NVIDIA: "No Longer Possible" for Consoles to Better PC Graphics

[George P Global Moderator]

The consoles always have new things that come to the PC later though the PC is always ahead as far as raw power goes, by it's nature the PC has to though.  GPUs on the PC need to be beasts because the PC is always doing stuff besides playing a game.  My system alone has a number of apps open doing things and I'm using between 7-8GB of RAM without running a game at all.    Consoles are more custom and specific to specific tasks, before they just ran the game and nothing else, now the new ones will multitask a bit but nothing close to the level of a PC (XB1 can do up to 4 things at once tops for example).

 

Still, all the custom changes MS made to the SoC in the XB1 will make it's way into the PC hardware I'm sure, the same happened with the 360 GPU tweaks iirc that showed up in the PC a year later.

 

As far as performance and so on, consoles don't have to match a PC, imo.  As long as they give you good games as far as performance and looks go, who cares if they're slower than a PC?

[Skiver Veteran]

To me this just seems to be an attempt at saying don't spend your money on a console, spend it on a nice new gfx card instead pretty please. I don't think I would have imagined that consoles ever really were better in terms of graphical quality, maybe for a small period on console launch but even that i doubt because of the speed of hardware advancements. By the time MS/Sony have agreed on a hardware spec for their "next gen" and put it into production one of the hardware companies will have launched something new and better.

[Yazoo]

Both Microsoft and Sony produce their consoles (hardware) at a loss, only to make profit from the software.  GFX card manufacturers make profit on all the hardware.  The GFX card may cost more than the console yet it still sells and sells at a profit, hence they can't compete statement.  

 

Imagine if the consoles had the same level of hardware as a PC, the cost of the console would be so much greater than it is now and it would be nigh on impossible to absorb that extra cost and pull in a profit just from the software. Think about what the games would be like though, at the moment all games are developed with consoles in mind so PC sees a lot of crap conversions.

[Alwaysonacoffebreak]

Architecturally the consoles are way ahead of the PC. They have fully shared memory and powerful integrated GPUs, stuff that we'll only start seeing a bit next year if AMD delivers. I think there's a lot of efficiency the consoles can tap into there. Carmack spoke at length about how latencies and indirections on PC killed performance vs what could be achieved on consoles and that was Xbox 360/PS3. Next-gen will be much more efficient even.

 

I'm guessing you meant he GDDR5 memory in the PS4 right? Or the eSRAM. Surely those are ahead of PC in terms of bandwidth but those alone don't mean that they are ahead. The processing power of the CPU is far behind what we can have in  PC's (SC2 still uses CPU for the most intense part afaik), also the SSD's (be it SATA 3 or PCI-E) and many more factors to consider.

 

Also GDDR is said to come to desktop with Kaveri, if I'm not mistaken that either in the end of this year or in the early start of next year? So by that time the consoles will be on par with dekstop with that again. (While low amounts of GDDR memory will be implanted into dekstop at first because of the sheer price of it, 8GB is said to cost too much so AMD is focusing on 2 and 4 at first, tho it'll do just fine compared to 4 GB or DDR3 memory.)

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

1) Every word uttered by someone from a company's top management has one purpose - to please their shareholders;

2) NVIDIA has entered the mobile gaming with their SHIELD device. Naturally, it sees console gaming as its main rival.

[Alwaysonacoffebreak]

Yeah, once SHIELD comes even close to the Xbox and PS they can throw words around like that but somehow I doubt that.

 

They are two different devices also, SHIELD is mainly competing against PSP and Vita not the bigger brothers so why is Nvidia actually taking word on them?

[theyarecomingforyou]

Valve is exactly targeting the 8-10 year cycle with their steambox'es at least for another console life cycle that is... so don't expect valve dictating hardware trends in the next 15 years.

Valve is working on an open platform that will be supported by multiple manufacturers, so it's a completely different business strategy to Microsoft and Sony. It's what Microsoft should have done in the first place.

[TruckWEB]

You have to admit that it would have been nice to see XBOne and PS4 being able to render games at 1080p/60fps.  Seeing as game dev are not going that far probably means that the GPU in both console is somewhat a little bit weak.  Like I said in a previous post, come on, it's 2013/4.....

 

And it's not like the old X360 or PS3 where game dev had to learn a new architecture and tweak it to extract all of the performance.  It's the same as PC, same X64, same GPU and in Microsoft case, same kernel (Win8) and DirectX.  So the learning curve is minimal.

