Consoles are holding the PC back

glight · Apr 13, 2011

After recently switching to PC games from consoles I get the feeling that something is not right with game developers. It seems like all (most) of the games are made for PS3/xbox and then ported back to PC with minimal optimization for the PC. Yes PC's have the best graphics, but look at how much effort is put into making these games work on hardware that is 6 YEARS OLD.

Shift 2 unleashed and Crysis 2 are great examples. Shift 2 doesn't even support sli and the PC controls are terrible (thank you RD for Juls' minimod for fixing that:wink

Crysis 2 is DX9! with DX11 on the way sometime. I shouldn't be surprised as both games are EA but Dead Space 2 was great on PC so this is not always true of EA.

If we had the PS4 and Xbox720 now PC games and video games would be altogether better both visually and fps-wise. Also, we need to rely on modders to fix issues to make a game playable. Mods should improve the game (or transform it), not fix it.

Jim Cole · Apr 13, 2011

Unfortunately, gamers have been building mods for quite some time and not just in the sim racing communities. The mods range from aesthetics to overall game fixes that should have been done by the software designers/publishers. The gaming industry has taken for granted that the gamers will fix the issues to make the game playable and therefore can get away with releasing substandard product with little intention of making it right.

If you follow what happens in MMORPG's you will see that the developers are more concerned about adding more content instead of fixing existing issues unless they have to fix them to make the new content work right. A great example of that is Starwars Galaxies and their ever present network issues with lag. Unfortunately online MMORPG's can't be patched by gamers, so the designers are the ones that should be making things right. Too bad that isn't high on their list.

Other games, such as The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion have been modded to eliminate bugs that exist in the game by faithful modders who received nothing from the publishers or designers in compensation for their efforts. What this equates to is that the designers/publishers get programming time and knowledge for nothing and they are not making a move to change this free fixing idea that the gamers have allowed themselves to do for free.

Moral of the story is even though we like games and don't mind spending a bit of time making mods to enhance/fix the game, every effort should be made first to get the developers of the game to do this first and only then should the fixes be undertaken from the masses. It would be nice if the people who fixed the programs could take ownership of the program they fixed, thus giving the developer more of an incentive to get fixes and content out before we can.

glight · Apr 15, 2011

glight said:
Shift 2 unleashed and Crysis 2 are great examples. Shift 2 doesn't even support sli and the PC controls are terrible (thank you RD for Juls' minimod for fixing that:wink Crysis 2 is DX9! with DX11 on the way sometime. I shouldn't be surprised as both games are EA but Dead Space 2 was great on PC so this is not always true of EA.

In light of Martin Griffiths' latest efforts to shed much light on shift 2 development and the upcoming patch I must eat my words (Thank you Martin!). PC gaming is not being left out by Martin and the rest at Slightly Mad Studios, hopefully other developers can do the same.

I guess the real reason that the consoles are holding pc gaming back is because developers have to take the time to make 3 separate games. One for xbox, one for PS3, one for PC. It would be a lot easier for them if the xbox and ps3 weren't so old requiring them to dumb down the game a lot and optimize for those platforms. This would give the devs more time to put out a quality product across all three platforms. So with deadlines and simultaneous releases games end up being 'almost' finished at release day.

Jim Cole · Apr 16, 2011

It has been mentioned before on a different thread I think, but Sony consoles are difficult to program for on purpose. This has nothing to do with age, it was designed to be difficult so that others would have to write specifically for the Sony's rather than port other platform games over to the Sony's.

Ryan Callan · Apr 16, 2011

Piracy holds back PC gaming. From a business standpoint it makes much more sense to put effort into consoles.

glight · Apr 16, 2011

That is true, but it's not like nothing is being done to prevent piracy. I hate DRM but I think Steam is fighting piracy the right way. They offer great prices, deals and convenience. I would rather buy my games from Steam than pirate, it is easier for me. I do not like EA's way of activating their games but I will live with it. I don't like how you have to pay for a code to play online if you bought the game used on xbox/ps3. They shouldn't be punishing their users that actually bought the game.

Piracy is still a problem on xbox and PS3, so it is not a PC only problem but a problem with the gaming industry. Developers need to make better games if they really want to keep piracy away, more people will feel guilty for pirating the game and maybe go and buy it. For example, lots of pirates feel justified pirating call of duty because it is nearly the same game as last year.

Ryan Callan · Apr 16, 2011

For Multiplayer games, piracy can be easily combated - for single player, it is difficult.

Wayne Reed · Apr 16, 2011

glight said:
I guess the real reason that the consoles are holding pc gaming back is because developers have to take the time to make 3 separate games. One for xbox, one for PS3, one for PC. It would be a lot easier for them if the xbox and ps3 weren't so old requiring them to dumb down the game a lot and optimize for those platforms. This would give the devs more time to put out a quality product across all three platforms. So with deadlines and simultaneous releases games end up being 'almost' finished at release day.

