uhmm...that's true. I wonder why the first 3,2 Ghz of the i-series came by Nov-08...

Hmmm...when I think of it that way...my PC performs better than my PS3, and I build it 2006 and I now think of it as mid-range.
So I guess you're right, you made a good point there.

the trend is towards a LOT of cores. Seriously, i really don't know how much more thread level parallelism can we expect from programmers and in particular game devs to pull out. I say more than 8 cores won't give you much of difference for game/everyday use loads (hell everyday use loads are satisfied with 2 cores). Also a strong trend is towards gpu/cpu unification (apu, heterogeneous computing).
Unless we don't find a new material to carry us further, x86 sequential performance will at the end stagnate (we can't keep die shrinking for ever). Anyways that's way off topic (i'm seeing a lot of computer engineering students/professionals...).

As for Skyrim, I don't expect to see crysis-esque graphics. Better than fallout but nothing otherworldly. I wish PC had DX11 goodies though (even though I don't have and don't plan to buy dx11 hardware in the near future :confused: )

Cell was mid end six years ago? I beg to differ. Sony touts it as the most powerful processor ever in a gaming console and ps3 hasn't even been on shelves for six years.

I just want to clarify that I agree with this 100%. I think Red Dead Redemption has some of the best graphics I've ever seen in a game, and is definitely the standard to beat. From the screenshots I've seen of Skyrim, I believe that it may be on track to do just this (the mountain screenshots being the most compelling). I'm also looking forward to seeing Crysis 2 in action on the consoles.

I think that the current dominance of consoles is a positive development for gaming in general. The success of Oblivion and FO3 is largely built on console sales and has enabled BGS to become one the premier game studios; fixed hardware allows developers to develop more efficient graphics implementations (look how much better RDR is compared to GTA4); it means that I don't have to upgrade my PC every 2 years to keep up.

Rage also looks very good for a console game too.

Oh, well if sony's marketing department say that sony's gaming machine is more powerful than sony's competition, who am I to disagree with sony?
And no, the PS3 didn't launch 6 years ago, it launched late 2006 - but factor in design and production and 6 years is a reasonable figure to describe both the 360 and PS3 without having to describe both.

I'm not saying the processor isn't impressive in its own way, I'm saying that price, power, and cooling restrictions mean that no console will ever use cutting edge hardware, because cutting edge hardware tends to be expensive, hungry, and hot. Consider that the 360 already has overheating issues, and then imagine twice the heat output in it. Yeah, that's not going to happen.

Yeah, Rage does look pretty good, although I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I think that what I've seen of Skyrim so far is more impressive. (This is doubly impressive when you consider that Skyrim, like RDR, is completely dynamic, whereas Rage is a lot more static.)

I don't know why everybody is hooked up on frequency vs architecture. Console games aren't CPU bound when it comes to "looking good". But, just look at the Core i7 920 (2.66GHz) vs the Phenom II X4 970 (3.5GHz) for example. The Intel outperforms the AMD in http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/15 with a huge frequency difference.

Plain and simple it's a RAM issue combined with GPUs from FIVE generations ago.

GTX 5xx > GTX 4xx > GTX 2xx > 9xxxGTX > 8xxxGTX > 7xxxGTX (PS3 Equivalent, 7800GTX specifically)
HD 6xxx > HD 5xxx > HD 4xxx > HD 3xxx > HD 2xxx > X1xxx (Xbox 360 Equivalent, X1900 specifically)

I haven't really followed this CPU discussion or whatever it has been the last pages, but from what I recall:
Nowadays games aim to use as much of the GPU's power and memory as possible, right?

I'm enjoying the discussion, although I think we're in danger of straying a little off topic, so let's all agree (or not?) that current PCs are significantly more powerful than consoles, but that new games can still look very good on the consoles due to time developers have had to optimise for the hardware.

Moving back to the original topic, I'd be very interested to hear peoples opinions on what graphics features appear to be used in Skyrim based on the screenshots. Also, I think it always helps this sort of discussion to include current games as a comparison.

For instance, do you think that based on the screenshots Skyrim is using a deferred lighting solution?

Basically I agree with that. Nice GPU scheme, though

Well what exactly is cell good at then? Its better than xenon for sure. I've heard many people claim cell is a beast and shreds through whatever you throw at it.

@hlvr developers have been using cell more recently to render a lot of the graphics and tricks per se. Insomniac said that they used cell quite heavily in uncharted for graphics and not just the gpu.

