Slashdot Mirror
DirectX Architect — Consoles as We Know Them Are Gone
ThinSkin writes "DirectX architect Alex St. John swims against the current and predicts the demise not of PC gaming, but of game consoles, in an exclusive two-part interview at ExtremeTech. In part one, Alex blasts Intel for pushing its inferior onboard graphics technology to OEMs, insists that fighting piracy is the main reason for the existence of gaming consoles, and explains how the convergence of the GPU and the CPU is the next big thing in gaming. Alex continues in part two with more thoughts on retail and 3D games, and discusses in detail why he feels 'Vista blows' and what's to become of DirectX 10."
A DirectX architect says that console games are on the way out, and PC games are coming back. Surprise, surprise.
For gaming, consoles are about as "Just Works" (no Xbox jokes, thanks) as you get. For people who lack computer expertise, but like playing games, how can PCs beat that for the time being?
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I use a console when I want to step away from the computer. Console games have some advantages over computers, one you never have to check for system requirements.
As to the demise, I mean lots of people (me included) are still playing vintage game consoles. Heck I got an Atari Paddle Set that works of AA batteries that I still play. But perhaps that says more about the timelessness of Breakout and Pong than consoles...
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
WildTangent actually gained some attention back in 2001, when the offered a web 3D plugin and a dev-enviroment that didn't cost a bazillion dollars. They let their heels drag, only kept offering their plattform for Windows and basically ignored any opinion-leaders in multimedia or VM-based gaming & 3D. WildTangent today is next to insignificant and their 'Orb' VM console (which afaict only runs on MS OSes) is nothing but a pimped WildTangent Plugin/Player and won't gain any traction beyond some niche group who wants to play a console game on the PC. For whatever reasons there may be.
Bottom line: Nothing to see here, move along.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Console gaming will eventually kill PC gaming. It is cheaper for developers since they don't have to make the game to work on 20 million PC configurations, only 1 console configuration. Plus, consumers have to spend a fortune to upgrade their systems to play the newest games. Even some video cards alone are more pricey then a whole console system.
I just recently bought a console. The main reason was because I was tired of needing to buy a new graphics card every year in order to to display the best graphics and have the best performance for the newest games and the only reason I needed to upgrade was for games. I did this when I went from PCI to AGP many yeas ago, thereby needing to buy a new motherboard, new processor, memory, etc. (I have also upgraded the motherboard several times since then in order to have a faster processor and memory.)
I didn't want to do that again in order to upgrade to PCI-E, so I bought a 360 console for less than half the price and I don't intend to upgrade my PC again for at least two or three years. I think a 3.2 GHz processsor and 2 GB of memory will be fine for software development for at least that long.
I also wanted to play games on a large screen and not have to sit in the same chair where I work all day when I'm relaxing.
1) He claims to be a 3D expert, but for some reason he only worked on the 2D aspects of DirectX while he was at Microsoft. (DirectDraw, etc)
2) His current software and games are very much NOT 3D, so he is commenting on the 3D market why again?
3) His argument about PCs not being good gaming platforms is that they don't contain enough DRM? Truly, go back and read this again. What the hell does he want, a gun pointing a peoples faces if their mouse gets near the rip or copy button?
4) Throughout the article they keep talking about WildTangent Orb, which is a program that competes DIRECTLY with Windows Vista & Windows Marketplace & Games for Windows, in Rating games based on system performance, and providing a consistent expectation for the gamer.
5) WildTangent huh... Ok, anyone that installed this software or has removed it from a friends computer would shudder to think that this guy has any insight when it comes to programming at all, let alone 3D gaming. (WildTangent is borderline Spyware, and the games are kludges, slow, etc.)
6) He thinks DirectX is bad and Vista is bad, but argue that they the best that can be done with 3D gaming. Hmm..
7) He talks about the DirectX hardware abstraction levels and implies DirectX 10 is further from the hardware than previous versions. This is really really inaccurate, as DirectX even opens a new diret pipeline for shoving calculations and physics to the GPU. The only place DirectX 10 is 'further' from hardware is the removal of DirectSound, but this has been replaced in 10.1 with a new hardware layer that is compatible with the new Vista sound subsystem. This stuff makes me think the guy is insane, has a chip or both.
