DCS and Next gen consoles

[Marko321]

I Wonder has the DCS development team considered.

Bringing DCS world to the next gen console market IE Xbox1 PS4.

I recently read an article about Steam releasing a console in the near future.

Also War thunder is coming to the PS4.So why not DCS world if the market Is there.

[galagamo]

Steam Isnt releasing a console per se, Its a Custom built PC or PC's running a linux based OS also known as "steam OS" AFAIK none of them are proprietary or use proprietary components.

[Nealius]

Unless a console-compatible HOTAS is made I really don't see the point in porting DCS to consoles. I believe there are headtracking options already available for consoles, yes?

[cichlidfan]

I don't think everything that is available on Steam would be suitable for a console environment.

[SkateZilla]

Neither Console even has enough power to run DCS, so prolly not gonna happen.

[thaisocom]

In my opinion you cannot compare War Thunder to DCS, War Thunder is more arcade compared to DCS. Point and shoot. Also, those WWII birds doesn't have these complex avionics we are having in DCS birds today. I cannot imagine how can I operate a DCS level A-10C simulation with a single joypad?

 

With all the keys mapping we have in DCS today I don't think that gonna happen. Of course, if the console were to have a keyboard and a decent HOTAS then it might be somewhat possible.

[Marko321]

Unless a console-compatible HOTAS is made I really don't see the point in porting DCS to consoles. I believe there are headtracking options already available for consoles, yes?

 

The Xbox does come with the connect system

It seems pretty good at tracking.

Not sure if it would be good enough for DCS though I don't use the Xbox1

I bought it for my Kids.

[Marko321]

Neither Console even has enough power to run DCS, so prolly not gonna happen.

 

I know very little about the tech specs, but I downloaded Forza 5

It was a 30 Gig download and looks amazing.

If the voice command system on the Xbox1 was good enough think of the possibilities (Firefox) LoL

I also read an article saying Microsoft are considering supporting a keyboard and mouse.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Marko321

[Slazi]

Console gamers are not the target audiance. The arcadey version of the game would be more suitable for console gamers, but there are a lot of those already. I think most people who want to play sims already have PCs.

[195th_Moses]

good lord i hope not

[Marko321]

Console gamers are not the target audiance. The arcadey version of the game would be more suitable for console gamers, but there are a lot of those already. I think most people who want to play sims already have PCs.

 

I would have to disagree with you.

console gamers cover a very wide spectrum.

Although I am a dedicated PC Gamer I stated gaming on a saga mega drive.

And even had a fighter sim called mig-29 that was over twenty years ago

I think if a product is entertaining enough it should have no problem being a multi platform product, And IMO DCS is. There seems to be a bit of elitism within the PC simulation community when it comes to multi platform games.

If the market is there exploit it in the long run the extra revenue generated

Would only benefit the simulation.

[blackbelter]

According to John Carmack (iD software)in Windows, the software layer slows things down by nearly 1000 times compared to being able to talk directly to the hardware. So Windows greatest strength is also its weakness.

 

The thing is, instead of aiming for higher computing power for each core, chip producers are now aiming for more cores, hoping that software development will simply follow suit. But the fact is that some computations, due to their serial nature, simply cannot be divided into threads, and thus cannot take advantage of the multi-cores that are available.

 

I am not complaining about the chip producers. It is not their fault, but rather physics that is limiting the further development of silicon chips. But it is unfair to say that it is software that is slowing things down.

 

Our hope lies in new 2D materials, which may replace silicon in the near future, or quantum computing devices. But their commercialization is at least a few decades away from us.

Edited January 24, 2014 by blackbelter

[statrekmike]

The problem is not one of hardware specs but of market demographics, consumer expectations and controls.

 

1.) Market demographics, Microsoft and Sony's shareholders are probably not the most in-touch when it comes to the desires and (more importantly) the potential desires of the gaming market, that is why they have been shooting for the lowest common denominator for so long that they have actually managed to lower the overall standard in gaming, both on console and PC.

 

So, as such, gamers have almost been "trained" to like specific types of games more than others, heck, it is obvious that Ubisoft and EA and Microsoft spent a great deal of time trying to convince gamers that complex games are not desirable ,that they would not like them.

 

2.) Consumer expectations, this is a big one, most console gamers are looking for a experience that is a lot less involved than what you might find in even a survey sim like Flaming cliffs, the very nature of the console tends to encourage game designers to keep things simple, suited first and foremost for a controller, you have to be able to accurately control the game with the controls that come out of the box for the console, a flight sim can't work under those constraints no matter how good the gamepad is, especially not DCS World.

 

More to the point, gamers are not going to go from sitting back on the couch or a easy chair to setting up pedals, a HOTAS and some sort of headtracking so that they can play a sim on a console, if they are willing to do that, they are already doing it on the PC as we speak.

 

3.) Hardware, more to the point, the price of hardware is a big issue, a lot of console gamers are younger, they will be hard pressed to convince mom and dad to but them not only the newest flight sim at $60 but also the $200+ HOTAS and other controls, in addition, these kinds of things are not exactly going to fly off the shelves at Best buy, Gamestop and Wal-mart, as such, they probably would not get carried in any great amount, let alone sold in any great amount.