Apologies if this has been pointed out somewhere obvious, but have BGS stated that Skyrim will look identical on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360?

Or, for all we yet know, might BGS adopt Crytek's strategy and allow PC users to scale up the graphics relative to console users?

I hope not.

Deferred rendering = all-encompassing term
Deferred lighting = kind of deferred rendering
Deferred shading = kind of deferred rendering

But, I'll admit, deferred lighting has fallen so out of favor that nobody acknowledges it existed.

It's far too early to tell, based on static screenshots. I hope they do use deferred shading, though, at least for interiors' sakes. Deferred shading would be kind of useless outdoors, as there is usually very few lights, and deferred shading is also completely impossible to implement for alpha transparency (foliage, etc). So what you have to do is still do a forward rendering pass just for anything transparent. And then you have to make sure to limit lights in the forward pass, as to not kill performance.

I'm not positive, but I think they could technically switch between forward and deferred rendering at load screens, say, between interior and exterior cells. You can switch between rendering paths in a lot of the tech demos I have compiled and run. Intel has a particularly good demo, where they use a DX11 Compute Shader to speed up deferred shading considerably. It's usually called "tile-based" deferred shading.

That wouldn't be very "dynamic" haha

I think I probably meant deferred shading (although I did see something about Crysis 2 having deferred lighting). I'm slightly out of my depth here, but from what I gather Stalker, Crysis, GTA4/RDR and a number of other engines use a deferred rendering approach. As you say, one of the disadvantages is with alpha transparency. I think this was the reason that the foliage in Crysis was not very smooth around the edges. Given that the foliage in Skyrim looks pretty smooth, can we rule out deferred shading outdoors?

No. Because at that point hardward/software implementations didn't allow MSAA on the G-Buffer (where all the view-space data needed to render the scene is accumulated), so, it would depend on if these screenshots were on PC or a console.

The jagginess of the foliage in Crysis WAS technically because of deferred shading, but not for the reason you're implying. It was because of the no-MSAA reason, not because of the forward pass compositing. However, at least on PC I believe CryEngine 3 now supports MSAA with deferred shading.

Honestly, I don't care about MSAA myself, if I can get by with MLAA or NFAA like I do in Oblivion (thanks to OBGE) then I'd rather have the extra power saved go toward rendering more objects on the screen, etc. MSAA can be quite expensive. MLAA/NFAA in case you didn't know are post-effects using edge detection. Crysis did have an edge detect AA, it should have helped out with foliage some.

And, honestly, at the resolution we're viewing these Skyrim shots we can't even tell if there is AA or not. And we especially don't know since we don't know what platform the shots are from.

Name one exclusive pc game that have this "amazing" graphs you all keep talking about!(not crysis)

Metro 2033 is beautiful, STALKER is (but in its own way, and is an example of a game that wouldn't come out on console but thrives on PC)
Starcraft 2 looks great, but Blizzard aim for their games to run on your toaster as well as a decent PC. Along the same RTS lines, Supreme Commander looks pretty awesome, and Sins of a Solar Empire gives an incredible sense of scale.
There are also genres that just don't /go/ on console, such as space simulations like X3, which can look beautiful and drive a PC to its limit.

Normally when people talk about PC graphics, though, they mean in all titles, not just exclusives. Just Cause 2, for example, looks leaps and bounds better than its console counterparts. Almost every game can look better, just through being able to run at a higher resolution with anti-aliasing, but the vast majority of games can also run with higher quality models and textures, with better shaders.

metro 2033, starcraft 2, supreme commander are avaible for xbox 360. Sins of a solar empire?hahhahah that was pathetic. I mean i dont wat to start a war here, but if thats the best pc have to offer, i think im gonna stick to my lovely 360

Oh, Metro 2033 is on 360. The other two aren't, but regardless. There are very few 360 'exclusives' that are not also on PC, looking better and running better. Your preferences are fine by me, the toy you choose has no effect on me. Perhaps a little less ignorance would do you good, however

The xenon in your 360 can't hold a candle to the cell in the ps3. Just sayin.

ok

I think people in this thread are moving away from the actual discussion and maybe starting a flame war about comp game specs other then skyrim and a PS3 vs X360 comparison. Skyrim so far to me has looked amazing, it looks like they have completely overhauled the whole look and we shall wait and see till some gameplay videos to see the full extent