles do so because they don't want all the hassle of keeping a PC running.

 

[nvzboy]

Something inside me hoped the PS4 would have as high specs as possible. A lot of games for the PC are ports from consoles, made with graphics on par with console performance. Often the graphics aren't that much better on pc than on the console.
Now if the consoles were to get more powerful, so will the graphics get better on these ports.
Then again I will have to upgrade my pc to stabily run these new games.
Perhaps i'm still bitter over the fact that Dead Space 3 and Crysis 3 didn't improve that much graphics-wise.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Anyone who thought it would be any better than a low, mid at best, end PC is either tech illiterate or delusional.
But at the same time, anyone who thinks that consoles need to be as powerful as a mid-high end PC are as well tech illiterate or delusional.

Consoles are for a specific market. That market isn't willing to spend $1k on a console. And Sony needs to be run by mongoloids if they are willing to sell a console at a $700 loss. That's a really unhealthy business practice.

People like that guy and the guys at Epic and Crytek are the reason why the gaming industry is going downhill. They put graphics over gameplay which is the worst thing a developer can do. That's the reason why so many great games that are GOTD material are getting hater. Because they don't look like modern games.
I understand that hardware power can be used for more than graphics. Better AI, more units on the screen, bigger level, more detailed, fuller levels... but can someone really tell me that modern companies use the hardware for that? Besides Nintendo and some other smaller developer, hardware is used to the max for graphics. That's why we get retarded AI, corridors instead of open worlds and the number of enemies on the screen can be counter with 1 hand. Crytek is especially bad here. The Crysis series is one of the best looking series in gaming, but has as well some of the worse AI in gaming history.

 

[Xyebane]

I'd have to agree. How can anyone really justify investing in the new console generation if they are only shipping with 8GB of RAM? Does anyone really think that 8GB is going to be enough in 5 years? When the Xbox 360 and the PS3 were announced they were really amazing specs at the time and you can even see now how weak those consoles are and how they are hamstringing the industry. Now they aren't even aiming for amazing, just settling for okay. Okay now is going to be absolute crap in 5 years.

Don't forget that both the 360 and PS3 have only 512mb of system RAM and shipped in '05/'06. I had an off the shelf PC in 2001 that had that.

Comparisons can't be drawn that simply, given that nearly every game nowadays is built for the architecture of consoles. In that the games are optimised to run on that hardware and you don't get to change it. Yes, they may be holding the industry back as you put it, but you have to understand that most people would prefer to spend less than £200/$300 and have a 'put the disc in and play' system.

My PC is 'ancient', it took me a good hour of tweaking settings to find the sweet spot for Tomb Raider, where I had decent frames, decent visuals and could run tressFX without my GFX card trying to take off. I'd venture a near certain guess that the average gamer doesn't have the patience for that

Fair enough

 

[Daemascus]

He's doing his job, but it involves not mentioning that specialized OS that consoles have. The PS4 wont have a relative resource beast like Windows 7/8 and its services/processes running in the background, and will be built from the ground up to just do the games (and their ancillary social bullshit). Also not being mentioned is that everyone with a PS4 will have the same specs. Developers will be able to squeeze every last drop out of the hardware without having to optimise and test for a variety of configurations, and do this over time so that things appear to improve over the years with the same hardware. Anyone remember "Uncharted is only possible on the PS3 because Drake actually gets wet and shit!" then "to hell with Uncharted 1, it only used 30% of the power and we're pushing 100% of what the system can handle now". Same song, different singer.

The thing is, the PS4's internals are much closer to a PC now, not the weird cell processors that made it so hard to program for the PS3 at launch. Which means it will be easieser to optimize for, and it wont have any of that hidden power to keep it relavent down the road. It will only up the speed at which delevopers use program cheats to keep the games looking decent, like giant weapon modles that take up a forth of the screen so the platform has to render less.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

As good as a low-end >GAMING< PC. I love how these people always conveniently drop that word out.

There was that guy a couple days ago that said next gen consoles have better specs than most PCs and stirred everyone up, most PCs are not gaming PCs. Just a clever use of words for some cheap marketing, getting people talking.

Honestly, you get what you pay for. I don't know about the XBOX but PS4 is only slightly cheaper than a similar PC minus the monitor, in my region it probably won't be.

They are not idiots, they are not going to sell something for less than it's worth. Business to run and all.
I don't get why everyone's getting so worked up about these things, next gen consoles have more than decent specs, massive upgrade to the last gen.

 

[Radoh]

"we didn't want to do the business [with Sony for the PS4] at the price those guys were willing to pay."

