COD and Unreal are all multi-platform franchises. They are made to the specification of the lowest common denominator the Console. They aren't "PC titles", they are console ports. The developers you have quoted are all currently attempting to sell their console versions of that franchise. The interviews you are quoting from are promotional. They are part of an active sales campaign for console games. What did you expect them to say, "don't buy our console products they aren't as good"? "We are ashamed to report that Crysis is a better game"?
Show me a PC game developer talking about the PC and saying he isn't going to make enough sales? It won't happen either. He is being interviewed to promote his product. All the Cryssis dev's will be saying how much better the PC is. You won't find a quote from them saying, "actually, do you know what, the PS3 is much better than the PC, you should buy Gears of War".
This year,(next month) I will be turning my computer room into a 6 seat Avro Lancaster. with seats for the pilot and all the gunners and for the navigator bomb aimer. As a team we will be going online to take a 6 hour round trip to Germany. When we get there, we are going to bomb Germans. Real Germans.
That doesn't even make any sense. There is no reason for Epic or Infinity Ward to promote console versions of their games over PC versions. Those games are made for the lowest common dominator, but that dominator isn't consoles, it's mid end PC users. Neither UT3 nor CoD4 make use of everything the Xbox360 and PS3 have to offer. You seem to think that every PC gamer has a hig end PC, which ofcourse is not the case. And especialy in terms of gameplay not much has changed. Call of Duty 4 pretty much sticks true to its roots and is now merely put in a modern warfare coat. UT3 PC version actually differs from the Playstation 3 version.
One of the reason World of Warcraft's graphics were lacking from a graphical standpoint is because they wanted to appeal to a larger user base and well...is there anything that needs to be said about WoW's success?
Epic and Infinity Ward both promote their games to their primary audience. The audience for which the game was designed.
There is no console on the market that is comparable to a mid range PC. There is no console on the market that can match the power of a minimum spec PC on sale today. The lowest common denominator is not the $800 gaming machine, it's not even the $400 gaming machine, surprise surprise, it's the $200 gaming machine.
Both UT3 and Cod4 make use of everything the PS3 and Xbox 360 have to offer. That's it. You've seen all it has to offer. No more surprises for you until PS4.
UT and Cod Use two extremely scaleable engines. They can run on 3 year old PC's and they can all the features on next years computers too. Whatever system you run them on, they will be optimiseable, scaleable to the systems maximum capabilities.
On the Xbox 360, you've seen it. If you are expecting more, you will be waiting for the rest of your life.
CoD and Gears of War, ("Cliffy" didn't make UT3, he made UT2004 and Jazz Jackrabbit) are console titles.
In their promotional intervirews the developers of these games have heralded the Xbox 360 as the superior gaming platform. Which of course is very unsurprising since they are attempting to sell to Xbox owners.
The reason they are being promoted as console games to console gamers, is because that is what they are. Gears of War hasn't even been released on PC yet, and when it does, it won't sell well because it is a console port.
CoD 3 wasn't even released on PC. less than Half of all CoD titles have been available on the PC. Only CoD was a PC title, the rest have all been "all platforms". (ie nerfed).
CoD was never going to sell well on the PC again. It is a franchise title. It offers nothing new to the genre. It advances nothing. It doesn't attempt to advance anything. It's just formula smush, churned out as fast as possible. One a year. A Quake mod. It doesn't make full use of PC owners very expensive equipment because it must run on Consoles too.
A light shooter that didn't take long to make and doesn't take long to play. Who but the most mindless of idiots, who but the same morons who think they bought a supercomputer for $200 are really going to get all that excited by it.
When you go into MacDonalds and the advert says they sell the worlds best tasting burger, you don't have to believe them. It's ok if you want to believe them I suppose, but really, they don't. They just want you to buy it.
So when they tell you the Xbox is a powerful supercomputer more powerful than computers 2 and 3 times the price, and that console games are so superior to PC games, that PC games will never be played again, just remember that the peope saying this to you are only talking to you at all because they are trying to sell you something.....and tomorrow they will be trying to sell you something else.
Likewise when The Toyota Yaris wins Car of the Year award again next year, do not sell your Porsche. (Not even if the designer of the Yaris says that he did).
There is something that needs to be said about WoW's success, yes, it isn't a console game and no console game has ever been as successful as WoW. Nor as much fun, neither could any console on the market reproduce it's graphics on their highest settings. (This requires a total of 947 MB RAM) Nor are Blizzard developers discussing the failure of the PC market or advocating the Xbox as the future of gaming.
And this is where our debate ends because this is the point where you're starting to post incorrect things. The PS3 and Xbox360 are not low end machines. Period, end of discussions. Trust me, I know. I have bought a new computer just a few months ago and in order to buy a computer that can do what an Xbox360 and PS3 can do, You'll easily need to fork over 600$ ~ 800$ for a store build computer. It's no use to just look at the flat specs and claim "Oh, this is a low end". A console does NOT have to run all the add on trash programs on a PC like Windows, and it's architecture is completely different from a PC. It makes a lot of use of Cell, which is used for graphical capabilities. We can't continue this debate untill you get off this ridiculous mindset that todays consoles are low end machines. It's simply not true. You're not going to run a game like Bioshock as well on a PC of 400$ as an Xbox360.
The consoles are cheaper and offer the same power because console manufactors lose hundreds of dollars on each console sold. The consoles also don't come with a 150$ OS, which isn't required for gaming. THAT's why consoles are cheaper and software more expensive for a console then a PC.
UT3 and CoD4 do not make use of everything the PS3 has to offer. This is already proven by the fact that Killzone 2 is much more graphical advanced then those games.
and to Quote Insomniac, you know, who actually develops for the Playstation 3:
"I think we're going to continue seeing major leaps each year in what people are able to do with the machine for at least three or four more years."
CoD3 was not made by infinity ward. In fact, Infinity Ward has developed more games for the PC then for consoles. CoD is a PC franchise, not a console franchise.
Saying a game needs to do something new to be successful on the PC? Well we really only need 2 words 1 number to disprove that: Half Life 2.
In fact, AFAIK, Infinity Ward and Epic will have to pay more for each copy sold on consoles to the console publisher then when selling that game on PC. It doesn't make any sense as to why they would promote the console version over the PC version.
Nobody knows if WoW is the most succesful game in history. Yes, it has sold a lot of units but it's probably also the most expensive game to upkeep in history. Not as fun? Nothing but your personal opinion. So far we know that it's not even in the top 10 highest rated games of all time (on a sidenote, according to gamerankings, 9 out of 10 highest ranked games are console games)
And consoles can run WoW. if Xbox360 can run Age of Conan, it can run WoW. the RAM requirement is because of all the extras your PC is running in the background, not because of the game.
TG: But then you have Cliffy B come out and say that PC gaming is in disarray and... Mark Rein: Oh he's an idiot [laughing]. No, he's a great guy. Cliff makes console games though, right? He's on a console team that makes what is primarily a console game. www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/02/20/gdc_long_live_pc_gaming/
Now show us some numbers that include monthly subscriptions for MMOs. There is nothing wrong with PC gaming - money is just shifting from box sales to subscriptions which doesn't get counted for some reason.
We know blizzard alone is taking in over $624 million a year , (I'm only counting 4 mil subscribers )
And those numbers don't take into account people who have both a 360 and a PC. Take some of those big selling titles (like Orange Box) and release them only on PC and those numbers would be much different.
Subscriptions should not count in sales figures. How would that help retailers??
Who cares about retailers? They don’t make the games.
