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Reality of console visuals surpassing PC visual fidelity

R

Resilient

Member
Given the release of the Wii U it's obvious that we are gearing up for a new console launch from MS and Sony some time in the close future. If these two consoles launch next year during November/holiday season, and given that technology progresses in the PC market at the current rate it has been, what is the potential of console visual fidelity surpassing that of PC? Is it realistic, or a large pipe dream?

This is coming from a PC gamer with a 360 and Wii U. I have a pretty decent understanding of the differences between PC and 360/PS3/Wii U currently. But I'm interested to see how many people expect consoles to surpass PC gaming in 2013, and how many people feel that it will barely scratch the surface compared to PC gaming in 2013.

EDIT: Cost is not a factor at all in this discussion. When I say PC gaming in 2013 I am talking about the best of the best, high end PC that money can buy.
 
Pagusas

Pagusas

Elden Member
certain games will push the hardware to the limits and look better or equal to some high end PC games, but overall its a pipe dream. The gap will be closest at launch, then move quickly apart within a matter of months.
 
D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
I would hope so. If new consoles fail to deliver visuals beyond what we have seen on the PC it would be the first time in console history, really (for a new generation machine, of course).

The Wii U doesn't really count as it's focus lies elsewhere.

With consoles becoming more PC-like, however, and PCs coming into their own it may be difficult to reach.

I miss the days of PS2 when it was showing visuals far exceeding anything you could get anywhere else. :\
 
K

kinggroin

Banned
I'm expecting the gap between these new consoles and PC hardware in the same time frame to be the smallest it has ever been for a launch. It only get bigger after that.


Edit: Dark, I don't recall that being the case in the 32/64 bit era. Maybe my memory is fuzzy, but I think the PC more than matched Wipeout and Turok on launch no?
 
Z

z0m3le

Banned
$ per performance, it's possible.

but if you are just going to throw next gen consoles against the best PCs that existed even 2 years ago, you won't be happy with the results.

PCs have enjoyed 1000watt psus for years now, and they put wattage to use. So no, a 250watt console will not match the best PCs of 2013 or even 2010.
 
1

10k

Banned
Not even a pipe dream. People who want consol graphics to match or exceed PC aspire for it to be a pipe dream. Unless the PC market changes or consoles become open and upgradable I don't see it happening.
 
I

injurai

Banned
A new generation of consoles will once again push PC graphics. Even now we have other CGI-centric industries pushing graphics to no where near what the real-time rendering demands that video games put on systems.

I think consoles will always have the advantage of squeezing out black magic compared to the more universal code needed on a PC, but at the start of a gen people are just learning the systems. It won't be enough to compete this time around me thinks.
 
S

SmokyDave

Member
I'm hoping that next gen console games will look somewhere between how PC ports of current gen games look and how PC ports of next gen games will look.

How feasible that is, I have no idea.
 
Z

z0m3le

Banned
10k said:
Not even a pipe dream. People who want consol graphics to match or exceed PC aspire for it to be a pipe dream. Unless the PC market changes or consoles become open and upgradable I don't see it happening.
Click to expand...

Especially when next year they will release a 10.2TFLOPs GPU. PCs are untouchable thanks to unlimited resources.
 
G

Goldenroad

Member
Festwill said:
Depends on the PC.
Click to expand...

This. My PC can barely run a game like Bioshock...just barely. It looks 100x worse than the 360 version anyway when I do try to play UE3 games on my PC. So, since current gen consoles are miles above my PC, I can't picture that next-gen consoles are going to look worse than it.
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
I really don't think they're going to have systems that can outdo a GTX 680 or 690 and 8+ gigs of RAM. Even if they did they'd fall behind PCs pretty quick again and it would be at least a year or more until we started getting games that really push the new systems from people like Naughty Dog.
 
D

doniewhalberg

Member
How long did it take for PC builds to outclass the 360 and PS3? Did the consoles even get a year on top? I knew literally nothing about gaming pcs in 06.
 
R

radioheadrule83

Banned
I think cost pressures and TDP issues are going to manifest themselves for the first time in a console generation. They need to keep the consoles affordable and they need to avoid making massive tanks, comparable with an ATX case or something.

