BleepingComputer.com: Why consoles annoy the crap out of me...

the_patriot09, on Oct 13 2010, 12:19 AM, said:

Not with graphics cards. My Radeon 9700 Pro was solid and lasted me 3 years until Battlefield 2. It was a slideshow with the details maxed. I always play with anti-aliasing as well.

My Radeon X1900XT lasted 3 years as well. So the longest that a graphics card would last me was 3 years. The problem was wanting to run current games at their highest detail settings. Plus my 24-inch LCD is 1080p so I need a card capable of running 1920x1080 resolution. So that sort of limits me too. The funny thing is that very few PS3 games are 1080p. Most of them run at 720p max - understandable for technology based upon the GeForce 7900 series.

hehe my 3870 x2 runs 1920 x 1080 just fine. In fact, technically, my old ATI 1250 would run that resolution, depending on what your doing. lol I wouldnt be using it to play bfbc2 but for surfing the web it would run that resolution without breaking a sweat. Almost all my games I run maxed out at that resolution with that 3870 x2, bfbc2 being the exceptin, Ive been running it on a much lower resolution latly at medium settings, but that was mainly because my athlon x2 6000+ was bottlenecking me. I just upgraded to a phenom II 945 quad core, and so far, its been playing great, havent adjusted the settings yet though. But ya I see your point, computers definetly have to be constantly upgraded, which can be a negative, but in my book its a plus-you can upgrade a computer, you cant upgrade a ps3, and I enjoy tinkering and upgrading my computer, but each to their own. :D

Just to note something about the whole "why can't gaming companies make a game look as good as [insert game here]?". It's not easy to make a game that can run with such high end graphics as not all companies can have a high production team due to a budget limit and such. Also, as a student in Game Design and Development, I've also learned that there are techniques that can be used to make something that has a low polygon count and make it look very good (this is more of faking out with very very good texture maps). Physics engines have their own issues since most engines are either in-house built (which can cost a lot of time, but will do what you want it to do when made correctly and costs less money, in theory) or are used from a third party such as the Havok engine (which means that it for sure works, but may or may not give you the EXACT results you want and will cost money).

I'm not trying to start a fight here or anything, I'm just trying to straighten something out with what knowledge I know (even if it is limited).

the_patriot09, on Oct 15 2010, 02:24 PM, said:

You can run 1920x1080 on a 32MB graphics card if you are only browsing the web. My main point was regarding 3D gaming.

I doubt you could run Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (OFPDR) at 1080p max settings with that 3870 X2. There are many other modern games that would stress that graphics card out in the worst way. That reminds me though, every FPS game is merely a port these days. They make them all for consoles and then port them to the PC. OFPDR was that way, BFBC2 was as well. Aliens vs Predator was a horrible port. Modern Warfare 2 was ported. The list goes on. I can't remember the last only PC first-person shooter game.

Anyway, the list of games that come out every month for consoles goes on and on. For the PC there might be a few good games per year. The worst is that they are mostly RTS, MMO, RPG or FPS games.

Regarding the whole upgrade thing, it's great that you don't need to upgrade the PS3. You can concentrate on just putting the game in and enjoying it. You don't need to worry about installing, updating your drivers, whether you have a good enough graphics card, etc. It allows me to have my PC last longer as well. I am sure my current primary rig will last me for years to come since I will not need to upgrade it. That's money back in my pocket.

scff249, on Oct 15 2010, 07:23 PM, said:

I don't think anyone asked that here.

Maybe it can run those games maybe not, it will play them at that res and make them look good. I cant play BFBC2 at max settings at that res (well I can, at like 30 fps, but I prefer at least 50) but I can play it at medium settings, and it still looks great at that res-just as good as a console version. I bet Operation flashpoint would run just fine on my system- better then you might think-with my dual core in it, I ran Crysis Maxed out with full AA at 1600 x 900 at 30 fps-it may not play maxed out at 1920 x 1080 at 150 fps-but your PS3 wont either-in fact, a common thing that many people overlook, is while yes, their computer or console is capable of displaying 150 fps, their TV/monitor, is not. Your typical Blue ray drive on a 1080p TV will only play that movie at 30 fps. Now games, are typically higher then that, but only to a point-I had one game that would play at what my computer was reading as 3-400 fps (old game) however, there was no way my monitor was displaying that.

My point here is, Im not insulting console gamers by any means, nothing against consoles or their games, I just prefer computer gaming. I dont much like anologue controls, the lack of ability to upgrade, and the fact your pretty limited in what you can do with them. Consoles, you can play games, listen to music, and even surf the web now, but I do so much more with a computer then just game. Its all a matter of preference.

