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

[Andre S. Veteran]

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.

PC games run faster but not for the reasons you mention. 8-16GB of RAM only 2 of which are adressable by a 32-bit process, that's a moot point. All games are currently 32-bit for a variety of reasons. Hopefully consoles having 8GB of memory should push 64-bit games forward though. 2-6GB of video memory is less than what next-gen consoles have available for their GPUs, nevermind access to virtual memory which is impossible for discrete GPUs, so moot point there again. PCs win because of single-threaded CPU performance and higher clocks and shader counts on GPUs (i.e. they throw a lot of watts at the problem), but as single-threaded performance gains are stalling and the next-gen games get optimized for HSAs first, I wouldn't see the gap getting anywhere as large as the raw numbers suggest. Yes you'll be able to do higher resolutions and framerates but the visuals will stay largely the same.

 

I expect 1080p60 to become the standard on next-gen consoles rather quickly, launch titles doing 900p60 or 1080p30 is probably just engines not fully taking advantage of the new architectures. As gamers experience 1080p60 that's what they'll demand and developers will have little choice but to deliver.

[Shadrack]

I would hate to buy a console and have to change out the video card every year to keep up with new games.  I would also hate having to tweak the video settings of a console game to optimize it for whatever generation of video card I have installed.  Nintendo has tried this "expansion" thing before with the N64 (it was only memory but still), and the result was fragmentation.

[theyarecomingforyou]

I would hate to buy a console and have to change out the video card every year to keep up with new games.  I would also hate having to tweak the video settings of a console game to optimize it for whatever generation of video card I have installed.

That's not what people are advocating. Rather, it should follow the smartphone / tablet approach whereby new models are released each year and are compatible with existing games. You don't have to upgrade but those that do get better performance. It simply isn't excusable to have consoles that are only updated every eight years when technology is moving at breakneck speed.

[Shadrack]

That's not what people are advocating. Rather, it should follow the smartphone / tablet approach whereby new models are released each year and are compatible with existing games. You don't have to upgrade but those that do get better performance. It simply isn't excusable to have consoles that are only updated every eight years when technology is moving at breakneck speed.

 

I get what you are saying, but I for one am more likely to invest in the next gen console _because_ the previous generation lasted so long.  There was a period of time where every-other-year saw a new console release (Sega and NeoGeo were mostly behind it) and it really hurt both the companies, hard.  It spooked the market and nobody wanted to invest (gamers/developers) in a system that was going to be obsolete in a year or two.  It wasn't the same as you suggested because there was no backwards compatibility (well, there was some, but not much).  I hope that the next gen gets at least 5-8 years before the next-next-gen is released.  I feel like I got my money's worth out of the XBox 360 because of this.

[Andre S. Veteran]

I would hate to buy a console and have to change out the video card every year to keep up with new games.  I would also hate having to tweak the video settings of a console game to optimize it for whatever generation of video card I have installed.

Nvidia is trying to address your second point with Geforce Experience, not sure how successful that is.

[MDboyz]

They mean if people continue to use AMD GPU chip in consoles :) ...

[spenser.d]

I get what you are saying, but I for one am more likely to invest in the next gen console _because_ the previous generation lasted so long.  There was a period of time where every-other-year saw a new console release (Sega and NeoGeo were mostly behind it) and it really hurt both the companies, hard.  It spooked the market and nobody wanted to invest (gamers/developers) in a system that was going to be obsolete in a year or two.  It wasn't the same as you suggested because there was no backwards compatibility (well, there was some, but not much).  I hope that the next gen gets at least 5-8 years before the next-next-gen is released.  I feel like I got my money's worth out of the XBox 360 because of this.

 

This is how I, and I believe many others, feel about consoles and why it's different than PC gaming.

