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The impact of next-gen console hardware on PC gaming
- Thread starter Durante
- Start date
I just built a new rig this month with an i5 3775k @ 3.4GHz, 8GB of RAM and a 2GB GTX 670.
I anticipate being fine for next gen, or at least I'd be dissapointed if I wasn't. I'm under no illusions that at some point I'll probably need to upgrade my GPU for that jump back up to clearly-better-than-console performance that I enjoy now relative to this gen, but if I can get a solid 3 or 4 years out of this 670 then that'll be great for me.
Maybe I'm underestimating though. Obviously so much depends on optomisation and the like, but this is the first geneartion I'll be going into as a predominantly PC gamer rather than a console one.
I anticipate being fine for next gen, or at least I'd be dissapointed if I wasn't. I'm under no illusions that at some point I'll probably need to upgrade my GPU for that jump back up to clearly-better-than-console performance that I enjoy now relative to this gen, but if I can get a solid 3 or 4 years out of this 670 then that'll be great for me.
Maybe I'm underestimating though. Obviously so much depends on optomisation and the like, but this is the first geneartion I'll be going into as a predominantly PC gamer rather than a console one.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Really, the main exciting thing about a new wave of consoles for PC users is that the ceiling will be a lot higher. There's a lot of grunt in modern systems that just isn't being used as well as it should be. 64bit binaries, ~DX11 standard, and great headroom for RAM and CPU. Finally games being made for the PCs that we own, pushing them harder than games have been for years.
I don't expect my i5 2500K @ 4.3Ghz, 8GB RAM, and 1.2GB GTX 570 to hold up for long, but it will be nice to give the system a much needed workout. Frankly I'm happy with 1920x1080 @ 30fps for as long as I can get it from next gen ports, until I upgrade.
I don't expect my i5 2500K @ 4.3Ghz, 8GB RAM, and 1.2GB GTX 570 to hold up for long, but it will be nice to give the system a much needed workout. Frankly I'm happy with 1920x1080 @ 30fps for as long as I can get it from next gen ports, until I upgrade.
It depends what You have now. Best time for upgrade will be next year, but if You're really behind You can upgrade even today. 2500k+660Ti combo will be viable for a long time.
Horse Armour
Member
Since the new consoles will have 8 cores, should everyone go for the i7 haswell rather than the i5?
Edit: Scratch that, the i7 is ridiculously overpriced in comparison, you'd be better off dumping that money into a faster GPU with more VRAM (at least 4GB).
Edit: Scratch that, the i7 is ridiculously overpriced in comparison, you'd be better off dumping that money into a faster GPU with more VRAM (at least 4GB).
I think those days are over to be honest. Well maybe a few timed exclusives, but with the cost it takes to make games these days I don't see any third party publisher willingly leaving money on the table anymore. Well Western publishers at least. I don't know if Japanese publishers will ever fully embrace the PC.
This right here. I know I might sound like I don't think much of the consoles, but I am excited about them. As it will finally allow PC games that will do more to take advantage of PC hardware. At least for the first few years. Of course my current PC is pretty dated so I am do for an upgrade anyway. It will be nice to have a new rig this year.
DeFiBkIlLeR
Banned
Yeah sure for highly multi-threaded tasks, but for emulation they suck donkey balls compared to Intel, due to their appalling IPC and the fact that most emulators never make effective use of more than 2 cores.
Radeon HD3200, Athlon 64 QL60, 4GB RAM.
So yeah... I'm really desperate to upgrade as fast as possible
michaelius
Banned
Radeon HD3200, Athlon 64 QL60, 4GB RAM.
So yeah... I'm really desperate to upgrade as fast as possible
I think it's time for a fast ride to shop
I notice in particular the CPUs in these consoles seem to have very small amounts of cache considering the number of cores, leading me to believe that they are every bit as weak, mobile-like CPUs as they appear. I doubt if any Sandy- or Ivy- Bridge i5 or above has anything to fear from them, especially if one or more cores are dedicated to the OS. Code optimised for AMD CPUs still runs better on Intels anyway, it just runs less shit on the AMD chips.
According to basic FLOP counts (which the rumour-traders seem to love) anything above a GTX660 / HD7850 OC have little to fear.
The only unknown is the optimisation/efficiency argument, which I believe is a myth, especially since the start of the current generation when these consoles are running operating systems in the background.
According to basic FLOP counts (which the rumour-traders seem to love) anything above a GTX660 / HD7850 OC have little to fear.
The only unknown is the optimisation/efficiency argument, which I believe is a myth, especially since the start of the current generation when these consoles are running operating systems in the background.
