Is Update 10 bad news for consoles?

[Northpin]

If you release a product for a platform you have to keep up with the APIs on that Platform. When OpenGL support was removed from OSX (now macOS), Frontier should (could) have re-coded to use Metal. Frontier just didn't see enough return on that effort so they dropped support for Macs, simple as that.

At some point DirectX11 will be dropped and they'll have to recode to DirectX12+ for Windows / XBox.

Presumably they've already coded to whatever the heck PlayStations use.

Yea, but the funny thing was about the semantic acrobatics around the word dropped.

The fact is indeed Apple dropped OpenGL from MacOS and as you said, the effort required from FD to move from OpenGL to Metal was not considered justified from a business perspective (they knew exactly how many Apple customers they got - and those customers could be playing the PC version anyway)

And FD is moving forward.

JWE2 is DX12 only
And i would say that ED is moving in that direction too while still trying to maintain full compatibility to DX11 (the EDO client is improved in may ways compared to the EDH client)

 

[tolm]

Yea but 30 million next-gen consoles have been sold

Yup - which is a heck of number but potential for sales does not equal actual sales - although I think that's also your point?!

 

[Ozric]

Except we still don't know what that means ... I suspect it has nothing to do with performance but actually sales ... i.e. "we won't look at console ports until we've recouped our initial investment on the PC version" which, if they don't sort out the performance, could well be never. Not that we know what "sort out the performance" actually means either ...

No, and nor do you have to know as my last post goes on to say. You can want to know sure, but can it actually be quantified? And what good will it do to say "we want to achieve X performance on Y specification" when it's already been shown that more powerful machines do not always run the game better than less powerful ones.

What's the end game of wanting to know that piece of information? To beat FD with it every time an update fails to achieve it?

Frontier don't have to say anything, but that doesn't mean that won't have an effect.

I didn't say that it wouldn't. It might do, it might not. It will have an effect as far as this forum is concerned, but then them restating their position has a negative effect on this forum. So actually is it not better for the mental wellbeing of the CM team to be told to not discuss the topic, rather than have people having a go at them for saying the same thing each time they demand to be told something?

Interesting thought...

 

[LeoBartlet]

Yup - which is a heck of number but potential for sales does not equal actual sales - although I think that's also your point?!

It is, yes.

 

[tolm]

Yea, but the funny thing was about the semantic acrobatics around the word dropped.

The fact is indeed Apple dropped OpenGL from MacOS and as you said, the effort required from FD to move from OpenGL to Metal was not considered justified from a business perspective (they knew exactly how many Apple customers they got - and those customers could be playing the PC version anyway)

Indeed and given the number of Mac players, I can totally understand Frontiers decision on that. I do think they should have offered a full character port to any Mac players to another platform of there choosing, though.

I guess the concern now is whether the same thing could be about to happen to consoles (at least wrt to last-gen) with Odyssey? Although, the situation is a little different for a couple of reasons:

• They could continue to offer Horizons for those platforms, so those players are missing out on future content, not losing current content
• This is of Frontiers own volition. They caused this - the platform hasn't changed, their software has. That's a big difference.

 

[zimms]

Is Update 10 bad news for consoles?

No. There is no news for consoles.
/thread

 

[Speedcuffs]

If they made a movie based on Odyssey it would be crap.

Ray Harryhausen does not like this.

 

[tolm]

No, and nor do you have to know as my last post goes on to say. You can want to know sure, but can it actually be quantified? And what good will it do to say "we want to achieve X performance on Y specification" when it's already been shown that more powerful machines do not always run the game better than less powerful ones.

What's the end game of wanting to know that piece of information? To beat FD with it every time an update fails to achieve it?

That information would allow the community to genuinely understand what needs to happen before consoles can be supported - from FDevs perspective, which is the only one that counts - and then gauge progress towards that as the PC updates roll in.