8) His argues about current 3D technology is tricks, but raytracing is real 3D? Um, raytracing is also freaking tricks, especially if you work to get any performance out of it. (And this is just in studio level rendering we are talking about, let alone gaming). Moving raytracing to games or adding it to current 3D technologies would be great, but it is going to take more 'tricks' for good performance and STILL WILL NOT BE REAL 3D, any more than current gaming technologies. He is an expert and yet doesn't understand this? Holy cow...
9) The only thing I can agree with in the article is the portion about onboard Video being a bane to the gaming industry, and Intel being a horrible proponent of bad entry level 3D chipsets that can't even run Flight Sim 98, let alone a current game with more than 15fps.
Getting great graphics from the next generation of raster engines is going to cost even more. Sure, you can sit there and micromanage every goddamn thing on the screen and get graphics that look good enough that you can't tell them from optically correct rendering at a glance. But that costs you five times as much as building a model and telling the graphics engine to render it, and letting the software figure out where you need shadows and hilights and bloom.
The other side of this is the Myst problem. Remember Myst? Remember how you could only go where they're rendered the scenes? Now in many modern games, guess what, you can only go where they've prepared the scenes. You can't even walk across a flowerbed and around the back of the tavern, because they haven't prepared the back of the tavern. you get puzzles that involve figuring out what rope to grab to climb up a 45 degree slope, and if they haven't decided that you're going to be able to climb that slope you can't... even if you've got elf boots and a magic rope.
Why? Because it's so damned expensive to get them looking good.
Let the computer do the stuff that we know how to make a computer do... simulation... and let the humans worry about making the simulation fun.
I happen to like FPS games. I also happen to hate FPS games on consoles because I much prefer using a mouse over a joystick to aim. Chalk it up to my inability to learn how to use the console controller correctly or chalk it up to the inadequacy of the controller for these kinds of games. Either way, I still prefer playing with a mouse. This is a huge reason I don't play many console games.
As long as pc's have free online play and user mods and maps that are free Consoles will still be behind.
There are some payed for mods on the consoles but they are not the same as the free stuff on the pc.
Also who would want to pay for LIVE and for the game as well paying a monthly fee for the game for something like WOW?
There are also a lot of cool free and open pc games that will never be a consoles.
Also there are games that work better with a mouse and mouse are not used that much on a consoles.
Games also like to use the web and other stuff on the same system that they game on.
Now, on the mailing list for this driver, I immediately got access to the lead developers. OK, they knew I was Bruce, but it looked like they were treating all callers the same way. They connected me with Intel BIOS programmers, etc.
Now, imaging having this problem in the Windows world. You would be routed to a call-center employee in India who would go through a script with you.
I am using the same driver with i915 in an old Sony laptop and i965 in a new duo motherboard. Both seem to work fine. I don't know how much lower-level DirectX is than GL.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Vista's multimedia channels are DRM encumbered. This was thought to be a good thing(pro-RIAA) except it slows down all mp3/aac you can play on the system, even in games...
Now even microsoft encourages game developers to use the system libraries, for playing those standard formats(like they did on XP). Except now they make some games all but unplayable.
I'd say that's an example of vista sucks, and it's pretty closely tied to DirectSound, not DirectX.
Alex St. John no longer works for Microsoft. In fact he left there in 1997.
Microsoft didn't come up with the conclusion, Alex St. John did.
I'm not sure how the world's most expensive DVDplayer enters into your argument.
What do you get in exchange for that? A PC (complete with hard drive, internet connection, support for usb, etc), excpet you can't use it like a PC.
That's the whole point.
When was the last time your Play station got a virus? How much do you spend on your Play station's anti-virus software every month? How many controllers can you plug into your PC? When was the last time you had to install a game on your XBox? Or install drivers for your newest controller? Or work through compatibility issues between your latest game and your PS3's GPU?
It's also true that for the price of a microwave, I can get a nice laptop, that connects to the internet and all that. But it kinda sucks at heating food, doesn't it?
There's a reason the Wii is selling so well, even though it doesn't even support HD graphics. People don't want something with internet, that can do their taxes, that catches viruses, that they can read their email on, or that has the bestest fastest hardware.
They want something they can play fun games on, with other people, in their living area where the television is, on something that isn't the size of a desktop PC. And they want those games to work when they plug them in, every time. About the limit you can expect from a console consumer is blowing the dust off the cartridge pins.
Are PC's more powerful? Sure. But there is a whole bunch of overhead that comes with the advantages of the PC over a game console that are just not worth it to the majority of console players.
paintball
Well you could hook up 4 controllers to a PC (USB), but most games don't support them.