[JonnyLH]

You have to admit that it would have been nice to see XBOne and PS4 being able to render games at 1080p/60fps.  Seeing as game dev are not going that far probably means that the GPU in both console is somewhat a little bit weak.  Like I said in a previous post, come on, it's 2013/4.....

 

And it's not like the old X360 or PS3 where game dev had to learn a new architecture and tweak it to extract all of the performance.  It's the same as PC, same X64, same GPU and in Microsoft case, same kernel (Win8) and DirectX.  So the learning curve is minimal.

Personally, I don't think the next-gen boxes can't render at 1080p/60fps its more so been reduced due to tight time frames, more platforms to develop for, NDA's and the learning curve for each. Colour me surprised if games in 2014 keep getting hit by these 1080p downgrades. Especially with the consumer response.

[spenser.d]

Valve is working on an open platform that will be supported by multiple manufacturers, so it's a completely different business strategy to Microsoft and Sony. It's what Microsoft should have done in the first place.

Yes, because hardware fragmentation in the console industry would be fantastic :rolleyes:

Again, we have what you're talking about - its called PC gaming. We don't want it for consoles and I'm willing to bet that Valve finds that out real quick.

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

TL;DR version:

 

NVidia:  PC graphics are better, buy our video cards!

[Anibal P]

Yes, because hardware fragmentation in the console industry would be fantastic :rolleyes:

Again, we have what you're talking about - its called PC gaming. We don't want it for consoles and I'm willing to bet that Valve finds that out real quick.

 

Hardware "fragmentation" hasn't hurt PC gaming one bit, why would it hurt console gaming? I don't think you quite get what fragmentation means, it's not what Apple claims it is when talking about Android, look it up

[(Account no longer active)]

I think success sometimes comes down to bang-for-buck. A high end gaming system will always be pretty expensive. Consoles on the other hand are relatively low cost, secure, easy to use, and robust (no having to worry about graphics drivers or re-installing/upgrading an OS). Sony's and Microsoft's recently announced consoles will offer amazing graphics capabilities for years to come.

[Max Norris]

Hardware "fragmentation" hasn't hurt PC gaming one bit, why would it hurt console gaming?

With PC gaming users are all the time running into the "is my hardware good enough to run this" scenario. With consoles there's a clear baseline that's guaranteed to be there so developers can focus on providing a consistent experience across the board.. if you have "Console ____", you're guaranteed to be able to play the game as the developers intended. If it's more like PC gaming you'd have some consoles providing a good experience and some consoles unable to play it at a good level, if at all.. it's about as hardware fragmented as you can get. Personally if I were wanting to get into console gaming again having a consistent experience would be one of the reasons why I'd do it in the first place, never mind the relatively lower cost.. if I'd have to play the mix and match game and then shell out a lot of money on top of it I'd just stick to the PC in the first place, whats the point otherwise.

[spenser.d]

Hardware "fragmentation" hasn't hurt PC gaming one bit, why would it hurt console gaming? I don't think you quite get what fragmentation means, it's not what Apple claims it is when talking about Android, look it up

It hasn't hurt PC gaming because that's the expectation with PC gaming. You know what youre getting into with that. People buy consoles to avoid that.

[Shaun N.]

"No Longer Possible" for Consoles to Better PC Graphics

 

Has it ever been?

[theyarecomingforyou]

"No Longer Possible" for Consoles to Better PC Graphics

 

Has it ever been?

As pointed out in the interview, the PS2 was more powerful than PCs at release.

[spenser.d]

As pointed out in the interview, the PS2 was more powerful than PCs at release.

Yeah, and that was 13.5 years ago, and yet consoles are still going strong. Mainly because that's not the reason people are buying them.

[SiCKX]

WOW, Nvidia is like that rejected wannabee girlfriend. You say no and then she starts throwing dirt at everything. At first it was cute, but now it's like shaming the brand (which I'd take anyday over ATI). Knock it off, PR tards, I know it's trendy to be very aggresive in marketing now, but this is just lame as sh*t.

 

Also, SHIELD is born dead.

 

[Andre S. Veteran]

I'm guessing you meant he GDDR5 memory in the PS4 right? Or the eSRAM. Surely those are ahead of PC in terms of bandwidth but those alone don't mean that they are ahead. The processing power of the CPU is far behind what we can have in  PC's (SC2 still uses CPU for the most intense part afaik), also the SSD's (be it SATA 3 or PCI-E) and many more factors to consider.

I'm talking about what AMD calls hUMA. Kaveri will be a weak incarnation of that (early reports is somewhere around an HD 7730 or 7750). It's orthogonal to GDDR5 (you can do hUMA with whatever memory), although it's the kind of thing that scales well with bandwidth so that's why PS4 went with super fast memory and Xbox One has that 32MB of super fast memory as well.

