Goodbye "console advantage".

another "placebo" treament on so called "advantage" but actually never used on next 5 to 10 or so on then a new tech arrives years due lacking creative game developers that using its unique on pc even believing that this tech gonna used on so called game of the year on PC "Star Citizen" so great looking on Ultra setting but its gameplay mechanics are not so "Ultra" on gameplay

@Ben-Buja: @lostrib: Thanks bros.

Exactly man. I don't own an Xbone, but it's the same nonsense on PS and Nintendo platforms. Buzzkill is right and I never deal with this on PC.

1. So having a woman in my life means I can't have a PC discretely positioned in my entertainment center? Bro, this is not an argument lol.

2. No thanks, not into MMOs. Are you going to ignore the countless games available on the platform and laser focus on a handful of titles? And again, this argument does not work haha. The text and UI isn't microscopic in these games. There is this thing called proportion. When playing games on a bigger set, the image on screen is bigger as well. Crazy, I know.

3. I didn't say that you didn't. I was just speaking in general in saying that price of entry is a valid reason not to be interested in PC gaming.

I really hate to see you grasping like this man. Holding onto these arguments by a thread is just cringe worthy tbh. Don't like PC gaming? Cool. Trying to conjure up negatives out of thin air? Doesn't work that way broseph.

That isn't it. If you prefer physical media (you like actually owning your games / or you like to collect) Console is where it's at. There's no resale market for PC discs and they're chock full of DRM. Consoles used to have the advantage of just working, and not needing patches so that was another pro for console discs though that's largely gone now. Of course digital has its advantages too.

-------

Consoles still have the advantage of only having one set of hardware, and not multiple sets of drivers that you may need to update frequently on PC that when you do even if it makes one game better, it makes another worse - the other game was made with previous drivers in mind and something didn't happen right in the update. Does my game work better on Nvidia cards? Do Nvidia cards cause issues with this game? Is the game buggy with AMD cards? etc. etc. Stuttering (as in loss of response time in milliseconds) is an issue with PC gaming as well, sometimes due to drivers.

Yeah, consoles are definitely not plug and play anymore, that's for sure. But there are still less potential headaches with consoles.

Stormy joe is not wrong in that games that are played with Mouse and keyboard are meant to be played close up at a monitor. Which, I don't care much for the games that need a M&K anyways but just putting that out there. Obviously that doesn't apply to controllers, though. But, (and this keeps improving, it might be 100% now on PC i'm not sure) not every game on PC supports a controller natively. As an example I still remember Mass effect not having controller support, so that's some more fiddling you have to do, download a mod or something and even then maybe it won't work 100% or there is no fix out there. But that is the exception these days, I am well aware.

I must mention that I don't really play many games online (except on nintendo platforms) 1. because I won't pay for it and 2. I largely prefer single player games. But the PC's advantage there is clear. One thing I think about with shooters though (since I don't like mouse and keyboard) I would have a big disadvantage to skilled mouse and keyboard users :P A lot of my multiplayer fix is good old couch splitscreen.

--------

You're right, console gaming is not what it used to be, but it still has many advantages. And i'm certainly not desperately downplaying the PC right now ;) In fact I don't even own a Ps4 or Xbox one - don't know when I will - and am currently buying retro consoles and games, which can get pretty expensive so the PC's cost to entry is not an issue for me. In fact physical games in general are more expensive so if I preferred digital games that would be another plus for me with PC gaming. All this is not to say I won't touch a game on PC, just that the vaaast majority of my gaming is done on consoles.

@Chozofication:

Yes, I knew I should have mentioned physical games haha. I figured SolidTY would see my post and bring it up, but sure that's legit. Personally I don't care anymore, but I understand that many people do.

As for the range of hardware, I do get that, you throw in so many more factors and things just aren't as clear cut as having a closed box. Issues should arise, and for many they do. Anecdotal I know, but man I'm just lucky. I just never have issues with my games.

I haven't come across a game that doesn't support controllers by default in a loooooong time. Also m/kb on the couch really isn't so bad at all. Plenty of easy work arounds for that. I've been playing Hotline Miami 2 and even though it does have native controller support I'm still using m/kb.

