DCS and Next gen consoles

[NineLine]

To be fair, you would have to compare a PC in the similar price range, I would think your PC cost a few pennies more than the Next Gen consoles cost.

 

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....)

[SkateZilla]

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.)

 

 

PS4 Uses a Custom SoC AMD APU with 4 Jaguar Modules for 8 Threads/8Cores and 20 GCN Compute Units.

 

They use the same Shared memory controller, pre-fetch decode and FPU as the APU's

Edited January 24, 2014 by SkateZilla

[cichlidfan]

To be fair, you would have to compare a PC in the similar price range, I would think your PC cost a few pennies more than the Next Gen consoles cost.

 

My newest graphics card cost more than my Xbox One.

[NineLine]

My newest graphics card cost more than my Xbox One.

 

Exactly... :)

[EtherealN]

PS4 Uses a Custom SoC AMD APU with 4 Jaguar Modules for 4 Threads/4Cores and 20 GCN Compute Units.

 

They use the same Shared memory controller, pre-fetch decode and FPU as the APU's

 

Roger, then it is indeed relatively fair.

[sobek]

My newest graphics card cost more than my Xbox One.

 

Consoles are always sold very cheap to get the customer "into the system". The expense is then recouped through game prices.

 

PS4 games are about 30 percent points more expensive than their PC counterparts where i live.

[cichlidfan]

Consoles are always sold very cheap to get the customer "into the system". The expense is then recouped through game prices.

 

PS4 games are about 30 percent points more expensive than their PC counterparts where i live.

 

Agreed. It is about 20% here I think.

 

I've also bought at least four graphics cards in the time that I have had my Xbox 360.

[EtherealN]

Consoles are always sold very cheap to get the customer "into the system". The expense is then recouped through game prices.

 

PS4 games are about 30 percent points more expensive than their PC counterparts where i live.

 

This is a difference that should not be forgotten, yeah. Console manufacturers typically charge a hefty license fee on each sale - and typically sell the consoles at a loss in the first half of the console life cycle. This loss is "fine" since the customer is then "locked in" to that console, and each game they purchase will often grant more money to the console manufacturer than they do royalties to the developer. (Though this last bit is getting increasingly irrelevant, since such a large portion of developers are now part of one of the big publishers.)

 

Can be compared a bit to how Google doesn't charge a dime from Samsung when Samsung sells a phone that runs Android. But Google gets a percentage from app sales on Play Store...

 

Basic point is: always be careful with comparing sales-point prices for hardware. Business models can be more ingenious than just to sell the hardware. However, on the PC - for most manufacturers, the only revenue they get is from the hardware sale. (Incidentally, many laptop makers actually get a surprising portion of their revenue through bundling deals from Norton etcetera...)

[cichlidfan]

Case in point...Kindle Fire.

[SkateZilla]

My newest graphics card cost more than my Xbox One.

 

Exactly... :)

 

My Next GPU will cost more than my Initial Build of my system if the Miners keep driving up the price.

 

Roger, then it is indeed relatively fair.

 

Meant 8 Cores/8 Threads on 4 Modules, Both Consoles and PC Run x86-64 Bit, so there is no Power Lost in Architecture translation.

Xbox One Runs 3 Operating Systems:

 

Microsoft Hyper Visor Controller Operating System:

Controls the 2 Function Operating Systems

Allows user to switch between/Run Simultaneously: Gaming, Live TV, Movies/Apps, on the Fly.

 

Windows 8 64 Bit kernel:

Users can directly record Gameplay while playing, edit and share video.

Users can record Live TV.

Allows User to Run APPs

Allows Xbox ONE to Easily Link with Windows8 PCs/Tablets

 

Xbox Dashboard OS:

Allows User to Play Xbox One Games, Which Actually Uses DirectX 11.2 API,

However Late in Console Life, most Developers program directly to the hardware and Bypass API.

 

 

Consoles are always sold very cheap to get the customer "into the system". The expense is then recouped through game prices.