I really don't know how you can say that consoles are holding back pc's. Pc games are the way they are because they have to make them to support so many spec's of pc it has nothing to do with consoles at all

here is the spec's for the ps3 and it betters most pc that most play games on the other thing you need to know is the Cell Processor is only running at 25% of its power and Sony keep sending updates to open it a little more when a game needs it.

CPU: Cell Processor

PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
Total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU: RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound:
Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell-based processing)

Memory:
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth:
Main RAM -- 25.6GB/s
VRAM -- 22.4GB/s
RSX -- 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB -- 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance:
2 TFLOPS

Storage:
Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1

I/O
USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1

Communication:
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller:
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)

AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

Disc Media:
CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

Dave Stephenson · Apr 16, 2011

only 2 things hold it back imo, in order of importance....

Piracy, (read huge problem)
X360

(tiny problem)

If developers can't make the money back due to piracy they will never put the money in.

Damian Henderson · Apr 16, 2011

There's a few reasons here why consoles are holding PC's back:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/12_ways_consoles_are_hurting_pc_gaming?page=0,0

Developers are focusing more on consoles yes but piracy is not really one of the main reasons why. One of the main issue's is their being a wider audience in the console market then in the PC market, thus developers can make much more money by focusing more on the console market, and it's not due to piracy, just there simply being a bigger market to aim for (check console sales etc)

Another little article here:
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/36090/Is-the-PC-now-winning-the-gaming-war

Ricardo Rey · Apr 23, 2011

An acquaintance (not friend) is always downloading pirated software...games, utilities, multimedia software...you name it.

He was always complaining about how poorly his PC was running. I installed several of my virus/malware/trojan etc. utilities and left it on his system for a month.

Every single piece of pirated software he had an downloaded was infected. All his keygens etc. His virus software was not picking it up and was infected as well.

I think if people realized how much trash they are picking up they would stop supporting pirated software.

Just my two cents.

Cheers!

Jim Cole · Apr 23, 2011

Not sure about all cases, but I know a software developer that puts his own "hacked" version of his software out there to combat piracy. He has seen his stuff on a few sites and decided that he would send it out with a virus to try and combat this, but it hasn't worked. A lot of folks have a decent setup for security on their systems and are able to find most virus's before they infect things. For those that are not as well protected, the computer stores tend to make a bit of money cleaning their systems out.

Wayne Reed · Apr 23, 2011

Your software is not picking any thing up .exe files always show as a virus. I can tell you for a fact only 1% of .exe files have crap in them

Craig Stevenson · Apr 23, 2011

More and more games that were on the PC seem to be console only these days, 3 that spring to mind out this year are Top Spin, Virtua Tennis and IIRC MotoGP 10\11, I had others on my wanted list but I can't find the damn thing now. Many of the games that do remain on PC seem to be ported from Consoles, I think you can tell this by the in-game menus when you have to press a bloody triangle to do something, I don't have a triangle, square, cross, circle, R1 or start button on my keyboard or mouse and my gamepad (which is buried deep in the back of the wardrobe) has buttons with 1, 2, 3 & 4 on them.

To say Piracy is the issue is rubbish, it is way easier to Pirate on console, NDS just needs a £24 card and you can play any games you like, you can get several hundred games on a 4GB card. PS3, 360 and Wii need a cheap Mod and again you can play just about anything, not online but then again it's very difficult to play Pirated PC games online as well these days.

IMO the PC is a dying platform, we have PC hardware that pisses on every single console but ease of use and small footprint makes the consoles a good platform, you stick a disk in and it just works. Without a new revolution in gaming the PC will be dead and buried in the next couple of years.

I think many Simmers like myself are slightly older and maybe crave and expect a lot more in terms or reality, especially when it comes to racing, many of the younger people won't have played the early EA F1 or CMR series for example so they think the last F1 series on the PS3 was realistic. There isn't really a "current" PC Sim on the market today, we're all waiting for GTR3 & rF2 but they will probably be niche products again, to appeal to the masses they will have to alienate their core buyers.

Small companies like Simbin and ISI produce outstanding Sims on a limited budget and with a limited enthusiast market and then we have companies like Codemasters and EA that spend massive amounts making their games look pretty with crappy story lines and the gameplay\reality being an afterthought yet they sell millions of copies, WRC2010 for example with no Split Axis support and no manual gearbox and many others with no proper wheel\FFB support, it's 2011 and we should moving to more realism not less.

My two pence worth.

Regards

Ricardo Rey · Apr 24, 2011

Wayne Reed said:
Your software is not picking any thing up .exe files always show as a virus. I can tell you for a fact only 1% of .exe files have crap in them

Not one virus he had came from an exe

EDIT: First let me say that I am not arguing with you and I am no expert. Virus may be a misnomer. The software, when installing added .dll that compromised his login and video. All I know is as soon as we cleaned it, his problems went away.

Again Wayne, I am no expert...

Chhers