If provided with enough information (i.e. target resolution, quality settings and FPS) it would also allow us to decide whether that level of performance would be acceptable on our next-gen consoles (since 720p @ 30fps in backwards compatibility mode would most certainly not) in order to decide whether we think Elite is worth sticking with on our current platform or we want to consider an alternative - be that moving to PC or other games.

It would also stop the endless stream of threads asking for answers to those questions ...

 

[denispage]

"a small electronic device for playing computerised video games."

I kind of know what you're trying to get at, and I've already stated my position on it.

Perfect statement without answering anything.

 

[amigacooke {macOS}]

I didn't say that it wouldn't. It might do, it might not. It will have an effect as far as this forum is concerned, but then them restating their position has a negative effect on this forum. So actually is it not better for the mental wellbeing of the CM team to be told to not discuss the topic, rather than have people having a go at them for saying the same thing each time they demand to be told something?

Interesting thought...

If CMs' wellbeing is suffering because of the forums then Frontier should shut them down.

If there any suggestion that the forum is affecting the wellbeing of any Frontier employee?

 

[denispage]

Au contraire.
They do need to optimize the CPU threading and multitaksing - that one main thing that XB1/PS4 is lacking is CPU power (not only GFX power)
They do need to optimize the low and Off settings for certain GFX effects and features.

For example the smoke shader (there are a couple threads about it here on the forums).
Setting it do Low seem to do nothing in terms of performance. Actually setting it to Low would result in a serious performance penalty compared to Medium setting.
(it may have been corrected in Update 10)

Like I said... no real big improvements, only small ones.
You can print, and ask me in 6 months.

BTW, they won't release for xbox/ps4. Only new gen.


o7!

 

[LeoBartlet]

If CMs' wellbeing is suffering because of the forums then Frontier should shut them down.

If there any suggestion that the forum is affecting the wellbeing of any Frontier employee?

Statement on Harassment

Greetings Commanders, I am reaching out to you today as I am aware of some of the comments, accusations and remarks being made towards not only my team and developers, but also other members of our community. I understand the frustrations some of our community are feeling following the launch...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Ozric]

That information would allow the community to genuinely understand what needs to happen before consoles can be supported - from FDevs perspective, which is the only one that counts - and then gauge progress towards that as the PC updates roll in.

If provided with enough information (i.e. target resolution, quality settings and FPS) it would also allow us to decide whether that level of performance would be acceptable on our next-gen consoles (since 720p @ 30fps in backwards compatibility mode would most certainly not) in order to decide whether we think Elite is worth sticking with on our current platform or we want to consider an alternative - be that moving to PC or other games.

It would also stop the endless stream of threads asking for answers to those questions ...

No it would most definitely not stop people asking when it will be coming to console. There are not loads of threads asking for those sort of details because most are just Console When.

But I say again that knowing that will make no difference to when FD deem to decide to start working on it. Let's say they come out and say when we get to 1080p @ 45fps on our minimum specs, we will start working on that. The next question is going to be, how long will that take? Which is the same as how long till you start working on console release?

Perfect statement without answering anything.

It was a reply to you...

So nothing that anyone on the forums can have any influence on then.

I still don't think it has any bearing on whether it will come, just when it's likely to come. I personally think they should say that the minimum requirements are current gen consoles for Odyssey and leave last gen the same way they've left older PCs. Though the minimum system requirements of the r9 280x has 4.1 terraflops, which is just less than the PS4 Pro in your list.

If CMs' wellbeing is suffering because of the forums then Frontier should shut them down.

If there any suggestion that the forum is affecting the wellbeing of any Frontier employee?

I was merely posing what I thought was an interesting question. That's the second post in a row now you've done that.

 

[amigacooke {macOS}]

That's the second post in a row now you've done that.

Engaged with your post and taken it seriously you mean?

 

[denispage]

It was a reply to you...

Strange... same way that Frontier replies (many times) to the customers.
How to avoid questions 101.

 

[tolm]

No it would most definitely not stop people asking when it will be coming to console. There are not loads of threads asking for those sort of details because most are just Console When.

