Since the 360, they're all uninteresting pixelshaderboxes to me when it comes to graphics "contests". Comparisons between PS4 and Xbone are usually blowing minor differences out of proportion (and some of these stated differences can be publisher/vendor induced for proposed standards guidelines rather than hardware-related differences)

On the other hand, fuck the "master / peasants" concepts / rhetoric around consumer platforms.

I think maybe the 360 like the PS3 with their custom hw designs were probably the last consoles that could be defined "console" in the way we were used to expect even if the whole pixel shaders evolutions has been overused since the Geforce3. In the 90's every console had custom unknown designs with completely different ideas from the pc. In the final visual result sometimes better sometimes not but they got better with every new titles.Nowdays with the release of newer "revisions" with faster gpus confirm it to me; at first I didn't believe they refreshed so soon the console with just an upgrade also pushing the consumers to upgrade really too soon for the slim/light/faster/better version. Just look at the portables console 3DS/3DS-new/3DS-XL/2DS/2DS-XL....
The only reason I'd buy a new console is the VR concept that I imagine would really improve the experience on the FPS or car games.

I think the main difference between PC and xb1/ps4 these days is the online game infrastructures & communities. I play World of tanks a lot, on PC it's plagued with cheating via mods, bots, aim bots etc, it's totally ruined the game, the community nowadays is also the most vitriolic I have ever come across. The xb1 version is a better experience by far, no cheats or modding and the community on the whole is very decent(this is very important for a team game). Wot is also crippled on PC by supporting older PC's, many players are still on core2 hardware apparently, particularly in Russia(the game dev's home territory), so this has limited improvements badly, many maps from the consoles have not made it to PC for this reason, the consoles being fixed platforms don't suffer from this.
This only applies to WOT of course, I have little experience with modern gaming otherwise.

BSA Starfire wrote:

I think the main difference between PC and xb1/ps4 these days is the online game infrastructures & communities. I play World of tanks a lot, on PC it's plagued with cheating via mods, bots, aim bots etc, it's totally ruined the game, the community nowadays is also the most vitriolic I have ever come across. The xb1 version is a better experience by far, no cheats or modding and the community on the whole is very decent(this is very important for a team game). Wot is also crippled on PC by supporting older PC's, many players are still on core2 hardware apparently, particularly in Russia(the game dev's home territory), so this has limited improvements badly, many maps from the consoles have not made it to PC for this reason, the consoles being fixed platforms don't suffer from this.
This only applies to WOT of course, I have little experience with modern gaming otherwise.

Me too, the only experience with modern gaming is as above with some few titles on the 360. No experience at all with online gaming since the times of Quake3 and Unreal Tournament and already back then it wasn't for me. I bought the 360 cause I liked technically some titles, for example GTA is impressive and some others but probably the last game I really played every days was Half Life 2 on the pc. 😵
Also I've no patience playing console/pc games, probably never had much.

Xbox 360 actually introduced me to the idea of "couch gaming" — playing on a large screen projector with a gamepad in your hands. X360 was a great machine — awesome interface, small patches, brilliant controller, very reliable.

I own original revisions of PS4 and Xbox One and I just think they are not great systems. Download times are long (particularly on my first gen PS4), interface has many caveats, multiplayer costs money. PS4 hardware is just awful — it's noisy, my gamepad doesn't hold charge anymore, the sticks lost their rubber coating, Wi-Fi is abysmal and I'm always running out of HDD space. I just can't turn on my PS4 to casually play a new game — it will take me a whole evening to sort all issues out. Of course, many of these issues are resolved in newer gen revisions.

PC, of course, has its software quirks, but I'm more or less accustomed to them — usually they are mitigated by updating Nvidia drivers through GeForce Experience or moving the game to SDD. So, ironically enough, PC for me is not about graphics (I'm still using GeForce 780Ti) — it just works, and it does a lot of entertainment stuff that consoles can't. It basically is my next-gen console, since I'm only playing with a gamepad on a large screen.

Oh, and in Russia Steam has regional pricing, but consoles do not. So an AAA game costs about 1500-2000 rubles (25-35 USD) for PC but on console that same game can cost about 4000 rubles (70 USD). And that's before you account for Steam sales and 3rd party marketplaces that sell Steam keys cheaper.

