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Are Consoles Holding Back PC Gaming?
An anonymous reader writes "Despite all the excitement over Nvidia's upcoming Fermi GPU, there is still a distinct lack of DirectX 11 games on the market. This article points out that while the PC has returned to favor as a gaming platform, consoles are still the target for most developers, and still provide the major limitations on the technological sophistication of game graphics. Inside the Xbox 360 sits an ATI Xenos GPU, a DirectX 9c-based chip that bears similarity to the Radeon X1900 series of graphics cards (cards whose age means that they aren't even officially supported in Windows 7). Therein lies the rub. With the majority of PC games now starting life as console titles, games are still targeted at five-year-old DirectX 9 hardware."
StarCraft all the way! *zerg rush* Dang it...
Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
Why would you target DirectX 11, when nobody really wants to use it? PC gaming would be better off if you targeted OpenGL.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Why are modern games being judged based on their technological prowess? How is this holding back PC games? Games produced for five year old tech still run on modern machines. So what if games are targeted towards years-old technology? Are they fun? Are people buying them? There's more to a game that shading effects and the hundreds of hours that dedicated teams put into making realistic water ripples.
Games are sold based upon gameplay and fun. In this current market, those are more easily found in the console market. I don't see that changing. //PC Gamer since 1986 ///Now happily a 100% console gamer ////Though I love to play Cave Story
There is no shortage of MMOGs. The category is growing, even, at an insane rate, despite (or because of?) WoW's dominance. There are only 24 hours in a day, and peeps who play MMOGs can never "beat" their game -- they are continuously rewarded for playing, constantly and forever, and pay monthly for the privilege in many cases.
Many no longer have the time or inclination to start a new, one-off PC game. I recall an interview with supposed "Diablo-Killer" Titan's Quest creators who attributed the poor sales of their well-reviewed game to the fact that their prospective player-base could not break away from their MMOGs.
...prefer game consoles. For starters, you're dealing with a uniform hardware platform. The core specs and capabilities don't change too often, only about once every 5 years or so. So if you are developing for the Xbox360, you only have to get it to work on one 360 and it should work on all. On a PC, you're encountering a vast array of hardware configurations. X CPU with Y Motherboard using Z GPU. So while you can optimize for a number of these, you can't do it for all and that leads to a certain percentage of your customer base complaining.
That and pirating console games is a bit tougher for the average consumer. Usually requires a hardware mod chip and most people don't feel they have the technical skill to install one. On the PC, piracy is pretty much fire up bittorrent, go to the piratebay, and download.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Why should devs adopt DX11? Because the last iteration of DX lasted about a year and a half before being ditched and extended/redone? Because the majority of the market doesn't have DX11 cards? Because there's no clear advantage in developing to DX11 rather than DX9c?
Why should developers shift from something they know to something that they don't know as well unless there was significant profit motive to do so? There simply isn't in this case.
The real question is: Is the rush for performance and graphics killing the fun in video games? I think so.
Does anyone really think this cycle is any different? We're pretty much at the mid-point of the console cycle: PCs are flexing their muscle (again) and developers are reluctant to design just for PCs. But, as always, more will jump back on the PC bandwagon as it becomes obvious that the PC is the place to be for graphic quality (and the market loves eye candy). Eventually the console makers will decide to release new hardware to try to coax them back, and we'll repeat this cycle again.
So what's changed?
I'm not an huge gamer, but my preference is to sit in front of my TV on my XBox 360 or Wii when playing games. In truth I couldn't give a rat's derrière about the graphics of the games I play so long as I find them compelling and fun. Then again when your business model is based solely on churning out the same game time after time and you only differentiate the games by the graphics I suppose this argument becomes reasonable.
Hey game makers, here's a clue: In the last few weeks I have played video games quite a bit due to a knee injury that's meant I can't do much else. If I think seriously about the amount of time I've spent playing video games recently, the one game that really sticks in my mind and has me itching to play it more is Bit Trip Beat on the Wii. Realistically I probably could've run that game on my 25 year old Amiga if I still had it... but damn that game's fun!
//PC Gamer since 1986 ///Now happily a 100% console gamer ////Though I love to play Cave Story
Your example of Cave Story just illustrated another point: PCs tend to be better for games from smaller studios. Indie games on PCs are commonplace; indie games on Sony and Nintendo consoles need a jailbreak unless some major label notices the developer. See Bob's Game for an example of what Nintendo can put developers through. And the modding tools for PC games tend to be far more complete than for console games. For example, the stage editor in Super Smash Bros. Brawl is limited to just a few predetermined pieces on a grid; there's no way to add custom pieces, custom characters, or a custom soundtrack.
The simple answer is that 95% of the PC gaming market** can use DX9 while only 56% can use DX10.
* That 39% for DX9 includes 22% people with DX10 hardware using DX9 Win XP.
** Assuming Steam account holders who allow the HW survey are indicative of the relevant PC gaming market. Personally I'm inclined to assume it's not far off, at least not so far that it matters.