[Houtei]

To me they just sound jealous that millions upon millions of people are going to be buying amd graphic cards essentially when they purchase ps4s and xbox ones lol.  AMD just has alot more knowledge for what they needed than nvidia

[BillyJack]

Yes, but Valve is looking to change that with SteamOS and SteamBox. Hopefully they will be able to break the hold that Microsoft and Sony have on gaming and create an open, flexible platform that offers cheaper games and better graphics. Mobile phones and tablets have been evolving at breakneck speed because they're flexible platforms - there is more innovation and more competition. It doesn't make sense to have consoles with eight-to-ten year lifecycles.

 

First of all it is not 10 year cycles because of limits with hardware or software it is because no one would want to buy a new console every year or two. Which is funny because people are willing to spend money on a phone every two years. Phones and tablets have games at a fast rate because the software for making games is already multi-platform, such as DirectX, and the developers are already making the game for the PC or console so they can easily port it to the phone/tablet. A lot of the games are also older games ported over to the phone/tablet. Games are not released on the phone/tablet because of flexibility. I would not call phones/tablet are innovative for games. The games are scaled back from the console/PC version.

 

I think if they thought targeted consoles differently then they do now then they could have better hardware and at a faster pace but at a loss of targeted customers. Adults who have cash to spare and are hardcore games are likely to buy a new console that costs more and more often. However there are a lot of adults who do not game often and would not justify it. Parents will not be willing to buy console that costs more and more often for their kids either. What if they compromised and had one cheap console every ten years for one demographic and anther more expensive and release often for the other demographic. However, what if the second demographic was only willing to pay for an expensive PC instead of an expensive console.

 

These companies have people doing research. They are not stupid. It is the way it is because that is all a costumer is willing to do at the most optimal profit.

[Houtei]

I just wanna slap people whjen they start talking about PCs and 4k resolutions in a console topic.  Two different worlds and as far as teh 4k tv goes, 90% of us will not be able to afford a 4k tv for years to come.... lol  Your talking  a several grand.  Heck if you wanna game at 1600p your talking anywhere from 1 to 3k which is not going to happen for most people.  The average person that can afford a gaming pc only has 1080p anyways unless they shelled out a grand for a monitor.  I speant like 1400 on a 50" tv and i spent 1200 on a 27" monitor that does 1600p

[George P Global Moderator]

4k isn't going to take hold anytime soon, to think it'll be the norm for gaming or even video in the next few years is wishful thinking.    Sure people could go out and get 4k TVs and at best what they'll have is upscaled 1080p video.   There's a lot that has to happen for 4k to take hold and costs have to come down quite a bit, but for that to happen people have to go and buy new TVs which I don't see people rushing out to do.  1080p will be the majority format for quite some time IMO.   By the time 4k is used more and has started to get real traction in the market then we'll already be talking about the next-next gen consoles already I bet.

[Andre S. Veteran]

That's not what people are advocating. Rather, it should follow the smartphone / tablet approach whereby new models are released each year and are compatible with existing games. You don't have to upgrade but those that do get better performance. It simply isn't excusable to have consoles that are only updated every eight years when technology is moving at breakneck speed.

Smartphone technology is evolving at a breakneck speed, but high-power CPUs/GPUs are not. Haswell is barely an upgrade over Ivy Bridge which was barely an upgrade over Sandy Bridge. Even older CPUs still perform decently in recent games. DirectX hasn't seen a major revision in 4 years now, and none is planned. There are many advantages for consumers and developers to a stable platform. If 1080p60 can become standard on the next-gen consoles (which should be the case), I don't see any reason for new consoles for a long time. As I see things, we'll be playing these two consoles for at least as long as we did the current generation.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Smartphone technology is evolving at a breakneck speed, but high-power CPUs/GPUs are not. Haswell is barely an upgrade over Ivy Bridge which was barely an upgrade over Sandy Bridge. Even older CPUs still perform decently in recent games.

Yes, but next year we have Haswell-E processors with eight-cores, DDR4 support and SATA Express. GPUs are evolving at a much faster pace, with new models every year from both nVidia and AMD. Display technology being pushed for mobiles, tablets and TVs means that 4K will soon be available at a sensible price. Storage has been evolving especially quickly, with the introduction of SSDs.  The point is that consoles should be updated to support the latest improvements in technology, just like PCs, tablets and phones are.