We know blizzard alone is taking in over $624 million a year , (I'm only counting 4 mil subscribers )
You don’t even need to go as far as talking about WoW. EVE, EQ2, LotRO, Lineage I/II, and probably a few more games are all bringing in more money for their developers then any 360 game. When a studio sells a game for the 360 or PS3 they only get part of the money from that sale. The distributor, the retailer and Sony/Microsoft all take a big chunk, so you need sales in the missions just to make the same revenue as a middle of the pack MMO on the PC.
Something else to consider is that Consoles are normally sold at a loss because you need to pay Sony/Microsoft for the privilege of developing a game for their console. Microsoft is going the price war route to try and bring developers on board the 360, and have dropped well below the long term profitability threshold. I.E. they need to charge developers a lot more to cover their R&D costs and keep their X-Box division in the black long term.
This price war tends to make the consoles a more attractive option in the short term, but in the long term Sony/MS need a bigger cut to stay in business. This also means console games need to hope like hell MS doesn’t get a monopoly on the console platform the way they have on the PC or game prices will go through the roof.
And this is where our debate ends because this is the point where you're starting to post incorrect things. The PS3 and Xbox360 are not low end machines. Period, end of discussions. Trust me, I know. I have bought a new computer just a few months ago and in order to buy a computer that can do what an Xbox360 and PS3 can do, You'll easily need to fork over 600$ ~ 800$ for a store build computer. It's no use to just look at the flat specs and claim "Oh, this is a low end". A console does NOT have to run all the add on trash programs on a PC like Windows, and it's architecture is completely different from a PC. It makes a lot of use of Cell, which is used for graphical capabilities. We can't continue this debate untill you get off this ridiculous mindset that todays consoles are low end machines. It's simply not true. You're not going to run a game like Bioshock as well on a PC of 400$ as an Xbox360.
The consoles are cheaper and offer the same power because console manufactors lose hundreds of dollars on each console sold. The consoles also don't come with a 150$ OS, which isn't required for gaming. THAT's why consoles are cheaper and software more expensive for a console then a PC. UT3 and CoD4 do not make use of everything the PS3 has to offer. This is already proven by the fact that Killzone 2 is much more graphical advanced then those games. and to Quote Insomniac, you know, who actually develops for the Playstation 3: "I think we're going to continue seeing major leaps each year in what people are able to do with the machine for at least three or four more years." CoD3 was not made by infinity ward. In fact, Infinity Ward has developed more games for the PC then for consoles. CoD is a PC franchise, not a console franchise. Saying a game needs to do something new to be successful on the PC? Well we really only need 2 words 1 number to disprove that: Half Life 2. In fact, AFAIK, Infinity Ward and Epic will have to pay more for each copy sold on consoles to the console publisher then when selling that game on PC. It doesn't make any sense as to why they would promote the console version over the PC version. Nobody knows if WoW is the most succesful game in history. Yes, it has sold a lot of units but it's probably also the most expensive game to upkeep in history. Not as fun? Nothing but your personal opinion. So far we know that it's not even in the top 10 highest rated games of all time (on a sidenote, according to gamerankings, 9 out of 10 highest ranked games are console games) And consoles can run WoW. if Xbox360 can run Age of Conan, it can run WoW. the RAM requirement is because of all the extras your PC is running in the background, not because of the game.
No. On max GFX, the WoW.exe process uses 691 MB. A further 256 is being used by your GFXcard. Any extra's you are running in the background (windows OS etc) are added to this. WoW uses 947 MB on max gfx settings. Your console cannot run it.
WoW is not AoC.
Why do you think the console is so powerful?
How many polygons can it render? How many calculations per second can the CPU make? What is the CPU's power as rated on the Pentium IV scale? How much RAM does it have? What speed is that RAM? What generation is it's GFX CPU?
This is how you measure computational power, not by how many of it's salesman say it is a supercomputer.
In the end, no matter what you say, the spec's do matter. They provide a finite limitation to the equipment. You quite simply cannot produce more calculations than your chip is capable of. You cannot use more RAM than you have. You can't fit 947 megs of data into 512 megs of RAM.
(and yes some of the consoles 512 is being used by the operating system, so you don't even have a full 512 as you so rightly pointed out).
Bioshock doesn't run well on any PC. Not even a $3,000 one. Wake up mate. It's a console port.
Console ports don't run well on PC's. Why on earth would you buy a PC to play Bioshock on?
What's the point if you own a console? You already have the perfect hardware for it.
Why don't you buy a PC to play a PC game on?
Incidently. CoD usues the Quake 3 engine. Modern PC's can run this from internet explorer http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/51395 . It really won't cost you very much to make a PC that can run this.
UT3 uses everything the PS3 has to offer. Every inch of it's computational power. Every last kb of it's RAM and it utilises every special effect it's GFX processer can do, the sound too.
That's it. You have seen all the technology has to offer. From now on the only differences you will see is artistic lisence.
Cod is a console franchise. It used to be a PC game, then they turned it into a franchise with the addition of 5 console titles.
Console manufacturers lose hundreds of dollars on each console sold?
Got any evidence to back that up? Ever read anywhere any manufacturers teling you how much money they lose on each hardware sale? Or did you just make that figure up.
Answer.... you made it up. The manufacturer never mentioned how much of a loss leader he was making. He left it ambiguous, and instead of choosing a reasonable sum, you let your fantasies run wild.
Sorry GL but you live on Fantasy Island.
Lets do the maths. Each console game pays a $5 lisence to the hardware manufacturer. Hundreds of dollars = at least $200. So for a hardware manufacturer to break even he would have to sell each console owner 40 games titles at peak prices, before he broke even. 40. Of course since he is looking to get a greater than 10% return (the amount he could expect to make by just leaving the money in the bank and not working really hard for 3 years), he would have to sell at least 44.
LMFAO.
Now, since you believe that the loss he is making is closer to $400, that would mean 88 games sold to every single console owner before he entered into profit. 88.
Lets apply this model into a well established market that has already made a great profit. the PS2. How many PS2 owners do you know that own at least 44 titles? How many do you know that own at least 88?
So here is what I suggest, apply the reality test to your imagination. Go to your shelf. If you can count 90 PS2 titles, all bought new, then you have some hope of being loosely in the right ball park. Now think of all your PS2 owning friends shelves and see if you can count 90 titles on all of their shelves too. If you can't you know that you "loss leader" calculations weren't in the right ball park.
I'm going to make a leap in the dark and suggest to you that the average PS2 owner has 10-20 titles bought new, based on my friends shelves. Given that the manufacturer has made a profit, the loss leader will need to have been from 5-10 titles. @$5 each that's $25-50.
That's what I consider to be a reasonable guesstimate of the loss leader. NOT $400. FFS. Hello? did you honestly think someone was going to give you $400 for nothing?
Half life 2 did do something new on the PC.
It brought vehicle scenes to the linear FPS genre. They have been a mainstay of every linear FPS ever since. It also brought physics puzzles, capitalising on the new processing power of the current gen CPU's at the time.
It pushed the envlope. It was both a technology title, utilising the maximum performance the latest Gen GFX had to offer and introducing the Havok physics engine to PC gameing and also a gameplay innovator with it's physics puzzles and vehicle mounted interludes.
WoW is the most successful game in history on box sales alone. Aside form the $1/4 a year net it pulls from European subs. Aside from the $1/4 billion net it pulls from U.S. subs. Aside from whatever hundreds of millions it's subs net in China.
