Crytek will most likely go bankrupt if their engine doesn't catch by next gen

[Mr Puggsly]

Pemalite said:

Mr Puggsly said:

Generally speaking, PC games just aren't designed the way you're speaking. There are baselines on PC as well, because they want games to function well on many PCs. In the DF video they discuss sacrifices made in the original PC release of Crysis so it would be less resources intensive. Also, I'm suggesting a game could be designed solely around PC specs and still be scaled back for consoles. Hence, gameplay can be (mostly) intact even with lower quality visuals.

Crysis 1 was already pushing past the high-end PC's even in 2007, it was a game that crippled high-end rigs for years, so of course they would have had to make a few cutbacks to allow the game to scale downwards.

Mr Puggsly said:

Also, I'm suggesting a game could be designed solely around PC specs and still be scaled back for consoles. Hence, gameplay can be (mostly) intact even with lower quality visuals.

I don't actually disagree with that. But PC's are so far ahead of consoles on a technical level it is pretty staggering, if a game was to leverage the PC in it's entirety... Then it simply won't be able to scale downwards to consoles without essentially remaking the game from the ground up again.

Mr Puggsly said:

People argue Crysis 2 was linear for consoles. But the open world of Crysis 1 seemed to translate pretty well on console. Not 100% the same, but for the most part its the same game.

Crysis 1 on consoles was only possible for the reasons I iterated prior... And the game was indeed poorer for it.

 

Mr Puggsly said:

I agree Crysis 2 was designed to function well on consoles and it appears they were treated as lead platforms. This also meant Crysis 2 worked better with dated specs. However, the game is also a product of its time in game design. EA and Crytek were likely motivated to make it a more linear experience given that style of campaign was doing really well at the time. Yet the environments of Crysis 2 were still much more open than the typical FPS game. I believe Crysis 2 was trying to find a middle ground of open and linear.

And that is the reason why it was brutally shunned by the PC community. :P

Mr Puggsly said:

Crysis 1 was built for high end PCs of the time, but due to poor optimization does not function great on modern PCs. As you suggested its well beyond the capabilities of 7th gen consoles (primarily in visuals). Yet they still managed to pump out a good port for consoles of that same era. We saw this with Witcher 2 as well, that was a game people just assumed couldn't work on consoles. Its mostly visual tweaks that make these games functional on console specs. Battlefield 3/4 also come to mind, built to take advantage of PC but tweaked for consoles.

Crysis 1 doesn't perform poorly because of poor optimization though as I iterated upon prior.
It was a case that Crysis 1/CryEngine 2 was built with future hardware in mind... And it turns out Crytek was incorrect about which way hardware would go, hardware went wide, rather than higher frequency.
Crysis 2/CryEngine 3 however was built with old, antiquated hardware in mind. And that is much easier to "guess" for as the hardware actually exists.

Mr Puggsly said:

PC games you named either had good console ports eventually or the console specs of the time just were very different from PC.

Games like Doom and Quake were way ahead of consoles at the time. Morrowind had a good port. Unreal Tournament on consoles seemed to struggle with lack of RAM, especially on Dreamcast. The OG Xbox was getting good ports of games designed for PC.

... Which is exactly my point. Eventually consoles released that caught up with the PC to a degree that made those games possible.

Mr Puggsly said:

Blizzard builds games for low end PCs. Are you gonna blame 7th gen consoles for Diablo 3 playing well on low end PCs?

It is well known even during the early years of Diablo 3's development cycle that it was console-optimized.
Overwatch also took note of consoles as well.

Games like WarCraft and StarCraft however may not be very GPU intensive... But they tend be significantly heavy on the CPU all things considered.

Mr Puggsly said:

Anywho, developers design games in mind for cheap specs (PC or console) because that's what the average consumer will buy. So your arguments of limitless potential on PC don't matter, developers don't focus solely on high end rigs. SOME developers do focus on high end machines, but there are valid argument why they don't.

It's not just GPU speed. It's memory capacity. It's bandwidth. It's CPU processing.
Even the lowest end PC's can eclipse a consoles total memory and bandwidth capacity, let alone dwarf it in the CPU department.

Plus like Crysis 1, developers will sometimes build their games for future hardware, not current hardware.

The fact is... If a game is built for the PC... It can have a world size and a level of simulation that is simply impossible on Consoles. - There is actually one such PC game trending along that path right now.

Crysis didn't just scaling options, DF had examples of less demanding effects during gameplay (versus cutscenes) to reduce load. Therefore some effects were scaled back entirely even though this was a product designed for future specs as well.

Again, developers don't just make games for the highest end PCs. PC gaming is not synonymous with most powerful gaming devices, its a wide range of specs. Its unlikely a game would have to be entirely rebuilt to function on a console, unless the consoles specs are really low. For example numerous high end PC games worked on OG Xbox in the early 2000s with tweaks, as opposed to being rebuilt entirely. That includes games like Half Life 2 and Doom 3. The OG Xbox could handle the engines, but really struggled with large levels and assets. Doom 3 for example changes to the level design and lower quality assets, but that was the same engine.

Crysis 1 is also a game that didn't need to be rebuilt entirely for consoles, it was mostly tweaks and the updated Cryengine. I'm not arguing its the best way to experience Crysis 1, but a viable product.

We both agree on reasons Crysis 2 was poorly received by some. But as an FPS game, it was still better than most sold well.

I'd argue Crysis 2 was better optimized, more efficient, it also took advantage of more modern specs that weren't theoretical. There certainly was a focus on consoles but ambitious PC visuals were a huge priority and still looks impressive today.

But of all the 90s games you mentioned, Quake 1 was really the only game truly punching above consoles for years to come. It wasn't until Dreamcast that a console could easily handle Quake, but by then they pushed Quake 3 on Dreamcast and that was a respectable port that ran the actual engine. Hence, around 2000 the PC and console gap was getting smaller in the sense PC and console games were at least running the same engines.

I believe Blizzard's strategy has generally been make games that function well on a potato. Less barrier to entry means more potential players. Diablo 3 didn't just work well on consoles, it worked well on PCs that were below 7th gen consoles. Meanwhile there are arguments that Crysis 1's demanding requirements deterred people from buying that game.

The average PC audience focused game simply isn't pushing consoles out of the water in bandwidth, AI, etc. Its mostly in the GPU department and achieving higher frame rates, so visual fidelity and responsiveness. You may have examples of PC games that simply wouldn't work on consoles, I would simply argue its rare.

Last edited by Mr Puggsly - on 26 June 2018