The other advantage to game consoles is that they hold up better than most regular PCs. That may change with hard drives and other parts to fail. I have a NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, Genesis, 32x, Sega CD, Dreamcast, and GBA all working. i can play the same games on them now I could play in the past. With Windows, games that ran on Windows 98 no longer run. Many games don't even make it to the next windows release. For instance, LucasArts games have terrible compatibility issues. Some of the win98 era games didn't even make it past a DirectX update! Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic has terrible memory leaks and graphics card bugs. (its' great otherwise) I've got a pile of games I can't play anymore that also won't run in emulators yet due to 3d or opengl requirements. I don't have a PC that will run Windows 98 handy anymore either.
It is very rare that I get rid of a game console, but PCs come and go. (and windows versions) In fact, the only console I've sold in the last 12 years was my xbox.
PC gaming has a place, and some companies like id and blizzard know how to make games run on several os versions (or patch them). I couldn't imagine WoW on a console or QuakeWars. I hate FPS on consoles. They look bad and the controls suck. SImulations tend to be better on PCs and Macs too.
I think there is a market for both. If you look at articles, it seems like cell phone gaming is the hot ticket right now anyway.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
And so if you see a PC that is not denuded by things interfering with it by Microsoft and Intel, in many cases like an Intel crappy graphics chip, or a bloated Vista operating system, it's a fantastic gaming platform. And the shame is, if the low end of the PC market, the mass market PCs that everybody buys did not come with these crappy graphics chips on them and was not burdened with a fat OS, that the PC would be a larger contiguous gaming platform than all the next-generation consoles combined, probably would be clearly superior;
and then proves how great the PC gaming market is by mentioning the success of a game that does not need much in the way of graphics hardware,
the PC is the home of the most profitable game in history generating more revenue than the top 10 console games combined--that's World of Warcraft generating a 1.2 billion dollars a year in revenue, that's a pure PC game.
I am so tired of the PC gaming industry blaming its demise on Intel giving people cost effective graphics that do exactly what their users want. The whole reason for the demise of PC gaming is because the market split because consumers want different types of computing devices at prices they can afford. The PC has tons of possibilities, but all the industry seems to create are rehashes of the same old ideas; mostly FPS and RTS. Traditional PC gaming is not dead, but it is in a losing battle with the consoles because it is failing to innovate. The real PC gaming growth is in small games that are fun, addictive, and sometimes are the center of online communities. Hell, I had to kid a Yahoo Pool addiction a few years ago and I don't think I will ever see anything like that on a console.
When was the last time your Play station got a virus?
PCs may be notorious for viruses. That's if you don't keep them secure.
Besides, a PC game-only PC wouldn't have to worry about viruses if they never downloaded anything from the internet. Granted, even if they download stuff, it takes, what, under 20 seconds to scan a file? I've gotten a couple of game patches with viruses.
How much do you spend on your Play station's anti-virus software every month?
AVG, many FOSS alternatives, etc. are free as in beer.
How many controllers can you plug into your PC?
Lets see: Joystick, keyboard, mouse, gamepad, guitar...
You don't even need some of those. A standard keyboard has over 100 keys and replaces gamepads. Then the mouse replaces joysticks and, again gamepads.
When was the last time you had to install a game on your XBox?
Good point.
Or install drivers for your newest controller?
Never, since all mine are plug and play. When's the last time a wireless controller was standard with your PC and you had to buy extra things to make it so you don't have to use batteries?
PC: Mouse to USB, Keyboard to USB, headphones to headphone jack, microphone to microphone jack
360: Batteries to controller, trial and error making controller work since I didn't read manual, headset which I never use except on Live, batteries to trash after only 12 hours of straight playing then find more batteries. OR: Go to store, try to find a freaking charge pack, plug in controller, then plug in 360.
Or work through compatibility issues between your latest game and your PS3's GPU?
Or had the ability to work through customizing graphics to meet your tastes?
It's also true that for the price of a microwave, I can get a nice laptop, that connects to the internet and all that. But it kinda sucks at heating food, doesn't it?
What? That makes no sense. Okay, it makes sense, but not in context.
There's a reason the Wii is selling so well, even though it doesn't even support HD graphics. People don't want something with internet, that can do their taxes, that catches viruses, that they can read their email on, or that has the bestest fastest hardware.