Crysis wasn't a port. Now that you mention it, it was the last FPS developed only for the PC that I know of.

Ported games run like crud even on high end hardware. OFPDR got about 45FPS average at 1680x1050 on my Radeon HD 5850 with all details maxed. At 1920x1080 you couldn't get the same with your 3870 X2 - at least AFAIK. Not that it's even worth playing. The worst part is that the game is only DX9 capable - yet still runs like crap. There's no need to upgrade consoles because game developers know the hardware and makes games for the consoles. They don't make some overkill game (like Crysis) that the hardware can't run. You know that you can look on the shelf at hundreds of games and all of them will work on your console.

Oh, there's no way I am going to get rid of my computer. I'm just not going to game anymore on it. So if you know anyone that wants a Radeon HD 5850 (MSI manufactured) just let me know.

I just looked up the specs on that game jon, and hate to break it to you, but Id bet money that I could run operation flashpoint on my 3870 x2 without it even breaking a sweat-at at least 1600 x 900, if not 1920 x 1080. Granted, I have a fairly nicely tuned PC, a lot of things arnt just your specs but how well you set the system up-I had a old pentium II back in the day (back when the pentium IIs were just starting to be phased out) that I got tweaked out enough to run games that were designed to run on systems twice as powerful-all without overclocking. If your computer wasnt running it well, your 5850 wasnt the issue-something else was bottlenecking your system. Heres the specs for it
* Operating system: Windows XP SP2 or later
* Graphics: DirectX 9.0c
* Graphics card: Nvidia 7600GT 256mb or ATI X1800XL 256mb
* Sound support: DirectX-compatible sound output
* RAM: 1GB RAM
* HD size: 8GB Hard disk space
* Processor: 2.4GHz Dual Core Processor
* DISC drive: Dual layer DVD-ROM

My comuter far exceeds those, probably at least 3-4 times more powerful. Keep in mind, in a well tuned gaming rig, your video card is not the most important part. Sure, you want a good one, but you also want to keep track of your motherboard chipset, CPU, Memory, especially memory timings, a lot of people buy the cheaper ram with high timings, and that can hurt you if you like high end gaming-spend the extra few bucks and get the tighter timings. All kinds of little things, I enjoy building computers, Ive honed it down to a fine art, and while I have a lot to learn, I enjoy learning it and work hard to learn it. Now that being said, I dont like the game simply because I strongly dislike steam and will not install it on my computer nor purchase any game that requires steam or valve, period. Again, this all goes back to personal preference, nothing necessarily wrong with steam I just dont care for it. Nothing wrong with consoles, if thats your thing, but I prefer my PC gaming, and I prefer building my machines to a cutting edge of perfection.

And yes you do need to upgrade consoles, cuz after awhile they stop making them and games for them then you need to dump another 600 bucks into a new console to play the latest games. And to me, seeing as I have the time, patience, knowledge, and want (most important thing to me) to build a computer that will blow the graphics away in a console released of the same time-well, thats what Ill do. If you like your consoles thats great Im happy for you, and while I enjoy my 360 on occasion, when I want to sit down and do some serious gaming, its on my desktop. :D

Oh, and you almost sold me the 5850 myself, but I tend to avoid anything made by MSI have had way to many problems with them in the past. In my gaming rigs, I Only use Saphire ATI cards.

This post has been edited by the_patriot09: 19 October 2010 - 12:16 AM

I don't doubt that you could PLAY it. I'm just saying that you couldn't play it at 1920x1080 with every detail setting maxed. I had an average of 40-45FPS with my Radeon HD 5850 with all settings maxed at 1680x1050. It was smooth to play at that framerate though. Those specs are minimum requirements just to PLAY the game, and with lowest settings possible. Crysis required a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 minimum, would you try using that with all settings maxed?

I had no bottleneck at all either. My Core 2 Quad was overclocked to 3.2GHz. It's just a very poorly ported game. Memory timings have zero effect on games. Not sure what you mean when mentioning Steam. It has nothing to do with the OFPDR. I assume that you mean buying the game off of Steam but I got mine retail at GameStop and installed it via DVD. It didn't require Steam for use at all.

Buying a new console isn't the same as upgrading. You can buy any PS3 game and it will play on a PS3. I know what you mean with the cost. At $600 when it first came out the PS3 was insanely expensive. But the cost to produce it at that time was expensive as well. The GeForce 7900 had just came out and the nVIDIA RSX (the GPU on the PS3) was based upon that architecture. So it was still expensive. The IBM Cell processor was expensive. The BD-ROM drive was expensive. It was high end and state-of-the-art at the time of release, equal to PC gaming rigs at the time.

