News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Quote:
Sony and Microsoft simply can’t afford to compete, says Nvidia's Tony Tamasi.
Read more.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Yeah and SGI workstations had much better graphics than PCs for years. Didn't mean they were much good for gaming on..
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Well he's hardly going to be positive about the next set of consoles when they use their rivals graphics technology is he?
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MustardCutter
Well he's hardly going to be positive about the next set of consoles when they use their rivals graphics technology is he?
Well no admittedly not - but his point about the theoretical best console is hard to disagree with isn't it. I think this generation has shown the way for future consoles - essentially small form PCs to go in your living room, and as he points out, they are never going to exceed what is already available at the top end (or in this case, even mid-range) of the PC market.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Quote:
Originally Posted by
w1ntergr33n
Well no admittedly not - but his point about the theoretical best console is hard to disagree with isn't it. I think this generation has shown the way for future consoles - essentially small form PCs to go in your living room, and as he points out, they are never going to exceed what is already available at the top end (or in this case, even mid-range) of the PC market.
But as I illustrated, that counts for nothing if the market isn't worth developing for.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Quote:
NVIDIA spends 1.5 billion US dollars per year on research and development in graphics
Wonder how much AMD spend by comparison - given they've got the next gen console wins...
And while in sheer grunt the consoles may not outmuscle a PC, the games can be written much closer to the metal, and can use the hardware more efficiently to get much better performance than a similarly specced PC. There's a big difference between having a better spec, and having better performance... ;)
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
What he says is true, but that's like saying cars have 2 more wheels than motorcycles, not necessarily a truth worth printing.
The reason why Console's are at the price point they are is because they don't keep up with the latest and greatest. A top of the line nVidia graphics card can cost about as much as a PS4. People don't want to buy $900+ consoles and are generally happy to pay the $399 every 6-8 years and deal with the trade off in graphics, which many don't care about anyway(To a point).
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
nVidia there... not seeing the wood for the trees. :P
scaryjim pointed out, console developers have historically been given a lot of access to the system to really milk whatever chip it has for all its got. Console games more often than not operate around 30FPS so graphics can be more heavy handed than they otherwise would on the PC. Consoles can deliver an 'experience' in that if you buy a game, you can be pretty certain that you can play that game in a way that the developer intended for you to play it because they have tested it on a system that is pretty much the same as yours.
And to be frank, if you went up to a PS3 or XBox 360 owner now and asked; "how does GTA 5 look?", I'm sure it would be a majority responding positively. This is hardware stretching back more than 5 years at this point.
PCs will have better graphics parts but sometimes at more expense than the whole console, and with horsepower that mandates 1440 or multi monitor setups to be of any benefit. Some console gamers still game on 720p 'HD Ready' monitors, and when some people were asking where the RCA connectors were when the PS4 was unveilled, I nearly fell out of my chair.
So nVidia can go wave its GFLOP dong in the air all its likes but it will just be chasing numbers for its own sake.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
My thought on this is that CPUs are already going up by tiny amounts of performance every year, GPUs are going better but I wonder how long that will last. In that case, the doubling in performance that he said comes from having known specific hardware becomes *very* significant.
To put it another way, how many years will it be before you can buy a CPU twice as fast as Haswell?
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Colour me unimpressed ... NVidia exec says that the new consoles (AMD powered) have worse graphics than a PC can (where NVidia is in with a shot). Is this the same NVidia that said that the cutting edge was in tablets and mobile chipsets, not desktops?
Sure, if you've got the money, power and size budget it's very obvious that you'll end up with a better visual. Heck, my last graphics card cost more than I paid for my XBox. But, like in cpus, I'm beginning to think that we've reached a plateau of slow improvement with graphics. Is there really that much difference in real world capability between two cards of equivalent cost separated by three years for example?
Then again, there's more and more talk of "expandable" consoles like SteamBox/SteamOS - in which case that's surely a great half-way house between "black box" consoles and the "tinkerers paradise" that is modern PC's? Good market surely for any company wanting to sell a top end part as an upgrade.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kalniel
Yeah and SGI workstations had much better graphics than PCs for years. Didn't mean they were much good for gaming on..
