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Three-Way Comparison Shows PCs Slaying Consoles In Dragon Age Inquisition
MojoKid writes: "BioWare's long-awaited Dragon Age Inquisition has dropped for the PS4, Xbox One, and PCs. A comparison of the visuals in key scenes between all three platforms shows that while the PC variant clearly looks the best in multiple areas (as it should), there's evidence of good, intelligent optimization for consoles and PCs alike. After the debacle of Assassin's Creed Unity, Inquisition could provide an important taste of how to do things right. As expected though, when detail levels are increased, the PC still pulls away with the best overall visuals. The Xbox One and PS4 are largely matched, while PC renders of characters have better facial coloring and slightly more detailed textures. The lighting models are also far more detailed on the PC version with the PS4 following behind. The Xbox One, in contrast, is rather muddy. Overall, the PC and PS4 are closest in general detail, with the Xbox One occasionally lagging behind.
PC will always beat console.
Consoles are obsolete when they come out.
PC graphics hardware isn't obsolete until a month after it comes out.
Okay...
the PC is objectively better.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I see what you did there. Don't do that. This is Slashdot, not "10 reasons" and "you won't believe what happened next".
And they haven't really done anything regarding hthe "stop shitting all over customers" promise they threw out on a PR damage control press conference.
PC is the best then PS4 then Xbox One. I guess hardware does matter when it comes to gaming. Anyone else not surprised? As for Xbox, it looks like they will be behind until the next generation unless they update the hardware. The ESRAM buffer does not seem to be making up the gap as they hoped it would.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Apparently, it's pretty bad. I bought this for my wife yesterday and she's pretty frustrated with the mouse+keyboard controls on the PC. Apparently, it was developed with a console controller in mind. She HATES controllers; it's one of the reasons she is strictly a PC gamer. Here is a thread about it on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/2mnbyl/dragon_age_inquisition_not_enjoying_the_pc/
I'm thinking about getting her a Razor Orbweaver for her machine; I'm hoping that it may solve some of the problems:
http://www.razerzone.com/gb-en/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-orbweaver
665: The mark on the forehead of Satan's slightly less evil brother, Stan.
When creating comparison images, use PNG not JPG. One of the images compares the texture detail on the face, but the "more detailed" PC image just shows more JPEG artifacts. That indirectly shows there was probably detail there, but you can't really see it. If you do JPEG it, use the ridiculously high settings.
Almost all screenshots look virtually the same save for one example where the lighting was different as if they tweaked a spot light somewhere (art difference not technical)
It's not even like the SNES vs Genesis days or Amiga vs ST, where the graphics were usually similar but a bit different. It's more like comparing a Quake 2 engine game on different computers.. Every computer runs it at full detail (even back in the day, almost) so you're always looking at the same assets.
Also, if a big fat GPU only gives you more pixels that look the same.. maybe the pixels aren't worth that much if the consoles are doing it at 900p.
Next thing will be to get the smallest and cheapest 4K display you can find, at least an arm length away ; play at a low non native res (even down to 1280x720 which is one third in both axises). Should be looking good enough (add 2x AA or the latest "smart AA") with no scaling artifacts to be seen. A rather cheap GPU (minimum 2GB gddr5) should do. But the biggest annoyance with PC gaming is having to replace CPU, motherboard and RAM just for the games. My 5 year old hardware feels like it's got at minimum another 5 years of life before it, but would probably run crappy new games at 20 fps even with a fat GPU and Windoze.
I didn't realize this had come out yet. Frankly, I don't care about graphics (or at least, as long as they're not worse than DA1, which I'm sure they're not). I'm also already wedded to my game-playing system of choice, and one game's output isn't going to change that one whit.
What I'm interested in is the game itself, and I haven't seen any headlines for that. Did I just miss the article for the release of a sequel to an AAA game, or did we skip that and go right to the graphics analysis? How is the game? Is it more like the first one, which I loved, or is it more like the second one, which I avoided because of all the crazy changes they made to it. Basically, am I gonna want to buy it?
Proposal for a slashdot poll: does anyone really actually care about the graphics on a game? Especially at the level we're talking about here? If the answer is more than 10% I'd be shocked, and if it's closer to 3%, I wouldn't be surprised at all.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Gaming PCs already exist. Everybody knows about them. A lot of people choose not to buy them. What's to be gained by taking away options from consumers?
