PC innovation is dying

[Schu]

Hey everybody, I got a good rant for ya, and it's going to be about the age old complaint of PC vs console.
Yes I realize that this is an old argument, but I thought I would put this into perspective so that the console kiddies will see
for themselves that their consoles aren't just hurting PC gaming, they are hurting innovation and the hardware development
company’s as well. If it wasn't for PC exclusive gaming, the computer wouldn't be what it is today.

To start this off here is a list of console games and consoles I still own.

Atari 2600:
Asteroids
Space Invaders
Empire Strikes Back
Galaga
Tempest

Coleco Vision:
Donkey Kong
Galaxian
Defender
Zaxxon

NES:
Super Mario
Super Mario Bros. 2
Duck Hunt
Tank commander
Silent Service
The Legend Of Zelda

Play Station:
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy II
Final Fantasy VII

As you can see from the above list I didn't always have a hate for consoles, they had their place in the game industry. Now
publishers and some developers think they're the only place in the industry, because it is cheaper due to the limitations of the
consoles compared to the PC. Now I understand the need to make money, you cant stay in business if you don't...but their
greed is not only killing the PC gaming market, it is slowing computer innovation to a crawl.

Here are some examples:
The top 2 consoles use DX9 (or something similar). DX9 is 7 or 8 year old technology and the consoles are holding back the
graphics capability’s of more advanced systems (the PC), due to the move of the publishers and developers who used to
make PC exclusive games now making console games, and the refusal of the manufacturers of the consoles to upgrade them
every few years, like they used too. The PC should be running its latest games on  DX10 (4 years old) and/or DX11
technology. We should have some of the most crazy beautiful graphics in our games, if the consoles or should I say the
publishers weren't holding them back out of greed. According to older DX development schedules we should be using DX12
by now, or it should be just around the corner. {Innovation slowed to a crawl}

Has anyone else noticed that nVidia and AMD/ATI have not released a video card that can actually surpass what they
released 2 years ago? nVidia and ATI had been at each others throats for years trying to out do each other, by giving us...the
consumer, the best that they could come up with in frames per second and visual quality. True nVidia dropped the ball on
the 400 series cards with the overheating issues, but they were still fast as hell, and AMD/ATI gave us the 5800 series with
low energy usage at idle, cool running and fast as you can get.

That was 2 years ago people. Now nVidia has the 500 series which is basically the 400 with the heat issues straightened out
and better Physx controls. Then there is AMD...like nVidia, the 6800 series isn't even a slight upgrade. To put this into
perspective, nVidia's 480 (properly cooled), will play like the 580, and AMD/ATI's 5870 will smoke them all, in over all
performance (some games just run better using nVidia). Today’s games just don't need the powerful GPU's of yesterday
because they are being made for the console then ported to the PC instead of the other way around. I know a guy who is
still using my old “BFG Tech 8800GTX” and he is still able to run today’s games with mid to high settings, that is a five
year old video card folks (not good). {Innovation slowed to a crawl}

Now lets get into sound quality. New sound cards used to come out about every 3 or so years, with updated hardware and
software. I haven't seen a new sound card that isn't using 4 year (or older) technology. My HT | Omega Claro Plus+ is 4 year
old technology and it is only one step down from top of the line. The HT | Omega Claro Halo is on top, the XT version is the
same card with a front of computer access ports. Even Creative hasn't released anything NEW in about 5 years, except for
some software upgrades that are needed for Vista and Win 7. {Innovation slowed to a crawl}

Maybe it's just me, but the last games that I can recall, that have pushed our computers past their limits on release, were
Crysis and HellGate: London, both were released in 2007 and both were DX10 games. I can count on one hand the amount
of games that were DX10, now we are supposed to be using DX11 and I haven't seen one. What is totally funny to me, is
that Crysis still pushes computers (to this day, 4 years later) too their limits. I know of very few who can play it at over 45
FPS. {Innovation slowed to a crawl}

So to you console lovers/kiddies, if it wasn't for the PC exclusive games that we used to love, even hate...you wouldn't have
the lightning fast computer you enjoy now. Think about that awhile, because if PC exclusive gaming dies, so does the
innovation that created the computer you are currently using, which literally means, computers aren't going to get any better
than they are now.

Don't believe me?

I just showed you proof...or you can wait a few years, and I will accept your apology then.

EDIT by Tessera: I corrected the spelling in your title. There is no such word as "dieing," dude. It's spelled D-Y-I-N-G.

[anariel]

I think the problem with the innovation the consoles is not that the games are being made first for consoles and then ported to PC (ok, not THIS problem XDDD), but that the consoles are more or less clearly differenciated, and also that we have been in an economic crisis for a couple of years now. And as Tess says, Konsoles are for Kids (meaning: the parents pays for the thing).

Right now the consoles are PS3, XBox360, and Wii mostly, with portable gaming competing between NintendoDs, PSP and smartphones/tablets. Nintendo is mostly out of the competition because it is centered around a unique style of games (more family-oriented, or with less interest in graphics), and XBox and PS3 don't really have a competition (both Sony and Microsoft are centered around other projects). The games studios are happy, since they don't need to pay extra for producing their games (I'm assuming there they have to buy some sort of development kit).

