Geezer

Reading various things on internet, and having finally succumbed to a next gen console, I was wondering if things like SLI and Xfire are nearing the end of their shelf life?

Now I know that PCs will always attract people for RPGs and Image proceesing etc., but quite a few big releases now (and it would seem some future ones) are not going to be release on PC.

So, why invest big bucks in graphics development if you only will need a relatively small amount of grunt to run the games PCs are seemed to be (well, in the future) consigned to?

Geezer

boxst

I expect that it will just shift slightly: Rather than developing Graphics cards and then adapting them for consoles it'll happen the other way round.

Steve

Iain Young

Possibly, although consoles tend to have a 4-5 year gap between releases. That's one hell of a long time for nvidia etc to be sitting around not releasing anything new (which is what would happen if it was console driven). Personally I suspect it will just continue in the same way it is is happening now for some time to come...

spectrum48k

The real deal is being able to render a 3D scene using proper lighting, such as that employed by ray-tracing...



Ray-tracing doesn't require a graphics card as we know them today. Instead, it's requirements are more closely matched to that of a CPU, or general purpose GPU.

The technique is so processor intensive, that up until now, nobody ever bothered to write games that way and instead we saw the birth of the 3D graphics card which effectively fools us with an inferior technique to render graphics.

Fast forward to the next 5 years when we'll see CPU's and general purpose GPU's that can actually begin to employ ray-tracing, and the traditional graphics card may start to slide into obsolescence, or at least evolve into something quite different than it is today.

HankScorpio

This is an interesting article I found when looking for details of pixars render farm:

Coding Horror: Real-Time Raytracing

spectrum48k

interesting article, although a little negative to think its way off. You only need to look as far as AMD / ATI and Intel to realise they're already preparing the hardware to target ray-tracing.

In addition to the benefits of lighting, its also been shown recently that collision logic can be performed more accurately than before using the same "rays" instead of the usual bounding boxes, etc... so there's plenty of advantages. We'll be up to 8 cores in no time, so given that rate of increase perhaps this type of thing isn't as far off as some think?

hux309

Gpu's are actually headed this way, ati for example use vertex shaders which can adapt to be used for any purpose provided it is programmed for, makes a hell of a difference to folding at home scores.

Id give to 10 years tops before we max it out, even now with games like crysis it's starting to get silly, there is afterall so much you can improve on.

bigsinky

IMHO if you think that large multi nationals like ati and nvidia are going to fade away without a whimper i think you are dead wrong. the graphic card business is just as cut throat as the cpu industry. too many other maufacturing companies rely on these big 2 for chipsets for them to just give up to a generalised gpu solution for PCs. hux is dead right on the crysis thing though and games are only going to get more complicated, use better methods for rendering and generally get more hungry for power as time goes on.

I am waiting for the day when i can enter a holodeck and be a character from say LOTR (safety protocols on of course). that would be an immersive gaming experience.

Cyril Robertson

Sorry to go OT,

But are you the one and only Geezer Butler?

Cyril.

Geezer

No. Who is he though?

Geezer

StickyMicky

i see pc gaming as dieing a horrible death, but i think decent GFX cards will always be available for people that need them......

P1Fanatic

Why? Do you know how big online PC gaming is - well before consoles even got online. Consoles have their place but as a serious FPS gamer there is just no comparison when playing online. I dont see that changing any time soon.

Simon

hux309

Member of black sabbath i think.....

hux309

Firing up eve online i see umm 23,000 people online, yup sure is dieing.

Cyril Robertson

A right nutcase


As correctly identified by Mr Hux, the bass guitarist from Black Sabbath.

Cyril.

StickyMicky

because various developers have said so ?

pc gaming is sketchy, games are no longer made for "all machines", they are made for the ubermachines with all the latest gear, far to many conflicts, problems installing and running crop up because of to much variety in differing makes etc etc

when the developers are starting to say this its a pretty good bet its how it is, iirc i think Epic is pulling out of the PC market? i have read about others, the pages i read basically said what is the point in making games for a system that has to many variables when they can make it for something like a ps3/360 that has a set system from the start.


i have heard these comments from a few places now, no idea what eve online is, but it sounds like a simple enough RPG type game that will run on old PC`s?

i dont doubt that games will stop getting made for pc`s, i just dont think you will see many "blockbuster" type titles in say 2/3 years time.

plus the PC market is supposed to be the easiest out of the lot to copy the games in the first place, its driving developers away, apparently



how much is a current "games" pc costing capable of running something like COD4 on max settings compared with buying an xbox 360 ?

yes the mouse on the pc is nicer to use, but thats an awful lot of extra money you are paying, to use a mouse.

StickyMicky

epic think pc gamers suck *****

Cliffy B: Epic (And The Cliffster) Focusing On Consoles Because PC Gaming Is "In Disarray"

man from epic games says :

hux309

You sound like someone who can't afford a decent spece'd pc you end up bashing them instead.

One or two developers are saying they're leaving the pc but that's it, their loss.