Brerlappin
Member
The only thing making me want to upgrade is the prospect of Cyberpunk 2770 being too much for my PC. The only part of the leaked specs more powerful than my current PC is the CPU. Im rocking an old Quad core Q6600 and event hats still holding its own fairly imrpessively nowadays. So yeah, im looking at upgrading sometime around 2015 when Cyberpunk comes out lol, not bad considering the oldest part of this PC (CPU) was bought in 2008..
I expect PC games will remain scalable with low, medium and high settings, because it makes no sense to exclude 75% of your market (laptops with weak GPU's).
But requirements will jump. Before the xbox360 came out, a lot of PC games were still able to run on DX8 or even DX7 class hardware. Doom3, Half Life 2, Pop:Warrior Within and Thief
eadly Shadows were all released in 2004 and can run on Geforce 3 cards.
After the 360 came out, suddenly DX9 became a requirement in some games (Oblivion, Hitman: Blood Money). A year later it was a requirement in most games. DX8 cards were history.
I expect the same thing will happen to DX10 this generation. Games that use tesselation will make relatively new cards (GTX 285, Radeon HD 4890, Intel HD 3000) obsolete overnight.
But requirements will jump. Before the xbox360 came out, a lot of PC games were still able to run on DX8 or even DX7 class hardware. Doom3, Half Life 2, Pop:Warrior Within and Thief
eadly Shadows were all released in 2004 and can run on Geforce 3 cards.After the 360 came out, suddenly DX9 became a requirement in some games (Oblivion, Hitman: Blood Money). A year later it was a requirement in most games. DX8 cards were history.
I expect the same thing will happen to DX10 this generation. Games that use tesselation will make relatively new cards (GTX 285, Radeon HD 4890, Intel HD 3000) obsolete overnight.
Your CPU could most likely last you for years.
There's a tangentially related review on Anandtech today which shows how an 800 MHz Sandy Bridge massively outperforms a 1.66 GHz Atom. The Jaguar is better than the Atom per clock, but still closer to its level than to a modern high-end Intel core.
Intel's desktop chips are just way off the chart compared to anything else -- including, by every indication, these new consoles' CPUs.
Good point. I could even see a DX11 minimum requirement for games rather soon (at which level they will remain for years).
True, unless there will be inefficient ports again, such as GTA-4. Maybe we'll need all the CPU grunt we can get to cut through the PC API's and non SSE-optimized code (Skyrim, I'm looking at you). Or games may require more than four threads, although I think that's unlikely when only 3 percent in the Steam Hardware Survey has that.
All depends on how hard it is for devs to make two separate render-methods when all the game's content is optimized for high-poly models.
I'm not a dev, maybe someone here knows how (im)possible it is to make a cut-down version of a game where every model is tesselated. Might be too much work.
to the point where you wouldn't even care about only having four cores? You'd just brute force it?
what does HD4000 integrated graphics support? Because that'll be targeted as a baseline IMO, you can't ignore the volumes it ships in standard laptops.
HD4000 is dx11. But I doubt it will run next-gen titles very well. Its performance is between a Radeon HD 6450 and 6570. That's not even enough to play today's titles decently.
Crysis 3? (Seems Crytek got sick of waiting. lol)
Minimum System Operating Requirements for PC:
• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1Gb Video RAM
• Dual core CPU
• 2GB Memory (3GB on Vista)
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
• Nvidia GTS 450
• Intel Core2 Duo 2.4 Ghz (E6600)
• Example 2 (AMD):
• AMD Radeon HD5770
• AMD Athlon64 X2 2.7 Ghz (5200+)
Recommended System Operating Requirements for PC:
• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
• Quad core GPU
• 4GB Memory
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
• Nvidia GTX 560
• Intel Core i3-530
• Example 2 (AMD):
• AMD Radeon HD5870
• AMD Phenom II X2 565
Hi-Performance PC Specifications:
• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• Latest DirectX 11 graphics card
• Latest quad core CPU
• 8GB Memory
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
• NVidia GTX 680
• Intel Core i7-2600k
• Example 2 (AMD):
• AMD Radeon HD7970
• AMD Bulldozer FX4150
thehillissilent
Member
I wonder if my specs will last me. I don't anticipate going over 720p. I just want to be able to play at medium/high settings wih 30-60fps.
AMD FX-6100 6 core @ 3.3Ghz
8 GB DDR3 RAM
Nvidia GTX 550Ti 1GB
I would even be willing to go to sub-HD resolutions in windowed mode to avoid upgrading for a while.
What you do guys think?
