Nvidia: Consoles Can No Longer Surpass PC Graphics

[computertech82]

It's obvious the pc is superior to console. Just bother looking at the video that compares the newest consoles to a pc, the pc wins hands down with far superior graphics. THERE IS NO CONTEST....PERIOD. (hint: you get what you pay for).

 

[rantoc]

"Now how about compare a $400 console to a $400 PC with Nvidia graphics, OS, storage, the works and see who comes out on top."

Lets add 10 games to the mix, what does a PC game cost and what does a PS4 or XB1 game cost, add that difference and you got a baseline PC that is upgradable, its versatile and its also capable of running the prev "gen" games.

Using one of the last true freedoms - Choice isn't so bad at times and that's exactly what PC hardware stands for - Not the console "you get what we want you to get" mentality!

I rather choose a complete Swiss army knife for the same money that don't come with a console platform tax meaning the returns in quality gets diminished the more titles you get on the console compared to a PC where that console tax money can be spent on PC upgrades making ALL games better (both old and future).

(Game example CoD: Ghost, 445 sek on PC and 649 sek on PS4/XB1 and that's a whooping tax - Title after title).

 

[Antimatter79]

Maybe it's just the games my wife buys for her PS3, but I've seen plenty of heavily aliased games, muddy textures (if any), obviously non 1080p resolution games, and not even consistent 30fps, for the most part. In no way does any of that match any PC I've built in the last 12 years. I remember how she gushed over Yakuza; Dead Souls but all I could see was how nearly every single character had boring, single color suits except the main character, and hardly any textures. It looked no better than Yakuza 4. Character models often remind me of wedding cake toppers on the PS3, very artificial with no depth. L.A. Noire's car models had plenty of horrible aliasing and frame rates dropping below 30 fps in driving portions. I was more impressed with the Dreamcast's and PS2's visuals (in their day) than I have been with the PS3, to be honest. Aside from Heavy Rain, FF XIII-2, Uncharted 3, and Tomb Raider, I just haven't seen what was hyped and promised regarding the PS3. At least my wife has enjoyed those games, though, but for now I'm sticking with the PC.

 

[meowmix44]

Im just sooo sick of the ignorance of some people. Some of you guys have a bad case of consolytis. Please dont post if you dont know what the heck your talking about...

Care to enlighten us, oh wise one? If you know so much, you might as well fill us in.

I mean why buy a specialized machine when you can buy a generalized machine that does everything the specialized machine can do and more?

 

[longtom33]

When Star Citizen launches Q4 2014 it will prove just how superior PC Gaming is to consoles.
Fingers crossed it also proves that greedy publishers are not even necessary if things are done right, and causes this to change accordingly.

 

[lpedraja2002]

Anyone remember how Crysis 1 pushed the graphical limits in games and how even to this day it is still one of the best looking games? Then Crysis 2 came out for consoles too and the DX11 effects were tacked on as usual and didn't make a difference on visual quality and they used that horrible lens flare to simulate cool light effects which instead it made the experience worse. Crysis 3 looked great on all the videos I've seen but since they butchered the gameplay on the second game I still haven't played the 3rd one.

 

[lpedraja2002]

Still no point in having the best hardware around if no developers utilizes its full power like Crysis 1 did for PC's. Yet you get developers like Naughty Dog making beautiful games for the PS3. I seriously wish Nvidia or AMD would open their own game studio FFS! Game development is a small cost compared to what they spend on research and they would only help sales of their product even more.

 

[trip1ex]

I thought it was the fact that console makers took a loss on the hardware up front so consumers could get graphics that only very expensive pcs provided that gave us the illusion that consoles were faster than pcs. That and developing games for known hardware let them exploit all the graphics power to a much larger degree than before.

I never really thought console graphics were more powerful per se.

And this Nvidia guy seems to be referring mostly to SLI rigs as those are the only ones that would push 1000 watts.

Also of note is Nvidia has no gpu in any of the 3 next-gen consoles. Thus it is in their best interest to say console graphics don't come close.

 

[cmi86]

Sounds more like a little bashing seeing as amd powers all of the consoles now and nvidia missed the boat. I think maybe the green team has a bit of a bad taste in their mouths.

 

[Thorfkin]

I'm not sure I agree with Tamasi's assertion that the PC didn't have good graphics when the Playstation was released. Doom II: Hell on Earth was released in 1994, same year as the original Playstation. The game's 3d render engine was limited to what was called 2.5D at the time if I recall correctly. It used an entirely software render pipe but that render engine could produce visuals that were comparable to what you would get from a Playstation. I think a more accurate statement would have been that the PC didn't have good 3d acceleration when the original Playstation came out. The first 3d graphics accelerator I bought was a Rendition Verite V1000 in 1996. I later added a 3DFX Voodoo as a secondary card for Glide support but my Rendition Verite was always my preferred accelerator because it produced better color quality than the Voodoo. The Verite could also do trilinear texture filtering, something the Playstation could not do.

