News Digital Foundry compares UE4 PC and PlayStation 4 ports

Firstly, the demo did not seem as smooth to me in places on the PS4 side. Was that a capturing issue?

Those that want a console, will buy a console. Those that want a better experience and have the money, will buy a PC. Those that have the money and the knowledge will make a PC. It should not be about one being better or worse - horses for courses.

The really important news is that, with all the major consoles using AMD APUs, the portability of code, the ability for studios to target money at the game and not individual ports, means a better experience for all users. Whether console or PC. The PS4 and the 720 will be only as good as a mid range PC, when they are released. In the next 3 years the average PC will eclipse them and gaming PCs will look like they are in a different league.

Now the interesting thing will be in the next generation of consoles if the manufacturers work out a way to add user changable parts. Imagine a console (steam box) where you can upgrade the graphics, memory, across a 5 / 7 year period.


My 2 krona

 

This round of console releases will need to give us what we desire.

Mine ...

1) 3D
2) 4K
3) minimal loading times
4) quiet
5) plays ball with my current network and hardware
6) doesn't require a whole new load of controllers, hardware.

 

1. Possible
2. No chance not even a 4k tv on market for under £20k.
3. Depends on game
4. Ps3 is quiet, 360 is now also was not on launch though
5. Don't know why it would not.
6. Wiiu is backwords compatible with its controllers.

 

N64 Expansion Pak ;-)

Why not have a space for a RAM expansion module or, given that it's an AMD APU, an expansion slot for a Crossfire graphics module expansion. The Xbox 360 started off with a modular storage expansion capability...

 

Many devs seem to be suggesting first party PS4 titles will steal the crown from PC...eventually. As PC hits the DirectX latency brick wall. Producing ever more complex , faster GPUs to offset this seems daft. Especially if the more efficient PS4 is producing better visuals using a quarter of the power of a high end, expensive PC .

And PC gamers may have to finally accept you can't expect to play the latest titles even on very low settings on a dated 2004 ,PS2 era rig.

With both consoles (obviously, still just rumoured for new Xbox) having 8GB ram . It could be interesting to see what finally having native 64bit games does for visuals on PC. Although ,if the rumours are true about MS putting a clunking full-fat Windows OS on their console along with Kinect 2.0 taking up a further 1.5GB , it may not work out like that. Sony seems to be going the OS-lite route, with a much smaller memory footprint. They say first- party titles are ultimately what win these console wars,. If so, with 8GB GDDR, an OS lite and low-level HW access for devs, Sony seems to have a huge advantage, if... that's how thing play out.

 

The PS4 will have to deal with pretty much the same "latency brick wall" as if the rumors are true it will be using what they are calling an extended DirectX 11.1+ feature set and AFIK all game devs use some kind of API now days.

A comparison of PS4 and PC hardware with costs has already been done, and to sum it up by the time the PS4 is released you could pretty much buy the equivalent gaming rig for the same price, but with the added advantage that you can upgrade the PC as time goes by.

As with all consoles your going to be stuck with the same hardware for over 7 years, i would guess the next gen consoles (PS4, 720) will look out of date within 2 years at most. We will be in the same boat we are in now with console ports on the PC not being able to take advantage of better hardware.

 

True. But remember these consoles are going to be on the market for 5 years +

What TV res will you be using in couple of years? 4 years? Who knows. Now that Laptops and tables are flying past the "Full HD" experience i would expect my console to do able to do so.

 

We will always be that way corky. Till they hit a point where it can go no further.

 

A company is aiming to release a sub $2.5k 4K TV this year. Ok, it won't come with all the bells and whistles, and rumoured to only upscale to 4K. But 4K is desirable, and getting cheaper, much much faster. I'm an early adopter of most things, due to my need to stroke all things new-tech. There is no point investing time and money in a 1080P console if my TV wants feeding with 4K.

Which is why a SteamBox/etc console is likely to be what I need.

 

This is all bollocks and you know it. Look at the PS3.. it has all the modern games released for it and the graphics don't look that much worse then on the PC.

We're talking about games here after all, and not about virtual reality, so I actually don't care about the graphics that much, but more about the game being fun to play or not.

Take Borderlands 2 for example. You can't make out a difference between a triple SLI-GTX680 and a PS3, as the graphical style is not trying to look real anyways.

1080p will be mainstream for atleast another 5 years to come, as 4k screens won't be anywhere near available for under $1000 within the next 5 years.
Additionally. When sitting on your couch looking at your 40" from 3-4 meters distance, you won't notice much difference between 1080p and 4k.

4k in general is totally overrated, even for the PC. When you ergonomically sit infront of your PC-screen the distance between your head and the screen is about the lenght of your arm (some 80cm). Lean back and relax and it's about one meter.
At one meter distance you don't need that high resolutions to make the picture look perfect. High resolution displays for tablets or phones are a totally different story, as the distance they're used at is usually much less (tablets some 30-50cm, smartphones some 20cm) at which distance you'll heavily notice single pixels on your 1080p PC-screen.

Bigger/finer resolutions are really pointless after a certain point, which imho is allready reached.

 

Best not try this in a German internet cafe then.

 

MUAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!

Didn't really expect, that people stretch out their arms after reading my post

 

Maybe that is why you don't 'get' upping resolutions. Because you don't care about graphics that much? It always makes me groan when someone brings gameplay into these GFX debates, like they are running for the higher moral ground ... we all care about gameplay more, just like you, but we strive for juicier GFX as well.

Anyway, I did a little light reading and it turns out I no longer want 4K - I now want Super Hi-Vision!

 

Actually, you've started quite the little army - I did as well!

 

The whole 4k debate is rather Irelivent as 99% of pc games don't even support multi monitor which can get above 4k.

In 5 years time there might be a sub £1000 monitor for pc gamers. But consoles are aimed at kids first and foremost and no kid would have a £2000+ tv in there room unless there parents are billionaires.

I went DVD on its release back in the day then blue ray when it followed. The difference between a 1st gen DVD and the latest film is huge in quality.

Similar thing is happening in blue ray.

Once 4k becomes what people want you will see a new format released to allow the size of the files.

As a 4k film will be bigger than a blue ray.

 

I do graphics design for a living... just sayin'.

However, I don't see that much improvements in bigger resolutions when talking about gaming or watching movies.

Gaming sees much more improvements, when you play at smaller resolutions but increased setting instead actually, and playing a game on a 27" QHD with medium settings looks worse then playing on a 24" FHD with max settings.
So before thinking about bigger resolutions, we should start thinking about more polygons, better textures and shaders first, which is exactly what the PS4 will do compared to the titles currently released on the PS3.

 

You must be kidding right, going with your example of borderlands 2 the recommended system requirements for it is a GTX 560 first released two years ago. The minimum requirement is a 8500 released around the same time as a PS3 over 5 years ago, and i wouldn't exactly call borderlands 2 a modern game when it comes to graphics as it still uses DirectX 9

Its pretty obvious that borderlands 2 was designed with 5 year old hardware in mind and then a few PC specific tweaks where thrown in for the more modern hardware.

If you don't care about graphics why not go back to using a ZX spectrum IMHO you can beat the game play in old skool games.