386SX wrote:

Did the PC already surpassed as usual the modern consoles (also considering the newer more powerful console versions PS4 Pro...)

These consoles were never at the level of the more high-end gaming PCs to begin with (even single-GPU ones), so there was no need to 'surpass' them.
Their CPU is two low-end (tablet-oriented) quadcore CPUs welded together, no match for regular desktop CPUs from either Intel or AMD.
Likewise the GPU was never all that high-end, and struggled with 1080p content in realtime, while even more mainstream PC GPUs could already handle that at launch time.
The main reason for the current update-cycle is to try and get better 1080p, and somewhat convincing 4k out of the consoles. Something your average mainstream gaming PC has little problems with today.

Scali wrote:

These consoles were never at the level of the more high-end gaming PCs to begin with (even single-GPU ones), so there was no nee […]
Show full quote

386SX wrote:

Did the PC already surpassed as usual the modern consoles (also considering the newer more powerful console versions PS4 Pro...)

These consoles were never at the level of the more high-end gaming PCs to begin with (even single-GPU ones), so there was no need to 'surpass' them.
Their CPU is two low-end (tablet-oriented) quadcore CPUs welded together, no match for regular desktop CPUs from either Intel or AMD.
Likewise the GPU was never all that high-end, and struggled with 1080p content in realtime, while even more mainstream PC GPUs could already handle that at launch time.
The main reason for the current update-cycle is to try and get better 1080p, and somewhat convincing 4k out of the consoles. Something your average mainstream gaming PC has little problems with today.

Thank.😉
I understand; different was with the 360 itself with its long architecture lifetime. About the current update models I imagine it should have been better they choosed a faster gpu in the first place maybe with a larger case. I can imagine people who bought just some month before the previous version.
But I know times are different nowdays with this whole TV resolution changes that really I don't understand. Back in the early 90's I played on the same TVs with a Commodore 64, then a Master System and then also tried the PSX into it.. never asked for a better TV for better visual results.

Scali wrote:

These consoles were never at the level of the more high-end gaming PCs to begin with (even single-GPU ones), so there was no nee […]
Show full quote

These consoles were never at the level of the more high-end gaming PCs to begin with (even single-GPU ones), so there was no need to 'surpass' them.
Their CPU is two low-end (tablet-oriented) quadcore CPUs welded together, no match for regular desktop CPUs from either Intel or AMD.
Likewise the GPU was never all that high-end, and struggled with 1080p content in realtime, while even more mainstream PC GPUs could already handle that at launch time.
The main reason for the current update-cycle is to try and get better 1080p, and somewhat convincing 4k out of the consoles. Something your average mainstream gaming PC has little problems with today.

But likely at a much higher price.

That aside, I'm not all the much of a gamer, so I can't comment on the differences. I lost interest in games when arcades starting to close down.

Scali wrote:

These consoles were never at the level of the more high-end gaming PCs to begin with (even single-GPU ones), so there was no nee […]
Show full quote

386SX wrote:

Did the PC already surpassed as usual the modern consoles (also considering the newer more powerful console versions PS4 Pro...)

These consoles were never at the level of the more high-end gaming PCs to begin with (even single-GPU ones), so there was no need to 'surpass' them.
Their CPU is two low-end (tablet-oriented) quadcore CPUs welded together, no match for regular desktop CPUs from either Intel or AMD.
Likewise the GPU was never all that high-end, and struggled with 1080p content in realtime, while even more mainstream PC GPUs could already handle that at launch time.
The main reason for the current update-cycle is to try and get better 1080p, and somewhat convincing 4k out of the consoles. Something your average mainstream gaming PC has little problems with today.

That is only half of the truth. The level of programming that PS4 and Xbox One developer do makes the GPU and CPU perform much better (considerably so) than if the same pieces of HW were say put in a Dell and you would run a normal DX12 game.

But at the same time every PS4, Xbox1, wii and so on have the same hardware more or less so you don't have to deal with any of the pitfalls of multiple hardware configurations like PC Devs do. If a Dev makes a game for the PS4 is will run the same on every PS4, the same for the Xbox and wii. But you and I may have completely different PC's.