For me, exclusives are the last haven for consoles. I have to keep on buying Nintendo and Sony consoles because they still have games I can't play anywhere else.

Anyways, I don't see you as downplaying the PC, you gave a level headed response. I just get annoyed when I see console gamers on a tirade, grasping at straws to make an argument against PC. I guess it gets on my nerves because I've always been a console gamer, so the BS is just magnified haha.

@04dcarraher: John Carmack and others have commented how consoles do have better draw call performance than PCs. They are running much slimmer APIs that are built around fixed hardware layouts. It does increase efficiency and reduce overhead.

The biggest bottleneck for consoles last gen was the lack of RAM. 512 mbs just wasn't cutting it even at the beginning of the gen. Game devs have no problem dropping resolution or framerate but they do have a problem when they run out of RAM to do things.

I don't believe that CPUs are the real bottleneck this gen either. CPUs on the consoles last gen were enough games and this gen's CPUs are even stronger. They may be weak compare to even modest PC hardware, but games just do not need super power CPUs. What games really need is better multithread performance.

I've been talking regularly to one of the developers of ArmA 3. He's told me multiple times that they really struggle with multithreading, basically the core of the engine is still running on one thread. This destroy's ArmA's performance. Even OCing a powerful CPU does not seem to have a large effect on ArmA's performance. What is really killing the game is the wait time of the one core.

This seems to spill over to every major game right now. Planetside 2 is in a similar situation. The game is still only really utilizing 1 core and even then it spends a lot of its time waiting for things. This drastically decreases performance.

It's pretty much a known fact that games do not need super CPU power to run well. Most engines, even new ones, are still built around legacy code that was all single threaded. They are slowly upgrading but parallelism is an extremely difficult task. It gets better every year and API improves do help better utilize multiple cores, but it's still going to take time. The problem with games is that you constantly need to be putting out products. You can't spend 3-4 years rebuilding your engine then another 3-4 years developing a game on it. You need to be putting out products more often which really forces R&D to be done quickly and in small increments so they can build games on it.

DX12 has the potential to really help getting code to much more efficiently use the power of existing CPUs. I'm willing to bet that even some of those old quad cores, like the Q6600, would be able to run every modern game no problem if the games could actually take advantage of all of that CPU power. Most CPU cores go completely wasted in games. It's a complete waste of power.

So really hardware isn't everything. With a push towards smaller boxes and mobile devices, devs are going to have to solve these software bottlenecks.

The PS4 and Xbox One's CPUs are weak compared to modern CPUs we see in desktop PCs but super power CPUs aren't actually needed for games. Powerful CPUs are only needed to overcome software bottlenecks that exist. Even my i7 3770k sits mostly unused during the most intensive of games. The PS4 and Xbox One as well as mobile devices are forcing developers to finally address these long standing problems. It's sorely needed. PCs will benefit from these changes as much as anything.

Of course this is all my opinion, but I believe the Xbox One and PS4's CPUs are good enough if they can be properly utilized. API improvements and general improvements to multithreaded performance in game engines will go a long way to make sure what power the console's CPUs do have gets used.

The argument that PC games need mouse and keyboard is void if you are going to play consoles like games on the PC. You can't whine about something that you are not going to play. You don't play these games on the consoles and you can continue not playing them on the PC.

PCs are nowhere are complicated as some of you folks imply. It took longer to setup my Xbox One and PS4 than setting up a out of the box PC. The real advantage of console gaming is the hardcopy of games. PC gaming cannot compete with that feature. You buy a console game, the internet can die, the companies can go under but once you have your console and your game you can play.

Oh yeah, Though those issues are there it doesn't mean PC gaming is a constant tug of war to get things to work lol

As for exclusives, that's one big reason why I haven't jumped into the current generation yet, there's just not much out that I want to buy yet. Personally i'm holding out for Microsoft's e3 because there's a lot of hinting at a new banjo kazooie game, and that is definitely something i'd buy the console for. Scalebound should be amazing and i'm interested in Crackdown. So... 2 games with no gameplay and one unnannounced game is what i'm looking forward to.

Things are mighty dry on the console exclusive front right now :P Though I do have a Wii U.

