How bad are "next-gen" consoles for PC gaming?

[Larry Litmanen]

Hi all,

Having read about another big, upcoming AAA title release being throttled to 1080p 30FPS (http://wccftech.com/fallout-4-run-1080p-30-fps/) I feel I need to ask:

Considering the average lifespan of consoles, are we actually meant to stand by and watch how this entire generation ("next-gen" my behind) of crossplatform titles are going to be developed to run at a max 1080p native or lower and be capped to 30 or 60FPS...whilst most mid-range and better gaming PC's are capable of far higher performance and visuals?

It used to be bad enough that developers were developing a lot of the big releases for console and then releasing games a little later on PC, in many cases "porting" them so to say...however they still ended up looking decent in many cases.

Now, we are at a stage where PC gaming is moving to 1440p/4k or 1080p Gsync/Freesync/144Hz...

Surely the current state of affairs means that the "potato" and PS4 are putting us back years in terms of pushing GFX boundaries?

People used to buy flagship cards to experience top level visuals etc.

Now you can almost settle for a mid range GTX 960 to get the maximum visuals from a game because it was developed for a far lower powered machine in the first place.

One could argue that is positive as it gives more people access to the best experience, however that would be short sighted imo, as we are no longer anywhere near pushing the boundaries and really seeing content that just blows our mind.

There is more talk of downgrades and such, than revolutionary gfx advances and it makes me really sad personally...

What about you?

You see there's a big difference between what people say and actual realistic numbers.

When you say people on PC game in 4K that is basically speaking not true. Can you game in 4K, yes you can. But almost no one does.

Steam releases a hardware survey every month, they publish specs of it's users, this is hard data, actual technology that people have.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

Most popular single GPU is Intel Integrated graphics, only 0.06% of people actually use a 4K display.

Think about it, most people who game have very strong systems, and of these people less than 1% use a 4K display.

Consoles do not hold anyone back, most PC users just recently firmly settled on the 1080P resolution.

You have to understand that very, very few people can spend $500 on a monitor and $500 on a GPU, for many people that's 1 months rent or a mortgage.

Some can afford that but they are not significant enough as a group.

Also, up until 980TI you needed a titan to 4K, sometimes SLI Titan. A console costs $300 and two titans are as big as an XBONE lol, i don't think Titan was even out when consoles went on sale. So realistically speaking consoles were never going to be able to run 4K because of the cost.

Also as far as i know 4K TVs are still like 6%-9% of sales, so once again it makes no sense to build a 4K console if vast majority of people can not use the feature. And once again it was not possible for them to be 4K in the first place.

From business perspective what is the point of say Honda selling an Accord with a 1000 HP engine when they know fully well most people can not utilize all that power.

I personally game on both, XBOX and PC, both are great.

------------------------------------------------------------------
PS

Just to add something else, if as of now i were to buy a TV, there's over 90% chance that TV would be a non 4K TV. Since most people keep TVs for 5, 6,7 years, some even more, there's once again almost no reason to give people a console that supports 4K gaming because very few would experience it, (and once again, it was never possible to build a 4K console at the time as GPUs alone cost over $2,000)

Wasn't it here that i read that some gaming executive said that realistically it is very possible next get consoles will not be 4K either.

We need to understand that consoles are a mass market product that is aimed at average user with average budgets and average technology.

 

[mr91]

I'm aware that the ultra enthusiast market is growing despite the reductions in general PC sales....

Are you referring to the difference between the Titan X and the 980 ti?

Actually desktop sales are going down in general, PC gaming component / desktop sales are rising. Again it is vital to define the context when you make that statement.

Most people who use it for basic tasks like browsing, office apps etc are opting for tablets and laptops. Ever more gamers are buying gaming components though.

No I wasn't referring to Nvidia's disgraceful betrayal of Titan X customers, however...

If I use a system with an i5 and GTX 970 I can play games on the same settings and lock in 60FPS on a staqndard 1440p screen as I can with an i7 and a GTX Titan X...that is pretty unfair and never used to be the case.

You got waht you paid for and though Titan X will obliterate other cards in high res multi screen situations or 4k the entry into max level visuals is no longer proportionate to the cost of components.

That is because games no longer need flagshjp GPU's to run on the highest settings.

