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Most PC gamers don’t play in 4K and 30 frames per second, much less 60 fps. That’s graphically taxing for many contemporary games, especially if other graphical

Most PC gamers don’t play in 4K and 30 frames per second, much less 60 fps. That’s graphically taxing for many contemporary games, especially if other graphical quality is turned up. The consoles also typically don’t run at full resolution. In the 1080p era, I recall many games topping out at 900p. It was a great source of pc gamer smugness due to the fact most of them could easily run 1080p and 45+ fps. I suspect modern console 4K is the same. Since the generally accepted fps for consoles is 30, and that’s pretty low, it means developers can either compromise on resolution or other things like how many entities can be on screen at once, or how large open areas can be. I suspect catering to console audiences is why a lot of the last ten years some games feel either empty or constrained in scope.

beezischillin 8y ago
While 4K is still somewhat far away on a reasonable set-up, a surprisingly large amount of games can comfortably push 3440x1440@60.
jtms 8y ago
30 FPS? AHHH mah eyes! ;-)
Jach 8y ago
Most gamers don't play in 4K, but a large number (maybe most? Surely the largest minority) on PC probably get 60 FPS. You can look at the Steam hardware survey results here: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw... I've been holding out to do a big upgrade myself, but I got a Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti last year for $147 to comparably replace my dying AMD 7950. Same card today is $190 (on Amazon). It's more than capable for things at 1080p, and does just fine for some games at 4k too (or I survive with 30-50 FPS and/or tweak with the graphics options; "high" is usually acceptable even if it's not "ultimate"). The new xbone x can do 4k pretty reliably, but that's $500, plus $60 per game. Getting your aging PC (mine is nearly a decade old) up to par (and often exceeding) graphics wise is a cheaper investment in a GPU, and games on PC are routinely on mega sales.
izacus 8y ago
> The consoles also typically don’t run at full resolution. In the 1080p era, I recall many games topping out at 900p. It was a great source of pc gamer smugness due to the fact most of them could easily run 1080p and 45+ fps. I suspect modern console 4K is the same. Consoles tend to do dynamic resolution - they'll drive the display at 4K (together with UI), but the actual rendering resolution will drop and adapt to the load. It actually looks pretty good - the UI and text keeps being sharp while you generally don't notice the resolution drop that much. Unfortunately most games lose this capability on PC, so you're stuck with blurry looking text if you have a good monitor or TV :( The other trick they do is checkerboard rendering - the console only renders approximately half the scene each frame. The partially rendered frame is then combined with the previous one with added filtering. The result is not unlike the interlaced CRT TV rendering of 80s era consoles/micros - just with better filtering. Again, this capability tends to disappear on PC versions of those games. Lack of those two things means that in a lot of cases games on PC look/run worse on equivalent hardware than they do on the console :/
- mikewhy 8y ago
  Some newer first-party Microsoft games have dynamic resolution scaling in the PC versions. I thought Battlefield One / 5 had it, but apparently not. It works well in Forza Horizon 4. And yeah, I wouldn't mind the option for checkerboard rendering on PC. I understand purists want nothing to do with it, but hey, too many options is what PC is all about.

beezischillin 8y ago

While 4K is still somewhat far away on a reasonable set-up, a surprisingly large amount of games can comfortably push 3440x1440@60.

jtms 8y ago

30 FPS? AHHH mah eyes! ;-)

Jach 8y ago

Most gamers don't play in 4K, but a large number (maybe most? Surely the largest minority) on PC probably get 60 FPS. You can look at the Steam hardware survey results here: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw... I've been holding out to do a big upgrade myself, but I got a Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti last year for $147 to comparably replace my dying AMD 7950. Same card today is $190 (on Amazon). It's more than capable for things at 1080p, and does just fine for some games at 4k too (or I survive with 30-50 FPS and/or tweak with the graphics options; "high" is usually acceptable even if it's not "ultimate"). The new xbone x can do 4k pretty reliably, but that's $500, plus $60 per game. Getting your aging PC (mine is nearly a decade old) up to par (and often exceeding) graphics wise is a cheaper investment in a GPU, and games on PC are routinely on mega sales.

izacus 8y ago

> The consoles also typically don’t run at full resolution. In the 1080p era, I recall many games topping out at 900p. It was a great source of pc gamer smugness due to the fact most of them could easily run 1080p and 45+ fps. I suspect modern console 4K is the same. Consoles tend to do dynamic resolution - they'll drive the display at 4K (together with UI), but the actual rendering resolution will drop and adapt to the load. It actually looks pretty good - the UI and text keeps being sharp while you generally don't notice the resolution drop that much. Unfortunately most games lose this capability on PC, so you're stuck with blurry looking text if you have a good monitor or TV :( The other trick they do is checkerboard rendering - the console only renders approximately half the scene each frame. The partially rendered frame is then combined with the previous one with added filtering. The result is not unlike the interlaced CRT TV rendering of 80s era consoles/micros - just with better filtering. Again, this capability tends to disappear on PC versions of those games. Lack of those two things means that in a lot of cases games on PC look/run worse on equivalent hardware than they do on the console :/

mikewhy 8y ago
Some newer first-party Microsoft games have dynamic resolution scaling in the PC versions. I thought Battlefield One / 5 had it, but apparently not. It works well in Forza Horizon 4. And yeah, I wouldn't mind the option for checkerboard rendering on PC. I understand purists want nothing to do with it, but hey, too many options is what PC is all about.