Edit: Well, I almost exceed all of the Recommended settings for Crysis 3, except the GPU (which is directly below the recommended one)
AMD FX-6100 6 core @ 3.3Ghz
8 GB DDR3 RAM
Nvidia GTX 550Ti 1GB
I would even be willing to go to sub-HD resolutions in windowed mode to avoid upgrading for a while.
What you do guys think?
Edit: Well, I almost exceed all of the Recommended settings for Crysis 3, except the GPU (which is directly below the recommended one)
Count Snackula
Banned
Any word on the new nvidia 700 series release date? I want to upgrade my 1gb 560ti because i got a 2560 x 1440 monitor. Seems like i can upgrade to next gen right now.
Confidence Man
Member
I feel a little better about splurging on a 3770k, at least I assume they're going to start recommending 8 core cpus for next-gen ports.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
I'm not even sure I'll upgrade this time around (rand amd quad core, 5770, 4gb ddr3). If these next-gen consoles hit 1080p for games the difference between console games and PC games will be negligible at best. Only the tiny percentage of PC gamers who run at 1400p would notice a difference. Framerate isn't an issue for me, 30 fps is fine. If the res hits 1080p for these games I don't see any need at all to upgrade because I'll never run over 1080p even if I had a higher-end system. The PC games I play the most (LoL, D3, AirMech, soon Path of Exile) are ancient in terms of hardware reqs. /shrug
Felix Lighter
Member
I'm curious to see how hyperthreading works out for games optimized for 8 cores.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Aren't most engines going forward being designed around being able to scale to however many cores are available? It just seems short sighted to design around 8 cores specifically.
Sentenza
Member
Well, theoretically yes, it should be the smartest choice... On the other hand, I'm not sure it would be a simple result to achieve.
alexandros
Banned
I think you're good for 720p, maybe even higher.
Yes. From the rumors:
- Hard drive is always present
- 50 GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive
The DVD drive in the xbox 360 is a major limitation. The 2 area structure in Rage (and probably more large games) was because no more content fits on one DVD.
And in Oblivion they had to shuffle data around on the DVD-surface to increase performance in the game. That's just sad.
With 50 GB discs and HDD's, this will be a thing of the past. We'll get larger open worlds with higher definition content and more (texture) variation. Not because the system is more powerful, but simply because that horrible must-fit-on-one-DVD bottleneck is gone.
This may mean that PC-gamers need larger hard-drives and or Blu-ray drives. I doubt retail games will come on 6 DVD's.
Felix Lighter
Member
6 DVDs for retail games does not seem unreasonable. You install and your done. During the transition to DVD I remember installing 5-6 CDs. DD has different concerns but I imagine the vast majority of games will not come close to filling the 50GB disks unless its filled with repeated data which wouldn't be necessary for downloads.
OK, I've read this thread with interest as my current plan is to upgrade/build for Rome:TW2 and Oculus Rift around the end of the year, but from what people have said it might be worth waiting until the first half of next year (let's face it it'll give CA time to get the inevitable major patch out too).
Now don't laugh, but below is my current PC, it's still doing pretty well after 6 years (just meets min. spec for most games releasing now) and I was wondering how people thought it would cope on the first batch of next-gen stuff/how it compares raw power wise to the rumoured specs.?
512MB BFG Technology 8800GT OC, PCI
2Gb Patriot DDR2 PC2-6400 800MHz CL4
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, Socket 775 2.4GHz*
150 Gb Western Digital WD1500ADFD R
Asus P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP iP965, S775
600w Seasonic S12-600 SLi Ready Sil
* I can OC this to 2.8GHz no problem but usually don't bother unless I'm struggling in PCSX2
EDIT: I use a 1680x1050 monitor BTW
Now don't laugh, but below is my current PC, it's still doing pretty well after 6 years (just meets min. spec for most games releasing now) and I was wondering how people thought it would cope on the first batch of next-gen stuff/how it compares raw power wise to the rumoured specs.?
512MB BFG Technology 8800GT OC, PCI
2Gb Patriot DDR2 PC2-6400 800MHz CL4
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, Socket 775 2.4GHz*
150 Gb Western Digital WD1500ADFD R
Asus P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP iP965, S775
600w Seasonic S12-600 SLi Ready Sil
* I can OC this to 2.8GHz no problem but usually don't bother unless I'm struggling in PCSX2
EDIT: I use a 1680x1050 monitor BTW
I doubt PC games will ever be distributed on BD on a large scale. At the time when sizes absolutely necessitate it, DD will be ubiquitous.
MickeyKnox
Member
Games used to come on 3-4-5-6 CDs well into the life of DVD
Felix Lighter
Member
That is what I'm very curious to know. It seems that the performance advantage is so high for the PC side this time that coding to the metal couldn't possibly make up for the difference but I'm not knowledge enough to know.