Think back 5, q7, 10 years...very different story. You could still easily define low, mid and high end specs.

Thank you for paraphrasing my statement and making it more concise...

 

[mr91]

I5 and 970 cannot do what a I7 and Titan X can do...

I'll give you 2 examples

i5 and 970 can not play the witcher 3 with hair works @ 1080 or 1440p with acceptable frame rates...
i5 and 970 doesn' have enough vram for shadow of mordor with ultra textures even at 1080p.

There are many more examples...

 

[mr91]

I can't even get a solid 60 fps with the witcher 3 @ 1440p with max settings including hair works. i get close when I OC my GPU to run @ 1390 mhz and 7600 on the memory which is pretty much delivers the fps of 2x 970's in sli if not more...

 

[mr91]

Hi all,

Having read about another big, upcoming AAA title release being throttled to 1080p 30FPS (http://wccftech.com/fallout-4-run-1080p-30-fps/) I feel I need to ask:

Considering the average lifespan of consoles, are we actually meant to stand by and watch how this entire generation ("next-gen" my behind) of crossplatform titles are going to be developed to run at a max 1080p native or lower and be capped to 30 or 60FPS...whilst most mid-range and better gaming PC's are capable of far higher performance and visuals?

It used to be bad enough that developers were developing a lot of the big releases for console and then releasing games a little later on PC, in many cases "porting" them so to say...however they still ended up looking decent in many cases.

Now, we are at a stage where PC gaming is moving to 1440p/4k or 1080p Gsync/Freesync/144Hz...

Surely the current state of affairs means that the "potato" and PS4 are putting us back years in terms of pushing GFX boundaries?

People used to buy flagship cards to experience top level visuals etc.

Now you can almost settle for a mid range GTX 960 to get the maximum visuals from a game because it was developed for a far lower powered machine in the first place.

One could argue that is positive as it gives more people access to the best experience, however that would be short sighted imo, as we are no longer anywhere near pushing the boundaries and really seeing content that just blows our mind.

There is more talk of downgrades and such, than revolutionary gfx advances and it makes me really sad personally...

What about you?

You see there's a big difference between what people say and actual realistic numbers.

When you say people on PC game in 4K that is basically speaking not true. Can you game in 4K, yes you can. But almost no one does.

Steam releases a hardware survey every month, they publish specs of it's users, this is hard data, actual technology that people have.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

Most popular single GPU is Intel Integrated graphics, only 0.06% of people actually use a 4K display.

Think about it, most people who game have very strong systems, and of these people less than 1% use a 4K display.

Consoles do not hold anyone back, most PC users just recently firmly settled on the 1080P resolution.

You have to understand that very, very few people can spend $500 on a monitor and $500 on a GPU, for many people that's 1 months rent or a mortgage.

Some can afford that but they are not significant enough as a group.

Also, up until 980TI you needed a titan to 4K, sometimes SLI Titan. A console costs $300 and two titans are as big as an XBONE lol, i don't think Titan was even out when consoles went on sale. So realistically speaking consoles were never going to be able to run 4K because of the cost.

Also as far as i know 4K TVs are still like 6%-9% of sales, so once again it makes no sense to build a 4K console if vast majority of people can not use the feature. And once again it was not possible for them to be 4K in the first place.

From business perspective what is the point of say Honda selling an Accord with a 1000 HP engine when they know fully well most people can not utilize all that power.

I personally game on both, XBOX and PC, both are great.

------------------------------------------------------------------
PS

Just to add something else, if as of now i were to buy a TV, there's over 90% chance that TV would be a non 4K TV. Since most people keep TVs for 5, 6,7 years, some even more, there's once again almost no reason to give people a console that supports 4K gaming because very few would experience it, (and once again, it was never possible to build a 4K console at the time as GPUs alone cost over $2,000)

Wasn't it here that i read that some gaming executive said that realistically it is very possible next get consoles will not be 4K either.

We need to understand that consoles are a mass market product that is aimed at average user with average budgets and average technology.

We were already talking about the steam survey. The steam survey is probaby the best statistics availble.