But yeah, I agree the hardware development has come to a hard stop the last two years or so. From my point of view, its "good" (since it means I don't need to upgrade my PC to play some games without unnerving low FPS), but in the end it is a problem because it shows a stop in related fields of study.

By the way, I bought myself a PSP for christmas. I'm having a hard time making it work with FF7, but Breath of Fire 3 works, and now I need to install an SNES emulator for playing all those great games of the past

[Zoli]

There's a simple explanation for the lack of graphics evolution for the last generation(NV GTX500 - ATI/AMD HD6000). First, the previous generations(GTX400/HD5000) was a clear step up from the generation before(GTX200/HD4000). The current generation(because HD7970 is just "paper launched" today) is made with the previous(GTX400/HD5000) semiconductor manufacturing process(40nm node), unlike the pre-GTX500/HD6000 upgrades, when a new GPU design was manufactured on new semiconductor process.
Regarding the AMD Radeon HD7970 - check out your favorite HW review site, it should be up.
A few more things to think about:
How long it took, until DX9 became mainstream? And when you expect DX11 to become mainstream?
Does eyecandy is all whats left with the same, year-to-year repetitive gameplay in the new games? And it's really worth it?
Mid next year(I expect to be ready for Back-To-School) the new XBox will hit the stores. What do you expect? More/better PC games, or more consolization?

[Tessera]

What do I expect..?

Well, based upon what we've seen during the past decade...

I expect the major publishers to keep herding everyone over to kiddie konsoles
and eventually, I expect them to stop publishing PC games altogether.

I expect that new games will continue to get dumber and dumber. I also
expect to see increasingly buggy new releases. I expect to see min-maxxing.
I expect to see a greedy industry continuing to exploit their customers for
every single nickel and dime that they can squeeze out of inferior products.

That is what I expect.

[Schu]

Yeah, I've seen the info on the HD7970 and this is what they did.

They made the chip using a new 28nm process.
Now don't get me wrong, this may help speed innovation, but it is old news. CPU's have been running at this level for
awhile, and AMD should have released this process last generation. I understand why nVidia hasn't done this yet, and it's
because they don’t have both a CPU and a GPU manufacturing facilitys.

The reference cards will have 3GB of DDR5 on board RAM.
Cool, but isn't that kind of excessive for a reference video card? Something is telling me that they fucked something up
and are trying to hide it by adding so much RAM. My 2GB DDR5 HD5870 video card doesn't even break a sweat when I
push it. Besides that, 32bit OS's aren't going to be able to take full advantage of it.

They have eliminated some of the unified shading process.
Each processing core is a more or less autonomous unit capable of running a single instruction at a time. This is similar to
what nVidia does. This scalar architecture isn’t necessarily better for gaming graphics operations, but it is arguably more
efficient for the other stuff today’s graphics cards are supposed to do, like physics and GPGPU supercomputing. There are
still a lot of shader cores though. The Radeon HD7970 boast 2048 versus the older HD6970′s 1536, and runs them at 925MHz.

How long it took, until DX9 became mainstream? And when you expect DX11 to become mainstream?

DX9 became mainstream almost as fast as it was released. There were developers who were about to release games that
ran on DX8.1, but wanted to take advantage of the new architecture, so they held those games back a few months. Even
VtM:Bloodlines was built using DX8.1, but was released with DX9 on the disks and takes advantage of some of what DX9
offered. DX10.1 or DX11 would be mainstream right now, if it wasn't for the games today being made on the console (DX9c)
and the fact that the current DX are not compatible with XP.

Microsoft right now is the worst offender as far as Personal Computer innovation gos. They are supposed to be a computer
software company, not a console manufacturing company. They are the ones giving us DX11.1 early next year. I cant for
the life of me understand why...nobody is going to use it unless they are forced too because of the new Xbox, or are making
PC exclusive games.

MS is made up of the very people who innovated the PC by giving us OS's that stay consistent, along with many other tools
and software that made our lives easier (though at the cost of occasional frustration). They are the ones who made PC
gaming a household word by allowing third party developers to use their tools to create games and other software that would
work on their OS's. Yeah MAC lovers, that is why you don't get the cool stuff we do.

Now it seems Microsoft is more interested in the Xbox console then what made them what they are now.
2 perfect examples of this are:
Games for Windows and Games for Windows LIVE are dead, the only one that still exists is Xbox LIVE. Everything
from GfWL has been moved to XBLA.
The next is, Win 8 (Metro), it will have XBLA integrated into the OS.

With all that said, Tessera is dead on with his post. Big Brother tells you to conform and the sheeple conform, leaving the
rest of us scratching our heads and saying what the fuck?

[Ratcatcher]

I expect the major publishers to keep herding everyone over to kiddie konsoles and eventually, I expect them to stop publishing PC games altogether.

I seem to recall a relatively recent article where a game exec was caught on tape saying something to the likes of "Screw PC gamers, they are just going to pirate it anyways."