"They didn't want to do business with us at the prices we wanted them to pay"

Nvidia loses out to it's #1 rival, goes on the attack. Seems legit.

Do you understand how bidding works?

Company A makes a bid at $1000 and will put that level of quality into the job
Company B makes a bid at 500$ and the quality of the work will reflect that price

Company B gets chosen because it's less expensive to work with them, so they get the contract. Nvidia points out that they are the higher bid and that Sony doesn't want to spend more for better goods, meaning the hardware Nvidia was offering was likely of better make and model. What he's saying makes sense.

 

[tehroc]

PS4 isn't going to be able to keep up with smartphones, but then neither will Xbox. These new phones are just sick with quadcore processors. The new Galaxy is coming with a an octocore processor. By the time either of these systems come out the next iphone or whatever will have 16 core processors or something just as easily ridiculous. Hell the only advantage my PC has over my phone is a video card.

 

[The White Hunter]

Well that depends on what you call low end kind sir > >

I can tell you right now it outperforms my current PC by a lot.

If you mean low end that came out this year? Yeah in pure spec it's a couple years behind, but being a dedicated platform it will probably look mid-range a year or so after launch before quickly decaying in the performance stake. It'll also be a shitload cheaper.

But at any rate, that's nice, and obvious, no need to be a dick. Think I'll be looking at some 7800 cards now > >

 

[The White Hunter]

which launched in March 2012, more than a year and a half ago."

So am I just really dumb and reading this wrong, or does that make no sense?

No you read right, March 2012 was a year ago, not 18 months...

 

[rkaycom]

He's doing his job, but it involves not mentioning that specialized OS that consoles have. The PS4 wont have a relative resource beast like Windows 7/8 and its services/processes running in the background, and will be built from the ground up to just do the games (and their ancillary social bullshit). Also not being mentioned is that everyone with a PS4 will have the same specs. Developers will be able to squeeze every last drop out of the hardware without having to optimise and test for a variety of configurations, and do this over time so that things appear to improve over the years with the same hardware. Anyone remember "Uncharted is only possible on the PS3 because Drake actually gets wet and shit!" then "to hell with Uncharted 1, it only used 30% of the power and we're pushing 100% of what the system can handle now". Same song, different singer.

Thank you, exactly what I was going to say.

Higher specs aren't needed in consoles like they are in PC's.

Consoles are usually used for just gaming, running a minimalist OS.

Windows is quite a resource hog in itself, hence the needing of a higher clock CPU, more ram and higher GPU, not to mention any programs you want to use that use up your ram, CPU etc.

It isn't fair to compare the specs of a console and a computer, because not only are they used for different things, but with consoles, everyone is on equal footing, same specs and such, much less testing and more optimization for consoles.

Edit: Not to mention consoles are meant to be a cost effective way of being able to game.

Something tells me a GT680 in every PS4 would not be cost effective, it would effectively raise the price of the ps4 by...well....a lot really.

Being able to attain good graphics, good clock speeds and the like does not always need top of the line hardware, it needs hardware that can do the job, and some good old optimization.

Sorry but your argument is very flawed. Something that a lot of people over look is that consoles render games at 720p with 30 fps, where as PCs render those same games at 1080p with 60 fps. PCs also have high texture resolution, draw distance, detail, AA, etc, etc. Unless the console come out with some seriously powerful hardware, PCs will continue to dominate performance wise and they are only getting cheaper and cheaper, saw a guide for a $450 SC2:HotS ultra graphics PC the other week.

Rendering at 30 fps isnt exclusive to everything btw, revengeance on ps3 I believe is 60 fps, and I also believe final fantasy 13 is 1080p?

In other words, it depends how well it has been optimized.

I'm still not understanding how my argument is "very flawed".

Console games still look quite good.

Just because pc's CAN run everything at 1080p with all the little extras, that doesnt exactly mean that everyone cares about having the shinier graphics. If they did, consoles would not be selling at all.

It comes down to ease of use, and a console will always be easier to use.

Minimal OS, no reinstalling the OS, no installing drivers, no reinstalling all the programs you want, so on and so forth.

That is why consoles can have lower prices and less impressive hardware, because unlike a pc, consoles dont have to run all the resource hogging software, OS and such that a computer has to run.

Just because a PC can dominate graphics wise, that doesn't mean that people will all flock to pc's like they are the golden egg everyone has been searching for.

So no, I don't see my argument as being flawed, just because one is more powerful, doesn't make my argument of a console being cost effective for gaming any less valid.

My argument is, if consoles have bad specs, developers will stunt their game's graphical fidelity (and/or graphical potential) so that they will run well. This is why consoles need good specs in comparison to PCs.