If not being able to use the latest shiny things is holding things back, then I say good. Why should I have to spend 2 grand on the latest and greatest hardware every 6 months just to play the latest fad game, when the computer I bought 2 or 3 years ago still serves perfectly well for everything else? Computers are expensive, and last I checked most of the world is dragging it's feet out of financial crisis. Additionally, we reached the 'good enough' mark a long time ago. Pushing the technical envelope for the sake of pushing has been an exercise of diminishing returns for a while now.
The Nintendo Wii in particular has proven a very important point. Hardware spec wise, it's a pile of crap. Yet it's also a wildly popular platform. Why? Affordability is a significant factor. Also it's because instead of focusing on massive polygon counts and 1600x antialiasing and whatnot other geewhizbang features, they make games that are enjoyable to play.
If I wanted high quality photorealistic graphics withe pixel perfect shading, etc, I can go outside. It's better than 1600x1200x32 bits out there.
Now get off my lawn!
Console = 5 years old PC hardware with locked options.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
>>>The Wii is a fisher price funbox designed for non-gamers and drunk idiots
Sure if you pretend that Nintendo doesn't have a 30 history of creating excellent games. I don't own a Wii but the games I've played (Zelda Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3) are just as good as those games I found on my Gamecube, N64, Super Nintendo, and NES. And just as good as on my Xbox, PS2, or PS1. I can't believe your comment was marked "insightful" since it's mostly just fanboyism.
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>>>Most console gamers have short attention spans and prefer flashy lights and 5 mins of intense adrenaline to a game with a story.
How ironic you post this on an article about how PC games are not shiny enough. If Pc gamers care more about story than flashy lights, then why worry if the graphics are "only DirectX 10 instead of 11?) Probably cause you're wrong. I've met lots of PC gamers who refuse to play a classic like Wing Commander or Baldurs Gate 1 just because it's pixelated.
As for story, if console games don't like story, why are RPGs so popular on consoles? Once again I question why your fanboyish anti-console rant was labeled "insightful". Trollish is more like it.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
There are much bigger issues than graphics in this "Console/PC" debate. The really big issues are things like user interface and game controls. Take Oblivion for example- that game's interface was significantly altered to accommodate console play, which made it a sub-optimal for the PC: an overly simplistic UI and relatively poor use of screen real estate.
PC gamers expect a lot more from their games- private servers, LAN play, mods, etc.; and as the Modern Warfare 2 debacle showed us, game companies are showing less & less love for the PC. There's tons more money (and less hassle) to be make on the consoles. That's a MUCH bigger hurdle than "Console graphics are the holding PCs back!"
What's really interesting to me is how MMOGs haven't really made it to the console. I think that's because of the console's revenue model, which really only supports "throwaway" games with a very short life span. You'd think a subscription-style game would have amazing appeal for console game-makers, but where are the games?
Yes, games are being held back by consoles. PC games used to push the edge of the envelope, not they simply follow the consoles. It's getting particularly bad, with many games designed for consoles and then poorly ported to PC. It wouldn't be so bad if the studios would at least make an effort to port them properly. I've come across all of these problems in many games over the past few years:
- Poorly designed menu systems that do not support mice (keyboard/gamepad only)
- Poorly designed keyboard maps that don't follow established PC standards, which leads to the next item
- Inability to remap or customize keyboard controls
- Games which do not support standard PC peripherals (e.g. some PC games only support console gamepads. I don't own an Xbox so don't force me to buy a damn Xbox gamepad to play your game). Same for driving wheels/pedals.
- Games with severely limited graphics options. These are a must to tailor the game experience to the hardware and performance expectations.
- Games with crippled graphics effects (limited draw distances, low-res textures, artificially limited environments, etc)
- Games with poor savegame support, or only support checkpoints
- Games being launched on consoles, with PC ports following very late afterward (sometimes 6-12 months later or never)
I could go on and on. Literally, there are very few games I've purchased in the last 5 years which do not have at least one or two of the above problems, with a few managing to tick nearly all of the above. I blame the cross-platform game development environments which basically force the game design onto consoles with PC's being treated as second class citizens. It's not likely to change either, as consoles are very popular and many game studios see them as a more profitable market.
I don't hate consoles, they are fine for what they do and I happen to own 2 (Wii and PS2), but the games I play on consoles are vastly different than the games I play on PC. I want my PC games to push the envelop of technology, sadly this seems to be against the trend.
This used to be much more true when DirectX wasn't artificially limited to the OS version. You just downloaded your new DirectX version and went to town when you bought a new video card.
DirectX 10 became a "Vista exclusive", despite the fact that unofficial ports made it work on Windows XP without much muss or fuss. It was an artificial limitation. So, in order to upgrade from DirectX 9 to DirectX 10, you had to buy a new video card and a new OS. Even some Microsoft games artificially limited detail to make the game seem better on 10 than on 9. Of course, a few clever hackers exposed this as well. DirectX 11 is and update to DirectX 10 and similarly incompatible with Windows XP.
This bs has left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. Couple that with the absolutely absurd Digital Restrictions Management in some PC games and the taste is downright sour. (Related note: Honestly, if you knowingly buy an Ubisoft game at this point, you're an idiot... their games are basically useless because of DRM now.)