I also don't agree that any console released after the original Playstation could genuinely produce graphics beyond what a decent PC could do at the time. The Playstation 2 was released in 2000. nVidia release it's first Geforce graphics card in 1999 a year before the PS2 was out and that card could easily be expected to render your game at a respectable framerate at 1024x768 resolution. The PS2 was never able to render at a resolution beyond what S-video could support. Roughly 640x480 resolution. When the Playstation 3 was released in 2006, PC graphics cards at the time were able to render well at 1920x1080. HD televisions were catching on around then so graphics cards manufacturers wanted their product to really showcase HD.

Pcs graphics have been ahead of the console curve (just slightly) since shortly after the Playstation's release and the console has never since been able to really catch up.

Edit: 2004 should be 1994 LOL.

 

[f-14]

this is a highly amusing speech given. somebody is trying not to openly knock the fact the current consoles are powered by AMD and not Nvidia and was quoting back to a time when Nvidia was powering the consoles.

he also had to make a point of it that no one else especially sony and microsoft could make a better graphics chip than Nvidia, not then, and most certainly not now, with the way he put it.

anybody else catch this?

 

[darkavenger123]

I play both console and PC gamers. Nvidia should get through their heads gaming has never been about hardware. Hardware is there to support the games. Wii graphics sucks crap and it sold by the bucket load.
AngryBirds can probably run on a PS2 and probably there isn't a single person alive who owns a smartphone never play the game or at least knows about it.

Gaming has never been about hardware.Hardware is just the facilitator and platform to support the idea and design.

 

[joaompp]

I'm a PC gamer, but even I have to admit that the power per price ratio is extremely better on consoles, more so at launch than later in life, hopefully with the advent of SteamOS, it'll reduce the OS overhead allowing that gap to become more negligible.

 

[10tacle]

..."Tamasi even admitted that the PlayStation 2 was faster than a PC at the time of its launch...Once the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 arrived, their hardware was on par with the PC at launch."

Uhm, in 2000 when the PS3 came out, I was running a Pentium III 1GHz overclocked to 1.2GHz gaming rig with a GeForce 2 GTS. In 1997 when the PS3 came out (technically Holiday 2006), I was running a with a pair of SLI GeForce 7900 GS's. Let's also not forget that in 2000 I was running a 21" CRT with a resolution of 1600x1200 which of course blew away the graphics capable on typical 27" 480p TV used with consoles of the era.

So long story short, I throw the BS flag on this claim of consoles being "on par" with PCs of the time at release. EVER. And I'm also a PS3 (soon to be PS4) gamer.

 

[billgatez]

"Tamasi explained that at the time of the first PlayStation console, there really weren't good graphics on the PC" you have go to be kidding me. Doom, Star Wars, system shock.
Consoles have never been able to beat PC in the graphics power department. And with the price of PC's coming down, you can now build a gaming PC for the price of the Xbox-1. Go to you tube and look for "kill your console"

 

[blppt]

" Tamasi even admitted that the PlayStation 2 was faster than a PC at the time of its launch."

It most certainly was not. GF1 DDR was out before the PS2 launched in Japan, and GF2 was out before the launch in America. Both cards possessed similar to better geometry processing power, much more dedicated graphics memory (the PS2 had like 38MB total for the entire system; the GF1/2 had at least 32MB of VRAM on board) PLUS hardware texture compression which was one of the faults of the PS2 design (limited ram, and you had to sacrifice some processor speed to run a software texture compression routine). Just look how poorly a texture-intensive game like the original Unreal Tournament looked and ran on the PS2.

Now, over time, the truly devoted and clever programmers out there (Naughty Dog for one, or the GT guys) managed to squeeze every last drop of power out of the PS2, and you got games like GT4 and GoW, amazing feats considering the amount of programming hoops they needed to jump through. But really, nothing in those games couldnt have been done on a PC (probably better) of the PS2 launch era with a GF2GTS and a Thunderbird Athlon 1+ ghz with the 256MB of main system ram that was the general standard around that time (IIRC).

 

[blppt]

Actually, the latest I can remember a console having a significant advantage over the top end computers of the day was the original PSX, which was a polygon and texture map generating monster that was also ridiculously easy to program. Also, the N64 when launched---no gaming PC at that moment could do Mario 64. It wasnt until Voodoo 1 later that year when the PC took back the lead. And take back the lead it did---there is no way an N64 could pull off Unreal running on Voodoo 1 Glide at any reasonable framerate.

 

[Seth Ferguson]

At the end of the day, the console consumers arn't the ones reading Nvidia's blog. Sadly, their message to persuade XBOX1 buyers and PS4 fans to change their vote goes unheard... They're busy playing GTA:5.