It has been in the top 5 best selling games on 3 continents for 3 years solid. It nets billions a year. Who cares what percentage is profit. Any percentage of billions will do me fine.
If a console can run Age of Conan, it can run WoW. WoW isn't Age of Conan, WoW is a 2004 game with old graphics, Age of Conan is a game that is much more graphical advanced then WoW. Age of Conan will feature many characters on screen during PVP sieges, WoW doesn't come anywhere near that requirement.
UT3 does not take everything out of the Playstation 3, this is proven by the fact that Killzone 2 and Resident Evil 5 both look better then Unreal Tournament 3.
Describing the PS3 as an "engineering masterpiece," iSuppli estimates that the more expensive $599 console costs $840.35 to build, leaving Sony with a $241.35 loss on each console. The picture is worse for the cheaper, $499 version. Sony takes a hit of $306.85 per $499 console sold, due primarily to the lack of any substantial savings from the hardware differences between the two versions of the PS3. For instance, the 40GB difference in hard drive space between the two versions of the PS3 only saves Sony $11 and omitting 802.11b/g on the cheaper console only saves Sony an additional $15.50."
Microsoft kept the cost low by chosing low quality products, and had a loss of 126$ on each console sold at release, but it's important to note that it lacks features such as Wi - Fi and uses lower quality products.
Bioshock does run well on any PC. It ran just fine on my work PC on the highest setting.
Also, the Xbox360 infrastructure is almost identical to that of a PC. So porting causes little issues.
Half Life 2 did little for the FPS genre. Driving vehicles was already done before Half Life 2. So that leaves us with just physic puzzles? Wow, the revolution is amazing.
It can run WoW on max GFX. 947>512. It is a scientific impossibility.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 and 360 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture, and only the 360 is somewhat similar to a PC.
It can run WoW on max GFX. 947>512. It is a scientific impossibility.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
From your link...
UPDATE: Our bad, Microsoft actually makes $75.70 per 360 sold, as opposed to the $71 they were losing last year at launch.
You see they may have been making a loss on launch day on their initial test batch, but they aren't now.
Only they didn't bother to make a big announcement that they were now making a profit, because they are still trying to sell it to you.
They don't outright lie when they say they are selling it at a loss. That would be a criminal offence. But just like when MacDonalds say the make the worlds greatest burgers, they are wildly exaggerating as much as they legally can get away with.
So just beacuse Sony have made a $300 loss on one of their consoles, doesn;t mean that they are making a $300 loss on all of them or even many of them. It's called "a loss leader", not"a loss maker".
It can run WoW on max GFX. 947>512. It is a scientific impossibility.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
It works differently from a PC. It's simply not a PC, the PS3 GPU uses a different architecture from a PC GPU.
Did you know why Valve criticized the PS3? Because he argues that putting effort into the Cell is pointless because it can't be used for anything else.
Also I updated the link with a more credible source, which claims that the Xbox360 lost over 120$ at loss, and it's important to note that the Xbox360 has some low quality equipment inside of it, plus a lack of Wi fi.
It can run WoW on max GFX. 947>512. It is a scientific impossibility.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
It works differently from a PC. It's simply not a PC, the PS3 GPU uses a different architecture from a PC GPU.
The PS3 doesn't use RAM?
Now I've heard it all.
The PS3's GPU is made by Nvidia. Of course it uses the same architecture as a PC. Dur. The RSX chip is the missing link between the 6 series and the 7 series Nvidia GPU's. It is the 6.5 series so to speak.
The Cell is different to code for, because it uses a tri core. Because each core is only about 600 on the Pentium IV scale, processes must be shared out amongst them, rather than just all calcualated by any single core.
Valve made their games for single core architecture. With the prevalence of multicores now in the PC market. (although no tri cores there are dual and quads), this is going to be less of a problem for Valve. They will pretty much have to learn to multithread any new software they release nowadays anyway.
It can run WoW on max GFX. 947>512. It is a scientific impossibility.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
It works differently from a PC. It's simply not a PC, the PS3 GPU uses a different architecture from a PC GPU.
The PS3 doesn't use RAM?
Now I've heard it all.
The Cell is different to code for, because it uses a tri core. Because each core is only about 600 on the Pentium IV scale, processes must be shared out amongst them, rather than just all calcualated by any single core.
Valve made their games for single core architecture. With the prevalence of multicores now in the PC market. (although no tri cores there are dual and quads), this is going to be less of a problem for Valve. They will pretty much have to learn to multithread any new software they release nowadays anyway.
What I point out is that many things are simply handles through out the Cell processor now.
It works exactly the same as all other computers in the world. It uses RAM for the same purpose at the same time.
It's a real computer, not Fantasy Island technology from Mars.
What the Cell chip does is divide the processes up. So sound is handled on one core, GFXrendering on another and AI perhaps on a third. This is called multi-threading.
Multi threading is no longer the sole domain of the cell chip as multicore chips are now prevalent in the PC market. The difference between a Cell processor and a desktop multicore is the processing power of each core. While each core of a Cells processor produces calculations equivalent to 600 on the P IV scale, an AMD X2's cheapest chip provides 2200 per core.
I think you are perhaps confusing CPU RAM with system RAM and GPU RAM.
Mutliciore chips all share the same dedicated CPU RAM, This RAM is built into the CPU chip itself. It's typically 640k -1MB large and all cores share access to it. It is only accessed by the CPU.
System RAM, "the 512" in your Console, is additional RAM to this it can be found on the motherboard and can be shared by all components of the computer, drives, soundcard, GFX, CPU ...anything. GFX RAM is RAM built into the video card and can only be accessed by the GPU. It is dedicated and not shared like the system RAM.
Traditionally system RAM is much slower than GPU RAM. Most consoles do not have dedicated GPU RAM but instead use the system RAM. (It's cheaper). This is the equivalent of "onboard GFX" for a PC.
Console GPU's unlike PC gpu's have not been graded. Te 8 series Nvidia GPU, despite all being run off from the same piece of silicon with the same design has a very varied performance. The chips are all tested and graded into speeds. These speeds are the rated on scale between 8300 and 8800. With 8300 being the slowest and 8800 being the fastest.
In a console, the chips aren't graded. You get pot luck. Games cannot be scaled to take advantage of the faster chips, but instead are all made to the specification of the lowest common denominator. (Because console gamers prefer user friendliness to customisability).
In a PC when buying a GFX card you should be looking for 3 things.
No.1 is the generation of the chip. This defines the special effects it is capable of reproducing.
No. 2 is the processor speed. measured in Mhz, where higher = better.
No.3 is the RAM. RAM size is important for the resolution of the textures and also the resolution of the screen image. If you are running "high definition" you should look for 256 and above and for high definition textures you could think about 512 and above . Just as important as RAM size is RAM speed. This will go along way in defining your Frames Per Second. On board RAM will use the system RAM, (333MHZ on a console , 667 on a modern entry level PC), but a dedicated GFX card with it's own RAm will run RAM anywhere between 800 and 2500 depending on price. Faster is better.
Basically what its saying is that a Console such as the Xbox360 or PS3 is basically a computer wich is optimised for gaming. Unlike the PC which is really a "jack of all trades". Which means it can play games and play movies do programming access the internet etc but its not a specialist in one area like Gaming Consoles.
Which is one reason i feel that PC gaming has lost its soual a bit because its trying to compete with Consoles when it should really be keeping to its core values, a god example of this is a game like, "Sins Of A Solar Empire", This is a good game with low spec requirments meaning you dont need £300 just to upgrade for it. Instead of Uber graphics this game concentrates on gamepaly which is a good thing and the fact its a digital Download game is a good thing too.