This is eve online, right click save as.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/download...wnload&vid=157

StickyMicky

give over, i was all ready to build a new pc a while back just for games and i saw the light, you have vast numbers of people buying desktop pcs from places like pc world and such unable to play new games, even on the most basic settings as they have "onboard" GFX that are crap

then you get the people who spend 2k on a "games" machine, to play the latest game (which is generic crap with nice graphics) and the 2k machine is now put in "post on scoobynet mode" lol untill the next "big game" comes out

only the machine will now not play the latest game on the highest settings as you need to upgrade the over priced GFX card, and so on, etc etc.

i have just read that gears of war on the 360 has sold 4.5 million copies ?
that is immense!


ps. my current PC was considered a "bad ***" gaming rig when i first built it a squillion years ago

now its just a battered old desktop that will not even run the COD4 demo (wanted to compare with the 360 to see how different it looked) as the 9700pro gfx card is to crap lol

hux309

Subjective, i sold my 360 as i got incredibly bored of it, it's purely a games machine while my pc i can watch tv surf the net, play eve online, it's not just a gaming machine that is just one aspect of it.

You saw the light, more like your gf did either that or you had a baby on the way.

Btw xbox540 is out next year.

You say piracy is the reason for devs switching to consoles, never seen how may iso's for the 360 are floating around.

I quite like the wii though for it's being interactive, bowling was a good laugh.

StickyMicky

my girly earns quite well as a teacher, she has no control over my finances, infact i take a decent chunk of her cash per month as she pays some of my apartment bills i have spent more on the cars bodywork from last december then it would cost to build a decent gaming pc just because i was bored with how it looked

hopefully a baby wont come for another 5 years, that is when she wants one, the longer i can put it off the better as i hate the fooken things

i am not saying that piracy is the reason for the devs stopping support, the devs themselves are LOL

pc gamers are a dieing breed

ps. just because of you little "quip" above. i have to add this,

you sound like somebody who has just spunked an ocean finance loan on a gaming rig, just to play solitaire

StickyMicky

i have just checked out this eve online technical specs thing


christ my ancient 800mhz laptop would run this game lmao

no wonder it has loads of people playing it, its all the people who buy desktops with onboard graphics and they cant play anything else

hux309

That's minimum specs, you can turn on all the goodies like hdr rendering then a pc will have fun.

Looks gorgeous though and rightly so, it's very good at using resources showing that games don't need to hog a system if written decently but devs typically rush out a half arsed job to beat the competition leaving the patches come later.

Just download the video will you jesus.

Heh no, no finance i haven't upgraded it for a few months but i am tiring of upgrading the thing all the time so nowadays i stretch it out hence the quad, all i'll need to worry about is the gfx card for a long while.

I have crysis but for all it's graphics it does nothing for me, stale and boring tbh eve on the other is a sneaky underhanded pita of a game and i love it, suprised me how many are 40 plus playing this game.

JackClark

PC Gaming is inhaling its dying breaths. I said the same on here a while ago and everyone laughed, great to see a few more people seeing the light. 2 years max and its gone.

bob269

The irony being that both the wii and DS are much easier to pirate than any other console.

Piracy is a fact, i don't think it affects any business model, theres always people who buy the real deal.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

No, two years max you'll be making the same prediction.


M

P1Fanatic

My current PC cost me £800 - £230 of which was a new 22" monitor. Likewise those jumping into next gen consoles had to by a HD TV to get the best out of it so more than likely spent nearer the £1k mark. The games are also on average 30% more.

I think I read somewhere that PC games are approx 16% of the total video games market. Sounds bad but when you count PS3, 360, DS, Wii as standalone products its not so bad. There is no doubt the market has taken a hit due to nextgen consoles gaining on PC gfx and their ease of use and cost are a big incentive to the average gamer.

Consoles are good at what they do dont get me wrong. I just think that for RPS, FPS & Simulation type games there is no comparison. Anyone who says CoD4 is better on a console than PC is blind. Its like chalk & cheese for someone who takes it seriously. I first saw it on my mates PS3 and thought hmm that does look good. I since built a new PC and bought it and thought even more wow. Went back on mates PS3 and it actually didnt look that good or play anywhere near as well. I so want them to work out a way for PS3 Xbox and PC players to play on the same servers

As for piracy just make sure all games have to register online every time you play like they have been doing for multiplayer for years now.

Simon

hux309

Spot on, been dabbling for 15 years now, heard it all before.

StickyMicky

the cheques in the post jack

StickyMicky

people need tv`s anyway, not really fair to include them as the TV is not "just for games"

infact for most people the games part is probably a small minority of what the TV is actually used for.

the biggest advantage for PC gaming used to be the online factor, but that is gone now, due to the latest consoles getting online easy enough, i can sit here and mentally walk into my local games shop, i know where the 360 games are, the ps3 games, even the wii/ds ones

cant say i have ever even noticed the pc game section, ever!

that would be because they dont sell any, they stopped a few years ago, same with plenty of other retailers, i can walk into asda, cant say i have ever noticed the PC games?

infact to be honest the only retailer i could think of that sells PC games nowadays would be PC world (and i could have sworn my local one sells console games as well, and has a bigger selection)

retailers dont want them, to much hassle when johhny blogs brings his disk back because his dll files crashed and he lost the school report he had saved on the desktop that is due in tomorrow, he is not sure why it did not work, he applied patch v1.2323 from the website like it said and reformatted his harddrive, the game is obviously at fault