I'm sorry, it's not my intention to insult you. Im browsing and typing from a phone right now. It's far too difficult to respond in the way I would like. I would love to respond fully and debate, but that will have to wait until I have use of a keyboard :-/

Throw Saint's Row 2 at it.


Not much. Console lifecycles have been more or less consistent in terms of length for a pretty long time now, and it's more a function of how that particular market works than of the world's economy. Companies that release too much hardware too frequently tend to anger and lose the faith of the members of their fanbases who'd already purchased their hardware expecting it to actually last for a while, so those companies generally don't last very long (and doing something along these lines was actually a major contributing factor to Sega's eventual death in the hardware market).

Depends on?

If you have money, go PC. It looks better, more possibilites with it (MODS). But the best thing with PC, I think, is that you have CONTROL over everything. A mouse is MUCH easier to handle than a joystick I think.

I personally got a lot of money. I might upgrade if I need it. In any case, I'm going with PC, and always will (unless some big breakthrough happen with consoles...).

No, no, no. The OP wasn't serious, this was apparently some big plot to proselytize for PC gaming.

Because, you know, people's platform of choice for gaming is so important.

Yep, that is the trick. But when I make the decision to get a new one I always think that if I get a newer one it will last me a couple of more years at the end and generally it does. Still, they are expensive regardless. Since I just got a new Mobo I imagine despite my saying I'll get an Xbox next time I will more than likely just go with a new processor and a new graphics card. I seen to be in a neverending upgrade and every few years I replace something. Still, some day I would like to jump off this merry go round and go console. Right now I am thinking next gen consoles and graphics cards.

What do you guys figure the sales numbers based on platform will be for this game? 90%console/10%pc? Would it have sank Bethesda to have developed skyrim for pc only, and ported it to the next generation of consoles as the dev kits became available? I guess it depends on how long that would take huh?

Let's clarify this:

GPU --> Graphics. That's why the very concept of "GPU" (Graphics Processing Unit) was created for - to free CPU from, first the geometry and lightning (T&L) calculation (the first Geforce), and later from all graphics-related calculations.

CPU --> All the rest (AI, physics (although PhysX and similar technologies also move that matter to the GPU), etc).

It's not about scalation. It's about each Processing Unit has it's job. The CPU can't take most of the GPU's job simply because it's not designed for it. And it's the same way backwards: the GPU must at least be programmed in a certain way in order to do things the CPU can "naturally" do (best example is PhysX...GPU's couldn't calculate physics before that set of drivers was released). So, in short, if the GPU is slow, graphics are low detailed. Period.



Basically the same in the fact they both have x86 / x86-64 architecture, and that all the rest are simply extensions to that, from MMX to 3DNow! and SSE. Learn the basics before replying, please.

No, but it would be a pretty huge slap in the face to console gamers.

Let's keep the discussion flame free in here if we can. A lot of valid information can be fed into this thread.

And who's going to make use of this information? You're not going to convert anybody with this thread. You're just going to make people angry.

Is this how you feel? Just curious.

At what point though do developers have to say "enough is enough, this generation of consoles is far too underpowered to realize our vision."

How much longer do you figure this generation should last?

Well the question is, do you want to use Steam? Are you a supporter of Steam, if so, then PC if you have the requirements, other wise it's console.

I plan on it, but that's really beside the point - my point was that for a machine only a little over the price of a console's base unit, you're not getting something underpowered or under-capable, you're getting something capable of running crysis on very high at reasonable (1680x1050 - not 1080p, but then, nor could either console output anything reasonably demanding as that, nor are either of my monitors capable of displaying it) resolution. That is can be brought to its knees I have no doubt, but the point is it'll be defeated far higher than any current generation console.

I dont intend to anger at all. :-/. I intend to discuss.

What I feel is that you're either trolling us or trying to convince us to forsake our heathen ways and submit to the True PC Gaming Church. There's also comments like the above, thinly veiled claims that the evil, horrible console masses are dragging you down.

Has the current console generation lasted too long? Maybe. Should it make a lick of difference in what systems Bethesda should decide to make their game for? Not at all.

A console gamer can stay a console gamer while still being less ignorant about PC gaming, and a PC gamer can stay a PC gamer while being less ignorant about console gaming. These threads so often degenerate into people saying things they believe is right ("If I had $3000 maybe a PC could run the game a little better than a console"; "Console gaming is entirely responsible for casual gaming") and other people telling them they're wrong, often in a condescending manner. It'd go much easily if everybody knew what they were debating against.

I'm starting to get a little confused as to why your response, in every post, is "the GPU does graphics and the CPU can't do that". At what point in any of my posts do I claim otherwise?

What you claimed is that the GPU is the bottleneck in all cases. That is not the case. Is it true in most cases? Yes, because most games hardly use the kind of processing power that modern CPUs offer them and focus more on presentation instead. But trying to apply that to all cases is wrong.


See my earlier response. Saying that two processors have the same architecture because they both use the x86 instruction set is an overly broad interpretation of "the same architecture", and saying that the rest are "simply extensions to that" is also overly simplifying the situation. To use a more extreme example, I wouldn't claim that the 133MHz Pentium MMX in my Windows 98 machine has "the same architecture" as a Core i7, because the fact that they both use the x86 instruction set doesn't make that statement any less insane.

Not trolling. The only reason I feel it makes a difference, is the amount of power available to devs that seems to go to waste. Not trying to anger you, I'm sorry. Thank you for your input though.

I think the market would be less stale if gamers went through cycles. Buy and play the new console for 2 years, then gradually shift back to pc, forcing the console makers to hardware refresh. Rinse and repeat.

That sounds pretty expensive. I don't play console because I'm cheap, I'm not buying a new one every 3 or 4 years

At the point when it actually becomes true. Right now, for a majority of games, it simply isn't. Graphics are scalable in almost all cases, and the gameplay in modern games is rarely something that taxes the rest of the system.


I mostly intended that as a joke, but I think you're missing a bit of a point that it brings up: fair or not, a lot of games run and play far worse on PC simply because of the fact that their developers don't put even a minimum of effort into porting them over. That's obviously not the fault of the platform, but it is a fault of the platform and it's one people ignore all too often.


No. People who intend to discuss don't say "I'm not going to touch on this" when someone criticizes their claims. What you intend to do is promote, mainly through false information and regardless of anyone who might actually counter your points in an attempt to start a discussion.

EDIT:
Console makers wouldn't make new hardware if their systems went down the drain within two years. Two years is an obscenely short amount of time within the games industry, short enough that most games take longer than that to develop, so there's nothing reasonable about that proposition. The time scale's far too short.

Good point. It would be, for sure.

Oh, that is a very good point. Yeah, that is a fairly large issue, and one I was bitten by quite hard quite often when I was running on decidedly underpowered hardware. On the other hand, many of the games that don't get decent ports are also thankfully not worth playing

Some, alas, are - I remember the PC port of DMC3 was terrible, though strangely the PC port of DMC4 was great.

Sorry rabish, I touched on that a couple pages back. Still on a phone :-/

If you have the money go pc. If you dont like me just get it for a console. And i would recommend the 360 cause it usally runs, and looks better with multi-platform games.