Portugeezer
Member
Games on average will look better, and for many PC gamers that sometimes means requiring an upgrade (it happens even during a generation when console hardware is the same, probably due to improved console specific engines being shittly ported to PC).
I already know I will need to upgrade after a year or two, hopefully my rig lasts two good years into next gen at least.
I already know I will need to upgrade after a year or two, hopefully my rig lasts two good years into next gen at least.
alexandros
Banned
We will have to wait until we see some games in order to make an accurate assumption. There may be issues with port quality here and there, but generally speaking I think you're all set for next gen.
I don't think so. Multiplatform games will be developed with the new Xbox in mind as well. However, it will probably get hard for GPUs with less than 4 GB to keep up.
yeah, but I doubt PC gamers will accept inferior quality. They'll try to match PS4 specs.
I wonder if the absence of new GPUs this year has something to do with this.
alexandros
Banned
Well sure, but I really think that the new consoles' hardware is extremely underwhelming. Memory size will finally not be an issue and that's great, but the PS4's GPU is weaker on paper than a bloody 6870! And the PS4 is supposed to be the 'powerhouse'! I don't know, I'm troubled by this.
thequickandthedead
Member
So how do the PS4's specs compare to current high end pc's specs?
alexandros
Banned
Modern Intel processors are vastly more powerful than AMD ones. As for the GPU, AMD's current high-end card, the 7970, is rated for 3,8 TFLOPS compared to the PS4's 1,84.
anchorman128
Member
I think a lot of us are just looking at the raw specs of the situation, and from the numbers it does look like PC is in a little bit of trouble. But when you step back and look at the reality of the situation, I think we as PC gamers are in a little bit better of a situation then it seems.
The Square Enix demo as well as Watch Dogs, Starwars 1313, and not to mention the Unreal 4 Engine were all made and demoed on PC's last year. Most of them used the GTX 680. With the xbox likely having 8GB of ddr3 and slower ram as well, this makes the xbox the probable multiform baseline.
Not only were these games running on PC hardware, but most of them weren't even using much VRAM compared to the 4-6GB cards getting released today (IIRC the SE demo ran on a GTX 680 and 1.7GB VRAM). I think what it will come down to as it usually does, is CPU and GPU power. While there may need to be more compression techniques used for PC textures and other techniques that use ram, the effects should be just as good if not better than PS4 if they can optimize for the PC architecture.
Im interested to see what happened to the PS4 version of the UE4 demo. I wonder if it was a quick port, or if scaling back from the 680 meant a big drop in fidelity.
TLDR; Still think PC's edge in GPU and CPU power will prove more important for ports this gen than raw memory (assuming your in the 3-6GB range).
Still interested to see what happens though.
The Square Enix demo as well as Watch Dogs, Starwars 1313, and not to mention the Unreal 4 Engine were all made and demoed on PC's last year. Most of them used the GTX 680. With the xbox likely having 8GB of ddr3 and slower ram as well, this makes the xbox the probable multiform baseline.
Not only were these games running on PC hardware, but most of them weren't even using much VRAM compared to the 4-6GB cards getting released today (IIRC the SE demo ran on a GTX 680 and 1.7GB VRAM). I think what it will come down to as it usually does, is CPU and GPU power. While there may need to be more compression techniques used for PC textures and other techniques that use ram, the effects should be just as good if not better than PS4 if they can optimize for the PC architecture.
Im interested to see what happened to the PS4 version of the UE4 demo. I wonder if it was a quick port, or if scaling back from the 680 meant a big drop in fidelity.
TLDR; Still think PC's edge in GPU and CPU power will prove more important for ports this gen than raw memory (assuming your in the 3-6GB range).
Still interested to see what happens though.
I really hope we'll see single chip GPU/CPU combos and unified memory as an option on PCs in the future as well.
It's frustrating not being able to use the GPU for things it would excel at just because of the GPU-CPU bandwidth bottleneck on PC hardware.
It would be less flexible in how you could build your PC, but I think there's room for both the current architecture as well as the unified model to coexist.
It's frustrating not being able to use the GPU for things it would excel at just because of the GPU-CPU bandwidth bottleneck on PC hardware.
It would be less flexible in how you could build your PC, but I think there's room for both the current architecture as well as the unified model to coexist.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
There are 8 gb of gdr5 in the system of which at least 1 will be used by the OS at this point. That is the entire ram pool. PC has split ram. There are already 6gb vcards and that is 6 gb dedicated to video at all times, not total system.