10 ms·

From Microsoft's warped perspective, where dogfooding is a religion, it's more or less correct. You've always been able to get a lot more out of consoles consi

From Microsoft's warped perspective, where dogfooding is a religion, it's more or less correct. You've always been able to get a lot more out of consoles considering their specs; the 360 was marginally better than the state of the art of PC hardware, for a few months, but being able to code right to the metal (not as much as on an Amiga or Nintendo, but relative to the PC) gave an efficiency that made the games unmatched for years. AMD's recently released Mantle is the first exception on the PC, and DirectX 12 is reportedly quite similar. Bing it on your Zune for further reading.

drzaiusapelord 13y ago
Unmatched? Compared to what? Those games look like shit compared to a PC that came out on the say day, let alone years later. Not to mention things like limitations of map sizes, player numbers, etc.
- stingraycharles 13y ago
  You have to take the hardware specs into account. It's easy to overlook the crappiness of the hardware of those consoles.
- milsorgen 13y ago
  360 was pretty close to the X1800 XT as far as I ever ascertained, released November 2005ish (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2005/11/11/ati_x1800xt_512mb/1 http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2005/11/11/ati_x18...) and with the 360 released November 22, 2005 we can easily say there was at least parity with PC hardware on release.
- ordinary 13y ago
  The issue with PC hardware is that it's just too varied to get really close to the metal. The deeper you get, after all, the more different the various GPU architectures become. Consoles, on the other hand, are all identical, so you can do the most unportable bitfucking to get the absolute most out of the hardware. This is also the reason why it takes years for games to really start to shine on a console: it takes that long for game developers to really get to know all the nitty-gritty details that just do not exist on the PC. Console games often look mediocre despite the above because console hardware is far cheaper, and thus simply less powerful, than the hardware in high end gaming PCs, despite the fact that consoles benefit from economies of scale, and are priced at a loss to boot. It is not fair to compare the way a game looks on a $2000 PC to the way it looks on a $400 console.
  - archagon 13y ago
    That's what I've always heard too, but it seems that the tide is turning: http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/20/opengl-gdc2014/ http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/20/opengl-gdc2014/ (I can't answer for the technical details, though. It reeds like hieroglyphics to me.)
- devbug 13y ago
  > Those games look like shit compared to a PC that came out on the say day, let alone years later. 1. Developers had no experience with the hardware during the initial years of the consoles. They had to switch from an out-of-order and forgiving x86 to an in-order and unforgiving PowerPC that had substantially less cache (32k/32k vs 64k/2mb/8mb) than its PC counterparts of the day. Just ask any PC-gone-console developer of that age about LHS[1], or the off-the-wall Cell Broadband Architecture[2]. 2. Developers had to manage 512MiB between the GPU and CPU. Everything has to fit into that including the operating system... and I found 1GiB uncomfortable for PCs in 2006! + It was split on PS3, and you had to DMA into 256k for SPUs. + EDRAM was slightly too small to fit 1280x720x32x4 render targets. 3. Developers had no guarantee of permanent storage. So everything had to be streamed from disk... which is unsavoury for various reasons. Contortionist programming springs to mind[3]. 4. PCs get upgraded. 'Nuff said. [1]: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132084/sponsored_feature_common_.php?print=1 http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132084/sponsored_featu... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR8CVLVmKQs&t=4m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR8CVLVmKQs&t=4m [3]: http://doublebuffered.com/2010/03/17/gdc-2010-streaming-massive-environments-from-0-to-200-mph/ http://doublebuffered.com/2010/03/17/gdc-2010-streaming-mass... (I'm assuming Gen 7, i.e., the Xbox 360 and PS3.)
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Compared to a PC with similar specs and/or a reasonable price point? The $10,000 PC has always been able to outperform the $400 Xbox, but nobody cares about that.
  - adamors 13y ago
    A $500 dollar PC can match/outperform both the Xbone and the PS4 depending on the game. In 2014.
    - anonymousab 13y ago
      But we're talking about a $400 Xbox in 2005. What PC hardware configuration from 2005 would still run modern games at a playable (not good) framerate on low?
      - adamors 13y ago
        On low and at 30fps? Probably most. You really think console hardware is some magical beast?
        NickPollard 13y ago
        (Former AAA game dev, including a stint at Sony) No, but console OSes and Drivers are (well, compared to PC drivers). There's an enormous amount going on between your code and the metal on a PC, even when writing C++ w/ OpenGL or DirectX. Driver overhead for graphics is HUGE (which is what this is about). PC hardware comparable to PS3/Xbox360 performs significantly worse under real world conditions due to the way the graphics stack is set up and programmed against. The new Direct3d 12 (as well as AMD's Mantle) are attempts to tackle this.
        adamors 13y ago
        > PC hardware comparable to PS3/Xbox360 performs significantly worse under real world conditions due to the way the graphics stack is set up and programmed against. I doubt the significant part. And even if this was true 7 years ago, it's definitely not true now. Comparable hardware would mean something like a GTX 760 (both the PS4's APU and the 760 have around 1800 GFLO/s). That card can do everything current consoles can. Mantle is for lower end cards anyways, mid tier hardware like the GTX 760 and what's inside current consoles won't see a change that dramatic.
- epsylon 13y ago
  Compared to an equivalent specced PC. There's a huge platform overhead on PC that consoles don't have to bear : https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/436012673243693056 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/436012673243693056 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/436012724791681024 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/436012724791681024
- deletesystem32 13y ago
  Can we please have a graphics hardware thread without your post-purchase rationalisation shitposting…
gosukiwi 13y ago
"Bing it on your Zune for further reading." I lol'd.