So Will PC gaming Die? No
Will Consoles be more popular than PC gaming? Yes
In the end as long as computers are used in offices and as long as there is a Internet then there will be computers and a demand for games that run on Computers.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
umm..yeah guys.. Consoles.. are computers... take one apart and you can point out every peice and also point out that exact same type of equipement in your own system.... Look for some videos or pictures of people taking their consoles apart..
Who do you think supplies the technology for consoles? lol.. The same graphical battle that takes place on your pc is the same one going on in the console world (ATI vs Nvidia), and they use the same blueprints for console graphics as they do with pc graphics, but you do know that consoles are actually very low powered machines compared to even a mid ranged pc right? heh, the technology in a ps2 was years behind the pc..
And yes, since microsoft is essentially a pc brand the Xbox is of course MORE so a pc than the ps2/3.. You can even ADD a hard drive and exchange dvd rom drives on em.. Hell even install windows on em.. If all that doesn't point to PC then i dont know what does..
It can run WoW on max GFX. 947>512. It is a scientific impossibility.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
Single purpose vs multi-purpose machines again.
Consoles are highly tuned to do one specific task, rendering graphics, but if you try to give them a task that wasn’t designed into their hardware they choke. This is what makes innovation really difficult on the console, you can only do one type of task and any game that doesn’t fit into that type of task won’t work well. The PC, however, is more general, and it can handle any task you throw at it reasonably well. This means if a developer thinks up a new type of game, it will actually work on the PC, but couldn’t function on the console
Details for the computer geeks among you…
Modern graphics are highly dependant on floating point math, and as such they tend to mirror the supercomputers of the 70’s and 80’s which also depended heavily of floating point vector math. The two key components in this type of machine are the number of GFLOPS it can perform and keeping those vector floating point units supplied with data. The problem is that you can’t keep the data fed to the CPU via random access. (CPU requests data. CPU stops processing and waits for data. CPU gets data spends a few cycles processing. CPU finishes. CPU requests data …)
To keep that many operations going you need to stream the data to the CPU so the CPU never stops working. In streaming you run the I/O full bore, sending data to a memory long before the CPU knows it needs the data. The data is stored in memory for a short time but it’s really only a buffer, because the data is sent directly to the CPU, again before the CPU ever knows what data it needs.
To get the CPU data before it knows it needs it, the programmer has to know what data the CPU will need and needs to know exactly how long it will take to get there. On a PC you can do this to a limited extent but for it to work properly you need to know exactly how the hardware behaves and the application needs to have full control of the hardware. Neither of these conditions is true in a CPU.
This combination of streaming and high gflops make consoles enormously powerful at graphics rendering, much better then a PC. There is a catch, though. Anything you are going to render needs to be determined ahead of time by the programmer. In an MMO you have to deal with long view distances, and players that wander who could be wearing a wide range of different armor. Because the programmer can’t know any of this ahead of time the game needs to drop back into the much slower random access mode.
This is why MMO’s almost always run much slower then single player games with similar graphics and why ports to the PC from consoles run like crap. So, while the 360 or PS3 would have no problem running WoW graphically they would choke as soon as the MMO aspects were thrown at them. Likewise if someone wanted to develop a strategy game with a brilliant new AI that had lots of branching integer code (as AI tends to have) it would also choke if you tried to run it on a console.
umm..yeah guys.. Consoles.. are computers... take one apart and you can point out every peice and also point out that exact same type of equipement in your own system.... Look for some videos or pictures of people taking their consoles apart..
Your cell phone and microwave oven are computers as well. As I said in my post above, what a computer is optimized to do is very important. The PC is a general purpose device. Consoles are more specialized, even if they are still more general then the computer in a microwave.
Did you know why Valve criticized the PS3? Because he argues that putting effort into the Cell is pointless because it can't be used for anything else.
Not exactly a great example. He’s a former Microsoft employee and doesn’t seem to understand why computer chips can’t keep advancing the way they have on the PC. Cell is in fact an enormously powerful signal processing architecture that has applications far beyond computer gaming. (look at it’s performance in folding at home for example)
I don’t expect Valve to be able to keep up with the graphics engines coming out over the next decade if they can’t come to grips with streaming and multi-processing. These are the two principles the PS3 and to a lesser extent the 360 are built around and it’s really the only way forward for graphics engines. As I suggested above this is both the strength and weakness of the console relative to the PC.
Now show us some numbers that include monthly subscriptions for MMOs. There is nothing wrong with PC gaming - money is just shifting from box sales to subscriptions which doesn't get counted for some reason.
We know blizzard alone is taking in over $624 million a year , (I'm only counting 4 mil subscribers )
And those numbers don't take into account people who have both a 360 and a PC. Take some of those big selling titles (like Orange Box) and release them only on PC and those numbers would be much different.
Subscriptions should not count in sales figures. How would that help retailers??
Who cares about retailers? They don’t make the games.
Because if they aint selling games then the makers are out of business. They rely on one another.
Apparently there is going to be an announcement this week at GDC about the creation of some PC Gaming Alliance (Nvidia, AMD, Microsoft, Intel, etc). Their one purpose is to save PC Gaming from extinction.
How do they plan on doing it? They want to standardise the PC and make it more like a console. By creating a PC that is not customizable, they can hope that PC game developers will start making games that will be run on the "pc console".
Is that really the answer to PC gaming?? Do we really need another console in the market?
It can run WoW on max GFX. 947>512. It is a scientific impossibility.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
Single purpose vs multi-purpose machines again.
Consoles are highly tuned to do one specific task, rendering graphics, but if you try to give them a task that wasn’t designed into their hardware they choke. This is what makes innovation really difficult on the console, you can only do one type of task and any game that doesn’t fit into that type of task won’t work well. The PC, however, is more general, and it can handle any task you throw at it reasonably well. This means if a developer thinks up a new type of game, it will actually work on the PC, but couldn’t function on the console
Details for the computer geeks among you…
Modern graphics are highly dependant on floating point math, and as such they tend to mirror the supercomputers of the 70’s and 80’s which also depended heavily of floating point vector math. The two key components in this type of machine are the number of GFLOPS it can perform and keeping those vector floating point units supplied with data. The problem is that you can’t keep the data fed to the CPU via random access. (CPU requests data. CPU stops processing and waits for data. CPU gets data spends a few cycles processing. CPU finishes. CPU requests data …)
To keep that many operations going you need to stream the data to the CPU so the CPU never stops working. In streaming you run the I/O full bore, sending data to a memory long before the CPU knows it needs the data. The data is stored in memory for a short time but it’s really only a buffer, because the data is sent directly to the CPU, again before the CPU ever knows what data it needs.
To get the CPU data before it knows it needs it, the programmer has to know what data the CPU will need and needs to know exactly how long it will take to get there. On a PC you can do this to a limited extent but for it to work properly you need to know exactly how the hardware behaves and the application needs to have full control of the hardware. Neither of these conditions is true in a CPU.
This combination of streaming and high gflops make consoles enormously powerful at graphics rendering, much better then a PC. There is a catch, though. Anything you are going to render needs to be determined ahead of time by the programmer. In an MMO you have to deal with long view distances, and players that wander who could be wearing a wide range of different armor. Because the programmer can’t know any of this ahead of time the game needs to drop back into the much slower random access mode.
