Nvidia: Console Graphics Will Never Again Outpace PCs

[Reaper195]

I...they ever did? Too many people don't seem to realise that the only advantage consoles have ever really had over PC was the ability to put the game disc in, and play the game thirty seconds later. No installations (GTA V is the first I know of for 360 to have a mandatory installation (By all means, correct me if I'm wrong. Would love to know what else), and a lot of PS3 games still don't do it), no downloads, no opening third party programs (Steam, Origin, etc). Just insert and play.

 

[michael87cn]

Pft, for now, maybe.

I kinda remember sitting down to a squeeling 56k modem just a few years ago, and now people are walking around with phones that can act like portable TELEVISIONs that receive signals from OUTER SPACE, rivaling download speeds of hundreds of 56k modems.

PCs can act the act now, but I don't think its possible to say "never again" to anything when it comes to technology.

 

[Tanakh]

Never again? Care to tell me exactly when did consoles surpassed PC in terms of graphical fidelity? Yeah..exactly.

Arguably from the first to the sixth generation of consoles, was painfully clear on some generations like the first and the fifth. So... most of the time?

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I think the phrase 'no shit' springs to mind here.

We just have to keep repeating ourselves in the hopes that the lower breeds will eventually join us in PC enlightenment.

Spoiler: Obligatory

That said, I may pick up a console in the next 5 years anyway. I do like my controller gaming and I haven't had a new one since the Gamecube... Time will tell. I think its good to have the two categories alive and thriving.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Do you really think the Titan will depreciate that much in 3 years Mr Chalk?

No idea, "a third" just sounded good. But three years is quite a bit of time for a GPU to depreciate, especially one at the very top end of the price range.

As for the "no shit" part of the story, sure, it goes without saying that a bleeding-edge PC will smoke any console on the market, but I find it interesting because it reminds me a bit of auto racing: The innovation takes place at the high end, but it's the mass-market, consumer-level stuff that ultimately enjoys the benefit.

So PC gamers are the equivalent of hot-rod enthusiasts, racing aficionados and the Top Gear Team?

I never really thought of it that way.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Man, since losing all the consoles to AMD Nvidia is spinning faster than a motorized top.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I mean consoles are optimized affordable gaming machines. They're built from the same components as PCs at this point so no shit you could easily look at the specs and then buy or build a PC with better specs.
If a 7 year old console with under a gigabyte of ram can play GTA V then I don't foresee it being much of an issue, though obviously the vice president of Nvidia has a stake in PC gaming.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Do you really think the Titan will depreciate that much in 3 years Mr Chalk?

No idea, "a third" just sounded good. But three years is quite a bit of time for a GPU to depreciate, especially one at the very top end of the price range.

As for the "no shit" part of the story, sure, it goes without saying that a bleeding-edge PC will smoke any console on the market, but I find it interesting because it reminds me a bit of auto racing: The innovation takes place at the high end, but it's the mass-market, consumer-level stuff that ultimately enjoys the benefit.

While this is just Nvidia getting ahead of a bunch of "optimized for AMD" multiplatform games that will be coming over the next several years, the way integrated graphics are advancing in three years time integrated graphics will likely be on par with the hardware of the Xbone and PS4. Check out the benchmarks and specs on AMD's upcoming Kaveri APU, even that is beginning to approach what is in the next gen consoles.

 

[Saulkar]

EDIT: Better put in a disclaimer that you don't need a Titan or upgrade yearly to play PC games. It's an extreme example.

I don't really see a Titan as a gaming GPU, really - It's overkill to buy that *just* for gaming, unless you're a hardware enthusiast/overclocker. I feel like the mid-range cards are usually more than adequate for most customers.

Hey NVidia! You might want to remember that the kind of tech you produce, nobody actually needs. Mid-range cards will run absolutely everything just fine. You're audience for Titan are a tiny number of hardcore technology freaks who are dumb enough to spend $400 on a graphics card.

It however makes for one hell of a CGI card!



This animation took 3 hours to render on a titan but took 45 minutes for a single frame on an I7 quadcore at 3.6GHZ-HT which would come to about 187.5 hours for the entire animation! It has its place given that the proffesional workstation cards which carry the same line of GPU cost 2-6 times as much.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I don't really see a Titan as a gaming GPU, really - It's overkill to buy that *just* for gaming, unless you're a hardware enthusiast/overclocker. I feel like the mid-range cards are usually more than adequate for most customers.