 

I'm aware the consoles will be largely inferior in raw numbers, my point is that a fully shared memory design means that offloading computations to the GPU is way easier and more efficient (no copying data back and forth to dedicated VRAM, CPU can get direct pointers in GPU memory and vice-versa), this means that console games can be optimized in ways that aren't feasible on PC right now. Even on the current-gen the raw numbers on PC vs the difference in quality vs consoles in games was way off, I think the difference will be even more pronounced on next-gen.

[theyarecomingforyou]

I'm aware the consoles will be largely inferior in raw numbers, my point is that a fully shared memory design means that offloading computations to the GPU is way easier and more efficient (no copying data back and forth to dedicated VRAM, CPU can get direct pointers in GPU memory and vice-versa), this means that console games can be optimized in ways that aren't feasible on PC right now.

Yeah, but most gaming PCs have 8-16GB of RAM and 2-6GB of video memory - there is so much redundancy that it's not an issue. That difference will become even more pronounced going into the future. With many next-generation titles not being able to hit 1080p @60fps it's clear that PC gaming has a significant advantage from the get-go. I already game at 1600p @60fps on PC and my system is over a year and a half old.

[spenser.d]

Yeah, but most gaming PCs have 8-16GB of RAM and 2-6GB of video memory - there is so much redundancy that it's not an issue. That difference will become even more pronounced going into the future. With many next-generation titles not being able to hit 1080p @60fps* it's clear that PC gaming has a significant advantage from the get-go. I already game at 1600p @60fps on PC and my system is over a year and a half old.

 

*Yet.  But some are, which means that it can be done and within a year or two I'd bet most games will be hitting that mark.

 

Also, keep playing PC gaming then if you care about graphics so much.  That's fine.  That's not all that consoles are about and never has been.  You're mixing up two different worlds.

[psionicinversion]

i guess consoles are more "powerful" than PC's in terms of latency etc between components cus PC's components are designed to be replaced so it needs to be modular in design whereas console soc's are built for optimal performance so less "bottlenecks" in the design. Intel are starting a foray back into this via there next cpu only coming in BGA (unless theyve changed there mind), so its soldered to the motherboard. We'll probably see PC's coming in console style design within the next 10 years and id say AMD could be at the forefront of this seeing as they'll have seen how the consoles soc's are laid out. I definately think theyd be more inclined to take sony's approach as GDDR5 would probably become alot cheaper in the time frame although guess it also depends on how each console performs and which design is the best approach. MS's approach could be better for general computing though so guess you'd just have to see.

 

Enthusiast stuff will still be modular because WE decide what goes in our systems :D

 

Hmm but on topic, i actually forgot what the title was haha, the consoles will be more powerful atm than most systems people buy atm like upto like the ?500-600 maybe bit more. When i get a new gfx card either a 7950 or a new AMD one itll destroy the consoles. Seeing as BF4 is having to lower the resolution or graphical detail for BOTH consoles it proves that at the moment the consoles cant handle a truely next-gen game engine and are weak even for a next gen console. Sure both will definately be able to game at 1080p 60fps when the next set of games come out but at what cost graphically? i know people dont buy consoles just for the graphics but if it cant render DX11 games on ultra settings now the future is bleak cus you want to feel the realism. 

[theyarecomingforyou]

*Yet.  But some are, which means that it can be done and within a year or two I'd bet most games will be hitting that mark.

And in a year or two PC gaming will have moved on to 4K, at least at the high-end (it's already possible now).

 

Also, keep playing PC gaming then if you care about graphics so much.  That's fine.  That's not all that consoles are about and never has been.  You're mixing up two different worlds.

It's not just about graphics, though. It's about performance, responsiveness, flexibility (modding, etc) and control schemes. Using keyboard and mouse provides better control for many genres. There's no technical reason that consoles can't use alternate schemes but that would undermine those who use controllers, which is why they are usually disabled.

 

Consoles don't have to be closed platforms, like the type that Sony and Microsoft are promoting. They can be open platforms more like Android and iOS, where there are various models at different price ranges and they are regularly updated. The point I'm making is that Microsoft and Sony are doing gamers a disservice by trying to keep their consoles on the market long after they have become outdated.

[Malisk]

That's not really relevant to the discussion as that's not really how it works.  It's not like they can't pull from all their assets to specific divisions if they so choose.

It is usually how it works and highly relevant to the discussion.

 

A company is far more willing to adjust finances within a division rather than to mess with the budget for another one. Yes, they can, but it won't be anywhere near a first option.