Question - Is pc version being curtailed because of console versions?

[Old Duck]

i wasnt talking about slowing down development, what i meant by this thread was, do people think that frontier actually dont even try to do some stuff, because the game is now linked to consoles? not that they are slower, than they simply have abandoned certain ideas, there are videos of them talking about us walking about on space stations talking to npcs, landing on planets going dinosaur hunting. there is concept art of tons of different types or srv. all this sort of stuff takes memory, cpu power not something consoles have in abundance. even xbox one x, processor is only a slight upgrade from normal xbox one. im not really bothered that much about graphic fidelity, i just want the game to be more complex, and i think because of consoles, they might have curtailed there original plans.

I was walking around space stations (Mass Effect) and hunting flying "dinosaurs" on an amazing earth-like world (Skyrim) on my PS3. Now that was an underpowered device compared to PCs of the day, especially in its lack of RAM.

 

[Good Death]

i wasnt talking about slowing down development, what i meant by this thread was, do people think that frontier actually dont even try to do some stuff, because the game is now linked to consoles? not that they are slower, than they simply have abandoned certain ideas, there are videos of them talking about us walking about on space stations talking to npcs, landing on planets going dinosaur hunting. there is concept art of tons of different types or srv. all this sort of stuff takes memory, cpu power not something consoles have in abundance. even xbox one x, processor is only a slight upgrade from normal xbox one. im not really bothered that much about graphic fidelity, i just want the game to be more complex, and i think because of consoles, they might have curtailed there original plans.

Bingo! I agree with you on this. I think there's no way any console will be up to the task of rendering atmospheric planets with abundant life at high quality [In VR with no load screens] all while simultaneously keeping track of whats going on around a 400 billion star galaxy. I think FD is having an ohhh fudge moment. One thing is for sure they sure have made a lot of money.

 

[GoldenSilver484]

Bingo! I agree with you on this. I think there's no way any console will be up to the task of rendering atmospheric planets with abundant life at high quality [In VR with no load screens] all while simultaneously keeping track of whats going on around a 400 billion star galaxy. I think FD is having an ohhh fudge moment. One thing is for sure they sure have made a lot of money.

While I agree that the console won't be able to have high quality VR on atmospheric planets, you do realize neither the PC or console you're playing on is keeping track of the 400 billion star systems, right? It's kept track of on FD's servers. That's the main reason why ED requires an internet connection to play. It's also the reason why you can see Xbox and PS Cmdr first discoveries and are affected by our efforts on the BGS, same galaxy database.

 

[Good Death]

While I agree that the console won't be able to have high quality VR on atmospheric planets, you do realize neither the PC or console you're playing on is keeping track of the 400 billion star systems, right? It's kept track of on FD's servers. That's the main reason why ED requires an internet connection to play. It's also the reason why you can see Xbox and PS Cmdr first discoveries and are affected by our efforts on the BGS, same galaxy database.

Okay my bad.

 

[babelfisch]

Oh no I'm not...

Look, there are now three people who were all part of the discussion and they all remember something different than you do. It might be time to realise that you are remembering wrong. I could always just look for the official statement though...

EDIT

My apologies for not responding sooner, this issue has been on my list to chase up for a while. The reason for the difference being observed on the rocky worlds is the change to the new material system - in theory this is more accurate as it uses the chemical properties to determine the colour (obviously I'm simplifying a bit here!), however the problem is that those colours were based on Earth standard colouration for those materials, and most of those are beige/brown rather than the colours you might observe in the myriad of other possible conditions. We're currently working on a more flexible material system, and this will necessitate a fresh balance pass on these. That's not going to be in 2.3 though.

Michael

As you can see he never said that 'their improvements were to make the earth like worlds and non land-able planets look better.' In fact, they never said anything about it at all, Michael just said that they used a material colouration system that is based on planet Earth, which isn't related to all earth like worlds and other non landable planets in game.




Oh, and by the way...

The console argument for changes in graphics don't apply - we have separate settings and render paths for the consoles, both of which are higher than our min spec PC anyway.

