I've heard countless times how there won't be open cities because the consoles can't handle it. People say that TES is limited by the consoles.

Really?

Maybe I'm completely wrong and shouldn't be posting this, but what about RDR? The map was 71 square kilometers, and Just Cause 2 had a map that was over 100 square kilometers. Both worked completely fine on the consoles.

Now, I know that the PC has many technical advantages over the console, but I think the consoles are underestimated. Things work smoother on the PC, the PC can do things the consoles can't, but I don't think they're really holding TES back.

Post your thoughts, and if anyone KNOWS, not thinks or has an opinion about, but knows, what the consoles are capable of please share.

Thanks. :wink_smile:

P.S.

I don't have any intentions of starting a flame war, I just want to know if all the claims about the consoles complete inadequacy are true. Please, no fights, or name calling. Let's all be friends! :intergalactic:

Edit: I fail at spell checking..... Oh, and Just Cause 2's map is 400 square kilometers.

actually, just cause 2's map was FOUR HUNDRED... not one hundred.

pretty sure it says that right on the case, so i dunno how anyone could get that wrong.

Pure map size has nothing to do with it, map size is simply a matter of space. Things like open cities and such that the consoles can't do will however hold the PC version back. Sure the PC version will get better textures and shaders but who cares really? The improvements that would count can't be done on consoles and Bethesda isn't going to bother to do it for just 1 platform so yes the consoles do hold PC back.

Sony wanted their Ps3 to last 10 years...I dunno, with all this 28nm and 22nm products coming for Pc I guess the consoles must make a move in 2012, 2013 or they will be too far behind.

Possibly because I played it at a friends house and don't own it............. And I wanted to say something like 400 hundred but wasn't sure so I just said "over a hundred" to be safe......Sorry?

I thought it had something to do with the amount of stuff slowing things down: people, barrels, books, cutlery, weapons, food, clothes etc. which can all be interacted with. Not sure though - haven't played RDR yet so I don't know if that's the same. I just thought I'd read something like that on here before.

You cant compare those games with Elder Scrolls.

In Elder Scrolls, the game must keep track of every interactive objects in the game that you have droped and might want to find back when you go somewhere. if you want a good picture of it you could say that its much easier to keep track of your stuff in many small boxes than in one giant box. if everything is open the game has to keep track of every objects at the same time instead of just putting them away because they are in another cell

It's not like it was empty space, it was all populated. I know it's different but the general idea is that if the consoles can support a game like RDR or Just Cause 2 then they can't be as horrible as everybody says.

As a PC gamer, it's just bs PC gamer rhetoric that some how making it for a console some how makes the PC dumbed down. To be honest, I have and Morrowind on the PC and Xbox and I didn't think vanilla Morrowind on the PC was tons better then the xbox.

Well, one big point is in physics and AI. Skyrim, assuming it's like Oblivion, will have far more physics objects in a given area than either of those games, it also has more complex AI calculations running in the background. It's not just about world size, it's about everything else that has to run in that world. The game is limited to a certain extent by the consoles, it is also limited by many other things, like development time.


That's because Morrowind was made for the PC first, then ported to the Xbox, it was also done at a time when console hardware and PC hardware were comparable. Nowadays it's the other way around, games are made for consoles, then ported to the far more powerful PCs, but without taking advantage of that power.

Just to clarify. Size is irrelevant. That's not the issue here. What is the issue is how much "stuff" you can have in that area. TES games in terms of items are very heavily concentrated/detailed, unlike a game like Just Cause 2 where most of the buildings can't be entered, or RDR where towns are tiny compared to Oblivion. The reason why separate cells are needed is because there is just so much stuff that needs to be taken into account. To be clear though, we don't know if cities will be open (ala Morrowind) or closed (ala Oblivion). One of the main reasons for this is because dragons can actually attack and terrorize towns (they aren't scripted). We obviously won't know for sure until BGS states one way or the other or we just see game footage of exploration.

As far as consoles holding back TES games, I think people over-exaggerate to an extent (most gamers don't have godly gaming computers anyways). Again the issue with open cities is a matter of how much stuff needs to be processed.

True, but it depends. For example people in San Andreas have WAY less data than ones in Oblivion due to all the stuff people in Oblivion do, speak, wear etc and similar data connected to them, so they eat much more of the smoothness. In San Andreas they are only minor pieces of data with couple of voice files and that's it. Not sure what kinds of NPCs are there in games mentioned above tho.

Same for clutter, while buildings and barrels, boxes and stuff are only statics, many stuff in these RPGs are interactive and hold stuff or scripts.