 

PS4 games are about 30 percent points more expensive than their PC counterparts where i live.

 

 

 

Consoles are sold at a Loss, money is made back through games and licences.

 

Part for Part, the Xbox one prolly costs about $800 for the hardware in the box:

 

$200 for Custom Motherboard/Duaghterboards (SPU, HDD Controller, RealTek Network Controller Etc)

$160 for Custom APU w/ 4 Modules and 20 GCN Compute Units, 32 MBESRAM

$ 50 for Samsung 5400 RPM 500GB Harddisk

$ 75 for Micron DDR3-2133 Memory Modules, 16x16 Bit

$ 80 for Phillips BD-ROM

$ 60 for Controller

$200 for Kinect II

 

 

 

Xbox One/PS4 are Equiv. to a Decent Steam Box...

Edited January 24, 2014 by SkateZilla

[EtherealN]

Case in point...Kindle Fire.

 

Yeah, if "stunts" like that get common, it'll be interesting to see what Google does about it.

[johnsonscott]

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.

 

Thats a nice step from steam lets see what new thing they got..

Edited January 26, 2014 by johnsonscott

[winz]

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?

The problem with talking 'directly to the HW' is that you're sacrificing compatibility for performance. In low level calls you're using functions that are specific for that HW, but might not be available in previous generation of cards, might not be available in the next generation, might not be optimal in next generation and are certainly not available on other brands. So you cannot use low level calls for main optimalization, because there is no way you will be able to make custom code for every HW your game will be played on. And some minor tweaks will most likely not be done for cards 2+ generations old which would benefit the most.

 

So PC Games don't talk to HW because they cannot, but because it's impractical. We've been there in the good ol' Dos days, where you had to i.e. select your soundcard manufacter&model for sound/music to work. If your card wasn't supported, then you were out of luck.

 

This isn't an issue for consoles, because their HW is set and doesn't change.

Edited January 27, 2014 by winz

[danilop]

Compatibility is not that huge an issue anymore. Basically it's Nvidia VS AMD. On the PC platform it will be Mantle low level API VS whatever NVidia come up with (DX will die if MS don't take an action soon because it's slow, inefficient and dated).

 

Consoles are low level API too (AMD), and Steam OS will be NVIdia API.

 

So in a sense, even the consoles don't talk to hardware directly (you have low level API for that) - you don't fill and read GPU registers/memory or whatever with machine/C language routines like real direct HW programming ages ago.

[winz]

Compatibility is not that huge an issue anymore. Basically it's Nvidia VS AMD. On the PC platform it will be Mantle low level API VS whatever NVidia come up with (DX will die if MS don't take an action soon because it's slow, inefficient and dated).

 

Consoles are low level API too (AMD), and Steam OS will be NVIdia API.

 

So in a sense, even the consoles don't talk to hardware directly (you have low level API for that) - you don't fill and read GPU registers or whatever with machine/C language routines like real direct HW programming ages ago.

+Intel :)

With Mantle/Nvidia API you once again have the question how low lvl will it be in the end? If you want to be better than DircetX/OpenGL then you have to ensure that all your next architectures will not require DirectX/OpenGL level of abstraction for backward compatibility (which might in the end somehow hurt your architecture).

 

Just to be clear, I'm not saying having lvl api is a bad thing (it is a good thing), but people should be realistic about what it will bring.

 

I personaly don't think that api bound to a single brand will become anything more then a marketing gimmick (*cough* physx *cough*). DirectX was bigger mess before, and it didn't die so it's unrealistic to expect it to die now, when it's basicaly the only API used on MS platforms.

And there really isn't that much pressure for increased performance in PC Games. PC perfomance (even with all the high-lvl api load it carries) is on par with latest generation of consoles, and PC will once again outperform consoles in the comming years.

Edited January 27, 2014 by winz

[danilop]

+Intel :)...

 

:thumbup: Forgot about them!

 

Actually, they could be very, very serious competitor in year or two ...