Consoles vs PCs --- stating the very obvious... but from an interesting source.....

[John Lewis]

As another thread pointed out, the technological limits of a console
remain relatively flat for 5 years. The best and brightest game
developers and innovators do not want to be held back by obsolete
processing power, they want to develop on the fastest available, which
means the PC platform draws the best talent.

Well said. And certainly true in the case of Crytek, who seem to truly
relish being at the screaming edge. Of course, they are also building
the most advanced full-3D game-engine available and are actively
seeking licensees...so there is a financial objective also. And they
are also designing the engine to be both DX9 and Dx10 compatible and
fully 'multiprocessor aware', so no doubt there will be adaptations
for the PS3 and Xbox360.

John Lewis

 

[Pipboy]

Microsft should get out of the crap console business as they have lost over
5 billion on that gamble so far. It's a black hole so give it up Microsoft
and give us PC gamers more loving and make your shareholders happy. PC =
profit, console = big loss.

 

[Pipboy]

I was never interested in consoles and don't own one, but I am seriously
thinking about buying an xbox 360 because some really good games are not
available on the PC (gears of war, call of duty 3, etc).

What makes you think Gears of War is a good game? If that game was released
on the PC it would get trashed because the only thing going for it are the
graphics. Don't let the console fanbois suck you in like they did me. I
bought a 360 and after being a PC gamer for so long I just couldn't get
into the kiddy arcade games so I sold it at a50% loss a few months later.

 

[Walter Mitty]

You misunderstood me. I'm not sure why one interprets "Dealing with
thousands of different PC configurations" as "coding for 1,000s variations
of a theme."

Because its the only interpretation that makes any sense. Otherwise you
are not dealing with anything.

That's not an issue here, though. As I said in my earlier post, PC games do
not sell. Why invest in something that doesn't sell? When was the last time
a PC game sold more than 100,000 copies?

"Most" Console games dont sell either.

 

[Allan C Cybulskie]

No you dont.

Its called programming to an API.

Sure, there might be some glitches, but less & less likely with
something like XP.

One of the problems with coding to an API is that you can't get really
creative with what the hardware can do, as you can only do what the
API lets you do. You're also limited by the API itself, in particular
with hardware or software requirements (ie where it runs). Now, this
works fine if later versions are programmed to be backwards
compatible, but I've heard that DX10 isn't ...

And, on top of that, any attempt by a user to personalize their system
may still mess up the standard calls on the API, making the game not
work properly. And gamers are the most like to tweak their settings
and use other third party apps that might interfere.

 

[Allan C Cybulskie]

This whole argument is meaningless unless you feel you *must* have the most
power.

The PC's constant need to upgrade is part of the reason you see interest in
PC games waning. I don't know about you, but I feel the majority of PC
gamers would be perfectly fine with that same "5 year snapshot" if the games
were fun and worked well. Who *cares* about the latest and greatest DX10
bloom pixel shaders in realtime or whatnot... I'd MUCH rather see some more
fun games at "Far Cry" or HL2-level graphics. No need to go bigger.

This is the key: it's about the games, not the processing power. If
the games are fun to play, the extra graphics or processing power
isn't that big a deal to the average person.

And on top of that, more power doesn't necessarily mean a better
experience. Anyone else remember the old C64/Amiga/Atari ST versus PC
days? Good programmers could make the C64 and the Amiga and the ST
produce games about as good as the PC, and lazy PC programmers relied
on the hardware and made games that didn't look any better but took up
much more memory and processing power.

 

[Allan C Cybulskie]

I've played games a long time too (over 25 yrs now). And I agree with
you in that I'd rather see fun games at HL2 graphics than to have
great eye candy and miss out on gameplay, there is still MUCH more
available on the PC in terms of sheer fun than there is on all the
consoles combined if you have a reasonably fast PC, the games are
cheaper, they load faster, can be played with a mouse/keyboard giving
you much better control (and much more realistic aiming in shooter
games), and you can use your PC to do a gazillion other things that
exercise your brain more than gaming.

To do those PC things, I'd buy a laptop so that I could do it
anywhere. Laptops aren't generally gaming systems and don't come with
a standard mouse.