Absolutely! Which is why game developers love consoles. It makes sense for them financially to make console games as the amount of engineering peaks a year before and after each console launch, but then it is mostly incremental development in their engines.

Consoles are not going anywhere.

vladstamate wrote:

That is only half of the truth. The level of programming that PS4 and Xbox One developer do makes the GPU and CPU perform much better (considerably so) than if the same pieces of HW were say put in a Dell and you would run a normal DX12 game.

Yes, but firstly, programming environments of consoles and PCs have moved much closer together in recent years, given the development of APIs such as Metal, Mantle, Vulkan and DX12.
Secondly, even with the 'fixed target' advantage the consoles have, the gap with PC hardware is still huge. The console hardware is VERY low-end. The stuff in an average gaming PC, even a few years old, is far more powerful (say a Core i7 2600k and a GeForce 970).

The best way to point this out is that consoles use AMD CPUs and GPUs, where in the PC gaming world, Intel and NV reign supreme. Even with games that were originally developed and optimized for these AMD consoles, and are just 'quick and dirty ports' for the Intel and NV hardware.

BSA Starfire wrote:

I play World of tanks a lot, on PC it's plagued with cheating via mods, bots, aim bots etc, it's totally ruined the game, the community nowadays is also the most vitriolic I have ever come across. The xb1 version is a better experience by far, no cheats or modding and the community on the whole is very decent(this is very important for a team game). Wot is also crippled on PC by supporting older PC's, many players are still on core2 hardware apparently, particularly in Russia(the game dev's home territory), so this has limited improvements badly, many maps from the consoles have not made it to PC for this reason, the consoles being fixed platforms don't suffer from this.
This only applies to WOT of course, I have little experience with modern gaming otherwise.

Strange, I play WoWS (only on PC), and the community is mostly good. There are mods, some that give an advantage, but most are to modify the UI to your liking. It runs okay on older hardware and absolutely beautiful on max settings.

Scali wrote:

Yes, but firstly, programming environments of consoles and PCs have moved much closer together in recent years, given the development of APIs such as Metal, Mantle, Vulkan and DX12.
Secondly, even with the 'fixed target' advantage the consoles have, the gap with PC hardware is still huge. The console hardware is VERY low-end. The stuff in an average gaming PC, even a few years old, is far more powerful (say a Core i7 2600k and a GeForce 970).

The best way to point this out is that consoles use AMD CPUs and GPUs, where in the PC gaming world, Intel and NV reign supreme. Even with games that were originally developed and optimized for these AMD consoles, and are just 'quick and dirty ports' for the Intel and NV hardware.

XBox One X is basically a fatter Polaris (40 CU@1175Mhz vs 32 CU@1120MHz of the RX 480/580). Seeing that a RX480 already clobbers a GTX 970, the XBOX (wow that acronym is literally 'XBOX') is quite a bit ahead of the average gaming PC. If we assume linear scaling, it should be on the level of a GTX 1070.

Also, well optimized DX12 and Vulkan (just not straight DX9/11 or OGL ports) games are more competitive on AMD hardware.

dexvx wrote:

XBox One X is basically a fatter Polaris (40 CU@1175Mhz vs 32 CU@1120MHz of the RX 480/580).

I was talking about the regular XB1 and PS4 there though.

dexvx wrote:

Seeing that a RX480 already clobbers a GTX 970

Not sure what 'clobbers' means in your world, but the RX480 is slower than a 970 in various cases:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/10446/the-amd- … x-480-preview/4
And a 970 is a few years old. Look at how much faster the 1070 is in that review, for example. And that's basically the replacement of the 970, a mainstream gaming card. There's still the 1080 and 1080Ti above that (and then the Titans, for people who want to go 'all the way').

dexvx wrote:

If we assume linear scaling, it should be on the level of a GTX 1070.

Not a chance, the performance gap between RX480/970 and the 1070 is huge, as you can see.

dexvx wrote:

Also, well optimized DX12 and Vulkan (just not straight DX9/11 or OGL ports) games are more competitive on AMD hardware.

For some definitions of 'well optimized'... Mainly 'AMD-sponsored'. AMD still loses badly in those titles though.
The above review makes that painfully obvious: when they introduced their RX480, it was struggling to keep up with the outdated 970, while NV had already released their new 10x0 generation.
Even AMD's most high-end GPUs, such as the recently introduced Vega aren't remotely competitive. Let alone the scaled-down, outdated tech in the consoles.