This is why MMO’s almost always run much slower then single player games with similar graphics and why ports to the PC from consoles run like crap. So, while the 360 or PS3 would have no problem running WoW graphically they would choke as soon as the MMO aspects were thrown at them. Likewise if someone wanted to develop a strategy game with a brilliant new AI that had lots of branching integer code (as AI tends to have) it would also choke if you tried to run it on a console.
It sounds all very good until you find out that a Geforce 5900 ultra, a GFX card two generations older than than the X-box's renders 50% more polygons per second than the X-box 360.
The important difference here, is not the CPU architecture, it's not the Xbox's custom build, the reason any old PC can render faster that the Xbox 360 with a decent card (even when the GPU is inferior), is the RAM speed and RAM capacity.
You see the number of floating point calculations, however well predicted, however fast we process them can never reach a total higher than our capacity to store that data. It is not possible to reproduce numbers higher than a machines maximum capacity. We are quite simply trapped by a finite limitatiion. The size of our available RAM.
So in this example, our Xbox 360, can only render a number of vertices per second that takes up < 512 MB RAM in storage data. It's peak output, is capped by this unavoidable limitation. A PC despite perhaps having a slower architecture does not have it's total capacity for calculations this capped. It is likely to have at least an extra 1GB headroom. Perhaps if the Xbox 360 was given more RAM, perhaps if it's "superior architecture" was not capped so early, it would be able to out render more PCs.......
Floating point calculations, "the vertices" are by no means the only relevant part of rendering. We aren't playing in "wireframe worlds". We are playing in fully filled pixelated worlds. With shaders and all the rest. And this is where our dedicated GPU RAM found on most gaming PC's really shines.
Textures for example never see the inside of the CPU. They are stored in the GFX RAM and accessed by the GPU. The process occours entirely within the GFX card on custom built circuitry specifically designed for this purpose. Much of the process on the PC is also "custom built for purpose". On the Console however, they are bounced around the motherboard from the system RAM to the GPU using the same low access speed multi-purpose architecture all the other data is trying to flow through.
Consoles are hardly the only computers in the world with custom designed architecture for gaming. Get a grip please.
The smallest GPU in the 8 series by example cranks out almost 6 times as many Polgons per second than the Xbox 360. Similarly it has a higher fill rate too.
It doesn't really matter how predictive your architecture is, the hardware has a scale limitation of only being able to draw pictures 1/6th of the complexity of an entry level PC.
The console may very well get excellent FPS through it's innovative architecture, that is it's USP (Unique Selling Point), but quite simply it doesn't match up for raw output performance.It is just more sales Jargon. Techno mumbo jumbo designed to impress you. They are selling you on all the platforms strengths but omitting all it's weaknesses.
In the end no matter how smart your predictive architecture, it's just a computer. It's speed in any given process is primarily defined by the processing power, storage size and access speed of the data. You can do a lot to refine this, but you can't ever escape these physical limits.
Based on the Info, you can only expect 8 million 360 users and 3 million PS3 users. On the other hand you can expect atleast 10 million on the PC. Catering to any of the current consoles aside from the Wii and DS isn't as profitable as the PC. Not to mention AAA games on the 360 and the PS3 are now getting into the 250 million range while investors are hard pressed to spend more then 50 million on other titles really shows that you are paying alot more money then you can expect in return for the game.
Originally posted by baff Bioshock doesn't run well on any PC. Not even a $3,000 one. Wake up mate. It's a console port. UT3 uses everything the PS3 has to offer. Every inch of it's computational power. Every last kb of it's RAM and it utilises every special effect it's GFX processer can do, the sound too. That's it. You have seen all the technology has to offer. From now on the only differences you will see is artistic lisence.
Waaa!!! What the hell is all this crap. I don't like double posting but I can't believe someone is crapping this stuff up. Not even sure who originally posted it.
1. Bioshock runs well on any PC. If you can't run it on a $3000 PC you did something wrong. I got it to run on a Single Core 2.0 GHZ AMD, with an X1650 and 1024 MB Ram on MAX settings. It also ran above 60 FPS. Maybe you are talking about Crysis that cannot even port to console because of how harsh its hardware requirements can be.
2. I can make a UT3 mod in about 1 minute that will bring a PS3 to its knees but run fine on a PC. It only requires 1 excessively High Poly sphere, an excessively high res texture built into a complex shader, and then made into a mod called "Super Ball of Console Destruction". You can even turn it into a Liquid Sphere with live fluid deformation physics for even more Console hurtingness.
On Console earnings. There hasn't been a single console game made in the last 8 years that has earned over $1 billion in sales without adding in merchandising. The best selling ones only earned 750 Million and thats optimistic. However, there are multiple PC/MMO titles that have earned in thier lifetime close to this number or more. Ragnarok Online earned more money then Gears of War did.
Comments
That doesn't even make any sense. There is no reason for Epic or Infinity Ward to promote console versions of their games over PC versions. Those games are made for the lowest common dominator, but that dominator isn't consoles, it's mid end PC users. Neither UT3 nor CoD4 make use of everything the Xbox360 and PS3 have to offer. You seem to think that every PC gamer has a hig end PC, which ofcourse is not the case. And especialy in terms of gameplay not much has changed. Call of Duty 4 pretty much sticks true to its roots and is now merely put in a modern warfare coat. UT3 PC version actually differs from the Playstation 3 version.One of the reason World of Warcraft's graphics were lacking from a graphical standpoint is because they wanted to appeal to a larger user base and well...is there anything that needs to be said about WoW's success?
Epic and Infinity Ward both promote their games to their primary audience. The audience for which the game was designed.
There is no console on the market that is comparable to a mid range PC. There is no console on the market that can match the power of a minimum spec PC on sale today. The lowest common denominator is not the $800 gaming machine, it's not even the $400 gaming machine, surprise surprise, it's the $200 gaming machine.
Both UT3 and Cod4 make use of everything the PS3 and Xbox 360 have to offer. That's it. You've seen all it has to offer. No more surprises for you until PS4.
UT and Cod Use two extremely scaleable engines. They can run on 3 year old PC's and they can all the features on next years computers too. Whatever system you run them on, they will be optimiseable, scaleable to the systems maximum capabilities.
On the Xbox 360, you've seen it. If you are expecting more, you will be waiting for the rest of your life.
CoD and Gears of War, ("Cliffy" didn't make UT3, he made UT2004 and Jazz Jackrabbit) are console titles.
In their promotional intervirews the developers of these games have heralded the Xbox 360 as the superior gaming platform. Which of course is very unsurprising since they are attempting to sell to Xbox owners.
The reason they are being promoted as console games to console gamers, is because that is what they are. Gears of War hasn't even been released on PC yet, and when it does, it won't sell well because it is a console port.
CoD 3 wasn't even released on PC. less than Half of all CoD titles have been available on the PC. Only CoD was a PC title, the rest have all been "all platforms". (ie nerfed).
CoD was never going to sell well on the PC again. It is a franchise title. It offers nothing new to the genre. It advances nothing. It doesn't attempt to advance anything. It's just formula smush, churned out as fast as possible. One a year. A Quake mod. It doesn't make full use of PC owners very expensive equipment because it must run on Consoles too.
A light shooter that didn't take long to make and doesn't take long to play. Who but the most mindless of idiots, who but the same morons who think they bought a supercomputer for $200 are really going to get all that excited by it.
When you go into MacDonalds and the advert says they sell the worlds best tasting burger, you don't have to believe them. It's ok if you want to believe them I suppose, but really, they don't. They just want you to buy it.