Basically, for most people you don't need to upgrade a PC to do the PC
things more than once every five years, completely obliterating any of
the supposed PC advantages. So advocating that as an advantage misses
the point of why people aren't happy upgrading their PC every year or
so to play the latest games.

Consoles are for small kids, people who can't afford real PCs, and
the brain-dead.

Consoles are people who just want to play games, no fuss, no muss.
People who insist that consoles are only for small kids, people who
can't afford real PCs, and the brain dead ARE brain-dead [grin].

 

[Walter Mitty]

One of the problems with coding to an API is that you can't get really
creative with what the hardware can do, as you can only do what the

It can be looked from the other side too. You can be more creative a lot of the time since the API will
approximate in SW what the HW cant do in HW. APIs frequently include
functions well before the HW is released.

API lets you do. You're also limited by the API itself, in particular
with hardware or software requirements (ie where it runs). Now, this
works fine if later versions are programmed to be backwards
compatible, but I've heard that DX10 isn't ...

DX10 is, of course, backwards compatible. Minus the usual "well its SW"
bugs of course.

And, on top of that, any attempt by a user to personalize their system
may still mess up the standard calls on the API, making the game not
work properly. And gamers are the most like to tweak their settings
and use other third party apps that might interfere.

How will personalising the system alter the API of, say Dx, in any way?
There is a reason MS make it nigh on impossible to move back in Dx
versions.

 

[Xocyll]

(e-mail address removed) (John Lewis) looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

Wrong. Not <necessary>. Both games had full scalability in their
option settings. And were perfectly playable at the lower settings.
Those who upgraded did it by CHOICE.

To a point.
I _had_ to buy a new video card for Morrowind, since my existing card
(voodoo3 2000) couldn't do 32 bit color and Morrowind required that.

That replacement card (Geforce3ti200) ran most things just fine until I
picked up a 6800 some months back (before the 8x00 series came out).

If you aren't hooked on FSAA, AF and 20 bazillion frames per second,
older cards can function pretty well for a surprisingly long time -
until the time comes when a game requires a feature it doesn't support
and can't run without it, nor do it in software.

Xocyll

 

[Allan C Cybulskie]

What do you mean by added room? Do you not already have a PC sitting
in your house? Even if its a laptop, they DO make game-worthy laptops
these days.

I think there are some differences in communication here:

If I'm buying something JUST to play games, unless I hate console
games I should buy a console. It's more cost effective and better at
it. If I need to buy something that does more and still plays games,
then getting a PC is the better choice. Can we at least agree that
this makes sense?

 

[Allan C Cybulskie]

It can be looked from the other side too. You can be more creative a lot of the time since the API will
approximate in SW what the HW cant do in HW. APIs frequently include
functions well before the HW is released.

This isn't allowing for "creativity". Creativity in the sense that I
described it is wringing more power out of the hardware because you
know precisely what you want it to do. APIs by their nature
generalize these things so that they don't allow you to do that,
necessarily. It's the same sort of thing that occurs between C++ code
and Java: the more the language or API does for you, the less you can
tweak it to do only what you want.

DX10 is, of course, backwards compatible. Minus the usual "well its SW"
bugs of course.

I'd heard that there were many issues with that, so forgive me if I'm
not just going to take your word for it [grin].

How will personalising the system alter the API of, say Dx, in any way?
There is a reason MS make it nigh on impossible to move back in Dx
versions.

It's not that it messes up the API, but that the standard calls to the
API don't work because the system has been personalized in a way that
the writers of the API didn't expect them to do. So you still have to
worry about those thousands of set-ups, even in some small way just to
make sure that it works on them.

 

[joey]

Except now some of the PC games are being brought out for the console

market at the same time and they "cripple" the game so that it will work
the same on both platforms. Just look at Oblivion for an example.

How is Oblivion crippled? There's no FPS ceiling, it's just not a
particularly well performing engine that really taxes the GPU. The
faster the GPU you have, the faster it plays, and at higher
resolutions than are available on consoles.

Actually, my gaming PC is not attached to the web. I have so far
resisted the siren's call of on-line gaming. Too much time.

I'm sorry to hear that, you're missing out on a great deal of fun.

My point was that if you had a friend or two over and wanted to play
game X together you would need two PCs networked together to do this.
With most consoles you just attach a second controller. No need for
another box and monitor.