@Chozofication:

Oh yeah man, the WiiU has been serving its purpose, thankfully. I've enjoyed the exclusives so far and I'm still behind on a few of them... worst of which is Bayonetta 2, can't believe I still haven't played it lol.

My PS4 has just been, ugh.. If it weren't for Bloodborne coming out I might have already sold it. Can't wait to get started on that. Still not in a rush for the X1, though Scalebound could change my mind.

That's just it though, the scarcity of good exclusives. That's what really made me go all out on PC, it's like everything is a multiplat these days, might as well be playing the best version.

Yeah no.

Regular PCs are not built as living room devices. PCs do not come out of any box with a widespread, standardized game-orientated OS and controller. PCs do not make great dedicated devices because by definition they are working tools that dont shed the bloatware or the monumental extra fat that is not needed for that dedicated function, but is required to function properly as a multitask device.

The PC space is a hodge podge of different setups and different digital services that offer games that run differently on various components and are not designed from the start to take advantage of any one set of rules that brings the library at offer together for a solid and focused user experience accross the board.

Compared to a console its a free for all environment. A big warehouse, partially ocuppied by non-gaming tool-related material, with an open backdoor where anyone can enter do whatever they like within a very loose set of industry parameters. This is both its most attractive feauture and the number one reason it will never be adopted as it exists today, as a living room device by anyone but a sub-group of geeks.

PCs are not convinient for people who dont want to put up with the thing that defines them, in order to have a simple, dedicaded experience.

@Wasdie:

Carmack's statements are comparing the ability of set console hardware performing 2x faster then a comparable pc hardware namely comparing dx9. Would be like comparing a pc with a 6 core jaguar at 1.6 ghz and a 7850 vs PS4 and seeing PS4 getting 2x the performance.

Its not true for for the whole system sees the 2x but really only for the cpu since the low overhead allows them to save alot of the cpu cycles to be put toward what is needed. Prime example was back then with Crysis 2 with an C2D @2.9 ghz and a x1950pro vs Xbox360 and both systems were comparable. Once you brute force through the overhead comparable gpus perform closely.

These consoles as of right now are bottlenecked from their cpu's inefficient usage with their API's. Until that is fixed their cpu's are holding back their gpu's to some level. The fact is that these consoles now are very heavily multitasking based requiring them to reserve and allocate two cpu cores and 3gb or more of the memory pool for OS and features. So your stuck with a 6 core jaguar cpu around 1.6ghz with 5gb or less.We continue to see frame rate drops that shouldnt happen especially when your capping at 30 fps. These cpus can not keep up the gpus, another prime example is Alien Isolation seeing a dirt old AMD 6850 performing better then the X1 or PS4. That game had decent multithreading using 6 threads.

Once Dx12 comes out these consoles will be even that much more behind the performance curve.

How can you type so much without really saying anything?

It doesn't matter if it's built specifically to be a living room device, whatever the **** that means lol. It's a Personal Computer. It's built to do whatever I need it to do. I don't have bloatware on my machines, sorry. I work on a PC. I game on a PC. It's equally functional. I boot up my PC, Steam starts up automatically, I select my game and I'm in. It's no different than turning on my WiiU and selecting a game to run from the tablet. You can spin all day about what's going on under the surface, it's of no concern to me when I'm instantly in my game with no hassle.

You can go all ad hominem all you want, call people geeks, doesn't help your argument at all. If you're old enough to remember the 80s and 90s, people used to call us geeks just for gaming in general, big whoop.

I know plenty of people with PCs in the living room. A lot of them don't even game. You want to call us a sub-group? Even if that's true, am I supposed to give a shit? Should we base our gaming choices on what's popular, and if so why the hell do you play a Wii U?

Exactly! When did gamers become so uptight about these things.

Almost all consoles have been bulky looking eye sores, rarely have they been sleek. Wireless controllers weren't even a standard until last generation. Even with the Wii U, you still have charger stands for an array of controllers, a power brick hanging out and a wired sensor bar. Then you have these goofy looking handhelds people tote around.

So what's so wrong with a PC tower? You can roll with a plain box if you want.