Hey NVidia! You might want to remember that the kind of tech you produce, nobody actually needs.

But... but I could run Mount and Blade with max unit locks disabled... battles with 3000 fully animated soldiers all moving and fighting at the same time... the sheer scale of it... hundreds of arrows in the air all the time, spear walls that function like actual spear walls. The ability to see 1000 mounted Kergits all lined up coming at me..

I need this new graphics card. need.

 

[Hazy992]

EDIT: Better put in a disclaimer that you don't need a Titan or upgrade yearly to play PC games. It's an extreme example.

I don't really see a Titan as a gaming GPU, really - It's overkill to buy that *just* for gaming, unless you're a hardware enthusiast/overclocker. I feel like the mid-range cards are usually more than adequate for most customers.

Actually, benchmark tests of of CoH 2 on a 4k monitor have trouble keeping a steady 60FPS at full settings with 2 Titans in SLI.

Right, because a 4K resolution is really necessary right now ¬_¬

Most people are running at 1080p or less, 4K isn't going to be the standard for a looong time.

 

[Charli]

My 550W PC already turns my room into a pressure cooker in the summer so I don't find the prospect of a 1000W very appealing. It would make a nice winter space heater though.

Uff word. I just about balked at the thought of 1000w.

And during the winter which is now a godsend after that terrible summer, my computer literally is my room's radiator at 600W. Or I get verreh cold in here.

1000W Would be some naaaice heating, but would just melt during the summer.

 

[Strazdas]

1000W PC? why would you need a 1000W PSU anyway? pretty much every part has been getting to lower their power needs in the last couple years. 600W is more than enough unless your building a monster, and if you are gaming is the reason.

We know. And we also know that PC games will never be as optimized as console games and they will always require more raw power to run games at console settings. And that's mostly because of bloated operating systems that are not designed specifically for gaming. Windows still has a shitty bloated kernel and that won't change as long as Microsoft has practically a monopoly on desktop operating systems.

considering consoles and PCs are both going to be using x86 now, i would say the optimization gap will be far lower.

Huh, I've had a 1000W PSU in my box for the last three or four years because it was just a bit more than the 750 I was looking at, and I wanted to make sure I didn't have to worry about a new PSU for awhile.

And then they wonder why their electricity bills are so high.....

Realistically, no matter how much I may want to upgrade computer hardware every year, I can't afford it.

And you dont have to. If you buy medium-to-high hardware now, you will easily last for 4-5 years without anything changed.

"Microsoft simply can't afford to spend that kind of money"

Did someone actually say that? Say that MICROSOFT can't afford to spend money? The company whose founder was the richest man on Earth for several years running?

Keyword: WAS.

Crysis springs to mind due to the fact no one actually bought that game, but rather downloaded it and used it to test their new drive cores.

BUt crysis was pretty damn optimized. I bought it and palyed it back in 2008 on a laptop on high settings. no other game[footnote]talking about AAA only here[/footnote] released at same date forward i could play on high on that machine without framerate problems. If anything, i found it to not be very demanding.

Actually, benchmark tests of of CoH 2 on a 4k monitor have trouble keeping a steady 60FPS at full settings with 2 Titans in SLI.

BUt COH 2 on full settings with a 4k monitor is not something 99.999% of gamers are ever going to even attempt. and even then, the FPS can spike down to 30 FPS and still keep the game playable.

Hey NVidia! You might want to remember that the kind of tech you produce, nobody actually needs. Mid-range cards will run absolutely everything just fine. You're audience for Titan are a tiny number of hardcore technology freaks who are dumb enough to spend $400 on a graphics card.

And you have to remmeber that our mid range cards that run abosolutely everything were the tech for hardcore technology freaks 3-4 years ago. but now it became standart. and so Titan will become standart one day, and we will have a "collosus" card that we will consider for freaks.