But I say again that knowing that will make no difference to when FD deem to decide to start working on it. Let's say they come out and say when we get to 1080p @ 45fps on our minimum specs, we will start working on that. The next question is going to be, how long will that take? Which is the same as how long till you start working on console release?

The vast majority of these threads that I've participated in have resulted in myself and/or others recognising that "Console, When?" is not a question we can reasonably expect to be answered right now but "what is needed from the PC version for console to be considered viable" is.

Knowing that performance target would also help PC CMDRs decide if that performance is worth waiting for or if they would rather upgrade / move on.

Information == Ability to make choices.

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

OK so making the PC version stable is the priority to growth, got it. Thanks.

What does that look like though? We don't know.... How long is a piece of string?

How much longer can Frontier throw free development effort at the PC version of Odyssey without releasing on gaming's primary retail environment (Console)?

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

The point that you are refusing to acknowledge while still beating the dead horse about how great the consoles are for ED is simple:

• 25 millions game pass subscribers have access for free to ED - and they still dont install it and play it in significant enough numbers to mean anything.
• while, as i said, you beat the dead horst of current-gen consoles selling 30 millions (totals for XB and PS) and this would somehow matter. Most of those people would still need to BUY ed in the first place (that is the 17 millons of new PS owners).

So the XBoxers dont seem to play if for free, but the PS community will BUY it in great numbers? all i can say to this is:

One more thing from another more or less niche game. Mechwarriors 5 Mercenaries
It was launched on PS last year.
And it lead to a significant operational loss - significant enough to basically lead to abandonment of any further plans for Mechwarrior 5 and the studio that was developing it being relegated to support duties for another title. So PS basically killed any future plans for MW5

Spoiler

From here

So no, for certain games the console platform can be the real Doom.

And I definitely dont want this to happen to Elite too...

So better let FD fully optimize EDO on PC, have the PC sales increase and then release on consoles.

Ok, so basically the answer is you don't know and it's just supposition in your part. Got it.

 

[Northpin]

Indeed and given the number of Mac players, I can totally understand Frontiers decision on that. I do think they should have offered a full character port to any Mac players to another platform of there choosing, though.

I guess the concern now is whether the same thing could be about to happen to consoles (at least wrt to last-gen) with Odyssey? Although, the situation is a little different for a couple of reasons:

• They could continue to offer Horizons for those platforms, so those players are missing out on future content, not losing current content
• This is of Frontiers own volition. They caused this - the platform hasn't changed, their software has. That's a big difference.

Well, Mac and PC were sharing a common platform.
I do expect (and hope) they will offer a full account transfer (as is on console, with ranks, ships materials - and also gifting us the cosmetics we already got on that platform) in the unfortunate case they do drop Elite from consoles (old and new)

Like I said... no real big improvements, only small ones.
You can print, and ask me in 6 months.

BTW, they won't release for xbox/ps4. Only new gen.


o7!

Well, if we talk about the Smoke Shader, the difference between the low setting (19 fps) and OFF (no smoke shader) is the difference from 19 fps to 50+ fps.
The difference from not playable to very much playable

To recap: the smoke shader was broken in U9 (it may have been fixed in U10) and on FX low setting it was not working properly (as it was on medium)
However, setting the FX to medium quality, removed the penalty induced by the smoke shader, but activated other FX options that made the performance not so great on a weak computer that really needed a working Low Settings mode.

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

I did. And I could see what both you and Northpin said. But you said that what Northpin said about still planning a console release was incorrect. Which is not true.

The dates and details changed from the initial plans of releasing in the Autumn. If you want to take from that that they have stopped development on the Console release, ignoring what was said earlier in the post, then you are a braver person than I. But that also goes against what you've been saying about expanding into the 30 million console market. So the fact they are still planning a console release once the PC version is stable is a good thing, right?

Are they still planning a console release? We don't know that, we just know that it's put on hold pending review, and pending some vague, unquantifiable goal being reached.