So, if PCs are no good for gaming, what is? Consoles? The PS3 has a Geforce 6800 inside it that doesn't even support SM3. If you follow Moore's Law, a console is much worse. I picked this PC up for $400 a year ago. A year later, I upgrade to a 9600 for just $199 more. If a new console was to come out, I'd have to buy the whole thing at once and my old console would be garbage.

Sweeny is a bit crazy. I'd expect no less from the man behind ZZT.

Real 6800's support Shader Model 3.0 but not Shader Model 4.0. And I thought it was more like a 7800 class GPU.

He contradicts himself in the article by saying that games which run on low end systems are making big money and that these days it is too hard to design a game to run on both high and low end systems because of the large performance gap.

These two are easily reconciled: Pick a target system specification that the majority of people who may buy the game meet or exceed and then scale down from there. And start making games that look good again because of artistry instead of performance eating technology.

Almost all gamers will already own a PC. So by simply making better games that run on mainstream PC's which people already own, the initial economic advantage to consoles is gone and as far as I am concerned that is the only one they ever had..

That said Intel is seriously to blame with the hindrance of modern PC gaming since each of their generations of integrated graphics chips are built with levels of performance which would have been shameful 6 years before they were released. Just to shave a few mere dollars off the price chipsets.

As far as I knew, it was a mildly overclocked 6800, but it does lack SM4, at least.The processor has 7 cores, but we won't even have the technology to take advantage of it for another 2 years. In one year, we'll already be looking at the geforce x800 cards and 4gb of ram will be the norm.

Yeah I seriously never understood the reasoning why the current generation of consoles went all out crazy on the CPUs but mediocre on the memory and not much past (at the time) current generation graphics cards.

All the types of games which need a strong CPU tend to be better played on a PC anyways. For example racing and flying simulation games, bot matches in anything versus several AI,board games versus a strong AI and some strategy and RTS games.

Or maybe they just expected to not need alot of raw video card power since most people don't have high definition TV's.

SM4.0 is probably nice but Crysis blows any PS3 or XB360 game I've seen out of the water in DX9 thus SM3.0 on very high. It'll probably be the last year of these consoles lifespan before they start using their technology well enough to compare to what Crytek accomplished.

These two are easily reconciled: Pick a target system specification that the majority of people who may buy the game meet or exceed and then scale down from there. And start making games that look good again because of artistry instead of performance eating technology.

Agreed. I keep thinking about the Source engine and how it scales damn well with less powerful systems, and the artistic style of WoW which lets it get away with having lower requirements yet still having a significant visual impact - not to mention StarCraft which is holding up as a marvel of game design 10 years after its release. I've still yet to see an RTS with as much balance and art assets that clearly define each unit to great effect.

Most of blizzard's games are excellent example of how modest system reqs can still create a good looking game. And they're the one company it seems that knows it's not the prettiness that keeps people playing.

My only beef with the source engine is it's very CPU hungry relative to the GPU. I know this is great for your typical PC sold by dell or HP who put a powerful processor into their boxes mainly for advertising a large GHz number. Despite having a budget level graphics card like a 7300gs or worse. Such a PC is pretty typical as many people don't build their own.

Source engine is well targeted for that system. It's not targeted for someone with a 3-5 year old PC running a pentium 4 but who upgraded to say a 6800gt AGP and haven't upgraded since. They're entirely limited by the P4 and wont stand a prayer of achieving stable frame rate much above 60.

FEAR (just to throw out a counter example from relatively the same time) on the other hand is limited the most by the GPU and probably would run better on said old but upgraded 6800gt system than a new but weak 7300 system.

I guess the other advantage of source engine being CPU dependant is most people have LCDs and most video cards should be able to still run the game at the native resolution.

I run an Internet café that's running on P4s, 1GB of RAM, and 6600 GT/7300 GT/2400 Pros, and they all do steady 78-ish FPS on 1024x768 on CS:S, even with like 12 people on the map. That's what impressed me quite a bit.

Yeah it's impressive in single player and non reaction heavy games 78fps causes a bit of a problem for trying to compete. First it's 13ms time to draw each frame, but hehe I'll leave that alone and just say that source has a problem with negative acceleration and low framerates. Cap the framerate to 10 sometime and move your hand fast to see what I mean.