 

In the end, consoles serve a purpose and flight simming is simply not part of that, if you want a flight sim of DCS quality, you already have a PC, a flight stick and a copy of DCS anyway so putting it on the console will not serve any real purpose and be more hassle than it is worth in the short and long run.

[Abburo]

I vote NO for consoles. Power of consoles is way beyond a PC and the worst part is that they have no flexibility.

 

There can be many to be said on this, but the above is the most comprehensive conclusion. Consoles have their own customers target which by far are not related to DCS or other simmulation consumers.

[Suchacz]

Every simmer has a sim-capable PC at home, so why to release sims on consoles? Makes no sense to me...

[danilop]

Steam OS could be the next big thing. The best of both worlds.

 

It should bridge PC and console gaming. Basically we should get tailored and gaming optimized OS running on PC which could be upgraded easily. So we will get better performance from hardware (nvidia is Valve main partner in Steam OS project, BTW).

 

Windows is basically office and business optimized environment. And Microsoft is very inert lately in keeping the DX and whole gaming side of Windows up to the newest hardware standards (hint: AMD mantle, nVidia collaboration with Valve).

 

Back to topic ... Do we need DCS port for current consoles? No.

Edited January 24, 2014 by danilop

[159th_Viper]

Every simmer has a sim-capable PC at home, so why to release sims on consoles? Makes no sense to me...

 

The PS4 probably outclasses the majority of current home PC's. It's just that good! As for releasing a sim on console, well, convenience would be a factor, especially if cross-platform gaming were possible.

[statrekmike]

The PS4 probably outclasses the majority of current home PC's. It's just that good! As for releasing a sim on console, well, convenience would be a factor, especially if cross-platform gaming were possible.

 

As I said in my post in this thread, I don't think hardware is the reason DCS won't really work on something like the PS4, I mean, the folks who buy and play console games are looking for the living room gaming experience and while that is a difficult thing to define, I don't think hardcore sims are part of that at all.

 

The big hurdle is really the open nature of most simulators, unlike Battlefield, Call of Duty or any other console centric game where all the content is pretty much made for you already by the developers, this won't work for simulators like DCS or even Arma, sims rely on community content to keep everything going and having fully featured editors kinda means that the PC is really the only platform that can make that work correctly.

 

Also a problem is the cost of entry, we in the PC gaming community are used to very expensive peripherals and the flight simming crowd even more so, we don't see problems with putting down $200 to $450 for a HOTAS and other stuff, I don't think this will really work for a platform that relies on parents buying stuff for kids to make many of it's sales.

 

So, no, it is not really the hardware specs that make it a bad idea, it is the platform itself and the expectations of those who go for console vs PC.

[TimeKilla]

I wonder if the steam OS will allow games to talk directly with the hardware, I've heard also that consoles are able to do more with less because they don't have the windows layer thinking about it am surprised we can't take a PC and build something where games can talk directly with hardware or having a small OS like consoles for gaming maybe a dual boot for when not gaming?

[danilop]

I wonder if the steam OS will allow games to talk directly with the hardware,

 

NVidia enthusiasm about Steam OS tells me that this may well be the case. And that could be the answer to the AMD Mantle in a way (I don't think that they'll entirely throw away Windows performance, though)

[Cobra847]

The PS4 probably outclasses the majority of current home PC's. It's just that good! As for releasing a sim on console, well, convenience would be a factor, especially if cross-platform gaming were possible.

 

While it may outclass run-of-the mill PCs that are for users that have no intention of doing any sort of gaming: it certainly does not stack up well to gaming-focused PC users.

 

It is roughly equivalent to a low to mid-range PC in 2014. As always, the power of consoles is that you're writing the engines to harness specific hardware, skipping most of the software layer.

AMD Mantle should be one of the things that dramatically reduces this for the PC. No longer will the GPU be waiting for the CPU to finish.

 

 

One other important point to consider is that the new consoles will NEVER be powerful enough to drive devices like the Oculus Rift with high fidelity graphics. They are simply too weak.

[EtherealN]

According to John Carmack (iD software)in Windows, the software layer slows things down by nearly 1000 times compared to being able to talk directly to the hardware. So Windows greatest strength is also its weakness.

 

Do you have a source there?

 

Asking, because I think you are mixing things up a bit. John has talked about two aspects; "middleware" overhead - things like how DirectX doesn't give you direct access to a GPU's compute resources, leading to inefficiensies since it uses all kinds of abstraction to ensure the same code will be compatible with widely disparate hardware. The cost is substantial, but if memory serves me right we're talking at maximum 10-20%; not 100 000%. It goes up a bit more if you compare code that was tailored for a specific hardware component with one that was not, but again not even close to what you are talking about there.

 

What I think you are talking about is latencies, from his discussion about streamed gaming and the latencies involved there, where he pointed out that due to how a lot of components are engineered - including our monitors themselves - there is a considerable latency between when a frame is completed and issued to the output buffer to when the screen actually shows it. Indeed, this delay can often be just as long as the latency you get from a well-designed game streaming platform (assuming your own connection is really good, ofc). This was compared to "laboraty" tests he did himself where he was able to reduce this latency to almost nothing.