But back then a PC gaming rig was far more expensive as well. My Radeon X1900XT, which is equal to a GeForce 7900, cost me $535. That's 89% of the cost of an entire PS3 when it was released. It cost me $300 for my AMD Opteron 165 and $220 for 2GB dual channel DDR400. The Asus A8R-MVP motherboard set me back $135. I also had a OCZ 550W PowerStream PSU that was $120. The list goes on. In 2006, for the cost of that gaming rig I could have gotten a pair of Playstation 3 consoles.

You would be surprised what memory timings will do in game, you really would-and yes I have played with them. Ive noticed a 4-5 fps difference in games between 4-4-4-12 timings on my ram and 5-5-5-15 (slower being better) so they do make a difference. And I realize that those are minium specs, but on the same note, at 1600 x 900 I can handle crysis fully maxed out-AA and everything-at 25-30 fps, and that was before I upgraded to a quad core, and From what im seeing, Crysis is more system intensive then that game. Granted, 25-30 fps is barely, and I do mean barely, playable, but it is playable, I am sure, especially with my new quad-that I can handle operation flashpoint maxed out-at a much higher framerate. I designed this sytem from the ground up, I have a good idea what it can, and cannot do.

In any case, I can see your point with being cheaper-it is cheaper to purchase a new console every 3-4 years when they come out, then to build a new computer, that is definetly a positive for consoles, Though, seeing as Im constantly upgrading my computer anyway, partly because its a hobby, partly because I do computers as a third job and I like having my computer specced out since its good advertising so I can show people what I can do-I personally, dont waste a lot of time with consoles for that reason-I dont necessarily hate them but Ive already got so much money wrapped up in my computer and I prefer computer gaming anyway, theres no sense in spending any money on them. Heck, the only reason I have a 360 is because it was a christmas present, it usually just ends up being a DVD player.

I Thought OPeration flashpoint was a steam game for some reason, Ive never owned it, I just read on a few forums awhile back when it came out that people were talking about it and steam, didnt read to close so I just assumed it was another steam game. That was back when I was looking at it trying to decide if it was worth buying it or not, and I finally decided it wasn't worth my time.

I've been working on computer hardware for a very long time - especially gaming and overclocking. Memory timings have never made any effect that is noticeable outside of synthetic benchmarks. They definitely will have zero effect on framerate when you are maxing out your detail settings (as well as anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering). That is strictly GPU performance and graphics memory bandwidth.

That Xbox 360 is one expensive DVD player. That's one of the reasons I got my PS3. Now I don't need to spend money on a Blu-Ray player either.

OFPDR is a fun game for single player. It was made far too console oriented though. The team commands are painful. Some bullet ballistics are nice, where subsonic bullets will ricochet off of the ground. You have to arc long range sniper shots too. But when you hit people you get the typical console hit mark, as opposed to just seeing them fall to the ground dead or wounded. It was a lot of promise but just a whopping failure. There was also no dedicated servers for multiplayer, so playing online wasn't really an option.

This post has been edited by JonM33: 20 October 2010 - 05:33 PM

well, Im not going to argue with you over it-Im just giving you the results from my own personal testing, which gave my ddr2 6400 at 4-4-4-12 timings 4-5 fps faster then running same ram at 5-5-5-15. Im sure operation flashpoint is a good game, just never struck my fancy. Which is where all this comes down to-personal preference. Some people prefer consoles, some people prefer desktops. Im more of a desktop fan. :D

Don't kill the messenger: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2239/6

Here's another: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/551/6/

This one helps show that the higher resolution you run at, the very little difference that memory speed makes at all: http://guru3d.com/article/gskill-ddr3-pc316000-triple-channel-memory-review/12

Anyway, you can see from the start of the thread that at first I was unimpressed with my PS3 purchase. Now? I see it as a far better investment than any upgrade for my PC. I took my Radeon HD 5850 out and put my old Radeon HD 4830 in there. I had to lower detail settings to Medium on BFBC2 and get about 45-50FPS at 1920x1080 but I really can't tell a difference in quality. Here I could have saved myself $270 and been playing the game all this time anyway.

This post has been edited by JonM33: 20 October 2010 - 05:53 PM

bud you can give me all the links you want-im telling you the results from my personal tests. I can sit here and play with it on my system, and those are the results that I got-and I always trust my results more then online testers-because I can see them for myself, Im not necessarily calling those sites liars, but I know my fraps isnt lying. . .

Good discussion but we've gone a bit off track. Thanks for at least having this lengthy conversation with me from the start. It has been good!

lol what else are forums for, if were not helping people we can have good long discussions lol. Good discussions are healthy, one can learn many things from them..