Because of that you kinda need to either use a 400cpi mouse or less cpi by using a special driver I know of that works before the DirectInput level when you have a lower in-game sens.

Now if Source were a really great engine you'd be able to play at 800x600 and get a 50-60% performance boost over 1024x768 and get 120-125fps (cutting frame time by 5ms!) on those machines in which case I wouldn't be complaining. But a good game engine also should not have trouble handling the data from a high resolution mouse moving quickly. At least since there are opticals out there with 1600cpi and higher which can track and frighteningly high speeds without hardware caused negative accel.

Just depends on the type of game you're trying to make, for anything fast and first person shooter like I demand good performance from the framerate, mouse controls and sound engine. Basically those three reasons alone have convinced me that Unreal Engine 3 is a pile of dogshit. Has anyone even tried to make a flickshot in those games? Forced mouse smoothing that lingers no matter what you change in the .ini's which doesn't matter because 2/3's of the entries are nonfunctional clutter intended for the Xbox and PS3 versions of the games.

Episode 2 looks dated IMO in the graphics department when run on a powerfull card. Feels like something from 2005 or 2006 graphically. Everything feels a bit blocky and bump/normal-maps or whatever they use, look a bit too flat for my tastes. To me the source engine is a ok looking engine with lots of pretty lights. It's the artistic talant at valve who IMO are responsible for HL2 etc looking good when it was released. The engine seems to eat CPU in higher resolutions. Got an E6400 running at 2.8ghz and often got FPS drops (from locked at 100) in TF2 even when running graphics on low with only textures at high in res 1024x768. This is with a 8800GTS 512MB so shouldn't be the graphics card that is the problem.

Its actually a 7800GTX.

indeed. 6800 would not do the job as it's not fully programmable.

plus, 6800 supports SM3. dunno why am i replying to you :D

You are making no sense, hardware wise the ps3 is years ahead of intel igp chips, as sweeney says.

So? It's also already outdated as far as hardware goes. At least I can buy a new processor/video card each time they come out. I'd have to buy entire new consoles each time I wanted to upgrade.

outdated? ps3 gfx isnt cutting edge, but its far from being outdated.

256mb of main ram with a 550mhz core clock rate on the video card and 256mb of video ram isn't outdated?

I have more ram on my video card than the entire PS3.

The only reason it can even get away with running games so nicely is because it doesn't have to run an OS.

"The only reason it can even get away with running games so nicely is because it doesn't have to run an OS."

Exactly! blindy comparing those specs is apples to oranges mate.

Raw power isn't the only thing that comes in new technology. The easiest example is SM4 support.

The only thing is that a PS3 is a one time 500$ whereas staying up to date on the videocard part of the world is a yearly 300$

I bought this PC for $400 with enough graphics power to play most games. A year later, I only spend $199 bringing it up to date. You'd need to buy a whole new $600 console to do the same.

if console>pc for gaming, then television>internet for news/information/entertainment.

I agree with him. From a developers point of view, working for the PC crowd is horrid. Not only does your market have a huge vary of equipment, they are also big cheapskates who will download your game given the opportunity.

That being said, who cares? What was the last good PC game anyway, somewhere between C&C and Q3?

lol, are you sereal?

ever heard of emulators m8?

Summary: Sell more PCs with a good budget graphics card.

Someone from Epic does an interview where they say something revealing they know next to nothing about gaming, is this really a surprise to anyone anymore?

Exactly my thoughts.

It made me cry watching the developer documentary, you'd only ever see them playing warfare with playstation controllers =/

correction, mister Tim: "UTs are good for anything, just not games"
another idiot loosing contact with reality

I wish Epic was as smart as Valve.

epic are just sour cos their game didnt sell very well, and they'd spent all that money marketing it to pc people especially...

shouldnt have dumbed it down to shit , limited movement + highdps weapons = lose for 1v1 type deathmatch.