PC gamers will continue to be PC gamers and those in love with consoles will continue to dish out money for an non up-gradable product. Apple users will be jaw-dropped by a color version of the IVESEENTHISBEFOREPhone and droid enthusiasts will still be tinkering, rooting and overclocking the next Nexus. Thus, the war between "who's making the wisest purchase" will continue to go on. Yes, even without Nvidia's comments.

I, for one, know what I like- because what I like works the way I want. So Nvidia- no reason to make an earth shattering proclamation- when you're great you know you're great. Let the facts speak for themselves.

 

[IndignantSkeptic]

Thorfkin

Doom 2 and PlayStation 1 were released in 1994 not 2004. Please be careful with your numbers; I don't like being confused.

10tacle

Watch your numbers as well.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Of course he can just be throwing these barbs because Nvidia no longer has a bone to pick in the console market as all next gen consoles are now powered with AMD chips and the PC is really all they have left.

No he is right. If we look at the time when the Xbox 360 came out, November of 2005, we had from ATI a X1800 XT and from NVidia a 7800GTX. The x1800 XT had 16 pixel pipelines and the 7800 GTX had 24. The Xenos of the 360 had 48 total Pixel Pipelines in a design much like out current SIMD and was equal to the X1950 XT in terms of Pixel Shaders but was said to be between the X1900 and HD2900 in performance when it came out.

Originally we were going to get a GPU like that which blew the X1950XTX away but it never came to pass (I assume based on the fact that AMD was in the process of buying ATI) and instead we had to wait till mid 2007 for the HD2900 series and late 2006/mid 2007 8800 series from NVidia.

That was at least a year where the 360 had a GPU that was better than PCs.

The 360 also had a 3 core CPU when dual cores were the mainstream in PCs and quad cores didn't become mainstream until 2007+.

But if we look at it now, the XB1 it looks to have 8 cores based on AMD Jaguar cores which are very weak compared to a FX or Core I series CPU and a GPU that looks to have more SPUs than a HD 7770 but less than a HD7790 while clocked around a HD7750s core speed. We know at best it is GCN while AMD just unveiled more GCN 2.0 GPUs that will probably be out near the same time.

My current gaming system, a 2500K with 16GB of DDR3 1600MHz and a HD7970GHz is already a much more powerful gaming system than the XB1 or PS4. While the closed architecture system will give some benefit it wont last long as with Hawaii XT and early next year Maxwell, the consoles will be even more out powered.

To suffice, consoles will never have the power of a gaming system anymore. Its not cost effective TBH as they can't funnel billions into R&D as they would take massive losses. Its best to go with PC hardware and hit for a middle ground to sustain the best chance of making profits, which are needed if we expect consoles to survive. I don't care as consoles don't affect me as I game on my PC but that's the hard truth.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I'm a PC gamer, but even I have to admit that the power per price ratio is extremely better on consoles, more so at launch than later in life, hopefully with the advent of SteamOS, it'll reduce the OS overhead allowing that gap to become more negligible.

I guess my OS overhead is pretty small since I paid $15 for 8 Pro. Even better I paid $150 for 7 Ultimate and used it for almost 5 years.

And honestly the OS is not even the most expensive part of a PC. In fact its one of the cheapest. 7HP or 8 is $119 which is still cheaper than a decent sized high end SSD like a Samsung 840 or Intel 520/330.

 

[cats_Paw]

Now we only need someone to say that Tablets and smartphones have better graphics to add some fuel to the drama and we are set to go!

I dont get why people are worked up about what nVidia says. Most games are good or bad depending not on the relese date or things like those but how much work the developers put in it.

Who cares if you got a powerfull system when you cant play games becosue their ports to PC are terrible.
Or who cares that you have to maintain a PC, and work around drivers and sorts when you actually enjoy it.

THe only thing that is very interesting of this article is that nVidia actually spoiled something inportant: They are reaching the physical limit to how many transistors they can put into a GPU. It will be very interesting what they come up with next.

 

[merikafyeah]

Well, yeah. Crysis (2007) is still a gold standard in the graphics industry. almost 7 years later, that speaks volumes about the quality of PC gaming. Has a console ever matched Crysis? No. Will the Xbox One or PS4 change that? Doubtful. Getting 60fps minimum at 2560x1600 on Ultra is still a daunting task for even the best of current systems.

 

[soccerplayer88]

I'm not sure why people even bother comparing a console to building a computer. Apples and oranges.

The main income for console makers come from selling games. Remember Sony took huge hits when they first started selling the PS3 even at the $500 mark.

And since this is a console vs PC discussion, http://images.vg247.com/current//2012/03/PC-Gaming-Master-Race.jpg

 

[damianrobertjones]

NVidia, especially the MD, will suck up to ANYONE who has the cash. I recall the MD being all, 'Apple is amazing' back all those years ago which was a bit of a slap to all the guys sitting there, on Windows, with NVidia cards in their rigs.