drzaiusapelord 13y ago

Unmatched? Compared to what? Those games look like shit compared to a PC that came out on the say day, let alone years later. Not to mention things like limitations of map sizes, player numbers, etc.

stingraycharles 13y ago
You have to take the hardware specs into account. It's easy to overlook the crappiness of the hardware of those consoles.
milsorgen 13y ago
360 was pretty close to the X1800 XT as far as I ever ascertained, released November 2005ish (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2005/11/11/ati_x1800xt_512mb/1 http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2005/11/11/ati_x18...) and with the 360 released November 22, 2005 we can easily say there was at least parity with PC hardware on release.
ordinary 13y ago
The issue with PC hardware is that it's just too varied to get really close to the metal. The deeper you get, after all, the more different the various GPU architectures become. Consoles, on the other hand, are all identical, so you can do the most unportable bitfucking to get the absolute most out of the hardware. This is also the reason why it takes years for games to really start to shine on a console: it takes that long for game developers to really get to know all the nitty-gritty details that just do not exist on the PC. Console games often look mediocre despite the above because console hardware is far cheaper, and thus simply less powerful, than the hardware in high end gaming PCs, despite the fact that consoles benefit from economies of scale, and are priced at a loss to boot. It is not fair to compare the way a game looks on a $2000 PC to the way it looks on a $400 console.
- archagon 13y ago
  That's what I've always heard too, but it seems that the tide is turning: http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/20/opengl-gdc2014/ http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/20/opengl-gdc2014/ (I can't answer for the technical details, though. It reeds like hieroglyphics to me.)
devbug 13y ago
> Those games look like shit compared to a PC that came out on the say day, let alone years later. 1. Developers had no experience with the hardware during the initial years of the consoles. They had to switch from an out-of-order and forgiving x86 to an in-order and unforgiving PowerPC that had substantially less cache (32k/32k vs 64k/2mb/8mb) than its PC counterparts of the day. Just ask any PC-gone-console developer of that age about LHS[1], or the off-the-wall Cell Broadband Architecture[2]. 2. Developers had to manage 512MiB between the GPU and CPU. Everything has to fit into that including the operating system... and I found 1GiB uncomfortable for PCs in 2006! + It was split on PS3, and you had to DMA into 256k for SPUs. + EDRAM was slightly too small to fit 1280x720x32x4 render targets. 3. Developers had no guarantee of permanent storage. So everything had to be streamed from disk... which is unsavoury for various reasons. Contortionist programming springs to mind[3]. 4. PCs get upgraded. 'Nuff said. [1]: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132084/sponsored_feature_common_.php?print=1 http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132084/sponsored_featu... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR8CVLVmKQs&t=4m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR8CVLVmKQs&t=4m [3]: http://doublebuffered.com/2010/03/17/gdc-2010-streaming-massive-environments-from-0-to-200-mph/ http://doublebuffered.com/2010/03/17/gdc-2010-streaming-mass... (I'm assuming Gen 7, i.e., the Xbox 360 and PS3.)
sliverstorm 13y ago
Compared to a PC with similar specs and/or a reasonable price point? The $10,000 PC has always been able to outperform the $400 Xbox, but nobody cares about that.
- adamors 13y ago
  A $500 dollar PC can match/outperform both the Xbone and the PS4 depending on the game. In 2014.
  - anonymousab 13y ago
    But we're talking about a $400 Xbox in 2005. What PC hardware configuration from 2005 would still run modern games at a playable (not good) framerate on low?
    - adamors 13y ago
      On low and at 30fps? Probably most. You really think console hardware is some magical beast?
      - NickPollard 13y ago
        (Former AAA game dev, including a stint at Sony) No, but console OSes and Drivers are (well, compared to PC drivers). There's an enormous amount going on between your code and the metal on a PC, even when writing C++ w/ OpenGL or DirectX. Driver overhead for graphics is HUGE (which is what this is about). PC hardware comparable to PS3/Xbox360 performs significantly worse under real world conditions due to the way the graphics stack is set up and programmed against. The new Direct3d 12 (as well as AMD's Mantle) are attempts to tackle this.
        adamors 13y ago
        > PC hardware comparable to PS3/Xbox360 performs significantly worse under real world conditions due to the way the graphics stack is set up and programmed against. I doubt the significant part. And even if this was true 7 years ago, it's definitely not true now. Comparable hardware would mean something like a GTX 760 (both the PS4's APU and the 760 have around 1800 GFLO/s). That card can do everything current consoles can. Mantle is for lower end cards anyways, mid tier hardware like the GTX 760 and what's inside current consoles won't see a change that dramatic.
epsylon 13y ago
Compared to an equivalent specced PC. There's a huge platform overhead on PC that consoles don't have to bear : https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/436012673243693056 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/436012673243693056 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/436012724791681024 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/436012724791681024
deletesystem32 13y ago
Can we please have a graphics hardware thread without your post-purchase rationalisation shitposting…

gosukiwi 13y ago

"Bing it on your Zune for further reading." I lol'd.