[Schu]

That guy can go get fucked by a horse.

The only games that I have ever leeched from a pirate, are those games that I bought legitimately (or someone else bought
for me) that are forcing me to use Steam or some other form of draconian DRM, or something else that prevents me
from playing the games I own. That's one of the reasons I wont be buying D3, I'm not about to pay for an online only game
that's not an MMO.

[anariel]

I expect the major publishers to keep herding everyone over to kiddie konsoles and eventually, I expect them to stop publishing PC games altogether.

I seem to recall a relatively recent article where a game exec was caught on tape saying something to the likes of "Screw PC gamers, they are just going to pirate it anyways."

He is quite dumb then, people look at me like I'm some sort of strange bug because I never pirated my PS2, and everyone I know have at least one pirated console...

As for what do I expect... Well, I think we will be seeing consoles with keyboards and mouses in a while, or at least the keyboard to allow people to play MMORPG games and chat while they do it.

Also, the emulation department of the PC scene seems to be really good. Now if I only was able to make my newly acquired PSP to run the PSX emulator to play Final Fantasy 7... XDD

[Schu]

EDIT by Tessera: I corrected the spelling in your title. There is no such word as "dieing," dude. It's spelled D-Y-I-N-G. Tongue

Whoops. Apparently I need to update my spell checker 

[perez007usa]

Well, I think we will be seeing consoles with keyboards and mouses in a while, or at least the keyboard to allow people to play MMORPG games and chat while they do it.

 They are ready have them, as accessories for the consoles, but still no match for the PC, it still wins out.

[BloodyKidney]

Consoles are not holding back pc innovation. There just more popular. I'm a pc boy I have not had a console since super nes. I have been putting pc's together since 93'. The reason why it seems innovation is stopping is because its slowing down. The tech has been released so fast within the past 20 that it becomes difficult for all companies to catch up. Example: memory has become so fast that processors cant keep up. I have triple channel memory 24gigs total that my I7 960 cant even utilize. Now thats only triple channel, quad channel is the form of memory that is the new memory specs. The new processors Sandy and Ivy bridges still wont be able to utilize that quad channel mem. The only good things to come from the future processors are smaller, energy efficiency and cooler temp from the lack of energy use. Still they are being outdone by memory speed. After that we should see over the years processors getting larger because you can only build a working processor so small. Theres some computer mathematical law which I cant remember that deals with the small chip that can be created. But mother boards will be able to complement them together. As for graphics cards nvidia is releasing their 600 series next year but we wont see true graphical innovation till the 800 series. Me I'm gonna get me a 580 by march and sit on my comp for at least 4 years before I rebuild again.

[Tessera]

Consoles are not holding back pc innovation. There just more popular.

And why is that..? In this day and age, most people own a personal computer. So then, why do you feel that consoles are more popular..?

Have you considered that the reason might be because the major publishers are PUSHING all of their products towards the console market..?

Because that is exactly what they have been doing, for the past six or seven years.

[BloodyKidney]

Gaming market, they have always been more popular. As for pc of course more people own them but that may not be the case due to portable devices (like the one Im using). PC sales have dwindled within the past fiscal year while sales for tablets and smartphones are on the rise. Soon the only people who will enjoy the use of a desktop are those who can put them together.

Past six to seven years, they have always been aiming for consoles. Its always been more profitable. PC gaming has always been a niche market that still gets used(sure sales are great on some titles but think of the majority) because the programers end up wanting to go outside the box(xbox that is) Look at Alan Wake almost two years after it came out on console its gonna be on PC(steam). PC games will always be made but it wont be a priority that the lot of use want it to be.

And for other pruducts besides games well TVs and Bluray players are getting that attension too.

[Tessera]

Actually, the reason the publishers prefer the console platforms is because (1) they don't have to compete with modders and (2) they don't have to compete with online piracy. That is why consoles are more profitable... not because of any shortage of PC's out there.

From a hardware standpoint, everyone knows (or should know) that the PC is a superior platform for 3-D gaming. So if the publishers are moving away from the PC market, then you can be sure that the devs are not in agreement with them. Any dev worth his salt would rather showcase his game at its best... and that isn't gonna happen on ANY of the consoles which are currently available.

[BloodyKidney]

Well I see your point about programing modding but hardware modding to play pirated console games is still big. Hell when I was working at best buy groups of guys would buy thermal paste and ask me if the store sold sodding gear. I knew what they were doing and didnt care(cause I got paid by the hour) Pirating for consoles is not an excuse for why gaming is done for consoles. It all about the buck man. They could through every excuse at us for why they dont make a more pc games and it would be bull cause its all about the Benjamins.

[perez007usa]

It all about the buck man. They could through every excuse at us for why they dont make a more pc games and it would be bull cause its all about the Benjamins.

 And they still put out crappy games in the process, while they laugh at us, when going to the bank!

[Tessera]

So stop buying new games. And then they'll stop laughing.

[perez007usa]

Tess, how long have we been saying this. But, they still go out and buy, and get pissed when the game doesn't produce. One of these days they will get burn so much, maybe then, they will stop....     I won't hold my breath.