So when they tell you the Xbox is a powerful supercomputer more powerful than computers 2 and 3 times the price, and that console games are so superior to PC games, that PC games will never be played again, just remember that the peope saying this to you are only talking to you at all because they are trying to sell you something.....and tomorrow they will be trying to sell you something else.
Likewise when The Toyota Yaris wins Car of the Year award again next year, do not sell your Porsche. (Not even if the designer of the Yaris says that he did).
There is something that needs to be said about WoW's success, yes, it isn't a console game and no console game has ever been as successful as WoW. Nor as much fun, neither could any console on the market reproduce it's graphics on their highest settings. (This requires a total of 947 MB RAM) Nor are Blizzard developers discussing the failure of the PC market or advocating the Xbox as the future of gaming.
And this is where our debate ends because this is the point where you're starting to post incorrect things. The PS3 and Xbox360 are not low end machines. Period, end of discussions. Trust me, I know. I have bought a new computer just a few months ago and in order to buy a computer that can do what an Xbox360 and PS3 can do, You'll easily need to fork over 600$ ~ 800$ for a store build computer. It's no use to just look at the flat specs and claim "Oh, this is a low end". A console does NOT have to run all the add on trash programs on a PC like Windows, and it's architecture is completely different from a PC. It makes a lot of use of Cell, which is used for graphical capabilities. We can't continue this debate untill you get off this ridiculous mindset that todays consoles are low end machines. It's simply not true. You're not going to run a game like Bioshock as well on a PC of 400$ as an Xbox360.
The consoles are cheaper and offer the same power because console manufactors lose hundreds of dollars on each console sold. The consoles also don't come with a 150$ OS, which isn't required for gaming. THAT's why consoles are cheaper and software more expensive for a console then a PC.
UT3 and CoD4 do not make use of everything the PS3 has to offer. This is already proven by the fact that Killzone 2 is much more graphical advanced then those games.
and to Quote Insomniac, you know, who actually develops for the Playstation 3:
"I think we're going to continue seeing major leaps each year in what people are able to do with the machine for at least three or four more years."
CoD3 was not made by infinity ward. In fact, Infinity Ward has developed more games for the PC then for consoles. CoD is a PC franchise, not a console franchise.
Saying a game needs to do something new to be successful on the PC? Well we really only need 2 words 1 number to disprove that: Half Life 2.
In fact, AFAIK, Infinity Ward and Epic will have to pay more for each copy sold on consoles to the console publisher then when selling that game on PC. It doesn't make any sense as to why they would promote the console version over the PC version.
Nobody knows if WoW is the most succesful game in history. Yes, it has sold a lot of units but it's probably also the most expensive game to upkeep in history. Not as fun? Nothing but your personal opinion. So far we know that it's not even in the top 10 highest rated games of all time (on a sidenote, according to gamerankings, 9 out of 10 highest ranked games are console games)
And consoles can run WoW. if Xbox360 can run Age of Conan, it can run WoW. the RAM requirement is because of all the extras your PC is running in the background, not because of the game.
I guess Mark Rein is an idiot as well then.
LOL
Now show us some numbers that include monthly subscriptions for MMOs. There is nothing wrong with PC gaming - money is just shifting from box sales to subscriptions which doesn't get counted for some reason.
We know blizzard alone is taking in over $624 million a year , (I'm only counting 4 mil subscribers )
And those numbers don't take into account people who have both a 360 and a PC. Take some of those big selling titles (like Orange Box) and release them only on PC and those numbers would be much different.
Subscriptions should not count in sales figures. How would that help retailers??
Who cares about retailers? They don’t make the games.
No. On max GFX, the WoW.exe process uses 691 MB. A further 256 is being used by your GFXcard. Any extra's you are running in the background (windows OS etc) are added to this. WoW uses 947 MB on max gfx settings. Your console cannot run it.
WoW is not AoC.
Why do you think the console is so powerful?
How many polygons can it render? How many calculations per second can the CPU make? What is the CPU's power as rated on the Pentium IV scale? How much RAM does it have? What speed is that RAM? What generation is it's GFX CPU?
This is how you measure computational power, not by how many of it's salesman say it is a supercomputer.
In the end, no matter what you say, the spec's do matter. They provide a finite limitation to the equipment. You quite simply cannot produce more calculations than your chip is capable of. You cannot use more RAM than you have. You can't fit 947 megs of data into 512 megs of RAM.
(and yes some of the consoles 512 is being used by the operating system, so you don't even have a full 512 as you so rightly pointed out).
Bioshock doesn't run well on any PC. Not even a $3,000 one. Wake up mate. It's a console port.
Console ports don't run well on PC's. Why on earth would you buy a PC to play Bioshock on?
What's the point if you own a console? You already have the perfect hardware for it.
Why don't you buy a PC to play a PC game on?
Incidently. CoD usues the Quake 3 engine. Modern PC's can run this from internet explorer http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/51395 . It really won't cost you very much to make a PC that can run this.
UT3 uses everything the PS3 has to offer. Every inch of it's computational power. Every last kb of it's RAM and it utilises every special effect it's GFX processer can do, the sound too.
That's it. You have seen all the technology has to offer. From now on the only differences you will see is artistic lisence.
Cod is a console franchise. It used to be a PC game, then they turned it into a franchise with the addition of 5 console titles.
Console manufacturers lose hundreds of dollars on each console sold?
Got any evidence to back that up? Ever read anywhere any manufacturers teling you how much money they lose on each hardware sale? Or did you just make that figure up.
Answer.... you made it up. The manufacturer never mentioned how much of a loss leader he was making. He left it ambiguous, and instead of choosing a reasonable sum, you let your fantasies run wild.
Sorry GL but you live on Fantasy Island.
Lets do the maths. Each console game pays a $5 lisence to the hardware manufacturer. Hundreds of dollars = at least $200. So for a hardware manufacturer to break even he would have to sell each console owner 40 games titles at peak prices, before he broke even. 40. Of course since he is looking to get a greater than 10% return (the amount he could expect to make by just leaving the money in the bank and not working really hard for 3 years), he would have to sell at least 44.
LMFAO.
Now, since you believe that the loss he is making is closer to $400, that would mean 88 games sold to every single console owner before he entered into profit. 88.
Lets apply this model into a well established market that has already made a great profit. the PS2. How many PS2 owners do you know that own at least 44 titles? How many do you know that own at least 88?
So here is what I suggest, apply the reality test to your imagination. Go to your shelf. If you can count 90 PS2 titles, all bought new, then you have some hope of being loosely in the right ball park. Now think of all your PS2 owning friends shelves and see if you can count 90 titles on all of their shelves too. If you can't you know that you "loss leader" calculations weren't in the right ball park.
I'm going to make a leap in the dark and suggest to you that the average PS2 owner has 10-20 titles bought new, based on my friends shelves. Given that the manufacturer has made a profit, the loss leader will need to have been from 5-10 titles. @$5 each that's $25-50.
That's what I consider to be a reasonable guesstimate of the loss leader. NOT $400. FFS. Hello? did you honestly think someone was going to give you $400 for nothing?
Half life 2 did do something new on the PC.
It brought vehicle scenes to the linear FPS genre. They have been a mainstay of every linear FPS ever since. It also brought physics puzzles, capitalising on the new processing power of the current gen CPU's at the time.
It pushed the envlope. It was both a technology title, utilising the maximum performance the latest Gen GFX had to offer and introducing the Havok physics engine to PC gameing and also a gameplay innovator with it's physics puzzles and vehicle mounted interludes.