Michael

 

[Valorin]

I guess atmospheric planets with abundant life are still pretty far in the future I think.
People hear "atmospheric planets" and think of civilized earthlikes, but actually the first step are planets like Venus and moons like Titan, which is already a lot of things to consider for a game like Elite. If you can tailor atmospheric planets to your liking one by one because you have a pretty small finite number, the task is much more simple, but if you want to procedurally create an atmospheric planet and try to get even a little bit of realism into those you have to take into account things like gravity, type and distance to sun, tidal forces, composition of the planet itself, age and a lot more which all have to be translated into an actual experience.

I don't think creating the planets for No Man's Sky was exactly easy, but since the approach of this game is much more lighthearted and less scientific than ED's, Elite's atmospheric planets, even the lifeless ones, are a real challenge I guess. I really want those in the game, but I gladly wait until they are ready and arrive.

 

[Zak Gordon]

These things are always hard to judge accurately.

On the one hand you have the extra funds a console platform brings which will aid development, then you do indeed have a specific hardware ceiling to work against (which is much higher than it used to be, but still a consideration), and also the impact of developing for the console platforms alongside the PC, which requires either a big expansion in new hires or splintering your current development team (or a mix of both).

With ED it is not clear what impact the console releases have had imho, it might even have saved the game by giving it longer dev time?

I do however look at No Man's Sky and find it hard not to see the negative effect the console platform had on that game, still that is a completely different situation to ED's.

So in short for ED there will have been an effect for supporting the consoles, but we probably won't really see it until further down the line and what the extra content will look like vs what Sir Braben has previously talked about in relation to his desires for ED.

 

[Hooplah]

i wasnt talking about slowing down development, what i meant by this thread was, do people think that frontier actually dont even try to do some stuff, because the game is now linked to consoles?...

Actually I would go in the other direction. It took 20 years for Braben to finally launch Elite Dangerous. I suspect part of that was waiting for computers and consoles to provide the technology needed to design the game without compromises on either platform.

 

[babelfisch]

These things are always hard to judge accurately.

On the one hand you have the extra funds a console platform brings which will aid development, then you do indeed have a specific hardware ceiling to work against (which is much higher than it used to be, but still a consideration), and also the impact of developing for the console platforms alongside the PC, which requires either a big expansion in new hires or splintering your current development team (or a mix of both).

With ED it is not clear what impact the console releases have had imho, it might even have saved the game by giving it longer dev time?

I do however look at No Man's Sky and find it hard not to see the negative effect the console platform had on that game, still that is a completely different situation to ED's.

So in short for ED there will have been an effect for supporting the consoles, but we probably won't really see it until further down the line and what the extra content will look like vs what Sir Braben has previously talked about in relation to his desires for ED.

Stop making reasonable posts.

 

[Bob McBobblehead]

By the time we get atmospheric landings, consoles will most likely be cloud based. The PS5 and Xbox Two might be the last hardware based consoles.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

By the time we get atmospheric landings, consoles will most likely be cloud based. The PS5 and Xbox Two might be the last hardware based consoles.

LOL Whut. Nope.

Consoles will continue to be very beefed medium range PCs. What will happen though is moving to lower level API - DirectX12 for XBO, Sony already have one and they most likely start to support SPIR-V shader format as both Vulkan and DirectX12 support it. What essentially it will mean that games will pack their own shaders in storage so they won't be needed to be compiled. It means faster loading and smoother gameplay (shader compiling is one of major reason of stutter on weaker machines).

What we will most likely see AMD doing is trying to do multi core GPUs with their APU solutions (which all consoles except Switch uses).

 

[sollisb]

The plain and simple answer is yes they[consoles] are slowing us down, there is so much more I can do with a PC than i can with any of the consoles in relation to ED.

I could code up a complete Flight Management System [FMS], an AutoPilot etc etc none of which could be done with a console. Not to mention all the external electronics I could build and connect.

 

[babelfisch]

The plain and simple answer is yes they[consoles] are slowing us down, there is so much more I can do with a PC than i can with any of the consoles in relation to ED.

I could code up a complete Flight Management System [FMS], an AutoPilot etc etc none of which could be done with a console. Not to mention all the external electronics I could build and connect.

