Poll - Is Switch a 9th gen console?

[Pemalite]

JRPGfan said:

Pemalite said:

Ray Tracing and SSD's is the technological definer for next-gen.

As for the Audio... We had 3D positional audio years ago... Aureal A3D comes to mind.
Then the industry went backwards for a few decades.

How many games used it on consoles?

A quick google search of "Aureal A3D games", and all I see pop up is a old video of half-life on a pc, with a fanmade mod, that uses it.
It sounds horrible.... ei. badly used.

I think this new level of audio (if game devs use it) should make for a very noticeable differnt between this gen, and older ones (atleast in audio quality).

It was supported at the engine level in most popular engines like Unreal Engine, Quake, GoldSrc (Half Life) and more. It certainly had support.

It was *the* pinnacle of positional 3D audio until just recently... Which is absolutely crazy.
When Microsoft released Windows Vista, they removed the Audio hardware abstraction layer, so games that relied on DirectSound3D (I.E. Everything at the time)
could no longer use the sound effects supported in hardware.
That mean multi-channel surround sound, environmental effects and the audio quality all took a hit and became a featureless experience. - Creative did try and rectify that issue with ALchemy, but the damage was done to a degree, the world was a software based one.

So yes, Aureal A3D had industry support, it sounded absolutely amazing, it was the ducks nuts.

I feel the Xbox Series X and Playstation 5 will finally offer a hardware solution that will eclipse it in every regard... And that is actually super exciting for myself, no longer do I need to rely on my PC for a decent audio experience.

Pyro as Bill said:

160rmf said:
Yeah, guys. Keep coming with these arbitrary labeling and have a huge messed timeline. You are all so right

There's no confusion.

Wii is 6th gen like GC because there wasn't a huge power leap so PS2 lost the 6th gen in the US.

WiiU was a power leap so it's 7th gen like PS3/X360 but Switch is 7th gen too because no power leap therefore ''GC'' sold 123m and ''WiiU'' will sell ~160m.

The Wii used the exact same hardware as the Gamecube. - Only differences were in memory sizes and clockrates.

Every console generation was defined by certain hardware based characteristics... For example:
1st console generation: Limited to just a couple of colours, limited to zero audio capabilities.
2nd generation console: Faster 8-bit processing, 8-128 colours, mono audio.
3rd generation console: 8-bit waveform Audio, 256 colours, 32-64 sprites, hardware based scrolling.
4th generation console: 16-bit processing, parallax scrolling, 4096 colour pallets, multi-channel stereo audio, sprite rotation and scaling.
5th generation console: Texture mapped 3d polygonal graphics, 32-bit processing, 16-bit/CD Quality Audio.
6th generation console: Perspective Correct Texturing, Hardware TnL, DVD.
7th generation console: Programmable Pixel Shaders 2.0, Online Gaming via LAN, Mechanical Hard Drives, 64bit processing.
8th generation console: Unified Pixel Shaders, Hardware based Tessellation, Unified Memory.
9th generation console: Solid State Drives, Ray Tracing, Hardware 3D positional Audio. - More?


I tend to lump a console based on it's hardware characteristics... Because those hardware similarities tend to ensure ports of the same era, there is a reason why the WiiU got ports like Assassins Creed 4 based on the 7th gen release, rather than the enhanced 8th gen.
Or why the Wii looked more like a 6th gen device than a 7th.