WoW is the most successful game in history on box sales alone. Aside form the $1/4 a year net it pulls from European subs. Aside from the $1/4 billion net it pulls from U.S. subs. Aside from whatever hundreds of millions it's subs net in China.
It has been in the top 5 best selling games on 3 continents for 3 years solid. It nets billions a year. Who cares what percentage is profit. Any percentage of billions will do me fine.
If a console can run Age of Conan, it can run WoW. WoW isn't Age of Conan, WoW is a 2004 game with old graphics, Age of Conan is a game that is much more graphical advanced then WoW. Age of Conan will feature many characters on screen during PVP sieges, WoW doesn't come anywhere near that requirement.
UT3 does not take everything out of the Playstation 3, this is proven by the fact that Killzone 2 and Resident Evil 5 both look better then Unreal Tournament 3.
Edit: found a bit more credible source:
arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061116-8239.html
Sony PS3 manufactoring cost:
Describing the PS3 as an "engineering masterpiece," iSuppli estimates that the more expensive $599 console costs $840.35 to build, leaving Sony with a $241.35 loss on each console. The picture is worse for the cheaper, $499 version. Sony takes a hit of $306.85 per $499 console sold, due primarily to the lack of any substantial savings from the hardware differences between the two versions of the PS3. For instance, the 40GB difference in hard drive space between the two versions of the PS3 only saves Sony $11 and omitting 802.11b/g on the cheaper console only saves Sony an additional $15.50."
Microsoft kept the cost low by chosing low quality products, and had a loss of 126$ on each console sold at release, but it's important to note that it lacks features such as Wi - Fi and uses lower quality products.
Bioshock does run well on any PC. It ran just fine on my work PC on the highest setting.
Also, the Xbox360 infrastructure is almost identical to that of a PC. So porting causes little issues.
Half Life 2 did little for the FPS genre. Driving vehicles was already done before Half Life 2. So that leaves us with just physic puzzles? Wow, the revolution is amazing.
It can run WoW on max GFX. 947>512.
It is a scientific impossibility.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 and 360 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture, and only the 360 is somewhat similar to a PC.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
From your link...
UPDATE: Our bad, Microsoft actually makes $75.70 per 360 sold, as opposed to the $71 they were losing last year at launch.
You see they may have been making a loss on launch day on their initial test batch, but they aren't now.
Only they didn't bother to make a big announcement that they were now making a profit, because they are still trying to sell it to you.
They don't outright lie when they say they are selling it at a loss. That would be a criminal offence. But just like when MacDonalds say the make the worlds greatest burgers, they are wildly exaggerating as much as they legally can get away with.
So just beacuse Sony have made a $300 loss on one of their consoles, doesn;t mean that they are making a $300 loss on all of them or even many of them. It's called "a loss leader", not "a loss maker".
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
It works differently from a PC. It's simply not a PC, the PS3 GPU uses a different architecture from a PC GPU.
Did you know why Valve criticized the PS3? Because he argues that putting effort into the Cell is pointless because it can't be used for anything else.
Also I updated the link with a more credible source, which claims that the Xbox360 lost over 120$ at loss, and it's important to note that the Xbox360 has some low quality equipment inside of it, plus a lack of Wi fi.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
It works differently from a PC. It's simply not a PC, the PS3 GPU uses a different architecture from a PC GPU.
The PS3 doesn't use RAM?
Now I've heard it all.
The PS3's GPU is made by Nvidia. Of course it uses the same architecture as a PC. Dur. The RSX chip is the missing link between the 6 series and the 7 series Nvidia GPU's. It is the 6.5 series so to speak.
The Cell is different to code for, because it uses a tri core. Because each core is only about 600 on the Pentium IV scale, processes must be shared out amongst them, rather than just all calcualated by any single core.
Valve made their games for single core architecture. With the prevalence of multicores now in the PC market. (although no tri cores there are dual and quads), this is going to be less of a problem for Valve. They will pretty much have to learn to multithread any new software they release nowadays anyway.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
It works differently from a PC. It's simply not a PC, the PS3 GPU uses a different architecture from a PC GPU.
The PS3 doesn't use RAM?
Now I've heard it all.
The Cell is different to code for, because it uses a tri core. Because each core is only about 600 on the Pentium IV scale, processes must be shared out amongst them, rather than just all calcualated by any single core.
Valve made their games for single core architecture. With the prevalence of multicores now in the PC market. (although no tri cores there are dual and quads), this is going to be less of a problem for Valve. They will pretty much have to learn to multithread any new software they release nowadays anyway.
What I point out is that many things are simply handles through out the Cell processor now.http://www.tech.co.uk/home-entertainment/gaming/games-consoles/features/cell-technology-the-punch-behind-ps3
As pointed out in this article, it's different from a computer.
No.
It is a computer.
Just not a PC.
It works exactly the same as all other computers in the world. It uses RAM for the same purpose at the same time.
It's a real computer, not Fantasy Island technology from Mars.
What the Cell chip does is divide the processes up. So sound is handled on one core, GFXrendering on another and AI perhaps on a third. This is called multi-threading.
Multi threading is no longer the sole domain of the cell chip as multicore chips are now prevalent in the PC market. The difference between a Cell processor and a desktop multicore is the processing power of each core. While each core of a Cells processor produces calculations equivalent to 600 on the P IV scale, an AMD X2's cheapest chip provides 2200 per core.
I think you are perhaps confusing CPU RAM with system RAM and GPU RAM.
Mutliciore chips all share the same dedicated CPU RAM, This RAM is built into the CPU chip itself. It's typically 640k -1MB large and all cores share access to it. It is only accessed by the CPU.
System RAM, "the 512" in your Console, is additional RAM to this it can be found on the motherboard and can be shared by all components of the computer, drives, soundcard, GFX, CPU ...anything. GFX RAM is RAM built into the video card and can only be accessed by the GPU. It is dedicated and not shared like the system RAM.
Traditionally system RAM is much slower than GPU RAM. Most consoles do not have dedicated GPU RAM but instead use the system RAM. (It's cheaper). This is the equivalent of "onboard GFX" for a PC.
Console GPU's unlike PC gpu's have not been graded. Te 8 series Nvidia GPU, despite all being run off from the same piece of silicon with the same design has a very varied performance. The chips are all tested and graded into speeds. These speeds are the rated on scale between 8300 and 8800. With 8300 being the slowest and 8800 being the fastest.
In a console, the chips aren't graded. You get pot luck. Games cannot be scaled to take advantage of the faster chips, but instead are all made to the specification of the lowest common denominator. (Because console gamers prefer user friendliness to customisability).
In a PC when buying a GFX card you should be looking for 3 things.
No.1 is the generation of the chip. This defines the special effects it is capable of reproducing.
No. 2 is the processor speed. measured in Mhz, where higher = better.
No.3 is the RAM. RAM size is important for the resolution of the textures and also the resolution of the screen image. If you are running "high definition" you should look for 256 and above and for high definition textures you could think about 512 and above . Just as important as RAM size is RAM speed. This will go along way in defining your Frames Per Second. On board RAM will use the system RAM, (333MHZ on a console , 667 on a modern entry level PC), but a dedicated GFX card with it's own RAm will run RAM anywhere between 800 and 2500 depending on price. Faster is better.
OK well to start with Consoles ARE computers. they just use different hardware/software netherless they are still computers.
Here are some links to help you all with the definition of a computer.
Wiki on "computer"
Wiki on " Video game console"
Basically what its saying is that a Console such as the Xbox360 or PS3 is basically a computer wich is optimised for gaming. Unlike the PC which is really a "jack of all trades". Which means it can play games and play movies do programming access the internet etc but its not a specialist in one area like Gaming Consoles.
