Why it is so important ED keep pc only
- Thread starter [VR] Mad Mike
- Start date
Other than "dumbing down" for consoles, the other worry that people have is that if the game was originally meant for the PC and then later ported to the consoles, the consoles might not be able to handle ALL the features of the PC version, and thus the PC version might suffer as devs try to align target platforms to the code bases and merge all into one code base for ease of management.
Thus we get "dumbing down" and "missing features" when multiple target platforms are involved.
Thus we get "dumbing down" and "missing features" when multiple target platforms are involved.
Can't wait to see a console handling an entire galaxy, massive space stations and full-sized procedural renditions of an entire planet.
Still it will make dogfighting easy to avoid, hit boost and fly anything over, ooh, let's say thirty feet away from your enemy, and you'll be outside their LOD draw distance for the graphics.
The XboxOne and PS4 are more powerful than what many PC users are planning to play this game on.
I don't think anyone means porting it over to the PS1.
I had to laugh here - both the XB1 and PS4 are severely less capable than what many PC users on this forum run.
ED at the moment uses a big juicy graphics core, a big juicy multicore game engine, and a surprisingly little amount of RAM. Current consoles should be able to cope with that.
What ED depends upon however, is an almighty sensitive and diverse input system, that in all honesty I cannot see a PS4 or XB1 controller managing even 10% of, unless you plug in a keyboard.
There is also the issue of the erm, audience. The less screaming kiddies the better, in my opinion.
I know many users systems are more powerful. Mine is one of them.
But its true that many people are running the alpha on systems far less capable than the two new gen systems, and plan to try and run the full game on less capable systems.
Console gamers would be on their own servers and most likely though the controls would need to be streamlined a little, people are already using gamepads so it wouldn't be that much of an issue.
The fear most people have with consoles is splitting development time and consoles being put first in development. As long as they don't siphon off resources from the PC version and its expansions, then it would be cool to see Elite on PS and Xbox. The bigger fanbase it builds, the better !
It depends if the PC gameplay is gamepad compatible. So if you got a game with a lot of micromaniging trough complex menu. You need the fast and accurate mouse to tackle that kind of complex ui interaction.
In this case a gamepad is a huge handicap. These games don't work at all as a 1 to 1 port. They are then broken.
These games are dumb down like adopt to gamepad friendlier gameplay user to core mechanics interaction. Wich means less complex micro managing and huge crossbare menu.
Some gamers with a high capability for multitasking do like as much micromanaging and are very good at it. These gamers would have the largest problem if a game sequel comes to consoles and is consolised to gamepad compatible gameplay.
Wich isn't a problem at al. If you want it on console the game need to be re balanced and tweaked to gamepad UI and gameplay.
It obviouse that a console version could be as large branch off to the many PC platforms as gameplay and complexity can diver.
Even for a FPS shooter.
GR: AW had two studios one for onsoles and one for PC using even different game engine but shared assets. Also the console had secific more actionnrich console gameplay. While PC had more tactical slower pace twist. As you can aim lot accurate and fast without asist. And support specific PC tech like the PPU hardware physics accelerator.
I plan on playing Elite with my HOTAS rather than a mouse, and would be rather surprised if I had to switch out the mouse whenever a menu appeared.
The problem with multiplaform games usually is when the devs make sacrifices and design decisions based on the weakest hardware to try and keep all them the same.
I see no problem with making the game multiplat, but making each version the best they can, instead of what we usually see which is making it run on the weakest console, then cloning it for the PC but sticking an ultra setting on the graphics.
Alot of devs see no point in putting extra work in to make the the strongest hardware better. Its almost like doing it for nothing.
Then obviously splitting focus between many different systems is going to have an impact.
I dont agree with the dumbing down comments. games have been dumbing down on all platforms including PC exclusives for years.
The big publishers have it in their heads that the simpler they make the game, the more people that can play the game and that equals more sales.
You only get the indie devs really now that stick 2 fingers up at that.
I see no problem with making the game multiplat, but making each version the best they can, instead of what we usually see which is making it run on the weakest console, then cloning it for the PC but sticking an ultra setting on the graphics.
