Console = PC

For one good reason:

We're always trying to push the envelope for hardware development. We're constantly making better chips and better hard drives.

However, if that was all we did, then developers would get lazy. As soon as we created more RAM, the developers would instantly fill it. More memory - filled. There would be no incentive to make the software more efficient, simply because we could just improve the hardware.

That's where consoles come in. The Hardware on a console doesn't improve, so developers are forced to create more innovative coding to push the hardware to its limits.

If it weren't for consoles, software would be resource intensive, and it would suck.

We're always trying to push the envelope for hardware development. We're constantly making better chips and better hard drivesTheElfChild

Might be true to some extent, but it pays off to optimize PC games too, maybe even more so. Since not everyone has a high-end PC the lower you can make the requirements the more you'll be expanding your market, while on console everybody has the same hardware there is no need to for e.g. optimize the game for a single core CPU or lower-end GPUs like on PC. Granted, most devs don't actually "optimize" to lower end systems they just provide option to play without certain features.

I don't think this applies to graphics so much, but when it comes to program design and such, developers will always find a way to take up more resources.

If the hardware gets a 50% boost in speed, developers will find an excuse to take up 50% more resources (for example, instead of using C++, the developer uses Ruby, or Python in order to push out the program quicker).

Hardware has sped up phenomenally in the past 20 years and now software is having trouble catching up with it. Any machine that has more than one processor is capable of SO much more than is currently being used. People can design their programs to take advantage of multiple cores, but instead of each core tackling one problem, it's multiple cores tackling multiple problems.

Remember how the PS3 was theoretically capable of 1 Teraflop? That number came from the assumption that the program being run is heavily multithreaded. What have we seen so far? I don't think KZ2 is taking advantage of that Teraflop capability.

Remember how the PS3 was theoretically capable of 1 Teraflop? That number came from the assumption that the program being run is heavily multithreaded. What have we seen so far? I don't think KZ2 is taking advantage of that Teraflop capability.

Vax45

But because of the nature of developing for consoles, I think that by the end of the PS3's lifespan, someone will have taken advantage of the hardware, which is something that no developer has incentive to do on the PC.TheElfChild

[QUOTE="TheElfChild"]But because of the nature of developing for consoles, I think that by the end of the PS3's lifespan, someone will have taken advantage of the hardware, which is something that no developer has incentive to do on the PC.Vax45

Eat your socks, because some Nerd is going to figure it out soon enough; that's just how the world works.TheElfChild

Of course someone will figure it out, that's not the point I was trying to originally make.

My point is the hardware has evolved and the developers are still sticking to the traditional do-one-thing-at-a-time method that was fine in the 60's-90's. Now software is taking nowhere near the advantage multiple core processors are capable of and it'll take a decade or more before anyone finds an excellent compiler to take full advantage of multiple cores.

[QUOTE="TheElfChild"]We're always trying to push the envelope for hardware development. We're constantly making better chips and better hard drivesIronBass

[QUOTE="IronBass"][QUOTE="TheElfChild"]We're always trying to push the envelope for hardware development. We're constantly making better chips and better hard drivesskrat_01

[QUOTE="Vax45"][QUOTE="TheElfChild"]But because of the nature of developing for consoles, I think that by the end of the PS3's lifespan, someone will have taken advantage of the hardware, which is something that no developer has incentive to do on the PC.TheElfChild

TC, if what you say is true and only console developers really get to grips with maximising games to run on low end hardware efficiently then how do you explain the Source engine or even Crysis.

When the Source engine came out, it ran on surprisingly low hardware yet looked stuning. Even now, it is hugely optimised to run on low end hardware and compares to anything being released now days.

Also look at Crysis. Crysis does demand a lot, sure but considering the sheer amount of high dynamic ranged lighting, shadows and high res textures the game is rendering across a huge map, its quite surprising how little the hardware requirements are to run this game on high! Not many peopel realise just how much Crysis is rendering in a given screen and how low the hardware is running it.

Also many developers work enoughmously hard on trying to get their game to run and look beautiful on very very low hardware specs. They do this because it significantly widens the market their product will appeal to. Having said all that, yes I'm sure certain optimisation tricks will have been learned over the years by developers through trying to make a given game run on a console's hardware :)

Is the TC seriously arguing optimization wouldn't exist if it wasn't for consoles?

While I'm sure certain optimized techniques have improved because of the limited resource environment on consoles, I'd hardly claim if it wasn't for consoles no one would optimized their games.