I've always valued functionality over aesthetics with gaming, I don't understand the obsession of hiding away your hobby and it's not as if you can't keep these things organized anyways. That is unless you have kids in the house, but at that point an organized entertainment center will be the least of your problems.

Congratulations...you still need a GPU that will take advantage of DX12.

This all just reaffirms what every other PC game related thread has already told us: PCs games, if properly powered by an individual's hardware, are better looking than console games.

I don't know why this needs to be rehashed ad infinitum...

For all the features to work, of course you will but all DX11 cards will also receive a significant boost from DX12. The multiple draw calls alone will benefit everyone

So my GTX 650, on 32-bit Windows, will turn into a Titan?

Not sure what part of my statement made you jump to such an extreme conclusion.

It will get a boost, there really isn't any doubt about that. How much that boost will be for your setup, I have no idea. Your CPU is part of the equation as well

I was being facetious. My CPU is probably a Core 2, but it might be an I-5. It's a business PC loaner from work that I'm not technically supposed to customize, but slapped a GPU in it anyway. The only reason I went with the GTX-650 was because:

• It's Windows 7 32-bit, so my RAM possibilities are gimped'
• The PS is only 300 watts, so I needed a GPU that would run on PCI-e power alone

it's not much of a GPU, but it beats the hell out of an on-board.

Anandtech explores the API Overhead test: Link

Some good news, I was looking to put together an i7 5820K / X99 build in the coming months.

@Wasdie:

you accepting the myth of console optimization as true fact, its a mistake, my $400 peasant PC beats PS4 the same way a 7 or 8 years old PC hardware beats old consoles

the performance gain in games using mantle (games designed to take advantage of all those extra draw calls) is minimal, only weak cpu see any difference, and mostly because the AMD drivers weight heavy on the cpu, nvidia users with weak CPUs and GPUs are not losing much

Guess I no longer need to worry about optimizing my upcoming text adventure.

@04dcarraher: oooooOOOOooooo interesting. i thought devs could use multi core rendering (i.e. none of the limits that are on the PC applied) on consoles die to the below article but looking back on it i think i may have misunderstud.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2009/08/18/the-problem-with-porting-games/2

well colour me surprised :). i thought this was only an issue on the PC side.

@leandrro: Performance games by Mantle are only minimal because the only game to really use Mantle was Battlefield 4 which is firmly a DX game. There were no games specifically built for Mantle. BF4 doesn't actually use a high amount of draw calls because that's how it was made. CPU overhead was eliminated by smart development and optimizations. The Mantle performance increases were most noticed on the weaker CPUs where the CPU bottlenecks were hit. If you were running a fairly modern PC you wouldn't have hit those bottlenecks as the game was programmed with them in mind.

When DX12 is fully utilized from the beginning of a game's development we'll see a huge increase in CPU performance for games which will directly translate into better looking games running on weaker hardware.

dat spam

@bforrester420: Your argument makes no sense. It's basically saying "If you want modern consoles graphics you'll need a modern console." No shit. Technology is always moving forward. New hardware allows for more rendering to be done and new software allows the hardware to be better utilized.

This is great moving forward. The goal is to always be improving. People will upgrade hardware and software throughout time. That doesn't mean developers don't support the new hardware or software. If they didn't, we would still be using software renderers.

And I'll still continue to game on Console. Thanks for trying though TC.

"Me""for me""in my""I'm""should I"... A lot of YOU in this general argument about the advantages of one platform over the other in the eyes of the larger slice of the consumer pie. You prefer PC's. You like the idea of PC's in the living room...good for you? What the **** does any of this matter when looking at the appeal it has in this specific area for most people though?

I'm not telling what you like is wrong. I'm telling PC is the wrong product if you're attempting to lure people to get one as a substitute for a living room experience. Not gonna happen because no one fucking wants it.

You say you dont give a shit yet you come in here literally saying that anyone who doesnt see the absolute superiority of the platform as a dedicated gaming device is lying to themselves. I take it by that comment that you DO in fact give a shit and that you ARE making an argument in favor of PCs as the best way to experience games for averybody. Well, I'm disagreeing with you, the market is absolutely disagreeing with you and the Steambox business move is the ultimate proof that standard PCs are simply not an attractive proposition for couch entertainment outside of a very small group of enthusiasts.

