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Forums - Gaming - Is the X86 architecture good?

baloofarsan on 04 April 2016

DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to insult anyone. This is an honest question based on the information I thought I had obtained.

Much has been said about the advantages of using X86 in game consoles because PC:s use this architecture.

Some of the benefits was supposed to be:

 

  • ease of software development
  • easier to port from PC to consoles (and vice versa)
  • shorter and cheaper development
  • more optimized code
  • using scalable game engines like UE4

 

All of this was supposed to result in more, better and cheaper games.

The reality is (in my opinion) more like this:

 

  • most PS4/XB1 games still cost $60
  • many games have been rushed and/or delayed (i.e. planning was not easy despite the well known X86 architecture)
  • many games are not optimized (resolution, framerate etc) despite scalability of game engines.
  • games are migrating from consoles to PC but not many in the other direction.
  • higher development costs resulting in absurd sales demands.
  • developers closing down or migrating to mobile
Would the situation be even worse if PPC architecture had continued in PS4/XB1?
With the newest rumored leak from Reddit* there is much hope (from commentators) that Nintendo at last also will use X86.  Will a move to X86 solve any of Nintendos problems?  


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fleischr on 04 April 2016

None of the downsides you mention have *anything* to do with any advantages/disadvantages of the x86 architecture

/thread



I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016

baloofarsan on 04 April 2016
fleischr said:

None of the downsides you mention have *anything* to do with any advantages/disadvantages of the x86 architecture

/thread

So what are the advantages?

These were the ones that were talked about when MS and Sony changed from PPC to X86.



JRPGfan on 04 April 2016

fleischr nailed it.



fatslob-:O on 04 April 2016

With all the R&D and current I would say yes but it takes more than just CPUs to make good consoles ...



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baloofarsan on 04 April 2016

Michael Denny, vice president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios.: "[That] is just a massive win for developers in terms of the sort of games they can create, and the ease of game development," he said. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/PlayStation-Cell-x86-Michael-Denny-Architecture,21479.html

Easy imply faster - faster imply cheaper.
Easy imply easy to plan development - less delays - better time managemet.



snyps on 04 April 2016

I don't believe Nintendo fans would gain or lose anything by Nintendo switching or staying with the cpu architecture. X86 is cheaper to manufacture right now because of the laptop market.

 

the op is correct in his assessment. There's no noticeable effect for consumers. Good press releases hyped it up really well.  X86 is obviously the top choice right now because the hw is cheaper and it's the platform of pc. That's as far as it goes. 



baloofarsan on 04 April 2016
the-pi-guy said:
baloofarsan said:
  • most PS4/XB1 games still cost $60  So?  Just because development is easier, doesn't mean it's cheaper.  Graphic assets for example, do you really think the quality of graphics has nothing to do with how long it takes to make a game? 
Easier in planning, optimizing, recruiting personel, outsourcing work should result in cheaper development.
  • many games have been rushed and/or delayed (i.e. planning was not easy despite the well known X86 architecture)  Do we really know what the reason for delays were?  
I have no statistics but delays seems not to be less frequent now than before and development time does not seem to have become shorter.
  • many games are not optimized (resolution, framerate etc) despite scalability of game engines.  Developer laziness has nothing to do with the architecture.  
Scalability was supposed to improve on optimization, not make lazy developers lazier.
  • games are migrating from consoles to PC but not many in the other direction.  Why should they?  What games have migrated?

Having the same architecture was supposed to make it easier to move between platforms. 

Havt come back on the second question

  • higher development costs resulting in absurd sales demands.  What games have absurd sales demands?  FFXV was in development for close to a decade.  
Have to come back on this one.
  • developers closing down or migrating to mobile  So?
That was not really the purpose of moving to the X86 architecture.

 

Conflating easier development with cheaper games is a false assumption.  


Netty on 04 April 2016

The x86 architecture is good enough. The big benefit is the whole universe of skills, parts, and drivers that have been built around it over decades of computing. The benefits start with the platform holder (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, etc), allowing them to more easily design hardware platforms since they can pretty much pick and choose the parts they want, with a high degree of confidence that everything will work together. Since everything is a little more standardized, they can then put out higher quality development tools (compilers, debuggers, drivers, etc) for developers, allowing people to spend more time developing their software and less time fighting with crappy tools.



baloofarsan on 04 April 2016
the-pi-guy said:
baloofarsan said:
Michael Denny, vice president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios.: "[That] is just a massive win for developers in terms of the sort of games they can create, and the ease of game development," he said. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/PlayStation-Cell-x86-Michael-Denny-Architecture,21479.html

Easy imply faster - faster imply cheaper.
Easy imply easy to plan development - less delays - better time managemet.

That's not how this works.  Video games are gigantic pieces of software that depend on a lot of parts:

-Design

-Programming

-Art

-Sound

That's just scratching the surface.  Which of these aspects do you think are affected by the architecture?  For the most part just this one -programming

For the programmers, it is likely to make their job substantially easier, because x86 is a standard architecture.  It's what your PC uses.  People know it.  It's not some weird piece of architecture where they pretty much spend all their time just figuring it out.  They can just get straight into things.  It makes the programmer's job easier.  

With better hardware, what do you think is happening to the other categories?  The answer is that the other categories are getting inflated.  Art for example, is getting ridiculous.  

Games need more artists and more time, because the newer hardware means that they can do more.  More polygons, more effects, larger maps, more NPCs.  Games are getting bigger, and vastly more detailed.  That means more time.  Those things were going to happen regardless of what the architecture was.  

Making your game stand out takes more time than ever, because supermassive teams are putting years into their games.  

I am not a fan of it but the fact that it is a well-known standard architecture means that much of the work can be outsourced to low cost programmers. This will give you fast, predictable and cheaper development.