Personally I enjoy my XBox very much, and have about zero interest in getting a gaming PC. If I was into MMORPGs or was a hard-core FPS player that would probably be different.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
How many console generations and Comparison videos do we have to write this type of article about before it stops being a thing? Breaking news everyone, a $400 piece of hardware cannot compete with hardware that has no upper price limit. The interesting thing is that I spent $500 on a PC a year ago and I ended up with hardware very close to the PS4. Guess what? The PS4 actually runs my games ever so slightly better on the PS4 than my "cheap" PC. This could be due to Console optimization, or my PC's optimization, or any other number of factors. They're different things for different purposes.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
How many PCs in your household do you have to upgrade with a $500 video card?
One that's going to play games like the latest Assassin's Creed or Dragon Age on anything higher than "shit." Cheapest videocard I saw that even even met their base "recommended" requirements was almost as expensive as an entire PS4 or Xbox One. No thank you.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
when I bought my ps4, it was a very cheap high-quality 3d blu ray player. It also happened to play games, which I enjoy. Instead of spending $2k on a PC to plug in to my $8k home theatre setup, I plug in a PS4 and it works great. I /suppose/ I could plug a PC into one of the AUX ports in front, and then awkwardly try to find a place to put my keyboard and muss around with a mouse...or - and this is just an alternative - I could use a little handheld controller thingy that pairs up with my PS4. Decisions, decisions. My overall experience with a 65" TV and hifi 7.1 sound while sitting comfortably on my couch is WAY higher, in my experience, than it would be sitting in my office upstairs - even if the graphics had slightly more detail on the PC.
That way I can then have a laptop that I can use for work, and get a mid-range "gaming" laptop so it is relatively decent for a while, but not actually use it for games much...instead, I use it for home, school, work, etc. And it only needs cost me $1200 or so. I could spend $3k on a gaming laptop, but then I'd have a 17" screen with stereo sound, instead of a 65" screen with 7.1 surround. Maybe some of us don't want multiple PCs? Maybe some of us want a better overall experience, instead of just having slightly better graphics detail? Maybe those of us like that are a big enough market that consoles do actually sell, despite gaming PCs being an option?
What is stopping you from plugging your laptop into your big screen and surround sound? Both devices will have HDMI, no doubt your 7.1 reciever will have HDMI in/out, whats the problem?
Infact the consoles only support 5.1, and while PC games also only support 5.1 you have the option of using third party software to upmix or EQ the sound to your hearts desire. This is also especially useful for blurays (I use Jriver or other EQ software to boost the LFE on some films), so the PC/laptop has now also replaced your bluray player and any DSP hardware (e.g DCX2496/miniDSP/nanoAVR) you may have for your surround sound. It will also replace your streaming device such as Roku if you have one.
Controller? Are you serious? Wireless gamepads have been available for PCs since long before the consoles started using them, plus you have the choice of hundreds of different controller designs, in addition to a mouse/keyboard (which is undeniably superior for many game types, RTS and FPS for example). PS4 controller doesn't fit in your unusually big (or small) hands, you are shit out of luck. I have a wireless (USB dongle) gamepad that I paid £11 for nearly 10 years ago, the range is superior to any console controllers, the battery life is immense (hundreds of hours play from 4xAAA batteries), and its basically a Playstation controller but scaled up by 20% in all dimensions, perfect for me.
I too have a nice TV with a high-end surround system (although only 5.1 because of space restrictions) and ALL the content is provided by a gaming PC that cost £600 4 years ago (however I am just about to spend another £150 on a GPU that should last another 4 years). That is incredible value. I do own a Xbox360 but that is only to play Halo 3.
What on earth are you smoking? A decently clocked i3 is sufficient (CPU-wise) for the vast majority of games. A 6-year old i5/i7 would even suffice. GPU? $200 for an R9 290, $120 for an R9 280X. That's not expensive at all for (TRUE) 1080p gaming.
Some are a pain, most aren't.
A lot of titles have nice (often 3rd party) mod managers now which'll download mods, keep them updated, and allow you to selectively disable them- all from a simple GUI. When I recently replayed Skyrim I spent about an hour or so browsing through all of the mods on Nexus, and installing those that look interesting, and in my mind it made the game a lot more fun.
I admit there were a couple that were slightly broken in odds ways, such as a custom weapon which was heavily overpowered, but it didn't take much effort to just turn them off again.
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Considering the Steam hardware survey...more like high-range. Take a look at the most common graphics cards, CPU's and whatnot. Dual-core is the most common with the most common graphics card being an Intel integrated one.