Yes but how many of the games PC gamers play would really be conducive
to being played on the same screen? For the most part only sports
games are good at that.

And I doubt you will find a "good" PC going
for under $150, nor will it be the size of a book.

Well with a $150 PC bought used off ubid.com or something similar, and
another $100 put into a good arcade stick, you could have a killer
MAME box that runs thousands of arcade games, add to that a GameTap
subscription for $10 and play tons of other games that don't require a
high-end PC.

 

[joey]

I think there are some differences in communication here:

If I'm buying something JUST to play games, unless I hate console
games I should buy a console. It's more cost effective and better at
it.

It depends on what your criteria is for "better".. I think consoles
are generally better for sports titles, especially the multiplayer
aspect (although, you can do that with most PC sports games as well,
its just that most of the time the shared monitor would be smaller).

There are many more GOOD games available for the PC than any of the
new consoles (360, PS3 or Wii). The PS2 had a lot of titles for it
early on that got good reviews, both with magazines like Gamespot as
well as the user ratings. But if you look at the top rated games on
all the consoles now, the average magazine editor and user rating is
probably 7.5 or 8 out of 10. Mean while there are lots of PC games
that have come out in the last year that get 9.0 from the editors and
9.2-9.4 from the user community.

If I need to buy something that does more and still plays games,
then getting a PC is the better choice. Can we at least agree that
this makes sense?

I will agree that you can do more, better on a PC. Yes.

 

[jwb]

There are many more GOOD games available for the PC than any of the
new consoles (360, PS3 or Wii).

You've said this (or similar) a few times. I'm not trying to put you on the
spot (I'm genuinily curious), but can you name these "many more" good
PC-only titles?

I can think of a few that came out in the last year or so - Europa
Universalis 3, MTW2, HOMM5, Titan Quest.

But I can also think of just as many good console-only titles: Gears of War,
Lost Planet, Dead Rising, Burnout Revenge.

Individual tastes vary, of course, but I just don't see these "many more"
PC-only games.

 

[jwb]

Yes but how many of the games PC gamers play would really be conducive
to being played on the same screen? For the most part only sports
games are good at that.

Don't see that being the case at all. Of course, TV size will matter, but
split screen gaming for FPS's is quite viable (and fun.) I used to think it
was very odd until I spent a weekend playing Halo co-op.

 

[Allan C Cybulskie]

It depends on what your criteria is for "better".. I think consoles
are generally better for sports titles, especially the multiplayer
aspect (although, you can do that with most PC sports games as well,
its just that most of the time the shared monitor would be smaller).

There are many more GOOD games available for the PC than any of the
new consoles (360, PS3 or Wii). The PS2 had a lot of titles for it
early on that got good reviews, both with magazines like Gamespot as
well as the user ratings. But if you look at the top rated games on
all the consoles now, the average magazine editor and user rating is
probably 7.5 or 8 out of 10. Mean while there are lots of PC games
that have come out in the last year that get 9.0 from the editors and
9.2-9.4 from the user community.

I'd be careful with these ratings checks. I'd say from general
experience that the amount of good games is probably about the same,
but it depends on what games you like ... as I mentioned. But when I
said consoles do it better, what I meant was that consoles themselves
are built for games, so you get into the games faster with no issues
with tweaking your system or system requirements, the games know what
controller you have and so take that into account, etc, etc.
Basically, if you just want to get into a game quickly with no fuss
and no muss, the console is better at it. But it should be ... that's
all it does.

I will agree that you can do more, better on a PC. Yes.

Basically, doing things other than gaming is what PCs do, so it only
makes sense to get one if that's what you want in addition to your
gaming ...

 

[Walter Mitty]

This isn't allowing for "creativity". Creativity in the sense that I

Yes it is. The room for manoevre in the DxAPI is huge. Or are you
harking back to the bad old days of "poke #673f,#3e" and seeing what
happens?

described it is wringing more power out of the hardware because you
know precisely what you want it to do. APIs by their nature

Which is why the API is there - to make sure you dont do that so that it
WILL work on the different HW setups.

generalize these things so that they don't allow you to do that,
necessarily. It's the same sort of thing that occurs between C++ code
and Java: the more the language or API does for you, the less you can
tweak it to do only what you want.

Not at all the same since you dont have to use the APIs.