Due to this I think that it may be possible that even affordable PCs are outpacing them on day one... however, the big silver lining for consoles is that they are still were a lot of the money is in software, so PC games will simply be designed to match their spec -- as a lot of games have been for the last few years WRT to 360/PS3 specs. If any devs decide to go PC only I think we'll see the consoles surpassed visually and in terms of grunt pretty quickly.
 
N

Nemesis121

Member
Just my opinion but I thought PS360 surpassed PC for at least an entire year, and even today PS360 games like God of War 3 and Halo 4 give thousand video card a run for it's money....
 
O

Orayn

Member
$400 SKUs won't compete with high end 2012/2013 PCs in the way the 360 and PS3 did. The games will probably run at 1080P more often than not, but expect the differences to lie more in the subtle aspects of IQ, with a fidelity gap will be disappointingly small to some.
 
T

Truant

Member
Developers will always focus on polygonal spectacle, as well as fancy effects. Image quality, texture- and rendering resolution will always fall short. The general public doesn't know the difference.
 
Y

YianGaruga

Banned
Nemesis121 said:
Just my opinion but I thought PS360 surpassed PC for at least an entire year, and even today PS360 games like God of War 3 and Halo 4 give thousand video card a run for it's money....
Click to expand...

This is absolutely false. A really cheap card could do those games at 720p 30 FPS without breaking a sweat.
 
K

kinggroin

Banned
To add, I fully expect launch exclusives to blow our socks off compared to most of the multiplatform stuff we'll see on PC.

THOSE are the games that'll help me decide if I'm jumping in or not.


Edit: @ post above. That's not his point I don't think.
 
G

GrizzNKev

Banned
Nemesis121 said:
Just my opinion but I thought PS360 surpassed PC for at least an entire year, and even today PS360 games like God of War 3 and Halo 4 give thousand video card a run for it's money....
Click to expand...

You haven't looked very closely at Halo 4 then. It's severely lacking in both detail and draw distance, something they do a pretty decent job hiding.
 
M

memecomplex

Member
By the time consoles reach 1080p at 60 fps, top end PCs will be shooting for 4K resolution with heaps of AA at 60fps. Of course it will come at many times the cost of a console.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Nemesis121 said:
Just my opinion but I thought PS360 surpassed PC for at least an entire year, and even today PS360 games like God of War 3 and Halo 4 give thousand video card a run for it's money....
Click to expand...

Those are 720p games running at 30FPS on 2005 hardware. I don't even...
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
Nemesis121 said:
Just my opinion but I thought PS360 surpassed PC for at least an entire year, and even today PS360 games like God of War 3 and Halo 4 give thousand video card a run for it's money....
Click to expand...

Think about what you're saying. You're saying hardware from 2005 and 2006 can do the same kind of stuff that hardware from 2011-2012 can. No trick from an exclusive developer can make simple math disappear.
 
F

flyinpiranha

Member
Nemesis121 said:
Just my opinion but I thought PS360 surpassed PC for at least an entire year, and even today PS360 games like God of War 3 and Halo 4 give thousand video card a run for it's money....
Click to expand...

They really don't. At all. I'm playing through Halo 4 right now and have played GoW in the past. Nothing those two games do even comes close to something like Metro 2033 or Sleeping Dogs. Sleeping Dogs looks better than GoW (technically, I think GoW is artistically better) and it's an open world game compared to a mainly scripted linear QTE game that can maximize certain aspects.
 
I

injurai

Banned
Nemesis121 said:
Just my opinion but I thought PS360 surpassed PC for at least an entire year, and even today PS360 games like God of War 3 and Halo 4 give thousand video card a run for it's money....
Click to expand...

At first you think that. Like they look good enough to play and not really think about the graphical shortcomings. But you can definitely see where the trickery is being implemented and what they had to skimp on.
 
M

muu

Member
Truant said:
Developers will always focus on polygonal spectacle, as well as fancy effects. Image quality, texture- and rendering resolution will always fall short. The general public doesn't know the difference.
Click to expand...

