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kafar on 26 November 2010
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sieanr said:
kafar said:

1. PC has heavy background workloads and developers need to worry about compatibility, which requires a 2. certain midle layers  (directX for example) to deal with different hardware configuration. you just can't compare the spec directly.  though PC does offer better resolution and better AA, the lighting (which i think is the way more important than AA), physcis and AI are still at the similar level of consoles games. so not too much of a whole generation ahead but PC graphics is definitely better than consoles to some extend.

on a serious note, I'm curious to see how the next generation consoles can wow me. the best graphics in this gen is quite close to real life imo.

1. Not really, unless you start playing games while compiling code or some equally demanding task. And given how much RAM PCs have these days the memory overhead from even a large amount of running processes is negligible,

2. Middle layers like Direct X and OpenGL? Oh, you mean the same APIs that the xbox and the PS3 use. And its because of those APIs that developers don't have to worry about coding for a million different hardware variations.

3. Uh, no. Even games ported over to PC from consoles have lighting and physics effects impossible on 360/PS3. Look at mirrors edge or Batman Arkham Asylum. You could probably make a decent argument that AI is superior on PC, but its one are that very few developers put any kind of money into, and consequently most games, regardless of platform, is using AI routines that haven't changed much in the past 5 years. But the PC could certainly beat consoles in AI if any developers decide to throw some serious work into it.

i don't know how much you know about computer techs. but your argument doesn't sound right.

when you are compiling code, you can't game well at all in most rigs. just try it. While your machine is idle, you can count how many services is lurking in your memory idling/spinning to handle requests such as firewall and anti-virus, well and possibly virus :). In theory, PC should be way more powerful than consoles. But those background task is closing the gap a lot.

xbox's dx 10 is specially tailored and optimized for xbox. i don't know about ps3's openGL, so i can't say. ps3 developers have already been utilizing spus for graphics too. i don't think regular version openGL can handle this at all.

I played Batman AA in PC with Nvidia Physx. Yes, it's better than console such as flying papers, nice mists and other little details but still it's not a generation ahead. as for lighting, i couldn't really tell much difference. Once you turn Physx off, it's quite similar to console version aside from AA and resolution. Not everyone has an Nvidia card.

AI is the only area that showed nearly no improvement this gen. I won't comment on that seriously. Claiming PC will definitely be better is a wild assumption.

Still, I don't think PC is one generation ahead and an curious to know what the next gen will be. If the tech doesn't advance too much, I may choose to skip a generation (or wait till later in the generation).