Which is one reason i feel that PC gaming has lost its soual a bit because its trying to compete with Consoles when it should really be keeping to its core values, a god example of this is a game like, "Sins Of A Solar Empire", This is a good game with low spec requirments meaning you dont need £300 just to upgrade for it. Instead of Uber graphics this game concentrates on gamepaly which is a good thing and the fact its a digital Download game is a good thing too.
So Will PC gaming Die? No
Will Consoles be more popular than PC gaming? Yes
In the end as long as computers are used in offices and as long as there is a Internet then there will be computers and a demand for games that run on Computers.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
umm..yeah guys.. Consoles.. are computers... take one apart and you can point out every peice and also point out that exact same type of equipement in your own system.... Look for some videos or pictures of people taking their consoles apart..
Who do you think supplies the technology for consoles? lol.. The same graphical battle that takes place on your pc is the same one going on in the console world (ATI vs Nvidia), and they use the same blueprints for console graphics as they do with pc graphics, but you do know that consoles are actually very low powered machines compared to even a mid ranged pc right? heh, the technology in a ps2 was years behind the pc..
And yes, since microsoft is essentially a pc brand the Xbox is of course MORE so a pc than the ps2/3.. You can even ADD a hard drive and exchange dvd rom drives on em.. Hell even install windows on em.. If all that doesn't point to PC then i dont know what does..
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
Single purpose vs multi-purpose machines again.
Consoles are highly tuned to do one specific task, rendering graphics, but if you try to give them a task that wasn’t designed into their hardware they choke. This is what makes innovation really difficult on the console, you can only do one type of task and any game that doesn’t fit into that type of task won’t work well. The PC, however, is more general, and it can handle any task you throw at it reasonably well. This means if a developer thinks up a new type of game, it will actually work on the PC, but couldn’t function on the console
LOL
Now show us some numbers that include monthly subscriptions for MMOs. There is nothing wrong with PC gaming - money is just shifting from box sales to subscriptions which doesn't get counted for some reason.
We know blizzard alone is taking in over $624 million a year , (I'm only counting 4 mil subscribers )
And those numbers don't take into account people who have both a 360 and a PC. Take some of those big selling titles (like Orange Box) and release them only on PC and those numbers would be much different.
Subscriptions should not count in sales figures. How would that help retailers??
Who cares about retailers? They don’t make the games.
Because if they aint selling games then the makers are out of business. They rely on one another.
I think that's been tried already....
But I'd be all for a "console" PC that ran Windows or Linux. Upgrading every six months sux.
That's if you look at the Playstation 3 as a computer, which it isn't. it uses different architecture.
No it doesn't. It uses RAM, GPU and CPU just the same as PC.
Single purpose vs multi-purpose machines again.
Consoles are highly tuned to do one specific task, rendering graphics, but if you try to give them a task that wasn’t designed into their hardware they choke. This is what makes innovation really difficult on the console, you can only do one type of task and any game that doesn’t fit into that type of task won’t work well. The PC, however, is more general, and it can handle any task you throw at it reasonably well. This means if a developer thinks up a new type of game, it will actually work on the PC, but couldn’t function on the console
It sounds all very good until you find out that a Geforce 5900 ultra, a GFX card two generations older than than the X-box's renders 50% more polygons per second than the X-box 360.
The important difference here, is not the CPU architecture, it's not the Xbox's custom build, the reason any old PC can render faster that the Xbox 360 with a decent card (even when the GPU is inferior), is the RAM speed and RAM capacity.
You see the number of floating point calculations, however well predicted, however fast we process them can never reach a total higher than our capacity to store that data. It is not possible to reproduce numbers higher than a machines maximum capacity. We are quite simply trapped by a finite limitatiion. The size of our available RAM.
So in this example, our Xbox 360, can only render a number of vertices per second that takes up < 512 MB RAM in storage data. It's peak output, is capped by this unavoidable limitation. A PC despite perhaps having a slower architecture does not have it's total capacity for calculations this capped. It is likely to have at least an extra 1GB headroom. Perhaps if the Xbox 360 was given more RAM, perhaps if it's "superior architecture" was not capped so early, it would be able to out render more PCs.......
Floating point calculations, "the vertices" are by no means the only relevant part of rendering. We aren't playing in "wireframe worlds". We are playing in fully filled pixelated worlds. With shaders and all the rest. And this is where our dedicated GPU RAM found on most gaming PC's really shines.
Textures for example never see the inside of the CPU. They are stored in the GFX RAM and accessed by the GPU. The process occours entirely within the GFX card on custom built circuitry specifically designed for this purpose. Much of the process on the PC is also "custom built for purpose". On the Console however, they are bounced around the motherboard from the system RAM to the GPU using the same low access speed multi-purpose architecture all the other data is trying to flow through.
Consoles are hardly the only computers in the world with custom designed architecture for gaming. Get a grip please.
The smallest GPU in the 8 series by example cranks out almost 6 times as many Polgons per second than the Xbox 360. Similarly it has a higher fill rate too.
It doesn't really matter how predictive your architecture is, the hardware has a scale limitation of only being able to draw pictures 1/6th of the complexity of an entry level PC.
The console may very well get excellent FPS through it's innovative architecture, that is it's USP (Unique Selling Point), but quite simply it doesn't match up for raw output performance. It is just more sales Jargon. Techno mumbo jumbo designed to impress you. They are selling you on all the platforms strengths but omitting all it's weaknesses.
In the end no matter how smart your predictive architecture, it's just a computer. It's speed in any given process is primarily defined by the processing power, storage size and access speed of the data. You can do a lot to refine this, but you can't ever escape these physical limits.
Unreal Tournament 3 Hindered By Deadlines, Console Port
blog.wired.com/games/2008/02/unreal-tourname.html
Epic's President Mike Capps described [the UI] simply as "fucked"
planetunreal.gamespy.com/fullstory.php
The consoles success is widely exagerrated.
List of Best Selling Video Games
Based on the Info, you can only expect 8 million 360 users and 3 million PS3 users. On the other hand you can expect atleast 10 million on the PC. Catering to any of the current consoles aside from the Wii and DS isn't as profitable as the PC. Not to mention AAA games on the 360 and the PS3 are now getting into the 250 million range while investors are hard pressed to spend more then 50 million on other titles really shows that you are paying alot more money then you can expect in return for the game.
Waaa!!! What the hell is all this crap. I don't like double posting but I can't believe someone is crapping this stuff up. Not even sure who originally posted it.
1. Bioshock runs well on any PC. If you can't run it on a $3000 PC you did something wrong. I got it to run on a Single Core 2.0 GHZ AMD, with an X1650 and 1024 MB Ram on MAX settings. It also ran above 60 FPS. Maybe you are talking about Crysis that cannot even port to console because of how harsh its hardware requirements can be.
2. I can make a UT3 mod in about 1 minute that will bring a PS3 to its knees but run fine on a PC. It only requires 1 excessively High Poly sphere, an excessively high res texture built into a complex shader, and then made into a mod called "Super Ball of Console Destruction". You can even turn it into a Liquid Sphere with live fluid deformation physics for even more Console hurtingness.
On Console earnings. There hasn't been a single console game made in the last 8 years that has earned over $1 billion in sales without adding in merchandising. The best selling ones only earned 750 Million and thats optimistic. However, there are multiple PC/MMO titles that have earned in thier lifetime close to this number or more. Ragnarok Online earned more money then Gears of War did.