I was given a PS4 Pro recently and have been trying force it into the family's gaming line-up - we're more of a PC family. It seems like nice hardware so far and would be a good media center. 1TB HDD, nice controller, interface OK.

Games aint cheap tho.

Scali wrote:

Not sure what 'clobbers' means in your world, but the RX480 is slower than a 970 in various cases:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/10446/the-amd- … x-480-preview/4
And a 970 is a few years old. Look at how much faster the 1070 is in that review, for example. And that's basically the replacement of the 970, a mainstream gaming card. There's still the 1080 and 1080Ti above that (and then the Titans, for people who want to go 'all the way').

Initial Polaris drivers (June 2016) are at least ~10 slower than even Dec 2016 drivers. I suspect the gap is even wider now. So basically by Dec 2016, a slightly OC RX 480 is equivalent to a slightly OC GTX 1060 6GB. And a GTX 1060 6GB is widely consider equivalent to a GTX 980, which is faster than a GTX 970.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware … -review-23.html

So a RX 580 (which is basically a RX 480 with an additional 100 MHz core clock) is about 17% faster than a GTX 970 @ 1080p (average of 21 games). Gap widens to 28% in 4K gaming. Consequently, the RX 580 is about 25% (1080p) to 29% (4K) slower than a GTX 1070.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/ … ro_Plus/30.html

Scali wrote:

Not a chance, the performance gap between RX480/970 and the 1070 is huge, as you can see.

Umm... Yes? The XBox One X with 25% more CU's will the RX 580 be within ear shot of the GTX 1070, which is about 25% faster than the RX 580. Modern graphics are highly parallel, so one can assume near linear scaling (anything otherwise would be a huge surprise).

Scali wrote:

For some definitions of 'well optimized'... Mainly 'AMD-sponsored'. AMD still loses badly in those titles though.
The above review makes that painfully obvious: when they introduced their RX480, it was struggling to keep up with the outdated 970, while NV had already released their new 10x0 generation.
Even AMD's most high-end GPUs, such as the recently introduced Vega aren't remotely competitive. Let alone the scaled-down, outdated tech in the consoles.

So I already debunked this. RX 480 ~= GTX 1060 6GB ~= GTX 980 > GTX 970

Now lets look at the spread, game by game.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1393-radeon-r … 1060/page8.html

Notice almost all the winning titles are DX12/Vulkan. All but one losing titles is DX11/OGL.

Let me be very clear on Vega. It is a massive disappointment. IPC has barely moved compared to R9-Fury. Vega 64 can almost match GTX 1080 performance, but at an extreme power budget cost (meaning Vega 64 is at its limits). Vega 56 is actually okay (slightly faster than the GTX 1070 but at +100W power), if gamers can find it anywhere near its supposed $399 MSRP.

I have no use for modern consoles. If anything, I resent them for the influence they've had on many PC games, which have shifted from being designed for the PC to being designed for the console market and then ported back.
But there's no shortage of good games to play regardless, with more added to the perpetual back library every week, so whatever. In fact, the market is so saturated nowadays that I'm surprised we haven't seen a collapse by now, especially at the huge budgeted "AAA" level. But I digress.

Recently I became aware of one good argument for consoles. They're much less susceptible to the rampant use of hacks in online multiplayer. That's never been a concern of mine because I don't play online.

I love 2D era consoles though.

dexvx wrote:

Strange, I play WoWS (only on PC), and the community is mostly good. There are mods, some that give an advantage, but most are t […]
Show full quote

BSA Starfire wrote:

I play World of tanks a lot, on PC it's plagued with cheating via mods, bots, aim bots etc, it's totally ruined the game, the community nowadays is also the most vitriolic I have ever come across. The xb1 version is a better experience by far, no cheats or modding and the community on the whole is very decent(this is very important for a team game). Wot is also crippled on PC by supporting older PC's, many players are still on core2 hardware apparently, particularly in Russia(the game dev's home territory), so this has limited improvements badly, many maps from the consoles have not made it to PC for this reason, the consoles being fixed platforms don't suffer from this.
This only applies to WOT of course, I have little experience with modern gaming otherwise.