So I suppose Xbox Live is wasted since people don't want internet? I suppose people don't have PCs, but have Xboxes now?
They want something they can play fun games on, with other people, in their living area where the television is, on something that isn't the size of a desktop PC.
How big is a PC case? You do also realize that there are S-Video hookups, right? There's also other ways to hook up a PC to the TV. No monitor required.
And they want those games to work when they plug them in, every time. About the limit you can expect from a console consumer is blowing the dust off the cartridge pins.
The secret to stable PC gaming: Clean installations of Windows without viruses and other malware.
Are PC's more powerful? Sure. But there is a whole bunch of overhead that comes with the advantages of the PC over a game console that are just not worth it to the majority of console players.
So, customizable graphics, modding, (generally) free internet play, 100+ keys, a mouse, and fully customizable controls are not worth it? Their loss.
As far as I am concerned, they both have their pros and cons. PCs cons are major compatibility issues if you have borderline hardware, a dirty system, or old drivers. Drivers also have to be updated all the freaking time.
Consoles, on the other hand, seem to lose par with PC in terms of graphics after the first year and a half (unless they have super powerful hardware unavailable to the PC market). They also have forced control schemes like FPSs: Maybe I want melee to be 'right trigger'? But, no! It won't let me! It must be 'B', 'ri
http://sourcemage.org/ - Have fun
The games on NES scrolled better and more smoothly than Commander Keen. Gran Turismo or Ridge Racer IV felt faster and smoother than Grand Prix Legends or CART Racing from Microsoft. I loved GPL and CART Racing, but there ya go.
I respect Alex St. John, but as Apple and MS proved, the most technically superior solution doesn't always win. For me, the choices are down more to comfort and ease than technology: TVs and couches are more comfortable environments than monitors and desk chairs. Disc --> console --> playing is easier and faster than PC startup --> install --> driver download --> install --> restart --> startup --> run --> crash --> patch --> STEAM ID check --> etc.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
I just put 4 Gigs of RAM in my laptop, so it heats up food just fine, thank you very much.
1. Use Firefox. .exe/.wmv/(etc) filespam on file sharing networks (if that's your sort of thing). .exe format en masse is legit.
2. Use a firewall (Windows Firewall does the trick).
3. Avoid suspicious
4. For the love of God, use Firefox.
5. Never click on ads.
6. Never install bundled adware or browser toolbars.
7. Nobody offering free screensavers/themes/ringtones/pr0n/minigames in
8. Train yourself to recognize spam in all forms, on all media. Every trendy Internet product, service, feature or meme will have a spam-clone, made either to spread badware or to conduct phishing scams - and you must be ready for both.
9. ???
10. No viruses and no anti-virus! Enjoy your new computer experience. You're welcome.
So that's the list for the PC. Looks like you have 7 legitimate items that you have to do. While they all may be common sense for you or me, they're not common sense for the average consumer.
For comparison, here's the list for the console:
1. Uh.. nothing.
See?
paintball
Does the standard run linux or windows?
Which of the 400 different controllers on the PC market do you use? And which drivers?
ATI or Nvidia graphics? Because picking one locks out the other to a degree.
The reason consoles exist is because once you dictate a standard down to the point where everything always works you can pretty much only have a console.
I realise it would be awesome for me and most of my friends if developers dropped consoles and went PC full time but think of the children (GASP! it's relevant); Little Timmy doesn't want to spend any time fiddling with settings to make his new game work, he just wants to plug it in and go.
To be sincere, it may seem you just described a mac.
I've also just described my refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker, and vacuum cleaner, but you can't play games on those either.
(duck)
paintball
> Little Timmy doesn't want to spend any time fiddling with settings to make
> his new game work, he just wants to plug it in and go.
To hell with Little Timmy. I'm a senior systems developer with roots in the PC repair field, in the early 90s while I was in school. I am perfectly capable of specifying, purchasing, and assembling a hardware platform suitable for whatever I might want to play.
But you know what? I spend about 40 hours a year gaming. It takes 15 minutes to buy a Wii and some controllers and 10 more to ask to the Wii nerd at Walmart what doesn't suck. That's it. 25 minutes invested. When I want to play games, I DON'T want to piss around installing an OS, patches, making sure Direct X version 18.4 is installed, blah ablah ablah abl h.
PC is *shitty* platform for games because it is _general purpose_. NOBODY wants to come home and work to play.
(PS, are there any good FPSs for Wii?)
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?