 

In fact that's exactly why Valve is working on Steam Machines. People should be able to buy a budget model to get in or pay extra for the top of the range model. The balance that consoles currently strike just isn't right.

[spenser.d]

 

 

In fact that's exactly why Valve is working on Steam Machines. People should be able to buy a budget model to get in or pay extra for the top of the range model. The balance that consoles currently strike just isn't right.

 

No, the balance is just fine, you just don't like it so you're saying it's not right.

 

Steam Machines are likely to cater to people that already use Steam, which compared to the chunk of gamers that play on consoles without playing on Steam, is miniscule.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Yes, but next year we have Haswell-E processors with eight-cores, DDR4 support and SATA Express. GPUs are evolving at a much faster pace, with new models every year from both nVidia and AMD. Display technology being pushed for mobiles, tablets and TVs means that 4K will soon be available at a sensible price. Storage has been evolving especially quickly, with the introduction of SSDs.  The point is that consoles should be updated to support the latest improvements in technology, just like PCs, tablets and phones are.

 

In fact that's exactly why Valve is working on Steam Machines. People should be able to buy a budget model to get in or pay extra for the top of the range model. The balance that consoles currently strike just isn't right.

As a PC gamer I can certainly relate to that, I wouldn't use anything but the latest gen. That said, there's tremendous value for consumers in a relatively low-cost box that is guaranteed to give you all the greatest games for many years to come at a perfectly decent level of visual fidelity, and I think with 1080p60 it should be hard to convince people to spend money for better. A lot of people won't even see the difference with current-gen (as iconoclast as that sounds to us techies).

 

And on the other hand for developers, when you deal with many different hardware configurations you tend to aim for the lowest common denominator, this is why even now games don't look dramatically different on PCs than they do on the 2005 Xbox 360; all the same animations, models, shaders, rendering techniques, you get higher res, higher framerate, perhaps crisper textures, that's about it. The same reality goes on in the smartphone world, why I should I target the latest Android when I can target an older version and be compatible with everything? So it's more complex than just new hardware = better games. 

 

That said I'm as eager as anyone to see how SteamOS will succeed and potentially change the living room gaming landscape.

[Alwaysonacoffebreak]

Smartphone technology is evolving at a breakneck speed, but high-power CPUs/GPUs are not. Haswell is barely an upgrade over Ivy Bridge which was barely an upgrade over Sandy Bridge. Even older CPUs still perform decently in recent games. DirectX hasn't seen a major revision in 4 years now, and none is planned. There are many advantages for consumers and developers to a stable platform. If 1080p60 can become standard on the next-gen consoles (which should be the case), I don't see any reason for new consoles for a long time. As I see things, we'll be playing these two consoles for at least as long as we did the current generation.

 

Uhm only thing that smartphones evolve that quickly is thanks to Intel/AMD where they can learn from. The arch of the ARM hasn't changed much (it has changed, sure, but not by much) lately they are just doing the same thing that AMD is doing right now, throw more cores and bigger speeds at it. While dekstop CPU's do change, Bulldozer was a totally new arch from the beginning what everyone laughed about since it's single-threaded performance was too low but now when practically the same thing is in both consoles AMD CPU's will actually reap from it and single-threaded performance will be soon something in the past for gaming.

 

I have my PS4 pre-ordered and I do hope you're right about the lasting of it. Here's for another 7-8 years. 

 

Also on third page you were talking about Kaveri and it's power compared to graphics while I tried to mean Kaveri will bring support for GDDR5 as main memory (As an replacement for DDR3) on the desktop ;) You can dismiss ddr4 at this point since like with every ddr memory it'll first make its way to servers and it will be expensive for dekstop, just because Intel has support for it doesn't mean it'll be mainstream around the corner.