RDR and JC2 don't have persistent worlds, as such. Yes, things are always there, but if you murder everybody in a city, that's fine, they're all generated NPCs who would have been immediately dumped and forgotten about as soon as you left the area anyway.

TES, on the other hand, keeps track of every single NPC, simulates them even when you're not around, and remembers everything that happens to them. The problem is orders of magnitude more complex, and dumping them all into the same worldspace where it's easy for complex actions to take place even without the player necessarily being anywhere near is a bad idea.

But don't take it personally, I don't think consoles are holding TES back so much as gaming in general - I'm not specific in it!

The AI's speech in both games is limited, but in RDR alot of the AI was still good, especially the AI for wolves and Pumas.

Well lets see, did anyone notice DX11 rendering technique's in the screenshots, or DX11 tessellation? Nope neither did i, also most of those games you mentioned are small, as in there is a lot of empty.

If you want big take this upcoming pc execlusive: infinity the quest for earth a 1:1 size to scale galaxy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7eREddMjt4&feature=related
See the stars in the background and the nebula, yeah that's actually there as in you can go to those stars.

Frankly, I hadn't thought of it that way....... :facepalm:

hmy: .....................You're serious???

In JC2 could you go inside every single building? Did every single civilian have their own packages, quests, dialog, and complicated AI to calculate at once? No. Same with RDR. Those games are much bigger, but they compensate by being MUCH simpler. They are calculation much much less at once to run all that. Skyrim is much more detailed and complex, so it would need more power!

EDIT: Pretty much the same as PhYoshi said.

I wouldn't get too excited. Infinity has been in development forever... I'm pretty sure it's been at least a decade or close. It's not being done by a professional development team, so it has been itching along for the past couple of years.

Again its not like the console is rendering all of the map at once. Density of detail has something to do with it. Yes a lot of PC gamers blow the amount it gets held back out of proportion. Especially since low end PCs can hold games back just as much. But its a matter of this Xbox = x3 cores at 2.6 ghz 512 mb shared video memory. A lot of comps including mine = x4 3.0 ghz 1 gb video memory and almost always 2 gigs plus memory alone. This is a huge difference and most certainly holds PCs back. RDR and Just Cause 2 may look good but they don't look AS good as they could if they use all of today's tech, this is where the complaint stems from.

Nobody is saying consoles are making the game look bad(ok some idiots do say that...), just not as good as it has the potential to.

You could probably make a game on the PS1 that is 400 square kilometers if the map is just a white field and your character is a stick figure. But it′s once the quality, detail and amount of objects increases that we are in trouble.

The term "dumbed down" isn't really accurate, but making a game primarily for consoles does come with some losses - most importantly, the number of buttons you can effectively use.
For example, Crysis 2, being a cross-platform game, has lost free leaning and lying prone, two things many PC gamers used to take for granted, but due to the fewer buttons on console controllers there's simply no room. The game hasn't been dumbed down, in that it's made for less intelligent people (Because a game where driving a jeep through a house, then blowing it up, was a viable combat strategy was never going to be built for intellectuals), rather it's made for less flexible control schemes.

@SURPLUS_NINJA: The clock speed of a processor alone doesn't tell you anything about it, as it says nothing about how many instructions a processor can complete in one cycle, or many other important statistics. Processors now are much more efficient than they were 6 years ago, where a 6 year old 3GHz processor will be blown out of the water by, say, a 1.4GHz i3. Processing power is insanely more powerful than it used to be.

:angry: You had to show me that, and then tear me down! Lol, just kidding :tongue:, well........sort of.

@Everyone, thanks for posting, and being respectful and understanding. I've been enlightened. :wink_smile:

Edit: Another typo......tisk,tisk.

They have a few bigger publishers looking at them; also they have all there engine work completed and are now getting well...everything else done.

But still they've shown moving momentum in the past couple of years it seems development for them is going faster every year.

Infinity engine is the bee's knee's. Also only 1/2 a decade i think.

EDIT: more info they've seem to have gotten some monies http://inovaestudios.com

Also when creating a galaxy it may take awhile.

Well, it might be true that consoles do infact limits the game, but here is the inside scoop: live with it.

Bethesda wants money, however most pc-gamers download their games illigal. Then there is students like me who does not infact have enough money to buy a new computer, so if Bethesda wants my money; release it on console.

It is the same with Crytech, way to many people download their game and they dont earn enough money. Thats why Crysis to is avalible on both the Xbox and PS3 in March.

So if you do want an Elder scrolls game, there better be a company to make the game. That company needs money. They get way more money if they release it for consoles. So keep up the whining and [censored]ing but Bethesda still need money.