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
When you program a console you know exactly what hardware is available so you can create a "budget" for polygons which uses it 100%.
On a PC you have to program for 20 different levels of hardware capability and try to scale the graphics up/down accordingly. It never really works properly and programmers hate doing it.
There's also the issue of drivers. On a console you know what the drivers are and what bugs are present. On a PC you have no idea.
The stability/predictability of a console's environment is what gives it the edge over a PC, not raw processing power.
No sig today...
You'll have trouble measuring a real performance difference between OpenGL and Direct3D (which isn't surprising since both APIs are simply ways to queue up commands in buffers for the graphics card to execute)
Since Direct3D 9.0, both OpenGL and Direct3D are very equivalent in terms of features and ease of use. Neither is "more suited" to either games or serious use.
For long term projects OpenGL has been much more suited to "industrial" apps simply because it's a lot more stable. If you'd started a project ten years ago using Direct3D you'd have had to rewrite the graphics code three or four times by now. With OpenGL the ten-year-old code would still compile/run, no problem. This long-term stability has a downside in that OpenGL has a lot of accumulated cruft - functions which serve no real purpose these days or have better alternatives.
OpenGL ES is a cleaned-up, modern OpenGL which would be perfect for games but for some reason it's never really been pushed on desktop machines (which is a pity IMHO).
Direct3D is a teeny bit lower level when it comes to things like memory management (e.g. for fine control over where geometry/texture data goes) whereas OpenGL just says "leave it to the driver". This gives Direct3D a slight advantage for games.
The main reason Direct3D is used for games though is because Microsoft spends lots of money wining and dining the CEOs of games companies and making pretty presentations to the developers.
No sig today...
I'm a game developer. The only good point you make is that using OpenGL makes Mac ports a bit cheaper. The rest of your rant is bullshit, and if you're actually a gamedev (which I doubt) you should know better than to make such silly claims. There's a hell of a lot more to porting to a new platform than porting the graphics subsystem (and porting between DX and GL is trivial compared to what you have to do to squeeze stuff like physics onto console architectures).
We all want to use OpenGL because it's a nicer API than Direct3D
Hah! Bullshit. OpenGL might become a nicer API if Khronos ever gets their heads out of their asses and stops pandering to the CAD crowd. Until then it's an annoying mass of gotchas. Seriously, the backwards compatibility provisions in OpenGL make every Windows release look like a clean break from the prior version.
we can develop for it on our Macs, and our games will support just about every modern gaming platform imaginable (because we aren't tied to Microsoft's platforms).
Mac I'll grant you. What are these other modern gaming platforms? Seriously, what are they? Linux? Unless you mean all the mobile devices using OpenGL ES, but you need to rewrite significant portions of your engine and redo almost all of your art to get a reasonable experience on those, and a DX -> GL ES port is trivial when you're already doing all of that.
DirectX 11 doesn't support Macs, it doesn't support the PS2 or the PS3, it doesn't support the Wii, and it doesn't support most mobile devices.
Again, I'll grant you the Mac. What the fuck are you smoking as far as the rest goes? OpenGL doesn't magically give you free (or even meaningfully cheaper) ports to any of those platforms either:
PS2: No OpenGL here. Just a DMA controller and some hardware registers. The entire create/bind/release metaphor that both GL and DX are based around does not exist. The shading unit can't even express all of the common blend modes, and you have to do ridiculous gymnastics to fit textures into the tiny amount of video RAM you get. You should know this if you've ever worked with a PS2.
PS3: You're an idiot if you're using the GL library directly on the PS3. There's a reason Sony gives direct access to the hardware - if you care about performance you won't be using the wrapper libraries. But again, you'll be rewriting a bunch of your engine to get AI, physics, and other stuff running on the SPUs anyway and a graphics port from either DX or GL is fucking trivial next to that.
XBOX and XBOX 360: DirectX-ish API, so OpenGL gets you nothing here. Even if you start with a DX game you're still porting a bunch of code if you did anything worth mention since there are still fairly significant architectural differences between it and PC. About all you get out of the similarity is a good idea of what entry points will likely be named.
GameCube/Wii: Calling what those platforms expose "OpenGL" is just silly. The structural similarities between the libraries you get and OpenGL are trivial when compared with the mountains of restrictions, special cases, and other odd differences you'll be dealing with. And again, you're going to be rewriting a bunch of your engine to the execution environment so a 5% more direct graphics port saves you fuck all once you tack on the art changes and another QA cycle.
Mobile devices: we already covered the mobile devices. Have you actually worked on one? You should know better than to imply that you get magic free porting to them if you just use OpenGL. There's a hell of a lot more to a usable mobile port than flipping some defines and recompiling with GCC.
Seriously, the starting graphics API is fucking irrelevant to any serious porting effort. GL and DX have near identical capabilities, identical object lifetime management, trivially mappable entry points and trivially mappable state bits, and near identical performance and synchronization behaviors. Porting between the two is trivial compared all the other work a proper port requires.