 

However, here we should note that this affects PC's and consoles equally. Indeed, depending on the TV/monitor you have your console hooked up to, it can easily be way worse for the console since many TV's don't consider interactive content display in their design.

 

My brother used to work in that field programming the firmware for consumer TV's, and explained that on the "gaming-oriented" units they would implement a "gaming mode" that completely bypasses a lot of post-processing and handling that happens in the TV itself, and we're seeing the same thing on computer monitors - for example some monitors offer a mode that disables the picture scaling functions (the things that allow you to run a non-"native" resolution) to reduce latencies. On most common-priced units this function will be on, and will incur latency, even when you are running at native - and disatrously they don't offer you the ability to disable the function. (EDIT2: funnily enough, this is an oversight from the big manufacturers that would be easy for them to "fix", but through them not doing so offers other specialized vendors to gain a huge markup on units that do have this relatively cheap-to-implement feature.)

 

In THAT case the slowdown is radical measured in orders of magnitude, but we are not talking about graphics computation throughput - that is unchanged - we are talking about the time from each frame being "complete" and issued in the graphics card output to it being displayed on the screen.

 

EDIT3: Another way to illustrate the difference:

 

Case 1: Compare a gun that fires one round per minute with one that fires 1000 rounds per minute.

Case 2: Compare a gun that fires 1000 rounds per minute at a target 1 second's flight time away with the same gun firing the same amount of rounds at a target 1000 second's flight time away.

Edited January 24, 2014 by EtherealN
Oh lord of typos... writing "output bugger" instead of "output buffer"... >.<

[SkateZilla]

The PS4 probably outclasses the majority of current home PC's. It's just that good! As for releasing a sim on console, well, convenience would be a factor, especially if cross-platform gaming were possible.

 

PS4 (or Xbox One for that matter) can't touch my PC.... At All.. Let alone my Pro Rig,

 

vs My Everyday Gaming PC.

 

CPU:

8 Cores (1.6Ghz & 1.75Ghz) vs my 8 Core @ 5.15Ghz

Ram 8GB (GDDR5 & DDR31866) vs my 16 GB DDR3-2133

GPU Tahiti (768 SH & 1156 SH) vs my 1792 SH (3582 in XFire)

Maximum Supported Displays: 2 (4k HDTV + Smart Glass & 4K HDTV + PSVita/Sony) vs my 6 Displays ( 12 Displays w XFire off )

Maximum Supported Resolutions (4K 3840x2160) vs My 5760x2160 (5760x4320) or 6480x1920 (6480x3840)

 

I'll stop there,

 

the 1.6/1.75 GHz APU's are enough to bog any high fidelity simulation engine down. (and please dont bring up Forza 5).. it's not 100% Simulation... it's 100% "Car Passion". and has slowly leaned towards arcade style racing because users complained FM1 and FM2 was "too hard" (Though their Tire model engine is pretty impressive....)

Edited January 24, 2014 by SkateZilla

[EtherealN]

Well Skate, while you are correct in the conclusion, be careful about direct comparisons of core-counts and clock speeds. There's so much hidden below that - for example I haven't checked if the PS4 har FPU's on each core - which your FX does not. (Though not like there are many games that would have use for 8 FPU's.)

[Marko321]

PS4 (or Xbox One for that matter) can't touch my PC.... At All.. Let alone my Pro Rig,

 

vs My Everyday Gaming PC.

 

CPU:

8 Cores (1.6Ghz & 1.75Ghz) vs my 8 Core @ 5.15Ghz

Ram 8GB (GDDR5 & DDR31866) vs my 16 GB DDR3-2133

GPU Tahiti (768 SH & 1156 SH) vs my 1792 SH (3582 in XFire)

Maximum Supported Displays: 2 (4k HDTV + Smart Glass & 4K HDTV + PSVita/Sony) vs my 6 Displays ( 12 Displays w XFire off )

Maximum Supported Resolutions (4K 3840x2160) vs My 5760x2160 (5760x4320) or 6480x1920 (6480x3840)

 

I'll stop there,

 

the 1.6/1.75 GHz APU's are enough to bog any high fidelity simulation engine down. (and please dont bring up Forza 5).. it's not 100% Simulation... it's 100% "Car Passion". and has slowly leaned towards arcade style racing because users complained FM1 and FM2 was "too hard" (Though their Tire model engine is pretty impressive....)

 

There is no doubt a high end PC will beat the PS4 and Xbox.

Hands down every time. But compare the price of a high end PC

To an Xbox or PS4.my guess is by this time next year net gen consoles will Be under 400 dollars/euro. I know a few people who spent many thousands On high end a pc just to run the latest memory and graphically hungry PC game.

Fair enough if you have the funds. But there's a lot of people who Havant. Weather or not a hard-core sim like DCS would be popular with The console gamers. I have no idea but DCS are innovators and have

led the way with there module approach.So who knows

Edited January 24, 2014 by Marko321