UT2k4 damage was too low and it was made worse by the shield gun (GREAT IDEA). Somehow they more than compensated for the damage and made everything too strong. They also made most of the weapons easier to use. I'll give them my sincerest thanks for converting me to Quake.

the shield gun wasn't a bad idea, it just was poorly adjusted (also it could have limited damages instead of blocking them totally)

Yeah that and shock rifle randomly could hit through it. It also recharged rather fast so there was no risk in using it so long as you could get away. And that was pretty easy in many maps because of the able movement. I'll admit it made a pretty fun melee weapon.

"shock rifle randomly could hit through it"
wasn't that headshots ? if I remember the shield didn't protect from lg/sniper headshot, so I guess from shock neither

as a melee weapon the hammer of ut3 seems pretty fun : easy to hit and powerfull ; I remember ending up top 3 on beta demo pub server (so, low skill players ofc) using only the hammer (40-50 kills). maybe a bit overpowered, but it seems every weapon in ut3 is (and the stupid mini is ruining the game)

Headshots hit through it but for a legit reason (almost)

Normally a headshot would do 140 damage (assuming you didn't hit them with any childbolts (stupidest idea ever btw).

So if the shield can block 100 damage then 40 damage still hits you through the shield.

Shock also often hit right through, especially if you aimed towards the feet. This is as much a problem with people not aiming their shield well as it is an actual glitch.

Sweeny does come across as very out of touch. You think all PCs should have expensive video cards so that you can make expensive monstrosities like UT3? I'm perfectly happy with Intel onboard graphics which run the only games that matter, SC and Quake 3 just fine. Perhaps they could try some lower budget titles based around gameplay? Madness.

I demand to know what is this "gameplay" you speak of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay

I see.

But it can't possibly be more important that high end graphics and eye-candy!

"graphics = gameplay"

I'd say you're out of touch with an argument like that.

You don't make money on gameplay, you make money on graphics.

Epic sure proved that eh

i'm not sure how well epic is doing.

id made more money on some pocket quake than quake 3 i read, which was pretty funny

You make money on sales.

and licensing game engines.

and what do you think average joe will buy?
quake 4 or crysis?

games with gameplay is better games in my opinion, but they will never sell the big cash like graphic hyped games do. the only game with good gameplay that i know of that sold good was halflife.

how many do you think payed for q3?

Portal is an example of what I am talking about.

i doubt portal would do as good without the other games in orange box

narbackular drop or something was created years and years ago with the same game idea but it didnt catch up because it wasnt a big gaming company that released it

Like there was no difference between the two...

there is, storyline and graphics. same idea

and shitty name!

I just think it's inefficient because as graphics have just gotten better the time for development has gone up and up. Companies spend years on a game and yet spend less time than before just making the damned things fun. Not only that they need to charge more for the product because of higher development costs and consumers usually will need beefier hardware, or else they turn the detail down and miss what alot of that work went into making.

All I think is gameplay should be the first priority in game design before everything else. The technology that makes it happen comes second, especially since certain technologies allow for new game play (like the game Audiosurf, highly interactive physics or real time shadows) Then after those two comes everything else, which includes eye candy.

And the sales will come if the game is good and catches on. When many other people are playing the game you don't care as much how pretty the game is only to get in on the fun everyone else is having.

Crysis case in point:

Excellent game to a certain extent. An excellent example of pushing technology to the limit to a great visual effect. Gameplay is even half decent by todays standards although it's less fresh than it was in Farcry. Game is also great for NVIDIA and Intel.

Even though it's all around a "better" game than Farcry was or other games I played / play alot of, I liked the original better.

The difficulty was greater, the game was longer, there was more time spent fighting humans and better open space to explore. In Crysis even though I wandered all through out most of the levels I only once found something that gave me an advantage I would not have had without exploring. In Farcry the game was vastly more open ended and replayable, not to mention more challenging.

So Crysis even though it was more polished, had a bigger budget, was even more incredibly good looking for it's release date, better sound and better multiplayer was less fun in single player than Farcry. And since it wasn't a purely multiplayer oriented game it's understandable that part would only provide limited entertainment after completing the short campaign. Which happened to have a stupid non-ending and a lame story.

Odd Tim, Valve appear to be doing insanely well....15 million Steam users and all...