And yet publishers and developers wouldn't put so much money in the gaming industry without the console market. The question cannot be answered.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

The plain and simple answer is yes they[consoles] are slowing us down, there is so much more I can do with a PC than i can with any of the consoles in relation to ED.

I could code up a complete Flight Management System [FMS], an AutoPilot etc etc none of which could be done with a console. Not to mention all the external electronics I could build and connect.

That has nothing to do with the development of the game via Frontier. That is your own development mods. Completely irrelavant. As a PC player I have no wish for any of that stuff. I also suspect that a lot of that stuff cannot be done due to it being an online game. But you can certainly build your own electronics. people have already done so.

Like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV7ZN_G9Exg

People have also built their own switch banks to control various aspects of the game and thier own hotas systems for ED.

 

[sollisb]

And yet publishers and developers wouldn't put so much money in the gaming industry without the console market. The question cannot be answered.

They do, because it's a niche marketplace. Can I develop a game that would be less of a game on a Console. For Sure. ED is just one example. For all it's fantastic graphics, there is nothing more realistic than flying in a full hand built cockpit. Somethign a Console just cannot do.

That has nothing to do with the development of the game via Frontier. That is your own development mods. Completely irrelavant. As a PC player I have no wish for any of that stuff. I also suspect that a lot of that stuff cannot be done due to it being an online game. But you can certainly build your own electronics. people have already done so.

Like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV7ZN_G9Exg

People have also built their own switch banks to control various aspects of the game and thier own hotas systems for ED.

But it has Max. If FDev gave us more interfaces (simple to do) we'd spawn a comeplete side market of interface components, electroncis, panels, etc etc, not to mention if they allowed us, we could have auto pilot and flight management systems.

 

[babelfisch]

They do, because it's a niche marketplace. Can I develop a game that would be less of a game on a Console. For Sure. ED is just one example. For all it's fantastic graphics, there is nothing more realistic than flying in a full hand built cockpit. Somethign a Console just cannot do.




But it has Max. If FDev gave us more interfaces (simple to do) we'd spawn a comeplete side market of interface components, electroncis, panels, etc etc, not to mention if they allowed us, we could have auto pilot and flight management systems.

Yes, but you are just assuming for no reason that this is because of consoles rather than that they just don't want to give us more tools.

 

[sollisb]

Yes, but you are just assuming for no reason that this is because of consoles rather than that they just don't want to give us more tools.

No No... I retracted that..

I think Fdev are holding it back.. But.. I also think [sic] that consoles can never hope to compare to PCs. I have a 5k Euro PC, a MacBook Pro, and a Asus Predator Laptop. I wouldn't in my wildest dreams buy a console. Maybe I've gone OT

 

[Old Duck]

But it has Max. If FDev gave us more interfaces (simple to do) we'd spawn a comeplete side market of interface components, electroncis, panels, etc etc, not to mention if they allowed us, we could have auto pilot and flight management systems.

"Market" is too generous a term. There might be ten of you who have the time, money, and desire to build a Cobra cockpit in your basement.

Meanwhile I and many thousands of other players are happily experiencing ED on our consoles with our humble handheld controllers

 

[babelfisch]

No No... I retracted that..

I think Fdev are holding it back.. But.. I also think [sic] that consoles can never hope to compare to PCs. I have a 5k Euro PC, a MacBook Pro, and a Asus Predator Laptop. I wouldn't in my wildest dreams buy a console. Maybe I've gone OT

I would never buy a console either. I just don't believe that they harm PC games. If anything greedy publishers harm PC games.

 

[sollisb]

"Market" is too generous a term. There might be ten of you who have the time, money, and desire to build a Cobra cockpit in your basement.

Meanwhile I and many thousands of other players are happily experiencing ED on our consoles with our humble handheld controllers

I seriously doubt you know what you're talking about.

You reckon only 10 people would be interested in being able to navigate a predetermined route? Only 10 interested in auto-navigation? Only 10 interested in building panels that respond to and feed information to the game/sim?

I think you're wrong. By a huge margin.