Here's a benchmark for Crysis 3:

your link doesnt work but i tracked the image down and its in here: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Grafikkarten-Grafikkarte-97980/Tests/Test-Geforce-GTX-Titan-1056659/5/

This animation took 3 hours to render on a titan

And here i was hoping it was in real time

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Realistically, no matter how much I may want to upgrade computer hardware every year, I can't afford it.

And you dont have to. If you buy medium-to-high hardware now, you will easily last for 4-5 years without anything changed.

T'was my point bro :/

Nvidia is basically saying, "why buy a console? On a pc, you get to upgrade every time we make a new Super duper gpu." Who is this supposed to appeal to? Like another in this thread, I have an Nvidia 240 and while it is shite, it's shite that can easily run any game in high def even I have to do it on the lowest settings (though usually I don't). Most pc gamers don't upgrade like that so it's not really a selling point to say "you can buy more shit when your shit gets old".

 

[Strazdas]

Realistically, no matter how much I may want to upgrade computer hardware every year, I can't afford it.

And you dont have to. If you buy medium-to-high hardware now, you will easily last for 4-5 years without anything changed.

T'was my point bro :/

Nvidia is basically saying, "why buy a console? On a pc, you get to upgrade every time we make a new Super duper gpu." Who is this supposed to appeal to? Like another in this thread, I have an Nvidia 240 and while it is shite, it's shite that can easily run any game in high def even I have to do it on the lowest settings (though usually I don't). Most pc gamers don't upgrade like that so it's not really a selling point to say "you can buy more shit when your shit gets old".

I always found it funny how people called 240 shit, when i happen to go by with 8600 ok.Well i do need a new one, but its over 5 years now and the new one is in the plans anyway. Thing is, even at this poor state, i still outpoerform consoles. and i plan to use my next one for 5 more. thing is, with PC you can upgrade at any time and still be "at the top". with ocnsoles, lets say if you bought an Xbox this spring, it would become obsolete in less than a year....

 

[mattaui]

1000W PC? why would you need a 1000W PSU anyway? pretty much every part has been getting to lower their power needs in the last couple years. 600W is more than enough unless your building a monster, and if you are gaming is the reason.

Huh, I've had a 1000W PSU in my box for the last three or four years because it was just a bit more than the 750 I was looking at, and I wanted to make sure I didn't have to worry about a new PSU for awhile.

And then they wonder why their electricity bills are so high.....

Hahah, I wish the few hours I had my gaming PC on made that big a difference in my electricity bill, but alas it does not.

I use my big rig for gaming and graphic design, but for writing and really anything else low power, I'm almost always on one of my laptops.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I always found it funny how people called 240 shit, when i happen to go by with 8600 ok.Well i do need a new one, but its over 5 years now and the new one is in the plans anyway. Thing is, even at this poor state, i still outpoerform consoles. and i plan to use my next one for 5 more. thing is, with PC you can upgrade at any time and still be "at the top". with ocnsoles, lets say if you bought an Xbox this spring, it would become obsolete in less than a year....

I guess that depends on your definition of obsolete. My 4 year old graphics card ain't great but so long as it still plays games without hindrance, I wouldn't call it obsolete. If I upgrade it's cause I want bigger and better stuff, not cause I need to. I don't really need to be "at the top" of any hardware, I just need to be able to play games in a way I'm content with or afford

 

[kasperbbs]

You don't say? I wonder what the hell is he playing with that 1000W PC, since PC gets very few graphics heavy exclusives and the rest are ports that look almost the same as their console versions that don't require 1000$+ hardware tu run smoothly. Unless that changes sometime in the future, then who cares which is faster..?

 

[SinisterGehe]

No shit? Really?
You say that my computer which's hardware I can change and upgrade. A case in to which I can stuff 6 GPUs and a hexacore and more hard-drives than a man can dream of. Will never be outdone by a console?

Like soon as the next chipset/architecture/model/step in technology comes, I can just upgrade to it while the static hardware of consoles is left behind?

 

[Johnson McGee]

My 550W PC already turns my room into a pressure cooker in the summer so I don't find the prospect of a 1000W very appealing. It would make a nice winter space heater though.

You must have a bad power supply then because all the PSU's I've ever had run completely quiet and cool and the latest too are 700w and 750w.

The video card is the main culprit actually. I was just referring to the amount of hardware you would need to load the pc with to use 1000W.