Hmm, I'm not convinced - I seem to remember a couple of good games on that CD you sometimes got with a new Indy or Indigo. That flight simulator for example - loved that you could save a session, then reload it with your old track as a ghost. Guy I knew had a fiddle with it during a couple of lunchtimes and got a pretty good Red Arrows type display. ;) "system testing" ... honest! ;)
Then there was the infamous "dogfight" version. Just googled for that and it turns out that the programmer of that was one of the founders of 3dfx, who eventually got bought by NVidia.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Of course he's gonna say that. AMD has both XBone and PS4 under their belt.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kalniel
But as I illustrated, that counts for nothing if the market isn't worth developing for.
If you're arguing that the PC market isn't worth developing for (compared to the console market), then I think you may wish to vacate the rock you have been under and observe, for example, the numerous game engines developed to take advantage of DX features not available on contemporary consoles.
Additionally, SGI workstations were priced way, WAY outside of the consumer market. Nobody developed commercial games for them because the group of people who had spare time to play games on their machines and the group of people who could actually afford to purchase an SGI did not intersect noticeably.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Well obviously, a console built to a budget is never going to equal a mid-high end PC. Plus consoles are a closed system so are no where near as flexible.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Quote:
Originally Posted by
crossy
Hmm, I'm not convinced - I seem to remember a couple of good games on that CD you sometimes got with a new Indy or Indigo. That flight simulator for example - loved that you could save a session, then reload it with your old track as a ghost. Guy I knew had a fiddle with it during a couple of lunchtimes and got a pretty good Red Arrows type display. ;) "system testing" ... honest! ;)
Then there was the infamous "dogfight" version. Just googled for that and it turns out that the programmer of that was one of the founders of 3dfx, who eventually got bought by NVidia.
Oh there was also the likes of Doom and BZflags etc. But they were mostly ported PC games ;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
edzieba
If you're arguing that the PC market isn't worth developing for (compared to the console market), then I think you may wish to vacate the rock you have been under and observe, for example, the numerous game engines developed to take advantage of DX features not available on contemporary consoles.
Such as? As far as I can tell, every AAA game engine has been developed with consoles in mind. Unreal, CryEngine, Frostbite, RedEngine etc.
The PC market is certainly worth developing indie and casual games for, but you've got to keep the budget down or hit the casual audience.
Quote:
Additionally, SGI workstations were priced way, WAY outside of the consumer market. Nobody developed commercial games for them because the group of people who had spare time to play games on their machines and the group of people who could actually afford to purchase an SGI did not intersect noticeably.
PCs are priced way outside the console consumer market for the most part. Yes, if you self-build you *can* get something good approaching the cost of a console, but it's hard.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
My thought on this is that CPUs are already going up by tiny amounts of performance every year, GPUs are going better but I wonder how long that will last.
They are still pretty much following Moore's law, the difference is the way the silicon is used. If you don't use the iGPU, you won't see much difference.
As for the thread as a whole, Imo, the entire landscape is changing, I think with SteamOS and consoles using x86/dx11, pc games can be a second thought to devs while still impressing....also we should hopefully be seeing the last of the graphically-crippled games now.
Re: News - Nvidia exec says new consoles will never challenge PC graphics
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shaithis
They are still pretty much following Moore's law, the difference is the way the silicon is used. If you don't use the iGPU, you won't see much difference.
Just looked at some die photos, and sure enough Haswell looks to use about a third or the die for graphics. SB uses about a quarter. So percentage hasn't gone up all that much.
More importantly the die shrank from about 216mm^2 to 177mm^2, because silicon costs more per square mm each generation as well as shrinking no longer giving any easy performance increase. On top of that, I gather having so many metal layers stops circuits from scaling the way they used to with old generations.
Performance will continue to go up if only because people are sneaky beggers and will always find a new trick to pull, but the old days where performance doubled each generation is long gone. If it sneaks up 10% a year, then after 5 years we will have only gained 60% performance.