I think we both understand what you're trying to say however you are all over the place and don't have any new points

 

[gamerk316]

People that decided to save a few hundred dollars and get the 780 and 780 ti can't play Shadow of mordor & Watch dogs @ 1080p with ultra textures.
I had both cards in the past.

Why is this because the games were designed for the consoles unified memory architecture.

UMA's do nothing to affect performance; it's just a coding convenience.

The reason why you can't have Ultra textures in those games is largely because of VRAM bandwidth limitations. NVIDIA has ALWAYS lagged behind in memory bandwidth, opting to go with pure shader performance instead. While this gives NVIDIA an edge in about 90% of all games, it tends to lag behind AMD in those few which are bandwidth limited, and WD and SoM happen to be two such examples.

Interestingly, my 770 GTX (2GB Version) can pretty much handle High/Ultra @ Medium textures, or High across the board, which is about where it should be.

That's one area where HBM is actually going to help. Nowadays, you shouldn't expect to run Ultra settings with anything less then 4GB VRAM, and I suspect 6GB is going to be mandatory soon.

 

[DasHotShot]

We have veered very far off topic here everyone.

Please discuss the console hold back factor or consider the thread closed.

 

[gamerk316]

You talk as if 90% of the games sold aren't sold to people using budget PCs. Devs are free to put in as much eye candy as they want; that's why we have selectable settings. What it comes down to, is that really advanced graphical effects take a MASSIVE hit to performance (See: HBAO+, or anything to do with Physics).

We're basically stuck until we get GPUs that can handle Ray Casting. That's why you've seen so much focus on AA modes, Vsync, and the like.

I don't think it's a matter of under powered GPUs...

The fact that a console can't do ray casting or ray traced effects means that developers of cross platform titles are simply less inclined to invest time in adding these features...

I think Star Citizen will show definitely the difference or the epic chasm that is console vs PC gfx and where we are in both regards.

We are talking several generations of difference in terms of potential of PCs and consoles.q

And that is despite the PC being an open platform and non-conform to one set of specs...meaning optimization is far mroe difficult.

It's just too big a gap and I find it has become unacceptable

SC has so overpromised, pretty much everyone outside the ecosystem is expecting a massive bust at this point.

As for Ray Tracing/Casting, all GPUs can do it, it's just a different rendering technique. But it's still slow as molasses, especially when the number of light sources starts to rise (hence why we'll get simplified Ray Casting first). All those high end lighting effects that kill FPS? Those come for free as part of Ray Tracing engines.

There's still a lot of things GPUs do badly because they are so expensive to do. Anything with realistic reflections is a no-go. Realistic smoke effects? Forget it. Multi-object physics interactions? Enjoy <10 FPS. These types of dynamics are simply too expensive for GPUs to handle, but those are pretty much the only things we can't do currently. So, we're basically tapped out. Hence why the leap from GTA IV to GTA V is minimal compared to the jump we got from GTA:SA to GTA IV. We're tapped out, and we're basically down to increasing texture resolution because there's nothing else left to do that we can.

 

[DasHotShot]

You talk as if 90% of the games sold aren't sold to people using budget PCs. Devs are free to put in as much eye candy as they want; that's why we have selectable settings. What it comes down to, is that really advanced graphical effects take a MASSIVE hit to performance (See: HBAO+, or anything to do with Physics).

We're basically stuck until we get GPUs that can handle Ray Casting. That's why you've seen so much focus on AA modes, Vsync, and the like.

I don't think it's a matter of under powered GPUs...

The fact that a console can't do ray casting or ray traced effects means that developers of cross platform titles are simply less inclined to invest time in adding these features...

I think Star Citizen will show definitely the difference or the epic chasm that is console vs PC gfx and where we are in both regards.

We are talking several generations of difference in terms of potential of PCs and consoles.q

And that is despite the PC being an open platform and non-conform to one set of specs...meaning optimization is far mroe difficult.

It's just too big a gap and I find it has become unacceptable

SC has so overpromised, pretty much everyone outside the ecosystem is expecting a massive bust at this point.

As for Ray Tracing/Casting, all GPUs can do it, it's just a different rendering technique. But it's still slow as molasses, especially when the number of light sources starts to rise (hence why we'll get simplified Ray Casting first). All those high end lighting effects that kill FPS? Those come for free as part of Ray Tracing engines.