DX10 is, of course, backwards compatible. Minus the usual "well its SW"
bugs of course.

I'd heard that there were many issues with that, so forgive me if I'm
not just going to take your word for it [grin].

How will personalising the system alter the API of, say Dx, in any way?
There is a reason MS make it nigh on impossible to move back in Dx
versions.

It's not that it messes up the API, but that the standard calls to the
API don't work because the system has been personalized in a way that

What kind of personalization will stop the API calls working? If you
screw up the system APIs then tough shit - you have no right to expect
your computer to even boot

the writers of the API didn't expect them to do. So you still have to
worry about those thousands of set-ups, even in some small way just to
make sure that it works on them.

No. No you don't. You write your program to confirm to the API and the
engine state machine. Then it should work. If you break the rules then
yes, you will spend a long time wondernig why it doesnt work on setup
a,b or c. But the whole programming/API thing is this - you do conform
to the API etc and hence it should work.

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

Wrong. Not <necessary>. Both games had full scalability in their
option settings. And were perfectly playable at the lower settings.
Those who upgraded did it by CHOICE.

Did you play Morrowind when it came out? I tried running it on a Radeon
7500 and it was very painful, even with a 2 GHz processor and 512 MB of
memory. Upgrading to a 9700 Pro for $400 bought me a video card that
worked fine with Morrowind after fixing the overheating problem and has
continued to serve me well years later. Later in the game I ran into a
severe memory leak problem that crashed the game that evidently didn't
show up if you had 1 GB of RAM.
Now all of my specs were well above the requirements for the game, but
without having a machine with specs not even available when the game was
released showed that the game was not written for the average user. At
least with my PS2 if I buy a game I don't have to worry that I don't
have the right video specs or memory.

 

[Paul Moloney]

I don't think the PC is better than consoles in terms of the cost. One, to
get the graphic quality of Xbox 360 games, you need a powerful, expensive
PC. Two, most console owners don't spend $$$ on upgrading their console.
Once you buy a $399 Xbox system, you are pretty much all set and you know
that all future 360 games will run well on your 360.

The good news is that all future 360 games will run on your 360 the same as
ones today.

The bad news is that all future 360 games will run on your 360 the same as
ones today.

--
-pm

http://oceanclub.blogspot.com

"You're right, it could be a disaster. But it could be the end
of a disaster and the beginning of something better. It's all
about outcomes, and no one knows what they'll be. That's why I
can't imagine marching in the streets." - Ian McEwan, "Saturday"

 

[Paul Moloney]

I don't think many PC gamers do that. I would say the *average* PC
gamer (not the high-end or low-end gamer) spends probably $1000 every
18 months on his hobby, and in most cases the equipment he buys works
double duty at other things. When I upgraded to my current high end
PC from a not-too-shabby mid range (by todays gaming standards) PC, I
was amazed at the overall productivity boost even with every day tasks
like web surfing. I read a lot on the web and I tend to do things
quickly. I can get through information much faster on this PC, I can
feel the difference it even in typical web page browsing.

I'm amazed it's even that much. I bought a PC for around ?1300 back in 2001.
Since then, I've spent about ?1000, or an average of ?130 a year, on
upgrades; that includes a new case, a new motherboard, a new power supply, 2
new graphics card, more memory, a DVD-burner, and a new CPU. And at least
one of those upgrades wasn't needed; I bought a new MB thinking the old one
had blown when, in fact, it was my PSU which had failed.

I've _never_ had to play a new game at less than 1024 x 768. Even now, at
the end of its life, when I am about to shuffle it off its mortal coil, it
can handle Oblivion.

I find it very ironic that people in PS2 days complained about the price of
upgrading a PC to play games at above 640 x 480 resolution, yet seemingly
the "solution" to this was to buy a console which could _never_ play games
above that resolution.

--
-pm

http://oceanclub.blogspot.com

"We need a new Mario game, where you rescue the princess in the
first ten minutes, and for the rest of the game you try and push
down that sick feeling in your stomach that she's 'damaged
goods'... When Peach asks you, in the quiet of her mushroom
castle bedroom, 'do you still love me?', you pretend to be
asleep. You press the A button rhythmically, to control your
breath, keep it even." - Joey Comeau, on increased realism in
gaming.