Nvidia: Consoles Can No Longer Surpass PC Graphics

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stevejnb

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Actually, classically they have had about a year of better graphics, a year of parity, and then a steady slide - though the line is a bit less clear cut than that. When the first Halo game came out for the original XBOX, there was not a PC game out there that looked as good. Same deal for the first Gears of Wars game for the XBOX 360.

Of course, it's not nearly so clear cut. PC games were managing larger worlds, in some cases higher res textures and higher resolutions in general, but at the time, whole package in, those two games were the best of the best graphically for at least a few months.

Also, if you go back prior to that to the N64, SNES, and NES, consoles actually looked better for a good stretch of time.

Of course, Nvidia coming out and saying this now is highly suspect to say the least, but it is true that consoles usually come out the gate stronger than contemporary PCs.
 

teh_chem

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Someone sounds butt-hurt that they were passed up again for console components.

That being said, I think console graphics are better than PC graphics only at the very beginning of the console's release and only one a couple titles. PC's slowly get the games at the same or better performance--the only difference is requiring far more computational overhead because of platform diversity considerations. Nothing new here.
 

Jarmo

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I wonder if the graph he's looking is showing how fast the share of PC desktops is declining vs laptops, and how fast the share of tablets is taking over both.

More and more, PC games will have to squeeze into the power budget of 25W or whatever the average laptop is going to be. Unless there's a reverse in the current trend, the consoles are going to win the power race.
 

TeKEffect

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Ya because the trend is 1000 watt plus psus. Laptops and itx form factors are on the decline. /end sarcasm. Look at the average computing power of steam users which will obviously include all gaming enthusiasts and see how that compares to the ps4. I love my gtx 680 and my ft02 but that's not what my friends have.
 

koss64

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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.
 

stevejnb

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Heh... I've had faster hardware than the release console at the time of release every single generation before this one. Problem is, there is more to it than just faster hardware and that results in the truth of the above post - that, in the first year, consoles have had the best looking game/games in pretty much every previous generation.

Simply put, PCs are held back from their full potential by a few factors. One, every developer aims for lowest common denominator systems, meaning that their primary focus is never to tap that tiny percentage of higher end machines out there. Two, even if they do aim at the higher end of the spectrum, they have to try and make the software work on a staggering potential combinations of hardware, as opposed to the single hardware profile that console developers can optimize for. And three, PC hardware is all made to operate in concert with a whole host of other potential devices, whereas there is a fair amount of R&D that goes into making a console's hardware compliment each other as well as possible, leading to the hardware just working together better than any PC can claim.

End result? A PC that has hardware a fair bit more powerful than a console will get at most marginal gains in performance. When the hardware is at all close, the console will usually look significantly better.

Eventually, of course, PCs *far* outstrip consoles through raw power, but, usually not out the gate. If Mr.Nvidia guy is to believed, this will be the first generation where we'll actually see PC games looking better than console games on day one... Or day one hundred, for that matter.
 
2005-2006 is exactly why I bought the xbox 360. It looked much better than what I was using for PC games at the time. It was also much cheaper than the price to build a computer from scratch that could equal or surpass it. It also helped that I already had a television ready to go, where I would have also had to match that computer with a higher resolution monitor. The end result was the xbox 360 and several games for the entry cost to just have a PC + monitor with no software to go along with it. It was a no-brainer at that moment in time.

Nowadays, the xbox 360 is just sitting around unused for a couple years now, the unit itself has been replaced 2x for freezing, the dvd drive has been replaced on the latest one, and now the hard drive in it is completely dead and hours of saved games from years past are lost forever into the void. There is zero desire to fire it up, replace it, repair it, or get one of the new consoles.

Thanks to youtube, if their is a console exclusive, with a really compelling story, I'll be watching a "let's play..." and keeping my coin. =)
 

ta152h

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It's kind of funny NVIDIA, a dying company, is now saying this.

The reality is, PCs were always faster than consoles, by a lot. It's not physics, or power, it's simply that a console has to sell at a certain price point, whereas PCs, being modular can be quite inexpensive to quite expensive.

Also, SOFTWARE is the key to efficiency. You can't make the hardware more efficient for consoles, that's very true. But, the bloat in Windows slows things down dramatically, making consoles much more efficient in that area. That's a huge difference.

Windows is a very poor gaming platform, especially with Direct X. It's a business operating system, that they shoe-horn gaming into, but Windows NT was never designed for that, and still is not. If it were, it would be a lot smaller and faster.

Luckily, AMD just announced Mantle, but even so, you're still working with the bloated and flatulent Windows 7/8 OS, which is quite poor for gaming. Contrast that with an OS designed the other way - with games as the primary design goal, and by the way, we can also run other apps.