Alot of devs see no point in putting extra work in to make the the strongest hardware better. Its almost like doing it for nothing.
Then obviously splitting focus between many different systems is going to have an impact.
I dont agree with the dumbing down comments. games have been dumbing down on all platforms including PC exclusives for years.
The big publishers have it in their heads that the simpler they make the game, the more people that can play the game and that equals more sales.
You only get the indie devs really now that stick 2 fingers up at that.
We have to remember not if a Xbox or a PS4 can run Elite as it is now, but can it run it in 3 years with the expansions they have planed? That is the question that we should all worry about.
For alpha we know:
Quad Core CPU ( 4 x 2Ghz is a reasonable minimum)
while the ps 4 has an 8 core at 1.6 it is below the minimum of 2.0. It is true lesser hardware works, but the thing to remember is, while they try to lower the requirements, it hasn't so the PS4 currently isn't up to specs.
They didn't say if 8 cores 1.6 is enough for the minimum. So in the future when they work on additions they know they can push a quad core to the 2.0 max, and the PS4 can never match that. So what do they do? Cut back to make it work at 1.6 which weakens the game over all?
Those currently playing with less then a quad core 2.0 may find the game unplayable with the expansion as they lack that minimum. However they know, we know, and the devs know that 2.0 was called for, and those with less can go without the expansion prepaid for or not, as they know they don't have the cpu capable of running that new features. It isn't bait and switch it is well known before the game released. (True not before we pledged but it was advertised as a top end game, and that by definition means current hardware).
We all knowingly took a blind leap of faith that our current pc would play the game or knew we would need to upgrade. We asked often for minimum specs and there were a lot of threads on the subject from 32/64 bit to graphic card minimum etc.. We now know, to put it on the PS4 that minimum drops to 1.6 ghz and to make the game require more would be impossible for them.
So either no console port or their port is not tied in with the PC version. They get their own little world universe controlled by Sony or Microsoft, they run the servers with the code from FD, but there is no promise of any expansions. They may get some but not tied into the PC one.
Their minimum cpu is less then the one they say is minimum required. It may work now, but what about tomorrow or in 3 years?
Calebe
For alpha we know:
Quad Core CPU ( 4 x 2Ghz is a reasonable minimum)
while the ps 4 has an 8 core at 1.6 it is below the minimum of 2.0. It is true lesser hardware works, but the thing to remember is, while they try to lower the requirements, it hasn't so the PS4 currently isn't up to specs.
They didn't say if 8 cores 1.6 is enough for the minimum. So in the future when they work on additions they know they can push a quad core to the 2.0 max, and the PS4 can never match that. So what do they do? Cut back to make it work at 1.6 which weakens the game over all?
Those currently playing with less then a quad core 2.0 may find the game unplayable with the expansion as they lack that minimum. However they know, we know, and the devs know that 2.0 was called for, and those with less can go without the expansion prepaid for or not, as they know they don't have the cpu capable of running that new features. It isn't bait and switch it is well known before the game released. (True not before we pledged but it was advertised as a top end game, and that by definition means current hardware).
We all knowingly took a blind leap of faith that our current pc would play the game or knew we would need to upgrade. We asked often for minimum specs and there were a lot of threads on the subject from 32/64 bit to graphic card minimum etc.. We now know, to put it on the PS4 that minimum drops to 1.6 ghz and to make the game require more would be impossible for them.
So either no console port or their port is not tied in with the PC version. They get their own little world universe controlled by Sony or Microsoft, they run the servers with the code from FD, but there is no promise of any expansions. They may get some but not tied into the PC one.
Their minimum cpu is less then the one they say is minimum required. It may work now, but what about tomorrow or in 3 years?
Calebe
what i meant was.....
i'm playing alpha on a mid to low range pc. it is just as capable as either of the new consoles, perhaps more so. if i decide i want to upgrade gpu etc or slap in a bit more ram i can. as i understand things this is not an option with a console.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-the-next-gen-digital-foundry-pc
Some information regarding PC and console comparisons.
Some information regarding PC and console comparisons.
No it's more and less.
Less if ED engine and load aren't well multithreaded so doesn't scale at all above 4 cores.