I don't see 'hardcore gamers' doing much better, considering they have to go to folks knowledgeable about pixel cuonting to get a precise reading.
 
T

Truant

Member
Nemesis121 said:
Just my opinion but I thought PS360 surpassed PC for at least an entire year, and even today PS360 games like God of War 3 and Halo 4 give thousand video card a run for it's money....
Click to expand...

Software coded for a specific set of hardware devices will always have an edge in certain areas. Even with Windows/DirectX, PC developers will never have the same hardware base to develop for. It's just not doable unless there's a serious change in how Microsoft, AMD, and nVidia work together.
 
J

jett

D-Member
Considering the current state of multiplatform development, those days are long gone. Most third party games on the PS4/720 if not all will show up on PC. There's first party development, I guess.

UNFORTUNATELY, development of PC ports seems to be trash. We get one unoptimized port after another, on hardware more than an order of magnitude than that of consoles.
 
M

MikeE21286

Member
I think the new consoles need to have games that look noticably better than what games look like currently on PCs or they should not exist.
 
O

Orayn

Member
bluebird said:
I'm interested, what were the differences between PC and 360/PS3 on launch, and PC compared to PS2/Xbox/GCN on launch?
Click to expand...

Oblivion could feasibly run around 60 FPS with higher resolution and better IQ on a system with a high end Athlon X2 or Opteron with 1-2GB of RAM with an Nvidia 7800 series or ATI X1900. It was <30FPS on 360.

-COOLIO- said:
I thought the 360 blew pc away at launch. Far cry and all.
Click to expand...

In terms of the best visuals it could produce? No way. Better bang for your buck, for sure, but no more.
 
K

Kurdel

Banned
I hope devs don't get lazy with PC ports, because there is no reason why the games would perform better on consoles seeing they are just getting off the shelf graphics cards.
 
B

bigdaddygamebot

Member
bluebird said:
Given the release of the Wii U it's obvious that we are gearing up for a new console launch from MS and Sony some time in the close future. If these two consoles launch next year during November/holiday season, and given that technology progresses in the PC market at the current rate it has been, what is the potential of console visual fidelity surpassing that of PC? Is it realistic, or a large pipe dream?

This is coming from a PC gamer with a 360 and Wii U. I have a pretty decent understanding of the differences between PC and 360/PS3/Wii U currently. But I'm interested to see how many people expect consoles to surpass PC gaming in 2013, and how many people feel that it will barely scratch the surface compared to PC gaming in 2013.
Click to expand...

I rail pretty hard against the PC elite crowd and even I know that console visuals are never going to surpass what is available on PCs. There might be a closing of the "gap" from time to time but it's a pretty short one.
 
Q

Queen of Hunting

Unconfirmed Member
ofcourse consoles will look better than PC. Devs spend like all their time n money on consoles and for pcs its an after thought with no actual desire.
 
O

orioto

Good Art™
Will pc be always more powerful than consoles > yes
WIll money games with awesome art always be made for consoles > yes

In short, even if when the next consoles are out, there will be way more powerfull pcs, the most beautiful games will be on consoles, and first gen next gen games will be far superior to anything on pc right now.
 
S

Soul_Pie

Member
Depends on whether the next gen coincides with a whole heap of techniques and engines, because that's what really tends to push things forward. Stuff like Gears of War was almost able to match it with the best PC games of the time.

I reckon if there was a game like Crysis on a brand new engine which took a cutting edge PC to run it released at the same time as the new consoles then the new consoles couldn't keep up, they'd be destroyed.

It's such a complicated dynamic between consoles and PC, a lot of PC's potential is held back by the fact that for one a lot of it is geared towards consoles and secondly a lot of it is geared towards those with lesser rigs. That's why it's so rare that games like crysis come along and just blow everything out of the water.

Whatever the case, and I know I'm off topic here, but I caved in and bought myself a gaming PC, because the consoles have reached what they're capable of doing. It's time to move on, it's start to get Unreal 4 out, and it's time that PC games stopped getting held back by consoles that are so far out of date it's not funny. This generation has dragged on too long.
 
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