There's still a lot of things GPUs do badly because they are so expensive to do. Anything with realistic reflections is a no-go. Realistic smoke effects? Forget it. Multi-object physics interactions? Enjoy <10 FPS. These types of dynamics are simply too expensive for GPUs to handle, but those are pretty much the only things we can't do currently. So, we're basically tapped out. Hence why the leap from GTA IV to GTA V is minimal compared to the jump we got from GTA:SA to GTA IV. We're tapped out, and we're basically down to increasing texture resolution because there's nothing else left to do that we can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN2ayVd9-3E

Real smoke looks real

 

[mr91]

Shadow of mordor and wattch dogs requires more vram however Ps4 HAS 8GB VIDEO MEMORY

 

[gamerk316]

Shadow of mordor and wattch dogs requires more vram however Ps4 HAS 8GB VIDEO MEMORY

No it doesn't; it has 8GB UNIFIED memory, meaning 8GB for the entire system. Of that, 2GB is reserved for application/OS use, leaving 6GB available to the developer. Assuming the actual program itself uses somewhere around 2GB of RAM, that would leave ~4GB or so free for the GPU to use, or similar to top-tier consumer GPUs.

 

[mr91]

6 is still more than average pc and when we open programs we use video ram. windows will use vram right away. Basiically many game delvelopers put more focus into the console archetexture. The console has aproximaterly 6 usable. You 770 have less than 2 GB because Windows uses 100+ mb of vram. At 1440p using win 8.1 I use slightly over 200 mb

 

[mr91]

Apparently the console can only uuse 6 or 7 threads for games because one or 2 are for the operating system. 6 or 7 is more than 4 on the i5 & that's why console ports Like wolfenstein are strongly recommending an I7 or a 8 core amd cpu.

 

[mr91]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2939312/warning-batman-arkham-knight-pc-suffers-from-crippling-performance-issues.html

 

[mr91]

Here is another example

 

[mr91]

Batman capped at 30 apparently

 

[DasHotShot]

As is now the standard for "NEXT GEN"

Sorry but console marketing is pathetic. Why lie? We can all agree it is a great, easy way to game. Why pretend it's anything more than entry level plug and play hardware?

Sony and Microsoft should be ashamed

 

[Maarsch]

But but but
30 fps is closer to the 24 Hz framerate of films thereby giving a more authentic experience.

Man, I can't even type that with a straight face.

I understand the (console) cpu architecture is more closely related to what we (PC users) have than in the past. Can we expect better utilization of cpu power with this new generation?

 

[Vice93]

Inb4 steam OS becomes new, next gen console with SteamOS Exclusives.

 

[DasHotShot]

But but but
30 fps is closer to the 24 Hz framerate of films thereby giving a more authentic experience.

Man, I can't even type that with a straight face.

I understand the (console) cpu architecture is more closely related to what we (PC users) have than in the past. Can we expect better utilization of cpu power with this new generation?

24 Hz was introduced sometime around WW1 and was used from then because people were used to this old and klunky framerate...

The sheep population of people were educated badly by Hollywood and associate modern, high quality framrates of 60+ with soaps, bad daytime tv dramas and b movies...

When actually it is a far better way to view content and gives a far more realistic viewing experience.


So BOOOOO Hollywood

 

[mr91]

The Ubisoft guy said 30 fps is ideal and then a bunch of people quit. I'm glad unity isn't capped at 30. Apparently since AC 3 a lot more focus is put on Pc development.

 

[mr91]

We need to get the Ubisoft guy a black and white tv. Perhaps he can persuade us that color isn't needed.

 

[mr91]

Its next gen in the console world and it's the easy and cheap way to game...

 

[mr91]

10- 15 years ago consoles were more advanced than pc's for gaming however the Times have changed

 

[bjsm]

Indeed times have changed. I wouldnt mind if they slowed down the hardware advancements a little bit so we can max out the current one and maybe polish some games. But still I would be disappointed if we "went back". Remember companies are here to make money. There will always be something better!

This said im really happy that now almost anyone can buy a not so expensive pc and still play the latest AAA games with some "great" graphics. Steam is going to gain more users with time i think since you can use it pretty much as a console on a budget pc.



Interesting post!