If it does the PS4 and Xbox one have above min spec CPU because 8 cores are then better then 4
by that time more then 4 cores would be common so Frontier might tune the engine better for many cores.
you forgot consoles hardware is like PC but the whole package is very much different.
1. they operate at a lean & mean optimized for this one and only spec operating system. Means less CPU head.
2. Much more control over treads. manage by the game engine. instead a generic Os that treats a game as just one of the apps it runs trough the scheduler.
3. 8GB system mem
4. it's high bandwidth DDR5 .
5. it ls HMA CPU and GPU can access same mem addresses
a PC need bit more power to compensate all these factors.
6 with HMA GPU cores can be used as GPGPU tasks on same CPU data structures so very concurrent CPU task could be that GPU does that task.
On PS4 due OpenCL on Xbox one with direct compute.
I bet the console version need to use the console online store but may handle there own servers. But updates go trough store to
I don't see a problem. Like wii WiiU publisher make a very different standalone light version for very limited platforms. Independent could do that to.
But the difference is not that extreme. for nextgen. But it would not be a problem if it done well.
Agreed then
Consoles are limited in scalability, but as each console is same between users (my PS4 is the same as your PS4, etc) it means the devs can use tricks / hacks on the box and use more low level code to push it to the limits. You can't really do that with a PC as there are hundreds of variants so the code is more generalised.
FD don't need to worry about that imo. As I mentioned before if the console can't handle everything then features will be removed to ensure it still runs. If that means, for instance, they can't have seamless planetary landings as the console needs to load the planetary part then so be it - it won't affect PC users as I highly doubt they will run in the same instances as us. (Although probably share the same back end data that comprises the galaxy)
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The thing your forgetting is that 2.0 and quad core is the minimum requirement. It is not the suggest or recommended, but the minimum. It will play the game and does so easily but as they add to it, will it push the game to use the not yet known recommended requirements to play the game with the newer content fluidly?
None of us know what that will be, but 1.6 may not handle the expansion content in the future. It may, but that is no guarantee and assuming it will use all 8 cores is a pure guess. Hyper threading we were already told should not be considered to reach the required 4 cores they want. Does it run on a duel core? Currently it can and does, but we have only seen bits and pieces of the final game, and no idea once fully available if that will still be the case.
End result quad core at 2ghz is the minimum, not even the suggested for best game play, but for the minimum game play currently. The AMD chip in the PS4 doesn't hit that minimum, and in the future it could be the bottle neck. I hate to say it but the IPC (instructions per cycle) is lower on the AMD chips then an Intel chip. That can also hurt performance.
Remember again that 2.0 is the bare minimum they suggest, which means at some point it would be only able to run the game on the lowest settings and at lower resolutions. It is possible but unknown if that will happen. I actually hope so as it means the game is growing and being updated as we all hope.
Only time and Frontier Dev know the real answer. If they port it to the PS4 or Xbox, will it be the stand alone only version so no updates required, or play in the open world with the PC's or on their own servers? We only have questions and no answers. Personally I don't want the game handicapped at all, and hope they set a very high 'optimal' spec list so they can improve the game with a lot of open headroom.
Calebe
None of us know what that will be, but 1.6 may not handle the expansion content in the future. It may, but that is no guarantee and assuming it will use all 8 cores is a pure guess. Hyper threading we were already told should not be considered to reach the required 4 cores they want. Does it run on a duel core? Currently it can and does, but we have only seen bits and pieces of the final game, and no idea once fully available if that will still be the case.
End result quad core at 2ghz is the minimum, not even the suggested for best game play, but for the minimum game play currently. The AMD chip in the PS4 doesn't hit that minimum, and in the future it could be the bottle neck. I hate to say it but the IPC (instructions per cycle) is lower on the AMD chips then an Intel chip. That can also hurt performance.
Remember again that 2.0 is the bare minimum they suggest, which means at some point it would be only able to run the game on the lowest settings and at lower resolutions. It is possible but unknown if that will happen. I actually hope so as it means the game is growing and being updated as we all hope.