Also since when is calling people geeks an insult these days?

@Wasdie: My argument boils down to, "No shit, PC games are better than consoles in both graphics and frame rate, we already knew this."

Actually, I didn't even bother to advance an argument because there's nothing to argue. Awesome! DX12 is pushing hardware further....just like <insert DirectX version here> before it. I don't know where the shock and awe is supposed to be with this revelation.

"Insert and Play" just translates to "I save a few seconds a day... but lose a ton of quality" ... no thanks... mcdonalds is for a quickie ....

Since when is being selective about what you want in your living room an interior designer thing? Do you live in a dirt hole in the ground?

totally agree with this. There are various PC games that can only be played with k/m.

pc towers are big and they get so hot it makes me uncomfortable.

and again very true with the shit UI.

4. I particularly hate that and I have had to do it for almost every game I have played till now. PC gaming really isn't for everyone. Can't wait for Uncharted 4 to finally come out, buy a PS4 and leave this PC gaming trash behind. Herms are just like SJW's when it comes to being more dogmatic than a Christian priest.

I'm not trying to lure anyone into anything. The initial post I replied to said that gaming in the living room is an advantage of consoles over PC. Implying that you can't do it with a PC.

"Me""for me""in my""I'm""should I" is obviously going to apply to both sides of this discussion. How we choose to game is a personal choice. That said, one can just as easily game on a PC in the living room as they can with a console. It's a fact, not an opinion.

I don't know why you keep mistaking me for someone who cares about how popular the notion of a PC in the living room is. Again, I couldn't care less. I can't begin to give a shit about who wants it or not.

Should I ditch my PC and WiiU, keep the PS4 and play nothing but CoD every year? Seriously man, I don't know what popularity has to do with this.

Yes, yes, I came in here and instantly started barking at people. Not like I was responding to a fanboyish post or anything. Ha, it's always funny how transparent people can be with their bias. Ignore the instigator and jump on the one who replies. That's you right now. How did you manage to read my posts, yet somehow filter out Stormy Joes limp dick "Me""for me""in my""I'm""should I" anecdotal arguments?

Interesting.

And no. I'm not saying that the PC is the way for everybody. Some people prefer their console exclusives. For over two decades that was me, I always preferred console franchises. I get that. Some people don't want to pony up the cash for first build. Maybe if you weren't frothing at the mouth to prove something you would have caught that in my previous post. Furthermore, there are the physical copies which I also agree(d) with.

And AGAIN with the popularity, please quit injecting bullshit arguments into this. I give no fucks about how many people do it. That was never the point. I don't care if I'm the only person on this planet that does it. The fact is that it can be done and it's quite easy to do.

As an aside, you know as well as I do how naive it is to compare the success of something like a Steambox to established console mega brands that have been in the market for decades, have household name IPs associated with them, and have hundreds of millions in marketing poured into them. I find that insulting because I know you're not a dumb person, yet you thought that I would accept that as a legitimate argument lol.

Again. I know you're not a stupid person. Please quit pretending to be.

@Gue1: you realize that PC towers don't have to be big right?

1. I tend to ingore poor troll posts so me zoning in on you and not who you were responding to is not really a reflection of my bias as much as it was me finding something worth discussing after reading your stuff.

And no I'm not saying you should only care about whats popular. I'm pointing out that looking at what makes PC living room gaming unpopular might shed some light on what most might percieve as disadvantages when they choose consoles over it. Its not just blind bias or ignorance.

2. I brought up Steambox to illustrate that PC-centric companies DO struggle to make it inside the living room. Its a PC/console hybrid. A compromise that tries to repackage a PC tower in a console form-factor with dedicated OS and controller, because thats what the market demands. Its not some anti-PC conspiracy that is holding back people from mounting towers on their living rooms.

I also dont see why you bring in the Wii U. I never claimed that console to be perfect. I recognize its many faults, which is something many PC gamers cant say they do about their favourite gaming platform.

1- The few games that don't have controller support are also not available on consoles anyway. So it's irrelevant. Plus, Steam controller is coming.