SteamOS and Mantle both illustrate the inherent inefficiency of Windows and Direct X as a gaming platform. They only exist for that reason. But, in the former case, it could very well bring the PC to an entirely new performance level that makes NVIDIA's crying more rational, and in the latter case, it will at least make Windows somewhat more competent at gaming.

Either way, with the consoles all AMD, it's hard to see NVIDIA as anything but a dying company as AMD leverages their wins there to garner greater optimizations in the PC market.

With Mantle now out, and GCN based APUs becoming more common as time goes on, the writing is on the wall, and it's saying NVIDIA is being terminated as a GPU maker, at least for games. They both have the same access to manufacturing, and their designs are always relatively close, so software optimization and ease of porting is an advantage that will put NVIDIA at a big disadvantage. They're done. They have no where to turn, no way out. AMD is finally doing everything right, and without a real CPU (they have toys like Tegra, but nothing real), NVIDIA had no chance to remain a viable GPU maker; AMD won the console wars because they could make an APU whereas NVIDIA could not. They leveraged that, now they are leveraging their win in consoles to terminate NVIDIA in the PC space.

It's about time to see AMD really innovate and leverage their advantages successfully. The black cloud that was known as Hector Ruiz is finally moving away, and the damage that incompetent jackass did is finally being recovered from. It's like a completely different company, and it's nice to see them back pushing new ideas and technologies, not just making inferior x86 CPUs at a lower price (while claiming an IMC is a real new idea, despite being done 10 years earlier in x86 by NexGen, or moving to 64-bits in a very straightforward way is really an innovation as opposed to an straight-forward implementation.).
 

shin0bi272

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oh god shut up nvidia! While Ive bought your cards since the TNT2 I cannot support your inept statements and actions when it comes to marketing. You guys dont share your physx tech with other people or even release a dedicated card for amd users to have your physx on their systems. Then you claim putting one of your cards (or even tegra chips) in the new consoles "wasnt worth the investment". Now youre going to drone on about how console graphics will never be as good as pc. just shut it! We all know that every new console generation makes a graphical jump to catch up to pc and then the pc surpasses it soon after. The only problem is this time around the jump in graphics quality and perceptible difference is very small on consoles since the card amd chose to put in them in combination with their apu chip is a low end second gen dx11 amd pc chip. If they put in their newest pc gpu you wouldnt be running your mouth so much... you know since it beats titan. We all have been over why the current consoles have been so popular and how they were holding back PC game development ad nauseam so I wont reiterate it here. But you all know that this is just nvidia bloviating (speaking pompously) so lets just let them vent and move on.
 

sean1357

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Let see here
- Xbox One/PS4 cost about $500
- PC cost between $1000 to $10000..

PC rig killer can cost alot more than XboxOne/PS4....

Dual Xeon, Quad SLI, 256GB RAM, 6TB SSD... with 60" TV

 

wiyosaya

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Personally, I do not think that NVIDIA is going to go away any time soon. As I see it, the main reason for this is CUDA and their foothold in the HPC market.

I do, though, think Ruiz is trying to diss consoles because they are now in his competitor's pocket. Personally, I think that is rather lame. I am no fan of consoles and never will be as a console is not the right platform for me, however, he is taking aim at a very broad spectrum of PC power as others have pointed out, and I agree with the opinions of others that performance PCs have always been able to outperform, hardware wise, any console. The console is a different market. It always has been and always will be. In a way, I think Ruiz is comparing oranges and pears. :)
 
Nice of them to compare a 1000W system would obviously be running like a few Titans in SLI or their top of the line cards to a console. Of course a 1000W 3 titan system will be a console, for a $5000 PC vs a $400 console, what do you expect? That's like saying a $250,000 Porsche is faster than a smart car. Duhhhh.

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.

they're butthurt they have nothing to do with the Wii-U, PS4 and XBone and now have to resort to slander and name calling. The true sign of someone butthurt.
 
When you dont get any contract for the CPU/GPU of the consoles , that burn is so bad , that even a bucket of cold water can't help you.
They are just jealous that the 8th Gen Consoles sport APUs. If the next gen has Nvidia GPUs , that same guy will say - "Consoles now are at par with the PC in Gaming".
 

brizzelsprout

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"PC rig killer can cost alot more than XboxOne/PS4....

Dual Xeon, Quad SLI, 256GB RAM, 6TB SSD... with 60" TV"

Lol! Wut?

Who uses Dual Xeon's in a gaming pc? I can build you a gaming pc for about $500 that will be every bit as good as a next gen console if not better.
 


So lets see your super fast $400 PC build, including OS, blueray drive, case, psu, everything needed.
 

sean1357

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Let see here
- Xbox One/PS4 cost about $500
- PC cost between $1000 to $10000..

PC rig killer can cost alot more than XboxOne/PS4....

Dual Xeon, Quad SLI, 256GB RAM, 6TB SSD... with 60" TV

 
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