The guys at Epic are just mad because no one bought UT3 on the PC.

I won't go as far as say console gamers are clueless (which is true in most cases) but then again they are forced to buy the game first and then decide if it's worth their money... At least we, PC gamers, have the chance to pirate a game, and then spend our money on it if it's good enough.

Yes, I know about demos.

so is this why ut3 was a console port? i also read a while ago that epic are basically gonna stop making games for PC so the UT series will be dead except if you want to play it on console and i know most UT fans have too much taste to be doing that.

and as esque said valve are doing better then fine with focusing on the PC market, epic have to face the fact that the PC market is smaller then the console market in terms of sales and realise that if you dont make a fucking shit hot game that average PC/console gamers like you will not be selling many. the days of competitive gaming are dead, average joe was never interested in the first place and now you can by more flashy, easy to play first person shooters they wont by "hardcore" games anymore

Tim's just bitter because he spent like 4 plus years working on UT3 for the PC and it sold shit.
Try teling an wow player or a dedicated FPS player pc is no good for gaming.

Secondly, looking at my x-box 360 elite nex to me to me i see a small box, a 120 gig hard drive bolted onside. If I were to take the lid off I would find a CPU, motherboard, graphics and yes pretty much everything else that meakes up a PC.

If anything the PC is the ultimate gaming machine.

The sheer irony is devs will run away from PC development, but it will do a full circle when the mainstream realise that they want a piece of hardward that does everything a pc does.

Why would anyone want juat agame machine anymore?
all new consoles have internet capabilities.

If the xbox 360 had an option to boot up with a version of XP and you could launch your games though there it would be the best thing ever.

consoles are pc but have at least one thing better than pc :
console manufacturer lose money when selling console : console cost for us consumers way less than the equivalent pc hardware in term of performance (at least the console's release)

wow arguemnt: fine
fps argument: lol? do you think developers make games for hardcore "pro gamers"?

people who actually pay money for games usually want a laptop that they can "browse the web" with (meaning reading news papers and such). if they're not kids ofc.. the kids just buy whatever the hype is. halo, counterstrike etc..

NO, but the point is, the mainstream market IS GOING TO BECOME MORE HARDCORE and will demand mouse and keyboard for such a game because anyone here knows how horrible it is to play an FPS on a console once you have expereinced a mouse and keyboard.

What i saying it is only a matter of time till consumers realise the ultimate combination will be a pc and while the PC market might be seperate, it's still the same except it should spawn a new breed of super cheap pc's (actually xbox 720 whatever) and the two should merge.

If my xbox booted up with Xp and I could run all my apps on it and play the xbox game to me it would essentially be a pc.

The only bad thing is I not sure there will be many devs to do some really nice tech looking stuff.i nthe meantime.
This is why raytracing wont be a reality because the market is going over to consoles, but consle IMO will become pc's because they are the superior platform, its only flaw is price and different hardware. Consoles will unify the lot.

consoles will definitely be pc with os, mouse and keyboard when the HD tv will be common : can use internet (because poor resolution and 50-60Hz crt tv : fail at using internet)

i dont agree with you

Meanwhile, in Japan; computers have peaked and are getting out of date.

If people want their PC games to sell they need to:

Use a steam-like system to ensure that people are actually buying it.

Have settings be adjustable so that anyone can play at a reasonable amount of frames. Q4 did pretty good here.

Don't release game on beta .5 and call it version 1.0 so that no one takes your shit seriously.

Good gameplay plz

in all honesty i kinda think the ue3 engine scales down better than the idtech4 engine did.

q4 is more reliant on dual core cpu's than anything else.

WELL, in quake4 I can get 120 fps with my 6600gt and bump maps + specular on.

I don't doubt it as long as SMP is enabled. That was my point.

I have never turned on SMP and I rock Q4 and did on my old system as well.

athlon64 3400za=, 768 ram, and a 6800gt agp getting constant 90 frames is fine by me. Much better than source, even running it forcing directx 7.0

For me, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out runs fine, looks fine and plays fine. The polygon-race is a bunch of corporate crap.

apples and oranges in my opinion