Only time and Frontier Dev know the real answer. If they port it to the PS4 or Xbox, will it be the stand alone only version so no updates required, or play in the open world with the PC's or on their own servers? We only have questions and no answers. Personally I don't want the game handicapped at all, and hope they set a very high 'optimal' spec list so they can improve the game with a lot of open headroom.
Calebe
You keep talking about PC spec minimums but it's not an apples to apples comparison.
Just check out all the brand new titles on the shelf right now for PC that are on the older Xbox360 and PS3, despite those systems now being 8yrs old and not even close to the spec minimums on PC.
Do the games look as good? Nope...but they still look great and run fine.
Look at GTA5 ... I don't think there will be anything that detailed in Elite, though the scale will obviously be much different.
The consoles don't have to run the beast that is Windows and the games are highly optimised for the respective system because the developers know exactly what hardware they are working with 100% of the time instead of the scattergun approach necessary on PC.
Ghz (frequency) is just one of the many parameters that affect software performance, namely games. When porting to a PS4, I'd be more concerned about the "light" nature of the Jaguar cores than the actual frequency. On the other hand, there are 8 of them, high bandwidth unified memory and the benefits of low level access to a fixed target platform.
And the last factor is usually very important.
All the above is not new - has been said several times by different posters on this thread. But there are different questions - whether porting ED to PS4/XBOne is feasible - I believe so, but it is not something that we should be concerned about - and, more important, what are the impacts of said porting.
The potential negative impacts would be the "simplification" (cutting features hard to impossible to deploy on consoles) or "alteration" (e.g. limiting controls in order to put PC users and console gamers on the same level) of the game to allow a console port, the allocation of resources from FD to the ports instead of doing expansions (for example) and the possible (well, this is up for discussion) sharing of the game universe with console players.
On the other hand, console sales could mean more resources for FD to invest in the game, to make it better for everyone.
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David Braben has already mentioned FD is keenly interested in the PS4 at least and probably Xbox1. As the installed base already numbers in the millions it might be foolish for FD to ignore. More sales = more development money for the premium PC version. FD tools are also designed for one code base that ports to multiple systems easily. They have also mentioned apps that work with phones and tablets for Elite Dangerous as being an interesting possibility. Next gen phones with 3-d chips and multi-cores over 1.5 Ghz could conceivably run a slightly cut-down version. Frontier recognize the premium platform is PC but they are a company and will pursue sales where they think it is profitable and makes sense.
I don't see a problem at al. The PC and console version doesn't have to be the same experience. Example Previous consoles BF3 and BF4 games are a light version of BF3 and BF4 for PC. The nextgen comes much closer to PC. Other games have a specific Wii ( U ) version.
And the influence of each port is very low why. They release one platform at a time. Not every platform at once. That because the dev team is to small to do a symutanious release of all platform. The good thing is the platform in focus starting with PC. would have no influence of other targets done after it. How ever al previous target influence the next. Because that the basis for the port.
A example is the witcher series. Small studio first a PC release. much later a console release.
So often in larger crossplatform games. The studio goes for a very similar game experience for all platforms. This means each platform are in the same league. Or the take the weakest as basis. And all platforms released same day.
So its a good thing they focus on one platform at a time. no worries from me.
And the influence of each port is very low why. They release one platform at a time. Not every platform at once. That because the dev team is to small to do a symutanious release of all platform. The good thing is the platform in focus starting with PC. would have no influence of other targets done after it. How ever al previous target influence the next. Because that the basis for the port.
A example is the witcher series. Small studio first a PC release. much later a console release.
So often in larger crossplatform games. The studio goes for a very similar game experience for all platforms. This means each platform are in the same league. Or the take the weakest as basis. And all platforms released same day.
So its a good thing they focus on one platform at a time. no worries from me.
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Personally, I'd like to see a good console port to potentially take the game to mass market and ensure it's success because PC game revenues are generally quite poor in comparison to their console counterparts.
Also, after trying ED on a 360 controller and getting used to how the side menus work for instance, there's scope for keeping the 'complex' functionality. Well done, it could even have PC and console folks occupying the same universe.
Also, after trying ED on a 360 controller and getting used to how the side menus work for instance, there's scope for keeping the 'complex' functionality. Well done, it could even have PC and console folks occupying the same universe.