Strange, I play WoWS (only on PC), and the community is mostly good. There are mods, some that give an advantage, but most are to modify the UI to your liking. It runs okay on older hardware and absolutely beautiful on max settings.

Scali wrote:

Yes, but firstly, programming environments of consoles and PCs have moved much closer together in recent years, given the development of APIs such as Metal, Mantle, Vulkan and DX12.
Secondly, even with the 'fixed target' advantage the consoles have, the gap with PC hardware is still huge. The console hardware is VERY low-end. The stuff in an average gaming PC, even a few years old, is far more powerful (say a Core i7 2600k and a GeForce 970).

The best way to point this out is that consoles use AMD CPUs and GPUs, where in the PC gaming world, Intel and NV reign supreme. Even with games that were originally developed and optimized for these AMD consoles, and are just 'quick and dirty ports' for the Intel and NV hardware.

XBox One X is basically a fatter Polaris (40 CU@1175Mhz vs 32 CU@1120MHz of the RX 480/580). Seeing that a RX480 already clobbers a GTX 970, the XBOX (wow that acronym is literally 'XBOX') is quite a bit ahead of the average gaming PC. If we assume linear scaling, it should be on the level of a GTX 1070.

Also, well optimized DX12 and Vulkan (just not straight DX9/11 or OGL ports) games are more competitive on AMD hardware.

I agree about world of warships on PC, it's a really nice game, good community and lovely to look at. Like night and day compared with WOT PC.

dexvx wrote:

Initial Polaris drivers (June 2016) are at least ~10 slower than even Dec 2016 drivers. I suspect the gap is even wider now. So […]
Show full quote

Scali wrote:

Not sure what 'clobbers' means in your world, but the RX480 is slower than a 970 in various cases:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/10446/the-amd- … x-480-preview/4
And a 970 is a few years old. Look at how much faster the 1070 is in that review, for example. And that's basically the replacement of the 970, a mainstream gaming card. There's still the 1080 and 1080Ti above that (and then the Titans, for people who want to go 'all the way').

Initial Polaris drivers (June 2016) are at least ~10 slower than even Dec 2016 drivers. I suspect the gap is even wider now. So basically by Dec 2016, a slightly OC RX 480 is equivalent to a slightly OC GTX 1060 6GB. And a GTX 1060 6GB is widely consider equivalent to a GTX 980, which is faster than a GTX 970.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware … -review-23.html

So a RX 580 (which is basically a RX 480 with an additional 100 MHz core clock) is about 17% faster than a GTX 970 @ 1080p (average of 21 games). Gap widens to 28% in 4K gaming. Consequently, the RX 580 is about 25% (1080p) to 29% (4K) slower than a GTX 1070.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/ … ro_Plus/30.html

Scali wrote:

Not a chance, the performance gap between RX480/970 and the 1070 is huge, as you can see.

Umm... Yes? The XBox One X with 25% more CU's will the RX 580 be within ear shot of the GTX 1070, which is about 25% faster than the RX 580. Modern graphics are highly parallel, so one can assume near linear scaling (anything otherwise would be a huge surprise).

Scali wrote:

For some definitions of 'well optimized'... Mainly 'AMD-sponsored'. AMD still loses badly in those titles though.
The above review makes that painfully obvious: when they introduced their RX480, it was struggling to keep up with the outdated 970, while NV had already released their new 10x0 generation.
Even AMD's most high-end GPUs, such as the recently introduced Vega aren't remotely competitive. Let alone the scaled-down, outdated tech in the consoles.

So I already debunked this. RX 480 ~= GTX 1060 6GB ~= GTX 980 > GTX 970

Now lets look at the spread, game by game.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1393-radeon-r … 1060/page8.html

Notice almost all the winning titles are DX12/Vulkan. All but one losing titles is DX11/OGL.

Let me be very clear on Vega. It is a massive disappointment. IPC has barely moved compared to R9-Fury. Vega 64 can almost match GTX 1080 performance, but at an extreme power budget cost (meaning Vega 64 is at its limits). Vega 56 is actually okay (slightly faster than the GTX 1070 but at +100W power), if gamers can find it anywhere near its supposed $399 MSRP.

No, just no.