2- Pick a great looking case that makes it look less like a traditional PC tower.

3- Again, only with games not available on consoles, so the issue is irrelevant anyway.

4- Huh? In case you missed it, you already need to update your console all the time. Thanks to Steam, updates are now automatic, just like with the PS4 and XB1.

Try again

Well consoles have the best games the industry has to offer, so that advantage hasn't been given up yet.

I'm flattered lol.

Anyways. That's a reasonable response all around. I see no reason to argue and even if I did, bro I'm exhausted. All nighter with Mari on one monitor and SW on the other. I'm beat.

I only brought up the Wii U because I was under the impression you were arguing popularity = awesome, and a lack of it = shit. For all of its faults, the Wii U is still my favorite console this gen thus far.

Glad an understanding has been met, though I do think this discussion would have gone smoother had you been in on the context of what I was responding to.

All good though. Later.

Now we can have a new Elder Scrolls with more lively towns and cities.

Probably not, different architectures really hurt them in the long run more than anything. Basically every new generation there was a radically different and customized architecture which meant building new tools and different programming practices that really didn't carry over to new generations. By basically making a PC it means its a lot easier to support things like BC going forward as well as not needing to build new tool chains. Developers won't need to alter their game engines so much with every new gen, basically it becomes much easier for everyone involved.

I don't think the improvements to DX12 wouldn't have been possible if they used a different architecture, at the end of the day the improvements are mainly to the windows software architecture and how the hardware is handled, which M$ likely learned from console development.

@04dcarraher: You don't really get out of the "single thread", eventually the cpu has to serialize the data and send it to the GPU. Essentially what they've probably done is change the way kernel calls work with drivers. Windows would actually have to switch thread context to the kernel thread with every draw call, which means suspending the game thread to make the draw actually happen. At the end of the day though, there is only one thread that can feed the gpu, any other threads that want to call are going to get blocked so multi thread calls really don't help, the difference is how the kernel handles the draw call.

@waahahah:

Your talking about splitting the CPU-side work of the driver across multiple threads? That is something that games already do with deferred workloads. Direct x 12 is using Async compute which is somewhat different. Async compute adds additional command queues so instead of vertex, pixel and compute shaders running in succession one right after the other, it can run workloads in a overlapping chain where one starts and before its done another thread starts the other section etc.

Something like this with Async

Core0 |------------vertex--------------|

 Core1         |-----pixel-----------|

 Core3           |-------Compute------|

vs normal method

Core 0 [ ----------vertex----------] [----------pixel-------][------compute------]

Draw call is not generated by the kernel it is generated at the UMD. The way that the gpu handles context changes has changed when it comes to dx 12 there is no longer a need to keep track of the context the "bookkeeping" they are talking about. Even if the cpu is serializing commands list it can now do so with any thread instead of only functioning on one.

@spitfire-six: I mean on a real basic low level hardware call would cause the current read to context switch to the kernel thread to actually "talk" to a device. Basically any API that called the hardware on a regular basis is generally costly because of this which is partially why batch calls were necessary.

@04dcarraher: No i'm talking about the literal bus between the GPU and CPU, the system is only capable of "talking" to a gpu via one core/thread at a time.

Its not my opinion, but GS scores..you know the forum you're posting on. PC has no perfect 10/10 games nor a GOTY exclusive in the last decade +.

No, you need consoles for the best games the industry has to offer.

And still everyone in EU is buying FIFA, FIFA and yeah even more FIFA....but why? Oh right they dont care about any ratings...

Well, this thread went downhill from its initial informative post

@Thunderdrone said:

I'm not telling what you like is wrong. I'm telling PC is the wrong product if you're attempting to lure people to get one as a substitute for a living room experience. Not gonna happen because no one fucking wants it.

You say you dont give a shit yet you come in here literally saying that anyone who doesnt see the absolute superiority of the platform as a dedicated gaming device is lying to themselves.

Disagree. Compute sticks and Steam streaming will own the living room by next gen.

the same website that gave TLOU an 8 and snubbed it for GOTY, causing sony fans to lose their shit and call for people to get fired

@waahahah:

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying.