Hardware is becoming less and less relevant in gaming

Who bent the knee? Fanboys are freaking out over Nintendo hardware. That's been a thing since before you were alive.

Normal people care about graphics and gameplay.
 
Ebrietas said:
No I'm talking about something more fundamental than just extra textures or better lighting.

You couldn't port a standard ps2 game to ps1 no matter how much you "cut", or a ps3 game to ps2. Even ps4 to ps3 in many cases wouldn't work due to that console's limited ram (ffxiv literally had to ditch further ps3 development due to that reason).

The cross-gen period we have that people are always complaining about is only because ps4/x1 are simply capable of running almost all modern games in a way that previous generations of hardware were not.

Generations are done. Developers won't be able to take advantage of new hardware advancements given time/budget restraints. It's also not even what the market wants anymore. Imagine thinking anyone outside of a few hardcore nerds gives a shit about stuff like raytracing, when the most poplular gaming platform is mobile and one of the biggest console platforms is the damn switch.
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I get what you're saying, but I also believe that it has always been possible to make a version of a game for prior gen hardware if you're ok with the prior gen version being worse.
 
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64gigabyteram said:
This is all fun and games until you start asking those compute farms to account for hundreds to thousands of people asking to play one game- or even millions

Imagine wanting to play a brand new release and you can't because the servers for your platform crashed. Think of the costs these companies would have to shoulder running these millions of blades for people to play games on.

Yes, Xbox cloud and Stadia exist(ed). Those are really small platforms. I'm talking with a Playstation/Steam level audience with games made specifically for cloud hardware that I'd assume to all be running GPUs 30x stronger than a 5090, or whatever. Companies are not gonna want to power and pay all that.
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I'm certainly not asking for it or predicting it will be better for gamers. I just see it as an inevitable future. With Moore's law in the gutter, brute force is the only way forward. I do think it's more likely that they will figure out how to manage that congestion than find a way to make a PS7 cost less than $1,999.

With some imagination you can see some upside though. Back in the 8-16 bit days, developers could choose to load carts with chips that improve performance if the vision they have demands it. In this future there wouldn't be one performance target everyone would have to aim for. You could pay the platform holder for more Tflops if your game requires it. I could see that leading to a more diverse spread of performance targets. The really intrepid developers could target performance that we could only dream of with traditional consoles. Indies could see reduced hosting costs if their game runs very lean etc.
 
I'm disappointed in the lack of peripherals nowadays. I really hope Rockstar releases a fishing rod you can use in RDR3, heck just a virtual fire striker would be insane.
 
Well I get your point and agree, I don't agree about the deck and switch 2.

Generations have basically been dead the moment Sony and Xbox decided to use x86 with off the shelf hardware instead of their own custom designed boxes.
It made ps4/xb1 easier to develop for, sure but there is no uniqueness.
They are really just soc pcs with games being optimized for that spec. You can get better performance in some instances due to that target spec, where as pc specs are broad.
Consoles in the past , ps2, ps3, xb, gc, dreamcast, genesis, snes, tg16, all had unique hardware, games looked different depending on the system. Consoles had unique things pc's didn't and vice vs.

I. Back in the day the difference between a 80386 NES was huge. While the nes/snes etc, could pull in fast movment, the pc could have complex sprawing rpgs and strategy games that no console of the time could do. It could also do quasi 3d.

II. Enter the GPU, and 3dfx voodoo era graphics cards. Open GL, Glide, Direct X 6 and 7. These were a game changer and the biggest jump. Real time texture mapping, z-buffer, alpha blending, bilinear/trilinear filtering, anisotropic filtering, mip maps, goround shading, alpha blending, anit-aliasing and higher resolutions. All things not on consoles at the time.
- Ps1 and n64 had a fraction of these, but at much lower resolution 640x480 or 240p (320x240), where as on pc at the time the low point was 640x480, and 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions were quite common with 24/32bit color.
- PS1 had better texturing and storage than n64, but n64 was faster. It didn't help in the long run as games couldn't store the complex textures and fmv of the era.

III. Enter the Shader- Geforce 2 T&L went to Geforce 3 and the introduction of the vertex and pixel shading pipeline, back in 2001. OGL, DX8 and 9. The OG Xbox used the same tech. This was the start of the convergence but it wasn't there yet as pc was still more advanced and could do way more than the OG Xbox. Pixel/vertex shaders let coders program effects where before it was fixed in what the card could do. This allowed for things like ripples in water. Bump mapping, normal maps, lod, HDR and Bloom Lighting, Physics engines , etc.... We also got 720 and 1080p resolutions.
- OG xbox had all this, but it was late to the party and bowed out early. PS2 and Gamecube (that I am aware of ) did not have the modern shader hardware. Hence they don't have the effects, nor could they push out higher resolutions.
-the 360 and ps3 had all the effects, but were quickly outpaced by the PC and the 8800 series graphics cards and pixel shader 3.0. It added so much more and was a giant leap in tech.

IV- Tessellation ► Ray Tracing, OGL -DX11/12 , current era of tech. This jump was not much. Yes we got tessellation, 1440p and 4k along with ray-tracing, but none of that was that big of a jump. The sheer graphics hardware speed and memory speed was more of a jump, imo. Also the resolution bumps are not looking as meaningful as say going from SD to HD.
-PS4 and xb1 practically matched pc, there wasnt much difference besides a few fps and a few blades of grass. In fact we got video channels that did nothing but pointout these minute differences ala digital foundry.
- PS5/series x least jump of all, ray tracing and dlss, while nice are not game changers. Most games on these consoles could of been made on ps4, just with lower texture resolutions and mapped lighting.

Switch / Steam Deck both are a different paradigm. PC power in the palm of your hand. We had portables before, but nothing like these. I would argue these were/are major game changers. some people like OP and other "mooore powah" people despise the portable space but it is a vibrant gaming space. It doesn't need top end, it needs the same effects but lower resolutions, and lesser power draw. This is going a different direction and honestly has way more room to grow.

So yeah graphics and hardware have been stagnating since the mid 2010s really, or at least tech slowed down significantly. The 80s - > 2000s were where the big changes all came.
 
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simpatico said:
I do think it's more likely that they will figure out how to manage that congestion than find a way to make a PS7 cost less than $1,999.
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They can always do both. I think it's also unlikely that the types of people who don't have a spare 2k to burn would be the same types of people who have an internet connection fit to stream games with super detailed graphics to their screens

People will simply finance video game consoles and GPUs. You've seen Klarna and the like getting more popular yes? That will simply become the reality for video game consoles as their prices climb higher and higher. 24 month long interest free loan on the 1500 dollar PS6 Pro.

Or, Playstation will take the Nintendo approach after 20 years and PS6 will be more about features and gimmicks than power.
 
Depends on the game. For quite a few, additional hardware doesn't do much. But for others, there's a world of difference between my high end PC and my XBX, at least a generational one.
 
GigaBowser said:
the return are dirminishing the return are dirminishing

a8d5c0e5fb247e3d6e299776219a5007.gif







peoples who spent thosands on garphics

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funny,

The real difference is going to be how much that switch 2 will be able to play cyberpunk in handheld mode. Can that battery cope? I know on steam deck you get maybe an hour and half on high end games like that. It would really suck to not get at least 3 hours+ on a portable. Plus the ammount of space these games take is another negative.
I was really hoping that the switch 2 would let you choose between 4k and 1080p textures so you could get a smaller download size and fit more games in. As someone with 100s of games on my switch, still on 1080p tvs, this is going to suck having to choose what to put on it. Well it doesn't mater anyway, nintendo never sent me an invite.
 
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playbignbox said:
Man, you're totally wrong, the difference between a high-end PC and a current-gen console is huge, even more so if you use technologies like DLSS, frame gen, path tracing, etc.

In my experience with the Series X and PS5, many games in performance mode didn't hold 60fps even with the native resolution below full HD. On my RTX 4070, which isn't even a high-end card, I play practically nothing below 1440p90fps at least, and that's with higher presets, more advanced RT, etc.
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It is a big difference, but OP did say the difference is less than before which is also true. It is also true that 4xxx to 5xxx series was close to nothing. There isn't anything major that you couldn't go without. Will that get me to go console only? No fucking way. But I might ride this 4090 until 7XXX series.
 
The difference between PC and consoles not only exist but is actually pretty huge, the problem is, most of this performance is locked in a 500+ price bracket that most consumers are not willing to spend. Used to be the case that 200~250 dollars mid-end GPU's easily outperform the consoles in year 5 of the generation, but this one? Not even close, the situation is so bad that we are witness price increase in 5-year-old hardware in this generation and two price increases in games.
 
Shadowstar39 said:
Well I get your point and agree, I don't agree about the deck and switch 2.

Generations have basically been dead the moment Sony and Xbox decided to use x86 with off the shelf hardware instead of their own custom designed boxes.
It made ps4/xb1 easier to develop for, sure but there is no uniqueness.
They are really just soc pcs with games being optimized for that spec. You can get better performance in some instances due to that target spec, where as pc specs are broad.
Consoles in the past , ps2, ps3, xb, gc, dreamcast, genesis, snes, tg16, all had unique hardware, games looked different depending on the system. Consoles had unique things pc's didn't and vice vs.

I. Back in the day the difference between a 80386 NES was huge. While the nes/snes etc, could pull in fast movment, the pc could have complex sprawing rpgs and strategy games that no console of the time could do. It could also do quasi 3d.

II. Enter the GPU, and 3dfx voodoo era graphics cards. Open GL, Glide, Direct X 6 and 7. These were a game changer and the biggest jump. Real time texture mapping, z-buffer, alpha blending, bilinear/trilinear filtering, anisotropic filtering, mip maps, goround shading, alpha blending, anit-aliasing and higher resolutions. All things not on consoles at the time.
- Ps1 and n64 had a fraction of these, but at much lower resolution 640x480 or 240p (320x240), where as on pc at the time the low point was 640x480, and 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions were quite common with 24/32bit color.
- PS1 had better texturing and storage than n64, but n64 was faster. It didn't help in the long run as games couldn't store the complex textures and fmv of the era.

III. Enter the Shader- Geforce 2 T&L went to Geforce 3 and the introduction of the vertex and pixel shading pipeline, back in 2001. OGL, DX8 and 9. The OG Xbox used the same tech. This was the start of the convergence but it wasn't there yet as pc was still more advanced and could do way more than the OG Xbox. Pixel/vertex shaders let coders program effects where before it was fixed in what the card could do. This allowed for things like ripples in water. Bump mapping, normal maps, lod, HDR and Bloom Lighting, Physics engines , etc.... We also got 720 and 1080p resolutions.
- OG xbox had all this, but it was late to the party and bowed out early. PS2 and Gamecube (that I am aware of ) did not have the modern shader hardware. Hence they don't have the effects, nor could they push out higher resolutions.
-the 360 and ps3 had all the effects, but were quickly outpaced by the PC and the 8800 series graphics cards and pixel shader 3.0. It added so much more and was a giant leap in tech.

IV- Tessellation ► Ray Tracing, OGL -DX11/12 , current era of tech. This jump was not much. Yes we got tessellation, 1440p and 4k along with ray-tracing, but none of that was that big of a jump. The sheer graphics hardware speed and memory speed was more of a jump, imo. Also the resolution bumps are not looking as meaningful as say going from SD to HD.
-PS4 and xb1 practically matched pc, there wasnt much difference besides a few fps and a few blades of grass. In fact we got video channels that did nothing but pointout these minute differences ala digital foundry.
- PS5/series x least jump of all, ray tracing and dlss, while nice are not game changers. Most games on these consoles could of been made on ps4, just with lower texture resolutions and mapped lighting.

Switch / Steam Deck both are a different paradigm. PC power in the palm of your hand. We had portables before, but nothing like these. I would argue these were/are major game changers. some people like OP and other "mooore powah" people despise the portable space but it is a vibrant gaming space. It doesn't need top end, it needs the same effects but lower resolutions, and lesser power draw. This is going a different direction and honestly has way more room to grow.

So yeah graphics and hardware have been stagnating since the mid 2010s really, or at least tech slowed down significantly. The 80s - > 2000s were where the big changes all came.
Click to expand...
More horrible bullshit befitting the topic..
 
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For MS? Sure. However, Nintendo and Sony are still making a killing on HW and (mostly) SW thanks to having their own HW. They get 30% from every 3rd party game sold on their console.

As far as power goes, yea the difference isn't the biggest, unless you're willing to pay a lot of coin to get top of the line PC HW. But, not everyone can afford that which is why consoles are still selling fine. And probably will for the foreseeable future.
 
Pigging back off of the idea that hardware becoming obsolete, I have been away from my family packing up our old home for the past 2 weeks. All I have is my phone, a stadia Bluetooth controller, and my switch. G-Force gaming and game pass on my Samsung TV has been a godsend. Granted, I have it plugged directly into my router.

I've been playing mostly single player games, but I've been able to finish out in the top ten a few times on Fortnite, which is my normal placement. I even played a little rocket league, which while not perfect, allows one to have fun in casual play.
 
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Ya know people say that and then I look at the Switch and now Switch 2 and the Hardware is definitely the biggest reason it has been and WILL be such a success. Remember the WiiU hardware? Amazing Nintendo games right? Absolutely AWFUL shit hardware. Switch 1? Great games! Really really really cool ass hardware that you can dock to your TV or bring it with you on the go. Even though it was a bit dated and the games looked so far behind compared to the PS4/PS5 and XB1/Series X. Now the Switch 2 looks to continue that success or even surpass it and I wonder why that is? Could it be because the hardware is amazing? Sweet 1080p, HDR, 120hz, VRR screen that runs games @1080p in handheld and up to 4k in docked mode. Joy-cons that not only improved upon the Switch 1 cons but also can be turned sideways to act like a mouse in FPS games. Like, cmon, hardware is NOT becoming less and less relevant. I think what you really mean is Xbox is becoming less and less relevant and that's true. Nintendo on the other hand always has this charm to their hardware that no other gaming company can match. I think Sony too can say the same thing, just not to the same effect as Nintendo. The PSP? The Vita? AMAZING HARDWARE. It's the games that lacked and let down those systems, especially the Vita. The PS3 single handedly made sure that Blu-ray would be the winning format over HD-DVD. Sony bringing haptics to consoles and of course Microsoft is now following in the footsteps of Sony. Who the hell thought $200 controllers would be such a success? I can go on and on but yea, I don't think hardware is becoming less relevant. I actually think it's what can set apart a company from their competition if done right.
 
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